You talk until your throat is kelp-rough.

Not a lecture. A stack of true objects: Pell’s spring, the Slip’s rip-gap, Grey Stack’s WIND + SPRING, the coat with whisker-holes, Merrick’s third pocket—the village that marks the Post and eats in winter. You say kelpie and point at the breaking line until the word and the water sit down together.

The boy from net-mending takes his foot back. Ropes lower. Someone laughs the good laugh, the one that means we almost did a stupid play.

Brine’s eyes are wet, which might be weather. The haul-out stays occupied. No skin is waved. No horse is hunted. The Storm-Horse remains a line of white you can respect without feeding.

Merrick, from the lane, says, “That’s four stones in the pocket. Don’t sew it shut.”

You sleep that night with salt in your hair and no trophy on the wall. The fish, if they have opinions, keep them under the kelp.

THE END

What you learned: drowning-tales (kelpies) and skin-tales (selkies) often guard real dangers and real animals. Saying the science aloud—tides, rips, surge, haul-outs—does not kill wonder. It gives wonder a job: keeping people off the bar and coats on the people who need them.