The Moiraean Hippocampus

The Aegean, 1936

It wasn't like Nigel to feel seasick. Granted, he was sick of the sea, of its enigmatic, flat, infuriating blueness, but that wasn't the same thing. Yet today, here he was with Charles, cruising off the shores of the Peloponnese, feeling an uncharacteristic growing knot in the pit of his belly. I'm doing this for her, he told himself.

"What d'ya say, chap?" Charles said, slapping him on the back. "Today's going to be the day, isn't it? I can feel it." The wind ruffled his unkempt hair.

Nigel had attached himself to Charles two years ago at the university simply because he believed that Charles's research could lead him to the mythical beast that he'd sought for so long. Yes, he was just using Charles at first, but he'd come in time to think of this philosophical academic as a friend.

They cruised around the rocky outcrop that could barely be called an island, Charles scanning the jagged overhangs with his binoculars, for the symbols he was certain they would find. Nigel's eyes were focused on the water. It seemed unnaturally clear, he thought, as the sunlight glinted off the shifting surface. Would today finally be the day?

"Ha!" Charles shouted. He handed Nigel the binoculars as he edged the boat closer. Yes, there carved into the rock, were three geometric seahorses, in the style of the ancients.

----

The salt-water pool shimmered and flickered in the sunlight from the natural openings in the rock ceiling. The tide was uncharacteristically low, allowing the two young men to leave their boat and walk along the narrow passageway, the entrance marked by the three seahorses, that led to the interior of this isolated sea-cave.

"Holy," Charles breathed, gazing at the limestone walls covered in ancient carvings, and Nigel wasn't sure if his friend was making an exclamation of wonder, or commenting on the supposed sacredness of this ancient lost place.

Finding this hidden temple of the Moiraean Hippocampus had been Charles's ardent dream.

Nigel watched Charles peruse the chamber with childlike joy, and he thought of how much he'd enjoyed following Charles in his academic adventures these past couple years—the dig at Syros , the run-in with those snakes at that cave-tomb in Pylos, the time they'd had to weather a violent storm all night in the university museum among the watchful statues and the smell of old books. Nigel felt guilty because, at times like those, he would momentarily forget his own singular purpose—to avenge his sister's death.

While Charles examined the carvings, Kodak in hand, Nigel sat on the smooth rock at the edge of the shimmering pool. He stared into the cerulean blue water, thinking how it must be connected by an underwater umbilicus to the vast sea outside. So much expanse of ocean in which his enemy could hide.

The sunlight glinting off the shifting surface made him think of the silver scales of the mermaid in his dream last night, just before the horrid beast wrapped its tail around her neck and dragged her away from him. He shuddered as he recalled it, even though he'd dreamt it many times before.

And like many times before, he thought about his sister. How such a natural swimmer could drown like that. People said it was an unfortunate accident, of course, a senseless tragedy—but he knew what he had seen as he stood there on the beach, fifteen years old and screaming. He had seen the cerulean-scaled creature pull his sister beneath the waves.

He looked up to see Charles intent on studying some ancient image on the ancient walls of this ancient place. Now that Charles had found his holy grail, Nigel was eager to finish his own quest and, for the first time, he imagined what the rest of his life, his future, might look like. And who he wanted it to include.