The Tidekeeper’s Map

At dawn, the harbor of Gullhaven breathed salt and rope and smoke from little cooking fires. Nets dripped like sleepy hair from the posts. Gulls squabbled over a bucket and then rose as one white shrug when the first skiff pushed out. Nia stood on the bell platform with bare feet hooked over the worn plank edge, her toes tasting the cool. The bell rope was twice her height. She leaned back and pulled with all her might.

The small tide bell woke with a bronze yawn, then a clear ring that ran along the water like a silver fish. Nia’s arms trembled. She grinned at the sound anyway. “Up, sleepyheads,” she told the bell as if it were a cat. “Don’t let the harbor miss you.”

A door creaked behind her. Maris came out with a mug of tea wrapped in a cloth. Her hair was the color of foam on rocks, and she wore a blue shawl with tiny shells sewn to the fringe. They chimed when she moved. “You pulled well,” Maris said, offering Nia a sip. “Sweet tea for a strong ring.”

“It’s easier when the sea helps,” Nia said, peering past piles of coiled rope toward the open water. The tide made its old soft shushing. The smell of tar and kelp and ripe pears from the market mingled like a stew. “Listen, Gran. She’s in a good mood today.”

Maris’s eyes softened. “She. Always she, with you.”

“Because the sea sings,” Nia said simply.

A lanky boy clattered by on stilts, tapping the tops of posts to check their strength. “Morning, bell girls!” he called. Tam, the post-tester, never went anywhere without leaving long marks of laughter behind him. He clicked his stilts together and sent a spray of droplets. “Market’s waking. The baker set out honey buns the size of my head.”

“Your head is hollow and full of buns,” Maris teased. “Tell Halla to keep two back for us. We’ll trade with proper coins after the second bell.”

Tam saluted with one stilt and kept going, clack-tap, clack-tap. Nia leaned into the rope again, feeling the bell’s heart tremble in her hands. When the note faded, the harbor seemed to lean with it, like the whole town breathed to the bell’s rhythm. That was how it always felt. The bells called, the sea answered, and the people knew when to mend, when to set out, when to come home.

“Fetch the small mallet,” Maris said. “We’ll wake the wind-chimes at the shrine and thank the Moon-shell before the second ring.”

Nia hopped down, landed light, and ran along the planks past baskets of wriggling eels and a pile of shiny anchors. A cat with a torn ear pretended not to watch her. The shrine stood at the end of the pier, a little roof of driftwood and glass bottles that caught the sun and scattered it in green and blue. Inside, the Moon-shell sat on an altar of stones. It pulsed faintly, like a sleeping firefly. Beside it hung strings of wind-chimes made from cut spoons and bits of chart.

Nia picked up the mallet. She touched the shell with her finger, the way Maris had taught her: light, respectful. “Thank you for yesterday’s safe catch,” she whispered. “Please watch over the boats today.” She struck the chimes and a silver rain of sound fell around her. It sent a tickle through her bones. She always thought the shell listened and smiled.