"Ah, but the merest fraction of how much I love you."
"I'm serious, Ned." I could all but hear him frowning. I glanced at my arm. For an instant, my skin appeared to glitter. Like a fish's scales. "I knew the night we met that you would be mine." I'd been giving a campus lecture on the Bermuda Triangle and Atlantean folklore, presenting pictures of Circe's Abyss, the deepest spot in the Triangle.
The abyss I'd been named after.
A deep-water oceanography team had recently completed the imaging of it. Those images had captured an underground aquifer--below the abyss.
And inside the aquifer was a rock formation so exact that it had to be man-made.
If the formation was a structure from a sunken city--such as Atlantis--how had it gotten into an aquifer?
Like a ship in a bottle. . . .
Though Ned, a brilliant computer programmer, was devoted to hard science, for some reason he'd attended my lecture. He'd grasped anything I could throw his way, asking observant questions. He hadn't scoffed when I'd told him of my Wiccan leanings.
Afterward, coffee had turned to drinks. Drinks to dinner. Since then, we'd never separated a single night. Until now. "I thought you were adorable," I said. "Your cheeks flushed whenever I looked at you."
"Because I kept saying to myself, I think I'm bloody in love with her. I didn't know how it could be possible, but there it was."
I murmured, "There it was." I imagined his palm pressed against the door, opposite mine.
Strange how the wood burl beneath my hand looked like a whirlpool. I shivered. Clearing my throat, I asked, "Will you finally admit why you came to my lecture?" He'd teased me with different reasons: Because he'd ducked in out of the rain (it'd been clear that day). To sample the free lukewarm coffee. To kill time until his superhero gig started.
"The truth? What would you say if I told you a mate made me a wager?"
I made my tone scandalized. "A wager? What were the terms?"
"He bet me a hundred quid that the woman hosting this Atlantean lecture would be the most beautiful creature on earth." He exhaled. "Best hundred I ever lost."
I squeezed my eyes closed. "Everyone calls you a comedian, but I think you're really a romantic."
"God, I'm going to enjoy teasing and romancing you for the next eighty or so years of our lives."
"Do you really think we'll live that long?" That wood burl on the door appeared to spin.
"Of course. Laughter and love keep a body young."
_______________
I inhaled a deep breath. My big day had finally come. I can do this.
I'd sent everyone in the bridal party away, needing time to compose myself before the sunset ceremony. In the few hours I'd dozed after talking to Ned, the nightmares/memories had come on full-bore. All morning and afternoon, I'd battled anxiety. Again, I sensed a countdown ticking.
Toward what?
I shook my head hard. I just needed to get down the aisle and reach Ned. He would make me feel better. His eyes would light up when he saw me in this gorgeous strapless dress. I would muffle a laugh when I saw the tips of his ears and his nose peeling.
Bouquet in hand, I took a step.
In the wrong direction. Left was toward the chapel ceremony; right would take me to the beach. Another step to the right.
I strained every muscle to get to Ned, but my feet wouldn't obey me. I'm losing my mind, losing my mind! My eyes went wide when I opened the door and headed outside--away from the chapel--from the man I loved.
I wanted to call for him; no sounds would pass my lips. When I reached the pink-sand beach, the sunset gleamed over the placid water. My arms fell limp by my sides, my bouquet dropping soundlessly in the sand.
Tears of frustration welled. What force had taken me over? Would Ned think I'd run away? That I didn't want to marry him?
I struggled to scream, "I love you!" Yet couldn't speak at all.
The sea had always called to me, but now . . . now its siren song was undeniable. Suddenly, I knew where I was going. Toward that abyss.
I had always been headed toward the abyss.
Tears streamed down my face. Ned will think I left him. I reached the water, and the gentle waves lapped at my ankles. A glimmer beneath the surf caught my eye.
Somehow the trident had returned to me.
As I dipped to collect it, a tingling sensation flowed up my forearms, and light-blue scales appeared there, like long, iridescent gloves. They sparkled in the sunlight. My elbows itched maddeningly. I scratched them, and my skin sloughed off--to make way for jutting blue fins.
I sobbed. How could Ned ever want me like this?
Those cryptic symbols on my trident were now legible to me. They read: The Abysmal Ruler of the Deep.
In a daze, I cradled the weighty gold weapon in my arms and waded into the water up to my knees. To my waist. To my neck. I did not stop until I was submerged.
I expelled my last breath, awaiting the burning suffocation of water filling my lungs, but instead I . . . became the sea.
The weight of my trident made me sink. The pressure didn't bother me. The temperature had no effect. I could see, hear, feel, taste, even scent through the water. This jumble of new sensations made me giddy, as if my soul was soaring--instead of sinking.
Deeper and deeper I dropped. Although it should have been pitch black as the waning daylight faded above me, somehow I could see. Luminescent sharks darted through me. Plankton and crustaceans tumbled within me as if buffeted by an island breeze.
I descended till I'd reached the bottom of Circe's Abyss. Rocks parted, revealing a vortex that led beneath the seafloor shelf. To the aquifer?