The Way the Tide Turns
by (8) Author Icon
Rated: E · Fiction · Ghost · #2345141
Intro Rated: E
Size: 10.07 KB
Created: August 11th, 2025 at 4:56pm
Modified: August 11th, 2025 at 4:56pm
Location: My Portfolio
Genres: Ghost, Mythology, History
Access: No Restrictions
The place smelled faintly of salt and paper
For me, paper has no smell.
fingertips brushing the spines
... introducing him to old friends.
Nice way to show Clara's familiarity with the books.
Clara: "Here. 'The Old Man and the Sea,' obviously, but that's an easy guess.
I don't know what the question was.
Or--" she slid out a weather-worn copy of The Light Between Oceans "--this one. Tragic, but beautifully so."
Eli: "Tragic sounds... oddly fitting."
Clara: "Oh no. That's the tone people use when they've got a story but they don't plan on telling it."
Is Clara guessing that Eli has a tragic story that he wants to avoid telling?
Eli: "Maybe I'm just a guy who likes sad books."
Clara: "And maybe I'm the queen of Denmark. But fine, keep your secrets. Are you visiting or...?"
Clara does not believe Eli likes sad books.
At first, I interpreted Clara's question, "Are you visiting?" to mean "Is Eli only visiting the bookstore?".
Eli's answer implies he interpreted the question as "Are you a visitor to this town?"
Eli: "Kind of. I grew up here. Left after high school. Back for a while."
Clara: "While? That's vague."
Eli: "Depends on a few things."
I presume it depends on how successful he is in solving the "spill" problem.
She studied him for a moment, and he got the unsettling sense she was reading more than his words -- as if she could spot the shadow under them. Her gaze flicked to the wetness still clinging to his jacket.
Clara: "Pier work?"
So, it did not rain that morning.
Eli: "Marine biology. Tracking some shifts in coastal wildlife. But--" he hesitated, almost as if the words caught on his teeth "--there's more to it."
Clara: "There always is."
The next day, the rain had given way to a pale stretch of sun. Eli found himself back at the bookstore, unplanned, carrying two coffees from Mae's cafnext door.
Did it rain yesterday?
café next door
Clara: "If this is a bribe to get me to stop asking questions--"
Eli: "It's not. I just thought... You might like caramel lattes."
Clara: "And you guessed right. Impressive. Or creepy. Still deciding."
"Creepy": Its tone is too negative.
They talked about
nothing
At first -- the stubborn seagulls, the way tourists always asked where the "best" sunset spot was, like it wasn't everywhere.
"Nothing" in this context means "trivial things".
But underneath it, Clara kept feeling there was something coiled in his pauses.
Suggest: As if he were measuring each word against something unseen.
Eli is avoiding telling Clara of his tragic past.
A week later, their conversations had stretched into something more familiar. He told her about coral bleaching in far-off places; she told him about the customers who came in hunting for books they'd never read. They laughed often, but sometimes he'd drift quiet, as if the tide of his thoughts had pulled him out beyond her reach.
Did
books they'd never read
mean
[1] Books that they had not yet read,
or
[2] Books that they would not read?
One evening, just before closing, he lingered near the register.
Eli: "Clara... you ever keep something to yourself because saying it out loud might ruin... whatever this is?"
Clara: "This?"
Eli: "Us talking. This--whatever it's turning into."
Clara: "All the time. But I also know not saying it can ruin it just as fast."
Eli wants to maintain and enhance his friendship with Clara.
He looked like he was about to speak, but the bell over the door chimed and a gust of cold air swept in. A man stepped in -- younger, maybe mid-twenties, eyes scanning like he was looking for trouble. Clara stiffened.
Clara: "Jonah. What are you doing here?"
Jonah: "Relax. Just came to see if my brother was still in town."
Maybe you can introduce Jonah earlier in the story. Perhaps Clara has some pictures of her frequent customers, and Eli sees Jonah's picture, and exclaims, "That's my brother!"
Unexpectedly, Jonah did not already know that his brother was still in town.
Eli's shoulders tensed. Brother. Clara blinked, glancing between them.
Eli: "Jonah--"
Jonah: "You planning to tell her, or should I?"
There was a sharpness to his tone that sliced through the air. Clara's heart thudded.
Clara: "Tell me what?"
Eli opened his mouth, closed it,
siggest: and then turned to Jonah.
Eli: "Not like this."
Jonah: "You're running out of 'like this,' Eli."
The younger man walked out without another word, the bell's jingle sounding far too bright for the heaviness he left behind.
Jonah meant that Eli was running out of opportunities to tell Clara his tragic past.
The next day, Clara almost hoped Eli wouldn't come.
What was Clara worried about?
But when he did, his face carried the weight of someone who'd spent the night
fighting his head. Suggest: figuring out a solution to his problem.
Eli: "I should explain."
Clara: "Probably."
He told her about the research project -- how it wasn't just about tracking wildlife but monitoring pollution from an industrial spill fifteen years ago. How the spill had quietly poisoned the bay, how lawsuits had been buried under technicalities. His family had been among those hit hardest -- their father's fishing business collapsed,
Add "and": and their mother got sick. He'd left to study marine biology partly to escape, partly to fight back. And now he was here because the damage was showing again.
Can you give more details about the pollution damage?
Clara: "And you didn't tell me because...?"
Eli: "Because every time I came in here, I didn't want to be the guy with the tragic backstory. I just wanted to--" his voice dipped "--talk to you."
Clara: "You still could have."
Eli: "I know. I'm sorry."
There was a long silence, the kind where the unsaid crowded the air. She wanted to be angry, but instead she found herself thinking about the way he'd looked when he said "talk to you" -- like it was the only part of his week that didn't feel like work.
You make it sound like work is unpleasant.
Days blurred. Clara started helping him sift through old town records in the backroom, looking for anything that might trace the spill. Somewhere between stacks of dusty files and cups of reheated coffee, their banter returned -- softer now, with an undercurrent of something that felt like trust.
One evening, the tide was out and the pier was quiet. They leaned against the railing, the smell of salt and wood heavy in the air.
What does wood smell like? I've never noticed any smell in wood.
Clara: "You ever think about leaving again?"
Eli: "Every day. And then I think about staying."
Clara: "Because of the work?"
Eli: "Because of you."
She looked at him, caught between surprise and the warm pull in her chest.
Clara: "You're good at that."
Eli: "What?"
Clara: "Saying something that makes it impossible to think straight."
Pff. I thought it was impossible not to think straight.
You can avoid thinking, but all thinking is straight thinking.
He smiled, but it was tinged with something else. She knew there was still more -- that the suspense in his pauses wasn't gone, only waiting for the right moment.
That moment came two weeks later. They'd just found an old letter in the archives, hinting that the spill had been worse than anyone admitted -- and that someone in town had been paid to keep quiet. Eli's hands trembled slightly as he folded it.
Clara: "What is it?"
Eli: "It's... my dad's handwriting."
The words hit her like a cold wave. She stared at him.
Clara: "You think--"
Eli: "I don't want to. But... maybe he took the money. Maybe that's why he told us to stop asking back then."
It hung between them, thick and heavy. Clara reached for his hand, and for a long moment neither spoke.
Clara: "You'll figure it out. And whatever you find... you're not alone in it."
Eli met her eyes, something breaking and healing in the same heartbeat.
Eli: "That's the first time I've believed that."
The investigation would take months, maybe longer. But in the days that followed, they still found time for the bookstore, for caramel lattes, for leaning on the pier watching the tide roll in. The suspense of what they might uncover still lingered -- but so did the quiet certainty that whatever the truth was, they'd face it together.
And in that small coastal town, where the air always tasted faintly of salt and paper, that felt like the start of something worth holding onto.
Consider your story to be a summary of a novel. You can add details to make it more lively.
© Copyright 2025 Powder (skel1 at Writing.Com). All rights reserved.
Writing.com, its affiliates, and syndicates have been granted non-exclusive rights to display this work.
|
|
View Portfolio
Visit Notebook
Send Gift Points
Awards
Badges
Send Email
Community Newsfeed
General Discussion
Sponsored Items
Book of Trinkets
Static Items
Books
Groups
Interactive Stories
Audio
Campfire Creatives
Community Notes
Crossword Puzzles
Documents
Folders
Images
In & Outs
Madlibs
Photo Albums
Polls
Product Reviews
Quizzes
Survey Forms
Web Pages
Word Searches
