“Never walk down to the sea,” he’d always told me a quiet voice, the ends of his beard trembling, “stay away at all times.” And I had always listened, until that day when I finally didn’t. I ran and ran down the beach, my feet sinking into the muck, I ran into the water, toward the horizon, but it was always just out of reach. As I ran, from beneath, the undertow grabbed me, pulled me deep under. My screams cut short at the surface. As I fell, I found that, though muffled, my voice continued and when I gasped for breath, it came easily. Why, I thought, this is silly. If a drowning man just tried the water, he’d live just fine and probably have no desire to return to the surface. Flipping gracefully in the water, I kicked, strong and hard. I propelled myself downward and wondered when I had learned to swim. The further into the depths I went, the more at home I felt. Looking at myself, I was mildly surprised, but not shocked, to see my hands were webbed, my fingers long and nails sharp. Looking closely at my skin I saw it was scaly and vaguely blue. My hair floated in a mess about my head, pale and longer than it had ever been. I swam farther and farther, deeper and deeper, and thought about my mother. He, my father that is, rarely spoke of her. When he did, he would laugh bitterly and say she was a great catch. A few years after I was born, he told me, he had lost her to the sea. I’d always assumed he meant she’d drowned.