Ahus |top| -

Eira took his hand. His fingers were cold, chapped from hauling crab pots. “Good. The nameless tide respects fear. It’s the careless it takes.” By noon, the sea had turned the color of pewter. The villagers moved with a slow, deliberate purpose—securing boats, shuttering windows, bringing livestock into the old stone byre. No one spoke of the tide directly. Instead, they said things like “The wind has a long memory today” and “My grandmother used to put iron nails above the door this time of year.”

And the bell in the stone church, for the first time in forty years, rang once. Eira took his hand

“That’s not your mother,” Eira said. She had tied the rope around her waist and was walking slowly across the wet stones, the iron bell chiming softly with each step. The sound cut through the hum. “The nameless tide shows you what you lack most. But it’s a painting, Albin. A beautiful lie. You step into it, and you become part of the lie. You don’t live there. You just decorate it.” The nameless tide respects fear

Albin took a shuddering breath. “I don’t want to be alone.” No one spoke of the tide directly

Albin was twelve, the youngest person in Ahus. His mother had died at sea. His father worked the night watch on a trawler and was home only two days a week. The village raised Albin collectively, which meant he was both fiercely independent and deeply mothered by seven different women who left him bread, jam, and unsolicited advice.

He took it.

Albin’s father arrived on the noon tide. He hugged his son so hard the boy squeaked. Then he looked at Eira.