saltwater bones

a ferryman hears whispers from the drowned and must face what awaits below

The sea had been louder that morning.
Not louder in the way storms are, with crashing and howling, but louder like a crowd that has decided to stop murmuring. There was a hiss to it, a voice beneath the waves that pried at the edges of thought. The gulls had all gone silent.
I was loading the ferry alone. Nobody trusted me to work with the others — not since the night my brother didn’t come back. The villagers said it was my fault he drowned. Maybe they were right.

Halfway across the channel, the water went black. It wasn’t the color of night but the color of something ancient, something that had been waiting to be seen. Then I heard it: the first whisper. It rose from below the boat, slipping through the wood like smoke.

“Return what was taken,” it said.
The oars froze in my hands.