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Baited

Once more, the hook sailed out to the dark water and sank into the deep.

By Lark HanshanPublished 2 years ago Updated 2 years ago 5 min read
Top Story - September 2022
36
Baited
Photo by Derick Daily on Unsplash

The child sat with legs crossed under a sky of glittering ink.

The cat next to her lay on his side, licking at a bottlebrush tail coloured of charcoal and smoke. His pupils were slitted to needles.

Ahead of them, a makeshift fishing pole knocked against the child’s knees and bobbed, as did its line in the water, with the shift of the waves. Before the breeze had picked up, a sudden jerk of the line had been incorrectly interpreted as success and their celebration had been premature. Now, every tug of the line cried wolf, and the child and cat sat stolidly, waiting for a stronger sign of victory.

“Do you think they’d cook it?” She asked.

“I’d eat it raw.” He replied.

“I can’t.”

“That sounds like a you-problem.” The cat trapped his tail between his forepaws and rasped his long tongue over the fur.

She made a face. “You never say anything nice.”

“I complimented your patience.”

“You said I was wasting my time.” She relaxed her grip on the pole and laid it over her lap. Chubby fingers tightened into her curls and mussed the frizz into mayhem. August heat blotched her cheeks with colour and the full moon’s light set her forehead sweat aglow. A long day under the sun had left her darker than she had started out that morning, had left faint lines on the skin before and under her sleeves, left her chestnut hair bleached. She had left her sunhat and SPF on another dock.

The cat yawned widely. The child promised herself she wouldn’t catch it, and her body immediately let her down. The jaw-cracking yawn she shuddered through raised the hair on her arms.

The pole shifted in her lap. She ignored it. “They’d cook it, right?”

“Doesn’t matter to me.”

“I wanna eat it too.”

“Tough.” The cat nibbled at an itch on his shoulder. “The worm probably fell off hours ago.”

“You don’t know that.”

The cat’s answering silence as he moved on to lap at a dusty patch on his flank was suspicious. With a grunt, the child grabbed the pole and began to pull the line back. Sure enough, the hook was bare when it surfaced from the ripples.

If she had learned how to swear by then, she would have. Alas, a quiver of a lower lip and a stinging of tears sufficed. Disappointment sank into her belly like a failed attempt at a skipped stone.

“We could always go back to the cabin,” the cat offered. His neon gaze met hers as he rolled onto his side and began to sit up. “Tomorrow is already today. You don’t need a fish.”

She wiped at her eyes with a grubby hand. “No.”

“No?”

“I want the fish.”

He fixed her with a look. “I want to sleep.”

“You’re not very good at your job.”

The cat lifted a paw and examined the fur between his toes. She scowled, shoved a hand into her pocket, and withdrew a melted candy. The coating stuck to her fingers and she wiped it onto white shorts without a second glance. Half of the sour she popped into her mouth, and the other half she wrestled onto the fishhook. She’d cut herself on the shiny barb once already; the lesson had been learned for next time.

Once more, the hook sailed out to the dark water and sank into the deep. The child untangled her legs, pulled her knees up to her chest and leaned her chin onto their knobbly caps.

She was the only one who was fishless. Samuel, Martinique, Vinny, Liam, they had all returned with shining smiles and slippery scales. When they’d looked toward her, perfect and sandy in the afterglow of success, she had wanted to disappear below the floorboards. Competitions weren’t fun when you were at a disadvantage.

“You were supposed to help me,” Cera gritted through her teeth.

Chartreuse growled low in his throat. “Are you a cheater?” He asked.

“You’re supposed to help me. That’s the whole reason you’re here.”

“You’re thinking in terms of a smaller picture. Very small.”

“You said–“

He rose, and padded ahead until he stood at the edge of the dock. “Cheaters never prosper.” There was a warning in his eyes when he looked back at her. She toyed with the idea of ignoring it, but fear of the unknown was enough to heed him, albeit reluctantly. “What does that mean?”

“It means that anyone who catches a fish with my help will ultimately need to face the consequences of their actions.” It was as delicate an explanation as Chartreuse could give, and more than she had expected. Cera turned back to the line and watched it bob, sway, shiver with the waves. “Then I guess I lose,” she sighed.

“I guess you lose.”

“How did they catch them!” She held back most of the sob, but her frustration couldn’t be contained. Chartreuse wasn’t completely unsympathetic. He moved close and pressed his side to hers, tangled his tail around the fishing pole, and placed a soft paw upon her arm. “Fishing isn’t quite a testament of skill, Cera. Success is dependent on many factors. Time, placement, weather, bait, and other such things. Your peers merely stumbled into their good fortune. They would not have known any better than you do now.”

It didn’t cheer her up. He knew this, and his chest vibrated with a steady purr. “You have advantages they will never understand. You can allow them this one small triumph.” When he withdrew from her side, she smudged a tear away. The cat chuckled. “The fish here don’t taste good anyway, trust me. Let’s go back to the cabin.”

Cera plucked at the collar of her shirt and drew it up over her mouth, frowning in silence for a time. When her thoughts stilled, she sighed and tugged the fishing line free of the pole and let it slip into the water with a satisfying plink. She clambered to her feet and yawned, stretched, and pulled the full length of the pole out from under her and raised it up by her side. The moon revealed long straw bristles at the end, bound together by thin, knotted leather cords.

Cera eyed her hands and held the broom out in front of her.

It hovered when she let it go.

Satisfied, she mounted it after a few wobbled attempts and when she gave him a look, the familiar waggled his haunches and leapt up onto the broom behind her. Chartreuse dug his claws into her shirt and climbed up onto her shoulder, wrapped his tail around her neck and let out a soft mrrowr.

Rising slowly, they floated off into the night and disappeared from the dock. No trace left behind. It was as though they’d swept through like ghosts.

Landing with a dull clatter against the wooden boards of the dock, the empty hook was spat back up out of the dark in a single splash. For several moments the water churned, gurgled, bubbled, and with one last rattling shudder, the ripples fell still.

The fishhook gleamed under the glittering sky.

Short StoryYoung AdultFantasy
36

About the Creator

Lark Hanshan

A quiet West Coast observer. Writing a sentence onto a blank page and letting what comes next do what it must.

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Outstanding

Excellent work. Looking forward to reading more!

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    Creative use of language & vocab

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Comments (6)

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  • Shleyateniaabout a year ago

    I am not a cat person, but I like this.

  • Miles Pen2 years ago

    I love the subtle yet familiar images you invoke in this! Amazing

  • I am not a cat person, but I like this.

  • This comment has been deleted

  • Just Daniel2 years ago

    I enjoyed this story very, very much! Thank you so much for sharing! Oh my gosh, where to start! First of all, the unraveling of more elements to your story was well done, each new piece of information giving me a quiet chuckle and understanding of what was going on where I was a bit confused before. My favorite is when it was revealed that the worm that she was using was a candy/gummy worm all along and at the end, when she flew away on her broomstick with her cat familiar. I look forward to your other stories! ^^

  • Conversation with a cat over a evening spent sitting with a fishing pole - love it! I am sure the little girl is the winner here, but not sure why, which I think is the charm of this story. Beautifully executed. Thanks for sharing.

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