Anika’s pulse kicked up a notch when the tentacles slipped under the side-strings of her bikini with what seemed like more than idle curiosity.

A few other tendrils slid up along the side of her body, coiling finger-like around her throat. Anika’s adrenaline spiked. As his tentacles began to pry at her snorkeling gear, she fought to keep her paranoia in check.

There was nothing ambiguous about that. He wanted the apparatus off, clearly. He wanted her face to be bared.

Anika hesitated.

The creature’s tentacle withdrew from Anika’s grasp. He swam back from her a little, then paused, hovering like a ghost. His silvery look was watchful, expectant.

Anika smiled and swam after him. He leaned back as she did. Sleek and horizontal, he propelled himself through the water like a languid torpedo. About a foot above him, Anika glided along in parallel, close to the surface of the waves.

They swam about like this for a while, retreating to and from the shallows of the cove. The

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