She was a rescue swimmer, and the harbor answered her first. Undertow's living water arrives before she does — currents she raises and names, all good names, that have pulled forty-one people from the drink and once carried a dropped wedding ring three blocks upstream to its owner. The harbormaster's tally has no column for the lost.
Happening now
A school ferry took a bad knock against the pier in the chop, and Undertow's currents were already under the hull before the alarm finished sounding — cradling it upright, ferrying the children ashore on water that held like stone. The kids named the current Bubbles. Undertow allowed it.
What may come
Pelagia has been watching her from the deep, the Tidecallers say, the way a teacher watches a student who is about to surprise everyone. Kingtide just smiles when asked. The tides keep their own counsel.
“The harbormaster keeps a chalk tally of the drowned, and the Tidecallers have kept the lost column empty for years. This month a name appeared anyway — not a new death, an old one, fifty years old, in chalk that Undertow says smells of deep water. Brine built a salt-ladder down to ask the harbor about it; the harbor answered by dissolving the ladder, politely. The name changes, slightly, every time someone copies it down. No one is copying it down anymore.”
The harbormaster's lost tally is filling in by itself.
Masters of Vesper's harbor, rivers, and rain — the Tidecallers treat water as a colleague, not an obstacle. They pull the drowning from the drink, turn back storm surges, and keep the ferry lanes safe. The harbormaster's chalk tally has no column for the lost, because that column is empty.
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At a glance — details & stats
Element
Tide
Order
The Tidecallers — The harbor answers to us.
Rarity
Common
Personality
A rescue swimmer whose currents arrive before he does. Undertow is a 13-year-old boy with deep bronze skin and a full afro whose living water has pulled forty-one people from the harbor, and which once carried a dropped wedding ring three blocks upstream to its owner. He names every current he raises.
