letter to the lighthouse keeper

"The Cartographer's Secret"

Introduction – The Cartographer’s Secret

The sea had always whispered stories to the people of Windmere—a coastal town forgotten by time, where the waves carved secrets into the cliffs and the fog rolled in like an old memory. But few listened anymore. The bustling harbor was long silent, the lighthouse dark, and most of the old streets were swallowed by ivy and sea salt.

It was in the farthest corner of one such street, beneath a sagging sign that read "Thorne & Co. – Fine Maps and Charts", that Elian found the door unlocked. The map shop had been closed for nearly fifty years, ever since the old cartographer vanished without a trace. Inside, the air was thick with dust and the scent of ink and parchment. Elian hadn’t come looking for adventure—only shelter from the storm—but what he uncovered in the forgotten shop would draw him into a mystery older than the town itself.

Hidden in a cracked drawer beneath a stack of brittle atlases was a map unlike any he had ever seen. The lines shimmered faintly in the dim light, charting coastlines that didn’t exist and bearing symbols no compass could explain. It was marked with a name long erased from history... and a warning written in the cartographer’s own hand: