Horrific bereavement has forced
Detective Inspector Persephone Sheepwool
to leave London and make a new life
on the remote North Norfolk coast.
But horror is never far behind,
as she discovers when a body is found
during a stormy night at the Lowdley-Purring
Institute, a museum in a decaying clifftop mansion
whose shadowy staff is dedicated
to discovering the secrets of the sea.
Investigating the death, Sheepwool
finds that some secrets are probably best left submerged.
The secret, for example, that drives
young scientist Alex Beach towards the sea
with a dramatic, irresistible compulsion.
And the secret that the Institute's scheming new Director
would like to keep between himself
and his murky drug-company patrons.
And most of all, the secret behind
the stuffed mermaid Pickled Lily,
pride of the Institute's public
gallery,na secret which the Institute's founder --
fashionable Regency surgeon and
taxidermy connoisseur
Sir Frideric Lowdley Purring --
has tried to bury in the provisions of his will.
Trouble is, even the most deeply
submerged secrets have a nasty way of oozing to the surface.
By The Sea was originally
published on LabLit, the online
interface for science and fiction.
