I’m never going back to Cornwall

I’d always imagined a quieter life. Not retirement exactly, but something slower, softer. After the divorce, London became too loud, too fast, too much. So when a friend offered me his coastal cottage in Cornwall while he was away in Canada, I accepted. No hesitation. It sounded like the sort of place where you could hear yourself think — and forget who you’d been.

I arrived in mid-October, just as the days were growing short and the sky never seemed to stop spitting rain. The cottage was perched at the edge of a crumbling cliff, the kind of place that looks charming in brochures and slightly haunted in real life. Whitewashed walls, warped windows, and a persistent draught no matter how many logs I threw on the fire.

I spent the first few days walking the coastal path, reading, pretending to write. It was peaceful. Lonely, too, though I wouldn’t admit that until much later.

On the fourth evening, I wandered into the village proper. A single high street, a butcher, a post office, and a pub called The King’s Shilling. The sign outside was faded — a redcoat handing a coin to a grinning farmer. I pushed open the door, and every head turned. Classic small-town reception.

The pub was low-ceilinged and warm, smelling of ale and old stone. A fire snapped lazily in the hearth. Half a dozen older men nursed pints. One woman behind the bar, mid-60s, steel hair in a tight bun. She eyed me for a long second, then poured a Guinness without asking.

“You’re not from here,” she said, placing the pint in front of me.

“No,” I replied. “Just staying a few weeks. Writing.”

She nodded. “Writer. Thought so. You’ve got the look.”

I wasn’t sure what that meant, but I smiled anyway.

The locals watched me with something between suspicion and amusement. I tried to strike up conversation, but they responded in short answers and long silences. Only the bartender, whose name turned out to be Ruth, engaged much. She told me the town was called Tregowan, that her family had run the pub for three generations, and that not much ever happened there — “until it does.”

I asked her what she meant, but she just smirked and wiped down the bar.

I was about to leave when one of the regulars — tall, thin, with hands like old rope — leaned over and said, “You should stay for the lock-in.”

I blinked. “Sorry?”

“Lock-in,” Ruth repeated. “Bit of a tradition, now and then. After hours, no tourists, just us. You’d be welcome. Consider it a proper Cornish welcome.”

I hesitated. I hadn’t made any plans, and the night outside looked grim. The idea of being part of something local — even for one night — was oddly appealing. So I nodded.

They locked the doors. Drew the curtains. Turned off the outside lights. The rest of the world disappeared.

There were seven of us in total. Ruth poured a round of something clear and sharp — homemade, judging by the bottle. The talk turned looser, stranger. They told stories about the sea — not just shipwrecks and storms, but people going missing. “The sea takes what it’s owed,” one man said, dead serious. They all nodded, like it was a fact of life.

One by one, they told tales. A girl who’d vanished from her bedroom, her footprints ending at the cliff’s edge. A fisherman who came back speaking a language no one could understand. A diver whose body washed up perfectly preserved, eyes open, mouth full of seawater. Every time I laughed or asked questions, they fell quiet.

“It’s not a joke,” Ruth said eventually. “Not to us.”

After the second round, I began to feel… heavy. Not drunk — I knew what drunk felt like — but detached. Like my limbs didn’t belong to me. My vision narrowed, the room tilting slightly, the fire pulsing too brightly.

“I just need the toilet,” I mumbled.

Ruth pointed wordlessly toward the hallway.

I never made it. I remember reaching the end of the hallway, then the world went sideways. Everything bled into darkness.

I woke in cold silence.

Stone beneath me. Damp walls. My wrists ached — bound with what felt like twine. There was no light, save a dim glow filtering from a grate near the ceiling.

I tried to scream, but my mouth was dry, tongue swollen. Panic rose fast and sharp, a spike of pure animal fear. My limbs were numb, like I’d been lying there for hours.

Then came the footsteps. Slow, deliberate.

A door creaked open. Ruth entered, holding a torch. Her face was unreadable, hollowed by the shadows.

“You shouldn’t have come,” she said softly.

I tried to speak, but nothing came out.

“You weren’t chosen. You came uninvited. But we make do.”

Behind her, others appeared. The tall man. The one with the ropey hands. All of them silent, watching.

“We have a duty,” she said, kneeling beside me. “To the tide. To the rhythm. Every year, it takes someone. If not one of ours, then one of yours.”

She reached into a satchel and pulled out a knife. Small. Rusted. Not ceremonial — just old and used.

Terror gripped me. I began thrashing, trying to scream, anything. But my body betrayed me. I was still too weak.

“We never take locals,” she whispered. “It’s always the ones who come and think they’re just visiting. Just passing through.”

I heard movement from the far side of the room. A new voice.

“Gran?”

Everything froze.

It was a girl — no older than twelve. Pale, barefoot, standing at the top of the cellar stairs. Her voice carried an odd, clipped accent. Like someone imitating a local they’d only heard once.

“I told you not to come down here,” Ruth hissed.

The girl stepped forward, holding a phone. “I called the police.”

“No, you didn’t.”

The girl smiled. “I did. They’re coming.”

Ruth stood. The others exchanged glances. I saw fear for the first time. Real fear.

Then — noise. Sirens in the distance. Barking. Flashlights.

When I came to again, I was in the back of an ambulance. The police had found me in the pub’s cellar, drugged, dehydrated, bound. They arrested Ruth and four others on charges ranging from attempted murder to unlawful imprisonment. The knife had my blood on it, though I had no memory of being cut.

But here’s where it gets strange.

There was no girl.

No one saw her. No one could find her. The phone she supposedly used to call the police? Didn’t exist. The call came from an anonymous tip. No name, no number. Just a voice, flat and clipped, saying, “There’s a man in the cellar of the King’s Shilling. They’re going to kill him.”

Even stranger — the villagers denied everything. Said Ruth had gone senile, that she’d acted alone. But her diary told a different story. Pages of ritual notes. Names, dates. Offerings.

Most chilling were the clippings found hidden beneath the bar.

Visitors gone missing. One every few years. Always outsiders. Always around October.

No bodies ever found.

It’s been 2 weeks now. I’ve tried to forget. I’ve moved back to London. Seen a therapist. Avoided the sea.

But this morning, I received a parcel. No return address.

Inside was a photo.

Black and white. Old.

It showed a group of villagers standing outside the King’s Shilling in the 1960s. Ruth was there, much younger. So were the others.

And in the corner — half in shadow — stood the same girl who’d saved me.

Same age. Same face. Same blank expression.

I turned the photo over.

One sentence was scrawled on the back, in neat, looping handwriting:

“The sea remembers what it’s owed.”