Omens

The Nightmare

A pair of bright yellow eyes glowed through the darkness of the cabin, the pupils tiny black slits. At first the eyes were all that the child could see, but slowly...slowly....

It was coming closer.

The eyes wove slightly from side to side, fixed on the child, and soon she could make out the elongated snout, then the mouth, halfway open, displaying rows of tiny glittering teeth.

The entire room seemed nothing but blackness, only illuminated by the sickly yellow eyes. The long, slimy body slithered through midair in the cabin, weaving closer and closer to the girl's bunk. The eyes never blinked, and the jaw moved slowly up and down, flexing for a bite.

The girl pressed closer into her unconscious mother, whimpering.

She knew what the thing was; she had seen one before at the fishmonger's, though it had been dead. The thing writhing towards her in the air was an eel.

She squeezed her eyes shut tight, hoping it would go away as it had each night since the ship had begun its voyage. She knew that eels were supposed to live deep down in the dark waters, that they did not hover in the air...but she did not know whether they could eat people.

She cracked her eyes open again.

The eel's bright yellow eyes were inches from her face, and its jaw was opening wide.

The child screamed and screamed and screamed....

Her mother awoke with a jolt, sitting up so sharply that she bumped her head on the bunk above her. "What...what....oh God, Lily, not again. Hush, sweetheart, hush." She pressed her hand over the child's mouth, but it was too late. The other five passengers crammed into the tiny cabin were wide awake and grumbling. The Russian in the bunk above her spat out some words that she didn't understand, but the meaning was clear.

The girl's screams had stopped, but she was gasping, panting fretfully behind her mother's hands.

"Quiet, child, quiet," the mother whispered into her ears. "Oh, Lily, what has gotten into you? You never had a nightmare in your life before we set foot on this ship, but every single night of this trip..."

"For God's sakes, learn to keep your urchin quiet," hissed someone from a nearby bunk.

The mother felt her hand become wet, and realized her daughter was crying. She reached for her shawl and the girl's.

"Come on now, let's take a little walk 'round the deck, shall we? The cold air will do you good, make you forget all these silly dreams," she whispered, wrapping her daughter snugly. "Who knows, maybe we could sneak onto the first-class deck and count stars. How does that sound?"

She guided her daughter out of the cabin and through the narrow passages, chattering about the stars and the pretty water and how very, very soon they would get to see Father in New York.

The girl listened quietly. She was no longer crying, but each time they passed a dark corner or unlit passage, she paused to peer warily into the blackness, searching for the yellow eyes that she knew she had not dreamed.