Nora Mell had turned back grown men twice her size, but she could not turn back the girl. For longer than most people on the island had been alive, Nora stood at the tide pool each dawn and drove off anyone who came near it. The water there rippled in slow rings, and beneath the surface something waited that she would not name. She had sworn to guard it. She meant to keep that oath until her legs gave out. The girl came again at first light. She was maybe fifteen, in a scuffed green jacket, a chalk stub tucked behind her ear. Nora had shouted her off three dawns running. It had stopped working. "You're going to ruin your voice," the girl said. She stepped over the driftwood fence Nora had dragged across the sand years ago. "I counted your warnings. You never move from the pool. So you can't actually stop me." Nora's chest tightened. The girl was right. Her whole defense was noise and one old body planted in the sand. Threats had always been enough. Now they were empty. "Get back behind the wood," Nora said. "I'm Maya." She crouched by the pool and looked at the light moving under the water. "Something's down there. I want to see it." Nora did not shout this time. Shouting had failed. She lowered herself onto the sand beside the girl, knees cracking. Maya flinched, expecting a grab. It didn't come. "The last one who guarded this," Nora said, "handed it to me and walked into the sea. I never learned her name. She told me one thing. Whoever looks too long stops wanting to leave." Maya's eyes stayed on the rings. "That's just a story to scare people." "Then look," Nora said. "Look as long as you like. I won't stop you. But sit with me first." It was a gamble. She could not out-shout the girl. She could not out-run her. She could only make her wait, and let the pool do what it did to anyone who stared. Maya stared. A minute passed. Two. The light spiraled tighter, pulling at her face. Her hand drifted toward the surface. Then she jerked back, breathing hard, and scrambled to her feet. "I felt it," she said. Her voice had lost its edge. "It wanted my hand." "Yes," Nora said. Maya backed to the driftwood. She didn't run. She turned once at the fence and looked at Nora, not the water. "You've felt that every day. For years." "Every day." Maya climbed over the barrier and walked up the beach. But she stopped at the tree line and sat down in the sand, watching. Nora had driven her off the pool. She had not driven her off the shore. The girl had seen the danger now, and understood what Nora carried. That was worse. Curiosity had become something harder to send away. It had become concern.