Torrent Dexter.
Eva Renton found him sitting on a toppled telephone pole, writing in his leather log. Her face was streaked with mud and tears.
"The season doesn't care about the calendar," Dexter said. "The submarine canyon is acting like a funnel. If the onshore wind kicks in—"
By noon, the first sign came. The tide didn't go out. It just… stopped. The water level held at half-ebb for two hours, then began climbing again without turning. Dexter stood on the pier, watching the barnacles disappear under the rising green. A young mother pushing a stroller stopped beside him.
He lived alone in a house on stilts at the edge of the salt marsh, where the air smelled of brine and rust. Every morning at 5:00 AM, he checked the weir readings, the tide tables, and the satellite loops. He recorded everything in a leather-bound log he’d kept since his first day on the job. The log had no name on the cover, only a faded sticker of a raindrop.