The storm arrived with a fury that shook the town to its bones.
Rain lashed against the windows, and thunder cracked like splintering glass. Inside Marina's house, Luna sat at the kitchen table, her hands wrapped around a steaming mug of tea she hadn't touched. Elias stood by the window, watching the sea churn beneath the weight of the sky.
Marina paced.
"We don't have much time," she said finally, breaking the silence. "The veil is thinning."
Luna looked up. "What does that mean?"
"It means the boundary between past and present—the one your ancestors worked so hard to maintain—is unraveling." Marina stopped pacing and met Luna's gaze. "The town is remembering too fast. And when memory floods in all at once… it burns."
Luna swallowed hard. "Like the fire."
Marina nodded. "Exactly like the fire."
Elias turned from the window. "We need to find the others before it happens again."
"Others?" Luna echoed.
"There were more Rememberers," he explained. "Not just Isolde, not just your mother. There was a circle—artists, historians, storytellers. People who could hold fragments of the town's past without losing themselves completely."
"But they're gone now," Marina added softly. "Or so we thought."
Luna frowned. "You think they're still alive?"
"I think some of them might be," Elias said. "Trapped, maybe. Like echoes caught between two moments."
Luna stared at the painting on the table—the dock, the man, the child in his arms. Her own face staring back at her from the bundle.
"What if I'm not remembering someone else's life?" she whispered. "What if I am remembering my own?"
Silence fell between them.
Then Marina spoke, voice low and careful. "That's possible."
Elias stepped closer. "There's a theory among the old families. That when a Rememberer loses too much of themselves, they don't disappear—they fold inward. Into memory. They become part of what they tried to preserve."
Luna's pulse quickened. "So you're saying…"
"You might not be the first Luna," he finished. "You might be the last version of her."
She closed her eyes, trying to steady her breath.
Outside, lightning split the sky.
"Where do we start?" she asked.
Elias hesitated, then pulled a folded piece of parchment from his satchel. He unfolded it carefully, revealing an old map of the town—one drawn in ink that had faded to brown.
"There were three places where the Rememberers gathered," he said. "The tide pool chamber. The archive ruins behind the lighthouse. And…" He tapped a spot near the cliffs. "The old chapel."
Luna leaned forward. "The chapel?"
"It burned down centuries ago," Marina said. "Or so they say."
Elias met Luna's eyes. "But sometimes, things survive fire better than water."
They left as soon as the rain began to ease, wrapping their coats tightly around them as they made their way toward the cliffs. The wind howled through the trees, carrying with it the scent of salt and something older—something like ash.
The chapel was little more than a ruin now, its skeletal remains half-buried in the earth. Vines clung to crumbling stone walls, and the bell tower had long since collapsed into the sea below. But as they approached, Luna felt something shift in the air—a pressure behind her eyes, a hum beneath her skin.
She stepped inside.
The floor was littered with broken pews and shattered glass. Moss crept along the walls, feeding on damp and time. Yet, at the center of the nave, something remained untouched.
A single altar.
And above it, a painting.
Luna's breath caught.
It was enormous, stretching nearly the length of the wall. Though time had dimmed its colors, the image was unmistakable.
A gathering.
Figures stood in a circle, their faces blurred but familiar. Some wore the clothes of centuries past, others modern attire. One held a brush. Another, a book. Another, a lantern.
At the center stood a woman—her face clear, sharp, unmistakable.
Luna.
Or someone who looked exactly like her.
Beneath the painting, carved into the stone of the altar, were words worn by time:
"To remember is to burn. To forget is to drown."
Luna reached out, fingers grazing the cool surface of the stone.
And then the world shifted.
A rush of heat surged through her body, and suddenly she was no longer standing in the ruined chapel.
She was inside the painting.
Voices swirled around her—laughter, cries, warnings lost in the wind. The figures surrounded her, their hands reaching, their eyes pleading.
One stepped forward.
Her mother.
"You have to choose," she whispered. "Will you remember? Or will you let the town forget again?"
Behind her, the flames rose.
Luna gasped and stumbled backward—out of the vision, out of the painting, out of the past.
Elias caught her before she fell.
She looked up at him, trembling.
"They're all still here," she whispered. "Every one of them. Trapped."
He nodded. "Then we have to free them."
Marina's voice cut through the storm. "Before the fire comes again."
Luna turned back to the painting.
This time, she knew what she had to do.
She reached for her bag.
For her brush.
And for the truth.