Wheeling Gull Isle he can hold you, and shake you child.

the bed of flowers near the den had been ravaged some time in the night. scores of lavender boughs upended, a bevy of queen anne’s lace trampled underfoot. 

ava turned her sights to the beach. the tunicate lingered in her mind, conjuring a wellspring of concocted ideas she was too young yet to act upon. 

an impossibly large figure loomed on the beach. its surface was a shadowed disc; it moved in heavy flops of each heaving limb. she struggled to define the true shape of this thing, for its silhouette shimmered like a mirage the longer she gazed upon it. 

its cumbersome head lowered, sharp beak scissoring across the very bed of tunicates ava had come here for. a quiet, half-strangled cry sprung from the girl’s lips as she saw the last of the floral jelly scraped from stone and consumed by the  lumbering beast.