Chapter One: The House of Wintered Souls
The sea never sang sweetly in Black Hollow.
It howled and wept, clawing against the cliffs like a beast too long caged. Gulls circled above the jagged coastlines like forgotten spirits, and the wind carried whispers that didn't belong to the living. This was where Lyra lived — in a house that had long since stopped being a home.
The cottage stood alone, a tired silhouette on the edge of the world. Once, it had been painted blue. Now, the sea-spray had stripped it raw, and moss curled like green veins across the stone. Ivy crawled up the windows like the fingers of ghosts too stubborn to let go.
Lyra often wondered if the house remembered her parents the way she did — not as warm embraces, but as echoes in hallways. Faded laughter, the scent of jasmine tea, her father's deep voice humming lullabies in rooms that were always just out of reach now.
She was sixteen, though she felt much older. Grief had a way of stealing time.
Her aunt, Miss Camber, rarely spoke. She wore black even in the spring, and spent her days praying in a parlor no one else entered. They barely shared meals, only silence. Lyra didn't mind. Silence, she'd learned, could be kinder than words.
Every morning, Lyra woke before the sun rose, as if something ancient called her to the cliffs. Wrapped in her father's old coat — the sleeves still too long — she would walk barefoot through the dew-kissed grass, down the rocky path where the sea could finally be seen in its full, aching vastness.
She always brought her notebook. Words were the only things that stayed with her.
In its pages, she had buried poems, half-truths, and things she couldn't say aloud:
I dream of water swallowing the stars,
And waking with salt in my throat.
If pain could bloom, it would wear my name.
She had never shown anyone her writing. They were too personal. Too broken. Like she was.
One morning, just as the sky cracked into pale lavender, she noticed something new.
There was a boy standing near the old iron fence at the edge of the cliffs. His back was turned, hair wild in the wind, and he stood too still — like a statue that had forgotten it wasn't made of stone. She almost didn't speak. But something about him felt… familiar.
"Careful," she said quietly, her voice almost lost to the wind. "The cliffs crumble after rain."
The boy turned, startled. He was her age, maybe a little older, with dark eyes and a face that looked like it had forgotten how to smile.
"I wasn't going to jump," he said quickly, defensive.
"I didn't ask," Lyra replied.
There was a pause. Then, to her surprise, he gave a hollow chuckle. "Well. That's a first."
Lyra didn't reply. She simply sat down on the wet grass, pulling her coat tighter. After a moment, the boy joined her, as if the silence between them was invitation enough.
They didn't ask each other's names.
Not yet.
That evening, Lyra returned to the house. Miss Camber didn't ask where she had been.
But Lyra felt something shift inside her — a subtle thing, like the first note of a forgotten song.
That night, she wrote in her notebook:
There was a boy at the edge of the world today.
He looked like he belonged to the wind.
And for the first time in a long while… I didn't feel so alone.