And the bell in the stone church, for the first time in forty years, rang once.
He took it.
Albin took a shuddering breath. “I don’t want to be alone.” And the bell in the stone church, for
She took a lantern, a length of rope, and a small iron bell that had belonged to her mother. Then she went down to the dry seabed. The stones were not stones. Albin saw that the moment he reached them. They were teeth—vast, ancient, spiraled into a pattern that hurt to look at. They lay in a circle around a basin of water that was not seawater. It was black and perfectly still, and it reflected not the foggy sky but a room: a small, warm kitchen with a kettle steaming and a window that looked out onto a different sea. “I don’t want to be alone
“My father said we should leave.”