“I told you not to!” Tristan pursed his lips and avoided making eye contact with Rhea. She had told him he was not allowed to borrow her frost stone. He had pick-pocketed it on the bus. He had lost it at the water park, and it had only been returned by a stroke of luck. There was no counterargument to be had.

It was evening and most of the beaches around had been closed due to toxic algae drifting in much sooner than expected. A swimming restriction had already been in place, but the safety cones and roped off walkways made it official- they would be staying out of the ocean for a while.

Rhea absent-mindedly gripped the pendant on her necklace as they walked to the bus stop. “I hope yours is with someone from town…?” she asked quietly, eyeing the horizon with obvious longing.

He bit his lip, but forced himself to nod. “Of course it… probably… is by now.” Rhea balled up a weak fist and punched him in the side.

Having talked to Maddy, done some reading and binge-watched anime for a few hours, Hazel went to bed. Her room was small, cluttered, full of books and just a little stinky. Somewhere in it, she knew there was spilled coffee. Where? She hadn’t figured out yet, but she’d checked the usual places to no avail.

It was a very dark morning. The light from the window was hazy and the atmosphere gray- like there was going to be nothing but thunderstorms all day. Rolling out of bed to close a window she’d forgotten was over, Hazel finally found the spilled coffee. A paper cup crunched beneath her foot and she muttered a curse as heavy rain began to blow in through the window. Her cat, a skilled hunter and fisher adopted from near the harbor, stretched and jumped off the bed to follow her. The feline mewed in discontent, but was not deterred when he encountered the water.

“It’s okay Octa. Just rain,” she said, shutting the window and wiping an unfortunate sprinkling of rain from her face. Octa was short for Octopuss- a silly name the cat had gotten from… An odd blank spot in her memory became apparent. She was picturing a person she’d never seen before and it all made sense, like in a dream. It was a dream.

Trying groggily to clear her mind and understand what was going on, she tried to remember what was true about her surroundings. Octopuss was a retired ship cat. No- she had no cat. The coffee couldn’t be somewhere as obvious as where she’d stepped because she’d already checked there. As she shook off the daze of irrational breaches of reality, Hazel slipped back into the waking world.

It was genuinely raining, and strong howling wind was blowing rain through the window she thought she’d just closed. The hour was uncertain, but it couldn’t be morning yet. There was a cold, solid mass positioned between her breasts and on part of her stomach. It felt fluffy and was shaped like… a sleeping Octa? The lump stood up to reveal its full form- a translucent, long-haired cat the size of a medium dog. “Mrrrow.”

Hazel sat up, and the jolted cat leapt to the floor. It walked along her very real, unquestionably logical, wooden floor and scratched at the wall near the bedroom door. As obvious as it was that this must be another dream, the sound of claws on the wall made her cringe.

“Octa, nooo…” She groaned and followed the cat out of bed and to the door.

It was hard to say what this cat might want. She hadn’t had one since she was in elementary school, and Merlin had been an odd one anyway. The first step had to be to let him out, but what then? What did ghost cats even do?

As soon as the door was open, a shape appeared in the hallway. Like the Octopuss, it wasn’t really a solid form. Beyond the cat’s intangibility even, it was like wisps of smoke gathered into one area. The sound of a heavy footstep came with it. The cat hurried into the hallway to sit as if staring at its owner and meowed loudly at the specter.

“Uughh… Hell…” Hazel muttered, not caring to see where such a strange dream was going. She rubbed her eyes, hoping to wake up in proper reality, but as she opened them she was greeted by a dark, wet setting and the smell of saltwater. She was weightless, not quite underwater but not quite above it either. Octopuss meowed worriedly from somewhere far above her. She could tell there was water between them, and perhaps more than that. Were they even close enough that she should hear him?

Again, she remembered where his name had come from, starting to picture a wrinkled face and a jovial smile. “’At’s a furry one!” Somebody snickered. And then, finally…

“Hazel!” Her shoulder was being shaken by strong, bony hands. “You have to get ready for work!” The alarm was going off, but the clock read ten minutes past when it was set for. Her mother had probably wondered why she wasn’t turning it off.

Quickly adjusting her eyes to the light and rolling out of bed, Hazel fell on the floor rather than landing on her feet and proceeded to stumble as quickly as she could to the bathroom.