No.
There’s a tentacle wrapped around my ankle now.
I glance at Caleb, my eyes wide in horror. Maybe coming outside to talk to this thing wasn’t a good idea whatsoever.
Before I have time to say that out loud, a slimy sucker-lined tentacle winds up my leg, stopping just short of the raincoat hovering above my knee.
“Ah, hello there,” I say, trying for cordial and missing by about ten miles. My voice shakes. “We couldn’t help but notice you trying to get our attention inside. So we thought we would come out and say hello and see if there was something you needed. We have some bread baking if you are into that.”
“My name is Annabelle.” I don’t hear the words so much as I feel them deep inside my skull, so loud that it feels like something shouting straight inside my brain.
I wince, holding on to Caleb’s hand for dear life, terror coursing through me.
“Can you speak a little bit quieter?” I ask, my voice unnaturally high-pitched.
I don’t know how the hell the thing is hearing me through the noise of the storm and the fact that if it has ears they’re underwater, but considering it’s seeming to speak telepathically into my brain, one can only imagine it has other ways of receiving information. “Also, uh, it’s nice to meet you, Annabelle.”
“You are not the witch I spoke to last time the ward failed,” the creature says.
I didn’t know that accents were possible in mind-to-mind speaking, but this thing definitely has an accent.
I lick my lips.
“Don’t be nervous,” the kraken says. It sounds amused and scoffing all at the same time, and the great glowing eye beaming up at us from the water blinks slowly. I had no idea that squid even had eyelids. Maybe they don’t. Maybe this is a whole kraken thing.
“Of course we have eyelids. And I’m not a squid. What is your name this time?”
I don’t know what this time means, so it takes me a moment to recover. “Er, Ivy Romantic. It is so nice to meet you, Annabelle.”
“You don’t think it’s nice to meet me at all,” the kraken announces in my head. “You can’t lie to me. I can feel your emotions. The magic’s pouring off you and it’s stinging me, so please stop that.”
Gunner whines softly, pawing at the back of my ankle, careful to avoid the tentacle. I don’t want to know what would happen if this thing decided to get angry at the dog.
“Back up, Gunner,” I tell him.
“Here, boy,” Caleb yells, slapping his thigh.
Gunner doesn’t listen to either one of us, because of course he doesn’t. He’s a magical familiar dog. He’s never listened once in his life unless it’s suited him.
Potty training — don’t even get me started.
“Romantic. Your name does sound familiar,” the kraken says. “You, however, are not.”
Its tentacle tightens slightly on me, and I wobble, unsteady on my feet.
Gunner whines again, pressing his back up against my legs, and Caleb steps closer, anchoring an arm around me.
“I’ve got you,” he says.
I believe him.
“And who is it you’ve brought with you? The last witch wasn’t alone, either.”
I fish around in my head for any ideas whatsoever of what this thing is talking about. A memory tugs at me, but I frown, because the minute I try to hold onto it, it slips away.
“I am not a thing. I am the queen of the kraken, and I noticed your ward was failing last night, and now it is completely gone. You need to get it up and running again. I can only hold off the things that live in the ocean for so long before they decide tosate their hunger on this town. And despite striking a pact with another Romantic many years ago, I cannot keep up my side of the bargain if you do not strengthen your ward.”
All right, then.
