A Fog Bell for the Dead

The ferry's diesel engine rumbled beneath my feet as Aunt Lottie and I stood at the port rail, watching Camden harbor shrink behind us. The October wind carried the smell of salt and outboard motor exhaust. I pulled my jacket tighter.

"You're having second thoughts," Lottie said. Not a question.

"I'm having fourteenth thoughts." I watched a lobster boat cut across our wake. "What if nobody talks to each other? What if Marcus Drummond spends the whole weekend locked in his room? What if—"

"What if you stop catastrophizing and enjoy the fact that you organized a genuine literary event?" Lottie adjusted her reading glasses, though she wasn't reading anything. She did that when she was about to deliver pronouncements. "Harbor Light Bookshop is hosting a mystery weekend with an actual bestselling author. That's success, Nell. Own it."

I wanted to own it. I'd spent three months planning this weekend, reaching out to Marcus Drummond's publicist, convincing Harlan Pratt to open the Fog Bell Inn off-season, designing flyers that I'd posted in every bookshop and library from Portland to Bar Harbor. A Weekend of Mystery at Maine's Most Atmospheric Lighthouse Inn. Six guests, three days, panel discussions and writing workshops by day, storm-watching and storytelling by night. It had sounded magical when I'd pitched it. Now, crossing Penobscot Bay with the sky the color of old pewter, it felt like I'd promised something I couldn't deliver.

The other passengers weren't helping my confidence.