CHAPTER 1
IMOGEN
The fog surrounding my thoughts slowly lifted, leaving me swaying. The water cleared from my surroundings and the dream where I’d been a mermaid swimming with the seahorses stopped making sense. We were having such a pleasant afternoon. Why did it have to end? I made a kickass mermaid.
What had I been doing before I turned into a mermaid?
The further away from the dream I swam, the more my memories returned.
And the smell. Icky, gross, moldy, wet smells filled my nose.
I wasn’t a mermaid. No.
So what happened to me?
A parking garage. My hospital badge looped around my neck. A man standing next to my car.
His question. If I was a nurse.
My response. Yes.
Then the poke of a needle.
And then… nothing. Darkness until I met with the mermaids and seahorses.
Something more hovered in the recesses of my mind, but I couldn’t pull the hazy details together.
I tried to open my eyes, but they were too heavy for me to control. Wherever I ended up on dry land, it was warm and hard. My head rested on a rock or something equally unforgiving. I appeared safe… which seemed wrong.
I shouldn’t be safe.
The seahorses said I wasn’t safe so I should stay with them, but I didn’t.
Maybe I ended up in a clam, and the hard thing was the pearl.
But that made no sense. I shook my head and felt something scratchy against my face. Pearls weren’t scratchy.
And I wasn’t underwater.
The land swayed me from side to side, lulling me back to sleep, but I continued to pry my eyes open to figure out what happened.
A pearl would be nice, though. I could pluck it from the clam and use it to buy my mother a vacation. The idea of cashing in the world’s biggest pearl made me smile. I sank into bliss again and let my body rest. The warmth and gentle rocking tempted me to go back to sleep. Resting sounded so good right now.
My thoughts drifted along with my body. Back and forth. Back and forth. Back and forth. I came and went with the tide.
Wait.
The tide?
Land didn’t sway. Something was wrong. Very wrong.
What happened to the seahorses?
Who stole my clam?
My head fell back, but I swam closer to the surface. Forget the seahorses.
I wanted to sleep but couldn’t.
