Lincoln City, Oregon.
There were rules…
No swimming in saltwater.
Never play hide and seek.
Never ask about the scar at the back of her neck.
Her first memory was the injury, and that pain never entirely disappeared. Nor the nightmares. Galene would dream of a monster who lived within, reaching out and splitting her spine. Killing everything she cared about. Her friends and her beloved parents.
Some nights, her nightmares involved her father gutting her like a fish. But, Owen would never hurt his daughter.
Shuddering, she stared at the injured red octopus squirming in her hands.
Her father observed as she carried it to a deep tidal pool, hopping nimbly over coraled rocks. The red octopus had a sharp beak and may be inclined to bite and then spit venom on the wound. Humans shouldn't carry octopi, but Galene seemed to be the exception. Sometimes, the marine life knew she was a rescuer. Other times, she felt their terror. This little fella needed help with two missing tentacles. She'd found him in the sand, discarded by a fisherman who'd probably wanted to use the creature as bait.
Locals took marine conservation seriously on the Oregan coast. A few arrogant tourists were the problem.
Crouching, Galene gently lowered the octopus into a deep tide pool, closer to the waved. Low tide meant that Galene could place it far from the beach and hoped that it would survive its long recovery. The minute it tasted freedom, the animal drifted beneath a rocky shelf. A white blonde tendril stole across her face, and Galene tucked her bothersome hair behind her ear. Although she wore it up in a ponytail, her thick, wavy hair always found a way to escape. She hated her hair which was the one thing she couldn't control. And it kept getting lighter even though she hadn't spent much time in the sun at college. Her blonde locks were turning silver, making her uncomfortable. Her classmates kept asking what toner she used. Galene had never dyed or bleached her hair. Maybe she should try to darken it. Flashes of color had Galene glancing at a fish—a sculpin—skating across the bottom of the pool.
Guilt stirred, pushing her aside her sorrow. Guilt and something more… hunger. She wanted to taste the sculpin's silvery flesh.
Galene had secrets. When she was a kid, she'd once snuck away in the night and run to the beach but hadn't ventured near the water, her parents' lectures ringing in her ears.
No swimming in saltwater.
Never play hide and seek.
Never talk about the scar at the back of your neck.
But Galene had sat on the sand, resisting the ocean's pull. And then she'd reached out and snatched up a crab. A reflex she couldn't control. She'd eaten it raw, and tears had fallen when she realized what she'd done. Her parents were all about saving wildlife and sea life and shed ripped apart an animal with her bare hands. And it had tasted like heaven.
The memory was a cold discomfort that chilled her bones.
Galene shivered and retracted her hand from the tempting pool. Feeling her nails bite into skin, she studied the darkening horizon. She made her way back to the sand as her father sifted through the washed-up trash and dumped the sea pollutants into a bag.
Why did a night swim appeal so strongly? Shadowed waters called to her traitorous soul, and she forced one foot in front of another, retreating to safety. Could she even swim? Vague memories surfaced. Galene hadn't done all that well when she'd almost drowned and flopped around in the waves at nine years old. She'd been only nine at the time. At least that was her estimated age. She was probably seven years old when she'd been found by her two saviors—her adoptive parents. Now, at twenty-one, she knew them as a family—loving family. After sitting on the beach, she drew a circle in the sand, wondering about her life before the typhoon. Galene's birth family had never been found.
'Are you having trouble in college?" Her father lowered himself beside her and nudged her shoulder.
"No, daddy. School is fine."
"It had better be—it's a damn art degree. How will you apply that to finding a job?"
"Are you giving me a hard time about my second choice? Galene shot him a glare. "I can still be a marine biologist—just like you."
Her father stiffened.
"Or maybe I should be a doctor or an engineer. How about a lawyer?" She grinned, knowing her brilliant grades could get her into any field. She was considered gifted at school. Even Harvard and Oxford had head-hunted Galene before she'd graduated from high school.
But, she'd followed in her mother's footsteps and stuck with her passion—swirling paint on a canvas. Traditional art was dying in a digital world. And yet, she hadn't resisted the pull to create magical worlds through her art.
"You're now just like your mother. Come, my artsy, fartsy daughter, let's get home and make dinner. Galene picked up her father's trash bag half-filled with soda cans, broken glass, and plastic. She took in the ocean one last time, saddened that humans polluted their fragile world.
Threading her fingers with the professor, she tugged at his hand. What are you going to cook for your visiting child?"
"You're doing the cooking, dear heart."
"You're putting me to work?" Galene laughed as they ascended the wooden stairs to their beach-side home.
If she'd remembered her past, she would've sensed the movement in the dark shallows. The man's entire body glistened in the water. Muscles rippled below dark blue skin as he swam towards the rocks. He eased himself out of the shallows without a sound and waited. His lower body slowly lightened, and he pulled in a breath, tasting the air. He could smell the humans on the beach. A primate walking her dog. The distant shouts of Homo Sapien offspring.
Closing his eyes, he concentrated on tracking a scent, finally using a knee to raise himself onto a rock. His skin changed colors and became a mottled brown, but he took no notice. Invisible to humans, he took in another lungful of air. There it was… that subtle scent. Was it a vibrio? He tensed.
It couldn't be a fisheri—his pod was all accounted for. With one exception, but she was long gone.
He'd ventured too far, and the scouting party would raise the alarm if he didn't rejoin them. Inwardly cursing, he pushed back off the rock and dropped into the water. He might look like a sleek seal—all shiny and smooth if he were spotted. A seal the size of a large man. There was always a risk—watching the shoreline. With a powerful thrash of his tail, Darghelm descended silently, passing a white shark as he headed west towards his kin.
