He gesticulated at the port side again, his free hand clamped around the wheel. His leather gloves were gone, leaving his bread-pale hands bare. The skin had peeled away from his knuckle bones, and they stuck out of his ruined hands like the spine of a prehistoric lizard.
Una tried to scream, but the wind stole her voice before she could make a sound.
Pappi’s eyes rolled in their sockets. He stabbed his pointer finger into the air, wordlessly commanding Una to move, torelease her rope and cross the heaving deck to the other side of the boat.
But Una’s body was like petrified wood. She just stood there, clinging to her rope, as the boat groaned and plunged into another trough. Suddenly, the planks beneath her feet fell away until there was only air under her boots. She was weightless—an insect frozen in ice—and then the deck came racing upward again, slamming into her feet, buckling her knees.
She heard a cry over the howl of the gale. Her father’s voice, sharp and urgent.“Svana!”
Una stared at him in horror. Her sister! Where was her sister?
She must be tangled in the netting!
Without a second thought, Una let go of the rope.
She immediately lost her footing. Sliding and scrambling, she practically rolled to the other side of the boat. Her stomach lurched with the waves, and she lowered her head against the smack of sea spray. The jerking movement allowed her braid to escape from beneath her oilskin coat. It writhed in the air like an agitated snake.
Svana.
Una pulled herself up to the rail and peered over the side of the boat.
Salt spray smacked her face, torturing her eyes with the needlelike sting of jellyfish, but she squeezed the water away until she could see directly below her.
The nets were gone.
Svana was gone.
But something was there, just below the surface.
A mass of darkness, even blacker than the sea.
The mass was as big as a whale.
No. It was bigger.
Its teeth were not a whale’s teeth. This creature had rows and rows of long, pointed fangs. They looked like stalactites and stalagmites jutting out of its cave of a mouth. Its eyes were two black marbles, glinting with predatory hunger.
It held something in its octopus arms.
A girl.
Svana.
The monster stared up at Una, and she felt a biting cold course through her body. Frost crept into her blood. Her skin froze. The air in her lungs turned to ice. Her heart stopped beating.
From a very great distance, a car door slammed, and Una jerked awake.
The dream was already out of reach as she blinked against the daylight. She unclicked her seat belt and waited for Don to back his car out of the driveway before gathering her cleaning supplies and knocking on the Pulaskis’ front door.
“Halló!” she called out, cracking the door. “It’s Una!”
Beth poked her head out of the kitchen, phone pressed to her ear. She waved Una in and then leaned against the wall.
Una always started her work in the kitchen. This room was the beating heart of every house, and every house was happier when it was clean.
As usual, the stove needed her attention. Beth was a messy cook, and the cooktop was speckled with oil droplets and a crusty brown sauce.
“I’m telling you, Paula, Don hasn’t been himself since he went to see Mrs. Smith.” Beth spoke in a clipped tone. “She’s that creepy lady who lives in the ugly mansion at the end of the street. She bought a car from his dealership, a Porsche 911 Turbo, though I have no idea why. I mean, the woman doesn’t leave the house. Why does she need a fucking Porsche? Anyway,Donwent to see her.”
