She followed where he pointed, wondering if she could find his house. Wondering if he ever strolled the shore at night, unshackled.
The Ravening was speaking to her, hinting, insinuating.
She stared at Wolfgang. He’d been kind to her. He would never be hers. Even if, then she shut her eyes for desire was rising. Where her legs might be when she transformed, there, in the middle of her, she felt the stir of lust.
“Are you okay?”
“Yes.” She smiled at him. “I can’t talk for as long this time.”
“A pity.”
“The Ravening is starting to speak to me. I will get dangerous to you soon, in a few more days. In a week, definitely.”
There, she’d been honest. Raffaela grimaced. Now he would leave and never talk to her again.
“But now you’re okay? I’m shackled. I am safe.” He nodded firmly. “We can talk some more.”
They did talk. They chatted, to her immense delight. They laughed at each other’s stories – though hers she kept to ones about the ocean, or people she’d listened to from under a jetty. Things that sailors had done that she’d heard them speak of. She was cautious and did not tell him of her human past.
Something about Wolfgang nudged at her, sometimes. As if she missed some nuance, which was likely. She’d been poor as dirt and had never been a poncey sort for balls and carriages and la-de-dah. Never had enough food, most days. Learning about the changes in the way people spoke from overheard jetty conversations hadn’t teached her much else. Taught her much else. Even thinking about her past made her speak funny.
Before the moon traversed much of the night sky, she decided to leave.
She had listened to him talk about his adventures in life and had reciprocated with her shipwreck and storm stories, and hints of what she’d found at the very bottom of the ocean. Treasures, he thought. Corpses were also a part of life down there.
“Time to leave,” she said, huskily. She had worn out her throat.
“Oh.” He reached behind his chair and pulled up a palm-sized, drawstring bag. “If you’re leaving, I have a gift for you. A present.” He raised his eyebrows. “Will you accept it?”
A gift seemed stranger than strange. Men were her prey. They did not give her things, apart from their lives.
“Perhaps?” She was curious. “Ummm.” She craned forward, as if to get a better view. “What might it be?”
“Here.” He tossed the bag and it landed near enough to her that she could reach it without leaving the water. Luckily. He could not have come to her, and she would never have wriggled from the sea to get it.
Cautiously, she undid the cinched neck.
“It’s safe. It’s a necklace. A special one.”
“Safe? How would it not be safe?” Raffaela drew it forth, and found it was a string of pearls that glowed luminously under the moon. The clasp was simple, a screw-in thing. She thought she could manage it, but… wariness made her question him. “Special? How?”
“If ever you are in trouble, if you press on the large black pearl, which is actually not a real pearl. It will signal me. Then I can find you, help you.”
She frowned at the weird piece of jewelry made from things she could find herself on the ocean floor, inside oysters. “How?”
“It’s… like the internet. A signal goes out. Like that.”
Do not look a gift horse in the mouth – a saying from her childhood.
“Thank you.” She slipped it around her neck, hesitated then found the clasp, made the pieces meet.
“You just sort of screw them together.” He made a circling motion with his hand. “It won’t fall off once fastened.”
“I have it. It is done.” The pearls felt odd and heavy sitting there, above her bare breasts, where nothing usually sat.
A gift though. And one that had consideration to it. He thought he could find her in time if a whale swallowed her? Amusing man.
“Will you return again? In three days, at dusk?”
Three more days and the Ravening would be three days closer. She heaved out a sigh. “Yes. I will not stay long. I may not come if it’s too dangerous.”
If I want to eat you.
“Sure.”
At the last second, before she swam away, she had an urge to give something to him. A piece of knowledge would be the best she could gift.
“Once a year, my body changes back into being human, and I get to walk upon the land again. For one day only. That day comes soon.” She cocked her head at him, half hoping, perhaps, that he would offer something…
He looked stunned.
Stupid. She should not have said that.
She leaped and dived deep, sliding through the coolness of the sea, before he could say anything.
Stupid, stupid, stupid. He is only studying you, furthering his knowledge, nothing more.
THREE DAYS LATER
As soon as she surfaced, she knew. The niggling desires had been building, but seeing him before her made her throat close. She wanted to sing to him, to drag him down the beach to her.
Dangerous? Yes. She could control herself, but the risk was there.
“I cannot stay,” she said loudly from further out in the small bay than before, the bottom unreachable by her tail.
For a second, he looked angry. There was light here. A lantern on a pole was shedding light on his beach.
“Wait!” He stood, shoving out his hand as if to catch her. “When do you walk on the land?”
She halted, put her
