Ghost Moth

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THE SEAL APPEARS FROM NOWHERE, an instant immutable presence in the sea — although he must have been swimming silently beneath the surface for some time without her knowing. Katherine shudders in the water; her thoughts are moving like fast cold spikes inside her head. Where has he come from? Is he lost? Has he come to feed? The seal’s heavy muzzle thrusts toward Katherine; his nostrils — two dark inlets — flare: He is taking in her smell, her fear. His stiff eyebrow hairs, beaded with sea drops, crisscross the thick shadowy skin of his dark, wide head. Battle-scarred, his snout slopes to an ugly dull point where his long wiry whiskers afford him the seductive familiarity of a family dog. But it’s his eyes — the eyes of this wild animal — that terrify Katherine the most; huge, opaque, and overbold, they hold on her like the lustrous black-egged eyes of a ruined man.

Briefly the seal’s lips roll to display his sharp conical teeth, strong enough to dismember a large bird, she thinks, strong enough to rip her flesh. Her panic rises. If she turns her head away from him to look for help, even for a second, God knows what he’ll do. He may strike. Seals startle easily, someone once told her, their behavior as unpredictable as human love. Yet if she remains where she is. .

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