Pell’s loft smells of lamp oil, wet wool, and patience.

The tide clock is a circle of marks that do not care about anyone’s hurry. Pell taps the moon-phase: almost a coin. “Spring tide,” she says. “Not the season. The kind where Moon and Sun pull on the same team. Flood will be greedy. Ebb will be greedy. Put a storm on it and the bar grows a legend.”

Skipper Wren’s voice floats up from the quay, counting torn meshes. Last week’s blow made lace of good net. Wren wants extra sets down now, before the next water, as if fish were a pantry you could empty ahead of weather.

Old Merrick is already in the good chair, because Merrick is in the good chair in every scene of Salt-Turn that involves a story. Merrick holds up one finger, then two, then three.

“Selkies peel their coats and walk,” Merrick says. “Also, a water-horse drowns the grabby. Also, a village that marks the Promise-Post and leaves the breeding rock will eat in winter. All true. Don’t look at me like that. Stories are pockets. You can keep more than one stone in a pocket.”

Pip mouths we need fish.

You mouth we need the Stack.

Pell turns a page in her tide-book. Columns of highs and lows, moon-marks like seeds. “People think the sea is moody,” she says. “The sea is punctual. We are the moody ones. A full moon isn’t a spell. It’s two pulls in agreement. The storm doesn’t make a kelpie. It makes the bar’s breaking line tall enough to nickname.”

Outside, the fog-lane is thinning in a wind that does not mean well. Slides do not wait for speeches.