Several miles offshore, the kelp forest began.
Tall, dark leaves of kelp swam before Derek like a primordial wood, swaying in the currents and obscuring all visibility. The kelp grew in thick masses, thin roots covering the sea floor and anchored by air-filled bladders, some as big as Derek’s fist, to broad leaves that reached up to the surface of the water, where they created a canopy hiding the flourishing world beneath the waves. Many creatures called the forests home, including the merrows, who used the kelp beds as cover from humans who dove or boated close to shore. It would be easy to get lost among the kelp, Derek knew from experience, and it’d been years since he’d visited last…
But as he approached the forest, he saw an old barnacled rock he remembered from his childhood. How m
