I slipped back to some sort of consciousness in the middle of the night with my right arm itching and my right hand tingling and no idea where I was, only that from below me something vast was grinding and grinding and grinding. At first I thought it was machinery, but it was too uneven to be machinery. And too organic somehow. Then I thought of teeth, but nothing had teeth that vast. Nothing in the known world, at least.
Breathing, I thought, and that seemed right, but what kind of animal made such a vast grinding sound when it drew in breath? And God, that itch was driving me crazy, all the way up my forearm to the crease of the elbow. I went to scratch it, reaching across my chest with my left hand, and of course there was no elbow, no forearm, and I scratched nothing but the bedsheet.
That brought me fully awake and I sat up....I was in the house I was already thinking of as Big Pink, and that grinding sound--
"It's shells," I murmured, lying back down. "Shells under the house. The tide's in."
I loved that sound from the first, when I woke up and heard it in the dark of night, when I didn't know where I was, who I was, or what parts were still attached. It was mine.
It had me from hello.
For Duma Key,
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