The Fisherman and the Baby by the Rocks

CHAPTER 2 - The Woman Who Would Not Come Closer

Mara came down the path slowly, as if every step cost her something.

Erik stood with the baby pressed against his chest, wrapped now in his wool jacket. The child had stopped crying the moment he held her. Her small fingers curled into the fabric at his shoulder.

"Where did she come from?" Mara asked.

"I found her on the rocks," Erik said. "There was no one else."

Mara's gaze kept moving to the tail, then away again.

"Did anyone see you?"

"No."

That answer seemed to relieve her and frighten her at the same time.

She knelt, keeping her distance. "Erik, listen to me. You need to bring her to the clinic. Right now."

"Why are you looking at her like that?"

Mara hesitated.

The baby made a small sound and opened her hand. Inside her palm was a shell, white and spiral-shaped, too perfect to be natural. Erik had not seen it before. Maybe she had been clutching it all along.

Mara's face went pale.

"That shell," she said.

"Do you know it?"

"I know who may be looking for her."

Erik felt his jaw tighten. "Then say it."

Mara stood, suddenly unable to meet his eyes. "Her mother disappeared six months ago near the outer cove. The whole village heard the rumors. Some said she drowned. Others said she ran."

"Her mother?"

Mara nodded once. "A foreign woman. Alone. She had the same eyes."

Erik looked down at the baby.

The child had fallen asleep against him, trusting as a lamb.

Mara took a breath. "If people find out what she is, they will panic. And if the wrong people hear about her first..."

She stopped.

"Wrong people?" Erik said.

Before she could answer, headlights cut through the rain at the top of the cliff road.

A black van.

Not a fishing truck. Not a delivery van.

It rolled to a stop and stayed there, engine running.

Erik felt the baby stir in his arms.

Mara went rigid.

Then the side door of the van opened, and a tall man in a long dark coat stepped out holding a folder sealed in plastic.

He called down to the rocks.

"We were told to find the child."