Years ago, my dear daughter, after a fierce storm struck the village, the villagers awoke to the sound of a loud bell. Everyone rushed toward the sound to find a gigantic bell lying on the sand near the old lighthouse—massive in size, with a dreadful, majestic tone. They did not know where it came from, when, how, or who had brought it. They tried to move it but could not; not even the strongest young men in the village could budge it an inch.

It remained there for days. Stories and rumors circulated around it (or rather, were spread by Umm Afzal). Some said the mermaid loved Ibrahim, the son of Chief Amara, who drowned on a fishing trip, unknown to her at the time. So she brought this enormous bell at night and placed it there to toll every time a fisherman drowned, so his beloved would know his fate and not suffer like her. Others claimed that Narjis, the old Gypsy woman living on the village outskirts, was practicing black magic and had cursed the bell. She was expelled after villagers discovered her sorcery, and the bell’s tolling caused all the women in the village to suffer whenever it rang.

Some believed it was the bell from a giant ship that sank years ago, carried by sea waves until it washed ashore near them. Many tales surrounded this strange bell, only deepening its mystery. What made it even stranger was the connection between its tolls and fishing boat drownings—whenever a fishing vessel sank, the bell tolled by itself. It became a symbol of death in this small coastal village. Every time it tolled, all the village women would wail and cry, mourning someone unknown but surely a husband, son, or father lost at sea. Each toll struck like lashings on the body of anyone with a loved one lost to the sea. People feared the unknown and avoided the bell.