Page 62 of Storm and Sea

“Idiot,” he said to himself in the mirror. He should never have gone out into that storm.

When he came downstairs, a thick slab of red tuna sizzled in the pan. The smell made his mouth fill with saliva.

“Where did you get that?” he asked, inspecting the cut of meat. It was thick and full of marbled fat—a premium cut.

“Giovanni sent Thomasso home with it.”

Leo didn’t miss the stiffness in her voice, and his shoulders tightened. They were already depending on the good nature of their friends to eat. How had they already become so desperate?

“Smells good,” he said.

Once it finished sizzling, he took the smallest cut for himself, letting his growing brothers and sisters take the bigger slices.

Leo had his boots pulled on when Emelia called from the living room.

“Giovanni said he could use some help on the docks this morning.”

Leo nodded; he was already going there. He would not let a gift like that go unpaid.

“I’m going there now—” His voice caught in his throat like he’d swallowed a handful of sand. His mother was in the living room, scissors in hand, cutting long strands of hair from Annetta’s head.

“What are you doing?” Leo gasped, watching as gorgeous curls fell to the floor. Unshed tears brimmed in Annetta’s eyes, her fists bunching up her dress.

“Locks like these go for a high price. They make wigs out of them on the mainland,” his mother replied, stone-faced.

Annetta held his stare with desperately fragile determination as if she were holding herself together with fraying seams.

“I offered,” she breathed as if the words physically hurt.

Emelia stopped cutting, resting a sorrowful hand on her daughter’s shoulder.

He couldn’t take this.

Couldn’t stand there a second longer.

Leo stormed out the front door, slamming it so hard he probably broke the only working hinge. He couldn’t bear to look at his sister’s face as her hair was cut just so they could eat.

How had he failed them so terribly?

The world spun, and he fell to one knee, bracing himself with one hand on the side of the house.

Breathe.

He had to focus. He had to get his banged-up head on straight and figure this out.

Had to… had to…

Green scales. Red fins. Slitted pupils stared down at him as rain traced cold paths down his cheeks.

No time for that.

But even as he chided himself, Leo couldn’t force away the memory. Hallucination? He didn’t know. He didn’t know anything anymore. His chest was going to split in two—rip right down the middle, his organs exposed for the gulls.

A flash of green scales.

A crest of fins the color of blood.

Slitted eyes.