[Painting of a woman by the ocean]

Dr. Renfield blew her kelp-horn one more time, and this time managed not to
laugh in the middle of it. Three short blasts, sounding like an ancient
signal from shore to sea.

Out of the darkness down the beach, there was an answering call, the same
three blasts repeated almost perfectly, though distinctly not an echo.

Meera peered intently down the dark beach to see if they could make out
where the sound came from.

It came again, closer this time, though muffled now by the rocks near the
jetty. She could hear footsteps on the rough rock, and the clatter of
pebbles scattering under them.

A round woman stepped out from behind the rocks, puffing a little as she
picked her way up and over the jetty, carrying a hiking stick in one hand,
using it to lever herself up the steep pile.

"Katie!" Dr. Renfield was beaming. "I was hoping you'd make it. Meera, Dick,
this is Kathryn, a good friend of mine. Lives not far from here."

The woman smiled broadly and hugged Dr. Renfield, her grey hair swinging
from the long ponytail on the back of her head. Meera couldn't make out how
old she might be. Her face had only the lines of sun and use, not age, and
what use was there was mostly smiling, she figured. She wore what looked
like a uniform, though it was hard to tell in the light. Everything about
her was trim and pressed, though she was built stoutly. She wore hiking
boots.

"Night tides are the best one. More to see." She had a heavy Welsh accent
and lilted when she spoke. "Take a look at the pools further out. There's
some neat things out there, and we've a couple more hours before the tide
starts coming in much." Meera had a hard time understanding her.

She moved surely on the rocks, Meera saw, the hiking pole switching from
hand to hand, almost acting as a third leg when she needed it, picking her
way right over the rough rock of the jetty before lowering herself to peer
into one of the pools.

Dr. Renfield followed her closely, for once following someone rather than
gently leading from afar. Meera trailed after, leaving Dick staring into one
of the pools closer to shore.

"And we've found a dozen new kinds of plankton in the water this year. It's
so much warmer! If this goes the same way the coast of Norway did, we'll
lose our sea-stars, but mussels will be booming business."

Meera just watched the two of them, peering into the pool, capping their
torches with their fingers just as she had, leaving the dull red glow to
illuminate what they saw, each pointing in turn as they stood close, showing
each other what they spotted.

"Meera, come close. This one's beautiful." Meera stood by the edge of the
pool and watched as Dr. Renfield tapped on the side of a shell and a
feathery appendage appeared, growing out of a crack seeming to be nothing,
then suddenly pulling in and vanishing again. She thought she could see
traces of rainbow colors as it moved, but she couldn't quite be sure.

"Katie. Er. Katherine's a field researcher at the biology station on Tern
Rock." Dr Renfield gestured out to the sea as if that explained exactly
where it was. "Started there just before I came to the school."


----

The boathouse that stood perched mostly on the jetty stuck up behind them
into the night, huge and looming thanks to the extra story's height given by
the low tide. The lower part, the part that stood under the water half the
time was covered in a thick crust in places with barnacles, and the rest
looked goopy with whatever treatment had kept it from rotting away in the
stinky surf.

[probably goes with the last part]