setbacks. He isn’t a good businessman, Mooncalf. Never has been. All this stuff, this 
boat, the houses, all of it, will be gone in a few years. It’s coming.
  He’s going to be in jail someday, my father, and the IRS is going to eat him alive. And 
I do not intend to live like that. I do not intend…”
  “Jesus,” Owen gasped, and then began laughing. “Jesus. You’re just a gold digger. 
You’re just after her money. Jesus!”
  Owen dropped to his knees on the wet sand.
  “What’s wrong with you?” Jimmy snarled, coming over to him. “You feeling bad now?”
  “I thought you loved me,” Owen said.
  Jimmy’s voice had grown cold. “It’s not about whether I love you or not.
  It’s not about that. But you’ve ruined even that now.”
  He grabbed Owen under his armpits, lifting him up to a standing position. “You’ve 
destroyed something for me, Mooncalf. You really have.”
  Then, he looked up the hill to the house. The lights were on along the pool, and the 
upstairs light — Jenna’s bedroom — was dim.
  “I need to set this right,” he said.
  “No, don’t, Jimmy, it’s —”
  “I need to,” Jimmy said. “I’ll tell her that it was weakness. I’ll tell her I love her. 
I love her more than anything on the face of the earth. I’ll tell her that I couldn’t 
help myself with you, but that it was nothing. That you were nothing.” He nearly laughed, 
but it had a cry within it. “You’re just a little manipulative piece of trash. She’ll 
understand. She’s not like you. She’ll
  understand.”
  Then, he took off in the rain, bounding up the wooden steps that crept like a vine 
along the side of the hill, and Owen began following, but slowly.
  He heard the shots ring out before he had reached the top step. Five distinct shots, 
and soon dogs down in town were howling, and lights came up along the waterfront.
  7
  The house was dark and silent when Owen went in through the glass doors by the pool. He 
walked past the shimmering water, flicking up the lights as he went. Entering the 
kitchen, he saw Mrs. M, lying in a pool of blood, and then Owen found himself moving more 
swiftly, his heart pounding — — she resembled nothing of the mermaid she had once been; 
death had robbed her beauty; blood took away the magic of her form; her eyes were open, 
and fish-like — Dagon, what is this? This isn’t what was promised. This isn’t what I 
prayed for — — And he ran up the stairs to Jenna’s room, and found him standing there, 
the Colt in his hand — On the bed, Jenna, bleeding, an enormous hole in her neck. Her 
hands moved as if she were trying to reach up to her neck to stop the blood, but 
could not.
  She opened her mouth to cry out, but all that came was a rasping sound, and while blood 
pulsed from her throat. He felt himself burning as he watched the last light flicker in 
her beautiful eyes.
  Then, her eyes closed.
  8
  “Mooncalf, what did I do?” Jimmy said, his skin red, his eyes narrow slits, his shirt 
torn and bloody. Tears and sweat shone like diamonds on his skin. “What did I do? I...I 
came up…I wanted to talk…and she…she had this…” He held the pistol up. “She…she 
threatened me…and then her mother came up…I had grabbed it from her…I was going to 
leave…but they said things…her mother, too…they said ...things about me…and her 
father…about something…some lie…something you told her…something…”
  “All of them?” Owen asked. “You killed. All of them.”
  Jimmy shrugged. “I guess so. It’s kind of a blur. Funny thing is,” he giggled in a way 
that seemed uncharacteristic, “it didn’t really feel like me at all.
  It felt like something else. Like I got taken over. Maybe if she hadn’t pointed this 
gun. Maybe if I hadn’t been drinking. I don’t know. It happened fast. I was about to 
leave, but her mother saw me with the gun. She saw me and she was saying these things. 
And then I just wanted to shut her up and this thing was inside me. This feeling. Like 
something wanted me to point the gun at her mother. Just to scare her. And then: kabang.”
  “Jimmy?”
  “And then her father starts shouting upstairs, and I feel this…this wild thing inside 
me,” Jimmy said, and now the giggling was becoming annoying and seemed to increase 
between words. “And I just go running back up the stairs and down the hall and there’s 
her dad, and I think of my dad, and I think of all the things I’m never going to have, 
and suddenly the gun is going off, and then Jenna’s screaming and she’s picking up the 
phone in her room because I hear that beep beep noise and I have to stop her, I have to 
tell her not to call, that there’ll be a way to work this all out. And then, I feel it in 
me again. I'm moving faster than I’m supposed to — the rest of the world is moving slow — 
and I’m in her room and she has a look on her face like she doesn’t understand how I got 
there so quickly and I’m feeling this — power or something — and then I press the gun 
against her throat to shut her up.”
  Then, he calmed slightly. He pointed the gun directly at Owen. “It's something you said 
to her. Isn’t it? It’s because you told her. But you said something terrible, didn’t you?”
  “Jimmy,” Owen said. “Now, I know you’re upset. I know this is difficult right now. But 
I want you to breathe. Take a few deep breaths. Come on. Just breathe. The secret is in 
breathing.”
  Jimmy looked at him curiously for a moment, blinking. Then he opened his mouth and let 
the air in.
  Then, out.
  Then, in. Slowly, carefully.
  Then, warmth returned to Jimmy McTeague’s eyes and he said:
  “Owen, I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry. I should never have come this summer.”
  
  Epilogue
  Belief
  1
  I can look at this past summer now and see that it was all Dagon.
  Dagon was there, I had brought Dagon into our world, and Dagon had gotten loose. There 
is no madness except the madness of the gods. There is no purity except the purity of 
love.
  Here is where he took me — down to the sailboat — and out to sea.
  2
  We sailed around Outerbridge, its cliffs and caves, around the Montgomery palazzo, 
shining green and white with the flashing of the lighthouse nearby, north and then east, 
beyond the Great Salt Pond, out into the diamond night where sea and sky met, and the 
storm howled around us, and Jimmy, gun to my head, calling me Mooncalf over and over 
again, forced me to whisper an incantation to Dagon of the purity and madness of 
human love.
  Mooncalf, he said. Mooncalf.
  THE END