They headed back down the hill to the beach. Alberto ran ahead, hoping to get back in the water, but Maria left Massimo leaning on a boulder and hurried to scoop him up.

"Not this time!" she said. "I think we'd better take the boat. We can't come up in the harbour without risking being seen, and if we go to our little beach it'll be a long walk back to town, and Uncle Massimo shouldn't be doing that." She looked over her shoulder at her brother. "How much have you been walking the past couple of days?"

"Not much," said Massimo. "I've mostly been swimming."

Maria pictured him limping up and down that hill over and over, but did not say anything. She helped him into the boat, and then wrapped Alberto up in a piece of fabric so he would hopefully fall asleep again. After so much excitement that day, he ought to sleep like a kitten, but Alberto rarely did what he 'ought' to do. Massimo picked up an oar, but Maria told him to give it to her, and he held the squirming baby while she rowed them back to town.

Halfway there, Massimo looked off to his right and said, "Castello."

Maria's heart leaped into her throat, but there was nothing she could do about it as Signor Castello brought his fishing boat, lit by lanterns, alongside their little craft. Castello himself was standing in the bow, peering into the darkness at them unable to believe his eyes.

Thank goodness Maria had thought of taking the boat. She waved nervously, trying to pretend this was all perfectly normal. Her brain was already doing somersaults, trying to imagine what questions he might ask and how she might reply to them.

"Massimo?" asked Castello, astonished.

"Buona sera, Giovanni," Massimo replied, with his usual resolute calm.

"What?" asked Castello. "What is... where've you been?"

"We cannot talk," Massimo told him. "The baby is about to arrive."

Castello couldn't argue with that. He just stood there staring as they continued on their way.

They reached the harbour without another interruption and climbed out carefully onto the stone quay, not wanting to get wet – although it was late, there were still a few people in the piazza, and they were coming to see who had just arrived. Massimo handed Alberto – now nodding off at last – to his mother, then took her hand so she could help him up. Again she was thankful it was only a few steps up to the Pescheria, but by the time they got there, a dozen people had arrived to surround them.

"Massimo! You're alive!" exclaimed Albino. He made the sign of the cross. "What happened? That creature..."

"I'll tell you later," Massimo said.

Maria looked up at the building, and realized the light in the kitchen was on. At first she hoped it was only Dario, but then the shutters opened and Helena's silhouette appeared. Maria winced, but she could hardly hide now. She was just going to have to deal with the consequences of her actions.

Helena was not angry, though. She waited for them inside at the top of the steps, with Dario standing nervously behind her. In the harsh light of the stairwell's single unshaded light bulb, Maria could see that her sister-in-law's eyes were rimmed with red and her cheeks streaked with tears.

Despite his injured ankle, Massimo let go of Maria and hobbled up the last few steps to embrace his wife. She hugged him back, and began to sob again. Massimo stroked her red curls and murmured in her ear.

Maria stayed several steps down, holding her sleeping son and trying to remember if she'd ever been that kind of a mess in front of Giancarlo. She couldn't remember any particular occasion... she'd cried for hours after he abandoned her in labour, but by the time he returned she'd put herself back together for the sake of the baby she almost had to raise all alone. If she had broken down, would he have comforted her like this? She didn't know. The only person who'd ever been that kind of safe harbour for Maria had been her brother.

"Oh!" Helena exclaimed suddenly, and took a hissing breath in through her teeth.

"I felt that," Massimo agreed gravely.

"That was a big one." Helena swallowed hard. She straightened up, and Massimo limped up the final couple of steps to join her on the landing. "They kept getting more painful, and I couldn't sleep..." she looked down at Maria.

"I'm sorry," said Maria, "but I just... I knew he was there. I knew, and I knew he needed to be here."

"Thank you for getting Dario to stay with me," said Helena.

"No problem, Signora Marcovaldo," Dario said immediately. "I'm glad I can help."

"You need to be in bed," Massimo told his wife. "Let me help you."

"I can go by myself – you're the one who needs help," Helena replied. "Have you been resting that ankle?"

"All this things are happening and all you two can worry about is my leg," Massimo grumbled.

"I'll help him," said Maria. "Somebody take Alberto."

"I will!" said Dario.

Maria managed to get Massimo into the bedroom. He insisted he didn't need help getting his nightshirt on, and climbed into bed while Helena washed her face. She returned still red-eyed, but now from lack of sleep instead of nears, and curled up with her head on Massimo's shoulder.

"You need to tell me what happened while you were gone," she said.

"I will," he promised, "but you don't look like you'll stay awake for it."

"Yes, I will," she said, through a yawn. Massimo smiled and kissed her temple.

Maria wanted to hear the whole story, too – but Massimo was absolutely right, and Maria was also on the verge of falling asleep. They could all hear it together in the morning. She stumbled back to her own room and was just getting Alberto comfortable in his crib when she heard a sharp cry.

Maria put Alberto down and returned to the other bedroom, where she found Helena now sitting up with both hands on her abdomen. Massimo had an arm around her.

"I think..." Helena hissed again. "I think the baby was just waiting for Papà to get home..."

"Now do you want me to get the doctor?" asked Dario.

Everybody turned to stare at him. Maria had told him to go home, but he must not quite have gotten out the door when Helena cried out. He was now standing behind her in the doorway, managing to look both worried and apologetic at the same time.

"No!" said Helena immediately.

"You can't," Maria told him. "Not Dr. Calcagno."

Dario blinked in confusion. "Why not?" he asked.

Maria turned to her family for help. What could they tell him? They couldn't say there was a chance the baby would be a sea monster! Help would be nice, though... Maria had given birth alone, but it had been the worst night of her life, and she wouldn't wish it on anyone. Helena and Massimo just stared back at her. Neither had any ideas.

But then Maria got one. "Go and get the Aragostas," she told Dario. "Concetta and Pinuccia. Tell them the baby is coming and we need their help particularly." They would know what Maria meant.

"Those two old ladies who like ice cream?" Dario asked. He couldn't imagine what good they would be.

"Yes. Go, now!" Maria urged.

Dario turned and ran down the stairs.

Once he'd gone, Maria approached the bed to help Helena sit up. "We need to get the sheets off," she said. There would be blood and other bodily fluids, and the less mess to clean up later, the better. She and Massimo together got Helena into a sitting position, but then Helena swung her legs over the side to stand up.

"The doctor told me to move around," she said for the second time. "It helps everything along." She grabbed Maria's sleeve. "What do baby sea monsters look like?"

She wanted to be prepared. Maria hadn't been... the memory of her first look at Alberto floated in front of her eyes for a moment. There'd been an awful split-second when she'd hadn't been sure what she'd just given birth to or whether it was even still alive. She shook the vision away, and answered the question.

"They're see-through," she said. "They're all milky-white, and you can just see blood vessels and little bones inside. The bones don't look like they join up, but Giancarlo said that was normal. It'll be easier to see if you hold them up to a light. Alberto came out that way, but once I got him dried off he turned into a human baby. By the time he was three months old he'd turned purple like he is now. The baby I saw today was still a bit transparent, but I don't think he'd ever been out of the water."

Helena nodded, her eyes distant as she tried to picture it.

Massimo began un-making the bed. He left only one sheet to cover the mattress, and stuffed everything else in the tiny closet out of the way. Maria, meanwhile, helped Helena to walk back and forth, up and down the hallway. The contractions had definitely changed. Rather than being irregular, they were now coming every couple of minutes, and Helena would stop and brace for each one. Maria's heartbeat quickened in sympathy as she remembered what that had felt like, how it had started as a backache and then would travel in waves through her abdomen and down her thighs. At times it had hurt so much she'd felt like she would vomit.

Dario returned a few minutes later, panting like he'd just run a marathon. He must have gone full speed all the way up the hill and all the way back, and he'd fallen at least once, as his hands were scraped and his knees muddy.

"They're coming!" he gasped out. "The Signore are coming! What else can I do?"

"You can sit down in the kitchen and get your breath back," Helena told him. "You look like you're going to pass out."

"Should I boil water?" Dario asked. "I think you're supposed to boil water."

Maria hadn't boiled water when Alberto was born – she'd washed him off in a bucket Giancarlo had brought up earlier. She did know that somebody was supposed to boil water during a birth but in the moment she couldn't think what it was for. But she said, "si, grazie," because it would keep Dario out of trouble for a few minutes.

"Yes, grazie," Helena agreed. "We're all going to need coffee."

Dario hurried back down to the kitchen to get started. Massimo finished with the sheets and pulled a chair up next to the bed, so he could sit and hold Helena's hand. Maria suddenly remembered what the boiling water was for, and ran downstairs after Dario.

"Put on the kettle, and boil some in a saucepan as well," she said. "We need to sterilize a knife to cut the cord!"

"Yes, Signora Scorfano!" said Dario. He pulled a copper pot down off its hook and began filling it.

"Use a knife with a metal handle, not wood," Maria said.

He nodded.

"Dario," she added, "you don't have to stay if you don't want to. This isn't your responsibility."

"I'm fine!" Dario assured her, although there was a slightly manic edge to his voice born of both panic and sleepiness. Before Maria could say any more, though, she heard Alberto start to cry upstairs. She hurried back up to find him wailing in his crib, and quickly scooped him up and checked his nappy. He was clean.

"You want to be a part of things, don't you?" she asked. "Just like Dario downstairs."

Alberto hiccuped and put his arms around his mother's neck.

A couple of minutes later, just as the kettle was boiling and Dario was spooning grounds into the coffee press, Concetta and Pinuccia arrived. Concetta had dressed and tied her hair back under a kerchief, but Pinuccia had just thrown a coat on over her nightgown. Maria let them in with Alberto in her arms, still crying because he was too tired to deal with all this excitement, and ushered them upstairs.

"I don't know what kind of use you think we're going to be," said Concetta as Maria brought them into the kitchen. "We've never delivered a human baby. Sea monsters lay eggs

"Ow!" exclaimed Dario.

Maria hadn't thought to warn the women that Dario was in the house, and he'd been in the process of pouring water in the press when he'd heard Concetta speak. This had distracted him enough that he'd poured water on his own hand and scalded himself.

Concetta took charge of him. "Run that under cold water in the sink," she ordered, taking his wrist and pulling him over to it. "Pinuccia?"

"I'll make the coffee. And you've got a knife boiling here." Pinuccia peered into the pot with a puzzled face.

"To cut the cord," said Maria.

Pinuccia frowned. "The cord?"

Maria's heart sank as she realized Concetta was right – they really weren't going to be any help at all. "Um. Human babies are born with an umbilical cord. Like a seal or dolphin," she added – as mammals, those animals would have them.

"Oh!" Pinuccia nodded. "Yes, when the nomads help with the whale calving, they'll cut those."

Concetta turned on the tap and put Dario's hand under the water, pulling her own arm back before she could get splashed. Pinuccia filled the coffee press and cleaned up what Dario had spilled, while Maria turned off the burner under the copper saucepan and poured the water out so the knife could cool.

"How much does the lad know?" Concetta asked, going through the cupboards to look for bandages.

"Nothing until now," sighed Maria.

"Then we won't tell him any more," said Concetta.

"What?" asked Dario, with his hand still under the tap as the blisters came up. "What's going on?"

"Never you worry about it, young man," Pinuccia told him.

"You've seen sea monsters hatch?" Dario's eyes, magnified by his glasses, were huge.

"I said don't worry about it," said Pinuccia. She plunged the coffee, and left it to bew while she headed upstairs with Maria and Alberto.

By now it was getting on for eleven at night. Maria's own labour had lasted for hours, and it pained her to watch the same thing happening to Helena. The poor woman sweated and moaned, and squeezed Massimo's fingers until Maria worried they'd be bruised. Giving birth was back-breaking work, made all the worse by the fact that it was impossible to take a break.

With no experience of human birth to go on, Concetta and Pinuccia could not do much. They took turns holding Alberto, and sent Dario back to the kitchen repeatedly for snacks, cups of coffee, and cloths to mop Helena's forehead. The rest was up to Maria. She reassured Helena that everything was normal and she was doing well – although Maria herself didn't really know that for sure. She encouraged her sister-in-law to keep breathing and to push on purpose along with the contractions, all while silently praying this would all turn out okay. The entire world shrank to the size of the bedroom, full of the smells of sweat and blood, and Helena's anguished sounds.

Finally, just before sunrise, a little sea monster girl was born.

As Maria had predicted, she was translucent white in colour, with a little fluttering heart visible in her chest, and she came out wriggling and thrashing her tail. Maria caught the slippery body and quickly cleaned her up, wiping fluid away from her niece's eyes and nose so she'd be able to see and breathe.

"What is it?" asked Helena. Her head was lying back on the pillow with her damp hair fanned out around her, and her eyes were closed.

"It's a sea monster," said Pinuccia, patting her hand.

"I meant the sex," Helena told her crossly.

"A girl," said Maria. She finished wrapping the still-damp child in a clean towel, and put her in her mother's arms.

"Santa mozzarella," Helena whispered, her eyes filling with tears. She reached down to stroke her daughter's scaly cheek, and in that moment the baby dried enough to transform. The misty white turned to the bright pink of a human newborn, and a few curls of red hair grew in on her scalp. The baby blinked her big eyes, perhaps confused that she didn't have a tail to twitch anymore.

"Hello, Picoletta," Massimo said.

Helena nodded and wiped at her eyes with her other hand. "You're not what we were expecting," she told the baby, "but I promise we'll love you as hard as we can no matter what."

Maria wanted to fall over with exhaustion and relief. The baby was here and she was okay, everybody had survived and Massimo had made it back in time... Maria felt as if she'd just climbed a mountain, and now all she wanted to do was sleep for a week. There was no time for that yet, though. The room had to be cleaned up, Helena wasn't going to be able to do anything much today and probably tomorrow as well, and Massimo needed to stay off his bad ankle. Maria was going to be very, very busy.

She'd had nobody to that for her the day Alberto was born. Giancarlo had come back in the morning – he'd explained that he'd been afraid she was dying and he couldn't bear to watch. He was ashamed of his cowardice and Maria was glad he'd come back, but she'd never quite managed to forgive him. Maria's lot in life was to care for others, not to be the one cared for, and she would simply have to do her best with that.

"What do baby sea monsters eat?" asked Helena. "Can I nurse her?"

"You can try," said Pinuccia. "Although her teeth will be sharp."

"I nursed Alberto, he was fine," Maria said. "And she'll swim as soon as you put her in water, although not very well at first. Alberto was swimming months before he could walk."

"The more sunshine she gets, the faster her scales will darken," Pinuccia added. "Living up here, I imagine you'll see her colours in just a couple of weeks." She looked at Maria for confirmation. Maria nodded.

Concetta got up from her seat. "I'm going to go make us all some breakfast," she announced, "and check on poor Dario. He's probably still asleep." Dario had passed out in the kitchen hours earlier, and had slept right through everything since, even when Helena was screaming.

Dario was, indeed, face-down on the kitchen table with one hand still holding half a cup of cold coffee, drooling a little. While Pinuccia tidied up and Concetta got breakfast started, Maria gave the boy's shoulders a gentle shake.

"Uh?" He raised his head, blinking sleepily. "Do you need something?"

"Yes. We need you to go home and get some proper sleep in your own bed," Maria told him. "We're not going to open the shop today."

Dario sat up slowly, rubbing his eyes. "Is the baby here?"

"Yes. It's a girl. Her name is Giulia."

He nodded and looked around, squinting in the pale morning light. Then he realized what was wrong, and bent down to pick up his glasses from where they'd fallen on the floor. One he had them on, he was able to tell who the other people in the room were. "Uh, Signora Aragosta?" he asked. "Have you really seen sea monsters hatch?"

"I beg your pardon?" asked Concetta.

"Last night. You said you'd seen sea monsters... they hatch from eggs," said Dario.

"You must have been dreaming, lad," Pinuccia told him.

Dario just yawned.

They got him packed off home, and Concetta put eggs and toast on the table. Then the ladies promised that the Marcovaldo family could call on them at any time and they would provide the best advice they knew, before heading home to get some sleep of their own.

With all the fuss over, it seemed suddenly very quiet in the house. Maria took breakfast and more coffee upstairs to Helena and Massimo. Helena was still in bed, and Maria at first thought she had fallen asleep, but it turned out she was only dozing with her daughter still in her arms. Alberto was curled up next to her, having crawled closer to see the baby and then nodded off at once when his curiosity was satisfied.

"Oh, thank you," said Helena through a yawn. "I'm starving!"

Massimo passed her a plate, then took one for himself and sat down at the foot of the bed. Everybody ate in silence for a few minutes, and then Helena spoke again.

"I guess it's a good thing I won't be cooking for a while," she said. "I won't be able to make any more mix-ups." She looked at the baby resting against her shoulder, and leaned to kiss the tiny forehead. "I'm sorry, Passerota," she said softly, "this is gonna make life harder for you, but we'll do our best, okay?"

"Little sparrow?" Maria asked with a smile.

"My grandmother used to call me that," Helena told her. "Although... I suppose Pescioletta would be more appropriate." She gave a nervous little laugh.

Maria lowered her head. "I'm sorry," she said again. "This is... I know you say it's not my fault, but I should never have brought that stuff home."

"How was it mistaken for basil?" asked Massimo.

"It was just a silly accident," Maria said. "I guess I'd better tell the whole story. I was sitting with the Aragostas in their garden, and I wondered if Alberto wouldn't be better off being raised by sea monsters... whether I would really be able to provide him with what he needed..."

She described what had followed – the absurd series of events in which Massimo's injury, Maria's own panic, and Helena's prenatal urge to clean and organize had come together to result in all of them eating the herb.

"Why didn't it affect Helena?" asked Massimo.

Maria could only shrug. "Maybe it needs salt water to activate it. Maybe it went straight to the baby. I don't know. I found out it had affected me when I went fishing the morning after you vanished, and I went looking for you as quick as I could. I didn't realize you were on the Island right away, but I spoke to several sea monsters. They were very friendly and promised to help look for you. I suppose I should go back today and tell them I found you and you're all right."

"They speak?" Massimo asked, startled.

"Of course," said Maria. "We do."

"Yes, but..." he sat quietly for a moment. "I didn't realize. All this time I'd assumed they were dangerous. They must think it's us who are some kind of monsters."

"From what they said, I think you're right," said Maria, "but it's probably the same thing in reverse, where they just need to get to know people. Giancarlo wasn't afraid of humans at all."

"How did he die, then?" asked Helena.

Maria frowned. "What?"

"Giancarlo," Helena said, as if clarifying. "You told us he drowned, but sea monsters breathe the water, don't they? So what happened to him?"

Maria had entirely forgotten about that lie. She swallowed and weighed up her options. She could tell them Giancarlo was still alive – after all the lying she'd done recently, it was probably time to give the truth a try – but she also didn't want to admit she'd lied, and she didn't want Massimo actually running off to try to find him after Giancarlo had already accused Maria of betraying him in that exact fashion. Unable to come up with anything better on the spur of the moment, all she could say was, "I don't know."

"You mean he just left you?" asked Massimo, sitting up straight.

"No!" said Maria. "He wouldn't do that! Something must have happened to him but I don't... you were going to tell us how you ended up on the Island."

Massimo knew she was changing the subject on purpose, and he wasn't happy about it, but he answered her question through his scowl. "I went fishing with Albino and Fernando. My ankle hurt, and I thought about putting my feet in the water to soothe it."

"You could have just taken an aspirin," Helena chided.

"I thought they would lecture me for taking the bandages off," Massimo went on, as if she hadn't spoken, "but Fernando went to get coffee, and then Albino said he had to see a man about a dog, and I thought that was my chance. When I saw what happened in the water, I tried to stand up in a hurry, but I put weight on my bad ankle and ended up falling in. The next thing I knew, Albino was throwing stones at me and shouting about a monster, and I remembered the Aragostas' friend and her curse."

"Which had nothing to do with it," Maria observed. Just an unfortunate coincidence, like the entire rest of the tale. "Why did you go to the Island?"

"I wanted to get out of the water somewhere nobody would see," Massimo said. "Then I discovered that I would change back, and I thought I could go back after dark and leave you a note or something. When I climbed the hill to look back towards town, I saw people setting out to hunt me, and I decided to wait for a few days. I looked inside the tower and saw that somebody had been living there. I waited, thinking whoever it was would come back, but they never did."

Maria nodded. Giancarlo must have seen Massimo coming and fled. With his injury, Massimo wouldn't have been able to catch him if he did notice him – which he apparently had not.

"What are we going to tell everybody?" Helena asked.

"I will tell them I killed the sea monster and could not retrieve its body," Massimo decided. "Then they will stop hunting for us. We will simply have to hide it as best we can. Maybe it will eventually go away."

"I have no idea," Maria confessed.

"I have one," said Helena. "How about today we just do nothing at all."

"That's a great idea," Maria agreed.

"Benissimo," said Massimo.

They finished their breakfasts and Massimo, Helena, and baby Giulia went back to bed, while Maria took the dishes downstairs to the sink and then made some more toast and cut up an apple for Alberto. She returned to her room to find him already awake, although unhappy and yawning. When he saw his mother had brought breakfast, he opened his mouth wide like a baby bird. Maria laughed and sat down to feed him, then heard the new baby whimpering in the other room.

Alberto made a noise and pointed towards the sound.

"You want to see the baby again?" Maria asked. "She's going to be here forever, you know."

Alberto insisted, so Maria picked him up and took him to the master bedroom. Helena was sitting up again, trying to feed baby Giulia. The new mother looked up at Maria, worried.

"She won't nurse," she said. "Do you think..."

"Alberto did fine, it just took a few tries," Maria reminded her. "Give her a chance."

Alberto himself wriggled until his mother put him down, and then he went and climbed onto the bed for a closer look. Helena smiled at him and lowered the baby a little so he could see.

"Would you like to hold your cousin, Alberto?" she asked.

Alberto reached out.

Maria came to get him arranged. "Here, we'll put a pillow here just in case," she said, placing one at Alberto's elbow. She straightened his back, and then guided his hands as Helena gave him the baby. "Support her head. She can't do it herself yet. What do you think?"

The baby blinked up at Alberto and he gazed back down at her. Neither made a sound, and yet there was an undeniable sense of connection between them. Maria had to smile: at least one good had come of all this. Alberto would have a playmate who was like him – two, if she kept in touch with the Gambero family and let him play with baby Luca – and baby Giulia would have an older cousin she could look up to and a father and aunt who could share this part of her life. It might not be as difficult for her as Helena feared.

Helena took the baby back, and this time Giulia managed to latch right away and began to nurse. Massimo, in bed beside her, laid his head back against the wall and shut his eyes, where he went right to sleep sitting up. Maria felt as if she could do the same. She picked up Alberto again and gave him a kiss on each cheek.

"You're going to be a wonderful big cousin," she told him.

Maria nodded to Helena, who returned the gesture, and then Maria and Alberto returned to their own room. Maria curled up in bed, holding her son, and shut her eyes.

A while later she woke up again with her stomach grumbling. The house was silent – everybody else must be sleeping, and even if they hadn't been, Maria would have wanted to disturb them. She lay there for a few minutes pondering what to do, and decided she would go next door and get a sandwich from the Ottonello Focacceria. Maybe several sandwiches, in case somebody else wanted one later. They were all going to be relying on each other over the next few days. Little favours would be important.

When she sat up, it owk Alberto and he whined a little. For a moment Maria thought of leaving him behind to to back to sleep, but then decided Massimo and Helena were in no shape to take care of it if he needed anything. She scooped him up and crept downstairs to get some money out of the drawer.

"I know you want to nap," she said. "So do I, but we need to take care of Auntie and Uncle." That was, after all, what Maria did. She took care of other people. At least, unlike with Giancarlo, she could expect her family to give her something in return.