“We weren’t alone down there.”
Ciaran was thinking aboutthatas he watched Sawyer sleep.
He was thinking about a lot of things, none of them good.
He hadn’t even needed to ask the others to go search the Cove. Fray had begun stripping off right then and there, and Tobin shot to his feet and followed him back into the water. Otis, Hendrix, and Aurin were right behind them.
Kellan had stayed to monitor Sawyer, and Dylan was wearing a hole in the carpet with his pacing.
“Wanna take a seat or something?” Ciaran asked, voice flat. “You’re making me nervous.”
Dylan winced and slid into a seat at Sawyer’s small table. He sat on his hands, but his leg bounced. “Is he okay? Why isn’t he awake yet?”
“Kellan said he’s fine,” Ciaran replied, and not for the first time because Dylan asked him every few minutes. “Almost drowning is exhausting, apparently.”
The front door to the police station opened, and Kellan came in, book in hand, Salem the cat slipping in between his feet.
Kellan’s brow was furrowed, the eyes behind his glasses worried, and Ciaran knew whatever news he was bringing wasn’t good.
He stayed in his seat beside Sawyer’s bed. Wild fucking horses couldn’t drag him away. “What is it, Doc?” he asked, his monotone voice resigned.
Kellan grimaced as he opened the book to one page in particular. “In 1180, the King of Norway?—”
“I don’t need a history lesson on the kraken,” Ciaran said with perhaps too much bite. But Kellan was prone to long explanations, and honestly, Ciaran wasn’t up for it.
Kellan held his breath for a second, then started again. “Bear with me, I’m setting a precedent.”
Ciaran immediately felt bad. “Sorry.”
Kellan’s gaze drifted to Sawyer, and his face fell. “It’s okay.”
“As you were saying?” He gave Kellan what he hoped was a smile, though it hardly felt like one.
He went back to his book. “The earliest known recordings of the kraken are well documented, in books, on maps, in folklore. From the fourteenth century onwards, every few hundred years.”
Ciaran tried to be patient. “And?”
“Correlating evidence of fisherman claiming lack of fish supplies at the same time, or in the lead-up to sightings of the kraken, is also well-known.”
Ciaran knew this, and he gave Kellan an eyebrow that said as much.
“So I got wondering,” Kellan said, sharper now, probably annoyed and probably justified to be so. “If there were any precursors or indicators not listed directly but that could possibly correlate to the kraken’s appearance.” He licked his lips, eyes serious. “I’ve been cross-referencing history books, and I keep coming back to the siren call.”
Ciaran’s gaze shot to Kellan then. “What?”
“The siren call. Many different folklores speak of it, from mermaids to selkies. There aren’t any direct mentions to the kraken and a siren call, but what if they were weeks apart, in different locations?”
“Kellan,” Ciaran said, urging him to get the fucking point.
“Therearereports of sailors and fishermen, and even their wives and daughters, claiming to have a calling to the sea. Weeks before the appearance of the kraken.”
Ciaran’s hearts began to squeeze...
Kellan continued. “In 1528, doctors cited mass hysteria in a Norwegian fishing village where one third of the townsfolk literally walked into the sea.” Then he read directly from the book. “’Some twenty men, and even two women, stood up and, in unison, faced the sea. As if in a trance, they walked into the water. Then weeks later, ships reported sightings out at sea.”
“Oh shit,” Ciaran breathed, then turned to Sawyer who was still asleep.
“There’s more,” Kellan said. “More instances, I mean. In 1743, translated from Icelandic. ‘A pull so undeniable, so harrowing, it speaks to the bones. A man has no will but to sink into the depths, into the kraken’s maw. No will at all’.”
