Sea Of Dreams

Chapter One

1749
England

"My dear girl, just look up. Feel the sunshine on your face, it is truly a healing remedy." Nanny Margaret, the feeble yet determined, looked upon her charge with pity etched into her fine wrinkles.

The sun was shining brightly, seagulls cawed in the sky above them and the wind nipped playfully along the sand of the empty beach.

Still, the lovely girl remained fixated on her hands in her lap as she sat on the spread out blanket on the sand. Her skirts billowed around her bent knees. Her long, brown locks blew gently around her face as she clasped her hands tightly, refusing to look up at the endless void before her.

"I want to go back inside." She muttered quietly.
She did not care for it. She already knew what it looked like; a great, barren void of nothingness.

She heard the exasperated sigh from her nanny, yet she could care less. In all her fourteen years of life, she had become quite familiar with the sound.

"Victoria...Victoria Hallewell." Her Nanny prodded. Victoria looked up at the old woman, leaning against her cane.

"This is not a death sentence. This is a health excursion that will do you much good." She chided.

"How is being out here in the country, in the middle of no where, supposed to be good for my health, Margaret? I want to be back in London, in my room. I hate it here! There's nothing to do." Victoria balled her thin hands into fists with how frustrated she was.

One moment, she was completely fine remaining in her room, seeing the doctor on a daily basis, then being able to rest in her solitude the rest of each day with her paints and water colors.
She had grown accustomed to her sheltered life.

Nanny Margaret stared piteously at her dearest little charge, the girl she could easily call her own granddaughter by how close their relationship was.
"You know that your father has only your best interests at heart, my dear. He only wants to see you get better."

"No. Father does not want to see me at all." She snapped back. How could he? Her father was in the height of society, too busy attending to his shipping company and mistresses to ever look upon his sickly daughter. She was a smudge across his once, perfectly honed canvas.

This move to the countryside was dedicated to the upmost wish that she would magically get better, weakened no more by her frail body and sickly state. She laughed at the notion. After her mother had passed away in her sickbed, he cast aside the entire father act and carted her off, far away enough from London society to avoid any further embaressment to his austere reputation.

"The ocean holds many secrets, my dear. If you would only give it a chance." Nanny Margaret sighed and turned to look upon the vast horizon of pristine blue water, the white, foamy waves that continously lapped against the shore.

Victoria frowned and followed her gaze. She sucked in her breath. There, mere feet away from her, a glimmer of silver flashed within the rolling waves.

"Did you see that?" She asked Nanny Margaret, keeping her eyes locked on the spot.

"Hmm?" Her nanny mumbled.

"There, in the water...I thought I saw a fish," Victoria said with piqued curiosity, "Nanny, where's my sketchpad?" She turned and looked at Margaret with urgency.

With a faint grunt and the telltale sounds of Nanny's old boots shuffiling around, Victoria shot out her hand to recieve the sketchpad whilst never taking her eyes off the alluring creature hovering in the waves.

The tail was long, willowy, gently ebbing back and forth. So lovely were the colors glistening from the sight, Victoria did not even notice the obsidion orbs staring directly back at her.