Seafoam

They said there were monsters out here on the Ledge. They were wrong.

I think they didn’t want me to find the schools of cod out here. Maybe they meant the whales? I’ve seen them every day this week. Rain or shine. Or maybe they meant the sharks that cruise out here. I saw a ten-foot blue the other day, like a ghostly torpedo. Harmless fish, especially to a trawler like mine.

Even the sea itself is peaceful out here. It barely ripples as the shelf gives way to the midnight depth of the Atlantic. It’s the closest thing to glass the ocean can be.

I know they don’t mean the mermaid. Yeah. A mermaid. No I’m not crazy. And yes she’s beautiful. I call her Audrey because she looks like Hepburn, except with a fish’s tail. She says she likes it. She helps me find the best places to drop my nets. She knows every shanty in every language. I had her singing My Bonnie in Italian yesterday. Today The Wellerman in Japanese. She’d be the soloist if you put her in God’s own choir.

She asked me to watch the moonrise with her tonight. So we sit and watch the sky go from gold and pink to dusky purple to velvet blue. She starts naming the stars when they come out to play. What a lass Audrey is.

Luna appears, a pale yellow disc smiling down on us. Her halo chases away the stars. Audrey points at the reflection on the water. It’s glorious. I lean over the side for a better look. I’ve never seen such an illusion. The moon is huge here on the ledge.

The reflection blinks.

I scramble away from the railing, my heart a thunder in my ears.

Audrey laughs. “He won’t hurt you. In fact, he’s rather kind. Men have always misunderstood krakens.”

A frosty jolt runs like frozen lightning down my back and settles in my stomach. I don’t want to believe krakens are real. But a week ago mermaids weren’t real and here one sat.

“Shall you meet him?” she asks, with her head cocked coquettishly. I can’t muster a response. So she sings.

It’s head surfaces. No two. No a dozen. Three dozen. Five. We’re surrounded. It takes several minutes to comprehend these rocky things jutting from the sea around us are not heads; they’re teeth. My boat is dead center in the maw of the beast. It’s at least three hundred yards in any direction to safety.

“See?” Audrey muses. “Perfectly safe.” She has gotten closer. I’d really liked the way she’d been looking at me earlier, but I don’t like it now.

“May I kiss you?” she asks. I wanted to earlier certainly. I still want to but….

Her lips are warm. Sweet. It’s rose-like in texture and taste. I forget the kraken. I’m tingling.

I look down. My legs have become foam. My body is next.

“I’m thirsty,” Audrey purrs. And then she drinks.