Page 111 of Positively, Penelope

She glanced around her.

And no Matthias. Perhaps he’d gotten caught in traffic or something. Maybe she’d beaten him here.

She moved back toward the land bridge, tugging the hood of her coat over her head. Or—her stomach dropped—what if he’d changed his mind about dating? She gasped at the thought. It was a huge decision. She was leaving. He was staying. He had to think of Iris. Maybe he didn’t think Penelope was worth the risk.

She stumbled out into what had earlier been a sunny field dotted with picnickers and kids playing along the creek side, and her face went cold. The place was completely empty.

Empty?Her heartbeat pulsed into a gallop to match her increasingpace along the path. Where did everyone go? It was as if they just disappeared. As she climbed the hill to the land bridge, she attempted to pick up a phone signal, but her service displayed nothing. Not even a blip.

The sky grew darker, looming above the “teeth” with an angry darkness. She rushed into a jog.

At the top of the hill, a whimper slipped from her lips. Instead of a wonderful walkway of sand from Skree to Port Quinnick, a swell of gray-blue waves and an eerie mist separated her from the mainland. The land bridge was completely gone.

She shuffled forward to the edge of the water, peering into the fog for any sign of the port. Lights. Sails. Even the sea monster shop with Fisherman Santa would have been a welcome vision.

But everything lay shrouded in fog. Everything except the dark, endless sea.

At the very thought, a largesplashsounded to her right, a sliver of silver coming into view before disappearing beneath the roily depths. Penelope shuffled a step away from the water and shook her head.Nothing but a fish.

Sea monsters weren’t real and Luke was always right.

She studied the size of the ripples the creature left behind and swallowed through her tightening throat.But that was an awfully big fish.

Her attention dropped back to her phone, willing the service bars to at least flicker enough for her to send Matthias or Alec a text. Another splash sent her gaze to the right. Something very flipper-like curled beneath the gray waves, followed by a stream of bubbles.

A chill funneled through her. Bubbles! What had Fisherman Santa said?

An image of the Kronimara from the shop flashed through her mind.

Perhaps having a very good imagination wasn’t always the best thing for real life. She pinched her eyes closed, drew in a deep breath,and then dug into her purse. Her fingers hit upon the keiligs and she pulled out all seven of them, holding them in the air like a cross toward a vampire. She’d only watchedDracula, the Musicalonce, but she knew the drill.

“Back!” She raised the keiligs higher. “Back, you foul beast!”

Another large spray erupted off the water’s edge as if angered by her declaration.

Oh, wait, she was supposed to be a friend. “Nice sea monster?” she whimpered.

After surviving life with her mom’s cooking, her dad’s jokes, Luke’s teasing, and Arnold Brown’s horrible performance as the Phantom of the Opera, it made perfect sense to die on a foreign volcanic island by the fangs of a mythical sea creature she’d feared her whole life.

This was what she got for loving drama so much!

Just as another splash nearly brought her to her knees, two other noises drifted on the breeze toward her. A rather intimidating growl and... the sound of her name. Fisherman Santa hadn’t said anything about the monster knowing her name! And weren’t sirens the ones who called out names or something?

Her name drifted back to her again. The voice was closer. More recognizable.

And sounded very similar to her favorite dancing accountant’s.

The growl morphed into the rumble of... a motor?

She rushed forward to the water’s edge and peered into the fog.

Something white pierced the mist in the distance. And then a small boat came into view.

Her breath released into a sob-like laugh. Leaning forward at the bow of the little boat sat a wonderfully familiar man, emerging from the fog as if from a dream. He halfway stood from his seated position, her misty-eyed gaze meeting his concerned one. She shuffled a few steps forward, keeping a death grip on the keiligs and her rising bout of hysteria.

But he was real. And coming for her.

Matthias killed the motor and then jumped from the boat into the creature-infested waters, tugging the skiff to shore before marching toward her, his rain jacket whipping around him. She’d never seen his features so hard, so... unyielding. Well, except maybe on that first day in the airport. And another time during one of her bike riding debacles.

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