Jack considered the bottle that always seemed to be within arm’s reach. He unscrewed the cap, not to drink but to wet the quill she supplied. Rum took the ink like a penance. As he wrote—names he’d forgotten, favors he’d called jokes, storms he’d laughed through—the ink bled and became tides. The words lifted off the page and sank into the sea; with each sinking, the bronze lock loosened.