Half-swallowed by the seafloor, the silhouette of a wooden ship’s broken hull rose from the sand like the ribs of a long-dead leviathan.The deck was gone, collapsed inward.The timbers eaten away by time and sea.Coral claimed the planks in hues of crimson and gold.A school of fish darted through the muzzle of a cannon half-buried in the silt.
Where once towering masts rose toward the heavens, nothing remained but gaping holes.One still bore the iron ring of a shroud chain, its use long forgotten.
More cannons lay half-buried in the sand, their muzzles open in one final scream of death.She swam closer.The hollow backbone of the keel stretched under layers of sand and sea growth.A tangle of rusted chain and ballast stones littered the area around it.Here and there, gleaming green patina coating the copper sheathing flashed like sea glass when her flashlight hit just right.
Her pulse thundered.Her breath caught, not just at the sight, but at the pull.A presence, primeval and watchful.As if the wreck had been waiting for her, callingtoher.Luring her into a memory that haunted her by night.
She exhaled slowly, bubbles spiraling up past her mask, and swam closer.She needed to find something that would identify the ship, an artifact, a name engraved in brass, a coin that would at least reveal the year it sank.Or treasure!Even though anything of value she found went to the federal government, such a find would go a long way to enhance the reputation ofOcean’s Echoand bring in more business.And more business meant more money.And more money meant her sister could get the life-saving treatments she needed.
Halting, she hovered over the litter covering the bottom of the ship and brushed aside the sand and silt, shifting her light over the area.Something red glimmered to her right.She swam closer.Nothing.Or…?She brushed something small and round at the edge of the wreck.
A Ring.
The current whispered around her, sudden and cold.
She shivered and glanced about.Nothing but shadows and fish.The object nestled in the debris looked almost ordinary, dull metal, crusted with age.But it didn’t belong.Not in this reef.Not in this century.
Her fingers closed over it.
A pulse shot through her hand.Not pain.Not warmth.Something older.Deeper.Like the vibration of a tuning fork pressed to bone.
Desi jerked back.The sensation lingered, thrumming up her arm, tightening behind her eyes.Her vision rippled.The reef darkened.Not from depth, from something else.The colors around her dulled to gray, the brilliant coral fading like chalk in rain.
Blinking, she shook her head.It couldn’t be nitrogen narcosis.She wasn’t that deep.Her gauges were fine.Air was fine.
The Ring was still in her hand.
Then she felt it, pressure.All around her.As if she’d been pushed down to the depths.Was she to be crushed alive?Her insides crumbled, then stiffened, then crumbled again like the folding back and forth of an incoming tide.The water no longer felt like water, no longer slick, wet, and warm.It pressed hard against her like glass…
…like time itself had thickened.
Blood pulsing, she glanced at her dive computer.Something was wrong.The numbers flickered then froze, then flickered again.She tapped it, but the glitch remained.The date started to spin… 2026…1998…1843…1718.
She tried to scream, but the regulator was still in her mouth.Her body began to float, downward, not upward.The Ring burned in her palm, searing up her arm.She tried to toss it.
But then everything stopped.
Her fins landed on something firm yet shifting.The world beyond her mask took shape.Not the shape of a sunken ship or a colorful reef or tropical fish darting here and there.No bubbles emerged from her regulator, no spears of sunlight darted through murky waters.Nothing but blurry angular shapes formed around her, illuminated bysunlight so bright she squinted.
“Bloody Saints!”She heard a voice shout in a British accent.The voice’s body moved toward her.Beyond him, others moved.
“Mother of Moses, what in heaven?”
Desi staggered, still dripping, her flippers thudding on the planks.Her breath echoed loud in her ears—until she realized… she wasbreathing.Air.Real air.
Fumbling, she yanked off her mask, pulled the regulator from her mouth, and inhaled the freshest air she’d ever breathed—salty with a hint of wood and tar.
She blinked against the sudden brightness of the Caribbean sun.Around her, sails snapped in the wind, ropes creaked and groaned, and waves rushed against the hull.A towering mast loomed above, its rigging swaying like spider silk.She turned in place, stunned—awash in the impossible.
This wasn’t a wreck.
This was a ship alive.
A half-dozen rough-looking men leapt her way from every direction, their eyes wide and jaws open.One of them cursed and reached for his cutlass.
Shock spun her thoughts into chaos.Nothing made sense.
Was this some sort of pirate reenactment?Wake up, Desi.Wake up!
