Illustration by Nina Pommelin

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 newfound friends Maerith and Shelcor had agreed to sail them across a tumultuous seaway. But a raging storm had capsized their boat, and now they were confronted by sea monsters!

The dark figure re-emerged right next to Zack and Gina, its long fin scraping the sky. Then a second, lighter-colored creature broke the surface!

A sudden swell enveloped them. Beneath the water, they saw two whiskered muzzles with powerful tusk-like teeth! And yet there was an intelligence in the monsters’ eyes.

The sea caved in again, suspending Gina and Zack in the air, then hove back up and recaptured them, yet both somehow managed keep ahold of the boat’s edge.

“What are they?”

“I don’t know!”

“They look—”

“I know, like they’re trying to—ahhhhhhhhh!” The copper-colored creature came up beneath Gina, and glided away with her!

Then the darker creature slid up under Zack and pulled him away as well. He tried with every muscle in his body to push himself off, but his saturated trousers clung as if glued in place, and each time he leaned backward, the beast bucked him forward again. Whatever it was, it was determined and smart, like a chess player anticipating his every move. Exhausted and aching from the cold, his sister gathered her strength, hoping to break free before the monster ate her!

Fortunately, the creatures stayed near the surface, which, ten-foot waves notwithstanding, allowed Zack and Gina to breathe. But it also exposed them to freezing wind. Then each separately began to notice that their captors’ short, slick fur was warm, so they clung close in order to absorb as much as possible of the creatures’ body heat.

For all they knew, they might be en route to a gala human-roasting. But they gradually began to believe this was not the case. Neither said anything—they were too exhausted and too fixed upon staying warm—but over the course of the next hour or so, each began to believe this was a rescue, not a sacrifice.

What about Maerith and Shelcor? Had they drowned, or had they been saved as well? These animals were much faster than the selchie boats, yet they were also very much like them. In fact, Zack was certain the boats had been modeled after them: muscular and aquadynamic, with graceful split tails and sinuous flippers as flexibile as human limbs–but ten times more powerful. They moved through the water as though it had been made for them, and not the other way around.

Gina had reached another conclusion: these were the animals Maerith and Shelcor’s water-repelling coats had been made from. She’d been certain the gentle fisher folk would not kill such intelligent creatures. But there was another…

Far more shocking possibility.

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Thoughts: Have you ever had an encounter with a “dumb animal” that dramatically altered your perception of non-human “persons”?

To read the next episode, click here.