Lost Long Ago

De: Darlene Zagata

Narrado por: Virtual Voice

Northumberland Coast, 1954

The lighthouse keeper's daughter was the first to see it.

She'd been collecting driftwood along the shore when the fog rolled in, thick as wool, smelling of brine and something older—something that made her think of her grandmother's stories about drowned churches and villages swallowed by the sea. The kind of stories told to keep children from wandering too close to the cliffs.

But Elsie Wren was eighteen and no longer frightened by tales meant for children.

She dropped her bundle of wood when she heard the bells.

Not the steady rhythm of the lighthouse bell, nor the distant clang of buoys warning ships away from the rocks. These bells rang with a melody, clear and sweet, rising from somewhere in the gray water. Elsie walked to the edge of the surf, her boots sinking into wet sand, and squinted into the mist.

There, barely visible, a shape loomed on the horizon.

An island.

She'd lived her entire life on this stretch of coast, knew every rock and sandbar, every treacherous current. There was no island. There had never been an island.

Yet there it stood, rising from the sea like a sleeping giant stirring awake. Through breaks in the fog, she could make out the dark silhouette of buildings—a church steeple, the peaked roofs of cottages, stone walls climbing a gentle slope.

Elsie ran back to the lighthouse, her heart hammering against her ribs. She found her father bent over charts in his study, plotting the evening's weather.

"Da," she breathed, "there's an island. Out past the sound."

He looked up, his weathered face creasing with confusion. "No island there, girl. You know that."

"Come see."

She dragged him to the window, and together they stared out at the impossible sight. Her father's face went pale.

"Dunsmoor," he whispered.

"What?"

"My grandfather spoke of it. Thought it was just legend." He gripped the windowsill. "An island that appears at least once in a generation. Usually every thirty years, they said." He turned to her, his eyes strange and distant. "It vanished in 1894. The entire village, gone beneath the waves overnight."

Elsie pressed her palm against the cold glass. "Why would it come back?"

Her father had no answer.