06 Feb The Drowned Chorus

PART I

Eleanor Voss arrived at Blackridge, the coastal town where her family’s history ran as deep as the jagged cliffs that framed the shore. The house had been empty for nearly a decade, yet it had been waiting for her—dust settling in corners, the scent of salt embedded in the wooden beams. Her mother’s family had owned the place for generations, but Eleanor had no memories of them. They had all passed before she was old enough to remember.

It was the perfect place to practice her craft.

She had spent years training her voice, shaping it into something worthy of the stage, but New York had been a waste of time. Her instructors were unimpressed, the opportunities were scarce, and every audition ended in polite rejection. She needed solitude. No distractions. No reminders of her failures.

The house sat on the highest ridge overlooking the sea, its back porch opening to a sheer drop of dark stone. Below, waves crashed against the rocks, unrelenting. From the windows, she could see the sea stretching toward the horizon, an expanse of gray under the dimming sky.

That first night, she dreamed of drowning.

She was deep below the surface, weightless, and sinking slowly. She should have been panicked, but there was only quiet. A sound, distant yet distinct, hummed beneath the waves. It wasn’t random noise—not the churn of the tide or the crack of shifting currents. It was melody.

Eleanor woke up with the taste of salt on her lips.

* * * * * *

The town was small and insular. No one seemed particularly eager to welcome her, but she didn’t mind. She had never been good at small talk. She made a point to avoid conversation when she went into town for supplies, keeping interactions brief and impersonal.

She met Martin Hale during her second visit. He worked at the general store, and had been unloading crates of dried goods from a truck when she walked past. He looked about her age—early thirties, maybe a little younger—lean, with dark, wind-tousled hair and a look that suggested he knew every inch of this town.

“Moving into the old Voss house?” he asked, resting an arm on the truck bed.

She hesitated before nodding.

“I used to mow the lawn when I was a kid,” he said, wiping his hands on his jeans. “Place always gave me the creeps.”

Eleanor frowned. “Why?”

Martin shrugged. “I dunno. Something about how quiet it was. Felt like someone was always watching from the upstairs window, even when no one was home.”

She didn’t respond.

“You a singer?”

She stiffened at the question. “Why do you ask?”

Martin nodded toward the bag in her hands—vocal exercise books, blank sheet music, and a pack of throat lozenges.

“I guess that’s obvious,” she muttered.

“You hear the stories yet?”

“What stories?”

His expression darkened slightly. “The ones about the water. The old fishermen talk about The Drowned Chorus.”

She let out a dry laugh. “That supposed to scare me?”

“Probably not,” he admitted. “But I wouldn’t go singing too close to the cliffs if I were you.”

She rolled her eyes and left without another word.

* * * * * *

The house absorbed sound. She could tell the moment she started singing.

The acoustics were incredible—the high ceilings, the thick wood absorbing nothing, allowing her voice to carry. She sang arias that had once been beyond her range, feeling her voice resonate in her chest. She was so absorbed in her performance, in fact, that she barely noticed when the sun started dipping below the horizon.

The first time she heard the voice, she thought it was her own echo.

She had been running scales, pushing her range, when she hit a high note and held it. It rang through the house, clear and unwavering. But just as she drew breath to continue, she heard it—a faint, harmonic tone beneath her own.

She stopped, and was met with silence.

Had she imagined it?

Eleanor walked to the back door, stepping onto the porch. The night air was cool, the sea restless beneath her.

She inhaled and sang again. The note soared, pure and strong.

This time, it answered. A harmony—delicate, layered beneath her own sound, as if something beneath the waves was singing with her.

She backed away from the railing and slammed the door shut.

The house swallowed the sound.

She stood in the quiet for a long while, pondering what was happening.

* * * * * *

Eleanor stopped singing.

For two nights straight, she resisted the urge to test whether she had imagined the strange harmony. She went about her routine, forcing herself to ignore the way her mind kept circling back to the sound. But the silence was unbearable.

On the third night, she gave in.

She went to the cliffs just before dusk, when the tide was low and the air smelled of brine and wet stone. The wind carried the rhythmic crash of waves against the rocks below. The horizon stretched endlessly, the sky darkening at the edges.

Eleanor inhaled, and softly, tentatively, she sang a simple melody.

The response came almost immediately. It wasn’t an echo. It wasn’t the wind. It wasn’t something logical or explainable.

The voice beneath the waves was real.

It followed her melody, weaving seamlessly through her notes like a thread through fabric. The harmony was delicate and inhumanly perfect. She heard no breath breaks, and identified no flaws.

She staggered back, and the song stopped with her.

The ocean remained restless, indifferent to her terror.

Sleep didn’t come easily.

Every time Eleanor closed her eyes, she felt the pull of the water. It wasn’t fear—not exactly. It was something deeper, somewhere between longing and recognition.

The next morning, she found wet footprints leading from her front door to the foot of the stairs.

Her stomach tightened. She checked the locks—deadbolted. There were no signs of forced entry. In fact, there were no signs of anything at all, except for the water soaking into the wood.

She didn’t tell Martin.

* * * * * *

The changes began subtly.

Her voice grew stronger—unnaturally so. She could sing for hours without strain, her range expanding beyond anything she had been capable of before. The resonance in her chest was sharper, fuller.

And it wasn’t just her voice. She no longer felt winded after long walks into town. She barely needed to eat. Her body felt weightless and fluid, as if something inside her had shifted in a way she couldn’t quite define.

She started avoiding mirrors. Her reflection felt wrong. Her eyes looked darker, the irises too deep, and the pupils were slow to contract in the light. Some nights, she thought she saw movement in them, like the shimmer of water over glass.

She began to hum absentmindedly while cooking, reading, or staring out the window. The harmonies always followed, a whisper just beneath her own voice.

She stopped questioning whether the presence was real. It had become undeniable—and it had already settled inside her.

* * * * * *

Martin showed up unannounced one afternoon, knocking loudly, his stance wary.

Eleanor hesitated before opening the door.

“You look… different,” he said after a long moment.

She forced a smile. “Bad?”

“No. Just… pale. Like you’ve been sick.” He glanced past her into the dim house. “How have you been sleeping?”

“Fine,” she lied.

Martin’s expression tightened. “Eleanor, have you been hearing anything out here?”

She stiffened. “Like what?”

He exhaled, rubbing the back of his neck. “A few people in town swear they heard something the last few nights. Some kind of… singing. Out by the cliffs.”

“Maybe someone else moved in nearby,” she said.

Martin shook his head. “Nobody’s moved out here in years.”

They stood in tense silence. Then he sighed. “Look, just—stay away from the water at night, alright?”

Eleanor swallowed, nodding.

Martin lingered for another second before turning and walking back toward his truck.

She waited until he was out of sight before shutting the door.

She had no intention of staying away.

PART II

The next time Eleanor stood at the cliffs, she didn’t hesitate.

She sang.

And this time, the voice did not merely follow—it led.

It was no longer content to be an echo. It wove its own melody around hers, an intricate harmony of impossible precision. The longer she sang, the more she understood it, though she could not say how. There were no words, only tone, only sound. But there was meaning in the way the notes curled around each other, something ancient and knowing.

The voice belonged to something waiting beneath the waves.

She didn’t stop singing, not even when her vision blurred at the edges. Not when her skin tingled with an unfamiliar electricity. Not even when the wind shifted and the waves grew still, as if the ocean itself was listening.

By the time she turned away, her lips were numb.

* * * * * *

Eleanor woke in bed, unable to recall how she’d gotten there.

Her sheets were damp.

She sat up slowly, staring at her hands. Her fingertips were pruned, as if she had been in the water for hours.

She pulled herself out of bed, walking unsteadily to the bathroom.

The mirror confirmed what she had been afraid to acknowledge: she barely recognized her own face. Her skin had lost its warmth, paling to something just shy of unnatural. Her eyes were darker still, the whites tinged faintly gray. But worst of all was her mouth—her lips were colorless, the corners stretched slightly too wide, as if her face was still shifting, still finding its final shape.

She gripped the sink, swallowing back nausea.

The house was silent, but she felt it—something coiled in the walls, just beyond hearing.

She had invited it in.

She didn’t go into town. She didn’t leave the house at all.

Her reflection became something to avoid entirely. Every time she passed a mirror, the urge to look too long gnawed at her, as if some part of her was waiting to catch her own gaze, to see something that shouldn’t be there.

Instead, she sang.

She did not decide to. She simply did—humming under her breath, whispering melodies to the air, feeling the way the harmonies responded like a second voice trapped beneath her ribs.

It didn’t matter that she seemed to be alone.

She wasn’t.

* * * * * *

Martin showed up again, pounding on the door with more force than before. Eleanor hesitated before answering.

His expression darkened the moment he saw her. “Jesus, Eleanor—what the hell’s going on?”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“You don’t?” His voice was sharp and unsteady. “Because people have been hearing you at night. And I don’t mean just around here—I mean out in the harbor, miles offshore.”

Eleanor said nothing.

Martin’s jaw tensed. “What are you doing?”

The question sent something crawling under her skin. What was she doing? She had barely thought about it.

She should have been afraid, but all she felt was irritation—an unwanted interruption, something pulling her from where she belonged.

Martin stared at her, waiting. When she didn’t respond, he stepped forward, lowering his voice.

“Eleanor, I know you feel it.”

Something in her stomach twisted violently. “Feel what?”

His hands curled into fists at his sides. “The pull.”

She inhaled sharply. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I know what happened to your mother.”

There was silence then—a deep, aching silence.

Eleanor’s mouth went dry. “My mother—”

“Vanished,” Martin said. “Same way you’re about to.”

Eleanor had never met her mother. She had never known anything about her, only that she had died young. That was what she had always been told.

Now, the lie was unraveling.

Martin exhaled, stepping back. His voice softened. “I’ve seen this before. I’ve heard it before. You have to fight it, Eleanor.”

She could barely process the words. She had never had a choice.

The door shut in his face before she even realized she had moved.

Eleanor barely slept.

She lay awake, staring at the ceiling, listening to the rhythm of the waves below. They were speaking to her now, even without song. She could hear them in a way she had never been able to before—not just the crash of water against stone, but the movement beneath.

The ocean had a voice. It had always had a voice. She had just never been listening properly.

She left the house at dusk.

Martin had tried to warn her, but the words had unraveled in her head like fraying thread. He didn’t understand.

Her mother had been part of this, too. Whatever happened to her—whatever she became—had begun long before she was born.

She had never belonged on land.

* * * * * * *

Eleanor reached the cliffs, stepping closer to the edge than she ever had before. The wind pressed against her back, urging her forward.

She opened her mouth, and the song came without effort. It was not the delicate melodies she had practiced for years, nor the carefully honed technique drilled into her by instructors who had never heard something like this. This was not human.

The response came instantly. The ocean answered in full force, harmonizing with her voice, lifting it higher. The water below churned, shapes rippling beneath the surface.

She felt the change as she sang.

Her feet numbed where they touched the ground. Her spine lengthened, her skin tingling as though her body was realigning itself.

She wasn’t afraid.

Quite the contrary, she had never felt so right.

Just then, a hand seized her wrist, yanking her back so hard she nearly collapsed—and the song snapped, severed mid-note.

Eleanor turned sharply, disoriented, her vision blurred from the sudden break in connection. Martin was there, furious and terrified.

“You were about to jump!” he snapped.

She blinked slowly, as if the words didn’t quite register. “No, I—”

Martin’s grip tightened. “Yes, Eleanor. You were!”

Something between them cracked. The wind died, and the ocean went still.

Eleanor’s chest ached at the loss of sound, at the emptiness that filled the air without it. She hadn’t been about to jump. She had simply been… going where she was meant to go.

Martin stared at her. His face was tight, his jaw locked, but there was something else in his expression. Something closer to grief. “I can help you,” he said quietly.

Eleanor swallowed hard. She wanted to tell him that was impossible—but she didn’t. Instead, she let him pull her away from the cliffs.

The ocean did not fight him—

Not yet.

PART III

Martin didn’t let go of Eleanor’s wrist until they were inside her house, with the door shut behind them.

He stood between her and the exit, breathing hard. His clothes were damp from the ocean spray, his jaw clenched so tightly she could hear his teeth grind.

Eleanor didn’t move. She felt hollow, like something had been scooped out of her chest the moment she had been pulled from the cliffside. The house felt dead, devoid of sound.

She had lost the song.

“I need to show you something,” Martin said.

He stepped away from the door and grabbed a chair, dragging it toward the old bookcase that had stood untouched since she moved in. He climbed up, reaching for something behind the top row of books.

When he came down, he held a wooden box that Eleanor had never seen before.

“Your mother left this,” Martin said, “before disappearing.”

“How do you know that?” Eleanor asked.

Martin exhaled sharply. “Because my mom saw her leave it.”

Eleanor sat down without thinking. Her hands trembled as she reached for the box, the wood cool beneath her fingers. It wasn’t locked. The latch lifted with an unsettling ease, as if it had been waiting.

Inside was a photograph. Eleanor recognized the woman immediately—her mother. She had never seen a picture of her before, but she knew. The woman in the photo stood on the cliffs, her hair tangled by the wind, the ocean stretched behind her. She was beautiful. Haunting.

Her eyes were the same as Eleanor’s—but that wasn’t what shocked her the most. Rather, it was the second figure in the photo. Standing at the water’s edge was a woman—or something like one. Her face was pale, her limbs elongated, her hair slicked against her skull as if she had just emerged from the depths. Her mouth was slightly open, and her lips stretched too wide.

Eleanor knew her, too. She had seen her in the water.

“Do you get it now?” Martin asked softly.

Eleanor’s throat tightened. “I don’t—”

Martin’s expression darkened. “You do.”

She didn’t sleep.

The box sat on the table, the photograph staring at her no matter how many times she turned it over.

She could hear the ocean again. Not just in the distance, not muffled by walls or glass. It was inside her—calling.

She curled in on herself, hands tangled in her hair, trying to drown it out. But there was no drowning something that had already claimed her.

The storm rolled in just before dawn. Eleanor woke to the sound of rain hammering against the windows, thunder shuddering through the house. The ocean was alive with movement, the wind screaming through the cliffs.

She didn’t think; she simply moved. Barefoot, she stepped out onto the porch, her thin nightgown clinging to her skin. The rain soaked her instantly, but she barely felt it.

She walked down the narrow path and across the wet grass to the edge of the cliffs—and there they were. Black-eyed figures emerging from the water—too many to count. Their bodies shimmered under the storm-lit sky, too long, too smooth, too wrong. Their hair floated weightlessly despite the wind.

They sang. The sound was beautiful—perfect.

Eleanor parted her lips.

And answered.

* * * * * *

Martin reached the cliffs too late.

The storm had torn through Blackridge with a violence he hadn’t seen in years, the wind howling through the trees, the ocean frothing beneath the lightning-lit sky. He had known—somewhere deep in his gut, that Eleanor would be out there.

But by the time he arrived, she was already standing at the edge, her nightgown clinging to her rain-soaked frame, her bare feet inches from the drop. The ocean below was writhing, filled with shapes undulating just beneath the surface, too fluid to be human, yet too familiar to be mistaken for anything else.

Martin could hear the song even through the storm’s relentless din.

It wasn’t natural.

The melody curled through the wind, layered in impossible harmonies. It vibrated in his bones, pulling at something buried deep in his mind—a feeling like nostalgia, like he was hearing something he had always known but had long since forgotten.

And Eleanor was singing with them—except, her voice wasn’t hers anymore. It was something beyond human, woven into the tide, that had never belonged to land.

Martin ran. “Eleanor!” he shouted.

She didn’t flinch or turn, didn’t stop. Instead, she stepped forward.

Martin lunged, catching her wrist just as she tipped over the edge—and she screamed. Not in fear, but in agony.

Her body convulsed, writhing in his grip. Her skin was like ice beneath his fingers, but worse than that—it was changing. Before his very eyes, she was shifting, coming undone.

Beneath the wet fabric of her gown, her limbs elongated, her spine arching in a way that shouldn’t have been possible. Her eyes snapped open—black, endless, and consuming. And yet, Martin held on.

The ocean surged, the figures reaching for her. And Eleanor—

Eleanor reached back.

Her fingers wrapped around Martin’s wrist, but she wasn’t pulling away. She was pulling him with her.

Martin braced his feet against the slick grass, fighting to stay grounded. “Eleanor!”

Her mouth opened. And in that moment, he caught a glimpse of her teeth, sharpened into delicate points, and of her lips, stretched far too wide.

She was almost gone. He was running out of time.

Something flickered behind Eleanor’s gaze as Martin watched, something human—and terrified.

She hesitated for a fraction of a second, and that was enough.

Martin yanked, and with all his strength, he pulled her backward, ripping her from the song, from the voices, from the arms waiting in the water.

She collapsed against him, sobbing, as the ocean roared in protest.

The figures reeled back, their song fracturing. The wind howled through the cliffs, the waves crashing against the rocks with violent force.

And then—silence.

The storm broke, the wind died, and the ocean stilled.

The figures vanished.

Eleanor didn’t speak for days.

Martin stayed. He didn’t leave the house or let her out of his sight.

The ocean was quiet for now, but they both suspected it wasn’t over.

It had let her go this time, but the song had already been sung.

And one day, it would call again.

Eleanor departed Blackridge before the first frost, without saying goodbye to Martin. She didn’t see the point. In her mind, there was nothing left to say.

The town had already decided what had happened—the storm, the madness, the way she had nearly thrown herself into the ocean. They didn’t ask questions, nor did they desire answers.

And Eleanor had no intention of providing them.

She moved inland, far from the coast and tides. Despite her efforts, however, the ocean never truly left her. She still heard the song in her sleep, still woke with her mouth half open, mid-note, as if she had been singing in her dreams. She caught herself humming melodies that weren’t hers at odd hours, producing harmonies that had no place in the world of men.

Her reflection still wasn’t right. The irises of her eyes held a depth that hadn’t been there before, something too dark and deep, as if she could see past the glass, beyond the surface, into something waiting on the other side.

She did what she had to to salvage her sanity—

She stopped looking.

* * * * * *

The first time she heard it again, she was standing in the middle of a crowded street.

Traffic rumbled around her, engines coughing, voices rising in a dull roar. People pressed in from all sides. The noise should have drowned everything else out.

But it didn’t.

The song came calling anyway—soft, gentle, and distant.

Her hands clenched into fists, turned away from the sound, and continued on her way, doing her best to put it behind her.

But no matter what she did, and no matter the distance she put between herself and the sea, she felt it waiting.

One day, she knew, the ocean would find her again.

And when it did—

She wouldn’t be able to walk away.