"I moved it left."
"More left."
"Cora, if I move it more left it will be at an angle."
"It's already at an angle. Move it left."
Sali the water sprite surfaces through the dock gap.
She takes in the scene—the sign, the ladder, the ongoing negotiation—with wide-eyed attention. She hauls herself onto the dock and stands at approximately knee-height and tilts her head at the sign.
"Pretty," she announces.
"Thank you, Sali," I say. "Cora, I moved it left."
"It's still not?—"
Sali climbs the ladder rungs below me and reaches up and places both small hands on the sign bracket and adjusts it with firmness.
Beat of silence.
"That's straight," Cora says.
Sali looks at me.Obviously.
I drill the bracket into place.
Sali settles herself on the ladder rung and produces, from some pocket of her form, a length of lake weed. She begins braiding it into my hair with focused concentration.
"Sali," I say.
She doesn't stop.
"Cora."
Cora is laughing. Full face, completely off guard, leaning against the dock railing with her mug held at a slight angle because she's forgotten to hold it straight. The laugh carries across the water—further than it should, warm and real.
"It's very decorative," she says. "Leave it."
"I'm not leaving it."
"I think it suits you."
"Cora—"
"Selkie-in-Training," she reads from the sign. "Sirena & Co." She looks at it, still smiling. "It's good, Muir."
I descend the ladder—Sali relocating gracefully to the dock surface, still braiding, now working on a second length of weed—and stand back and look at the sign above the Snack Hut serving window.
SIRENA & CO.
Selkie-in-Training.
The letters in their carved wave-stroke font, the ink of her handwriting below mine, the ash grain of Sandbar Island driftwood holding both together in the morning sun.
Cora comes and stands beside me, her shoulder against mine. Sali is working on a third length of weed. From the direction of the Monster Catch shop, Finnbar has appeared in his doorway, looking at the sign with the expression of a glashtyn assessing something of quality.
He gives a single nod.