Page 40 of Make Out With A Merman

The lake should be calm.

But it isn’t.

Out near the buoy line, the water dips.

Just barely.

Like somethingexhales.

A whirl of ripples shudders outward, and thenpull.

Fast. Jagged. Wrong.

I don’t hesitate. I dive.

By the time I reach the center, the pressure’s changed again. It drags sideways now, not down. A twisting motion, unnatural, like hands trying to spin the lake into a drain.

No one’s in the water.

Thank the gods.

But the fact that it showed upnowwhen everything’s calm, when no trigger's present?

That’s new.

And bad.

I tread there for a moment, letting the current fight me, cataloging the shift. The taste of the water is sour now. Like old copper and something burned.

When I surface and swim back to shore, my chest is heavy. And not just from the effort.

It’s happening.

The rift’s not just waking up.

It’s growing bold.

And next time?

It won’t wait until the water’s empty.

After nightfall,I go back.

I wait until the camp’s quiet until even the fire pit’s gone cold and the wind's dropped off into silence. Then I slip down to the southern cove alone, no flashlight, no gear. Just instinct and dread.

I don’t know why I return.

Only that I have to.

And I feel it before I see it.

A pulse in the silt. A vibration beneath the skin of the lake. Like something ancient breathing through stone.

I wade in.

Shallow at first. Then deeper. Waist-high. Chest-high.

Then I reach down.

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