Chapter 2
FREDDIE
So, did I mention that there’s magic here?
Yes, real, bonafide magic. Since I’m a human, I have to get a proper invitation.
I remember the first time I was taken here by my aunt as a kid, when Dove would be here for summers and I'd trail behind her like a duckling while she did witch things and I did human things, which mostly involved eating ice cream and staring at the ocean with my mouth open.
I remember the first time the water looked like it was lit from underneath, and opalescent fish swam near the shoreline.
I remember the locals talking about the sea folk the way people in other towns talk about weather.
I remember sitting on the dock with my legs dangling over the edge and being absolutely certain I saw a seal that winked at me.
And then I saw a whole ass mermaid beach herself up onto a rock as she lay there, her tail flapping slightly as she sunbathed.
I was seven that summer.
I’m now twenty-seven and have had a long back and forth with magic, from obsessing over learning everything about its history, to looking for tonics to get rid of my acne, to daydreaming about being whisked away by a magical shifter man.
Until I met Tommy, my ex.
He wasn’t allowed to know about this place, so I regressed back to a normal life because as this place faded into what felt like a wonderfully curious dream.
The main stretch of Crescent Cove is a mile walk from Dove’s cottage, and I strut my way down with my sunglasses pushed back through my hair.
Seagulls yap overhead, which is something you’d see anywhere else, but then I spot a set of turquoise birds name marrions, nesting in a large house a witch probably made for them.
Their nesting materials are used for potions once their eggs are hatched, and the leftover shells are useful, too.
It’s something I love about this place. It’s so normal, yet peppered with all the oddities that makes this place magical.
As my sandals clack on the pavement, I finally reach the copper street lights that never turn green, ones with beautiful, massive flowers hanging down.
There's a main street with a hardware store, a bakery, and a bar with a crooked sign. There’s the Broken Cauldron, Flaming Flemmings, and Maester’s Creatures.
I breathe in the salty air that smells like food, and release a sigh.
Yes. This is what I needed.
I walk without direction before I see it.
Tucked between a bait shop and a magical gemstone shop, there's a storefront I almost miss entirely.
It's narrow and crooked, with a window display that looks less like merchandising and more like someone's eccentric grandmother exploded.
Driftwood sculptures, jars of sea glass, and a taxidermied pufferfish wearing a tiny hat.
The sign above the door is hand-painted, the letters slightly uneven. The Cove Curiosities—Everything Washes Up Eventually.
I've been dreaming about a shell, haven’t I? Dove says sometimes our dreams call to us for a reason. So alright, I’ll give this weird, cluttered, pufferfish-hat-having little shop a chance. Maybe they have something like what I see in my dreams…
I push open the door, the metal handle slightly cold despite the warm summer. The little bells chimes happily, and the shop inside is so beautiful and cozy that I can’t help but smile as I lift my sunglasses up over my head.
Every surface is covered with something like driftwood art, sea glass jewelry, old nautical maps with coffee-stained edges, jars of sand with little handwritten labels like Storm Beach, 1987 and Mermaid's Teeth, full moon and, alarmingly, Do Not Open.
There are wind chimes made of shells and fishing wire, one by an open window that moves so gently.
“Well, look at you! You look ready for the beach today.”
The voice comes from behind a counter I didn't notice, mostly because it's buried under a small mountain of abalone shells and what appears to be a vintage cash register that predates electricity.
The woman behind it is somewhere between sixty and immortal, dark brown skin, silver-streaked locs piled on top of her head, reading glasses perched on the end of her nose, and the kind of expression that says she already knows why you're here and finds it mildly amusing.
“Hello,” I say, stepping fully inside. “Yeah, it’s really nice out, like usual. I was actually distracted by the pufferfish in the hat."
“Oh, him? That's Gerald. He's been wearing that hat since 1972."
A grin spreads on my face. “Is he magical?"
"What do you think?… I'm Odessa, by the way,” she says, glancing back down to whatever she's writing in a leather-bound ledger. "You're Dove's cousin, correct?”
“Is that a magic of yours?” I ask, looking at all the small trinkets, trying to make sure my purse doesn’t hit or snag anything. “That you knew who I was, I mean?”
“Oh, something like that.” She glances back up again, studying me over those glasses. "You've got her cheekbones but none of her aura. No offense."
I smirk. “Hey, it’s none taken. I'm aggressively non-magical."
Odessa chuckles. “Mmm." She goes back to her ledger. "Browse. Touch whatever you want. If it bites you, that's between you and it."
I take her at her word and wander deeper into the shop, running my fingers along shelves crammed with objects that vibrate faintly when I get close.
"I always wished I wasn't human,” I say, slightly to myself, and slightly to her.
“That I belonged to some kind of community like this.
Where you just are what you are and that's enough. "
Honestly, I wonder how much easier it would be to forget Tommy if I had a place like this to permanently live in.
Odessa looks up at that. Really looks, enough to make me glance her way for a moment.
Her expression does something complicated, softening at the edges while her eyes sharpen.
"Dove belongs here," she says carefully.
"But belonging isn't just blood, sweetheart. Sometimes you belong to whoever you wash up to.”
“Yeah, I’m definitely adrift right now… Maybe if you could help me drift up to a mansion I somehow inherited, that would be great,” I mumble, not spotting the shell I’m looking for, as if I’d somehow actually find it—
My eyes widen.
At the very back of the shop, on a shelf by itself, sitting on a small square of dark velvet like it's been waiting: a very small conch shell. Iridescent. Slightly curved at the bottom, like a hook that got frozen in time. Exactly like the one in my dreams.
I stare at it without moving, blinking rapidly as I legitimately cannot believe it’s here. “Have you ever, um, dreamt of something, and it’s actually real?” I ask.
“Oh, all the time. Well, not frequently, but it’s common.”
“What does it mean?”
“That’s only something you can answer, little dove.”
As I near it, I get this overwhelming sense of purpose. Like maybe all the bullshit with Tommy was for a reason, that the universe isn’t actually trying to take a massive shit on me, but instead was just guiding me somewhere.
Drifting with a purpose.
When I finally get brazen enough to touch it, my hand settles over the smooth shell with a clasp.
It's warm.
Not room-temperature warm, but like how skin might be warm. Kind of like, well, the way a living thing is warm. When I curl my fingers around it, something pulses. Like a heartbeat.
I almost drop it.
Which makes me grasp it tighter because dropping this feels like it might end up cursing me. The iridescence shifts as I turn it, pinks and golds and deep oceanic blues. It's the shell from my dreams, or… well, what if I saw this as a kid, or something? And I’ve just been dreaming about it lately?
Or, what if, the universe remembered me.
"How much?" My voice comes out weird, almost a little strained.
Odessa appears beside me like she teleported, which for all I know, she might have. She looks at the shell, then at me. Something crosses her face that I can't read. Recognition, maybe. Or concern. Or both.
"Six dollars," she says.
"Six dollars? For this? This is really pretty.”
"Some things aren't priced by what they're worth.
They're priced by what they need to be accessible.
" She takes it gently from my hands and goes behind her desk, wraps it in tissue paper that shimmers faintly, and places it in a small brown bag.
"Besides. I have a feeling that one's been waiting for you specifically. Six dollars is enough to pay for this wrapping, bag, and some of my time to find a new one.”
"That's... either really sweet or really ominous."
"Welcome back to Crescent Cove."
As she hands me the bag our fingers brush, and I swear the shell pulses again through the paper. Odessa's expression doesn't change, but her eyes flick to the bag and back to me, making me think she felt it too.
We don’t really say much as I slowly leave the shop, fascinated with what this shell means. It’s making me forget about everything already, like perhaps this might give me some magical wisdom and insight with finishing my book.
Honestly, that’s what I’m betting my money on. I would not be surprised if this had some sort of creativity boost.
When I stand outside in the warm air, lowering my shades once more, I swear there’s a pulse in the handle.
I manage through the city, with beautiful trees casting shade, until I find one that is slightly more remote than the rest. Placing the bag down and pulling out the shell, I do the thing every single person does when they hold a seashell, regardless of age, and hold it up to my ear.
I hold my breath and wait, my eyes looking all over and out to the ocean that’s much further out in the distance.
I hear a hollow rush that's just the sound of your own blood echoing back at you—which, by the way, is all that sound actually is. I looked it up once for a book.
Then my blood runs cold when I hear it.
My voice.
Loud. Clear. Like it’s being projected.
“It’s so unfair Tommy gets to move on like everything he did was fine. Maybe I should bang a merman.”
I drop it.
The shell hits the grass beneath me, rolling once before stopping against my shoe. I look around wildly. A couple walks past, licking ice cream shoved in cones, paying me zero attention. No one else heard it?
I pick the shell back up. It's still warm and unscathed.
"What the hell," I whisper.
It says nothing.
I speed-walk back to Odessa’s shop with the shell back in its bag, only to see there’s a closed sign on the front door. “Oh, come on!”
I waffle around, sighing and slightly laughing to myself like a mad woman.
I’m being ridiculous for working. The shell is literally magical.
I’m sure it’s just an innocent little thing it does.
Maybe it echoes thoughts or something. Perhaps it’ll echo out a bunch of story ideas that I can use, or help me work through plot holes.
Pulling out my phone, I text Dove.
So it looks like I bought a seashell that says my thoughts
or something
It’s not much longer until her notification comes up on my screen.
From who?
A lady named Odessa.
She closed her shop right after I left
Okay, she’s cool. There’s some darker stuff out there, but not with Odessa
I dreamt about it, Dove… is that okay? Like should I be concerned?
Ooooooh look at you! Maybe you do have some magic in your blood!
Am I suppose to do anything about this? Tell me what to do!
Just go get a drink and relax, girl. It’s just a shell
"What if the problem was always me? Or maybe it’s that my butt isn’t big enough.”
I glare at the bag like I’m offended, the voice loud and so clearly mine. I gape as I stare around at everyone, but it’s like no one else can hear it. My heart is hammering with embarrassment.
"Okay, creepy shell," I whisper to the bag. "I wanted a nice beach vacation. A little sun. A little wine. I don’t need you criticizing my ass.”
The shell says nothing, and continues that weird, faint little pulse through the bag’s handle.
Shit, maybe I do need a drink.