The Saltwater Static

The summer I turned twelve, my family rented a weathered beach house on a stretch of coast known for its sudden fogs and unmarked tide pools. My friend Elliot and I were the only kids there, and his parents had invited mine for a long weekend of grilled fish and sunburns. The house was called the Gull’s Rest, a three-story Victorian with a widow’s walk, and it creaked like a ship in dry dock.

On our second day, I went upstairs to fetch my swim trunks from my suitcase. The hallway was dim, the only light filtering through a stained-glass window at the far end. As I passed the door to Elliot’s room, I saw a flicker of movement in the corner of my eye—a pale shape, like a crumpled sheet, but upright. I called out, ‘Hello?’ The shape didn’t move. It just stood there, half-hidden by the doorframe.

I felt a cold knot tighten in my stomach, but I told myself it was just a trick of the light. I ducked into the bathroom to change, and when I came out, the door to Elliot’s room was ajar. I hadn’t opened it. Elliot and his parents were still downstairs, laughing over something. I tiptoed to the doorway and peered inside.

A girl sat on the edge of Elliot’s bed, her back to me. She wore a thin, old-fashioned nightgown, and her hair was damp, dripping onto the floorboards. I recognized her silhouette—the sharp slope of her shoulders, the way she tucked her feet under the mattress—from a photograph on the mantel downstairs. It was Elliot’s great-aunt, who had drowned in the cove back in the ’60s.

‘Why’d you open the door?’ I asked. My voice came out shaky. The girl turned her head, and I saw her face—pale like wet paper, with dark, hollow eyes. She said, ‘I didn’t.’ I swallowed and stepped closer, trying to believe she was just a forgotten cousin or a neighbor’s kid. ‘What are you doing in here?’ I asked. She began to cry, a sound like water seeping through wood, and then she bolted past me, down the stairs, her bare feet slapping against the steps.

I chased after her, my heart hammering. The stairs led to the main hallway, which opened into the living room. I heard my mother laugh and Elliot’s father say something about the tide. But when I reached the bottom, there was no girl. There was a puddle of seawater spreading across the floor, and the sound of the ocean, which had been muffled all day, was suddenly deafening through the open front door.

I ran outside, onto the porch. The fog had rolled in thicker, swallowing the beach. I squinted toward the water, and there she was—the girl, standing at the edge of the surf, her nightgown plastered to her body. She raised one arm and pointed at the cove, where the tide pools glittered like black glass. Then she walked into the waves, and the sea swallowed her without a sound.

I didn’t tell anyone what I’d seen. I couldn’t. But that night, as I lay in my room, I heard a faint, rhythmic sound—like static, but wet, like water rushing through a radio. It came from the wall beside my bed. I pressed my ear to the wood and heard a girl’s voice, humming an old lullaby, her words half-buried under the hiss of salt and foam. The next morning, the puddle on the floor was gone, but the photo of Elliot’s great-aunt had been turned face-down on the mantel.

We left the next day. But sometimes, when I’m near any large body of water, I still hear that static in my head, and I know she’s waiting for another child to hear her call.