Beside The Sea

Introduction: The Song of Return

Every summer, the same wind drifted across the coast, salted and whispering like a secret too old to be kept. It carried the faint melody of gulls and a memory that refused to fade. For Maren Ellis, that melody was a ghost — a haunting tune she’d once sung with him, years ago, before the sea took what it wanted.

The village of Linton Cove was small enough that everyone’s business was folded neatly into everyone else’s. Cottages leaned close, gossip clung to the fences, and the sea — always the sea — pressed against the edge of everything like a heartbeat. To the outsiders, it was picturesque. To those who lived there, it was home and hunger, blessing and curse.

Chapter One: The Return

When Maren stepped off the bus, she almost laughed at how little had changed. The sign still read “Welcome to Linton Cove — Stay a While, Watch the Tide”, though now the paint was peeling like old sunburn. The bakery still smelled of yeast and cinnamon. The same fishermen still grumbled about weather forecasts like personal insults. But the air — the air had teeth.

She hadn’t meant to come back. Not really. Her mother’s old house had gone unsold for years, sitting there like a stubborn relic. When the letter came — a formal notice that the roof was collapsing, and something had to be done — she’d packed one small bag and told herself it was just for the weekend.

But standing at the edge of the familiar shore, with the Atlantic stretching endlessly ahead, Maren knew she was lying. You don’t come back to a place like this “for the weekend.” You come back because you never really left.

Chapter Two: The Boy Who Drowned Twice

The locals still talked about Theo. They called him “the boy who drowned twice.” First, when he’d fallen into the water at sixteen during a late-night swim and was gone for nearly an hour before washing ashore — somehow breathing, somehow alive. And second, when the sea came for him again four years later and didn’t give him back.

Maren had loved him. Wildly, foolishly, with that untamed teenage devotion that feels like oxygen until it’s gone. They’d written their own song once — “Beside the Sea” — on a cheap guitar, beneath the old pier, between the clatter of waves and laughter.

“If I go before the dawn, wait for me beside the sea.

The waves will know the way I’ve gone,

They’ll bring me back to thee.”

She could still hear him sing it sometimes when the tide was low.

Chapter Three: The Cottage on the Hill

The cottage hadn’t aged gracefully. Salt had corroded its hinges, ivy had swallowed half the porch, and the once-blue shutters now hung crooked and gray. Inside, it smelled like dust and ghosts — the familiar scent of what’s left behind.

Maren lit a candle out of habit. The power lines were unreliable this close to the water, and besides, candles felt right here. They cast soft shadows that flickered like old memories.

As she unpacked, she found it — tucked inside a drawer she didn’t remember closing — a cassette tape labeled “Beside The Sea — T & M.”

Her breath caught. She ran her thumb across the writing. Theo’s handwriting. Sharp, slanted, hurried. She still had the little tape player they’d used back then, the kind with a squeaky rewind button and battery corrosion that smelled like rain.

When she pressed play, the sound cracked with static. Then his voice — warm, imperfect, alive.

“Testing... one, two... hey, Mare, you ready?”

Her throat tightened. She remembered this night. The air had been cool. They’d recorded their song under a full moon, laughing at their own mistakes.

And now, as the tape warbled on, she heard something she didn’t remember:

“If you ever come back, I’ll meet you there... beside the sea.”

Chapter Four: The Storm Warning

The first storm of autumn was rolling in. Fishermen tied their boats down, and shopkeepers boarded up windows. The air buzzed with electricity, the kind that made your skin prickle like static. Maren should have been packing to leave. But something in her wouldn’t.

She walked down to the old pier, tape player in her pocket. The boards creaked beneath her, warped from years of salt and neglect.

The sea looked almost black. The horizon blurred where water met sky. Wind tugged her hair loose. She pressed play again.

“If you ever come back, I’ll meet you there...”

Lightning flashed. And for just a moment — no longer than a heartbeat — she saw him. Standing at the far end of the pier, soaked to the bone, looking exactly as he had that night. The wind tore at her coat, the tape clicked, and the world tilted.

“Theo?”

Her voice barely carried over the surf.

He smiled — that same crooked grin that had once undone her completely — and raised a hand. Then the thunder broke, and he was gone.

Chapter Five: The Stranger at the Café

The next morning, the storm was gone. The air smelled new, rinsed clean. Maren found herself at the café, staring absently into her coffee, still trying to decide if she’d imagined everything.

“Mind if I sit?”

She looked up. The man standing before her was maybe thirty, maybe older — sun-browned skin, salt-wrecked hair, and eyes the color of wet sand. Something about him made her heart stutter.

“Sure,” she managed.

He smiled. “You’re Maren, right? Used to sing by the pier?”

Her stomach dropped. “How do you know that?”

He shrugged, looking out the window at the gray horizon. “He told me. Said if I ever met you, I should say thanks. For the song.”

Her hand tightened around the mug. “Who told you that?”

“Theo.”

The name landed like thunder. She laughed, half-nervous. “You must be mistaken. Theo’s been gone for—”

“Fourteen years,” he finished softly. “I know. He saved me once. Out there.” He gestured toward the waves. “I fell off my boat during a storm, and a man pulled me up — said his name was Theo, said to tell Maren the tide finally brought him home.”

Her world tilted again. She couldn’t speak.

The man rose, left a few coins on the table, and walked out. When she followed, he was gone — as if the sea had swallowed him whole.

Chapter Six: The Tide’s Gift

That night, Maren stood barefoot in the surf, moonlight painting the water silver. The waves whispered against her ankles, gentle and deliberate. Something nudged her foot.

A bottle. Old, scuffed, stoppered with wax. Inside, a folded piece of paper.

She unscrewed it, hands trembling.

Maren —

The sea took me once, but it also carried me where I was meant to go. Don’t grieve the waves; they remember us. Keep singing. Always beside the sea.

— T

The tears came then, unguarded and full. The song rose in her chest, unbidden, a promise made years ago. She sang it to the wind, to the water, to the man who’d never really left.

“If I go before the dawn, wait for me beside the sea...”

The waves answered. In their rhythm, she could almost hear his laughter again.

Epilogue: What the Sea Keeps

By spring, the cottage was fixed — the shutters painted, the porch repaired. Maren stayed. She taught music at the little schoolhouse, played her guitar for the village festivals, and every night, walked to the shore with her candlelight heart.

Some said they still saw her there, singing softly to the waves. Some swore they’d seen a man beside her — tall, with salt-wrecked hair and eyes like sand — fading just as the tide pulled in.

And every full moon, if you stand on the pier and listen closely, you might hear two voices — one of the living, one of the sea — singing together, perfectly in tune.

“If you ever come back, I’ll meet you there... beside the sea.” 🌊