The algae-weaver jammed on the fifteenth T-shirt of the day, dried filament burning into a black amorphous blob between dozens of spinnerets. Sevvy was half-submerged in the giant engine’s control panel, plugging and unplugging countless cords that neither of us understood. The old adage of just turn it off and on again was the extent of our technical knowledge. The voice of our boss, Victar, crackled through the speakers welded to the slowly collapsing beams overhead.

“Today’s our biggest day and you …”

The rest of his insult cut out. Much like the other electronics housed within Victar’s T-Shack, the constant breath of salt air corroded the speaker’s innards. Rust lined the junctions of every doorway, bleeding down the walls in thickening streams of flaking crimson. The old steel-sided automotive garage they’d converted into a tourist T-shirt emporium was coated in barnacles. Everything within was elevated two feet off the ground, since high tide often washed beneath the front door. The Weaver. The shirt racks and sprawling countertop displays heaped with discounted apparel. The wireless register and gift wrapping station. Everything was on tiny steel stilts to prevent water damage.

The garage turned T-shirt shack hadn’t always been right on the bay, but erosion never stopped and the sea never slept.

With a harsh crackle, the speaker in the far corner of the weaving room coughed to life.

“… I know you need these jobs, so don’t mess with me. There are five hundred other people on this peninsula who’d kill for gainful employment, and you two are just …”

“Sitting around with our thumbs up our asses,” Sevvy finished as she stitched cords back into place, sending the Weaver’s spider arms into a frenzy. The fabricator spit out a length of the algal twine, pushing the blockage of melted filament from its nozzles. The squelching mass flung across the floor, leaving a streak of tar-like ooze on the gray cement, before colliding with a neighboring Weaver. Unlike their only functional cousin, the other fifteen Weavers huddled beneath the garage’s tin roof had been dead for years, long before Sevvy and I got our jobs. Their rusting carcasses were reminiscent of alien skeletons, too many limbs frozen in perpetual stasis.

“I’m opening in fifteen. Think you can handle the rest of this?” Sevvy asked as she wiped algae from her freckled forearms.

“As long as it doesn’t blob up again,” I replied. “Can I get a smooch? You know, as a parting gift?”

“One greasy, pre-work smooch coming up.”

Sevvy kissed me on the mouth, wiping a line of the molten algae on my pants, before pulling away with a laugh.

“Now the customers are going to think I shit myself,” I replied.

“That’s the joke,” Sevvy said, ducking through the doors leading onto the salesfloor, the sound of an old pop song swinging in on her heels. It was the same acoustic guitar track that played at the same time every day.

As the door closed, the music was sucked into the vacuum of the neighboring room, leaving me alone with the whir of the Weaver. The machine sputtered for a moment, then the first correctly stitched Wish Ceremony T-shirt flowed from its pincers.

I snatched the garment, folded it quickly, and added it to the pile on the nearest table. Each of the shirts depicted the Water Wench on their front, her seaweed-draped hair and gown, her skull-like face peering out at the viewer, brined skin and all those rows of teeth asking What is your wish??? to the thousands of mariners knocking on her metaphoric door.

I didn’t know why anyone wanted to carry around a reminder of what was to come, but they were our best sellers, and Victar never questioned statistics. We all knew there were only a few more seasons before the T-Shack slid into the sea, so he needed to make his money while he could.

Sevvy and I had been together for more Wish Ceremonies than I could remember, but neither of us had ever taken to the water in her father’s skiff. We weren’t like the thousands who flocked from neighboring cities to ask their desires of the Water Wench. And even if we were, I wasn't sure what we’d request. It wasn’t like we had everything our hearts desired. Far from it. There were too many things to ask for. Narrowing down the list seemed impossible.

There was the housing situation, and the food situation, and the healthcare situation, and all the other situations.

We could wish for that noodle shop Sevvy always thought she’d run. Or maybe for our refrigerator to never be empty. Or for that neighbor who was always out in the courtyard with his machete, screaming at the gods, to be a little quieter and less sharp object-oriented, but would any of that be worth losing our lives?

No.

At least I didn’t think so.

The Water Wench only granted one out of every five wishes. That’s what our annual statistics gatherers said. One in five.

The rest drowned, pulled beneath her floating form by unseen hands, or tentacles, or the mouths of fish, or grasping crab claws. The end came in so many different forms, but the result was always the same: one more body floating on the bay. The unlucky were added to the aquatic field of corpses, slowly rotting, nibbled by the fish the Wench attracted with her shadow. Three of my uncles met their fate at her feet. Sevvy’s mom floated among the corpses for a full week before the Wench drifted back beneath the waves and we were allowed to collect our dead. Sevvy and I were on the same page about everything, unlike her mother and father, unlike all of those thousands who made the pilgrimage to our shores for their slight chance of improving their lives.

At least I thought we were on the same page.

“What would you ask her for?” Sevvy inquired as I straightened the pale pink Wish shirts on the display table that snaked around the entire showroom. I’d organized them in a winding rainbow aisle, dark to light, Smalls on top, XXLs on the bottom, the Water Wench’s emaciated, toothy countenance staring up from each. On the first day of the Ceremony, we’d sold out of all our Smalls, so that’s what we programmed the Weaver to spit out, an endless sea of algal attire so we could avoid the fights from the day before.

Few things were scarier than a mother who desperately wanted a seafoam green Small for their malnourished child, because how else would they remember the father whose boat didn’t make it back to shore.

“Better not wish for a better job,” came Victar’s voice from above. “You know you can’t …”

The speaker died before it could level the usual reminder of our near-serfdom.

“I mean, that’s not a bad suggestion. But probably something grander. If I’m offering that lady my neck, I’m going big,” I replied, feet squelching over the rotting floorboards as I carried another stack of T-shirts to the window display. The tide had been up last night. A few hermit crabs still sauntered towards the door, struggling over the raised threshold as they tried to get back to the beach.

“Like a house in the woods so far inland you don’t have to worry about the sea coming for you,” Sevvy replied, pulling her long brown hair back into a bun and out of her face so she could see the readout on the register. “Or anyone coming for you, for that matter.”

“And clean drinking water. Can’t forget the drinking water. The Wench always gets you there,” I said.

“I don’t think she intentionally screws people,” Sevvy said. “That’s just the rules. Specificity. Perfection. You can’t stumble over your wish or …”

“Or you end up in the water. I know, I know, but let’s forget about that. It’s not like we’re paddling out anytime soon.”

“But what if we did?” She looked up from the register, her black eyes wide, chewing her lower lip.

“It’s not worth the risk. We’re happy, right? We’ve got enough. Most people don’t …” Before I could finish my thought, a harsh knock sounded at the door.

A wall of tourists crowded every window, pale faces pressed to the glass as they squinted inside, planning their initial snatch and grab for the organized Smalls I’d just laid out. The wall clock read eight a.m. We were supposed to be unlocked, but I’d lost track of time. Sevvy dredged the keys from inside the front counter, jangled them once, and threw them to me.

The longer we waited, the harsher the crush of their desire would be, and we didn’t need the day to start off on that foot.

Music piped down from above.

“'Beethoven's Beach Bod' is up next,” she said with a smile.

“Always my favorite jam,” I replied, jabbing the key into the lock. We’d circle back on the conversation once our shelves were depleted and the Weaver cooled for the day, all algal filament scrubbed from its spinnerets.

We paused at the highest point of the dunes, sweat-soaked from another day at Victar’s, staring across the subtle curve of the bay to where our apartment complex nestled amongst a dozen other sky-flung complexes. Only three days remained of the Wish Ceremony. Three more days until work went back to a manageable drudgery. Twenty feet below, the beach was crowded with capsized boats that had washed back to shore without their captains. The shadows of bodies spotted the waves, ranging out half a mile to where the Water Wench hovered, her thin frame glowing with a pale moon radiance, sunset rendering her face a pulsing halo. She flickered over the water like a dying candle.

“I don’t think it’s wrong to think about it sometimes,” Sevvy said, arms crossed over her chest as we traced the packed sand path like we did each night. Scrub growth and switchgrass brushed against our legs as we passed.

“I mean, theoretically, I guess, but there’s only so much dark contemplation you can have in your day, you know? This week’s always rough. I don’t blame your mind for wandering.”

“You’re telling me you don’t think about it sometimes,” she said, turning to me, blocking the path. “The life we could have instead of this one?”

I couldn’t lie to her. Of course my mind went to all those other lives I could be living. It’s not like I wanted kingly riches or fame, but any clean environment was tempting. Somewhere we wouldn’t be squashed into our apartment with the hundred other people piled into the five stories above and below, the smell of so many sour bodies competing with low tide on a regular basis.

“Sometimes. But there’s a difference between thinking and planning.”

“There is,” Sevvy replied. “But planning is how you move ahead in life, and I feel like we’re stuck.”

“Being stuck isn’t so bad. It’s not regression.”

“You keep saying that, but I don’t think you really hear yourself. Hear how bad that actually sounds,” Sevvy said, turning back. The path led into the maze of apartment buildings that had been cobbled together from old luxury condos. It was like a tiny city at the tip of the peninsula, sand washing up to their foundations, waves wandering through the streets of the nearest block.

We continued to walk until a deep mournful groan went up from the direction of our home. Three apartments slowly tilted towards the water, one leaning into the next leaning into the next. Their collapse wasn’t quick. Glass shattered. A chorus of screams pierced the night as the buildings knelt into the surf.

From where we stood atop the dunes, we could see our whole life swallowed by the sea.

The slow erosion that had always been coming for us had finally arrived.

Like I said, the sea never slept.

Sleeping in the T-shack wasn’t the worst. The Weavers were creepy at night, but if you avoided the backroom, it wasn’t so bad. What really unnerved me was the slow seep of water across the floorboards as the tide rose. I could hear the gurgle of the ocean weeping into the building, the scuttle of crab legs as they skittered beneath the T-shirt table Sevvy and I lay on. With the collapse of our apartment block, we had nowhere else to sleep. All of our worldly possessions had been destroyed. Victar let us use the shack at night, but in exchange he withheld more than half of our paycheck for rent. It was temporary, I tried to assure Sevvy, and myself. It was hard to sound honest. I knew what the housing situation was on the peninsula. I knew how many other people would be searching for homes after their last one drowned. I knew the extent of the tent city now cropping up along the Atlantic.

I knew …

I knew …

I knew …

“What if we ran the Weaver through the night? That’s like ten more hours of productivity. Maybe Victar would knock the rent down …” I said as the two of us lay on our backs, our eyes tracing the veins of rust in the sagging roof.

Sevvy cut me off. “Victar isn’t going to make a deal with us. That’s not what Victar does. You know that.”

“But maybe given our situation he’ll …”

“No. I’m not even sure Victar is a real person. He’s probably just some AI set up to keep this business churning without an actual overseer. All the costs and losses are factored out. Compassion isn’t coming into this. He even deducted this T-shirt from my pay when he knows I have no other clothes to wear,” Sevvy said, pulling at the front of her shirt, an XL Water Wench tee that hung off her frame.

I felt something small and crustacean-like skitter up my pant leg and scuttle over my knee before it hopped onto Sevvy’s stomach. She swore and tossed the hermit crab back into the water lapping over the floor. They were almost worse than cockroaches.

“This is not what I wanted from life.” Sevvy turned her back to me as she curled into the fetal position.

“Well, we’re still alive, and half our neighbors can’t say that.”

“I’m not sure if I call this living anymore,” she replied, her eyes drifting out the window.

I followed her gaze to the dim light hovering above the bay. The Water Wench was the only speck of brilliance illuminating the dark. There was only one day left of the Ceremony, one more day before she drifted beneath the surface to leave our horizon a blank black stretch of water.

“Sev, we’ve got each other and we’ve got options. I promise. We’re going to make this work,” I said, running my palm across her back, trying to knead some sense of calm into her shoulders.

“You let me know when you have a plan.”

“Twenty minutes ago …” Victar’s voice called from the rafters.

I’d woken to a number of hermit crabs lying where Sevvy had been the night before. The front door was unlocked. I frantically pulled on my damp shoes, lacing them as quick as I could. My heart jarred against my ribs. This was the last thing I wanted, every nightmare coalescing into one dreaded moment.

“Leave her. We open in half an hour and you need …” Victar droned.

The only thing I need is Sevvy,” I yelled at the ceiling.

“Then don’t bother …”

“I wasn’t planning on coming back, if that’s what you’re saying. Get someone else to sell your fucked-up shirts.”

And then I was out the door, leaving it open behind me.

The last of the Ceremony’s attendants could loot what they wanted. I didn’t care how much money the shack lost or how many people stabbed one another for the last Small on the rack. The final Weaver could join the rest of its brethren for all I cared. Let the barnacles have it.

By the time I reached the bay, Sevvy had disembarked. She stood in the prow of her father’s skiff, poling through the shallows a few hundred feet offshore. It wouldn’t be long before she had to switch to the oars.

The dropoff was steep.

I splashed into the waves, skirting between a hundred abandoned boats. Their hulls rocked against one another, each letting off a hollow resonant thud as they struck. When I was chest deep, I thrashed through an ugly swim stroke. Sevvy would be too far out to catch if I didn’t hurry.

The water was sour in my throat, curdling with the brined tang of so many bodies. I kicked and pulled, swimming around outlying boats, wooden skeletons making their slow way to shore. I tried to ignore the meatier objects my feet and hands grazed as I swam, all those decaying limbs and staring eyes.

After what felt like an eternity, my fingers found the transom of her skiff. Sevvy lowered herself to the rear bench, dragging out the oars as she paused in her stroke. Her momentum pulled me forward when I tried to haul myself onboard, but my arms shook, every muscle screaming.

“Why didn’t you say something?” Sevvy asked. She bent down, arms hooking beneath my own as she helped me out of the water. “If I knew you were back there, I would have stopped.”

“Didn’t think of it,” I huffed, my lungs burning in my chest. “Too worried.”

“Are you okay?” Her hands moved over my body as if searching for some wound, some gash left from the aquatic graveyard.

“Fine, fine. I’m just not in shape for a swim like that.”

There was a moment of silence between us as I lay on my back, the clouded sky low, the lap of waves caressing the side of the boat. I could feel the Wench’s presence in the distance. A faint hum suffused the air, nasally yet sweet, like a lullaby sunken into forgotten memory. I turned my head, and there she was, floating in the distance, feet just above the surf, the humped forms of bodies washing about her shadow. Her thin frame was draped in a gown of twined seaweed. Countless crabs scurried over her luminous flesh, nestling into the weave of her dress. She looked off towards shore, gaping, fang-lined mouth opening and closing, emitting the lulling call that had first snagged my attention. I tried to make out the words, but the language was unfamiliar.

“Why did you leave?” I asked, not knowing what else to say.

“We only need one wish,” she replied. “It’s kind of simple.”

My stomach dropped. I’d thought she had abandoned me in some selfish-yet-warranted exodus. But no, she’d paddled here to lift us out of the endless stream of algal T-shirts that would drown our lives. It was a kindness, not a betrayal.

Sevvy looked down at me. The front of her too-big Water Wench T-shirt stared too, those fish eyes huge and all-consuming. I wondered if Victar’s design was accurate, if when we gazed up into her face it would hold some odd familiarity, as if we had met before.

“And we still only need one wish,” she said.

I coughed up the last of the water. “One wish. Two lives. It wouldn’t be fair for you to do it by yourself. We’re going to do this together, like we should have always planned. What’s life alone without you to fold T-shirts with?”

Sevvy scooped a handful of the water from the boat’s belly and splashed me.

“I can always change my mind. There doesn’t have to be a mattress for two in my cabin.”

“I think you’d like being a lonely woodland hermit as much as I’d like running the T-shack by myself,” I said, rising to the bench beside her. I took one of the oars from Sevvy’s hand and secured it in the oarlock. “Just make sure whatever you ask is clear. Whatever you choose, I know you’ll say the right thing for both of us.”

Then I dipped the oar into the water and began to row. Sevvy joined. We matched our strokes and aimed the prow toward the Wench’s shadow, the distance dwindling with each pull. Sevvy’s mouth worked over quiet words, arranging and rearranging them in the air, trying to pick out the exact life we wanted, the exact turn to take us away from the sea, away from the Wench, away from the wide watery eyes that gazed down at us, tracking our arrival. Her head was cocked as if listening for Sevvy’s final sentence.

I could practically smell the pitch pine, feel the rough oaken walls beneath my palms, see the tall trees blocking out the sun. With each potential word, our new life gained clarity, dream replacing reality, our boat shivering beneath us as it parted the last stretch of the bay. Only the Wench’s shadow lay between us and what came next.

Sevvy cleared her throat.

Editor: Kat Weaver

First Reader: Aigner Loren Wilson

Copy Editors: Copy Editing Department

Accessibility: Accessibility Editors