Page 5 of Storm and Sea

they see you for what you are?”

Atreus blinked rapidly, his mind fuzzing as it always did when the voice grew so excited.

I’ve hidden my entire life. I know what I’m doing. They’ll never find out. Now shut up.

And with that, he silenced the back-and-forth in his head, at least for now.

As he ascended the beach, rain dotted the sand, and the trees whipped with wind. Atreus tied his traps to a log and carefully removed the lobster, using the tips of his talons to avoid its clubbed pincers. The rain drenched every inch of his body, keeping him in Mer form. Marvassa didn’t discriminate; any and all forms of water would transform him. Whether it be the sea or sky or the splash of a human fountain— the water would change him, returning him to his natural form, even against his will.

He climbed the winding staircase and was greeted by the sound of pelting rain on glass. The entire circular room was made of glass, intended for a beam of light to shine through. But that hadn’t happened in decades. Still, even in disuse, the tower stood resolute, unyielding to the raging sea that beat upon its walls.

Placing the king lobster in a pail of seawater, Atreus began closing the black curtains hanging on one side of the room. He’d found the cloth years ago, dotted with holes, washed ashore on the beach. With a needle of bone and an endless supply of fishing line, he’d painstakingly mended every tear. Using a haphazard mix of metal pipes and sticks, he built a makeshift privacy wall, shielding the open glass that faced the town. Now, he could light a fire without fear of a human seeing the glow.

He set to work using his collection of dry tinder and a metal bowl he used as a firepit. He had to cut a hole in the lighthouse roof to let the smoke escape—a lesson learned the hard way after his first attempt at indoor cooking. An angled piece of glass shielded the room from the rain while letting the smoke ventilate. Each drop tapped against the thin pane with a soft, rhythmic ‘pitter-patter,’ like tiny fingers on a drum.

In minutes, a healthy fire roared, eating up the dry wood. Atreus let it burn, getting lost in the flames’ glow while the wood transformed into hot white coals. The hypnotic flames danced in the bowl, jumping from coal to coal like seabirds along the rocky shore.

“It’ll stop before tomorrow. It will,” Atreus told himself as the rain attacked the glass with renewed ferocity.

His mind was so lost in thoughts of tomorrow that he didn’t hear the distant cry from the floor below. The fire popped, regular and even, like footsteps.

No.

Those were footsteps. Steady and certain with a rhythmic ‘clank’ on the rusted metal steps.

Someone was coming.

“You’re stalling,” Sonia said, absent-mindedly rubbing her swollen belly.

“Am not.”

“Are too.”

“I just want to make sure everything is locked up properly,” Nyel argued, checking the knot for the third time. There was little chance of the goatfish escaping the woven wood cage, especially with Ripple standing guard.

“It’s not going to go away, you know. And it’ll be worse if you’re late. Might as well get it over with,” his aunt said, her logic annoyingly sound.

Nyel sighed, a small stream of bubbles escaping his gills. “I’ll be there in five minutes,” he relented.

She gave him a pitying look before turning, her tail lazily propelling her through the water and into their domed clay home.

Nyel crossed his legs in the sand, his tail swishing and making a trench behind him. He wished he could blink and have the day be over. The so-called casual dinner his mother insisted on hosting would already be behind him, forgotten, so he could get back to his life and pretend it never happened. Yet every time he opened his eyes, only a second had passed, and the dinner loomed ever closer.

“What am I going to do?” he asked Ripple, who waddled beside him. The creature lumbered through the water with slow, deliberate movements. Ripple’s six legs moved in tandem as he plopped his flubby body on the sand with a grunt.

“Yeah, I feel the same way,” Nyel said, scratching his most loyal friend behind the antenna where he liked it.

The sandwinder’s broad head was flat and spade-shaped, with two fin-like appendages protruding on either side. Poking from beneath the fins and swaying with the ebb and flow of the water sprouted two long antennae. The organs at their tips emitted a faint, pulsating hum—invisible electromagnetic waves that effortlessly herded schools of fish without touching a single scale. Four tiny red eyes blinked lazily as Nyel rubbed him behind the flaps on his head. The sandwinder groaned, kicking one of his six legs in pleasure.

“Who’s a good boy?” Nyel scratched his scaly body with both hands as the mossy two-ton beast rolled over, exposing his soft white belly.

“Who’s a good boy? You are, yes you are, Ripple,” Nyel cooed as Ripple’s stubby tail waggled back and forth, his giant tongue lolling from the side of a gaping maw.

“Nyel!” His mother’s shrill voice cut through the water.

“Coming!” he called before she could shout again, “Sorry boy, gotta go.”

He gave Ripple one more scratch behind his antenna and slowly swam to their home. It was identical to all the others in Corallina. Made of hardened clay and mud, it was shaped into a dome and rested on a foundation of sea wood, keeping it lifted above the sand. A ramp wound its way from the base to the elevated entrance for the rare occasion Ripple was allowed to sleep inside. More often, the sandwinder slept beneath the hut or near goatfish, always alert to the needs of the school.