Lydia's Mollusk Read online

  Lydia’s Mollusk

  Sean Monaghan

  Copyright © 2021 by Sean Monaghan

  All rights reserved.

  Published by Triple V Publishing

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  Cover illustration

  Image © by Chainat | Dreamstime

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  Discover other titles by this author at:

  www.seanmonaghan.com

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  This is a work of fiction. All characters, places and incidents described in this publication are used ficticiously, or are entirely fictional.

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  No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, except for fair use by reviewers or with written permission from the publisher. www.triplevpublishing.com

  Created with Vellum

  Contents

  Foreword

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Acknowledgement

  About the Author

  Also by Sean Monaghan

  Foreword

  Earlier in the year I undertook a writing course with a tutor who’s well-published and knows the ins and outs of the publishing world far better than I. (Yes, even with my publishing track record, I still take courses; there’s alway something new to learn). At the conclustion of the course there was an assignment to write a short story. The first part of ‘Lydia’s Mollusk’ started there. The tutor’s feedback was along the lines of “Why did you stop there. There’s more to this story. It might even be a novel. Keep writing!”

  So I did.

  Turns out there was more to the story. A fair bit more, though, it found its natural end somewhere before real novel length.

  Often I write novels that go to full length - say 60,000 words. Sometimes just 40,000. Sometimes my stories turn into novellas at under 20,000. This, and some others, end up being somewhere closer to 30,000.

  The wonderful thing about being able to indie publish a story, is that it can be the length it wants to be, rather than fitting some publisher’s pre-determined arbitrary length.

  Anyway, I had fun writing the long novella, or short-short novel, depending on how you look at it. It was fun exploring this world and Lydia’s place in it. I hope you enjoy reading as much as I enjoyed writing.

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  Sean Monaghan, July 2021

  Chapter One

  The shell had brilliant striations, running around, built up layer by layer. Golds and whites and purples. It was a little larger than Lydia's palm. A near-perfect whorl that wound from a pearly opening right up to a point that would be sharp enough to draw blood.

  It lay on the coarse, wet sand, opening down, a soft, slimy purple head poking out like a tongue. Dozens of tiny white threads at the tip, some dipping into the sand, pushing grains aside. Some of the threads were crooked and discolored and not moving. Like little dead twigs.

  A half-dozen or so of the healthy ones pointed upward. Waving, with black dots on the ends. Like eyes. Watching her watching it.

  A genetic hybrid. Ocean clean-up.

  And still fascinating and gorgeous.

  It had been a good idea to come down to the shore right on dawn. The light was perfect with the fading orange of eastern cloudbanks out over the water. The background roar of the ocean was calming, and the rich mixed scents of salt and something more earthy from the driftwood and other flotsam, made it all such a peaceful place.

  The shell rolled in a sudden over wash at Lydia's bare feet. The dregs of an already broken wave. Salty, foamy water rushed up, soaking her to the knees. Her comfy culottes suddenly heavy and cold.

  There were some chips and damage to the animal's shell, she now saw. It was older. Maybe struggling. Some patches on its body were mottled.

  Overhead, a gray-green bird called. A piercing, shrill cry as it glided along on the churning air. Osters, Arnt had called them, named after their distant, historic genetic ancestors, the oystercatchers.

  Arnt, her brother, five years younger, spent way too much time reading about ecologies and way too little actually out just wandering on the beach, or heading up into the mountain trails. Surprising that they got on at all, really.

  The wave was slight, and Lydia didn't mind a little cold. Barefoot and in her old culottes, but she had a warm, feathered jacket over her shirt, and a beanie on her head, topped with a pompom she'd made when she was six. Pulled down over her ears, with her thick, dark hair curled and tucked up underneath.

  The water ran down the shallow shore, gathering back to fill the swell of the next wave.

  The creature in the shell had righted itself and it continued its way along. Those threads were back into the sand, with those others still watching her.

  Strange to see something like this right at the water's edge. Maybe it was lost or sick.

  Lydia stepped back as hollows formed around her feet. Off to her left, maybe a kilometer distant, a high-prowed, gray boat trolled along. Tall poles at the stern with lines dragging. There would be a net down there, plundering the remains of the fisheries stock. As if the genetic replacements were a panacea and the oceans would be fine.

  Lydia turned left and walked along a ways, the ocean on her right and the dune fields to her left. Sandy and high, with marram grasses whiskering them, it was still fun to go exploring in their maze of hollows and valleys.

  Beyond, a hundred miles off, the Snowy Mountains rose, dark and rocky. Blue with distance, they were hardly snowy now. A couple of high glaciers were visible on clear days, but that was about all.

  The cool offshore breeze found its way around her neck and her calves. At least it would ruffle the culottes and dry them out probably before she got home.

  From closer came the chugging sounds of an engine. That would be Ed with his ancient bucket loader, trawling around the streets of their small town, scooping up sand to keep things clear. He would drive on out, the whole chassis rocking on the oversized black tires, and dump the sand right back onto the beach. It felt very cyclic.

  The hefty sound of sloshing, as another wave threw its backwash up the shore, was accompanied by the cry of the bird again.

  Lydia looked back.

  The shell had flipped again. The water was running away around it, eroding sand away. The animal's flat foot faced the sky and the threads dangled.

  Near it, the oster dipped down. Close to the sand. Wings furling. Legs out.

  It landed with a little hop.

  The bird took a couple of bounces and stopped by the inverted mollusk.

  The foot moved slowly, but it was clear that the shell was jammed in place.

  The bird's head darted out. The beak pecked at the fleshy part of the mollusk’s foot.

  "Hey!" Lydia waved and started over, almost breaking into a run. "Hey!"

  It was the way of the wild. So why was she trying to stop it? Feeling sorry for the mollusk?

  Arnt would tell her that she needed to harden up. That she was soft-he
arted.

  "Hey!" she kept waving. Kept moving.

  With a squawk of complaint, the bird took to the air.

  Someone was up on the dune trail, watching Lydia. Great. It looked like Marlene, with her straw hat and floral skirt. Watching Lydia running and waving at a seabird. That story would be around the village in no time flat.

  Lydia looked back at her little friend. The tail end of a smaller wave washed around the shell, barely moving it. It remained inverted.

  As the water moved away, Lydia crouched and picked up the shell. It was hard and cold and the layers had ridges that pressed into her hands. It was heavier than she'd expected.

  She would get wet again, carrying it out a bit. Just to get it into deeper water. Away from the predators.

  Soft-hearted.

  She turned the shell in her hands, so that it was up the right way. Water swirled around her legs. There were stones in the bottom here, making it feel more lumpy than the beach.

  The animal's head pressed against her left palm. There were patterns in the purple skin. Mottling and patches of darker color. Partially translucent so she could even see some of the internal tubes.

  In flight again, the bird screeched at her. A stolen meal.

  The black dots of the eyes, on the threads, all peered at her. The mollusk was intent.

  "I've got you, little one," Lydia said. "You'll be okay."

  The other threads tickled at her wrist. Tickled and tingled.

  Pressed hard.

  Began burrowing in.

  "Oh," she said as the tingling crept up her forearm. "That's not good."

  The mollusk’s tail wrapped around the back of her palm. The foot was sticky, holding on.

  Lydia felt light-headed. She took a step back. Slipped. Fell.

  The water splashed and bubbled as it swallowed her up.

  Chapter Two

  The water was surprisingly warm as Lydia became enveloped in it. It surged around her, tugging and turning. The sound of it rippled in her ears. Her head bumped against the sand. The push tore the beanie from her head.

  Lydia lost track of time, but never lost consciousness. Things moved in a blur.

  Someone lifting her from the water. Pulling her out. Up onto dry sand. The bright sun in her eyes. The stink of dead fish. People shouting. The chug and grunt of Ed's bucket loader.

  The oster gliding overhead as Lydia stared straight up. Was that a smug look on the bird's face?

  More lifting and carrying. Through the dunes. Into someone's house. White tiled ceilings. Music playing somewhere. Something classical with rich strings and moments of triumphant brass and pounding timpanis.

  That music went on for hours, didn't it? People came and went, their movements strangely staccato and then it was night.

  Lydia blinked in the dark. It was her bedroom. The smell of her freshly-laundered sheets swept around her. They felt so soft and perfect. Enveloping her as the water had.

  From outside came the chirp of crickets. They were getting real active this time of year.

  For a while, someone sat by her, in the old recliner she'd inherited when her mother passed away. Devil of a thing to shift. Weighed about the same as Arnt's classic '31 Mustang and unfolded itself no matter which way you lifted it.

  It was Arnt in the seat.

  She whispered his name.

  "Oh," he said, sitting forward. He had a coffee and sipped from it. His old white kid mug from her cupboard. He put the cup on her wooden bedside table, the ceramic making a soft clunk. He was being careful.

  "I hit my head," she said. "I almost drowned."

  "Worse than that," he said.

  But already she was falling asleep again. Funny that.

  Chapter Three

  Come morning Lydia was alone and she went to the bathroom. The white tiles glowed and the tub needed a clean. Something always needed a clean.

  The mirror over the basin showed her a tired face, with dark bags under her eyes, a reddened nose and dry lips. As if she'd had a terrible cold for three days and still couldn't shake it.

  The shower unfolded itself with a hum and gave her the latest news as she stood under the rose.

  Fighting in the Taiwan Strait. Failed bulwark gates in Namibia leading to extensive flooding. The New Origin lander has made it to Mars, but the signal has been lost.

  "Turn down the temperature please," Lydia told the shower.

  "Of course." The shower always sounded friendly. Almost motherly.

  The water changed instantly. Cool and refreshing. Was it callous to ignore all those things on the news and simply have a comfortable shower?

  She scrubbed and cleaned, tingles running through her body. So much better.

  Thirty or forty years back, this had been an inland town. Much bigger then. The population had dwindled to something like six hundred. People moving away for work and the cooler climes of Canada.

  The dunes had been coming for a long time, and the marram stabilization was well-intended. But of course the sea followed.

  Things were getting better, they said. All sorts of things stabilizing, not just the dunes here.

  Lydia dried off with one of the plush towels Arnt had given her after his divorce. A wedding gift. Never opened. Said he considered setting fire to it—to everything from her family—but it did seem wasteful. No one much liked fires these days anyway.

  Back in her bedroom, she dressed, in a floral summer dress, with light sandals and a straw bonnet with a blue sash.

  The drapes were still drawn and her bed was mussed. The old patchwork quilt from her grandmother all bunched up at the end.

  Lydia opened the drapes, their runners clicked smoothly. The old gnarled macrocarpa in the yard shivered in the breeze. Not some genetically-manipulated thing, but a real tree. She loved it, even though its trunk got sappy and the needles meant nothing else could grow nearby. Some days it would just fill with amazing birdsong.

  As she straightened the bed, she noticed her left hand. Where the mollusk had grabbed.

  There were punctures in her skin. Tiny holes, a little like those she'd gotten in her ears and nostril when she'd been all of fifteen.

  But these didn't go right through.

  Twenty of them at least. Around the heel of her hand and across her wrist.

  Back at the window, for better light, she turned her arm to get a better look.

  Little black holes.

  Didn't hurt.

  But some nausea rose in her. This was where the mollusk’s threads had pressed into her. Right before she'd kind of passed out and fallen.

  She touched some with the tip of her right index finger. Still didn't hurt. Didn't feel any different really. Maybe a little hard. As if there might be splinters in there.

  Something clunked from the hallway, and the smells of cooking reached her.

  Someone in her house? Someone making breakfast?

  Both scary and reassuring at once.

  Holding her left wrist, she headed through. For a moment there was a tingle from the holes, but it might have been her imagination.

  Chapter Four

  It was Arnt in the kitchen, of course. Already he'd been to the store and bought pancake mix and syrup and lemons and a half-watermelon. They were laid out on her ancient wooden table in the middle of the wide kitchen. The three mismatched chairs were pushed in against it. The pancakes sizzled in the pan.

  Arnt looked up from the stove, spatula in one hand, handle of the pan in the other. He seemed tired.

  He was wearing a plaid work shirt, jeans and tan work boots. As if he'd just come straight out of the forests.

  "You're here," she said.

  "Marlene called. I flew out." Arnt had some Nissan car-ornithopter thing. A white bulb with wings that looked as if they would fold up in the slightest of turbulence. Conservative, and it would have taken him hours, but faster than taking out the Mustang.

  "It's very kind of you," she said.

  He shrugged. "That's what brothers do.
"

  It wasn't what he'd done when their mom had fallen ill. While Lydia ran around wiping up fluids and redressing bandages he'd been in Copenhagen or Cape Town swanning with investors.

  "I guess you've got nothing much on," she said. Her arm was alternately tingling and feeling normal.

  "I've got plenty on, but..." he trailed off and dipped the spatula into the edge of the pan. He lifted it and tipped a pancake onto a stack on a plate on the table.

  Lydia went by him to the short bench. She took a glass from the shelf above and held it under the faucet.

  "Cold," she said. She was definitely feeling warm.

  The water sloshed in and the faucet shut off when the water was an inch from the glass's top.

  "How is your painting going?" he said.

  She leaned back against the bench, the edge digging into her in a good way, and stared at the giant oil painting on the wall opposite. It had taken three days. One of her favorites. A pair of kids in a dinghy, at the crest of a wave. Balanced. Huge clouds rearing behind, catching the sun.

  She'd gotten the kids' expressions just right. An ambiguous mix of terror and thrill. Were they about to be plunged to their drowning doom, or were they about to have an amazing adrenalin rush as their little boat raced down the wave's face?

  She sold in Santa Fe and New York. Didn't even need to paint anymore. Not for the money. But the need to paint was never about that.