by Jo Sparkes
“So,” Wall mused. “That’s why Mike was standing guard.”
Jon’s grin subsided. “Did Mike have his screwdriver?”
Wall nodded.
“It’s time to go set up the barbecue,” leaping to his feet, her cousin stepped to the opening. Wall shifted to follow - Jon’s words stopped him. “You two stay and enjoy. We won’t eat for hours.”
Jill stood up - by no means anxious to remain. “Jon…”
But he was gone.
Her hand reached for the flashlight, hesitated. She realized she couldn’t take it to find her way through the tunnel - that would leave Wall in the dark. And the idea of feeling her way made her shudder.
“If we are rich,” Wall told her, as if they weren’t stuck alone in this horrid cave, “I might just buy myself a sailboat.”
Feeling a bubble of fear rising within, she firmly swallowed it. Wherever had stirred this stupid childhood memory, it wouldn’t get the best of her.
Clearing her throat, she asked lightly, “Isn’t that cliché? Don’t all Englishmen sail?”
“We’re an island race.” He smiled down from his superior height, and instead of being annoying, it somehow reassured her. “What about you? What will Jill do with her share of the treasure?”
She had to think about it. Because, she knew, she didn’t actually believe it. “Travel I suppose,” she told him. “I’d kinda like to see Europe.”
Nodding, Wall stretched his legs out before him and knocked the flashlight. It wobbled as Jill jumped to save it. She failed.
It crashed and flickered out.
The cave was pitch black.
“Sorry. Always been a tad clumsy,” Wall murmured. He fumbled around the cave floor, found the light. When it didn’t click on he shook it and tried again.
The light blazed forth - to reveal Jill’s tense face, her eyes squeezed shut.
“Jill?”
One eye opened, and she started breathing again. Until she saw Wall’s narrowed gaze.
“Are you all right?”
She nodded quickly, too quickly. “I just don’t like this cave.”
She leapt up, practically dove for the tunnel. Her knees struck the rock floor painfully.
“Can I have the flashlight?”
Wall brought it to her, studying her the whole time. “Jill, in class, did you pass your blacked out mask drill?”
She finally looked at him, her face belying her words. “I am not afraid of the dark.”
“You didn’t answer the question.”
Jill snatched the flashlight from his fingers and crawled through to daylight.
He followed.
Emerging in the dazzling sun, he saw her striding along the ledge. “You can’t dive with nyctophobia.”
Jill reached the dirt path as Wall stood to pursue and - dizzy at the sight of the crashing waves below - had to lean against the granite cliff.
“Silt gets stirred, currents whip the sand off the bottom. Visibility can go to naught very fast.”
Jill whirled. “I don’t have ny-to…fears!”
The Brit gazed not at her but the sea below. When he looked up, she thought his face pale. They locked eyes an instant, and Wall straightened his shoulders, and walked the ledge. Worried, she waited for him.
He reached her side. “Something happened in there.”
He was too tall, she decided. It made her feel small - and that wasn’t fair. Too many men in her family were larger than life. “Uncle Ray cured my fears a long time ago.”
“How did he do that?”
“Not by doing horrible things,” she flared. She resented that look, the one on his face now. Skepticism tinged with sympathy.
Why was she so disturbed in the cave? The feeling had come out of nowhere. She couldn’t even fault Wall for his concern. “Uncle Ray told me when you’re scared of something go ahead and do the thing regardless. You can’t outrun fear - ‘because it follows you everywhere.” And Uncle Ray was right, she realized. “You can’t chose what you feel - but you can do what’s right anyway. When fear sees it’s irrelevant, it dies.”
The doubt in his eyes faded, and for an instant there was a new expression. An unfamiliar expression…but she sensed understanding was just coming.
Jill marched off before it got there.
She really ought to tell someone.
Cabin door locked, Melanie lay the ruby on the faded bedspread. Sparkling in the sunlight as if it hadn’t been underwater for years.
It presented a conundrum, as her mother would say. The only person she could tell was Mike - and somehow that opportunity had passed. He’d be furious, mostly because he wanted to pretend he’d never opened the chest.
To tell anyone else was to get him in trouble.
Best to tuck it away in her jeans pocket before Wall returned. Stuff the denim in the back of her drawer, and wait for the right moment to slip it back.
But Wall was ashore with Jill, and she liked looking at it. Watching the light gleam through the facets, the tiny red line of refracted sun shimmering on the wall.
Melanie stripped off her dirty robe.
The cabin mirror was small, but she caught sight of her nude breasts, long blonde tresses coyly hiding her nipples. Mike saw her like this, she thought.
And did as she bid. He’d opened that chest for her. In the midst of Wall’s attitude with Jill, of her worry she was losing his interest, Mike’s reaction was balm. Wow - her femme fatale routine had risen to a new level.
There was also a tinge of guilt, but that was quickly swept aside. As she’d told him, no one was harmed. No one would even know about it.
The glistening gem drew her eye; her hand stretched over the bedspread to grasp it. Ruby - her own special stone. Her birthstone.
The skin prickled down her back as her fingers touched it - and quickly withdrew.
Instead she took a shower to wash her hair. And dressed in the sarong that draped her curvier figure nicely, just to bolster her confidence. And show Wall her assets, worth so much more than a tomboy.
As she stood before the mirror, admiring the red against her skin, she glimpsed something beyond her shoulder. A sort of whirling, like a mass of dancing motes in the sunbeam. No, it moved faster than that, like a mini twister. And as she peered at it, for just an instant she saw a man within the haze. Bearded, leering. Boldly admiring her body as Mike had not dared.
But when she spun round, only the dust motes remained, flickering above the gemstone. How stupid - she’d left it laying out on the bed. Someone could have seen.
Hastily she rooted through her drawer - finding her jeans, thrusting the jewel in a pocket. Withdrawing her hand.
The thing somehow stuck to her fingers.
She sat on the mattress, staring at it. Red glowed from within, pulsing, like a heartbeat. Almost alive.
Melanie threw it back on the bedspread.
Without thinking, she grasped the crystal pendant off the dresser, holding it up to her heart. And holding her breath. Being silly.
The air rushed out of her lungs in a weird gasp.
Still clutching the pendant to flesh, her other hand lifted the cord over her head. It would go nice with the sarong - matching the primitive, island touch. And maybe protect her, if from nothing more than her own foolishness.
The ruby on the bed glittered enticingly. Showing streaks as scarlet as the shades in her dress. Such a beautiful gem.
Could she switch it for the one on her choker?
Craig had given her that necklace - Craig of the cheap deal, the man who never spent more than he absolutely had to. His ruby was small, flawed. Not of good quality.
Unlike this one.
She caught her reflection in the mirror: a nervous woman, thirty years old. Femme fatale indeed - she couldn’t even keep her boyfriend away from a puny, mixed-race tomboy.
The pendant dropped back to the dresser as she snatched the gold necklace in its place. Deftly she pried the choker setting, easily freeing the
smaller gem. Surely the larger one would not fit. But it did.
Melanie rose triumphantly from the mattress, fastening the choker round her throat. When she checked herself in the mirror, the large ruby twinkled provocatively above the cleft of her collar bone. Sexily emphasizing the spot.
Femme fatale indeed.
Something about jewelry high on the throat always pleased men. Probably because it looked like a collar, like a slave collar. Implying the female wearing it was pliant, obedient to their wishes.
If they only knew.
When the cabin door shut behind the blonde, the swirling dust motes enveloped the crystal pendant. Shaking it, rolling it off the dresser.
The threadbare carpet cushioned its fall.
Whirling in a tiny circle, the necklace slid beneath the furniture, out of sight.
Wall stepped from the sailboat cabin into the fading light.
It amazed him how fast the sun set near the equator. A flash display of pastel skies above earthly shadows, and the flaming ball dropped into the sea. He missed the English twilight, where the sun lingered, reluctant to leave.
Here it seemed eager to go.
Celebration scented the breeze, along with the hibiscus and teak oil. On the island Mike was just setting the grill over a pile of driftwood.
Hibiscus, teak oil, and now he caught a trace of musk. Melanie had followed him up the ladder.
They’d just had a rather surprising hour - the blonde had thrown off her inhibitions and then some. He only hoped no one had heard them.
If they had, they were being very discrete. Jon and Jill sat on the platform beside the sea chest, laughing. “You,” Jon told his cousin, “have no imagination.”
Jill folded her arms. “Okay - maybe we are reincarnated. But there’s no way all five of us opened this same chest a hundred years ago.”
Wall swung a leg over the back of the sailboat, stepping down to the platform. Taking a seat, he left room for Melanie to join him. She didn’t, choosing to sit closer to the chest.
Out of the corner of his eye he saw Mike swimming towards them.
“Sure we did - I can practically remember it.”
“Jon! The odds of all five of us being together in another life are…”
“Excellent, mermaid.” Jon’s grin encompassed them all. “We’re a soul pod.”
“Pardon?” The word burst from his lips.
Jon spoke over Mike’s approaching splashes. “Soul pod. Souls tend to hang together - knowing each other, being at the same lesson level. We travel time and space as a clan, if you will. This reincarnation I’m Jill’s cousin - last time her wife. Or son, or neighbor. We choose different roles for different perspectives. Different lessons.”
Jill had to scoot back as Mike hoisted himself out of the Caribbean, rolling to his feet in one movement. Showering them all with seawater.
For once Wall was glad of the interruption. Jon had spouted some metaphysical ideas before - but this was so wild it made him uncomfortable. He glanced at Melanie to share a ‘wow is this weird’ look.
She, however, focused on Jon. “Do souls ever…break away?” she asked, playing with her necklace. “From the pod, I mean.”
It was Mike, plucking up his screwdriver, who gave Wall a disgusted look.
“Sure. A soul can accelerate its growth, moving beyond the others to a new pod.”
“Or get left behind,” the blonde said softly. Wall felt the hair raise on the back of his neck.
“Left behind?” Jon stared at her. “Never heard of such a thing.”
“Sure you have,” Jill broke in. “It’s called a haunting.” And she shivered, as if she also felt her hair rising up from her flesh.
Silence shrouded them all, until Mike rattled the padlock. “Can we open this bastard now? Or do we need ceremonial crystals?”
Wall leaned closer, his anticipation now tainted with the specters Jon had conjured.
Jon gestured and Mike thrust the screwdriver into the lock - which instantly sprang open.
Suspicious, Wall thought, frowning at Mike. The same thought echoed on Jon’s face.
The muscle man tossed the lock onto the metal platform, grabbed hold of the lid, and heaved. When nothing happened, he planted his feet and heaved again.
Nothing.
Jon joined him, latching onto one side as Mike shifted to the other. They strained, pulled. The chest protested loudly.
“Don’t damage it,” Wall warned, just as the top flew open.
Mike reached in to lift a soggy mass from the trunk, raising it higher and higher. Standing, he pulled it up shoulder height.
Wall pressed back against the boat’s stern, revolted.
Melanie gasped.
The sludge dropped away from Mike’s prize, revealing a black velvet dress from another era. It had white lace - pristine and delicate - embellishing a low décolletage.
Exquisite. She reached to stroke the material.
“Don’t touch that!”
Startled, she glanced at Wall, then turned back to find Mike holding a horrid mass of brown sludge. He tossed it into the sea.
“Mike wait. There could be something caught up in…”
“There’s nothing,” Mike told Jon, peering back inside the chest. “Hello.” He plucked out a gray square thing, and unwrapped it - the gray was a frayed cloth - to reveal a small box. The sort of thing usually holding jewelry.
“Now this is more like it.” Tossing the cloth aside, he offered the box to Jon.
The dingy gray repulsed Melanie, and she was grateful when Jill picked it up. Although the girl did so reverently, as if she treasured it.
Jon’s fingers flipped a simple catch to open the box.
For an instant Melanie saw her ruby choker lying on a creamy satin. When she blinked the box interior was empty.
“FUCK.” Mike spun back to the chest, furiously digging through waves of sludge. The sludge spilled out as it had before, a living thing eager to escape.
Finding nothing more, he finally sat back on his heels. “FUCK.”
Jon studied the box, turning it over. “There’s writing here.”
“Tiffany’s?” Mike leaned in.
Jon squinted. “It says … Isabelle.” Melanie shivered.
Mike kicked the worthless chest. “Bitch must have got our treasure.”
Dive in the Dark
The grill lay dismantled, the fire stoked, blazing against the velvet night. The stars, so close in the Caribbean, ran shy from the flames, though the moon stood fast.
Wall felt the tension in his shoulders ease, muscles relax. His lips curved in a contented smile. A good meal shared with friends, a warm night and tropical sky. What more did a man need?
“If you really could buy anything, you’d travel?” Jill laughingly demanded. “What about a new house or a beach condo? Even a red Ferrari?”
Conversation was the answer. He may miss his texts on his phone, but to actually sit and talk, hear the inflections, seeing the gestures. Real communications - and this particular one threaded with rich dreams.
“I want to meet people,” Jon answered his cousin. “Traveling, I can meet a lot of people.”
“You could travel fast in a Ferrari,” Wall prodded.
“But I’d be isolated - car only holds two.” Leaning back on his elbows, the little man stretched his legs out toward the sea. “The only thing real in this life is people. Not places, not things. People. I want to meet as many as I can.”
Jill caught Wall’s eye - she knew he was just stirring the pot with his question. That surprised him - he somehow hadn’t expected her to see it.
“I’m gonna buy a corvette,” Mike declared. “Don’t want to see Europe, don’t wanna live in a fancy house. I’m gonna drive a sweet black convertible. No - a red one. With black leather upholstery.”
Even Mike was playing the game: what to do with the treasure lying on the sea floor less than two hundred meters from them. Only Melanie refrained. Perched on a log, sh
e merely chomped into her fourth chicken leg.
And he’d thought her a simple salad kind of woman.
“You rent a stupid studio apartment,” Jill stabbed a finger at Mike. Sitting cross-legged, the shred of gray cloth ‘artifact’ that she’d rescued lay on her thigh. “Surely you’re gonna upgrade.”
For a moment Wall watched the blonde tear into the meat, her teeth bared in a startling grimace. His visions of a satisfying conclusion to the evening faded.
“You can pick out something for me,” Mike conceded.
Jon burst out laughing. “You really want Jill choosing your perfect bachelor pad?”
“Pink leather furnishings?” Wall offered. More laughter.
“I’ll put in a shark tank,” Jill grinned.
“In the media room,” Mike’s eyes lit up at the thought. His gaze turned to the sea, to the area where the wreck lay. “This little beauty’s really gonna pay off.”
They all smiled warmly. All but his girlfriend. Avoiding her ravenous display, Wall caught Jill’s hand stroking the gray material.
“Mermaid,” he winced as the nickname slipped out. “That thing’s worthless. Just throw it away.”
She shook her head, the long dark tresses fluttering around her face. “It’s my first ever artifact.” Turning to her cousin her eyes took on a hopeful gleam. “So. We diving?”
Jon nodded, and must have noted Wall’s surprise. “Night dive. Remember?”
“I thought you were kidding. Don’t we need all our bottom time for the wreck?”
“This is only thirty feet down. We should see some amazing things after dark.”
“Tomorrow let’s do the stern,” Mike broke in. “If we could find a passage to the lower level there, could help pin the location in the bow piece. Maybe even get a clue what broke the bastard in half.”
A peel of laughter jarred the night.
Wall turned - they all did - to see Melanie’s eyes glittering eerily over a chicken bone. “You still think its two pieces?”
“We men can manage to count that high,” Mike snorted.
Tossing her shredded meat aside, she rolled forward over her folded legs, thrusting a greasy finger into the sand to sketch. When she sat back, the rest of the group leaned in.
