by P. C. Cast
"Very well," the goddess said.
"We will miss you, Undine." Isabel spoke for the women, who nodded and wiped tears from their streaming eyes.
CC hugged each of them.
"Take care of each other and other women, too," CC said through her tears.
"Take this back with you." Isabel tried to return to her the amber amulet, but CC shook her head.
"No, keep it and remember me."
"We will never forget," Isabel promised.
Then CC turned to Lir. She touched his arm gently, in a gesture that mimicked that of the goddess.
"I would have liked to have known you."
"As I would have you, child." His voice rumbled with feeling. "You no longer have your mother's amulet. Allow me to gift you with one of my own." The sea god reached into the waves and when he pulled his hand up, a delicate golden chain glittered from one of his fingers. From the end of the chain hung an exquisite baroque pearl, gleaming all the colors of sunrise. He placed it around her neck and kissed her lightly on her forehead. "Remember me," he said sadly. "And know that if you ever desire solace, all you need do is to find the water. In any world it will welcome you with a father's embrace."
At last CC faced the goddess. With the loss of Dylan she had thought her heart unable to ache anymore, but as Gaea smoothed back her hair and wiped the tears from her face, CC felt a new wound open within her.
"No, child." Gaea cupped CC's face in her hands. "Do not let this parting cause you more grief; I could not bear it. You must know that even in your distant world, I will be watching you. You can find me in the trees and flowers and plants you so love. And whenever the moon is at its most full, look there and you will see the reflection of my face."
CC choked back a sob, wondering if she would die of sadness.
As if reading her mind the goddess spoke quickly with knowing finality. "You will survive. You are child of my spirit and your strength is great."
CC nodded, feeling fresh tears warm her cheeks.
Gaea kissed her gently on the lips. "Go with my blessing, Daughter. Always remember that you are much loved by a goddess, and that you hold within you the magic of the Divine Feminine."
Then Lir moved to stand beside Gaea and, as one, the immortals raised their arms to the sky.
"I call upon the power at my command. I am Earth, body and soul." Gaea's voice was filled with strength. In response to her call the air around the goddess began to shimmer with energy.
"I call upon the power at my command. I am sea, breath and life. "Lir's voice followed Gaea's and as he spoke the water around them began to glow.
"Once we joined to create a child," Gaea intoned.
"Now we join to send a child back whence she came, "Lir continued.
"Return to the world of man," Gaea said.
"Carrying blessings from the world of gods," Lir said.
"SO HAVE WE SPOKEN; SO SHALL IT BE."
The immortals intoned the final command together, and CC felt a great funnel of power settle over her, as if she had been swallowed by a current of electricity. Blinding light engulfed her, and she squeezed her eyes shut. Her body was being pulled backward with such force that she was unable to breathe. On and on the sensation went, like she was caught on a giant roller coaster that only ran in reverse. Panicking, CC wrenched open her mouth to scream, and it filled with saltwater as her head broke through the surface of the water, and she choked and sputtered, struggling to breathe and stay afloat.
She heard two quick splashes, and, in an instant, a head broke the surface not far from her, along with a lifeless body clad in a flight suit and strapped within a life jacket.
The sense of deja vu was so overwhelming that she had to struggle to concentrate past blinding dizziness.
"There."
Blinking wildly, CC watched as the colonel pointed at the fluorescent orange life raft that drifted about forty feet in front of them.
"Swim! We have to get away from the plane." He set off, sidestroking and kicking hard as he dragged the lifeless body with him.
CC's numbed thoughts told her that those were the same words the colonel had spoken to her before. And the body was Sean. Another man who had died for her. She choked again, this time on a sob instead of seawater. Her mind felt stuck in a labyrinth of pain and remembrance.
A horrendously familiar explosion burst behind her, and she spun around in the water in time to bear witness a second time to the death of the plane. It was an enormous, gaping beast, and, in its death throes, it eerily reminded her of Sarpedon's sea monster.
With a sense of increasing detachment CC realized the same thing she had understood all those days before—the sinking plane was too close to her.
And this time she didn't care. There had been so much death. Why shouldn't she just relax and give in to it? At least this time she wouldn't be filled with fear of the water. She felt cold and unbearably tired. CC closed her eyes and quit struggling as she waited for the mechanical tentacle to wrap around her ankle.
When she felt the first bump against her body she was mildly surprised. She hadn't remembered getting thrown around before the thing had dragged her under.
The bump turned into an insistent, jetlike force, and soon she was sputtering, gasping for air, and flailing her arms desperately around for balance as she was firmly propelled up and forward by two somethings that felt slick and muscular and very familiar against her swiftly moving body.
This isn't happening, she thought. It can't be real.
"I'll be! Will you look at that?" A dark-haired captain holding a flat yellow paddle pointed in her direction.
Even the colonel, who was dragging Sean's lifeless body aboard the raft, paused to stare.
The pressure against CC released, and she came to a halt as she knocked against the side of the orange raft. The pointing captain grabbed her arm and pulled her aboard. At the rough handling, newly awakened pain raked through her body, and CC shivered violently as a warm rush of blood poured from her wounded shoulder.
"It's the same shoulder," she said, looking down at the red stain that was blending with the desert brown of her sodden fatigue shirt. "Different body, but same shoulder." The words were coming out of her mouth, but CC didn't feel very connected to them, just as she didn't feel very connected to her body. Somewhere through the layers of grief and shock, the laughter of hysteria began to bubble inside her throat.
"Shit, yes, your shoulder's hurt. We know that. But what the hell were those things?" the master sergeant asked, pointing at the sleek gray shapes that were streaking away from them.
"Dolphins," CC said, erupting into uncontrollable giggles. "They're dolphins."
"Well, kiss my ass and call me Santa Claus! I've never seen nothing like that. Those damn fish just saved your life," the Master Sergeant said, slapping his thick thigh.
"Actually, they're mammals, not fish," CC said between giggles and gulps for air. "And I guess they still think I'm a princess."
Except for her unnaturally shrill giggles, the raft was quiet while the men stared at her.
"Uh, sarg," the colonel said gently. "You better let me take a look at that shoulder."
The pain of having her shoulder handled killed CC's hysteria.
"This will hurt like hell," the colonel told her. "But I
have to pack it and get the bleeding stopped or you're going to be in bad shape."
CC wanted to tell him that she didn't care, that she'd rather just die, but he had turned away and was busy searching through the first aid kit for packets of gauze.
"Looks like a fuckin' arrow sliced through her," the master sergeant said before the colonel told him to shut the hell up.
"Here, bite this." The colonel handed her a wooden tongue depressor, and she clamped her teeth down on it. "You try and think of someplace you'd rather be, and I'll try and be quick," he told her.
"Ready?"
She nodded weakly and closed her eyes, thinking of a moonlit night when neon-colored fis
h were candles and the world was filled with the newness of love. She could see Dylan's face as he bent to kiss her and, for an instant, she could almost taste his wild, salty flavor.
Pain exploded, splintering her concentration as flecks of light dotted her closed lids. And then the sweetness of unconsciousness claimed her.
"Hang on, sarg! We've got yal"
The steady twap, twap, twap of the helicopter and the pain in her shoulder wrenched CC back into screaming consciousness. She opened her eyes to find a Search and Rescue Trooper working over her, murmuring encouragement while he unsnapped the lid of a syringe filled with clear liquid and jabbed it into her thigh. The medicine's sharp burn was almost unnoticeable compared to the agony that was her shoulder.
"It'll be better now. Just relax, and we'll have you in the chopper in no time."
He spoke to her soothingly as he finished strapping her into the harness. Then he gave the thumb's up sign to the air above him, and CC felt a sickening lurch as she was lifted from the raft to the hovering helicopter.
She was the first to be rescued, but the others weren't far behind. CC watched through a morphine haze as Sean's body was pulled into the helicopter, followed quickly by the master sergeant, then the lieutenant, the captains, and finally the colonel.
As they flew away from the crash site, CC locked her gaze on the glimpse of sapphire water she could still see through the helicopter's open door. With all her soul she wished she would catch a flash of fiery orange streaking under the surface, shadowing the path of the aircraft and eternally waiting for her return.
Her vision of the glistening water blurred as her eyes filled and spilled over with tears.
"You'll be all right now, sarg," said the medic who was starting an IV in her arm. "We'll get you home and get you all fixed up."
CC opened her mouth to say that it would never be all right again, but a cry from the other side of the chopper bay interrupted her.
"Oh, shit! Johnson! Get over here; I need another set of hands! This man is alive."
The medic working on CC gave her IV sack a quick adjustment before he rushed to help his colleague.
Somewhere in the back of her mind CC understood that the frantically working medics were surrounding Sean's body, but her thoughts weren't working properly, and she couldn't seem to focus her mind.
And she thought she knew why. It had nothing to do with loss of blood, or the pain, or the morphine. It was because even though her body was alive, her heart was dead. It died in another world and dissipated to nothingness within the seas.
The blue of the ocean crystallized through her tears, and then began to fade as gray unconsciousness folded over the edges of her vision, and, like a favorite blanket, lulled her into a deep, dreamless sleep.
Chapter 30
Nine months later
"Oh, please! That's nothing but a big pile of poo!" CC yelled and threw the book across the room, narrowly missing decapitating the lilac-colored orchid that was in magnificent bloom on her coffee table. "Hans Christian Andersen, T.S. Eliot, Lucretius, Tennyson, and now this horrible de la Motte Fouque person. Uh! None of them were even close to getting it right!"
CC sighed and retrieved the book, all the more irritated that she had to reach under the couch for it. Finally grabbing it, she made straight for the wastebasket in the kitchen, rolling her eyes at the title.
"Romantic Fairy Tales," she scoffed, and lifted the lid of the wastebasket. But, as usual, she couldn't make herself actually throw the book away. Shaking her head and mumbling, she marched to her spare room.
"There's not one thing romantic about that stupid story. As usual, the mermaid doesn't even have a soul unless she can get some mule-headed guy to marry her. And in this particular version, he betrays her for another woman and she still pines away for him."
In her spare room she searched through her new bookshelves, trying to find a place for the slim book. Finally she slipped it between a lavishly illustrated copy of Mermaids: Nymphs of the Sea, and Oscar Wilde's The Fisherman and His Soul. Then she put her hands on her hips and glared at her ever-expanding collection.
"All those words and you couldn't manage to capture more than a fraction of the truth. And none of you so much as hinted at the magic of his smile."
CC didn't say his name aloud; she didn't even think it. She couldn't. Even after nine months, she still felt too hollow and fragile. If she allowed herself to think too much about the empty place inside of her, she was sure that the shell of normalcy she had tried to glue together around her life would shatter. And then she didn't know how she would go on.
So instead, she haunted the bookstores and the Internet, always searching for everything and anything that pertained to mermaids. Then she devoured the pages as if they were her lifeline. Maybe they were. They kept her anger and frustration alive, which felt easier to live with than emptiness and despair.
She had gone on the Web and searched Amazon once using the term "merman." Two responses had popped up—an audio collection of Ethel Merman's greatest hits, and some kind of toy called Masters of the Universe Evil Enemies: Mer-men. After that, she had confined her searches to mermaids and mythology in general.
When she discovered her newest acquisition, the Romantic Fairy Tales book, she had been filled with an almost unbearable sense of anticipation as she opened its pages. The blurb on Amazon had said that de la Motte Fouque's classic tale was written about the mermaid Undine. It proclaimed that the story was about "a water nymph who falls in love, acquires a soul and so discovers the reality of human suffering." But, as usual, her reading had left her disappointed and irritated.
"It was nothing but another preachy allegory written by some old dead white guy," CC said miserably.
Then she sighed again and rubbed at the pink, puckered scar that furrowed across her shoulder, cringing at the dull ache that radiated down her arm. CC glanced at her watch.
It was almost 9:00 p.m. on a Friday night. Even on a hot August night, the opulent, Olympic-sized pool at her apartment complex would be deserted, which was just the way she liked it.
As she changed into her one-piece racing style Speedo and hastily pulled her shoulder length brown curls up into a tight ponytail she could almost hear her mother's voice echoing through her apartment.
"Dear, a pretty girl like you shouldn't be alone on a Friday night. It's just not good for the soul. "
The bathroom light glinted on the golden chain that always hung around her neck, and CC's lips curved into a bittersweet smile. With one finger she stroked the smooth, iridescent surface of the huge pearl. Then she looked at herself in the mirror, pretending she was speaking to her mother.
"My soul's fine, Mom. It's just not all here."
Imagining the shocked reaction on her mother's face made her lips tighten. She didn't like to think about the pain her accident had caused her parents. They had never left her side throughout her month-long hospital stay, and when CC was released to return to Tinker AFB, her mom had come with her and had stayed another two months, helping her with the painful rehabilitation exercise routine. She certainly would never say anything to her mother that would make her worry any more about her than she already did, which meant she could never tell her mother that she longed to be in another world and another time.
CC shook her head. No, she wouldn't let depression win—she refused to live as a morose shadow. She felt like she had spent the past nine months trying to give birth to a new self, and she had to keep reminding herself that the birthing process always involved pain. It was just another part of life.
CC forced herself to smile as she pulled on her terrycloth cover-up, grabbed a towel and her swim bag and hurried out her apartment door. The water would make her feel better. It always did.
Mrs. Runyan was just coming up the stairs, and she waved a cheerful greeting.
"Going for your nightly swim, dear?" she asked.
"Yes, ma'am." CC smiled warmly at her. CC and her neighbor had grown very close in
the months of her recovery. She felt honored to have been gifted with the friendship of another wise woman.
"Well, it's a lovely night for it. The moon is full and the sky is clear."
CC glanced up in surprise. The butter-colored moon was just rising, full and lustrous, over the greenbelt that backed their apartment complex.
"You're right. I hadn't remembered that it would be a full moon tonight."
At work CC had been preparing for another of the Communication Center's endless inspections. She had only been back full-time for three months, and she was so busy that she had completely lost track of the phases of the moon. Now she felt an unexpected rush of pleasure at the thought of swimming her laps beneath the beauty of the full moon.
Mrs. Runyan smiled mischievously at CC and tapped her on the nose. "Better keep your eyes open tonight. Wonderful things happen during the full moon."
"I'll remember, Mrs. Runyan. And I'll also remember our date tomorrow night to watch An Affair to Remember," CC said as she hurried past her friend.
"You had better, young lady. You're bringing the champagne!" the old woman called good-naturedly after her.
CC was still smiling as she swung through the wrought-iron gate to the pool. She sighed happily. As she had hoped, the pool was totally unoccupied. It never failed to surprise CC how quickly the residents of the pricey complex lost interest in their beautiful facility.
The pool was magnificent. It was a huge rectangle made of aqua-colored tile, hand painted around the rim with images of frolicking fish. To one side of the pool was a built-in Jacuzzi, complete with a fountain and cascading waterfall. Expensive deck chairs were clustered in neat circles around glass-toped, canopied tables. Thickly cushioned lounge chairs dotted the edge of the pool.
CC shrugged off her cover-up and fished her goggles out of the bag, then she left both bag and wrap in a heap on the nearest lounge chair. Eagerly, she approached the deep end of the pool.
