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When I open my eyes again, the world is quiet. Still. The sky is clear. A brilliant navy blue devoid of any signs of a storm – like everything that happened was indeed a nightmare.

Or perhaps it wasn’t, and I died somewhere out there beneath the waves and the shattered pieces of the Aurora.

THREE

CASPIAN

Iwake in a cold sweat, my pulse racing and my heart pounding in my ears. I dreamt of it again. The large, looming creature with the green eyes and clawed hands, hot breath on cold skin. This time it was outside my bedroom door, standing on its huge paws, watching me with narrowed eyes.

“Leave me alone,” I’d yelled, my voice sounding as though I was shouting into the wind. “I hate you for what you did.” The creature’s ears twitched before it took a step forward. And then another. And another. Until it was right there, its claws gripping the sheets at the bottom of my bed.

That’s when I woke, sweat drenched, heart racing and my wide eyes peering into the darkness. Blowing out a breath, I rub a hand down my face. It was nothing but a nightmare – a variation of the same one I’ve been having since the accident two weeks ago.

My palm stings as it always seems to do after these dreams, and I rub a finger over the raised mark to ease it.

I didn’t die that day in the storm, but Pops did. The sea took him and left me behind, washed up on the shore between broken pieces of the Aurora, like a sacrifice to the beast now haunting my nights.

The locals are calling it a flash storm. They say we couldn’t have planned for it.

These things happen.

Life is unpredictable.

Platitude after platitude.

I fucking hate it.

Rolling onto my stomach, I bury my face in my pillow and squeeze my eyes shut, trying to ignore the way the house creaks like the shadows it holds are alive. Rationally, I know what it is – pipes expanding, wind rattling the weathered back door, the pigeon that’s built a nest on top of the roof – and yet I can’t relax. Can’t shut out the unease the nightmare imprinted on me. I flick on my bedside lamp and stare at the ceiling, humming a song under my breath. After a while, I get up and make my way downstairs to the kitchen, where I stand at the large bay window looking out at the farm, lit faintly by the moon.

I have a small herb garden on the sill and I gently run my fingers over the leaves, picking up the calming scent of mint and chamomile. I contemplate making a cup of tea to settle myself, but in the end I slump at the kitchen island and tap a tune on the wood, counting down the minutes and seconds until the sun rises, and the time comes to lay my grandfather to rest.

“Here,” my friend Kiernan shoves a glass of dark liquid into my hand. I bring it to my lips and take a sip. It burns, but in a good way, so I take another before thanking him.

“How are you holding up?” I scowl in response, and he raises his hand in surrender. He knows I hate that question even more than I hate lying to him and everyone else when I say I’m fine.

I’m not fine. I’m drowning, slowly and painfully, and I have been every day since I woke up in a hospital bed with Kiernan by my side and my grandfather in the morgue. But admitting that isn’t an option. With Pops gone, the responsibility of the farm and the lighthouse are in my hands. Everything Pops dedicated his life to, everything he loved and cherished, is now mine. And I’ll be damned if I let him down.

So if anyone asks me how I am, I grit my teeth and say I’m good. I’m sad but coping. Grateful to be alive. Lies upon lies that make it easier for everyone around me.

“I’m worried about you, Cass,” Kiernan says. “Are you sure you don’t want to talk about it?” He squeezes my shoulder in a firm grip, the way he knows I like.

“There’s nothing to talk about, Kee. Pops is gone. For some unknown, fucked up reason, I survived that storm and he didn’t.”

“The Beast of the Sea saved you,” he replies, and I roll my eyes. I should never have told him about the dreams, especially the one in which a creature pulled me from the water.

Monsters don’t exist.

“There’s no such thing,” I reply, despite being able to vividly remember how his body had pressed me down, his fur brushing my stomach where my t-shirt had ridden up. “I washed up on the shore after hitting my head, and you found me.” I don’t know how long I would have laid out there had Kiernan not come looking for me after I missed our dinner plans.

Kee shrugs. “Pops believed in the supernatural. He was always telling us stories. Don’t you remember the one he told us about that time he took us camping in the Northumberland National Park?”

Of course I remember. That trip had been the first the three of us had taken together after I moved to Newbridge. I didn’t love camping, but I did love spending time with my grandfather and my best friend. Loved listening to the melodic cadence of Pops’ rich Scottish accent as he told us stories around the lambent flames of the campfire.

“In the deep, a creature dwells, drawn by the call of an ancient lighthouse. Born to the land and to the sea, he watches over you and me.” Kiernan recites the poem my grandfather taught us about a creature who is believed to guard the coastline of the United Kingdom – all the way from the most south-westerly point, Lands End, to the northeastern tip in John O’Groats.

Pops loved that legend and had wild theories about what the beast looked like. He was convinced that when it stepped foot on land, it could transform into a man in order to fit in among us without us ever knowing. But then Pops had always been more open minded than me. Even with a nightmare so vivid I could smell the salty brine of the beast’s fur, there is no way it’s real.

“Why is it so hard to believe this creature rescued you?” my friend asks.