She read the water the way others read faces. A wake spreading south across her grid meant the morning ferry was on time. The pattern was always the same: first the center column rippled, then the wave spread to fill everything. But one morning the wake came from the east instead — the whole right column disturbed while the rest stayed glassy. A fishing boat had turned broadside to pull in a net, sending its wave sideways across the bay. By the next hour the regular ferry wake had reasserted itself and the whole surface was churned.