A Monster Takes the Bait

I went back along the trail until I found a path I had walked past earlier that led down to a beach. A few ancient fishermen were cleaning their gear beside some rowboats, but their clothes were as dry as their hair, so the storm must have missed this place when it made landfall. One of them stretched out a net on the rocks and swore at a long tear that slashed through the middle of it. He gathered up the net and tossed it back in his boat to be repaired another day. None of the men looked at me twice. I knew what they would have seen if they’d glanced my way: just another tourist wasting away the sunlight hours. Someone who could afford a day off, unlike most of the fishermen I’d known over the ages. That suited me fine. I watched the sky continue to darken, until the fishermen left the beach one after another, wandering in the direction of what I assumed was a nearby village.

The one with the torn net was the last to go. He didn’t look at me, but I nodded at him as he shuffled past.

“I hope that net just got caught on something,” I said. “I’d hate to see a fish that could saw a hole that big in it.”

I didn’t really want to stand out in anyone’s memory by talking to them. But I figured it was more important to learn what I could about the waters around here.

“There are enough wrecks down there to fill a city with the dead and the forgotten,” the man said, still not looking at me. “They never give up trying to drag us down to keep them company.”

“We’ll all join them, soon enough,” I said. Some of us sooner than others.

“In the meantime, I’ll toast their memory with a drink or two,” he said over his shoulder. He kept on walking.

I sat there for a while longer, until the sky was the same colour as the water and you could barely tell the two apart. Then I got to my feet and went over to the boats, selecting the one that seemed the most seaworthy, which wasn’t saying much. The boats looked older than the fishermen. I took a knife one of the men had forgotten on the rocks, and then I pushed the boat onto the water. Security was light on beaches like this. What would anyone ever do with a stolen rowboat? I was about to find out.

I was hopeful I’d be back on the beach before dawn without the boat’s owner ever noticing the theft. Hopeful, but not optimistic. This wasn’t exactly a routine nighttime cruise, after all.

I rowed out until I spotted a small cluster of lights on the shore in the distance. I took it to be the village of the fishermen. I figured Melville would have something poetic to say about the lights, but I’ve never been much of a writer. I settled for taking the hook and line out of my backpack. There seemed to be a lot more line now. Maybe it was one of tho