The mass of wreckage suddenly shifted, as if jerked by a giant hand from the deep. The violence of it ripped the nails in the two-by-four through his canvas gloves. His hand was impaled on a spike. For an instant he was silent with horror, and then he screamed in pain.

He glimpsed an enormous shape, silhouetted against the lights of the Pavilion, and caught the glitter of ivory teeth.

"Holy infant, so tender and mild..."

He screamed again. He was engulfed in a sheet of freezing water. One hand went up to ward off the nightmare.

The other was caught on the sign.

Chapter 2

Chapter 2

The great white sank to the depths. It had ingested a good part of the starboard cockpit rub rail, along with the human torso, a section of hemp, and a fire extinguisher. The latter it regurgitated, but the channel to its stomach was unhindered. Digestive juices that could sear a lobster shell began to work instantly on all the rest.

Above, a human hand and forearm thrust skyward, nailed to the danger sign, swaying in the swell. Below it, a streak of red swept toward the shore.

Across the water drifted high, clear voices: "Sleep in heavenly peace...”

The foghorn moaned, and at last the fog rolled in.

***

She sat with Tiffany sipping the dry California Chardonnay she had splurged on at Fieldstone's. The embers glowed blood-red. She fought the rising certainty that something was going very wrong.

"He's so sensitive and gentle." Tiffany sighed.

"Yes..." Her prospective daughter-in-law, sitting cross-legged on the throw rug and staring into the fire, turned and smiled at her with her great brown eyes. There was such love for Sean within them that Ellen felt her throat grow tight.

"Go on, Ellen," Tiffany murmured. "I want to hear more about him."

Ellen, fighting panic, tried to keep her voice steady.

"Well, he was such a gentle boy, it's no wonder he's a gentle man."

"I know. He loves Candy as much as he loves me."

Candy was her cocker spaniel puppy. Ellen forced a smile. "I doubt that." She got up and poked the fire. As long as they talked about him, he was here with them and everything was fine. After all, he would never leave the harbor, and even if the worn-out engine died, the tide was coming in. Besides, he had a radio on the police boat.

"Tell me another Sean story," Tiff urged her, like a kid begging for a fairy tale. Ellen cast back in memory. "Sammy the Seal," she said suddenly.

"Who was Sammy the Seal?"

A summer visitor—a fat policeman from Flushing—had shot a baby seal. Doc Lean expelled it from his animal hospital for exciting his canine patients, and the Brody garage became an intensive care unit, and Sean the seal's nine-year-old nurse.