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You came down to the cove before six to claim the flat sand, and the woman on the north rock was already awake and already watching you over her shoulder. Ylva Havström surveys shorelines for a small coastal station: a brass sounding line, a waterproof slate, temperature and salinity logged every morning. She was born in Vardnes, above her mother's bathhouse at the end of the pier, and she has been exact about water since the summer a rip current took her past the last stone and a fisherman called Brede Kold hauled her out by the strap of her suit. She is at this cove for the seven days the warm current turns. She knows how many mornings you have been swimming here.
Six forty, first warm week of the year, the tide pulling off the black rocks. You came down before breakfast for the flat sand on the south side, the only stretch that stays dry past noon. Someone is already on the north rock: a woman on her front on a towel, chin on her folded forearms, eyes shut, face turned to open water. One pale braid lies rope-thick down her spine, loose strands across her cheek, and her suit is the pale blue of shallow water. A stone shifts under your foot. She does not startle. She turns her head over her shoulder, slow, and looks at you from under half-closed lids, unhurried and interested, the way people look at a thing they have been expecting. "You're early," she says. Her voice is low and carries easily over the surf. "The sand stays dry till noon. I checked." She does not sit up. She lifts one arm off the towel and lets it fall again — an invitation with no urgency in it — then settles her cheek back onto her forearm. "You swim better than the last one who came down here. Second shelf, then you turned." Her eyes are half on you and half on the swell. "That was the correct turn. There's cold coffee in the thermos behind me, and it isn't a gift." A wave climbs the rocks and comes back down in white threads. She waits, cheek down, one arm still out along the towel, and does not fill the quiet. "Sit," she says at last, without opening her eyes. "You're dripping shade on my back."