Neridia shuddered all over. It had looked at her. It had roared, each exposed tooth longer than her entire arm. And then it had started toward her-!
And she’d dropped her most treasured possession, right at the monster’s clawed feet.
She touched the bare hollow of her throat again. Her father had been a shy, gentle man, for all his size. He’d always kept his head down, avoiding confrontation, and he’d taught her to do the same. She was sure he would have told her to forget the pearl, go into the pub and find help.
Neridia drew in a deep, shaking breath. Then she pushed open the door of the pub.
She was relieved to see that the gang of drunk men wasn’t present in the snug, warm bar. Neither was Dave, but Neridia discovered that she didn't care at all about that. Her feelings for him had been utterly washed away by both his rejection of her…and the memory of the stranger’s deep blue eyes.
“Excuse me,” she said to the bartender. “Um, I accidentally left my purse at my table, earlier?”
“Yeah, your boy-ah, that is, the guy you were with, he handed it in.” The man produced the small black bag from behind the bar, sliding it over the polished counter. “You okay, love? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
No, just a monster. Neridia smothered a hysterical giggle.
“I’m fine,” she said, her voice shrill and tense even to her own ears. “Thank you.”
Grabbing her purse, she fled before he could ask any more questions. Back out in the air, she delved into her bag. Her fingers closed over her cellphone.
If I’m going to get eaten by the Loch Ness Monster, I’m at least going to take a picture of it first.
Neridia wasn’t sure whether she was relieved or disappointed that the shore was empty by the time she returned. She edged down the sloping rocks nervously, clutching her cellphone—camera app armed and ready—in front of her as if it were a gun.
The waters of the loch were as flat and still as a black mirror. Nothing broke the surface. Nothing made odd ripples, or gave any indication that something prehistoric and impossible might be lurking below the calm water.
Maybe I imagined it after all?
Neridia had always thought of herself as a sensible, logical person. Even as a child, she’d preferred nature documentaries and science books to cartoons and fantasy stories. She’d never been prone to flights of fancy.
But she knew that sometimes even the most scientific mind could play tricks. And what was more plausible—that she’d suffered some sort of hallucination, or that she’d actually encountered the Loch Ness Monster?
I didn’t drop my pendant. Those thugs mugged me, and I must have fallen and hit my head. I blacked out and dreamed the whole thing. The monster, the fight…and the stranger.
Stupidly, the thought made her want to cry. She sniffed, angrily palming away the tears. Of course he hadn’t been real. A man springing out of nowhere to rescue her? A man who looked like a Greek god and spoke like a knight from a fairytale? A man taller than her?
Of course, it seemed like even her subconscious mind hated her, given that her dream man had turned into a creature out of a nightmare.
Neridia sighed, her head drooping…and found herself staring at a footprint.
It was so big, she almost mistook it for a natural depression in the mud. But her trained conservationist’s eye—used to tracking deer through miles of wilderness—picked out the shape of an animal track. The round oval of the heel, the faint marks of webbing between the toes, the deep gashes caused by long, curving claws digging in for grip…
Neridia’s heart thudded painfully against her ribs.
I didn’t imagine it. It really happened.
Fumbling for her phone, she snapped a dozen pictures of the footprint, desperate to capture it before the water swept it away. It wouldn’t prove anything to anyone else, of course—such a mark would be far too easy to fake.
But the footprint proved it to her.
It’s real.
It’s all real.
He’s real.
“Hello?” she called out, timidly.
Nothing answered her but the soft murmur of the water on the rocks.