I keep thinking about that week Finch took me out on the boat before Charles ever showed up in East Bay. I want to write it down before I forget the details.
It was late August. The kind of morning where the fog sits low on the water and the sky above it is already light. Finch called our house early. Mom handed me the phone and muttered something sarcastic, but she still let me take the call. Finch said his friend needed an extra hand on his fishing boat for a couple of days and that he would pay me “deck rate” if I could keep up. That was enough for me.
The boat was a long steel workboat—the kind built for heavy hauling, not pleasure rides. She sat low in the water, paint scraped down to metal in places, the bow lifting only slightly with the swell. Thick fenders hung along the sides, and the deck was crowded with tubs, coils of rope, and metal gear that clanged every time the hull shifted. A handful of crew were already moving around on deck, checking lines and clearing space. Diesel fumes drifted from the exhaust stack, and a thin line of smoke carried straight back in the light wind. It felt like stepping onto a floating workshop.
Finch was waiting on the pier with a coil of rope and a coffee. His friend—Ray, big shoulders, hands like dock cleats—looked me up and down once and pointed at the bait table.
“Gloves there. Knives there. You keep your fingers, I keep my temper.”
That was the whole introduction.
The job sounded simple. Cut bait. Bag bait. Stack the bags in tubs. Keep the tubs where they wouldn’t slide when the boat rolled. Once we got past the harbor bell, the motion changed fast. Every time the bow dropped, my stomach tried to float. I learned to focus on my hands and the deck, not the horizon jumping around them.
Finch didn’t talk much. He showed me how he wanted the rope coiled so it would run clean when they set the gear. After that he just watched. If I did it right, he said nothing. If I crossed a loop or twisted the tail, he took it back, fixed it, and handed it over again with a look that said “do better” without any words.
Ray talked a bit about weather, prices, and whose traps got smashed in the last blow. He swore at gulls and at his own knees when they locked up. Once or twice he snapped at me if I hesitated at the rail, but it felt more like a warning than real anger. On a working boat you move first and explain later.
I still remember the first buoy I grabbed on my own. Finch had hooked the first few floats with the gaff and passed me the line to feed over the roller. Then he stepped back and nodded at the next one. My turn.
The buoy came up out of the gray water, dripping. I swung the gaff and missed. Ray made a noise that said he was not impressed. I tried again, caught it, and pulled the rope in. When the trap rose out of the water, the weight hit the line and traveled straight into my arms and down into my boots. I could feel the ocean on the other end of that rope. By the third haul my hands had the rhythm. Pull, set, step clear. Bait, re-bait, stack. The boat rolled, the hull slapped the water, gulls dove after the scraps. My whole world became rope, traps, and deck.
We worked like that for three days. By the end of it I had blisters and bruises. Finch slipped me a little extra money and said it was hazard pay for not getting sick. I acted like it didn’t matter, but it did.
The part that stuck with me most was the ride back in each afternoon. The engine thumped, the rigging rattled, the wake hissed behind us, and no one said much. Finch sat on the fish box with his coffee. Ray steered while watching the breakwater. I leaned against the cabin and watched East Bay get closer. We had worked hard and earned our pay. No big moment, no drama. Just a solid day’s work.
After that, life went back to the usual. School started. I spent more time helping Finch out at Dockside Salvage—moving crates, repairing lines, sorting hardware, and doing whatever needed doing. That became my routine. Then Charles arrived at the observatory, and suddenly the three of us were running cables up the dome, listening to strange signals, and trying to figure out why a radio with no power could still talk.
I didn’t think about the fishing trip again until we stepped into Skelderheim.
The first time we walked through the Dock Ward there, I felt that same boat rhythm under my feet. Different place, same idea. The boats were wooden instead of fiberglass or steel. The smell was tar and smoke instead of diesel. But the people working the decks moved the exact same way Ray did. Balanced. Quick. Hands sure on the line.
When the crowd on the quay stared at Anna and everything went tight, some of them still checked our hands and our posture. They knew I wasn’t one of them, but they could see I wasn’t totally green either. Finch’s coil of rope in my pack got the same kind of look a stack of good gear gets back home.
Rope meant value there. It meant safety. It meant work. When I put that first coil on the tavern counter and the innkeeper checked the splice, it felt exactly like the moment Ray tested my pull on the buoy line. Same weight. Same inspection. Same tiny nod of approval.
A lot of Skelderheim echoes that trip. Starting the generator in the observatory feels like waiting for the engine to settle. When the portal ring starts to charge and the air gets strange, my body braces for a wave. I don’t try to do it; it just happens.
The difference is the danger. On Ray’s boat, a mistake meant a dunk in cold water or a bruise. On the portal deck, a mistake could get you stuck on the wrong side or cut off entirely. The work is stranger, the consequences sharper, but the rules aren’t that different.
Finch told me once that if you keep your eyes open and your hands honest, the ocean will usually give you a warning before it hurts you. Watch the gear. Watch the waves. Watch your crew. Don’t show off. Don’t grab more than you can hold. Respect the line.
In Skelderheim, I watch the way people handle ropes, tools, and even mugs of that strong coffee that tastes like it was brewed to keep you awake for a week. I watch which tables go quiet when we walk in and which ones don’t. Dock work taught me that there’s always a pattern. You just have to pay attention to catch it.
When the three of us sit in a tavern now, by the big fireplace, eating bowls of stew after a long crossing, I get flashes of that trip with Finch. Anna and Charles aren’t fishermen, but they’re my crew just the same. We come back tired, quiet, hands still shaking from whatever the mirror observatory threw at us. At first we eat in silence—the same silence as the ride back to East Bay. Then we talk. Not big speeches. Just enough to say: I’m here, you’re here, we made it back.
That’s the part I keep thinking about. Finch’s friend didn’t invite me out to teach me anything deep. He just needed help. But I learned anyway. Learned how to stand steady on a moving deck. How to keep my eyes open. How to read a line. How to look after the people working next to me.
Now, when I’m standing on a foreign quay with a coil of rope and people watching us like they’re waiting to decide something, I think about that younger version of me on Ray’s boat. Scared. Trying hard. Proud when I didn’t mess up.
If I could tell that kid anything, I’d say: pay attention. None of this is wasted. One day you’ll need every bit of it—even in a world you’ve never seen on any map.
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