The rope Nume laid down would not straighten.
Its wet bends had dried into place. Sera laid the curve across last night’s chart. A changed wind changed the direction the boat was pushed, the captain said. One red triangle could not contain that change.
“I shouldn’t have marked the current as a point.”
“A point won’t drag a boat.” Nume tapped the paper’s edge. “Show me how far around it I need to go. Leave enough room for me to turn.”
Sera did not erase the red triangle. She drew different boundaries around yesterday’s observations and the area to check today. At the Chart Office, overlapping lines meant drawing a fresh chart. Start again now, and yesterday’s mistake would be the first thing to disappear.
Small containers with tied lids waited on the pier instead of the empty water barrel. Dry grain and drinking water, selected with the rescued residents’ help and their recollections of what remained on Maru. Nume lifted each before loading it.
Supplies did not fill the space needed for people. Yet there was no promise of taking passengers today. With the change in weather, even small waves broke against the rocks where the reflector had stood yesterday.
“A place where we can deliver things isn’t necessarily a place where we can take people aboard.”
Nume said it loudly enough for those on the pier. The white-haired woman did not put the little shoes on today’s boat. Instead, she pressed the drinking-water lid once more, then withdrew her hand.
Sera thought she would remember that hand for a long time.
Varen carried the last reserve lightstone to the lantern room. Climbing beside him, she sketched its unused clarity. Small ripples floated in layers inside it. The entire sea seemed to rest inside something the size of two palms.
After using that sea, they would need three days of sunlight.
The stone serving Roan’s ordinary beacon had already been in use for a long time. Divert all of its light to a new rescue lane and they would lose the marker at the pier entrance. Having a reserve did not mean having light to spend freely.
Varen fitted the clear stone without lighting it.
“Eyes at the other end first.”
Sera went down to the boathouse. Tio had moved the support a step above yesterday’s flooded floor. The beam remained; the wet wedges had loosened. He replaced them with dry ones and shook the support himself.
“Good. It won’t come up to our knees today. On this board, anyway.”
He added the last part more quietly. Sera checked the water below and chose a withdrawal mark. Needing a low viewpoint did not oblige them to stay in a wet one.
Maru’s white wall was visible. A reflector moved before it. She rested her ruler on the support, recorded the time, and sent the pre-departure signal to check whether the other observer could see the same boat.
An answer came, followed by the established emergency head-count signal. Sera and Tio counted the long and short repetitions separately. Both counted nine.
Beside nine lines of names, she added: confirmed today.
Before departure, Nume shared pieces of dry bread. Sera almost refused because she had begun observing, then accepted. Yesterday she had not noticed her failing legs until the boat returned. Today her body needed preparing before the way opened.
Tio divided his bread and pocketed half. Asked why, he said nerves made him hungry twice. They laughed briefly, turning so crumbs would not fall on the paper.
Low clouds passed beyond the missing wall. Sunlight failed and returned; the reflector darkened with it. Sera marked observations made in shadow separately, to distinguish Or stopping his signal from a cloud covering the light.
Once, wind turned the distant panel, making the white point waver in a long streak. She withheld the departure signal until the person there secured it. Or’s arm rose again, and the agreed response returned.
She left the waiting interval in her record. Time lost while the boat remained at the pier cost no one a life. Nume did not resent the delay. The captain waited for the distant eyes to be ready, holding the sail rope loosely and checking the wind again.
Varen released the light. The lane was shorter and more oblique than yesterday’s. Sera showed Nume the revised return range on a signal board. The boat moved slowly into the wind the captain had chosen.
At first, everything agreed. As the boat leaned inward, avoiding the outer waves marked red, the lane’s end settled beside it. Sera held back a relieved breath. A boat that had left had not yet returned.
In midsea, the sail briefly doubled.
The edge of a fold. One was the white sail; the other, light stretched and distorted on water. Before fixing on the upper one, she found the black cloth Nume had attached. The real sail carried the cloth.
She recorded the target again beside the scale. Or needed to be watching the same cloth. The bell-tower signal returned in the proper rhythm. When the timing difference fell within tolerance, the lane steadied.
Tio turned the hourglass and showed the remaining time on his fingers. A longer sentence might make them miss a signal.
Nume slowed near Maru’s shore, then raised an arm in the signal for unable to land. White water broke repeatedly over the low stone steps. There was nowhere to lay a boarding plank.
Sera felt the temptation to draw the gap wider. On paper, a finger’s movement would do it. Rock and waves would not move aside with it.
Instead of mooring, Nume maintained an angle to the wind. Or appeared ashore, secured himself on a high stone, and received the supply containers. Each small container’s long passage over the waves tightened Sera’s hands.
The hauling was being done at the other end. Watching did not let her make the people there work faster. She held the observation point and recorded how far the boat was pushed.
The final container reached shore. Or pointed to a higher path, a slope behind the white wall, a little roof above it. Then he indicated a water jar and tapped its lid. Nume was close enough to check those movements.
Sera did not interpret them alone. She would hear about water and people directly when the captain returned. For now, she recorded where the boat had failed to land and the waves at that time.
The water beside the turning boat darkened.
She looked at yesterday’s red current triangle. The black ring lay farther inside, where Nume had warned her. Had the ring moved, or had the tide changed the visible water? She did not yet know.
It was in the boat’s present path. That was what mattered.
Tio raised the red board. Sera lowered her ruler and opened the revised range board. Large and small lines overlapped. The boy asked which one she meant.
For an instant she could not answer. The boat she saw did not match the range on paper. Instead of shouting a number faster, she sent the danger-stop signal.
Nume released the sail. Instead of completing the turn, the boat slipped diagonally outward. The captain knew how much turning room the hull needed. Only after seeing its passage did Sera widen the homeward curve.
Maru’s bell rang in time. Or had not lost the boat. Sera braced against the support and read a second value. It differed from the first. She did not average them.
“The first one’s from the old position, after the stop,” Tio said, pointing beside the hourglass.
He did not understand the instrument, but knew when the board had changed. She corrected the time entry and read again.
This time the lane settled beside the boat.
A small, calm opening formed on the water. Nume did not cut straight through it. Keeping clear of the current, the captain made a wide turn toward the pier. A way home required much more water than a line on a map.
The lightstone in the lantern room clouded white.
Varen was reducing the light to conserve what remained. Sera understood from the slow signal at the window. Narrow the last section, but keep it wider than the boat. Nume was already preparing to lower the sail.
When the hull reached the pier, Sera did not run for a rope. Tio and the people ashore received it. She recorded the final bearing and lowered her reflector only after the boat was fully secured.
Her knee had stiffened where she sat. She needed both hands on the support to stand. Tio announced loudly that he would go up first, then admitted from one step behind that he felt dizzy. They came out slowly together.
All nine were alive in the bakery’s upper room, Nume reported. The water jars were still usable, but would not last comfortably without rain. Of the two rooms, water had begun seeping across the lower floor.
Or had tried to sound at ease. Farther up the steps, however, two people had needed help walking. After passing the supplies, the boat had to return. No break in the waves had allowed passengers down the narrow stairs.
The white-haired woman held the shoes to her chest. No one called it an empty boat. It had brought wet observations and the name of another place they could not land.
Sera completed the hazard range on her chart. Instead of erasing the triangle, she dated the first observation. Beside it went today’s current and turning allowance. The chart looked more complicated.
Nume studied it, then followed the broad curve with a finger.
“Now there’s room to turn back.”
Sera’s shoulders eased a little.
Varen came down carrying the nearly opaque second reserve stone. The first had not yet begun recharging either. Both would start receiving sunlight today. Clouds would lengthen the wait.
On clean paper, she drew two stones, with three empty boxes under each. Three days meant actual exposure to light, rather than three dates. What happened to Maru’s floors during that interval needed watching separately.
Nume brought a scrap of cloth from the wet cabin. Or had tied it to a returning supply container. Three long marks and one short one. He had explained at close range that they marked the water level on the bakery wall.
Sera laid the cloth beside the chart. Without a reference point on the actual building, she could not turn those marks into a height.
The sea would not wait at that height while the stones spent three days recharging.