The Sea Glass Promise

Harborleigh greets you with wind and salt and the blunt honesty of a town that lives on the edge of water. The train leaves you at a small station with peeling paint and a telegraph office that smells of ink and damp wool. A boy in a cap hands you a note from the porter and then runs off as if he is late for his own life.

The carriage ride down to the town is short and sharp. You pass a row of cottages with nets drying on the fences, gulls arguing over scraps, and the faint outline of a lighthouse on the far headland. Your aunt's boarding house sits at the edge of the cliff road, a sturdy building that looks like it has learned to take a punch from the weather and keep its dignity anyway.