Rowan’s father, a deckhand on a cargo vessel, had vanished when Rowan was fourteen. No remains were recovered. Only a damaged brass compass had been mailed home by the coast guard. Rowan kept it in his trawler’s cabin, believing it carried something of his father’s spirit despite decades passing him by.
His relationship with the sea ran deep—love braided with caution. He knew its moods, its tricks, its shifting silences. He recognized when something didn’t belong. That was why the strange “clam” unsettled him. It felt placed, not grown, as if the sea hadn’t shaped it but merely tried to swallow it.