Chapter 1Peter Jones, carrying a rock, caught sight of his former lover talking to a merman across the seaside theater-in-progress; he set down the rock in its assigned place, and sat down next to it for a moment. The sight still occasionally shook him.
He’d believed in merfolk from a young age. His father and grandfather had sworn by them: fisherman’s tales, sea stories, a glimpse or a song. Never any proof, but murmured in ship’s rigging, in sails, in firelit recounting.
He did not quite know how to deal with the legend become real. Here on the rocky shores of Gull Skerrie. Here at the edge of the world. Here on his tiny northern island where lives were measured out in briny catches of the day and rib-warming chowder and an utter lack of secrets.
But there had been secrets. He sat in
