The bar is not a road. It is a back that rolls.

Your first step finds sand that was there. Your second step finds sand that is leaving. Water sheets across, cold as a dare. The foam-horse does not wait to be ridden. It rebuilds behind you, which is a kind of surround.

Pip shouts from the lane. You do not have time to be brave in a useful way. You have time to be a body in a current.

Brine is suddenly at the edge of possible, boat-coat flapping, not coming onto the bar because Brine is not a fool. “Wait,” Brine calls. “The gap is the mouth. Don’t feed it.”

The water pulls. Your knees argue. You can freeze and let the next sheet tell you whether you still have a sandbar, and then back off the way you came, eyes on Brine’s pointing arm.

Or you can decide that legends are won by charging, and go after the next mane toward open sea.