The Wreck-Reef

The line of standing rock across the narrows where the ebb has wrecked hulls for centuries — a graveyard of ribs and rotted masts the Silt Hands pick over.

The beacon at Gull's Watch was supposed to warn ships away. It does warn them: away from the Silt Hands' preferred route and toward the Reef. The record of wrong navigations is still there in the wood: a brig's keel through a cog's stern, a fishing-smack's mast listing through a caravel's ribs. After every storm the Hands comb what floated off. The Reef is a library of failures, and the librarians take the tuition fee.