At dawn, Driftwhistle Harbor was quiet except for the sea breathing under its blue-white ice. Toma stood by the rope rails in his blue wool coat with silver buttons, his brass key ring cool against his belt, and looked from one boat to the next. Every mooring rope had been tied into tiny, neat knots.
He took hold of the first rope and tried to pull the knot loose. It would not budge. He worked at the next one, then the next. His fingers were quick, but the knots were quicker. Behind him, a mast gave a soft creak as the tide tugged at the boat below it.
“Not now,” Toma muttered to the cold morning, and tried again.
Across the harbor, Soren in his blue wool coat was already leaning over another rail, listening to the ropes as if they might speak. Near the lane, Juna in her red scarf skidded to a stop with a bag of clipped notes thumping at her side. “I counted six boats still fast,” she called. “That’s fewer than before.”
Toma looked down the rail. He saw something that made him pause. On the same stretch of wood, several ropes had not just been knotted once. They had been tied again overnight, one after another, like careful hands had worked there in the dark. These knots were not random at all.
The tide kept rising, and the boats gave little shivers against their lines. Toma had to choose quickly: ask Soren to help him search the rails, trust Juna to run for someone else, or handle the knot problem alone a little longer.
What happens next?
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