Semelee smiled as she watched the two clansmen from the deck of the second, smaller houseboat, the Horse-ship. They stood in the water beside the boat, each holdin’ a four-foot pole with a net of half-inch nylon mesh stretched between them. Twisted trees with tortured trunks on the bank leaned over the water.

Luke was Corley’s half brother, and he was special too. Not in ways you could see so plain like Corley’s, and not in ways that was much good on the beggin’ front. So he mostly just ferried the beggin’ folk around. But Luke was special in his own way. Maybe too special. He’d tried the beggin’ thing, takin’ off his shirt to show the little fins runnin’ down his spine and all the big scales that covered his back, but he was a flop. Didn’t collect a dime. People was heard to say it looked fake, that no one could really have a back that ugly, and wouldn’t drop a dime. The cops tried to arrest him for public disgustation or somethin’ like that, but he run off before they could catch him.

Semelee was glad she wasn’t misshapen like Corley or Luke or the other members of the clan. But she was special too. She had a weird look that had been enough to bring her a lot of pain, but not weird enough to bring in loose change. She was special in another way. In her own way. Special on the inside.

“Ain’t like this is the first time you ever done this,” she told Corley.

“I know, but I hate it. If’n I do it a million times I’m still gonna hate it. That thing could take my leg off with one bite if it got a mind to.”

“Not just one leg, Corley,” Luke said with a grin. “When you think about it, she could take both off at once—if she got a mind to, that is.”

“Or if I got tired of your whining and told her to,” Semelee added.

“That ain’t funny!” Corley said, dancing in place like a little boy who had to take a wizz.

“Stand still!” Luke said. “We’re tryin’ to catch fish, not scare ‘em away! Just be glad it ain’t Devil doin’ the herdin’.”

Corley’s hands shook. “If’n it was Devil, I wouldn’t be in the water! Hell, I wouldn’t even be on the bank!”

Semelee spotted a dark shape, maybe a foot or two deep, slidin’ through the water toward them, rippling the surface above as it moved.

Dora was comin’, drivin’ the fish before her.

“Get ready,” she told them. “Here we go.”

Corley let out a soft, high-pitched moan of fear but held his ground and his end of the net.