What she really hoped to see was an octopus. Brian had assured her that they were plentiful, but she had yet to spot one. She had scoured the rocks where they were said to make their lairs, searching for the empty shells of their meals that indicated their presence. These she had found in plenty, but apparently the diners had moved on to other feasts.

Now, in a patch of empty sand, she saw movement away from her light. She followed the fleeing shadow and saw, pinned in her beam, a small octopus. It was red in color, no more than six or seven inches in length, and it rested on the sea floor, its arms writhing around it. She kept her light on it and swam closer.

The octopus pulled itself in, turning from red to mottled brown so that it looked like a rock. Caddie, enchanted, hovered near it and waited. When it didn’t move, she slowly reached out one gloved hand toward it. The octopus turned an eye toward her, the light reflecting gold and black from it. Caddie sensed in its depths an unexpected intelligence and held her hand still.

The octopus was breathing. Its body swelled and shrunk as it forced water in and out. Then, slowly and with great deliberation, it uncoiled a single tentacle and extended it toward Caddie’s hand. When the tip touched the material of her glove, the animal paused for a moment. Then the arm seemed to run out like a line from a reel. It moved up her finger, the tiny suction cups on its underside gripping the unfamiliar surface.

Caddie lifted the finger, watching breathlessly as the octopus’s tentacle wrapped around it. She pulled slightly, feeling resistance, then lay her hand flat once more. After a moment, a second tentacle unspooled from the octopus’s body.

She thought that it might climb onto her hand, but the addition of the second tentacle was the extent of the animal’s investigation. Perhaps gathering that she was neither a predator nor a likely hiding place, it gathered its legs back to itself and sat, continuing to breathe and watch her with its alien eyes. When she reached out, hoping to initiate further contact, the octopus, in a swirl of legs, swam off into the darkness.

It didn’t ink, Caddie thought as she looked at the place where the octopus had been. She wished she’d had more time with it; already she was forgetting the exact shape of its golden eye. But there would be others, she reassured herself, and she moved off in search of them.