T
he first fish seems innocuous enough. Dante calls for me from the shore, his slight figure silhouetted against the sunrise. Fish often wash up on the beach, their briny corpses lying in the sun until Dante or I can be bothered to do away with them. I stumble outside, still half-asleep, to see him pointing at a small, dark lump at his feet. “Marlow,” he calls. “Look at this.” Dante nudges it with the side of his foot, and from under the sand three black tendrils emerge. I lean closer, squinting in the weak light. It appears that they have burst forth from the creature’s back, tearing the scales asunder. “Is it some sort of illness?” I ask him. “A parasite?” “I don’t know,” Dante says, and prods at the fish again. “It’s nothing I’ve seen before. I’ll have to ask the other men.” “Throw it back to the sea,” I tell him. “There’s nothing we can do for it.” He picks the fish up and tosses it. As it sinks below the waves I hear a keening, almost like the call of a gull. It’s carried by the wind, tickling my ears as it tousles my hair. I turn to Dante, a half-formed question on my lips, but he is already gone. I spend the day alone, as I always do. The fishing boats are a hard occupation, taking Dante away from dawn until dusk, but there are few other options. Someday we will leave, he tells me. Away from the nearby village, filled with dead gray houses and bitter people, away from the rocky shore. There are sunnier places, somewhere. It’s a nice thought. It keeps me company while I stitch by the window, hour after hour, and bake loaf after loaf of bread. I imagine fields and flowers, the sun on my face. Sometimes I imagine Dante with me; sometimes not. At dusk I am standing in the kitchen, dinner in the oven, when I hear it again. A gull’s cry, but different, stranger, as if the bird were singing underwater. I walk to the window and pull back the curtain. The pink sky reflects across the darkening water, a shimmering mirage, but there’s nothing else to see. It came again, the cry, but louder this time, as though it were right outside the window. I shiver, every hair on my neck standing straight. I’m startled by the sound of the door opening behind me. The sound cuts off suddenly at the exact same moment. Dante wipes his boots on the mat. He plants a kiss on my cheek. Through the window I see a light in the distance, a red glow. Or perhaps it is only the dying sun. The next morning Dante and I walk outside together at dawn and look upon
Song of Scylla 42
Brittany Grady
