Page 9 of Stolen Magic of the Deep

I drag myself out of bed, rubbing at my eyes as I shuffle toward the door, sleep still fogging my brain. I slip a robe over the large silk nightgown I’m wearing, tugging it around me before opening my bedroom door.

“Okay, okay. Don’t kick it down,” I mutter, turning the handle to find Leo standing there, in the doorway, holding a tablet underneath his left arm and a to-go coffee cup in each hand.

He knows my order well. White chocolate macchiato with an extra shot of espresso. Back in college there was a coffee shop a few blocks away from campus and it became our studying location. Plus the coffee helped with the late night sessions of us asking each other possible questions for the exam.

The rich blend of coffee permeates the air. My mouth responds instantly as saliva basically begs for me to grab the drink from Leo’s hand and take a sip.

He looks at me with a raised eyebrow and a slight grin. “Damn Sarah, you look like shit. Rough night?”

“Morning to you too,” I say, stepping past him, as he follows me to the kitchen.

My feet pad softly against the hardwood floor. He’s right. I didn’t sleep well last night. My subconscious was plagued with a voice. Its cadence still wavers in my mind and the sensation just under my skin seems to respond to it. Or I’m clinically going insane. I raise the coffee to my lips, the warmth running down my throat as I try to ignore the night before.

He sets his coffee down on the island and clasps his hands together.

“What?” I cover my mouth as I yawn, sleep circling under my eyelids. I continue to take small, slow sips as my mind slowly wakes up, letting the caffeine jolt my nerves awake. But Leo is clearly wide awake.

A mischievous grin flashes in his eyes. “Before we get to why I’m really here. I have to tell you about this handsome bum lurking outside your building right now.”

I wrinkle my nose at him. “Ew Leo, why would I care? The homeless are always lurking outside my building, begging for money.”

“This one did not look homeless, Sarah. Other than him only wearing a pair of shorts, the rest of him looked very clean, and did I mention handsome?”

“Yes, you said that already.” A small laugh escapes my mouth.

“Well you can’t blame me for being vocal about it.” Rolling his eyes, he hands me the tablet, tapping the screen, forgetting everything he was just rambling about. “So, your shoulder cam? It caught something. At first I skipped the entire section of you in the dead zone, figuring we wouldn’t capture anything useful there, right?” He adjusts his posture, leaning in next to me to look at the feed playing on the screen. “But something small did catch my eye. So I slowed it down. And before you say anything, I’m not mad. Just . . . confused on why you didn’t say anything. And . . . maybe a little freaked out.” He flicks to a paused frame, an eerie glow spreading from the rift. “And it captured this.”

I frown, bringing the tablet closer to my face, watching a distorted burst of energy, light moving like a living thing, racing toward me.

Leo’s voice lowers, less playful now. “Why didn’t you tell me what happened down there? I mean, I could tell you seemed off, but I assumed it was from the ocean pressure. This isn’t just off. This looks like it hit you, Sarah.”

I frankly did not think the shoulder cam caught anything down there. And since Leo didn’t ask any questions right away, I assumed I could just pretend nothing happened. I take a deep breath, placing my hand on my forehead.

“I—” I sigh, eyes still fixed on the screen. “I don’t know. I didn’t feel anything at the time. No pain. No impact. Just . . . anomalous. Like something recognized me. Like I belonged to it.”

Leo frowns. “I don’t know the full details of what happened, but you had surveillance on your vitals while down there and they spiked right after you were hit with—whatever that is.”

“I didn’t even notice,” I murmur, shaking my head. “I remember the rift, the rough push out of the seaweed room, but nothing painful. Just this deep hum, like something passed into me.”

He scratches the side of his face, questionably. “Yeah, well, it lit up your sensors like you got zapped by an electrical force.”

I press my lips together, a question on my tongue, and I glance up at him. “Right before the rift, did you find anything else while I was in the dead zone?”

Leo’s expression shifts. “I honestly didn’t even think to look that deep yet,” he admits, tapping the screen again, “I saw the flash of light and your vitals spiking, and I came straight here.”

“Right after this rift swept through me with its force,” I point at the tablet screen. “There was this moment. That turtle looked at me . . . and I swear it winked. Like it knew that would happen.” I explain, moving to take a seat at one of the bar chairs at the island. “I need to find the feed of that turtle.”

He gives me a wary look, but doesn’t argue. “Alright, weird winking turtle, let’s see what you’ve got.”

I pass the tablet over and he scrolls to the end of the footage, slowing it frame by frame. Sipping my coffee while I wait, the warmth grounds me even as my nerves quiver quietly inside me. Shadows dance across the screen, the water dark and shifting. Then, I notice it. A slight wrinkle on the screen. The glowing shape, half-shadowed, hovers in the murk near the top of the seaweed room, the frames glitching in and out due to the dead zone.

“Wait, stop,” I say, pointing. “Go back two frames.”

Leo taps back and the image stabilizes, but only barely—half-fuzzy from the distortion of the dead zone, water static blurring the edges, but the shape is clear enough. The turtle’s eye catches the camera at just the right angle. Granted it is upside down, after being flipped and yanked from the mysterious underwater room, but unmistakable. A glint of light narrows across its eye, the faintest dip of its cracked lid.

“There,” I gasp. “Did you see it?”

Leo squints at the screen, silent for a few seconds as he slowly leans forward, “See what? The sea turtle doing a dramatic stare?”