Under Loch and Key

by Lana Ferguson

My entire life, I have been told to fear this woman, the one I didn’t know existed until just now—but she certainly doesn’t look like the end of the world as I know it.

And yet here I am, in a fucking children’s museum about a damned cryptid, trying to cobble together some connection to the only person who ever loved me.

“But Nessie has always been a girl!” “I did try to hint at the falsity of that, you remember,” I remind her. “Outside of Loch Land.” “Yeah, but I just thought you were being a dick.” “No, I was trying to tell you that Nessie has a dick.”

She looks excited, damn her. Why does she look so bloody excited? Can’t she be properly terrified of me? I’m a monster, for fuck’s sake. Not a fucking puppy.

I hate how fucking lovely she looks when she’s being a pain in my arse.

“You ready to talk to me like a big boy, Nessie?”