The Saltwidow

An old Hessk wreck-picker on the north headland who has read every tide in these narrows for thirty years and sells the wreck-list and the safe slacks to anyone with the coin — she has seen what comes up the coves and will not go down.

She declines to give her name — the old Hessk custom when you have been where the dead are, in case the naming pulls them after you. She has been every shade of the sea's grey and has settled on the darkest. The thing she refuses to describe she will still sell you the means to survive: the safe slacks, the wrecks worth picking, and the one she saw come up the north cove that no one else ought to see. That last one she names a price for and then raises it when you reach for your purse.