Dusk came to Saltmere Harbour the way a cat comes to a warm doorstep — slowly, and as though it had always meant to. The gulls went quiet. The water turned the colour of old pennies. And Marigold Tidewell, who was seven, carried her small brass lantern down the stone steps to her small green boat. Seven lamps waited out on the water, one on each buoy, all the way to the edge of the bay. It was Mari's work to light them before the last fishing boat came home.