As the minutes ticked by with no more sightings, Anika’s adrenaline rush began to subside. She was just thinking of giving up and turning back when she glimpsed it again—not just one glowing tendril, but several. Smoothly they coalesced into a banded length of shimmering blue, before vanishing altogether into the shadowy depths beyond.

Anika stared. There was something about the arc of those tendrils as they trailed out of sight. Something in their motion that struck her as strangely deliberate.

One of the locals had directed her to the spot—a secluded cove you had to hike through a dense swath of palm scrub to reach. Anika was sweating a little as she crested the last hill and broke past the line of the trees. Her thin tank top clung to her like a second skin. The damp hems of her jean shorts chafed her high on her toned, tanned thighs. Waving the last of the annoying midges away from her face, she smiled as she stepped out from the shade, onto the glittering white sands.

The beach