Ian first crewed a fishing boat at ten. He followed his dad up the gangplank and stood quietly while his father spoke to the boat's owner then shook the captain's callused hand as he was introduced. His job was fairly easy, scuttling around the rolling deck of the small boat scooping up fish and dropping them into the well. It was easy to learn, but by the end of the first run he was exhausted.
When the captain counted out the three $20 dollar bills into his hand his mind raced at the possible things he would buy and when his father told him they would be going out again in two day, Ian was delighted. By the end of the summer he'd made enough money to buy his own diving gear and that summer he took lessons and was the youngest to qualify for his diver's certificate in ten years.
All his life Ian had heard the tales of sunken treasure from his father and every summer his dad would disappear out into the Long Island Sound in his ragged old dive boat and return with some small collection of artifacts recovered from the sea. The thought of skimming the bottom of the Sound, questing fingers filtering the sand, was the most exciting thing the boy could imagine. Now he had his own gear, and his ticket to dive. This year he would join his father in his annual hunt for sunken gold.
Six years later they were still searching, but with a better boat, purchased with their combined wages on the fishing boats. Their gear had improved and new side-scan sonar had just been added. They'd combed the Sound and had this year decided to move up the coast after hearing a tale of very old wood coming ashore after a recent storm.
The North Atlantic was calm, gentle swells of only a foot or two and the dive boat rode easy at her anchor. They were investigating their seventh anomaly that day and had been down only a few minutes when all the years of searching paid off. Ian's father, three feet to Ian's left, was combing the sand with his fingers as the boy swept their path with a hand-held metal detector. His sudden halt brought the boy up short and he watched as his father fumbled with something small in the sand.
Ian saw the glint of gold as his dad lifted a quarter inch thick chain from the bottom and the boy's excitement fell as he relaxed. It was just some jewelry fallen from a passing boat. He returned his attention to the detector but an explosive burst of bubbles from his father made him spin in place, hand going to the diver knife at his boot.
The older Manes hovered a few inches off the sand holding up a jewel encrusted cross of intricate design. There was triumph in his eyes as he shook it at the boy. Ian glided closer and saw the etching that had decorated the gold had been worn smooth in many places but the brilliant clear stones appeared only slightly algae coated. There were ten stones, two at each arm of the cross with a third on the bottom leg. At the center was a stone the size of an egg yoke. Ian flashed a thumb's up to his father and the older man tucks the cross into the bag at his waist.
With renewed energy the two returned to their task, concentrating on the area around the cross's resting place. Spiraling out each covered the other's path, double checking to be sure they did not over look anything good. They stayed on site until their tanks ran dry and on the emergency reserve they began their ascent.
As they drifted up shadow passed over them. At first Ian figured it was a cloud but when the gloom did not drift away he stopped and looked up, assuming they were under the hull of their boat. The shadow was not their boat, nor any other boat. Whatever it was must have been hovering in mid-air as the reflective bottom surface of the sea showed nothing but the shadow.
Ian caught his father's leg and gestured that they swim out from under the shadow. Though on the reserve, they had plenty of time and something about the unseen craft above gave Ian the shivers. After a few minutes of swimming it began to look as if whatever it was had to be huge. They still swam in the gloom.
