Page 171 of Bewitched By the Sea Monster
It hooked around both Onyx and me and shoved us into the railing.
“Curses don’tliketo be broken, ye ken.” Onyx seethed.
BOOM! BANG!
A shard of wood clipped the side of my head on its trip to the typhoon.
Terror left a foul taste on my tongue. I gagged.
ZAP!
The water twister vanished.
It didn’t shrink back to the sea.
It just…poofed out of existence. Leaving the air still and eerily silent.
People didn’t dare speak as they peered wild-eyed at each other. Even the sea seemed afraid to make a noise. So it was easy to hear that feeble, plaintive voice as it snaked over the ship.
“Pippi?”
My heart leapt.
“Alistair?” I scrabbled, my feet moving too quickly for the rest of my body to keep up, and half stood, half fell onto the railing, peering down.
But Alistair’s mountainous body was gone.
Instead, a man treaded water, his mop of black hair sopping into his pale blue eyes as he stared up at me.
I see my life.All the moments I’ve lost. And the ones I fight to cling to. It’s all there.
This happens at the end, I think.
Is it the end?
It feels like it.
My bodyhurts. Everywhere. A hurt worse than the one I felt when I became what I am. When I changed from man to beast.
Pippi touches my face. On the side where I see nothing but dark and feel nothing but hurt. She speaks. Not to me—to the others. Speaks withrage. With…
Passion.
Defending me. While also defending herself.
And I think she has never been more lovely.
I feel joy for her, even as it becomes hard to hold on to the words she says. Most slip, meaninglessly, as my life returns to me.
I am a child again, and the adults in my life are scolding me. For my energy. For how lost I become in one thing, while being oblivious to others. For my outspokenness—it makes me happy when others laugh. It always has. So Itryto make them laugh, to the…
Madden…nation?
No.
Frustration.
To thefrustrationof the adults.
