Bent like a well-thumbed book, Merru moves with a surprising catlike carefulness. Her clothes are layered rags stitched together with sea-silk and scrap thread; each seam holds a secret — a coin, a slip of paper, a lock of hair. Her face is a map of thin scars and sun-etched wrinkles, and she wears a faded brass monocle rim tied to a string of barnacle-white beads that clacks when she laughs. When she walks, she hums tunelessly under her breath as if keeping time with tides; when startled she straightens to an unnervingly swift alertness, then curls again like a tide pool drawing back. Unexpectedly neat fingernails reveal someone who still tends small, private things.