Grey Stack’s landward face has a scar you have walked past a hundred times and called old.

It is a line of barnacles and stain, chest-high on you, higher than any ordinary flood you remember. Carved under it, clumsy and sure: WIND + SPRING. Someone kept a record with a knife because paper hates salt.

Brine, if Brine is with you, only nods. If you are alone, the seals still haul and watch, which is also a nod.

Storm surge: wind piling water. Spring tide: Moon and Sun already piling water. Together they write on rock. A kelpie-story that says the horse comes over the town is this line, wearing hooves.

Pip whistles. “Wren’s extra nets on this water are just donations to the bar.”

You can take the awkward truth to the quay, where fear is already counting meshes.

You can take it to the Promise-Post and make both peoples listen: selkie-edge, skipper-edge, one pole.