Chapter 3: Copperplate Shards

Thomas gripped his phone so hard his knuckles went white, the screen’s cold blue glow tracing the tight line of his jaw, where a silence so deep it had no words held a knot of raw anxiety. Margaret’s final warning cut through him like a blade of ice, instantly freezing the last shred of hope he’d allowed himself to keep.

He killed the power, severing the last thread to the outside world, and shoved the phone deep into his coat’s inner pocket, as if that could somehow block the storm bearing down on him. Outside, a jagged crack of thunder roared over the roof like a beast’s bellow, sending the windowpanes rattling in their frames.

He snatched up the film reel from the desk, the one with obvious scratches across its surface. His fingertips traced the rough edge of the celluloid as his gaze flicked to the nautical chart on the wall—half-hung, one corner soaked dark with rain. The coordinates were smudged but pointed unmistakably to the old lighthouse on the north shore, the derelict SS St. Mary, the last place his father had been and the only blind spot in the surveillance grid.

No main roads. No tracks. That was the iron rule his father had left behind. Thomas pulled his collar tight, wound a scarf around his neck, and pushed open the back window. Wet, heavy air slammed into his face; rain soaked his shoulders in a heartbeat, the chill racing up his spine and straight to his skull. This storm wasn’t just nature howling in its fury—it was fate, silent and cruel, delivering its verdict.

He had to get there before dawn. Otherwise, even this last clue would dissolve like fog at sunrise.

The muddy path flickered in and out of view under the violent tearing of lightning. Thomas splashed through it, one foot deep, the other shallow, every step sinking into the soft, rotting earth. Mud crept up his trouser legs, cold and biting. Just as he rounded a rusted breakwater, a harsh beam from a flashlight cut through the dark like a sword, forcing him to freeze.

Victoria Ellis stood next to a corroded iron barrel, her figure slender but straight. She held a sketchbook, her expression focused, watchful. She was the draftsman at the shipping archives, recently the subject of whispered rumors for her frequent incursions into the forbidden docks. Right now, her eyes held the look of someone with nothing left to lose.

They stared at each other. The air was thick with the damp, briny stench of the sea, mixed with the sharp tang of rust and decaying kelp. Victoria raised a hand, signaling him to be quiet. Then she closed the sketchbook, her gaze sweeping over his soaked coat without a word of question. There was only action.

In this crisis, she was the only one who could decode his father’s cipher, the only companion who hadn’t betrayed his trust.

Thomas stepped forward quickly. Rain ran off his brow, blurring his vision. Victoria skipped the pleasantries, flipping open the sketchbook. In the weak light of the flashlight, she pointed to the complex geometric lines on the page. “These Morse Code fragments only form complete coordinates from a specific angle.

They don’t point to the harbor. They point to the abandoned cellar at the base of the Lighthouse. Your father must have hidden the key evidence there, that night.”

Thomas took the sketchbook. His fingers were stiff with cold, trembling slightly against the edge of the paper, but the fire in his eyes burned hotter. He finally understood the logic behind those scratches. It wasn’t random damage. It was an encrypted testament, a puzzle his father had written with his life.

Victoria closed the book, her voice urgent, cut through by the noise of the storm. “The storm is coming in fast, the seas are terrible. If we’re going, we have to move now. The cellar entrance to the Lighthouse is at the midsection, only exposed at high tide. It’s the last part of the ebb right now—less than twenty minutes before we’re stuck.”

Thomas nodded. His Adam’s apple bobbed in his throat. No wasted words. They climbed side by side through the mud. Loose gravel shifted beneath their feet with a sharp, grating sound. Every breath tasted of rust. It felt like time itself was solidifying. His father had told him once: the ocean doesn’t lie. It just sinks the truth to the deepest depths, waiting for someone brave enough to pull it up.

By the time they reached the base of the Lighthouse, the wind was howling like a beast, pounding against the stone walls with dull, heavy thuds. They forced open the heavy iron door, the hinges groaning in a pitch that set their teeth on edge. Inside the cellar, the darkness was thick and the air so still it felt suffocating, thick with the smell of old tobacco and moldy paper.

Thomas clicked on his flashlight. The beam trembled against the damp stone walls, illuminating the shadows in the corner. There, lying quietly, was a heavy canvas tarp, covered in layered salt crystals. Under the light, it shimmered with an eerie sheen, like bones forgotten by time.

He crouched down. With trembling hands, he peeled back the tarp. His fingertips touched cold metal. For a second, the chaotic noise around him seemed to fade. It was a rough Copper Plate Fragment, its edges uneven, marked by the cruel passage of years.

The inscriptions on the fragment were clear. The letters “E.B.” stood out boldly. Next to them was a date—the last day before the SS St. Mary sank. Thomas’s pupils shrank. His heartbeat boomed in his ears, drowning out the thunder outside. This was the mark his father had left behind. Not a confession of guilt, but evidence of crime.

He carefully turned the fragment, letting the light sweep across the uneven engravings. Victoria leaned in, speaking in a low voice. “Look at the oxidation layer on the edge. That’s a bronze-colored crystal formation from long-term erosion by seawater.”

Thomas took the fragment and examined it closely against the light source. The corrosion formed a natural spiral pattern, not the uniform texture of artificial acid etching. He recalled the records from his father’s lab. Navigational instruments from the late nineteenth century usually used a specific ratio of copper-nickel alloy, highly resistant to corrosion, with a unique color when oxidized.

The texture of this fragment matched the historical records perfectly. No modern forgery could imitate this. The weight of the truth pressed down on his chest, making it hard to breathe. His father hadn’t just survived; he had taken this badge of sin, sealed it here, and waited for his son to uncover the buried past.

Suddenly, a sharp clang of metal hitting rock echoed from behind them, jarring in the silent cellar. Thomas spun around. The beam of light swept across the cellar entrance, catching a tall figure leaning against the wall. He held a pistol, but the barrel wasn’t pointed at them; it hung loose at his side. It was George Graves.

Graves’s face was pale. Rain dripped from his hair, soaking his expensive suit. His eyes were a mess of conflicting emotions—fear, regret, and a kind of exhausted relief that bordered on liberation. He slowly lowered the gun, pulled a sealed document bag from his coat, and tossed it on the ground. It landed with a dull thud, like a sigh.

Graves’s voice was hoarse, trembling. “Don’t move. I got Margaret’s warning too. But I want to know the why more than you do.”

He nudged the bag with his toe, his voice dropping. “It’s a copy of another testament. The handwriting is identical to your father’s. I stole the original. That’s my stain, the shame I can’t wash off. But at the last minute, I saved you. Because I couldn’t stand the lie covering up the truth any longer.

Now, we’re both standing on the edge of a cliff. Do we jump, or do we step back?”

Thomas narrowed his eyes, wary. He didn’t step back, and he didn’t step forward. He held his ground, a meter away, watching Graves’s micro-expressions. This rival, this former thief, looked fragile and real right now, like a piece of porcelain about to shatter.

Thomas spoke, his voice terrifyingly steady, as if he had stripped away all emotion. “What does the copy in your hand prove? If it’s just the same lie, we’re both wasting time.”

Graves offered a bitter smile, the corners of his mouth stretching into a pale arc. “Not a lie. Another side of the story. Your father didn’t abandon anyone. He was running from a bigger conspiracy.”

Victoria cut in, her gaze sharp as a knife. “Have him verify the plate. If the fragment is real, then the documents he holds have corroborating value. Stop talking in circles. Look at the evidence.”

Graves nodded, gesturing for Thomas to approach. Thomas walked slowly toward the plate, crouched down, and felt the metal’s temperature and texture with his hand again. He pointed to the corroded pattern for Graves. “Look at the thickness of this oxidation layer. It takes at least twenty years of natural erosion to form this depth. A forgery can’t reach that level.

It’s real. Your father’s identity is confirmed.”

Graves fell silent for a moment. Rain dripped through the gaps in the roof above him, pooling on the floor. He pulled a yellowed photograph from the bag. The edges of the paper were curled. It showed a young father standing on the deck of the SS St. Mary, looking brooding, with a gray, dark sea in the background.

He met Thomas’s eyes directly and laid out the fatal condition. “I can give you this document, along with all the data I have on the route anomalies that night. But I have one condition.”

Thomas stared at him, his fingers gripping the edge of the Copper Plate so hard his knuckles turned white. Graves continued, his voice low and earnest. “You drop the investigation into your father’s crimes. At least, drop it publicly. We have to protect the family that’s left. We can’t let the storm swallow everything.”

Thomas looked at the clear “E.B.” on the plate. The storm howled outside, as if trying to tear the Lighthouse apart. He was trapped in a massive dilemma: cling to the bone-chilling cold of the truth, or accept the warm illusion of compromise? Victoria watched silently from the side, saying nothing. Only the wail of the sea wind filled the suffocating blank space.

The plate in his hand was heavy as iron. It was a scar left by the past, and the foundation for the choice that lay ahead.