Excerpt: Medusa

The ocean was chilly, a contrast to the sand beneath it that had retained some of the head of the day. The water swirled around my ankles, my calves, my knees as I waded deeper. One of the idiot drunks behind me was yelling something unintelligible; it was all to easy to ignore. It deepened quickly, and I was up to my hips now. I trailed my fingers in the water, and dug my toes deep into the sand. The moonlight pierced the water down to the milky sand at the bottom, and I stared transfixed at my feet walked steadily deeper. Pebbles appeared here and there; shells ranging from tiny to finger-sized protruded from the sand; a perfectly-formed sand dollar turned its patterned face up to me. As I brushed it with my toe, it twinkled silver and cracked open down the middle. Tiny butterflies emerged, glowing white-blue and leaving iridescent bubbles in their wake. One word echoed in my mind as the gentle swells crested around my diaphragm: magical.
My neck itched: for the first time in three years, the gills were coming back. Rainbow iridescence reflected starlight on my arms and chest: scales. I opened my eyes wide and blinked experimentally: the transparent eyelids. I took one last deep breath of the cool autumn air, not once looking back as I plunged beneath the surface.