Whisperglass Tide

The furnace breathed like an animal. Heat climbed Kaito’s cheeks and settled behind his eyes, a steady pressure that turned sweat into tiny rivulets along his temples. He rolled a gather of molten glass at the end of his blowpipe, the orange bulb thickening and slumping like honey, and listened for the hum. It wasn’t a sound so much as a tension in the air, a thread plucked somewhere near his sternum. The studio doors were propped open to the harbor, and the night sent in salt, diesel, and the faint chatter of gulls who refused to sleep.

Aunt Lita scraped a paddle across the workbench. The paddle’s scorched edges smoked. ‘Your wall thickness is uneven. Breathe, don’t puff. Think like seaweed in a current, not storm wind.’

Kaito adjusted his lips to the blowpipe, cheeks soft, shoulders loose. The bubble expanded. His reflection wavered in the orange sheen: dark hair escaped from his bandana, a smudge of soot across his jaw. The wordless hum followed the breath down the pipe and into the glass. It made the hairs on his arms rise.

Outside, a low horn pulsed. From the pier came the thud of new pilings, the metallic bark of orders. BlueRise banners snapped in the night wind, their white logo gleaming against navy canvas. Workers in reflective vests swung lights over the water; cranes lifted steel like bones. Everyone had an opinion about the barrier they were building. On the radio people said it would protect Greyhaven when storms marched in. In the diner people said it would choke the kelp forests and push tides into the old quarter.

Roz slid into the doorway and rocked back on her heels. Boards clacked under her boots. ‘You look cooked. Finish soon? The tide pools are firing tonight. Whole bowls of stars if you look close.’

‘One more pull,’ Kaito said. ‘Lita wants eight of these, same pattern.’

Aunt Lita grunted. ‘And not thin at the shoulder, or they’ll crack like bad jokes.’ She wiped her brow with a bandana, then tilted her head toward the harbor. ‘You hear that? Tide’s wrong. You feel it in your bones if you’ve lived here long enough.’

Kaito did feel something, a drag that pulled against his breath. He cupped the glass with a wooden block soaked in water. Steam rose and the surface glossy skin trembled. A note trembled with it. He sucked in a hiss. ‘Do you hear that?’

‘Hear what?’ Roz stepped closer, hair damp with salt fog. She smelled like the pier, like ropes and wet wood.

‘It’s like…’ He didn’t know how to say it without sounding like a child telling ghost stories. ‘Never mind.’ He turned toward the marver, trying to press the feeling into the right shape.

The hum followed. Not in his ears. In the room. In the glass.