Page 54 of Florescentia

My eyes snapped open. “Put your hand in.”

“Why?” He sounded offended as he shifted to the farthest end of the basin.

“I just want to see something.” I pointed. “Just try it, please.”

Just like Absinthe, the shadow became more textured, irritated at the request. He extended his arm, even tidied up the shape before presenting it. Slowly, he stuck his arm into the water.

I closed my eyes, imagining the sink. The patina on the brass knobs, the crack by the drain, even the feel of the porcelain under my palm.

The dull thud of something in the background startled me.

His hand was now coming up from within the sink. The shadowy fingers flexed.

“Obscuria,” I said, then a hiss.

The hand in the sink contorted as it severed, turning to a fluid shadow as it crept off into the hallway.

“Now look what you’ve done,” Altair huffed, removing his arm from the basin and banishing his limbs into himself, as if he was afraid I’d use more. “You know, every cell in me is as sentient as I, just like one of your octopus species and their independent limbs.”

“Or a worm,” I suggested, “that makes two independent halves when cut.”

The shadow slumped, more static in the texture of the form.

I don’t think he likes that comparison.

“Have you been reading?” I teased. “I suppose nautical books make sense for a creature like you.”

“Ate it,” he said.

“The book?” I paused.

“No.” His voice was muffled now.

“So what is it exactly that you ate?”

“Well, you know things like me and your . . . pets, we eat energy. It’s best fresh. But because we can consume this type of energy, we can also get glimpses of the same energy rubbed off on objects. We feed through the . . . skin.” He was choosing his words carefully, then he moved a hand over the other arm, the inky shadow wavering.

“So you absorb through contact?”

“Most times,” he said. “It’s sensitive enough where we don’t necessarily need to touch you. It’s in the air, people’s words, their emotions. It permeates every surrounding breath.”

“So the book—”

“It had remnants of a memory on it,” he said.

I almost understood what he meant when he said remnants, because truly they were. Suddenly I was transported back to my childhood, my father holding the book in front of me with the octopus illustration. We’d sat on the edge of the docks by the river. He convinced me that if I stayed very still and very quiet, an octopus might be brave enough to say hello.

Now, I realized that was some ploy to get an overactive child to focus on something for a while. But I distinctly remembered him pointing to the limbs and talking about how their organs could move about their body, or their legs all had minds of their own.

“How did you know to do that?” His voice brought me back, and I was staring at the shadow again, three glowing eyes looking back at me. “With the water.”

I tucked my father’s journal under my arm.

“What is that?” He pointed.

“None of your business,” I said. “It’s my father’s.”

His arm lunged at me, smacking against the floor when I moved. The shadow grew larger.