Ahus

Ahus remained unmapped. But that night, every window facing the water held a lit candle.

Albin’s father arrived on the noon tide. He hugged his son so hard the boy squeaked. Then he looked at Eira.

“No,” she said. “But I think that’s all right.”

Eira went to the church. The bell had been silent since the last keeper before Soren—a woman named Helena—had rung it during the nameless tide of 1947. She had rung it to call the villagers to safety. The tide had answered instead. The bell had not moved since, and no one had been able to climb the tower without feeling the stone grow cold and wrong under their hands.

She walked home. She put the kettle on. And in the quiet of her kitchen, with the window open to the sea, she finally let herself cry—not for what she had lost, but for what she had chosen to keep.

Albin knelt at the edge. He could smell bread baking. He could hear someone humming. He wanted, more than anything, to step into that reflection.

He took it.

“Eira,” Albin said, appearing at his door as she passed. His hair stuck up like dry grass. “The nameless tide is tonight.”