"Annabell Lee, Annabell Lee,

She is a monster who lives by the sea.

What do we do with a monster like her?
Bring her home for tea!"

Jen regarded the thing at her kitchen table and regretted again the rhyme her
husband had made up to entertain their son. That son was now kicking his legs at
the table, and giggling in delight as the pile of ooze burbled and dissolved a
piece of lemon curd cake, while a tendril wrapped around one of the tea cups waved
it slowly through air.

Nor was this the first creature to sit at her table. It had begun with a knock on
the door and a cry of, "Mama, look who came to tea!" from her son, who she had
thought running on the beach. Her thoughts of one of the distant neighbors or one
of the old fishermen who occasionally walked the strand vanished as her son led his
companion through the door. The seaweed that seemed to be one part of its makeup
rustled on the rock that was the other. There was a head, arms, and legs, but no
other features, like a giant, half-made doll. "It's Annabell Lee, just like in the
rhyme!" continued her son.

Her mind froze, but her manners had been drilled into her as a child. "Won't you
come in? Tea will be ready directly." A more directed rustle of the seaweed was all
the response she got. But the creature let her son lead it to the table.

Habit carried her through the rattling of china, the pouring of tea, the toasting
and buttering of tea cake, the transfer of her little daughter from playpan to high
chair, but as she sat down to the table her nerve almost failed her. She latched
onto something she could control: no one would find her inhospitable.

The form had sucked tea cake into the mass of seaweed, had directed its featureless
head to regard her son as he babbled happily about his walk on the beach, about
rocks and shells he had found washed up, about a pile of rotting fish guts someone
had left, and a pod of dolphins seen in the distance. It was a relief that she
didn't have to speak.

At last tea had been over and the creature rustled up from the chair and turned
towards the door. She followed it to see it out. As it stood on the step down to
the yard, it turned, and words emerged whispering from the rustling. "Your son
extended such courtesy as he could to us. We shall extend it in return. While he is
near our strand, he need never fear." It turned and resumed its slow, gliding gait
toward the path down the cliff.

The shock of hearing it speak was quickly overcome by the import of the words.
"Thank you," she called after it, but it gave no indication of hearing.

Since that day her son had brought other things home to tea. Nor had all of them
been terrors. The fur seal, though its length took up most of the kitchen when it
rested its head on the table, had been entertaining, barking at them all and
snuffling up tea and tea cake with great appreciation. It had reared up and given
her a very wet nuzzle on the cheek as it had left, humping its way back down to the
water. Even the ooze currently running over the edge of one of the chairs and
waving its teacup was actually rather entertaining. Others, though, gave her
nightmares, though the children never seemed concerned about them.

The creature her son called Annabell Lee had returned once, but not for tea. It had
been a calm day, with a modest west wind blowing in from the sea. She had been
playing with her daughter on the floor and hadn't noticed the storm approaching
until a gust of wind shook the house. A second followed. She looked up to see
massed clouds looming in, lightning lancing out below. She left her daughter waving
a rattle to turn on the weather radio, in time to hear "seas of up to thirty feet."
The house was in no danger well back and high up on the bluffs, but her son had
gone to the strand. She grabbed for her rain coat, her boots, and hesitated over
her daughter's carrier before snatching it and strapping it on.

She pelted out the door, and came to a sudden stop. There was her son, being born
along on the back of a green and grey form. In a flash of lightning she recognized
the seaweed on stone, and as it came closer she could hear the hiss she remembered.
"Mom!" her son called, and clambered down from the mass. He stopped to turn and she
heard him politely thank it before turning and running to her.

He was soaked to the skin. "Go get inside and get those wet clothes off," she told
him. He nodded and scampered into the house. She turned back to the mass. "Thank
you," she said. "I didn't listen to the weather this morning—" she started to
excuse herself, but a clap of thunder cut her off.

"He will always be safe by our strand," she thought she heard in the hissing sound
as the mass started to retreat back down the path. She stared after it. How long
she might have stared she didn't know, but her daughter, craning for a look
herself, finally said, "Wet, mama!"

"Yes, wet, darling." And she had gone inside to dry them all off and feed them hot
cocoa and scones while the rain lashed and huge waves pounded the beach below.

After that an anxiety in her had eased. The creatures were often disturbing,
occasionally provoked nightmares, but being a gracious hostess to what she decided
to think of as eccentric neighbors was a small price to pay for peace of mind, she
reflected as the ooze now at her kitchen table finished the cake. It tried
absorbing the tea cup, decided it wasn't edible and placed it back on the table.
Then her son hopped down as it gurgled to the floor and went to see it out.

So went their fall. And, when her son called, "Mama, look who came to tea!" in a
blustery November gloaming, she smiled slightly and turned to see what curiosity
had crept up from the strand today.