Chapter 1 - The Glass by the Bed
By the third morning of my honeymoon, I had stopped blaming the ocean.
I'd been sailing since I was a kid. My father taught me to read a coming storm before he ever let me behind the wheel of a car. I knew seasickness. I knew exhaustion. I knew fear, too, in all its familiar shapes.
This wasn't any of those.
This felt chemical.
My arms had gone strangely heavy, like they belonged to someone else. My mouth stayed bone-dry no matter how much water I drank. Twice that day I'd stood up too fast and simply lost track of time — not fainting exactly, more like the world took a step back and left me standing there alone in the gap.
"Honeymoon fatigue," Julian told me, brushing my hair off my forehead. "Your body's finally allowed to slow down."
He'd bring me tea. Tell me to sleep. And every time he did, I felt a little worse than before.
The Solstice Pearl cut through the water of the outer Cordillo Isles, blue enough in places to look painted on. My father had given us the use of her for the season — not ownership, just access — thirty-eight meters of white hull and polished teak, six guest cabins, a glass-walled lounge, and a crew big enough that real privacy should have been impossible.
Somehow Julian had found plenty of it anyway.
On the first day, he'd floated the idea of sending half the crew home "for a more intimate honeymoon." I said no. He laughed it off — "Worth a try" — and let it go.
By the third day, though, most of the crew had gone quiet on their own. The steward who used to bring my breakfast simply stopped showing up; Julian carried the trays himself now. The chief engineer wouldn't meet my eyes in the hallway. Our onboard nurse had supposedly caught a fever and relocated to a cabin near the bow, out of the way.
And my new in-laws — Bennett and Eleanor Cole — were still aboard. That hadn't been the plan. They were only supposed to stay for one celebratory dinner after the wedding before disembarking at port.
Instead, Bennett blamed the weather for grounding their charter flight. Eleanor had simply smiled and said, "Surely you don't mind family for one more day, sweetheart."
Julian kissed my cheek. "They'll be gone tomorrow."
Tomorrow became another tomorrow. Then another.
By the third night, I woke at 2:13 a.m. with my heart slamming against my ribs.
The cabin was dark. Julian slept beside me, or seemed to. I sat up, and the room tilted hard to one side.
Not the boat.
Me.
I sat with that for a moment, breathing slowly until it passed. Then I noticed the water glass on my nightstand. Half empty. Julian had brought it before bed, the way he always did now. "Drink this, you look pale."
I had.
There was a faint white residue clinging to the bottom of the glass. Electrolyte packets left residue like that sometimes. So did a lot of other things.
I carried the glass into the bathroom and smelled it under the light. Nothing. I dipped a finger in and touched it to my tongue.
Bitter. Not salty at all. Bitter.
A memory surfaced from earlier that day — a young deckhand fixing a cabinet latch near the aft passage, glancing up as Julian handed me a cup. He'd looked at the cup. Then at Julian. Then quickly away.
At the time it had meant nothing. Now it wouldn't leave me alone.
I went back into the bedroom. Julian had rolled onto his side, breathing slow and even. I dressed without making a sound and left the cabin.
At night, the Solstice Pearl became a different ship entirely — no laughter, no clinking glasses, just low deck lighting and the steady thrum of engines somewhere below. I made my way toward the bridge, and halfway there the dizziness hit again, hard enough that I had to grab the wall and wait it out.
That's when the chief purser rounded the corner and nearly walked into me.
"Mrs. Cole?"
"My name is Vivian."
"Of course. My apologies."
"Where's the nurse?"
He hesitated a beat too long. "Resting."
"She's been resting for a day and a half."
"She's unwell."
"With what?"
"I couldn't say."
"You're the purser. You know everything that happens on this boat."
His mouth pressed into a thin line. That silence told me more than an answer would have.
"I need the medical log," I said.
He froze. "Why?"
"Because this vessel belongs to my family."
Not entirely true, but it worked well enough.
"Vivian—"
"Show me."
He glanced toward the stairs, then lowered his voice to almost nothing. "You should talk to the captain."
"I'm talking to you."
He looked more uncomfortable than I'd ever seen him. Then he said something that turned my skin to ice.
"Please. Don't drink anything you didn't open yourself."
"What did you just say?"
He stepped back like he wanted to take it back. "I didn't say anything."
"You absolutely did."
"Please, go back to your cabin, Mrs. Cole."
May you like
Then he vanished down the service corridor before I could stop him, and I stood there for a long moment with one thought crowding out everything else.
Get the log.
