'Unrequited' by Jackie Morris

As dawn breaks, the beast grabs a handful of sedge and begins to hoist himself out of the lake. Goloomph. He’s been exposing his mottled skin to alien air all winter and spring. His webbings have cracked, healed, cracked until they look like mud flats, bubbled and fissured.

In one huge hand dangles the girl-child’s necklace. For the last several years, on the day when the water-lilies unfurl, Elspeth and her brothers have run whooping down to the lake.

This year, he will be ready. This year he won’t lurk under the drooping willow, his amber eyes flickering. He will stand in the margins, upright as the flag irises that fringe the lake. The children will run down the path and Elspeth will say —oh, you kept it and although last summer she screamed in the minnow-brown depths and thrashed and turned tail this summer she will —

Goloomph. Wet soil squelch. Goloomph. He staggers up on twos, like the children do. His back is stronger now, but he can’t yet raise his heavy head.

—she will say Come and play.

He waits, heron still. The sun brightens and blisters. A herd of roe deer silently drink. He waits. The tree shadows lengthen. An owl swoops across the still black water.

He waits. He waits. He waits.