In Darkest Depths by David Thompson

then you should climb into bed and stay there until tomorrow morning.”
    â€œBut it’s not even noon yet!” Louisa objected. “I refuse to let you make a fuss over me.”
    â€œWhen you married my son you became my daughter, and my daughters always do as I say”
    Their argument was interrupted by Wakumassee and Degamawaku, who had drifted in from the west. They commenced pointing excitedly, and yelling.
    â€œLook! Look! There!”
    The thing was coming back.

A Glimpse of Mystery
    Shakespeare McNair refused to let anyone else be hurt. They were out on the lake at his bidding, their lives imperiled because of his belief the creature posed a threat. Louisa had very nearly drowned, and if the lake beast rammed another of their craft—Shakespeare was not about to let that happen. Suddenly pushing away from the others, he paddled his canoe into the path of the oncoming swell.
    â€œWhat are you doing?” Nate demanded.
    â€œCarcajou!” Blue Water Woman cried.
    Shakespeare ignored them. He swung his canoe broadside to the swell and snatched up one of the harpoons. Rising, he balanced precariously on the balls of his feet and tensed for the throw.
    Shakespeare had never been on a whaling vessel, but like most people, he was well aware of the particulars of the trade. The industry had existed since the late 1600s when Nantucket fishermen first began hunting whales for their livelihood. Half a century later, thanks to the valuable oil in their heads, sperm whales became the favorite catch.
    Many a youth, inspired by dreams of an excitinglife at sea and the big money to be made, yearned to be a whaler. Shakespeare himself caught the whaling fever; for a while he had been torn between his hankering for a life at sea and his yearning to travel west of the Mississippi. As fate would have it, the mountains and the prairie won out over the oceans, but it was a close thing.
    Now, with the hissing swell sweeping toward him, Shakespeare prepared to cast his harpoon as a whaler would. He sought in vain to see the animal he had come to slay, but all he could see was a dark shape.
    â€œCarcajou!” Blue Water Woman screamed a second time.
    Shakespeare cast the harpoon with all the power in his frame. He was old, but he was far from puny, and he had every hope that could he but pierce its head or body, he could put an end to the thing.
    The harpoon flew true. It struck the swell right where Shakespeare wanted it to, at the point where the silhouette suggested the head should be. By rights, the tip should have sheared through the water and cleaved the beast underneath. But it was swept aside. Whether the rushing water deflected it or it glanced off the creature, Shakespeare couldn’t say. He heard his wife shout something, and then the swell slammed into his canoe with the impact of a charging bull buffalo. Shakespeare felt the canoe rise up under him and tip. He threw himself out, or tried to, in an attempt to dive clear. Instead, jarring pain shot up both his legs, and the next thing he knew, he was under the water with a riot of frothing bubbles all around him.
    And that was not all.

    Shakespeare was aware of the canoe on its side above him, and of the gargantuan shape that had flipped it over. The thing had slowed and was turning.
    It was coming back for him.
    Levering his arms and legs, Shakespeare rose. He had to swim wide of the canoe, and he was still under the surface when his lower legs were struck a heavy blow. The forced knocked him back and down. Racked with pain, he glanced at his legs—and there it was.
    The water devil, the creature, the thing was just below him. It was huge. He was willing to swear on a stack of Bibles that it was twenty feet long if it was an inch. Although his lungs were shrieking for air, Shakespeare did not rise. Not yet. Bending, he tried to pierce the gloom, made darker by the shadow of the canoe. Then a glimmer of sunlight penetrated, casting the