Ahus Direct

“I know.”

He took it.

“Your father is wise. But wisdom and possibility are different things.” Eira knelt, her knees cracking. “Ahus does not force anyone to stay. The gate has no lock. But if you leave during the nameless tide, you will not remember how to come back.” “I know

Albin took a shuddering breath. “I don’t want to be alone.” “Ahus does not force anyone to stay

“The gate,” he said. “Is it still there?” “I don’t want to be alone

“I know,” Eira said. She reached him. She did not grab him. She simply stood beside him, looking at the reflection. “I see Soren sometimes. In the tide. He’s young again, and he’s laughing, and he has his hand out. And I think: just one step . But then I remember that he told me to remember the names of the tides. And the nameless tide’s name—” She paused. “Its name is Alene . Alone. Because that’s what it leaves behind.”

That tide was coming tomorrow. Eira woke before dawn, as she had for seventy-three years. She dressed in wool and oilskins, braided her white hair into a single rope, and walked the length of Ahus. She checked each cottage: the Lundgrens’ roof, the empty Bakke house (the family had moved inland after the winter of the long cough), the tiny blue door behind which lived a boy named Albin who collected glass floats.