Two small crescent tattoos on crossed forearms

The tide tables went up in the square again this morning, pinned under a stone so the gulls would not carry them off. Nobody reads them now except me and the old harbourmaster, who still insists the sea keeps the hours it kept when your grandmother was young. I told him the moon has been moving the water for nobody's convenience, and he told me I am too fond of the sky for a woman with a boat to mend.

You asked what I did with the crescent the inkwife cut into my wrist before the Sunken Winter. I kept it. I keep the watch on the north wall now, the one you and I took in turns, and every night I cross my arms behind my back the way the stonemasons do while they wait for a delivery. I count the curve against my skin until the light turns the colour of pewter. It is a small habit, but it stops the nights running into each other.

Here is what I meant to tell you properly. Last spring a boy came up the wall with a lantern and no sense. He showed me his wrist, and it bore the same thin arc, faded to the blue of an old bruise. He said his mother had marked them both the night the lights went out in the valley. I did not believe him until he pressed his other arm against mine and the two marks fitted like a broken coin. We sat until dawn comparing the shapes.

So the wall is not lonely after all. When you come home at the equinox, bring the second lantern and the tide tables, and we will hang the pair of them where the sea can see. Your loving sister, Oriel.