Useless Bay(17)

Hence the “pissed off” part.

Then something grabbed me. Gently, at first, but then more and more insistent, until it locked around my wrist and sucked at my skin at the same time.

Tentacles.

Yes, we had octopuses here. But this was no octopus. Whatever had a grip on me had fingers. That’s when I heard a voice in my head saying, Stay. Good Girl.

Oh God. The troll. I wasn’t on the shore, where I felt a measure of protection. I was in the bay. I was sure I was finally going to see the real face of the troll, just before he crunched me in half with jagged barnacle teeth.

Just the night before, I’d awoken howling because I’d had a nightmare that he was reaching for me, just like this. Dean had splashed Clamato juice in my face, as usual, and then said, “This is getting old,” before leaving me to clean up the mess.

I had not dreamed that the troll would be an active participant in this day’s tragedy.

Good girl. I’ve come for you and everything you love. There’s nothing you can do about it. Much easier if you give up and let me take you down to the wreck.

I tried to jerk my hand free, but he wasn’t letting go. So I swung my leg around and stomped on his arm. Hard.

He loosened his grip enough for me to pull away.

I wanted to run screaming for the shore, but there was more than just me involved now. If Grant were still somehow floating around the bay, or had sunk to the bottom, I couldn’t let the troll get him, couldn’t let those sharp barnacle teeth get those little-boy bones.

I hadn’t gone far when I encountered the fingers reaching for me again, insistent. Again I kicked them away.

Three times this happened.

The fourth, I found something new.

I had gotten hold of a jungle of bulb kelp and was sifting through it.

There was something there that was larger than a bulb. My fingers brushed against the thing. It wasn’t solid—it was soft, as though it had been in the water a while. There was no way of knowing for sure what it was, so I opened my eyes into the darkness.

I could barely make out cloudy shapes in the flotsam I was trying to untangle, but on the bay floor, something stared back at me.

It wasn’t the troll. Its eyes were gray and fathomless and set in a kind, feminine face. Not Grant, either.

Another body? Three corpses in one night? How could that be?

Then the eyes blinked. Not a corpse, but a living woman, her dark hair swirling with the ebb and flow of the tide.

I tried to grab an arm or a leg. I didn’t know who—or what—she was, but I wanted to keep her from drowning if I could.

I left the tangle of flotsam and reached below me to the sand. No matter where my fingers touched, what debris I combed through, the woman’s body eluded me.

My lungs felt as though they were about to explode. Surely she couldn’t stay under this long? I held my breath as long as I could, grabbing at an elusive arm or anything to help the woman to the surface. But it was dark and cold, and my stored-up oxygen was exhausted, so I had to break off and come up for air before diving under again.

Still no body. Her head and her hair were the only things that seemed solid. I didn’t want to pull her up by the hair, so I put one hand on either side of her face.

But when I went to pull it, it dissolved into sand and re-formed farther away from me.

I chased her. I stopped worrying about her drowning because each time that face slipped away from me and came up in a different eddy, she didn’t seem to need to breathe.

What was she? This woman, whoever she was, felt so real to me, both tender and serene. I couldn’t not look at her. It felt like she’d once been someone, someone I’d held dear but had forgotten.

Another wave buffeted me, and with it came a gob of flotsam. All right. Whoever this woman was, she could breathe underwater and seemed happy to stay there. But what if Grant was in this other jumble of seaweed?

I reached out for it, but before I could make contact, I felt a feathery caress on my face. The woman now had hands, and they gently stroked my cheek. Where before she had seemed serene, now she looked sad, as though she knew what was about to happen to me but was powerless to stop it. She shook her head gently from side to side. No.

She didn’t speak, but the message could not have been clearer. Don’t touch that, child. Let it go.

I found it hard to breathe, not because I was underwater but because I was about to sob. How could I disappoint such a beautiful, compassionate creature?

And yet I was about to.

When the flotsam came near me again, I grabbed a piece and held on tight. I didn’t know what I had. Maybe the troll. Maybe Grant. Maybe some other horrible surprise. But I grabbed anyway.

I realized now what I should’ve known the instant we found Lyudmila. I was wasting time. I was flutter-kicking around the shallow waters of the bay because I didn’t want to face what I’d done.

Earlier, when Grant had come to me so terrified it looked like he wanted to escape his own skin, I didn’t have to take him back to his house. I didn’t have to ferry him across the shipping lanes, either.

I could’ve just done the right thing and said, “Let’s go back to my place. It’s chili night. My brothers and I will keep you safe.”

But I didn’t. Because I was afraid of what Mr. Shepherd would think.

If any one of my brothers or I pissed him off, he could build a fence so high we’d never see our beloved bay again, let alone have access to it. I would never see the herons fishing in the muck or watch osprey drop their disgusting morsels on the beach. I’d never run the sand between my toes or dig for razor clams. How would we ground ourselves, living so close to the beach but not being part of it? Without Useless Bay, my brothers and I would shrivel to nothing.