Cassie liked to swim first thing in the morning before taking her shower. During a school day, she and her momma used to get up with the sun and hit the surf, swimming up and down along the beach to the rhythm of the waves. It was her favorite time of day.

Aunt Marnie decided to change the schedule. There were too few people on the beach early in the morning. "We'll wait until just before lunch when the beach is thick with visitors. Nobody will notice another mother and daughter taking a dip when there are so many people around."

She understood the reason was to keep her safe, but it would be hard to get used to the schedule change. Her momma always said the Earth had a heartbeat. The waves pulsed with that beat, and if you really paid attention, it would teach you things. Cassie couldn't hear the Earth talk to her the way her Momma could, and she didn't know what the waves could teach her.

When she would ask her momma about what she could learn, her momma would smile and say, "When you get older, the sea will call to you, and then you will understand."

Cassie didn't want to wait until she got older. Her momma was gone. Who would help her to understand those things now? She knew her momma was different in some way and she was too, but why had Momma kept the secret of those differences from her?

With so many hundreds of swimmers splashing around in this popular place, would it be harder for her to sense the calling when it happened? Could she ask Aunt Marnie about it? Would she be able to tell her?

"Tomorrow is Monday," Aunt Marnie told her while they ate breakfast. Her aunt made an awesome tasty omelet for her. "Your tutor will arrive at nine and you'll have lessons until noon. After that we can go to the beach."

She wasn't sure about the tutor business and hoped whoever was coming would be nice to her.

Aunt Marnie buttered her toast. "Unlike you and Mya, I'm not much of a swimmer. As a matter of fact, I don't care much for getting in the water."

Cassie couldn't understand how anyone wouldn't like the water. "Why not?"

"I like swimming pools where you can see what's in the water with you. Out there," she nodded in the direction of the Gulf, "who knows what might be lurking beneath the surface."

Was she talking about sharks? Her momma told her not to worry about sharks. They were afraid of her kind and always swam away. Jellyfish plagued swimmers, but Cassie and her mom were immune to their venom. "I like swimming pools, but you can't swim very far in a pool. Back and forth gets boring after a while."

Aunt Marnie took a bite of her toast and swallowed. "That reminds me. While in the Gulf, I don't ever want you out of my sight. You'll need to stay close."

"That's not fair," she protested. "Momma and I used to swim a long way along the coast."

"It may not be fair, but it's the way things will be."

Cassie went quiet. She wouldn't be able to promise that she'd obey that rule. After finishing breakfast and cleaning the dishes, Aunt Marnie made some phone calls. While she did that, Cassie went to the display case and studied the sponges. They were so beautiful, especially the fire sponge her uncle warned her about. She gawked at it studying all the holes and wrinkles and imagined what it would look like attached to the sea floor.

"You've been looking at that sponge for the past fifteen minutes as if you were hypnotized," Aunt Marnie said.

Had it really been that long? When Cassie looked at the clock on the top shelf of the display case, she realized her aunt hadn't been exaggerating. She didn't have much of an attention span, so what had caused her to fixate on that particular sponge?

Aunt Marnie looked at her with concern. "Cassie, how are you feeling this morning?"

She shrugged. "I don't know. Okay, I guess."

"It's only been two days. It's normal to still feel sad. You'll probably feel sad for a very long time."

Especially if her aunt kept reminding her. She pushed back a lump forming in her throat. "It's...it's hard."

Her aunt sat on the sofa and patted the cushion beside her. Cassie sat with her.

"Sweetheart, it helps to talk. You can tell me anything that's on your mind. Holding your feelings in after you've experienced such trauma is like poison."

Cassie looked at her hands in her lap. She started picking at a hangnail. "Momma never explained things to me, you know, as to why she and I are different. All I know is the hunters want to kill me. I need to understand why those big, grown men are so afraid of me. I don't want to hurt anybody, and I couldn't anyway even I wanted to. I'm just a girl."

Aunt Marnie draped an arm around her shoulder and gave her a squeeze. "People fear what they don't understand, and your momma didn't explain those things to you precisely because you're just a girl. Don't hold it against her. She loved you and wanted you to live a normal life, have friends, and be carefree for as long as possible."

She sighed and continued. "Nobody is sadder than I am how things have changed for you. I'm afraid your carefree days are behind you, and I'm so sorry it must be that way."

Cassie waited expecting more. When her aunt stopped talking, she got frustrated. "You haven't told me anything I don't already know."

"Sweetheart, what exactly do you wish to know?"

Cassie rolled her eyes. "Why am I different from other girls?"

"You are no better or no worse than any other girl your age. You look the same, act the same, have the same feelings, are at the same level of maturity, and enjoy the same things. You have ten fingers and ten toes. Don't focus on differences. Embrace the similarities."

She wasn't going to let her aunt off the hook so easily. "But we both know I am different. Something about my nasal swab led those hunters to me and Momma."

"I never said that. You mustn't feel guilty."

"But it's true, isn't it?"

Aunt Marnie stared at the clock as if concentrating. After a bit, she said, "The truth about you and your momma is complicated. I know you're old enough and smart enough to understand the truth, but your momma kept things secret from you. I'm going to respect her decision to do so. She must've had a good reason. Besides, I don't know everything."

Finally, she might get some answers. "Tell me what you do know."

"I'll tell you what I know in the form of a story. It's a true story about my childhood. Want to hear it?"

If it would help her understand, she definitely wanted to hear it. "Yeah."

"When I was a girl, younger than you, I think I might have been eight or nine, one of our neighbors kept a big dog behind a fence in the yard. The thing was huge. It stood taller than me and was black as midnight with big, yellow eyes. I was so scared of that dog."

A dog like that would be scary, Cassie thought.

"Whenever I'd walk past the neighbor's house, that dog would go crazy. It would bark and snarl and run back and forth in front of the fence. If it ever got out, I knew it would chew me to pieces. I hated walking that way."

Cassie knew what she'd say next. "One day the dog got out, didn't it?"

"I was walking to school on the other side of the street from the dog, because I never wanted to go near it. The dog started barking like it was hysterical. I never heard it sound so frantic before, so I stood in the driveway of that house and watched it. What I didn't realize was the man who lived in that house was backing out of his driveway and didn't know I was standing there."

Cassie held a hand to her mouth. "Gosh, what happened?"

"All of a sudden, that dog jumped the fence and bounded toward me. I screamed and knew it was going to kill me. I closed my eyes and waited for the monster to eat me. Instead, the dog gently shoved me out of the way of the car and stood by my side, guarding me."

"What did the man in the car do?"

"He stopped, of course, and apologized. The dog's owner came running across the street and took his dog by the collar. I told the man his dog had saved me from getting run over."

Cassie was into the story now. "What did the man say?"

"He told me his dog was the kindest, most gentle dog in the world and would never hurt a soul. I asked him why the dog acted so mean all the time whenever I walked by. You know what he said?"

"No. What?"

"He said the dog wasn't acting mean. The dog was begging to be loved. He wanted all passers-by to stop and pet him and maybe play for a while. After that day, I always stopped and spent time with the dog. His name was Inky on account of him being all black. We became best friends."

When Cassie considered what her aunt had told her, she figured out what she was trying to teach her. "You were afraid of Inky because you didn't understand him."

Aunt Marnie kissed the top of her head. "Yes, you get it, don't you?"

"The hunters are afraid of me, because they don't understand me."

"They believe in the old legends about your kind luring men to their doom. The opposite is true. Cassie, you and your kind are not enemies of the men who go out on the sea in their ships. You are their protectors."

Aunt Marnie just revealed a little something about Cassie's true nature in a way the girl was able to comprehend. Do you approve of her gentle approach, or should Marnie be more direct given the urgency of their situation?