Juncture

The silky brush was erotic, like hands everywhere, the multiple lovers she had never had, and then it was not. The first stinging jolt surprised her…

A godly nun, the victim of untold puncturings in Palau’s Jellyfish Lake. A honeymoon couple, their kayaks overturned by orcas off Vancouver Island: in the green deeps the whales drive the girl through the water with a force that finally breaks her back; her groom dies in a bloody burst. Nighttime in the Sea of Cortez: an underwater photographer dragged into the deeps by swarming Humboldt squid; fixing to his hands, his mask, powerful suction cups wresting, the squid flashing iridescent rainbow colors, communicating in a way heretofore unseen.

In the oceans creatures are stirring, a fast-rising tide of seemingly random shocking events not random at all.

Cedar Mahoney, golden-hued dive boat operator, is athletic, sensual, independent and facing the heartbreak of letting go of her only child, about to leave the island of Palau for a better future with his father in Chicago. But sixteen-year-old Justin -- graceful swimmer and strangely attuned to the sea – just might decide the future. Strange events on and under Palau’s sapphire blue waters enfold a cast of characters. Crusty Santy, fuel dock despot with two gears, complaint and nosiness. Able, a detective too wise for a small island. And Marty Haruo, local pilot, possessed of a gentleman’s elegance and a boyish charm; Cedar’s best friend, and then her lover. All are drawn together by a series of strange unfoldings that upend their world, and, quite suddenly, the world far beyond.

For something lives beneath Palau’s waters; something ancient and wise; something capable of a lover’s tingling touch and calculated storms of terrible violence. Something that has observed this world for epochs and now, at this fateful crossroad, is forced to act. Mother, son and primordial creature are about to connect, and mankind’s future balances on the outcome.

Fiction? Yes - and no.

The oceans really are changing.

And we are truly at a Juncture.