He held the gasping fish toward me. "Here take him. Scale and clean him, then rub salt inside the body cavity. The salt is in the storeroom. We will roast him later tonight."

I took the catch from him and started back up the sand. "What are you going to do?" I shouted back. He was already naked and waist deep in the water.

"Swim!" he called back before diving underneath an approaching wave.

The fish stopped twitching halfway up to the house. The horse tied off to the post sniffed us both as I passed. The head and tail of the fish draped over the ends of Clovis' short kitchen table. The curved blade of the dagger effortlessly laid open the pink flesh. Flies materialized as if from nowhere as soon as the first handful of fish entrails hit the bottom of the bucket. The sound of their frenzied buzzing filled the house. I brushed them off the fish as I worked, then hurried through the door to the tower toward the storage room for the salt. The dry hinges squealed in protest as I forced the door open.

Rows of warped wooden shelving lined the walls to the back and bent around the corner out of sight. Open top burlap sacks sat on the floor holding stores of various grains and seeds. Tethered, browning plants hung down from the ceiling, drying. One could have easily thought they grew down naturally from errant seeds that had taken hold in the accumulated sediment on the rafters.

I stepped in and began checking the clay jars resting nearest the door. Tilting the empty vessels over one by one, I noticed a short bottle hanging precariously on the shelf above and caught it just as it tumbled over the edge. It was clear glass streaked with black on the inside. The black smudged cap over its wide mouth read 'India Ink' in English inside the Arabic script running around the perimeter. It looked much the same as the squat jar I'd seen Clovis using.

I noticed my fingertips were blackened as I stepped up onto a grain sack to put it back. My eyes crested the top shelf to find a row of similar empty bottles close to the edge, each smudged and streaked in the same manner. I reached back to place the bottle behind them only to find more. On my toes, I could see them. The two rows of bottles beyond the first were shorter and blown from cobalt blue glass with narrow fluted necks. The three rows beyond those were small crude clay vessels, thick dust-cloaked the stained black around their long desiccated cork stoppers. All the rows stretched down around the corner.