Remarkably Bright Creatures(3)

At the sound, the octopus lashes again, shoving one of the chairs with alarming force. The chair skids across the room and ricochets off the opposite wall.

From under the table, the creature’s impossibly clear eye gleams.

Determined, Tova creeps closer, trying to steady her shaking hands. How many times has she passed by the plaque under the giant Pacific octopus tank? She can’t recall it stating anything about octopuses being dangerous to humans.

She’s but a foot away. He seems to be shrinking, and his color has become pale. Does an octopus have teeth?

“My friend,” she says softly. “I’m going to reach around you and unplug the cord.” She peers around and sees exactly which cord is the source of his predicament. Within reach.

The octopus’s eye follows her every movement.

“I won’t hurt you, dear.”

One of its free arms taps on the floor like a house cat’s tail.

As she yanks the plug, the octopus flinches backward. Tova flinches, too. She expects him to slink out along the wall toward the door, in the direction he’d been straining.

But instead, he slides closer.

Like a tawny snake, one of his arms slithers toward her. In seconds, it winds around her forearm, then twists around her elbow and bicep like a maypole ribbon. She can feel each individual sucker clinging to her. Reflexively, she tries to yank her arm away, but the octopus tightens his grip to the point where it’s almost uncomfortable. But his strange eye glints playfully, like a naughty child’s.

Empty takeout cartons. Misplaced trash can. Now it makes sense.

Then, in an instant, he releases her. Tova watches, incredulous, as he stalks out the break room door, suckering along on the thickest part of each of his eight legs. His mantle seems to drag behind him and he looks even paler now; he’s moving with effort. She hurries after him, but by the time she reaches the hallway, the octopus is nowhere to be seen.

Tova drags a hand down her face. She’s losing her faculties. Yes, that’s it. This is how it begins, isn’t it? With hallucinations about an octopus?

Years ago, she had watched her late mother’s mind slip away. It started with occasional forgetfulness, familiar names and dates elusive. But Tova does not forget phone numbers or find herself searching the back of her mind for names. She looks down at her arm, which is covered in tiny circles. Sucker marks.

Half-dazed, she finishes the evening’s tasks, then makes her usual last round of the building to say good night.

Good night, bluegills, eels, Japanese crabs, sharp-nosed sculpin. Good night, anemones, seahorses, starfish.

Around the bend she continues. Good night, tuna and flounder and stingrays. Good night, jellies, sea cucumbers. Good night, sharks, you poor things. Tova has always felt more than a bit of empathy for the sharks, with their never-ending laps around the tank. She understands what it means to never be able to stop moving, lest you find yourself unable to breathe.

There’s the octopus, once again hidden behind his rock. A puff of flesh sticks out. His orange is more vivid now, compared to how he looked in the break room, but he’s still paler than usual. Well, perhaps it serves him right. He ought to stay put. How on earth did he get out? She peers through the rippling water, scanning up under the rim, but nothing seems amiss.

“Troublemaker,” she says, shaking her head. She hovers for an extra moment in front of his tank before leaving for the night.

TOVA’S YELLOW HATCHBACK chirps and blinks its sidelights as she presses the key fob, a feature she’s still not accustomed to. Her friends, the group of lunching ladies who affectionately call themselves the Knit-Wits, convinced her she needed a new car when she started her job. A safety issue, they argued, to drive at night in an older vehicle. They badgered her about it for weeks.

Sometimes it’s easier to simply give in.

After depositing her jug of vinegar and bottle of lemon oil in the trunk, as always, because no matter how many times Terry has told her she’s welcome to store them in the supply closet, one never knows when a bit of lemon and vinegar might come in handy, she casts a glance down the pier. It’s empty at this late hour, the evening fishermen long gone. The old ferry dock sits across from the aquarium like some ancient rotting machine. Barnacles cover its crumbling pilings. At high tide, the barnacles snag strands of seaweed, which dry into green-black plaque when the seawater ebbs.

She crosses the weathered wooden planks. As always, the old ticket booth is exactly thirty-eight steps from her parking space.

Tova looks once more for any bystanders, anyone lingering in the long shadows. She presses her hand to the ticket booth’s glass window, its diagonal crack like an old scar across someone’s cheek.

Then she walks onto the pier, out to her usual bench. It’s slick with salt spray and speckled with seagull droppings. She sits, pushing up her sleeve, looking at the strange round marks, half expecting them to be gone. But there they are. She runs the tip of her finger around the largest one, right on the inside of her wrist. It’s about the size of a silver dollar. How long will it linger there? Will it bruise? Bruises come so easily these days, and the mark is already turning maroon, like a blood blister. Perhaps it will remain permanently. A silver-dollar scar.

The fog has lifted, nudged inland by the wind, shunted off toward the foothills. To the south, a freighter is anchored, hull riding low under the rows of containers stacked like a child’s building blocks on its deck. Moonlight shimmies across the water, a thousand candles bobbing on its surface. Tova closes her eyes, imagining him underneath the surface, holding the candles for her. Erik. Her only child.