The Drowned Choir

At low tide, the bell in the sunken chapel rang three times, and the town of Miren's Hollow had long ago stopped pretending not to hear it. Shutters closed. Dogs were called in early. Nobody walked the shoreline path until the water came back up to cover the bell tower again. Elsa Marrow was seven the first time she asked her grandmother who was ringing it. Her grandmother had looked at her for a long moment, the way adults look at children right before deciding a lie is kinder, and said: "The choir. They're just practicing." She was eleven before she asked who was in the choir. She was twenty-three before anyone answered honestly, and by then it was already far too late to matter.