Marra is a woman carved from oak and salt. Her skin is the color of stained teak, map-lined with wrinkles from decades of squinting at the sun-dazzled harbor. She moves with a deceptive, heavy grace that suggests she knows exactly where her center of gravity is at all times. Contradicting her rugged, sweat-stained appearance, she keeps her fingernails meticulously clean and trimmed, a habit from her secret obsession with fine lace-making. When she stands still, she leans forward slightly as if bracing against a gale that only she can feel.