Eli rigged the skiff like a confession—slow, careful, admitting everything. He checked the winch twice, the knots thrice, the spare blade he kept taped under the seat for luck and other lies.
Cloud stacked on cloud to the west, but the wind was still telling the truth. He pushed off at slack tide, when decisions pull the least.
Back on the mark, he sounded the bottom and found the same wrong flatness, the kind that says something is pretending to be earth when it isn’t.
He dropped a grapnel and felt it bite. The line came tight in a way that woke muscles he’d named after storms. He fed it through the winch and let the motor do what backs shouldn’t.
Up came weeds, then silt, then the chain again—closer, angrier, a spine of iron links slick with stories. The skiff shuddered, complaining in its planks.
Something clanged aft—an echo off metal he hadn’t seen yet. Eli glanced over his shoulder and caught it: a second line of links ghosting up on the far side, as if the sea had always been holding hands with itself.
He swallowed the part of him that wanted to wave Hank over and choose sense. Instead, he reached for the gaff and told himself this was just work, not memory wearing boots.
Then the winch screamed, the bow dipped, and the ocean let him know he wasn’t the only one pulling.
