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disbelief.
    But the thing kept moving forward, always forward, compressing itself into a conical mass and slithering toward him, walking, it seemed, on its writhing circles; and as each circle touched the rubber it made a rasping sound, as if it contained claws.
    It continued to come. It did not hesitate or pause or explore. It came as if it knew that what it was searching for was there.
    Griffin’s eyes fell on the oar in the raft, tucked under the cells on the starboard side. He grabbed it and held it like a baseball bat, and he raised it above his head and waited to see if the thing would come closer.
    He braced himself on his knees, and when he judged that the moment had come he shouted, “Son of a bitch!” and slammed the oar down upon the advancing thing.
    He was never to know whether the oar struck the thing or whether, somehow, the thing had anticipated it. All he would know was that the oar was torn from his hands and held aloft and crushed and rejected, cast away into the sea.
    Now the thing, sensing exactly where Griffin was, moved more rapidly along the rubber.
    Griffin stumbled backward, fell into the stern. He pushed himself back, and back, and back, desperate to squeeze into the tiny space between the cells and the deck plates. He reached—insanely, ridiculously—for his Swiss Army knife, fumbling with the snap on the leather case and mewling a litany of “Oh God … oh Jesus … oh God … oh Jesus.”
    The thing hovered over him, twitching and spraying him with drops of water. Each of its circles twisted and contorted itself as if in hungry competition with its neighbors, and in the center of each was a curved hook which, as it reflected rays of moonlight, resembled a golden scimitar.
    That was the last Griffin knew, save for pain.

5
    WHIP DARLING TOOK his cup of coffee out on the veranda, to have a look at the day.
    The sun was about to come up; already there was a pink glow in the eastern sky, and the last of the stars had faded. Soon, a slice of orange would appear on the horizon, and the sky would pale and the wind would make up its mind what it was going to do.
    Then he’d make up his mind, too. He should put to sea, try to raise something worth a few dollars. On the other hand, if he stayed ashore, there was always work to do on the boat.
    The wind had gone around during the night. When he had come up from the dock at twilight, the boats anchored in the bay had been facing south. Now their bows were a phalanx arrayed to the northwest. But there were no teeth to the wind; it was little more than a gentle breeze. Any less, and the boats would have lain scatterways and swung with the tide.
    He saw a splash in the bay, then another, and heard a fluttering sound: baitfish, a school of fry running for their lives and skittering over the glassy surface.
    Mackerel? Jacks? Little puppy sharks finishing their dawn patrol before returning to the reefs?
    Mackerel, he decided, from the vigor of the swirls and the relentlessness of the chase.
    He loved this time of day, before the din of traffic began across in Somerset, and the growl of sightseeing boats in the bay and all the other noises of humanity. It was a time of peace and promise, when he could gaze at the water and let his memory dwell on what had been, and his imagination on what might yet be.
    The screen door swung open behind him, and his wife, Charlotte—barefoot and wearing the summer cotton nightgown that showed the shadow of her body— came out with her cup of tea and, as she did every morning, stood beside him so close that he could smell the spice of sleep in her hair. He put an arm around her shoulder.
    “Mackerel in the bay,” he said.
    “Good. First time in … what?”
    “Six weeks or more.”
    “You going out?”
    “I expect so. Chasing rainbows is more entertaining than chipping paint.”
    “You never can tell.”
    “No.” He smiled. “And there’s always hope. Anyway, I want to retrieve the aquarium’s lines.”
    He finished