😬

Gem grasped her satchel tightly as she walked through winding cobbled streets. The early morning air was humid, still dense from the retreating fog. The town was waking up to the gentle call of the rising sun. As she passed houses warmed by red candlelight, her eyes caught shadows of residents preparing for a day’s work through foggy glass and hand sewn shades.

She cut through a dingy, trash riddled alley and appeared in the bustle of a dock at dawn. A small handful of boats bobbed on the waves. Just across the bay she could make out the light of the next town, Little Marrow. A few small buildings sat clustered on the shore near the docks— all of them grey, with splashes of faded color on doors or shutters. Against the almost dreary townscape, the fishmonger’s stood out like a sore thumb. The door was bright pink, the shutters a deep sea green, and the siding hand painted with multicolored fish.

 Gem approached hesitantly. The familiar smell of fish pervaded the building. It mingled with the warm scent of fresh bread wafting from the second floor. She knocked, three quick raps before she stepped back to wait for a reply. A homemade wooden sign hung from the door, painted green and pink: Bean’s Fishmonger

Steps hustled down the stairs and the door opened quickly. Bright pink hair filled Gem’s vision.

“Joel! I swear to god I’m going to—” The woman, Lizzie, stopped short. “Oh, Gemini.”

“I’m sorry to scare you,” Gem replied nervously.

She’d come to tell Joel’s wife what happened to him, but before she could get the words out Lizzie looked her up and down and said, “If you’re here, then Joel’s sick, isn’t he?”

Gem nodded, though Lizzie might not have seen in her flurry to grab a coat and throw on shoes. “What has he done now? Has that cold of his gotten so bad that he had to disappear in the middle of the night?

Cold winds blew through the streets of Greater Marrow, grasping at the edges of weatherworn cloaks and creaking shutters. The smell of sea salt permeated the heavy air. It filled every dingy alleyway and old building, as if the sea itself was laying claim to the village. Lampposts stood quiet, the oil that once fueled their fire scarce. The only light that painted the streets was filtered through the dirty glass panes of wooden houses.

“I’m fine Gem,”

The local nurse, Gemini, ignored her friend’s complaints as she filtered a sickly green concoction into a small glass bottle.

“You’ll drink this at least once a day, when you feel the cravings,” she instructed, eyes boring holes in the man on the bed. He turned his face downward, picking at the bandages over his hands. “—a teaspoon, and you will come to me with an empty bottle in a week.

Earlier this same night, after the sun set and the fog rolled in, he stumbled through her door looking like a man already dead. He was shaking uncontrollably, eyes bloodshot, palms bleeding from crescent wounds, blood drying under his fingernails. Despite the sickly pale skin and lime undertone, she recognized him immediately.

Joel was the town’s fishmonger. His face now was hallowed, twisted into a grim facsimile of his standard awkward, kind smile. Even so, she couldn’t miss the seaweed green stripe in his hair or the pink stitching on his well-worn apron. She saw him just a week ago, intending to buy some Mackerel for a dinner she’d planned with Pearl. He had looked a little ill then, but he said it was just a cold. He told her there was nothing to worry about. He said he was leaving those aberrations to rot in that damn fisherman’s hull.

“I’m sorry,” he muttered, still refusing to look Gem in the eyes.

She put the bottle on the rickety nightstand, shoving an old candle and a bundle of herbs out of the way to do so. “You lied to me,” she crossed her arms, a fire burning in her green eyes, “you said you wouldn’t touch them.”

Joel worried the bandage’s frayed edges until it came loose. “I know, I’m sorry,” he muttered, barely lifting his voice above a whisper.

Gem sat on the edge of the cot and reached forward to retie his bandage. “Why?”

He moved on to biting his cracked lips. A drop of blood landed on their joined hands.

“They… they whisper to you,” he said, eyes looking somewhere beyond the small room they inhabited. “Every day, from the ice chest I keep them in. The one in back.”

The aberrations: grotesque and malformed fish from the deep. They’re infested creatures— darting eyes, threshing eggs, bloodied teeth. Their flaking scales shimmer with the faintest purple, but only when they’re fresh out of the water, and only at night. They writhe and bite with a ceaseless anger despite the deformities that riddle their flesh. eyes, wide and black, follow you endlessly— even in death they watch, they stalk. They first appeared a few years ago, when the fog began to blanket their world each night. The town of Greater Marrow hasn’t seen the stars since.

Gem finished her work and moved to simply hold his hands. She rubbed a thumb idly against his, turning over a familiar dread in her gut. Joel isn’t the first to come sick like this, and she’s scared he won’t be the last.

“What do they say?” she asked.

Joel closed his eyes, grasping Gem’s hands. “Horrible things.”