Character Profile
Soraya
Age 24. An archivist and historian at the maritime museum. Soraya came home for the 250th and solved Ebenezer Crowther's cipher — following the marks from the harbour stone to the church floor to the lighthouse cornerstone. She found the names of the eleven lost in the keeper's journal, and the survivor's descendant, Eliza Sea. She's writing the full history now, with Eliza, so the story lasts another two hundred and fifty years.
Merhaven village The village library Old records
Favourite Things
The village archive
Still her favourite place. She followed Ebenezer's cipher through the parish minutes, the shipping records, and the keeper's logs.
The cipher
Ebenezer's puzzle — a chain of marks across Merhaven that only a village that knew its own places could solve. Soraya solved it.
The names
Eleven people, lost in 1783, forgotten for two hundred and fifty years. Soraya found them in the journal and read them aloud to the village.
The locket
Adaeze's gold locket, carried by Ebenezer for forty years, returned to her descendant Eliza at the 250th. Soraya helped give it back.
Skills
Sharp eyes
She found the names in the keeper's journal — a page she'd read a hundred times, but never with the question of the names in mind.
Research
She traced the survivor through the parish registers of every village within ten miles, and found Eliza Sea in the electoral roll.
Solving the cipher
She followed Ebenezer's marks from the harbour to the church to the cornerstone — the chain the builder left for the village.
Patience
She read the last page of the private journal at midnight, and found the second hiding place and the survivor. The careful work won again.
"He didn't just hide the truth. He made us look for it."
— Soraya