J..W. Waterhouse. / 1900

It happened at the dark of morning, when the sky turned from black to pewter to soft tangerine.

She rose from the surf, waterlogged, the seaweed and starfish whispering her name.

Sassas. Sassas.

Sassas ignored their entreaties to return.

Once a sea creature, she’d long ago left that life, not of her own choosing at first, but now Sassas was comfortable on two feet connected to two tall long legs.

Those legs sent her past the dunes now, up toward the old man’s house. She squinted as the sun climbed higher, offering rosier pinks and a hint of the blue sky that would surround the town in a few more minutes.

  “Sarah? Sarah?!”

Sassas scrabbled up the stone steps. Uncle Josh worried about her when she left for a splash in her old place. The ancient place. He’d hooked her when he was a 24-year-old fisherman and she just a 600-year-old sea nymph.