Mara counted the boats before she opened the lighthouse shutters. One fewer than yesterday, though the village bells hadn’t yet marked dawn. The harbor murmured of voices—weathered men squinting at a returned vessel’s listing hull, sails unfurled like damp linen.
She checked the tide book twice. Numbers were easier to trust than miracles. She brewed tea in a chipped enamel cup, its dregs thick as sludge. The letter lay on the table, corners curled like dead leaves.
Salt crystals crusted its folds—her father’s hand, unmistakable, though the ink had bled into the paper’s fibers like tide stains on rock. “The cursed keel rides again,” it began, “when the tide knows no master.”