Skeleton bird and rabbit holding pocket watches

You will not believe the business at the quay this week. The Tuesday boat put off a tall, thin fellow whose head was a gull's skull, bare white bone with a hooked beak, and he walked up the slip as easy as anyone in a black frock coat. Behind him came Mr Hare, the same as he has been every summer since the war, long ears folded under his cap and coat buttoned to the throat. Neither of them has ever been seen to hurry, which is why I was surprised to find them both at the harbour wall at dawn, watches out, arguing about the tide.

The argument was about minutes. Twelve of them, owed since some winter nobody on the island can date. The skeleton said the church clock had run fast for forty years and the hare said it had run slow, and the only fair thing to do, they agreed, was to check their watches against the sea. They sat on the bollards with a fine chain strung between them, a little dotted line of brass links, and passed the watches back and forth until the water reached the third step of the slip.

Then the hare looked up at me, as if I had been keeping time for them, and asked what hour it was. I said the boat was early. He wound his watch very slowly and said that was the answer he had been waiting for.

I have not told the vicar. Some things on this island are better left to run.

Love, Ada