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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are created by the author or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or real events is purely coincidental.
Thanks to Kristina Fluitt and Ariana Winsor-Bard for their valuable input.
Copyright © 2025 Archer Wilder
All rights reserved.
Chapter 1
Over the years, Jules had forgotten how Fortune Lake played with light, how it could seduce you with cobalt water and dark depths and unexpected glimmers of living light. Standing on the ridge above Bracken Bay, she wondered what other memories would resurface during her stay.
The lake stretched before her like a crescent moon, twenty-seven miles of glacier-carved shoreline punctuated by the nearly perfectly circular Bracken Bay that lay just below. The water’s clarity was striking — even from this height she could track the shadows of boats across depths that plunged hundreds of feet — but it was that ethereal blue tint that kept drawing her eye, the way it seemed to glow from within, defying everything she knew about how light and water interact.
At her back, the high Sierra Nevada mountains that had guarded Bracken Ridge for millennia eased down to the north and south points of the bay in a protective embrace. Across the water, Jules could just make out the casino skyline of swanky Silverpoint on the far side of the lake.
Walking beside her, Aunt Lindy pointed out landmarks with the ease of a lifelong resident as they made their way toward the riot of color and sound and delicious scents that carried on the warm breeze. The Fortune Festival was in full swing.
The happy crowd flowed around them like a lazy current, following the natural slope of the town’s three distinct tiers. Tourist shops lined Waterfront below, their doors thrown open to catch the lake breeze. They crossed Ridge Street, past the year-round businesses, Silver Cup Coffee and Bakery, and down along one side of the Triangle — the open green space that marked the center of town. String lights crisscrossed overhead between three towering sugar maples that marked the Triangle’s corners, their leaves casting dappled shadows across weathered cobblestone paths that wound through the grassy expanse in the center.
“You remember the Doyle’s place?” Lindy pointed toward Ridge Market as they continued their walk. “They’ve expanded the deli and carry more specialty items now. It all seems very cosmopolitan, but I suppose they have to stock what the tourists are looking for.”
Their feet just landed on Waterfront Drive when a call rang out from the Fortune’s Treasures Gift Shop. “Jules Everton! Is that you?” A tiny woman with black, silver-streaked hair waved from behind a display of “I Saw the Light in Bracken Ridge” t-shirts. Never mind Jules hadn’t set foot in Bracken Ridge in over a decade — Mrs. Chan never forgot a face. Aunt Lindy, never one to pass up a chat, immediately steered them over.
“Miranda!” Lindy beamed, “Look who finally came home for a visit!”
Home. Jules smiled at the word. She’d only been to Bracken Ridge a handful of times over the past decade, trading childhood summers on the lake for college in San Diego and a life that pulled her steadily around the globe. Yet somehow, the town felt frozen in time, as if it had been waiting for her return.
“You look wonderful, dear!” Miranda Chan studied Jules with sharp eyes, taking in her slim, athletic build and dark blonde hair. Jules was at least eight inches taller than Miranda, but the woman’s scrutiny made her feel like a schoolgirl again.
Jules thanked her with a smile, going through the motions of polite conversation while her attention wandered back to the lake, only half-listening to Lindy and Miranda’s gossip. She’d traveled the world, but she’d never seen water quite like Fortune Lake’s — clear enough to spot fish darting through the depths yet somehow holding that distinctive dark tint that seemed to shift with the light. No matter how far she roamed, she always compared other waters to this impossible color, these waters from her childhood that seemed to watch back when you gazed into them too long.
Local legend claimed the color came from ancient magic buried in the lake bed. Old-timers swore the water was stained with the Lantern Beast’s light — the same ethereal glow that guided lost fishermen home. As a child, she’d believed it all without question. Now, watching sunlight dance across the surface, that strange golden shimmer beneath the waves, she could almost believe it still.
CHAPTER 2
The festival itself was a celebration of the mysteries of Lake Fortune — particularly in Bracken Bay. The Lantern Beast’s influence over Bracken Ridge manifested in a thousand small ways, from the “Beast Bait” fishing lures at Sal Cooper’s bait shop to the “I Got Lucky at Fortune Lake” trucker hats that Mrs. Chan stocked at Fortune’s Treasures.
All along Waterfront Drive, storefronts were draped in festival banners and window displays featuring blurry Lantern Beast sighting photos from decades past. The Bowtie’s sign advertised a Beast’s Breath pizza, featuring garlic and onions, and their signature Lantern’s Lure cocktail — a shimmering blue martini garnished with a glow stick that was a social media hit every summer. Even the real estate office had gotten into the spirit, with a cheeky sign promising “Waterfront Views (Beast Sightings Not Guaranteed).”
Jules and Lindy were making their way toward the beach when they encountered a small crowd gathering near the water’s edge. Families with children arranging items along the beach — fresh pastries, bright fruit, shiny coins, collections of shells and sea glass and trinkets that sparkled in the morning light. The early sun caught each offering differently — light seeming to linger a moment too long on certain pieces. Jules blinked to clear her eyes.
“Lindy!” A woman with wild red curls waved enthusiastically as she walked toward them.
“Diane Walsh, my star drama student,” Lindy told Jules as she waved back. “And that’s Sarah Reeves with her.”
Jules looked questioningly at the collection of junk along the waterline with a raised brow.
“Beast’s Feast,” Lindy explained with a fond smile. “One of our newer traditions.”
“Some traditions are newer than others,” she said carefully. “But the lake’s been returning things long before we started leaving offerings.” She squeezed Jules’s arm. “Your father used to say Fortune Lake keeps its own schedule. Gives back what it wants, when it wants.”
Jules just shook her head. She didn’t want to hear about her father, not after what he did to her and her mother all those years ago.
“The kids love it,” Diane explained, joining them with a breathless huff, and Lindy made introductions. “Like leaving milk and cookies out for Santa.” Her voice dropped. “But check this out.”
She called toward an elderly Black woman walking slowly toward town, dabbing at her eyes. “Miss Dorothy? Show Lindy what you found this morning.”
Miss Dorothy held out a tarnished ring with trembling hands. “Found it on my walk this morning, if you can believe it. I lost this swimming thirty years ago. And the strangest part is …” she lowered her voice, “I never come down to this part of the beach. I just felt like I needed to today.”
“Another one for Jake’s log,” Diana said.
“Jake’s log?” Jules asked.
“The Beast Book,” Sarah clarified. “Jake keeps track of every unexplained return behind the bar at The Rusty Anchor. Been doing it for years. The tourist stuff is fun, but…” she lowered her voice, “gotta admit, sometimes weird things happen that we can’t figure out.” She nodded toward Miss Dorothy.
“Like Mr. Sullivan’s wedding band showing up in his morning coffee,” Diana added, “Or that silver dollar Harbor found in the middle of his lake map, sitting right where that lost kayaker was found.”
“Oh honey, the Beast’s been playing these games for years,” Lindy said, eyes twinkling. “Half the fun is guessing where things will turn up.”
Beneath the light-hearted, tourist-friendly facade, Jules noticed how the locals treated the same elements with careful respect. They might sell Beast Bait fishing lures to visitors, but the old-timers still left an offering and tossed coins from the specific spots Harbor Greene marked, following his instructions about angles and timing with serious attention.
Jules and Lindy moved on, and the gentle curve of the shoreline boardwalk carried them past the art gallery, its wide windows filled with paintings and sculptures inspired by Fortune Lake and its famous resident. Jules paused mid-step, drawn by a painting that seemed to capture the lake’s peculiar luminescence. Before she could move on, Lindy was already pulling open the heavy wooden door, a knowing smile on her face.
“Let’s go in,” Lindy nodded inside. “Ellen’s new collection is worth seeing.”
Cool air and the scent of oil paint wrapped around them as they entered. A woman with steel-gray hair swept into an elegant knot looked up from behind a weathered desk, her face brightening with recognition.
“Lindy May Everton! And who’s this lovely young lady?”
“Ellen, you remember my niece, Jules?” Lindy’s voice carried that particular note of pride that made Jules’ cheeks warm. “She’s a photographer. Got quite an eye herself — just had her first gallery showing in San Diego.”
“Just a small local gallery,” Jules demurred. “I’ve been working with light and reflection lately. I’ve spent so much time on the ocean — when you really look you start seeing how water and light interact in the most extraordinary ways, especially when —” She caught herself, realizing she’d slipped into her “artist voice.”
But Ellen was already moving around the desk, genuine interest coloring her features. “Water and light? My dear, you’re in exactly the right place. Fortune Lake does things I’ve never seen anywhere else. Especially around the Solstice.” She gestured toward a wall of local photographs. “Look at these — no filters, no special effects. The lake creates its own luminescence. I’ve had professional photographers swear their equipment must be malfunctioning when they capture certain moments. See this one?” She pointed to a striking image where the water seemed to glow from within, some kind of swirling pattern beneath the surface. “Jim Roberts took this at dawn last summer. Said his light meter went haywire right before he got the shot. And this one — look at the way the light seems to form layers here…” She shook her head with a knowing smile. “I hope you brought your camera.”
By the time Lindy and Jules reemerged onto the boardwalk and into the noisy crowd, the afternoon was waning. Their progress down the boardwalk was slow, each familiar face triggering another round of introductions and catching up. Jules trailed slightly behind, amused by her aunt’s role as unofficial town ambassador. Lindy seemed to know everyone — and everyone knew Lindy.
“It hasn’t changed at all, Auntie,” Jules said during a rare quiet moment, savoring a deep breath of the crisp mountain air. The lake stretched out before them, breathtakingly blue, the breeze carrying the distinctive mineral aroma that was unlike anywhere else in the world.
She looked toward the south point and the huddle of rental cabins near the rocky beach. Her parents had rented one ever summer until her dad left. It was the only time they seemed to stop fighting, and Jules’ happiest memories were here in Bracken Ridge.
The weathered boardwalk that wrapped the length of the cove was crowded and happy. Harbor Greene’s meticulous Lucky Penny markers dotted the railing, each with its own incomprehensible notation system. Harbor himself directed the toss, muttering about “wish trajectories.”
“Left about three feet!” He shouted the order to a startled young couple. “Try for a 42-degree arc!” Harbor reevaluated and moved the supposed lucky spots hourly, but Lake Fortune was known to be good luck, so everyone laughed it off and nobody questioned why. Lindy dug in her purse for a couple of pennies, and they both closed their eyes as they made their wishes. “Perfect. Pure tone landing,” Harbor muttered at her approvingly, though his glance lingered too long on the spot where her penny sank beneath the surface, and he frowned.
They lingered until the afternoon sun softened into that golden hour that every photographer loves best, casting long shadows across the water and turning the lake’s surface into hammered silver — the kind of light that old-timers swore always preceded the Beast’s more spectacular appearances.
CHAPTER 3
Somewhere between the handmade soap stand and a display of local honey, Jules lost track of her aunt in the crowd. Left to her own devices she headed back to the Triangle’s lower point, where the cobblestones gave way to cool grass. Her feet ached a little from hours of walking in her flip-flops, and the thought of something cold to drink suddenly seemed like the best idea she’d had all day. The festival hummed around her in a comfortable blur of voices and music as she searched for a beverage vendor and a shady spot.
Families clustered around picnic tables, sharing plates of food and inside jokes. Old friends called greetings across the grass, their easy familiarity built on close contact and shared memories. Everyone moved in happy groups, collecting souvenirs and snapping photos. Jules was used to being on the outside — it came with the job, capturing other people’s perfect moments through her lens. But something about today, this festival, about the way these people moved in orbit around each other, made her usual solitude feel heavier than normal.
She bought two beers. The instant the ale touched her lips, Jules drained half of one in a single practiced motion that drew appreciative chuckles and a couple of whistles from a nearby group. She lowered the cup with a satisfied sigh, her throat grateful for the cold relief. Glancing around for somewhere to rest her tired feet, she spotted a promising picnic table in the shade, but before she could move that way, she heard a familiar voice calling.
“Hey there, Jules!” She looked up to see Diane and her wild red curls waving her over from a cluster of camping chairs. “Anyone who can drink like that belongs over here. We’ve got shade.”
Jules changed course, recognizing an easy invitation when she heard one. Years of working on cruise ships had taught her the art of sliding into any social situation. Diane gave her a wide smile.
“Have a seat,” the redhead offered, patting an empty chair next to her.
“Yes, please. I’ve been on my feet all morning.” Jules settled into the offered chair with unconscious grace, her dark blonde hair falling into her eyes as she smiled gratefully back at Diane.
“Tall, tan, and blonde. You are California to the core,” Diane said admiringly. “I’ve been a dancer since I could walk and I’ll never be able to wear shorts like that, you lucky girl.” Diane pointed around the circle with her plastic cup. “You met Sarah. That’s Pete, that’s Lisa. This Jules Everton, Lindy’s niece.”
“Everton?” Lisa’s eyes lit up with delight and she tossed her perfectly highlighted head back in laughter. “Oh my god, that explains the drinking talent. Should have recognized the technique.”
Jules laughed. “I learned from the best. I hear Lindy’s Wine Wednesdays have gotten positively legendary.”
“That’s one word for it,” Lisa grinned. “Last month she taught the garden club how to salsa dance. On her coffee table.”
“Of course she did.”
Lisa leaned forward. “Diane and I practically lived at your aunt’s drama club in high school —” she was interrupted as a couple approached and shadowed her face. “Oh, hey guys. Jules, these are the twins, Jeff and Jenny Baker.”
“Wait,” Jules furrowed her brow, dredging up a memory. “Baker twins? I remember that name. Didn’t you guys rig up some kind of ghost by the shore? Scared everybody to death? I think that was the last summer I was up here.”
“Callhan’s ghost, yeah,” Jeff grinned, his smile wide and his bright hair catching the sunlight. “I prefer to think that was an exercise in civic pride.”
His sister snorted. “It was until all those tourists kept getting lost in the woods, looking for Callahan’s lost treasure.”
“Ah, the mysteries of senior year,” Steve chuckled. “Like who really put the striped bass in the teacher’s lounge.”
“Or why the gym suddenly had a disco ball,” Sarah added.
“Hey, that was an improvement,” Diane defended. “I still have it. My dance students love it.”
Lisa leaned forward, her perfectly highlighted hair swinging. “Jules, you have got to hear about the time these two,” she pointed at the twins, “convinced the entire elementary school that the Lantern Beast was living in the old boathouse. Poor Harbor Greene had kids leaving sandwiches all over the marina for weeks.”
“Harbor still checks behind the bait shed every morning,” Jenny added with pride. “Actually, I think I saw him eyeing up the Beast’s Feast this morning..”
“Be nice!” Diane interrupted. “It’s Fortune Festival. Jules, tell us what brings you back to our little corner of paradise.”
“Visiting Aunt Lindy,” Jules smiled. “She’s the only family I have, really, and it was about time I came back to see Bracken Ridge again.” She didn’t mention that her little cottage was feeling lonely, and these past three years in Saltwood Bay had been decidedly unfulfilling.
“Lindy’s great. Can’t blame you for that,” Lisa said. “What do you do for a living, anyway?”
“Photographer. Mostly weddings, senior portraits, that kind of thing now.”
“Oh hey,” Jenny brightened. “Our cousin’s getting married next summer. You should talk to …”
The conversation flowed easily, punctuated by laughter and the occasional passerby stopping to chat. Jules found herself relaxing into the familiar rhythms of small-town life, where everyone’s stories intertwined and even decade-old memories felt as fresh as yesterday.
When topics drifted toward local politics and the casino across the lake, Jules found herself withdrawing slightly, leaning back into her chair with her nearly empty beer. The mountain behind them had long since blocked the sun’s rays, and her eyes wandered toward the lake and the sharp dark shadow creeping over its surface. A few more friends joined the group. The twinkle lights in the trees overhead were starting to glow. The crowd had thinned. The music coming from the Bowtie suddenly got louder and caught her attention.
The Bowtie started life as a grand Victorian inn and had been warped and remodeled a half dozen times, serving locals and tourists alike in some capacity since the pioneer days. Its current iteration was a busy pizza counter and casual bar downstairs, and fine dining upstairs. Warmth and laughter spilled through open windows, while red-checkered tablecloths and mismatched wooden chairs hosted animated conversations. The bakery counter near the entrance filled the air with the scent of fresh bread and pastries while the vintage Naples pizza oven turning out the perfectly charred crusts that locals swore beat anything in Silverpoint.
Jules turned to catch a whiff of that delicious sourdough smell, and her eye caught on an incongruous figure standing near the front entrance.
The golden light that was starting to illuminate the windows caught on a suit that was assuredly not local vintage — navy wool, precisely tailored, startlingly out of place among the cargo shorts and polo shirts. The man wearing it had one shoulder resting against an ornate column with the kind of ease that suggested he’d earned the right to take up space there. He was tall, with a lean build, dark hair just a little longer than the suit would imply, and equally dark eyes that studied something on his phone with focused attention — not the absent scrolling of a tourist killing time, but someone making the most of an idle moment.
Something about him made her pause. Maybe it was the way he held himself slightly apart from the festival bustle around him. Or how his expression seemed guarded, as if he’d learned to measure every reaction against some internal standard. He looked, she decided, like someone who had deliberately chosen which pieces of himself to reveal to the world and knew how to keep the rest in reserve. She recognized that particular kind of solitude. It wasn’t the awkwardness of someone who couldn’t connect, but the isolation of someone who had chosen not to.
Then he looked up, and their eyes met across the Triangle.
Jules felt a little jolt of embarrassment at being caught staring, but she couldn’t make herself look away. His face remained unreadable, serious but not stern, as if he was solving some complex equation behind those dark eyes.
She finally broke her gaze away, back toward the darkening lake. When she allowed herself another glance, he had been joined by a pretty brunette and two toddlers. His posture softened at their arrival. As the woman crouched down to the children’s level, he glanced back in Jules’ direction. This time, the connection held until Lisa’s voice snapped it.
“Jules? Earth to Jules!”
Steve followed her line of sight. “Well, look who finally made an appearance.”
“Danny actually made it,” Jenny announced to the group.
“That guy looks like a cop,” Jules said, trying to sound casual.
The group’s laughter had the easy warmth of a long-running joke. “Worse — he’s a lawyer,” Jeff supplied. “Though Danny’s still Danny. Just ... spends too much time in Silverpoint these days.” The group nodded in agreement.
“He’s doing well for himself,” Pete interjected loyally. “Working for Mountain Crown’s no joke. Even if he is the only guy wearing a tie to a beach party.” There was a mix of pride and regret in his voice, the kind that comes from watching your best friend become someone different from the person you grew up with.
“He’s a local?” Jules asked, surprised. She grinned at Steve, who caught her glance at his beard and flannel. “Doesn’t exactly fit the rugged mountain man image — no offense.”
Steve laughed, tugging at his beard. “Hey, some of us live up to the hype. But nah, Danny couldn’t get down from the mountains fast enough. Get him on the water, though? One of the best captains on the lake.”
Before Jules could process that particular detail, Diane waved at someone behind them. “Lindy! Why have you been hiding this fabulous niece of yours?”
Lindy’s arrival was the signal that the day was winding down. “I keep inviting her, but she’s always on the move.” She put a hand on Jules’ shoulder. “I’m calling it a day.”
Jules stood, adding her empty cup to the tower in the center of the group. “I’ll walk with you, Auntie,” she said, then turned to the others with a smile. “Thanks for letting me crash your afternoon, everyone.”
CHAPTER 4
Jules and Lindy walked together as far as Ridge Road, chatting about their afternoon. Just before they crossed to head up the hill to Lindy’s house, Jules hesitated, looking back toward the waterfront. Her eye caught a greenish glimmer across the water in the center of the bay that ignited a memory from her childhood. That cool swirl of light, reaching up from the docks.
“You know what? I think I’ll stay for the fireworks.”
“You used to love them as a kid,” Lindy smiled, unwrapping her shawl to drape it around Jules’ shoulders against the coming chill. “Don’t forget to eat something.”
“I’ll grab a slice at the Bowtie,” Jules promised. “I won’t be too late.”
By the time Jules made it back down the hill, the sun was gone, leaving only a faint stain of purple and rose across the far horizon. The crowd that remained had settled into intimate clusters of blankets and lawn chairs, some in the Triangle, some standing all along the boardwalk on the waterfront, others on the beach, closer to the water. Quiet conversations and anticipation carried on the cooling air. String lights twinkled along the boardwalk, but Jules found herself drawn to a quieter stretch of beach a little further down.
She slipped off her flip-flops, letting the still-warm sand work between her toes. The day’s heat rose from the beach even as the evening air chilled her bare shoulders, making her grateful for Lindy’s shawl. The lake had transformed in the fading light, its distinctive blue deepening to mirror the twilight sky. Beautiful, yes — that was undeniable, but something about the vastness of it tugged at the emptiness in her she’d become too well acquainted with. All around her, families and couples were settling in to watch the fireworks together, while she stood alone, caught between her past and whatever comes next.
The first firework burst overhead to an audible gasp from the crowd, a shower of gold that reflected in the lake’s surface. Jules crouched and settled onto the sand, wrapping her arms around her knees and resting her chin on top. The pops continued, splashing light and color across the turned-up faces. On the beach, near the boardwalk, she spotted Danny standing with his family. The older of the children perched on his shoulders, small hands gesturing excitedly at the sky while the woman held the younger and pointed out each new explosion. They made a pretty picture — exactly the kind of moment she would try to capture on one of her photo shoots.
She turned her attention back to the show, watching the bursts of gold and crimson and blue bloom across the sky and reflect on Fortune Lake’s smooth, dark surface. The familiar smell of gunpowder mixed with pine trees brought back the memories of summers long gone, watching from this same beach, tucked between her mom and dad, hands sticky from s’mores. She closed her eyes to bring them forward in her mind, and then all at once, the night felt somehow different — not the hollow ache of missing her own family, but something that made the hairs on her neck rise. She opened her eyes in time to catch the last embers of light reflecting off the water — but they were wrong. They didn’t match what was happening in the sky. The mirror images were too slow, too faded, as if they themselves were memories of a show from years past. Jules blinked, and the view returned to normal.
As the last boom faded, the crowd began to disperse — families with young children winding their way up the hill or along the waterfront toward home, tourists drifting off the beach toward the Lakeside Inn or the last ferry of the evening, ready to chug back toward Silverpoint. But then someone called out “Night Watch!” and pockets of locals started congregating as small fires began dotting the beach.
Jules rubbed her arms, trying to shake off the odd feeling that was tugging at her, and rose to start the walk back to Lindy’s.
“Oh, no you don’t,” Jenny Baker said, catching Jules by the arm as she passed, pressing a red plastic cup into her hand. “Night Watch is the best part.”
CHAPTER 5
“Night Watch?” Jules looked up and down the beach at the small groups scattered across the sand.
“Local tradition,” Jeff explained. “We stay up watching for the Lantern Beast’s solstice light show.” He caught Pete’s scornful look and grinned. “Which, of course, is completely fake and ridiculous.”
“Some of us just want an excuse to have a bonfire,” Pete added with a wink, his impressively strong body lifting a cooler over toward the chairs. His wife, Becky, rolled her eyes as she walked past him.
The night deepened around their growing circle, the bonfire’s warmth keeping the mountain chill at bay. People drifted in and out of the darkness — someone with an armload of driftwood, the Baker twins carrying a cooler between them, Becky returning with two thermoses of coffee and a box of brownies from her coffee shop, the Silver Cup. Jules found herself relaxing into the easy rhythms of their conversation. She liked the friendly group, the way they shifted to make room for newcomers, passed drinks and blankets and snacks without being asked.
Well after the fireworks ended, Danny appeared without warning at the edge of the firelight — suit and tie discarded in favor of jeans and a Henley, sleeves rolled up his forearms — Diane immediately waved him into the group, the same way she’d welcomed Jules hours earlier. “Danny! Hi. Join us.”
He stood just outside their circle, hands tucked into his pockets as his gaze swept the gathered faces. Not hesitating, just taking in the scene with quiet attention. After a moment’s assessment, he made his way around the fire pit, his movements graceful and deliberate.
“For God’s sake, Danny,” Becky called out with affectionate exasperation. “You’re with friends, not facing down a grand jury. Sit. Breathe. Have a beer.” A ripple of warm laughter circled the fire, and Jules caught the slight softening around Danny’s eyes, a small twitch around the corners of his mouth as he took a seat, accepting a beer from Jeff with a nod and quiet thanks.
His eyes found Jules, and his look told her he remembered their locked eyes across the crowded Triangle earlier — the way they both lingered a moment too long before looking away.
“Have you met Lindy Everton’s niece?” Jeff asked.
“Jules,” she offered before anyone could introduce her. The directness of his attention was disconcerting — careful, measured, as if he was noting details for future reference.
“Danny Pencroft,” he replied, his voice quiet but self-assured. “Wondered if you’d still be here.”
Before she could answer, Steve broke across. “Where’d you stash Kimmy and the kids?”
Jules looked away, suddenly self-conscious about the way she’d been analyzing his attention. Of course he was married — a successful lawyer, deep roots in town, that easy confidence. She’d have to be more careful about reading too much into simple friendliness.
“Took them back to the cabin,” Danny replied, just as a sharp bosun’s whistle cut through the night air.
Everyone looked up. “Harbor’s signal,” Jenny explained to Jules quietly. “Show’s about to start. He’s never wrong about these things.”
“Here we go,” Kevin said, rolling his eyes. “Time for the traditional solstice light show, courtesy of the Bracken Ridge Board of Tourism’s finest LED setup.”
“You’re such a cynic,” Becky shot back. “Just because you can’t explain something doesn’t mean —”
Almost instantly, a flicker of light across the water caught Jules’ attention. Pale green luminescence danced just above the surface, like aurora in miniature, then formed a solid shape and dove into the water like a fish. “What was that?” Jules whispered, immediately enchanted by the display.
“Probably just spotlights,” Sarah said quickly, but Jules noticed her leaning forward, tracking the lights with undisguised fascination.
From somewhere in the darkness beyond their circle, Jules heard Harbor murmur something to himself about still waters. When she turned to look, she could barely make out his silhouette against the tree line, standing apart and watching the lake with singular focus. “He’s testin’ the waters tonight. Seein’ who’s got eyes.” Harbor’s voice carried across the beach with unusual clarity.
Laughter rippled around the fire, though Jules noticed it held an edge of nervousness. “Not enough of a show for the Beast,” Pete said, but his usual confidence wavered. “It usually goes all out for solstice.”
“Right,” Jeff added. “Next you’ll tell us the Easter Bunny helps set up the egg hunt.”
And then without preamble, lights erupted out of the darkness to dance across Fortune Lake’s surface like fallen stars in deliberate, organic patterns. The bonfire cast shadows across Jules’ face, turning her blonde hair to gold and making her hazel eyes sparkle as she leaned forward, completely mesmerized by the display. First, a single point of green-gold radiance pierced the darkness, hovering just above the water, then split into two, three, a dozen gleaming fragments that skimmed across the black surface in perfect synchronization. They moved with impossible grace, leaving trails of luminescence in their wake that lingered like after images before fading into the dark.
Now and then, a light would dive beneath the surface, its glow diffusing into a ghostly underwater glow that illuminated the lake from within before resurfacing yards away, water cascading off it in silvery sheets. The lights formed wondrously complex shapes, pulsing and twisting and diving through the dark water, exquisitely delicate, gold and green and somehow solid and transparent all at once.
“They’ve really upgraded the show this year,” someone murmured. A few chuckles of agreement.
Here, a luminous fish appeared, scales flickering with stunning detail. There, a glowing sailboat emerged from the depths, its phantom sails billowing in an unseen wind.
“Must have spent a fortune on new equipment,” Jeff said, his voice slightly too loud. Diane shushed him, leaning forward with unblinking attention.
Once, the lights coalesced into something so tall and terrible and beautiful that Jules found herself holding her breath, but it dissolved into droplets that rained back into the lake before her mind could fully grasp its shape. The display held none of the chaotic beauty of fireworks or the mechanical precision of drones — instead, it moved with an organic fluidity that made Jules think of deep-sea creatures, of things that had evolved in darkness to make their own light.
“Holy shit,” Steve whispered. No one else spoke, transfixed by a display unlike anything in living memory.
Through the mixed reactions, Danny had gone completely still, all his composure channeled into absolute focus on the water. His face remained neutral, but his eyes had taken on an almost predatory intensity as they tracked the lights, like a man searching for something he’d glimpsed before. Jules found herself drawn away from the mysterious display to study him instead.
When he caught Jules watching him, a look of confusion flickered briefly across his features, there and gone so quickly she might have imagined it. He lifted a corner of his mouth almost imperceptibly before returning his attention to the lake’s surface without comment, but that brief shared glance left her pulse racing with the sense that they were now somehow complicit in something she didn’t yet understand.
“What do you think, Danny?” Pete asked, but Danny just took a measured sip of his beer, his eyes never leaving the water.
After a long moment, he said carefully, “Hell of a show this year.” His neutral tone revealed neither belief nor dismissal, but something about the way he held himself, perfectly still and focused, betrayed a deeper attention than mere entertainment would warrant.
Ribbons of green continued to weave across the surface like ghostly silk, diving and resurfacing in elegant arcs, until the entire cove shimmered with ethereal radiance. The light all coalesced into a single, delicate, twisting spiral, and then, as suddenly as it began, the lights plunged beneath the surface and vanished.
The lake had stilled completely now, its surface black as obsidian. Even the starlight refused to shine on the surface. The beach had fallen into that particular kind of silence that follows something extraordinary — some lost in their own thoughts, others murmuring in hushed pairs about what they’d seen. Becky had her head on Pete’s shoulder, their usual banter quieted. Even Kevin, who’d been so quick with mechanical explanations earlier, sat with his flask forgotten in his hand, gaze fixed on the water. Harbor’s low mutter drifted in from the darkness, so quiet Jules wondered if she imagined it. “Lots to say, eh old boy?”
That last spiral was etched in her mind, stirring something in her memory — a half-forgotten sensation from childhood summer, like the feeling just before a thunderstorm when the air grows thick with electricity. She’d felt it before, hadn’t she? That same electric awareness across her skin, though she couldn’t quite grasp when or where.
Jules felt the magnitude of what she’d witnessed pressing in on her, making the casual circle around the fire feel suddenly confining. Her mind kept trying to rationalize what she’d seen while something deeper, more instinctive, whispered that there were things in this world beyond comprehension. She needed space to think, to breathe, to process whatever had just happened on that lake.
She stood, brushing sand from her legs. “I should head back — I’ve got to catch the ferry in the morning and I still need to pack.” Her voice was quiet, too strained to pass for casual.
“I’ll walk you,” Danny offered quietly. His face had resumed the expression of cautious neutrality, but when his eyes flickered over her face, something in them changed — a flash of recognition, as if he’d spotted something familiar in her reaction to the lake’s display.
“Thanks, I’m all right.” She needed solitude more than safety right now.
He rose anyway and walked a few steps with her until the sand met the boardwalk. “Be careful near the water,” he said quietly. The words sounded like more than simple advice, and something in his expression made Jules’s skin prickle. He was studying her face with an intensity that suggested he was looking for something. But whatever he found in her eyes, whatever recognition had sparked between them during the light show, he kept to himself. “Nice to meet you, Jules,” was all he added.
Jules just nodded and started back along the beach toward the boardwalk. What unsettled her wasn’t Danny’s warning, but how it had resonated with something already awakening inside her — a half-buried memory struggling to surface. That look they’d shared had been born of something older and deeper than the firelit moment — a mutual recognition that they’d both glimpsed behind the curtain of their ordinary world and seen something they couldn’t explain away. She could feel the lake’s presence beside her, vast and knowing and heavy with profound silence — a held breath waiting to be released. She felt exposed.
As she climbed the wooden steps of the boardwalk, she noted the festival’s cheerful Lantern Beast decorations, transformed to something sinister in the darkness. The painted wooden photo cutouts that had looked whimsical in daylight now cast long, strange shadows under the streetlamps. A souvenir flag snapped in a wind she couldn’t feel, and she could have sworn the shadows of the commemorative posters shifted unnaturally. For a moment, one poster’s Lantern Beast illustration seemed to glow from within, its edges bleeding luminescence into the darkness. But when she turned to look directly at it, it was just paper and ink and ordinary lamplight.
CHAPTER 6
The next morning, Jules said goodbye to Lindy with promises to visit when she could, then boarded the ferry under a bright morning sky that seemed determined to erase all memory of the night before. Sunlight soaked into the lake’s surface, perfect blue waters and white caps stretching toward distant mountains — the usual postcard view unencumbered by mystery or legend.
She stowed her roller bag in a corner inside, then made her way toward the bow of the boat. Just before departure, she glimpsed Danny Pencroft and his little family approaching the ferry. He wore a gray suit, looking every inch the successful lawyer his friends bragged about. His dark eyes found her at the railing, and for a moment he stilled completely. Something passed between them — a shared reognition of what they’d seen last night. Then the smallest boy stumbled, breaking the spell, and Danny picked up the toddler to take him inside.
Standing at the rail, watching Bracken Ridge recede behind them, Jules couldn’t shake the memory of Danny’s face in the firelight, the intensity in his eyes. It would seem that both he and the lake kept their secrets well.
The crossing was smooth, yet Jules kept her eyes on the water beneath them, searching for something, anything, to confirm what she’d seen in the darkness — a lingering shimmer, a deeper shadow, the suggestion of movement beneath the surface. But Fortune Lake had reverted to its daytime disguise of picture-perfect beauty, as if the nocturnal display had been nothing more than a dream. And as she watched the lake slide beneath the boat, somewhere beneath that sparkling surface Jules knew something was watching her back.
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COMING SOON
In the booming mining town of Bracken Ridge, eccentric pioneer Samuel Callahan discovers a secret in the depths of Fortune Lake, the sacrifices he will make to obtain it, and the price he will pay for his hubris.