Children of the Sea 01 - Sea Witch

that.”
     
    “All that?”
     
    “Violence.” She shot him a glance. “Of course, I suppose you’re used to it, coming from Portland.”
     
    She made the city across the bay sound like Las Vegas. Or Sodom or Gomorrah.
     
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    “People are pretty much the same wherever you go,” Caleb said.
    “Crime, too.”
     
    “Still . . . we never had anything like this happen when Roy Miller was chief.” Her hand lingered on a box of condoms. “You buying these?”
     
    Sometimes community was a real pain in the ass.
     
    “Yes, ma’am. I’m too old to swipe them from the shelves like I used to.”
     
    “You never,” Jane said comfortably. “Is that her? The girl who was attacked?”
     
    Caleb followed her glance to where Maggie wandered the aisle of MAINE key chains and shot glasses and shrink-wrapped shells from Florida.
     
    She looked completely out of place, her perfect body imperfectly covered by his sister’s blue dress, her pale beauty shining in the dingy store like the moon through clouds.
     
    “Her name is Maggie,” he said.
     
    “Poor thing,” Jane said. “Not from around here, is she?”
     
    Maggie fingered a display of cheap shell necklaces, the kind teenagers bought themselves on vacation. Her eyes were lost.
     
    They tore his heart.
     
    “I’ll take one of those,” Caleb said. “A necklace.”
     
    “Which one?”
     
    “It doesn’t matter.” Whatever would ease that wistful look in her eyes, the bleeding in his chest. “Whatever she wants. Charge it.”
     
    He paid for the clothes, the condoms, the necklace, before he joined Maggie standing in front of a wire cage of hermit crabs in gaudy shells.
     
    He touched her gently on the arm. “See something you like?”
     
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    She turned, her face set, her lips trembling. “No. Why are those here? Why are they trapped like that?”
     
    “They’re for sale. For the tourists.”
     
    “They do not eat them?”
     
    “No. They’re . . . pets, I guess you could call them. Souvenirs.
     
    “That is horrible. Their environment is too dry.”
     
    She sounded really upset.
     
    “Uh . . . They’re land crabs,” Caleb said.
     
    “I know what they are.” Her voice rose. Jane glanced their way.
    “They are dying . You must stop this.”
     
    “Yeah.” Shit . “The thing is, the store’s not breaking any laws.”
     
    “They should be free.”
     
    As a matter of fact, he agreed with her. He regarded the skittering legs and beady little eyes of the creepy crawlies in the cage. But . . .
    “Even if I bought them all and set them free, they’d die. The climate here is too cold.”
     
    Maggie’s stricken gaze met his. She bit her lip. “Yes. Yes, you are right. I did not think.”
     
    “I’m sorry,” he said, although he didn’t know what the hell he was apologizing for. “What can I do?”
     
    “It would . . . They would be better if they had water. A sponge. Can you do that? Can you give them water on a sponge?”
     
    “Yeah, sure.”
     
    Feeling like a fool, he went to convince Jane she needed to water her crabs.
     
    Margred watched him walk away, broad-shouldered and logical.
     
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    He was right. She knew he was right.
     
    It didn’t matter. The stench of waste and decay wafted from the land crabs’ cage, choking her. They were trapped. They were dying.
     
    She was trapped and dying, too.
     
    She couldn’t stand it. While Caleb spoke to the woman behind the counter, Margred hurried from the shop. She needed to be outside, to feel the air on her face, to smell the wind blowing from the sea.
     
    Water. She missed the water.
     
    Pink streaked the sky above her head. At the bottom of the hill, beyond the clutter of boats in the harbor, the ocean rolled gray and welcoming.
     
    Pressure built in her lungs. She stood on the sidewalk, struggling to breathe.
     
    “Maggie.” Caleb spoke behind her, his deep voice patient and kind.
     
    He could not help her any more than he could help the poor, doomed crabs.
     
    She turned to face him.
     
    His green eyes were watchful. “Ready to go home?”
     
    She could not go home. Not without her pelt. She was marooned in an alien landscape, and the constant vigilance she needed simply to survive wore on her nerves as much as the constant walking wore on her feet.
     
    Her throat closed. She nodded.
     
    “This way.”
     
    He escorted her along the sidewalk, one hand at her waist, possessive and protective as a bull seal with a new cow. She