The Best Way to Hide

by Karter Mycroft

I’ve been hiding shells to keep busy. At night I chase the tide off the beach and slither the pools with my lamp and my fear. My eyes fight the mist for safe places to step. I kneel at each basin and dredge the brine. On the tenth pool, I find one. At daybreak, another. Before the sun reddens the sand and the dayhunters come, I retreat.

They grow in a tube in my dark wooden room. They grow in low light on a diet of kelp and they grow fast. I watch as new arms protrude from the shells, as fingers — only just differentiated — claw free of their carbonate cones. Little translucent women and men. Blue veins and organs dance under their skin and their eyes are twin drops of abyss. They are curious. They get to know one another. They organize, build societies, and arrange their shells into neighborhoods. When I offer them kelp they paw at my hands and squirm. In watervoice, they ponder the nature of their existence and that of the unkempt giant who feeds and protects them. They eat and debate and rest. They fall in love and squish into corners. They dream.

Some are ready tonight. I cloak in black to ward off the moon. I net them and bag them and dash for the sea. When I’m sure I’m alone, I hold one shell to the waves and wait for the tail to unlatch. The creature writhes free. It takes to the water like a little hero returned from battle. When all are unhoused they school together and offer me one last inquisitive glance. They’re still unsure why any of this has happened, but beginning to understand what comes next. They turn to the churning deep and are gone.

On my way to the cabin, there are voices. Lights in the sedge above the submerged flats. I cannot return for more rescues tonight. The hunters are early. They are learning.

At home, I open my trunk and gently deposit the shells. They sit beautifully together, shimmering turquoise and argentine flecks. The tank is aglow with the blue luminescence of tegulid blood. The growing ones shake mucosal hands and bemoan the fate of their departed elders. Right now their world is small. The ocean they evolved for is known only to their unconscious, a faded memory of their future. I yearn to teach them. I fall asleep watching them.

I am a fugitive of the way of things. I am no heroine. I am mostly lonely.

In the morning I go down to the shore for kelp. The sea has sputtered up seagrapes in great coiled piles. I wash the sand off the harvest and soon have a full week of food for myself and the tank. I scan from the beach to the tidepools to the grassy mounds that cower under distant foggy mountains. The hunters have come and gone early. They’ve picked the spits clean.

Something clasps my shoulder and I spin around. The man is red-clothed and filthy. You find shells? he snarls. I drop my kelpsack and reach for my knife but he has a pistol ready.

I’m only here for kelp. I don’t want trouble.

You find shells, he says again and it’s not a question. He rubs the hilt of his gun and backs behind a dune.

I scramble to relocate. I practice lifting my trunk and count the shelled ones and wonder how I will ever transport them all. I pack and repack and panic. From inside the tube, they watch me as one watches a hurricane.

Soon it’s clear there’s no way. I have no boat and no cart and no money. My trunk has space for less than half and the rest will be left to the mercy of the shellers. Who should I save? It’s a decision for a goddess or general to make. Desolately I gaze at their tiny wondering faces.

I have played the savior too long in this place. I have hibernated in folly.

When they come I offer a bargain. I offer my trunk of spent shells and beg that the growing ones be let alone. The hunters agree. They are staggered by my collection of glittering purple spirals. They even offer me some dirty clothes in return.

The one I’d met on the beach asks why I keep the creatures.

They have to outgrow their shells to return to the sea.

What?

It’s how they spawn. You should only take shells left behind. If you keep taking young ones they will die out.

Oh.

He raises his pistol and shoots the tank. There are shouts and shoves and more gunshots. I draw my knife and something hits me hard on the back of the head.

I awake soaked with brine in the dead of night. Shaking and sore, I ignite my lamp. The shards of the tank are a mess on the floor. Crawling between them are the little ones, ripped from their homes at the waist. Many are broken and bleeding blue.

Without their shells, they will not finish growing. I have failed them. I gather as many as I can in my arms and lean on the wall and hug them into me. Their eyes are confused voids. Their mouths move but their language is dead in the air.

I have my knife and some pitiful damp clothes. I begin cutting strips from pants and sleeves, wrapping each creature’s ruined waist one by one. Some huddle tight in the damp fabrics and appear to sleep. I will need to submerge them somehow. I will need to keep hiding them, somehow.

I step naked into the night and the cold and the rain. The hunters’ lights flicker over the tidepools. They are quiet on the sedge and they are waiting for low tide. For now, the ocean flexes black against the shore, shielding all it holds.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Karter Mycroft is a nonbinary author, editor, musician, and fisheries scientist living in Los Angeles. They are a co-creator of the Los Suelos, California project, a multimedia anthology benefitting rural farmworkers. Karter’s short fiction has appeared in Flame Tree Press, Zooscape, Ligeia, and elsewhere.