The Undertow / Season 1, Episode 9
Salt and Secrets
Rena’s boots hit the warped boards of the south dock with a hollow thud, the salt-crusted wood groaning under her weight as she moved toward the low-slung building where Celeste Marrow had her lab setup. The air hung heavy, thick with the tang of kelp rotting somewhere close, and the fog clung to her skin like a second layer, damp and cold. Her breath came in short, sharp pulls, not from the pace but from the weight of the morning—Nowak’s face back at the station, pale as driftwood after finding that sneaker on the pier, and the tide logs she’d pored over last night, numbers climbing in a way that didn’t match any chart she’d ever studied. Something was pulling the water in closer each night, and she couldn’t shake the feeling it was watching her do it. She rapped on the door of the marine research outpost, a squat shack of weathered clapboard that looked like it had been slapped together during a storm and forgotten. Paint peeled in long, curling strips, and the single window was clouded with salt spray. No answer. She knocked again, harder, the sound swallowed by the low moan of the bay beyond, where waves slapped against the pilings like something restless stirring in sleep. Her hand lingered on the doorframe, rough under her...