I knew Melantha existed, because I had heard the stories. Nobody ventured into the woods once the sunlight was no longer there. Those who had, had never come back. The ones who had been brave enough to go there, while the sun was up, had never gone back in.

I’ve been fishing these waters for forty years. The battering of the waves against the rocky shore was the first sound I ever heard. The tang of salt was the first I remember smelling. Cold never bothered me, nor the embrace of wet sand strewn with seaweed beneath my feet. I know these seas better than I know myself. Real good here for catching squid, and octopus, and cuttlefish. Every manner of sea creature that’s out there—I’ve seen them all, know them all. But this thing… what my boys and I netted and dragged onto the trawler, this thing I’d never seen before.

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