The sea cucumber made a squelching noise in Harper’s hand, its small appendages and jelly-like texture suggesting the appearance of a dumpling. The belly, or what she assumed to be the belly given its lack of distinguishability from the other half, appeared black and smudged, as if overcooked.
She had never seen one of these creatures before, and anticipated she likely never would again. Harper was used to bears and elk, and mountains that dragged their tips along the edges of a red sky, not shapes and structures that were plump and pleasant.
She half expected the cucumber to spontaneously combust at any second, imagining seafoam sludge coating her hands. Instead, it lay silent in her palms. All she knew of its quiet mystery was the slow sucking motion of its anterior tentacles.
A shrill keening burst forth directly behind Harper, and she realized with a start that Joe, her otterhound, was whining. It was time for lunch. In her surprise, she dropped the cucumber, and it landed with a dull thud upon the sand. Apologizing, Harper tucked it back into the waves and led Joe away.
Back inside, while Joe hastily suctioned water from his bowl, Harper made a breakfast sandwich, the kind her mother used to prepare on weekends: pepper jack, a smear of blackberry jam, a touch of mustard, and a fried egg on an English muffin. As the edges of the muffin crisped and curled in the pan, from Joe’s corner came more noise, this time a low guttural howl reminiscent of a tornado siren. Harper turned to the window of the cottage, and for the second time that day dropped something in surprise. The spatula clattered to the ground, carrying with it droplets of grease.
A baby stood outside the window, though perhaps stood was not so much the correct word as hovered. Harper returned the spatula to the pan and rushed outside, planning to intercept the baby from its dangerous perch, but there was nothing where the baby had been, not even a few damp smudges on the windowsill. Panicked, Harper looked around, expecting to see the infant crawling across the sand or already submerged in the water, but the expanse of blue stretched unbothered across the horizon. Joe pushed his nose against the water, searching for fat fingertips or a small whorled head. Kelp bobbed in the dull morning light as Harper ran across the sand, searching for anyone who might have a clue to the baby’s direction, but the boardwalk and beach were deserted, the lobster stand that had previously been bustling with tourists now silent and still.
This was certainly odd, Harper thought, but perhaps she and Joe had simply imagined the small fleshy visitor; after all, how could a baby find its way to their cottage on its own, let alone glide along the air with no guardian in sight to lift it?
Shaking her head, Harper guided Joe back to the cottage and slid the breakfast sandwich onto a plate. The pat of butter had left a congealed film around the edge of the pan, and for a second Harper felt a passing queasiness. Lining the walls of the cottage were bars of driftwood with dangling sea glass shapes, and as she ate they clattered against one another in the breeze. They looked like shark teeth shot through with translucent blue. Harper closed her eyes. She wished Henry were here, or wished they were back home rather, with the mountain air dark in the trees.
Joe whined. Harper looked over at him. “No,” she said. “Henry’s not coming back.” But her voice was uncertain, as if she hadn’t yet convinced herself. She wasn’t even sure if Henry were on the same continent as her. He certainly wasn’t in the same state. And even if he were, he more than likely wanted nothing to do with her.
*
Some time passed, and Harper awoke on the couch, unaware she had even laid down. Joe was fast asleep in his small bed, sunlight cross-hatching the floor. The baby, which she had decided during breakfast was simply a figment of her imagination, was sitting in a chair near the marble island, its soft waxy head nodding from side to side. Seeing her astonishment, it smiled, revealing a small, tremulous tooth. With caution, Harper approached the baby, holding her hands at her sides in an attempt to appear less threatening. Hesitantly, she gently thrust a finger towards the baby’s flesh. Was it real? It seemed to be: doughy, soft, slightly damp. A squelching noise emerged from the baby, like jelly interrupted by a spoon. Harper gasped, but the baby emitted a chortle and seemed pleased.
Realizing her cell phone was in the bedroom, Harper rushed to grab it from the nightstand. She had to call someone, but who? The Coast Guard? The lobster stand owner? Pulling the curtains aside, it was apparent that, still, no one else was around. The sand remained totally, bafflingly vacant. Returning to the main room, phone still in hand, Harper saw the chair at the marble island was empty. The baby, if it truly was a baby, had again disappeared.
Harper swore, raising Joe from his tenuous slumber. Why couldn’t Henry be here? Not just for companionship, but for his usual know-how? He would have an idea, perhaps too many ideas, of what to do. Nearly frantic now, Harper bundled Joe into the rented hatchback outside the cottage and took the main road from the beach into the nearby village. It was Sunday, and Sunday was market day. There should be women filling rope bags with shells, fishmongers negotiating with customers on the price of trout and tuna, or children running amok among their parents’ legs. Instead, the small village’s town hall parking lot that last weekend was jammed with tourists and locals was empty. The multicolored banner of flags still arched high over the lot, laminated triangles flapping in the wind.
Harper continued on to the gas station and deli. No one, not even the clerk, was in sight. She stopped the hatchback, turned off the engine, and put her face in her hands. The previous driver’s red glass bird figurine swung from the rearview mirror, casting colored light onto her bare legs. Pounding the steering wheel, Harper remembered the red swirling down the toilet bowl the year before, Henry’s ashen face at the diner the next afternoon. Pressing a fist into her skull as if to push the thoughts away, she turned the car around and drove back the way she had come, Joe restless with excitement in the back seat. For a fleeting moment, Harper wished she were a dog.
*
Days passed, and so did what was left of Harper’s vacation money. She had accepted the emptiness now. It was her beach and Joe’s to use as they pleased, until it was time to return home. She had grown used to the baby’s sudden appearances and disappearances, its odd choices of setting. Sometimes it would emerge near the remains of a sandcastle on the quiet beach, or nestle itself into the cottage bed. Once, she even caught its small rubbery arm flung over Joe’s back during a midday nap, Joe’s wet snout shoved against the baby’s cheeks in sleepy curiosity. Its presence never lasted for more than a few minutes: short enough to cause a startle, but not long enough to love.
She felt bad for the number of ketchup packets she’d stolen from the village cafe by this point, and the two burgers she’d made for herself and Joe when she grew tired of the lobster stand’s salty fish. Still, there was no one around to pay, and no one to order real food from.
*
At the shoddy car rental half a mile from the village, Harper placed the keys back in the corresponding cubby and signed her name in the log—the only signature in two weeks. “Joe,” she called. “Joe.” He was standing near the clerk bathroom, the door wide open. A full-length mirror rested against the grimy wall. “Come on,” she urged. They had to hurry, or they would miss the flight. Somehow, she knew the baby wouldn’t come to send them off, or come again at all.
Grabbing Joe’s leash, she approached the mirror to see what he was looking at. There was nothing there. Nothing—not Joe, not her— just the storefront reflected back. Scared, Harper stretched a trembling hand towards the glass, but the silver remained firm in its erasure.
“Harper!” a voice called from behind her.
It was Henry. Henry with longer hair and darker eyes. Henry with a blue shirt and knotted sandals. Henry with a glass jar of pickles and a skewer of shrimp. As if by reflex, Harper reached for the jar and threw it on the ground. The glass exploded in the sun.
Now there was another nothing in the mirror—no Joe, no Harper, no Henry. As Harper turned to run, she caught a glimpse of the floor. Next to the shrimp, in the jar’s sticky, salty brine, lay the pickles. They looked like sea cucumbers, small bulbous bodies rolling in the light, as if any second they would come back to life.
Meggie Royer (she/her) is a Midwestern poet and mixed-media artist who recently found her way into writing fiction. She has won numerous awards and has been nominated several times for the Pushcart Prize. She thinks there is nothing better in this world than a finished poem. In 2025, akinoga press published her most recent poetry collection, A Violet Stretch of Sky. Her work can be found at https://meggieroyer.com.