She opened her eyes to Guard’s barking. There were five of them seated on the rocks around her, women and yet not-women, fragile, wild sea creatures with eyes all liquid darkness and hair draping their white shoulders like fronded leaves, gray, blue, green as the deep below the swell. Their bodies were naked and wet, pale skin pearled with droplets as if they had but a moment ago emerged from the ocean’s chill embrace. Perhaps what lay on the sandy beach beyond them was merely a drift of dark weed; perhaps it was sealskins set neatly down until their owners should need them again. Guard was hysterical, running up and down the shore, squandering the last of his flagging strength in a frantic warning.

“Hush now, Guard, good boy.” Nessa rose and walked back to the little cave, and they followed on their narrow white feet. They settled in a circle around the wolfskin, and long-fingered hands reached out immediately to touch the bones, to stroke and examine. They seemed to speak one to another, but their voices made notes, not words: a deep, antiphonal humming that told their understanding of what Nessa had prepared here. With pointed finger, with nod or shrug, with little notes of song, they proceeded to show her how the task must be done. Shreds of dark matter adhered to the bones, near the joints; these must be cleaned away, and the long, pale shafts polished. A handful of sand, shreds of dry seaweed, she must rub harder, harder, this was to be a thing of beauty, pure and bright as the moon itself. This took time. As each bone was judged ready, it was laid out in place, flat on the wolf pelt, so the shape of what must be made could be seen. Shin bones, thigh bones for the frame: these must be trimmed, pared, shaped with Nessa’s little knife. Once or twice, the sea women were not satisfied with her efforts. They would not use the knife, but took up the bones and set their teeth to them with precision, gnawing a hollow, grinding a curve more precisely. The joints must be a perfect fit, matching as sweetly as the timbers of that great vessel that had borne Ulf, the far-seeker, safe across the ocean to the islands of his destiny. They watched her intently, shining eyes fixed on every fumbling attempt to hold the sliding pieces in place, attention sharp on every cautious shaving away of a tiny shard so that the instrument would be perfect in form and function. Later, they chewed weed into long strips for bindings, passing her the dark, wet strands, showing her cunning knots, clever twists. These wrappings would tighten as they dried, giving strength to the frame.