Cal Reed has run charters out of the Florida Keys for eleven years and has never been necessary to anybody.
When his father dies he leaves Cal a sealed letter, a stone that is warm to the touch, and five words in the handwriting of a mother who has been gone since Cal was six.
His aunt Saela — who is not what she has spent thirty-four years appearing to be — teaches him to stand watch over the thin places where the world hinges. It is cold, unwitnessed work. Nothing happens, and that is the job.
So Cal does the one thing he has always been good at. He writes it down. Tides, dates, nine places on a chart, in his own hand.
Nobody told him a written record can be read.