Three days ago... Out in the open sea, a couple of hours before dawn...
Strong arm, taught ropes, sea spray and swashbuckling. Captain Willy's fishing vessel was looking to have a promising catch this morning.
"Put yer back inter it, laddies!" Willy himself arred to his crew of six burly seamen as they heaved up nets from beneath the waves; nets filled to bursting with fiiiisssshh!
"What'em aye payin' ye for, HEAVE!"
With a mighty effort, the mound of scaled flesh rolled over the wooden railing with a resounding tumble of 'thuds'. Suddenly the air stunk like the putrid depths themselves.
"Arrrr..." said Willy. "Ye smell that boys? Thar's the smell o' profit! Pack it up; we're goin' home!"
There was a cheer, followed by congradulatory slapping of backs and shoulders. The crew set about barreling up their catch.
Two among them, Zeke and Errol, allied together against the same particular barrel.
"This is good, innit?" said Errol. "I never seen so much fish in me life. You think we might've got something bigger in'ere?"
"Nah mate." Zeke assured him. "You can feel it struggling when you get something big. This right 'ere is a ton of pure, unsullied- Gah!"
Zeke sprang away from the fish pile, grasping one hand tight in the other as if it had just been bitten.
"Wha's wrong?" asked Errol, halting with an armful of fish still pressed to his chest. Zeke didn't answer, but instead crept back to the fish pile. By grabbing a bigger fish, he was able to brush aside all the smaller fish, revealing the thing he had accidentally taken hold of instead of the intended fish...
"Is that..." Errol gaped, boggled eyes transfixed despite themselves. "Is that a hand?!"
---
"Weeeell, in all me days on ther sea, aye do confess; ain' never see nothin' like thes befarrr..."
In the midst of these seven gathered sailors the eyeless corpse of a child in a nightgown lay sprawled, having been dragged out from their catchment and deposited on deck. Fish flopped about on the moonlit deck, forgotten in the face of this horrific new development.
"Whadda we do, Cap'n?" a young sailor named Kern murmered.
"Like aye says; never ben inna situation such as thes. Needa think fer a moment..."
"We have to get rid of it." Errol said, scared yet firm. "Throw it overboard! Hell, throw the whole catch overboard! This is a bad omen."
"The catch stays 'ere!" Willy growled. "Wee'll chuck tha garrrl, but first aye want someone ter check 'er fer valuables."
"No!" Errol insisted. "We mustn't take nothin'!"
"Shut yer mouth, Arrrrol, aye woon't stand fer mutiny!"
"Cap'n, please! This girl brings us nothin' but ill, I know it. Would you steal from the Mother of the Sea?"
The Captain took a menacing step forwards, preparing to admonish the seaman's superstitious insolence.
He was interrupted by a loud 'CRACK' from beside him.
As one, the seven of them turned to the corpse. It was hard to tell in the dark... But was that a twitch they saw?
'CLICK'!
All of a sudden, the girl's back arched, her sternum thrusting into the air as if something were trying to break free of her ribcage, prompting several alarmed cureses from those assembled as they stepped back knives in hand.
A spasm tore through the girl's limbs, beating them against the floor like those of a thrashing spider, before one swift jerk had her sitting bolt upright, head flopping promptly to the right in a series of teeth-jarring crunches.
"Sh-she's alive?!" Zeke panicked, gripping his hand as it burned with phantom pain and the memory of this thing's cold, damp fingers. None of them could tear their eyes away from the glittering dark sockets before them, twin voids oozing sea water. A third appeared, as her jaw descended into a sickening snarl.
The scream that followed stopped the hearts of the every half-dead fish on the ship, halting them in their flopping against the wooden deck. It was the broken fishermen who began to flop in their stead, minds reduced to a jellatenous mess of terror, ripe for consumption...
---
Present...
Soon after the festivities started, an abandoned vessel was sighted on the horizon. Further enquiry found nothing on board but for a mount of stinking rotten fish; not a trance was found of the crew. This is because Gyda had eaten them all shortly after being picked up, and when the bording party showed up had managed to stow herself away on their vessel unseen.
It is in this way that she now wanders beneath her red hood through the streets of the floating town, listless and enraged after her banishment from Sommerdale.
