The Shallow Spot

The claw was brought up tangled in netting, along with a length of chain that had no business being at that depth. Ives cut it free with his knife, thumb testing the weight of it before anyone else could reach. One pincer was gone clean off, the break rounded over as if it hadn’t happened recently. It still held the shape of something that once moved, jointed and curved, the copper thick in places where the sea had favoured it. A green bead sat above it, glass gone cloudy with salt, as if it had been breathing down there.

They argued over it in the hold that night. Not about value, but about ownership, which in that crew was a more delicate thing. One of them swore it had twitched when it first came aboard. Another refused to touch it at all. Ives said nothing, just turned it in his hands, thumb brushing the missing side, feeling where the metal had grown rough and where it had settled smooth, like it had chosen its own pace.

By morning it was strung onto a heavier chain, worn as if it had always belonged there. The bead caught the light in a way that didn’t match the rest of the ship, too green for open water. No one mentioned the nets after that, or the way the sea had felt strangely shallow in that spot, as though something larger had shifted aside just long enough to let them take it.