Where The Tide Remembers Us

The night Liora Vance returned to the island the moon hung low and bruised over the water, its reflection fractured by slow rolling waves. The ferry pulled away as soon as she stepped onto the dock, leaving behind the smell of diesel and wet rope. Wind moved through the tall grasses like a cautious breath, carrying the cry of distant seabirds. The island of Carrick had always felt separate from the world, but now it felt watchful, as if it recognized her after twelve years of absence. Liora tightened her coat and stood still, allowing the quiet to settle into her bones.

The cottages along the path were dark, shutters closed against the salt air. She could hear the sea from every direction, a constant low presence that made her chest ache. This place had been her childhood and her escape, and now it was her inheritance after her grandmother passed. As she walked toward the old house near the cliffs, memories surfaced uninvited. Running barefoot over stone. Laughing until breathless. And one night she had tried very hard to forget, when the tide had taken something from her and never given it back.

Inside the house the air smelled of dust and dried herbs. Liora lit a lamp and set her bag down, touching the worn table where her grandmother used to sit each evening. She should have felt comforted. Instead unease curled in her stomach. She sensed she was not alone. Not physically perhaps, but as if the walls themselves were listening.

A sound came from outside, soft but deliberate. Footsteps on stone.

Liora opened the door slowly. A man stood just beyond the circle of lamplight, his dark hair damp with mist, his expression unreadable. His eyes caught the light and reflected it strangely, like water at night.

You came back, he said.

Her heart lurched. I do not know you.

He studied her face as if committing it to memory all over again. You knew me once. My name is Rowan Hale.

The name struck her like a wave. Memory surged, chaotic and sharp. A boy on the shore. Salt on skin. Hands tangled together in cold water.

You drowned, she whispered.

Rowan did not deny it. His silence carried the weight of truth.

In the days that followed Liora tried to settle into the rhythm of the island. She cleaned the house, sorted through her grandmothers belongings, walked the familiar paths along the cliffs. Yet Rowan appeared again and again, always near the sea, never crossing a threshold. He spoke with careful restraint, as though holding himself back required constant effort.

You should not talk to me, he told her one afternoon as they watched the tide creep higher over dark rocks.

You keep showing up, she replied. What am I supposed to do Ignore you

He almost smiled. I hoped you would ask me to leave.

She did not.

As they walked together the air around him felt colder, the sound of the sea sharper. Liora noticed things she could not explain. Rowan left no footprints. The wind never touched his hair. When she reached for him her fingers met resistance and chill, like touching deep water.

At night her dreams filled with drowning sensations and whispered promises. She woke gasping, heart racing, her body remembering what her mind had tried to erase. Rowan began to tell her fragments of his existence. How the island held those who died with unfinished longing. How memory tethered him to her.

You were my anchor, he said quietly one evening. When you left, I almost faded.

Guilt wrapped tight around her chest. I was sixteen. I did not know how to stay after you were gone.

I know, he said. That is why I waited.

The island responded to their closeness. Tides shifted unpredictably. Storm clouds gathered without warning. Liora felt drawn deeper into Rowan presence, her thoughts consumed by him. She skipped meals. She stopped calling friends on the mainland. Her world narrowed to the space between heartbeats when he was near.

One night the sea turned violent. Waves crashed against the cliffs with furious force, spray soaking the air. Rowan appeared at the edge of the path, his expression strained.

You are pulling me closer to the surface, he said. And it is pulling you down.

Liora shook her head, tears stinging her eyes. I cannot lose you again.

You never had me in the way you think, he replied gently. Not anymore.

The truth unfolded slowly, devastating in its clarity. The longer she stayed, the more her life force bled into the space that sustained him. The island fed on balance. One presence could not cross fully without the other yielding ground.

The climax came at dawn when the tide reached higher than it ever had before. The sea flooded the lower paths, swallowing familiar stones. Liora stood at the edge of the cliff, Rowan beside her, the air vibrating with tension.

I could stay, she said hoarsely. I could belong here with you.

Rowan face twisted with pain and love. That would not be living. And I loved you too much to let you choose that.

He stepped back, forcing distance between them. The wind rose, carrying the roar of the sea. Liora reached for him, sobbing now, every instinct screaming to hold on.

Remember me as I was, he said. Not as this.

The light shifted. Rowan form grew translucent, edges blurring like mist in sunlight. Liora screamed his name as he dissolved into the sound of waves, leaving only cold air and the echo of his presence.

The storm receded slowly. The island settled. Days passed with aching slowness. Liora grieved fully this time, allowing herself to break and mend in equal measure. She walked the cliffs alone, feeling the pain but also the quiet return of her own strength.

When she finally left Carrick, the sea was calm, reflecting a clear sky. Liora carried Rowan memory not as a chain but as a tide that had shaped her and then released her. She boarded the ferry and watched the island fade, knowing the love she had known there would never vanish, only rest, where the water remembers everything.