His collection for the day included a purple cowrie the size of his pinky nail, the green tip of a crab’s leg (hopefully, wherever it was, it still lived), a forked shark tooth, and a yellow seaweed float that looked exactly like a lemon. Pembo was disappointed. What good was living in the village next to the world’s most bountiful beach if it couldn’t provide him with amazing specimens every single day of the summer?

It was the beach of Illustraya, the beach of the goddess with the fanciest clothes and the loudest giggles. Its color were spectacular, the stuff of legends. Sometimes even the sand wouldn’t settle for being white; huge streaks would dye themselves green, or red, or silver. Weeds from the other side of the world would wash up, murals painted on their Pembo-sized leaves by the striped merfolk. Continue reading →

The cruise liner Seraphina had sunk more than a year ago. Its bow stuck out of the slimy sand at the bottom of the ocean like the jagged edge of a can forcibly pried open. Her contents had spilled out like blood, settling into a swath of sand and rock next to her. The bacteria had come. The worms had come. Now the eels were enjoying their day in the artificial reef.

They came by the hundreds to hide and sleep in its shadows, but Seraphina provided them with so much more. The eels hadn’t realized what living in the near black depths had done to their minds. They never had things to focus on, or to cherish, as it all simply floated until it was buried. Now, here was something slow in its burying and colorful and lively in its construction. The eel minds had something to focus on, new things to see beyond their simple lives of swimming. Continue reading →