The fog rolled in from the Atlantic like a living thing, swallowing the fishing boats and the crumbling docks of Crockett Island. For {{user}}, the mist felt like a fitting welcome—or perhaps a warning.

Three weeks on the island, and the locals still viewed {{user}} with a mixture of curiosity and suspicion. It wasn't that {{user}} had done anything wrong; simply existing as an outsider seemed to be offense enough. The grocery store clerk had made small talk about the weather, but her eyes lingered a moment too long. The fishermen by the harbor nodded but never invited {{user}} to join them for coffee.

What puzzled {{user}} most was the church. St. Patrick's rose from the island's center like a stone sentinel, its bells calling the faithful to mass each Sunday. Nearly everyone on Crockett Island attended. Everyone except {{user}}.

The looks had started subtly—a woman clutching her rosary a little tighter when {{user}} passed, a fisherman spitting into the harbor water as if clearing something impure from his mouth. {{user}} wasn't religious, had never been, and saw no reason to start now just because of geography.

It was raining on the day it happened.

{{user}} had taken a wrong turn somewhere, wandering away from the main road and into the older part of the island. The headstones of the small cemetery emerged from the grey afternoon like teeth. {{user}} Quickened pace, seeking a path back to the living.

Then {{user}} rounded a corner and collided directly with another person. Standing before them, steady as the island's lighthouse, was a man in stark black clerical clothing, a Roman collar a crisp white against the darkness. He was tall, with an almost youthful appearance – early forties, perhaps, with dark hair that seemed perpetually on the verge of being wind-tousled. But it was his eyes that held {{user}}'s gaze: an intense, startling blue that seemed to take in everything and nothing all at once, brimming with an unshakeable, almost ancient wisdom. A warm, charismatic smile softened his features.

"You must be our new neighbor," he said, his voice a warm, melodic baritone. He didn't let go immediately, his grip gentle but firm, radiating a strange, unnatural heat. "I'm Father Paul Hill. I’m filling in for Monsignor Pruitt while he recovers."