The wind riffled Madi's hair, picking at whatever loose strands it could find, in spite of the fact that she had braided it as firmly as she could. The minute they reached the sand, off came the shoes and stockings, and Madi seized her tin pail.
"May I go now, Dad?" She asked politely, her eyes brimming with excitement for the first time since they arrived.
Grove glanced at the other beachcombers: a young couple held the pudgy hands of their toddling young son as they walked down the strand. The boy kept squealing and lunging at the gulls, but he could not break his parents' grip.
Further on, a brace of boys chased each other with clods of sand as their mother divided her time between scolding them loudly and unpacking the giant wicker basket. Other guests flew kites, built castles out of sand, or ran with abandon toward the waves. The tide had reached its high point and was just beginning to ebb. Grove pointed to it.
"The beach is a bit short right now, isn't it?" He commented to Madi.
She frowned as she took the hint, but he kept talking.
"I know you want to collect shells, but I also know that the best time is when the water is a bit lower, because then the tide has washed away the sand and left shells behind it on the beach, just waiting for you to pick them up!" He grinned and winked at her, infusing his voice with as much enthusiasm as he could muster.
Madi squinted at the waves lapping the shore, noting that there did seem to be a patch of wet sand at the water's edge, widening by the minute.
"Let's have a bit of picnic first, shall we?" Ashley asked his daughter, and he dug into their basket to hand her a sandwich.
Just as he predicted, by the time they finished, there was a wide swath of freshly-turned sand. The waves crashed against the rocks far from shore in a soothing rhythm, and most of the noisier crowd were already preparing to leave.
Madi wiped her mouth with the corner of her pinafore and cast a baleful glance at her father.
"Now may I go?" She asked in a tone that expected yet another litany of contrived excuses to keep her within arm's reach.
In fact, those very excuses did spring to the doctor's mind, but he shook them off and waved her away. "Go ahead, my dear—"
The words had hardly left his mouth before she had clambered to her feet and dashed down the beach, puffs of sand spraying under her steps.
Grove stood up after her. "Just don't go near the water without me!" He called after Madi.
She had the good sense to stop and wave to let him know she heard, and then she was off again.
Grove returned to the blanket and to his book, settled in, and began to read.
Madi coasted over the sand, relishing the cool, uneven feel beneath her feet. Shells of many varieties and colors lay strewn about, and she had little trouble filling her pail with a growing collection.
"Ooh, Mummy!"
The voice caught her attention, and Madi looked to see who had spoken. A young boy ran up to his mother holding a sea biscuit almost as big as his hand. "Look at this one, Mummy! It's so big!"
His mother patted his shoulder. "Oh, very nice, Justin! Well done, that is beautiful!"
The boy bestowed his gift upon his mother and ran to look for more.
The ache in Madi's heart threatened to choke her. She bent down and picked up an intact mussel half-shell longer than her palm. She sat upon her knees in the sand, cradling the shell in her lap.
"Look Mummy," she whispered. "See the pretty rainbow inside?"
She imagined that same proud smile on the face of her own mother, the same gentle words praising her for such a simple thing. Madi sighed and placed the shell in the top of her pail; she had been hunting shells for no more than an hour, but she had lost the desire for it. Now all she wanted to do was sit beside her father.
Madi turned around to see how far she had wandered—
And just then, the sand beneath her legs moved.
Ash Grove was deep into the fascinating novel when his mind finally alerted him to the fact that the light had grown so poor, he was squinting to see the words. Reluctantly, he closed the book and looked up to see where Madi had got to. There weren't very many people at the beach anymore, so it was easy to spot her little green dress as she crouched over something at the water's edge. He stood up to join her—just at the moment he saw the sand beneath her erupt and a large sea-blue creature burst from the sand just beside his daughter. It had a long body ending in a blunt head like some kind of pale-skinned whale, but instead of flippers, it slid long, iridescent tentacles along the ground.
Ash ran for his daughter and waved his arms, yelling crazily, "Hey! Get away from her! Get back!"
Madi had tumbled backward on the sand with a shrill scream. The thing that the tide had left behind failed and flopped pitifully, reaching out with thin, slippery tentacles. One of them grabbed her ankle, and Madi wrenched her foot away. As she did, a change came over the creature. The skin paled, and lank, stringy hair seemed to seep from its head. The creature's head shrank and re-formed, and by the time Madi felt her father's hands hauling her backward by her shoulders, she found herself staring at a tall, slender, full-grown man stretched out on the sand—and he
