You stay low. You count the lightning. If Jonah is here, you keep his elbows on the safe side of the rail when the water chops the lights into a lie.

Aunt Mara’s headlamps find you like a punctuation mark. She does not run; keepers who run on dikes teach the wrong lesson. She walks, checks the railing with her glove, and listens to your report as if you were already on the payroll.

You tell it true from what you have: lights that are not doors; peat that is a sponge; thunder that you timed; a marsh alive as an ecosystem—plants rotting into gas, birds, weather, kids with notebooks. No omen that isn’t a falling sky. No woman in the trees who isn’t an animal doing its job.

Mara’s mouth does the almost-smile that means good. “Next summer,” she says, “junior-keeper badge. You already did the night part. The rest is tying knots and not getting cute with mud.”

Jonah, if he is here, groans, delighted. “Do I get a badge for almost chasing?”

“You get cocoa,” Mara says. “Then whoever has notes gets to copy them.”

The storm moves inland. Hollow Marsh breathes out fog like a secret it is willing to share with anyone who stays on the boards.

THE END

What you learned: storms are electricity, moisture, and pressure, not omens. Counting the gap after lightning measures distance. A marsh is alive as an ecosystem—and junior keepers keep people on the railing while they look.