Chapter 6: The Arrival at the East Pier

By the time Arthur and Caleb reached the outskirts of Whitby, dusk was settling over the coastal town, dragging with it a bitter, sea-salted chill. The fog here was even thicker, rolling in off the open water of the North Sea to choke the mouth of the River Esk. It clung to the timber-framed houses crowding Sandside and Grape Lane, turning the oil lamps along the quay into pale, bleeding halos.

They hurried down through the narrow, cobbled alleys of the Old Town toward the harbor entrance. The air smelled heavily of salt, coal smoke, and something else—that same stagnant, frigid rot of deep-sea mud that had filled the darkroom in Robin Hood's Bay.

At the base of the East Pier, a gathering of harbor watchmen stood huddled around a brazier, their faces drawn and pale in the flickering firelight.

"Caleb?" one of the men called out, stepping forward with an unlit lantern. "What brings you up from the Bay in a sea fret like this?"

"The schooner," Caleb said, catching his breath. "Did she come past the piers?"

The watchman spat into the water, his hand trembling slightly as he gestured toward the mouth of the harbor. "She didn't just come past, Caleb. She came in silent as a grave, against the wind and the pull of the ebb tide. She’s sitting just beyond the pier head now, anchored fast in forty fathoms."

Arthur stepped past the watchmen and walked out onto the slick, wet stones of the East Pier. The sea was unnaturally calm, the water smooth as black glass.

Rising out of the white mist twenty yards from the pier head were the three gaunt masts of the Dolphin. She sat dead in the water, her splintered yards stark against the twilight sky. But unlike in Robin Hood's Bay, the iron anchor chain stretched from her bow was not descending into the harbor channel.

It was drawn taut across the stone quay of the pier itself, disappearing directly into the mud-slicked rock at the foot of the East Cliff, right beneath the shadow of the 199 Steps.

"It’s anchored into the cliff," Arthur whispered, taking his camera case off his shoulder.

"Look at the steps, lad," Caleb said, coming up beside him and raising his lantern.

The yellow light illuminated the bottom of the ancient stone staircase that climbed the sheer face of the cliff toward St Mary’s Churchyard and the Abbey ruins above.

Pressed into the damp shale of the bottom step was a clear, dripping footprint, caked in dark gray silt. A step higher lay another. And another. A continuous, wet trail led steadily upward into the darkness toward the high cliff, disappearing into the swirling fog above.

There were no returning footprints heading down. Whatever had stepped off the ghostly deck had begun its ascent toward the Abbey.

Arthur opened his satchel, pulling out one of his unexposed glass negatives. Even in the gloom, he could see the delicate silver nitrate film on the glass twitching, reacting to the invisible presence that moved up the rock.

"They're going to the heights," Arthur said, looking up toward the looming black silhouette of the Abbey ruins on the cliff top. "We have to follow them."