I had to get out of bed, though.
The room was dark, lit only by the silvery moonlight that came through the window. I’d not drawn the curtains tonight because I wanted to be able to make out their faces clearly, and I didn’t want either of them getting scared when they woke up disorientated in a strange bedroom.
They’d both fallen asleep quickly, exhausted from the shock and the adrenaline crash.
I might have waited longer than I needed to before getting up. I’d just been enjoying watching them so much, of hearing their breaths mingling with mine, of their now-warm bodies pressed closely against mine.
But it was time to get up and go outside. I only had one pair of skates and I wanted to get them back.
As quietly as I could, moving as fluidly as I could, I slithered out of bed without disturbing them. My bare feet padded across the floorboards and I took a big stride over the creaky one right by the door.
Outside, the world was white. Soft snowflakes fell, fluttering past me as I walked down the path and over to the edge of the lake, still barefoot. The chilly earth wouldn’t harm me and the snow wouldn’t bite at my toes.
The lake shone white with fresh snow and ice, reflecting the moonlight and looking as though it were the middle of the day.
I trudged across it until I was far enough away from the cottage that I was certain neither of my guests would hear anything, and then I deliberately broke the thick layer of ice. Here, where it was sheltered by trees and the thick rushes, the ice took longer to form but, when it did, it lasted longer, too.
Once I had a big enough hole to slip through, I pulled off my hoodie and slipped off my trousers, and then I shifted into myoctopus form. The hole I’d made was small but I could easily squeeze myself through it. I’d made it big enough to get my skate through, so my lithe, dexterous form shot through it in a second and I plunged into the icy waters.
Below the surface, the water was dark. The thick ice above blocked out the moonlight and made the world seem black.
It wasn’t even that late. Declan had messaged his parents to say he and Sonny was staying over at my cottage and then he’d turned his phone on silent. I’d seen the screen light up a few times but it hadn’t woken him, thank goodness. He didn’t need any extra stress.
I could have waited longer to come out here but I wanted to get my skates and get back. A constant tugging in my gut told me to get back to my men as quickly as possible. I hated leaving them alone.
I swam quickly through the lake, winding between the rushes and the weeds that choked the bottom of this half of the lake. I could tell, as always, when I reached the eastern half. It was clearer and the whole thing opened out. From below the surface, it seemed like a ballroom, so vast and glittering normally.
Today, it was black and my heart beat quickly at the memory of Sonny thrashing in the water.
It had been too close.
If I hadn’t been there—
I swam faster, shooting through the water like an arrow.
In the middle of the lake, there was a faint spot of light. With my human eyes, I might not have seen it but in my octopus form I could make it out. That narrowed down my search.
I drifted along the bottom of the lake somewhere below that speck of light, propelling myself slowly and twisting around to scour the lake bed for my things.
Something shiny caught my eye and I drifted closer, reaching out one long tentacle to pick it up. It was a phone. Sonny’s phone? I curled my tentacle around it, keeping it just in case.
Then I drifted further along.
My skates were a few metres away. What worried me was that they were so far from the phone. The phone must have fallen out of Sonny’s pocket immediately, but if I’d dropped my clothes so far away, Sonny had drifted further from the hole than I’d realised at the time. Even if he’d found his way upwards to the surface, he would have been metres from the hole, trapped below the ice in the dark.
I shuddered and took a deep breath. The icy water was fine for me.
Quickly, I gathered up my skates and my clothes. May as well pick them up while I was here. It was awkward to swim back through the lake towards my cottage but I didn’t want anyone to see an octopus emerging from the lake with a load of stuff and I certainly didn’t want them to see that octopus transform into a human.
Probably nobody was there. People didn’t come out to the lake at night, not in the winter. And the freshly-falling snow would keep people further at bay.
Still, I didn’t want to risk it. I mostly drifted back, my tentacles curled around my skates and my bundle of clothes.
When I got to my part of the lake, protected from prying eyes by trees and reeds, I pushed my coat and my clothes, then my skates, out through the hole I’d made. Then I slithered out of the hole and used my tentacles to push everything further away.
By the time I shifted, I was well away from the hole with no danger of the ice cracking beneath my feet. I bent down and yanked my discarded trousers and my hoodie on. They were covered in white flakes and I realised they would be cold anddamp. I’d have to put fresh ones on before I got back into bed with my men.
It didn’t occur to me not to do that. My place was in that bed, beside them.
