Cate knew better than to get this close.

Fishermen wore hooks under their fingernails. That’s what the elders said. They carved them into their thumbs so they could tear you open with a touch—split your skin and string your voice like pearls. Cate had never seen one do it, but she’d heard the stories.

And yet here she was.

Pressed flat against a rock just below the waterline, half-submerged in brine and moonlight, watching her. Watching the woman move across the deck of her little boat like she wasn’t dangerous. Like she wasn’t death wrapped in weather-worn denim and wet leather boots.

She should’ve left hours ago.

The tide was already slipping out beneath her, whispering over the rocks like it knew better than she did. Like it had already warned her. Go. Now. Before she turns around. Before she sees you again.

But Cate stayed.

Tucked just beneath the surface, hidden behind a tangle of kelp and shadow, she hovered—elbows braced on a smooth stone shelf, chin resting in her hands, tail curled gently behind her like a question mark. Watching with wide, unblinking eyes.

There wasn’t much to see, really. Not from this distance. Not with the sun beginning to slant low in the sky, its golden haze cutting across the water in slow, syrupy ribbons. The boat was small—barely more than a rowboat with a motor strapped to its back—but the woman moved across it like it was a palace. Sure-footed. Loose-limbed. Confident in that careless, mortal way.

Cate found that part the strangest of all. Humans had so little time, and yet they wasted it like they had oceans of it.

This one, though—this one lingered. She’d dropped her nets early, just after dawn, and hadn’t even checked them yet. Just drifted. Staring out at the horizon, smoking some thin little stick of paper that made her lips turn down in a thoughtful way Cate couldn’t stop looking at.

Every night, the boat came back. Not with a haul, not with blood in the nets or fish guts in the bilge, but with music. With muttering. With that low, smoky voice that made the surface tremble like something alive. She talked to the sea. Sang to it. Laughed under her breath when the engine sputtered.

Cate knew she should be afraid of her. Fishermen were dangerous. Her mother used to say it too. That they were worse than sharks—cleverer. Hungrier. Not for blood, but for control. For ownership.

Cate had believed her.

She still did. Mostly.

But this one hadn’t set any hooks.

She barely ever checked her traps. Just tossed bits of crusty bread into the waves and called out softly to the gulls, like they were old friends. Sometimes she sang under her breath—not loudly, not like a siren, but still. Like she was humming to the sea, asking it to hum back.

Cate didn’t know her name. But she had theories.

Strong hands. Sun-warmed skin. Scars on her fingers like she used them for more than just nets and lines. A voice low enough to ripple through water. Cate had heard it once, drifting closer than she meant to, and the sound had curled around her like a tide. She hadn't meant to stay that long. But she had.

And today, something was different.

The woman hadn’t lit her little paper stick. She hadn’t moved much at all. Just sat at the edge of the boat, legs dangling over the side, and stared down into the water.

Right where Cate was.

Cate froze. Her tail went still, glittering faintly in the late sun. The swell of the water rocked against the boat’s hull, gentle and slow. She knew, with bone-deep certainty, that if the woman leaned a little farther, she’d see her.

And for reasons Cate didn’t quite understand, she didn’t move.

Didn’t dive. Didn’t hide.

She should. Every instinct screamed it.

But the woman only tilted her head. Smiled—small and crooked—and said, “You come by here often?”

Cate’s heart stuttered.

She blinked.

Then, with a splash, she vanished.

Gone like a ghost. Like a myth.

Only the kelp swayed where she’d been.

And on the boat, {{user}} laughed to herself. Low. Pleased. Like she knew Cate would return.