Teeth(44)

I’m early, and the fishermen aren’t here yet. I wave to a few people, then help Sam set up his bottles of milk. He gives me one for free in return.

Fiona is standing by the cliffs, looking into the water. I go over and stand with her, say hi.

She smiles at me. Her lips are dry, and they curl over her gums.

The fishermen hike up the hill, their boots squishing against the skin. They approach their stand and grin at us with gold teeth.

And they unload more fish than I’ve ever seen. Heaps and heaps of fish.

Fuck.

They have him.

I know I need to buy a few before I go, but I’m not sure I should be going anywhere near the fishermen right now. I might do something horrible if I do. Horrible for my family, at least.

I stay where I am, right next to Fiona. “The ghost isn’t with me,” I say to her.

She looks at me, her brows furrowed together.

I say, “I’m scared.”

“Where is the ghost?”

“Trapped.”

She nods. “The ghost is always trapped.”

“No, not trapped like this.”

She keeps nodding. “The ghost will always be trapped.”

“Why?”

“You just said it, didn’t you?” She’s looking at the water again. “Because you are scared.”

No f*cking way. Not this time. “Thanks, Fiona.” I kiss her cheek and run to the fish stand. I throw my money down before I start wondering if I can kill someone with a paper cut to an artery. Leave them, Rudy. Leave them. I grab two handfuls of fish. One is still flapping weakly.

“Hey!” the one-eyed fisherman says.

“I don’t need them wrapped.” I swallow the instinct to say thank you. I stuff the naked fish into my bag. I run.

I need to find him. I need to find him. Holy shit, I need to find him before they get back. They must have him tied up. He has to be trapped somehow, or he would get away. I have to believe that he would get away.

One of the fishermen will be back soon; they never both stay at the market together for more than a few minutes. Once they’re done unloading, one will return and get back to work.

I’m too scared to call out. Too worried he won’t answer.

I scan the area as quickly as I can. The rowboats are both empty, save a pile of nets in one and a few spare fishing rods in the other.


I check underneath the boats. I better not find a body. He was screaming just last night. They couldn’t have killed him. No way. No f*cking way.

I dig through a pile of nets. Nothing. I run toward the shrimp boat, that unused rickety thing. And there he is. I see the tip of a tail, tattered and bloody, peeking out from the inside of the cabin. If I didn’t know better, I’d never know it was anything but a bit of a discarded fish.

I’m inside. “Teeth.” It’s too dark for me to see anything, but I feel some part of him underneath my hand. It’s sticky and cold. Maybe his stomach.

He makes a noise, and I can tell both that he’s alive and that he’s been gagged.

“Okay. Okay, shh.” I try to crawl my hands up him to figure out where his face is, but there are so many ropes and so much blood. Fuck, I wish I could see him. I’m never going to be able to get him out of here in the dark.

I’m going to need to leave him and come back.

I find his face, finally, and tug the gag out of his mouth. He says, “Rudy Rudy Rudy,” over and over, his voice scraping all the way up to the roof of his mouth.

“Listen to me,” I say.

He’s quiet. I hear his chest growling when he breathes.

“Do you remember, in the cave, when you told me you would come back?”

“Uh-huh.” I hear his voice right on the edge of tears, and I also hear, behind me, the squishing noise of boots coming down the hill.

So I say, “I’ll be back,” as fast as I can, and I kiss his forehead before I can think of anything better to do. I’m out of there in a second, covered in his blood, and I grab my bags and scale the cliffs like a f*cking master. Then I’m straight down the beach, into the water, washing myself clean. So cold, but the water is gentle, licking at the wounds that aren’t mine.

I come out and reclaim my bags. That fish that was wiggling isn’t anymore. The smallest one. I take him out and hold him. I stare into his eyes that don’t look anything like Teeth’s.

“Hey, it’s okay,” I tell him, even though he doesn’t speak English. “It’s all good. I’m going to save your brother.”



It takes me longer than it should to come up with a plan. I don’t know if that’s because the situation has warped my thought process, or if I’m just trying to avoid my only real option.

Or maybe it’s just because, to be lame and honest, what I really want to do right now is run to my parents and have them fix everything. But they don’t know about Fishboy, and I don’t think they’d be too pleased about saving the boy responsible for the fish shortage that nearly destroyed us.

There’s only one person in the world I can think of who can help me save him.

And the more I think about it, the more I realize there’s absolutely no way I can do this without her.



Diana takes a while to answer, so I’m practically throwing myself at the door by the time she gets there. “What do you want?” she says.