Updated Mar 22, 2026 • ~6 min read
Chapter 20: Then Tonight
FINN
He pulled back.
She was still holding his jacket. Her hands relaxed when he stepped back, a deliberate decision rather than a startled response, and she looked at him with the clear focus she brought to everything and waited.
He said: “The rest of this needs to happen properly.”
She said: “Define properly.”
He said: “I need to talk to my mother. The clan will need to know that I’ve told you.” He paused. “There are protocols.”
She said: “Community-consent protocols.”
He said: “Yes.”
She said: “For who gets told.”
He said: “And how. And what the community’s position is about the information.”
She said: “What is the community’s position.”
He said: “We haven’t voted on it. We voted on tier two management for this research visit. I’ve gone significantly beyond tier two.” He looked at the cliff face. “My mother expected this. The clan meeting did not vote for what I’ve just done.”
She said: “Are you in trouble.”
He said: “No.” He paused. “Possibly. A small amount.”
She looked at him with the expression of someone deciding whether to be concerned.
She said: “Is there a version of this where you told me the wrong thing and the community suffers for it?”
He said: “There’s always that version. It’s the version I’ve been managing against for ten years.”
She said: “What do you think the right version looks like.”
He said: “I think it looks like what just happened.” He paused. “I think it looks like telling you at the tidal shelf at low tide, with the panel in front of us, after two weeks of watching you ask the right questions the right way.”
She said: “You watched me for two weeks.”
He said: “I moved your camera. You set a secondary.”
She said: “You went in person.”
He said: “I know.” He looked at her. “I need to talk to Maren. Tonight, after I do — can I come to the cottage?”
She said: “I’ll be there.”
He said: “There’s more to tell you.”
She said: “I know.” She looked at the panel. “I have questions.”
He said: “I imagined you might.”
She said: “How many questions do you have time for tonight.”
He said: “All of them.” He paused. “Probably.”
She looked at him.
She said: “I want to understand the mechanism. The shift — how it works, what it means for the population data, whether the individuals I’ve documented as eagles are consistent individuals or whether the same person can appear in multiple count sessions.”
He said: “Yes to the last one. Clan members who shift appear in counts depending on where they are and what they’re doing. The cliff population data incorporates both.”
She said: “So my forty-six is a minimum.”
He said: “Yes.”
She said: “And the database’s forty-one.”
He said: “The accessible count positions capture fewer shifts. The outer face is more active.”
She said: “That’s why you were managing the outer face access.”
He said: “That’s one reason.”
She said: “What’s the other reason.”
He said: “The panel.” He looked at the cliff face. “The accessible positions can’t see the panel’s location. The outer face approach in the boat doesn’t either, in the conditions I was scheduling. The upper headland path could.”
She said: “You moved the camera.”
He said: “Yes.”
She said: “So I would see the upper headland from the camera’s footage.”
He said: “So you wouldn’t.”
She said: “And then the storm.”
He said: “And then the storm.” He looked at the exposed panel. “The storm moved faster than my management timeline.”
She said: “Maybe the storm had opinions.”
He said: “It wouldn’t surprise me.”
She almost smiled. The full smile again — the real one. He’d been watching for it.
She said: “Go talk to Maren. Come to the cottage after.”
He said: “Seven.”
She said: “Seven.”
He walked back along the tidal shelf toward the path.
He found his mother at the communal kitchen before he’d had to look for her, which meant she’d been there waiting, which meant Cal had already told her something.
He said: “I told her.”
His mother said: “I know.”
He said: “How.”
She said: “Cal was on the north cliff this morning. Early.”
He said: “Was he watching.”
She said: “He said he was checking the storm damage to the cliff path infrastructure.”
He said: “He wasn’t.”
She said: “No.” She looked at him. “He sent me a message at seven twenty-two.”
He said: “What did the message say.”
She said: “Cliff base. It happened.”
He thought about what it happening looked like from the north cliff above.
He said: “Right.”
His mother poured tea.
She said: “How did she receive it.”
He said: “She asked about the mechanism. The count methodology implications. Whether clan members appear in multiple sessions.”
His mother said: “Of course she did.”
He said: “She wants to understand the full picture before she writes anything. She said that on Monday before I’d told her anything.”
His mother said: “I know.” She handed him the tea. “What did she say about the shift.”
He said: “She hasn’t seen it yet.”
His mother said: “Are you going to show her.”
He said: “I need the clan’s agreement.”
His mother said: “Call a meeting.”
He said: “Tonight. I’m going to the cottage at seven. Can we meet before that?”
His mother said: “Five o’clock. The lodge.”
He said: “All twelve.”
She said: “They’ll be there.” She paused. “Finn.”
He said: “Yes.”
She said: “Your eagle.”
He said: “I know.”
She said: “Is this the permanent kind.”
He was quiet for a moment.
He said: “Yes.”
She said: “Have you told her that.”
He said: “No.”
She said: “Are you going to.”
He said: “Not tonight.”
She said: “When.”
He said: “When she’s had time to understand what she’s in.”
His mother looked at him with the expression of someone who was going to say something and had decided not to.
He said: “What.”
She said: “She asked where the decision was. You told her the rest needs to happen properly. She said: define properly. And then she said: I’ll be there. She is already making the decision.”
He said: “She doesn’t know what the decision involves.”
His mother said: “She knows it involves you and this headland and the community she had dinner with and the panel and twelve hundred years of records.” She drank her tea. “She identified the lower section as population records from a set of photographs. She corrected your anatomy on the first day.”
He said: “Eagle anatomy.”
She said: “She said: that’s not a grizzly print.”
He said: “She said: that’s not a golden eagle.”
His mother said: “Same thing.”
He stood at the kitchen window and looked at the cliff face and thought about the tidal shelf and the panel and her hands on his jacket and the full version of the smile.
He thought: *the permanent kind.*
He thought: *I know.*
He thought: *seven o’clock.*
He thought: *then tonight.*
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