Sparks & Secrets
511 Words
The stranger’s name was Jace Thorne, and he didn’t trust easily. But when Aria offered him dry clothes and tea back at her apartment above the bookstore, he hesitated only for a second before nodding. Maybe it was the way she looked at him—not with suspicion, but with quiet curiosity. Like she already knew he didn’t belong, and somehow didn’t mind.
Steam curled from her chipped mug as she handed it to him. He held it like it might vanish if he blinked.
“So,” Aria said, settling opposite him on the faded couch, “what exactly are you looking for in Carron Bay?”
Jace’s eyes lingered on the journal lying beside her—the same journal she’d found in her grandmother’s trunk last winter. The one she still hadn’t been able to open. When she followed his gaze, he looked away.
“There’s something buried here. Not treasure, if that’s what you’re thinking. Something older. Something powerful. A piece of history… that someone wants to erase.”
“And you think my town is hiding it?” Aria raised an eyebrow.
“No.” He finally met her eyes. “I think your family was protecting it.”
Silence fell between them like a dropped stone. The fire crackled softly in the hearth. Outside, the sea roared as if it knew they were speaking its secrets aloud.
Aria stood and pulled the journal into her hands. “This belonged to my grandmother. No one’s ever opened it. I don’t even know why I still keep it.” She paused. “But the day you showed up? It started humming.”
Jace leaned forward. “What do you mean—humming?”
“I mean it vibrated in my hands. Like it recognized something.”
Or someone.
He reached into his coat and pulled out the compass again. He placed it on the table between them, and to Aria’s astonishment, the needle began spinning—not pointing north, but slowly circling the journal like it was magnetized by something deeper.
“What the hell is that?” she whispered.
Jace’s voice was low. “A guide. Or a warning. My mentor found it in the wreckage of a ship that disappeared from maps over a hundred years ago—off the coast of this town. The crew never returned. Only one page survived in a bottle, sealed with wax. And it had one name written on it.”
He slid a torn page from his coat. Faded ink danced across the fragile parchment. Aria took it, her hands trembling.
DELANEY.
Her last name.
She looked at him, heart pounding. “What do you want from me?”
“I want you to come with me,” he said, steady but intense. “To help me find the truth. Before the people chasing me burn it all down.”
The fire flickered again—and in its glow, she saw the truth in his eyes.
He wasn’t just searching for something.
He was running out of time.
- Writer
