The Wishing Map is a full-length fantasy that is being posted episodically at this site. To read the previous episode click here. To read it from the start, click here.

Zack and Gina’s friends Maerith and Shelcor agreed to sail them across a tumultuous seaway, but disappeared when a raging storm capsized the boat. And then, just as they were about to drown, they’d been scooped onto the backs of two sea monsters!

Land! It took an hour or so to reach it, but the sight of the encroaching ivory-cliffed coast, along with the slackening of the storm, renewed their spirits. Enough for them to remember how cold they were. Enough for them to realize how hungry they were. Enough for them to contemplate just how lost they were!

The creatures brought them all the way up onto the fine-grained sand, so different from Kellansend’s pebbly shore. The moment the siblings slid off, the beasts began to drag themselves back into the water using their large, powerful flippers. Their tails, astonishingly graceful in the depths, were awkward in the thin surf, and it took a minute or two for them to turn themselves around.

As they turned, Gina and Zack saw their faces for the first time: they were otter-like, and startlingly expressive; there could be no doubt they were Knowing Beasts. But there was something else…

“Wait!” called Gina.

The larger indigo-black animal kept moving, but the copper one stopped, its face now turned to the sea.

“Thank you!”

“For saving our lives!” added Zack.

The creature nodded its head and barked–no, said–something, but in a timbre too difficult to discern, then resumed moving out into the water.

“Wait! You’re selchies, aren’t you?” The creature nodded. “Are you…Maerith?”

It stopped, as did the larger animal.

Gina waded out to it, and touched its tail. She was terrified she might be wrong, terrified she might be right. The creature slowly turned. The moment Gina looked into its eyes, she knew. But was she ready to accept this beast as the beautiful copper-haired human who’d protected her while she slept?

The selchie reached out a flipper–Gina fought the impulse to pull away–and with clawed vestigial fingers stroked her eyebrow. In that instant all fear vanished. Gina threw her arms around it and said, “Thank you, thank you, big sister!” A moment later she pulled back and looked the Maerith-creature in the face. “Oh! And you’ll have to show us your pup when it comes!”

The selchie shook her head.

“No?”

Maerith smiled—she could smile every bit as expressively in her animal form—and pounded Gina’s chest five times with her flipper.

“Five pups?”

“Ess! Fy bubs!”

A few minutes later Gina and Zack hugged the strangely beautiful beasts goodbye, and watched them disappear beneath the waves. When Maerith and Shelcor were out of sight, brother and sister turned and faced the pale cliffs of the Frengan coast and said in unison:

“Now what?”

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Thoughts: Have you ever found a cherished friend in someone you’d mistaken for an enemy?

To read the next episode, click here.