Hands of the Sea (The Magic of Thedes, Book 2) *preview*

When I found the Sea - Part 4

I rose as instructed, shaking as the boat shook and stumbling as the craft shifted under my shifting weight. Despite my keen sense of effective reasoning, I kept a paranoid eye on the rock in his hands, unable to entirely shake the absurd idea that I had been lured into a murderous trap. He held the rock over the side of the skiff, nodding at me to come closer, to which I complied a little grudgingly since I was almost sure that if both of us stood on the same side we would tip the vessel.

"Watch," he whispered and dropped the stone in the sea. "Wait for it."

I obeyed, concentrating on the surface, unsettled by the dark mystery of the water and doing my best to ignore the images of what horror I expected to rise out of it. We waited and waited and very slowly something happened. The stone reached the ocean floor, and at that moment a phosphorescent glow emanated in a ripple outward, not in the water, but across the surface of the earth and coral below us. I heard myself gasp.

The color changed all at once from a small pulse of electric blue into myriad energies, bright and alive in whites and greens and blues and muted red. The boy let another stone fall into the water, and this time I could see it sink. The absolute darkness of the ocean night couldn't even dispel the daylight growing below me, and as the second stone landed, the pulsing rhythmic glow redoubled. He threw more stones into the water, farther and farther away from the boat and with every stone the ocean daylight grew brighter and larger and spread beneath us. It was a coral reef, I knew, I had heard, but I had never known that it could be so brought to life by the gentle touch of stones.

"Magic," I whispered, for at that moment it was the only thing that came to mind to explain how daylight could exist on its own without the sun.

The boy grinned excitedly and nodded. "Could be. You scared, or do you want to go closer?"

Now that all the stones were gone, he tossed the anchor overboard and pulled off his shirt. Before I could stop him he dove straight off the boat and slid gracefully into the crystal clear water. I pressed myself against the edge of the craft with my face hovering as close as I dared and watched his blurred feet kicking and propelling him straight down to the bottom. It took him only a few seconds to get there and then he twisted around and planted both feet on the ocean floor. I realized too late that he was rocketing up towards me and water covered me when he breached the surface. He flopped his arms over the side of the boat as I wiped the brine from my cheeks and glared at him, almost prepared to be angry before I saw what he was holding. It was a stone, or rather, a great big piece of coral that was glowing and rippling with electric light. He held it out towards me, and gingerly, breathlessly, I reached out to touch it. Just before my fingers met the luminous thing he, the boy, tossed it back over his head and smiled like a mischievous idiot.

"Nope," he said. "You gotta get your own."

He obviously anticipated my irritation, and before I could swipe him on the head he'd pushed himself out of reach to tread water on his back.

"I dunno how to dive," I whined like a child. I wanted so badly to hold the stone, to feel the light, I couldn't believe he would be so cruel.

"You said you can swim." He argued.

"I said I can float," I corrected.

He nodded sagely, "Well, diving is a lot like sinking, so if you know how to float you know how to sink no problem, c'mon Effee."

I stood and balled my fists just as he dove again, so I didn't have time to hate myself for falling prey to teasing before I undressed and rolled clumsily over the side and into the water. It might have been the pet name that gave me the courage to do it; that and his stupid grin.

For a moment I was afraid I had done something very foolish, and that my underclothes would weigh me down, but they didn't. On the contrary I discovered that sinking in salt water was a bit harder than in a lake. I felt buoyant like wood and it took some doing but I was determined to reach the bottom. The boy was farther down, watching me fall slowly towards him. He was giving me an exuberant thumbs-up that immediately made me self-conscious. I thought of my sister, and wondered if there was any chance that she ever behaved like this. The thought was laughable. The beautiful Emeree diving for magic rocks in the night, bare-chested and disregarding Dad's concerns for safety? No, of course not; Em isn't reckless. And then, I wondered, am I?

The deeper I went, the colder the water became, though only a little. A chill started in my feet and ran up my body as my toes neared the ocean floor. There was fear in me that the light would hurt and when my toes touched it I nearly convinced myself that it burned me before I realized that it was only the small pain of sharp stones against my soft feet and nothing more. It wasn't hot either as I expected it to be, only bright, excited.

As I stood upon it, the pulse quickened, blurred and beat through the stones beneath me, around me, and I loved it. I wished that I wasn't nearly out of air. I even thought for a reckless moment that staying here might be worth drowning, but fear quickly replaced that fancy, even though it solved nothing. I had already let the air out so that I could sink, now how would I float?

"Just jump," I told myself. "You're standing upright, so jump." I pushed off the ocean floor, though with less force than I intended, which caused me to linger, struggling to remind my arms and legs how to work in water and solve the puzzle as to what motion would translate into 'up'.

The boy was a very good swimmer and I could visualize his movement. I knew what it looked like to swim well, but the subtlety of the motion was such that I, in all my education, could not replicate it.

Hands then fastened around my waist. Fear of drowning kept me from resisting, and even though the victory wasn't exactly my own, I couldn't help triumph washing over me when we breached the ocean surface. I immediately attached myself to the edge of the boat. My gasping for air reminded me that I would be in serious trouble if I continued to strain, but I was too happy to be afraid of anything. There was a little tightness in my chest, but I was sure it was only a normal pain of holding one's breath and not the cold hand of death I knew so well.

"Wow," he said, sputtering water out of his mouth. One of his hands was still on my waist. I don't think he realized it.

"What?" I asked without moving, holding the boat for comfort.

"You said you had weak lungs."

"So what?" I asked.

"You can hold your breath for a really long time."

Could I?

"I mean," he continued, "you were down as long as me."

"Maybe you just got tiny lungs," I teased. "Ever thought of that?"

He laughed and splashed me in the face, at which I forgot that I was holding onto the boat and let go. I sank again, but this time I was better prepared. "It's easier to swim here," I reminded myself.

"And safer," a little voice in the back of my mind whispered. Curiously at the same moment, I became aware of the boy sinking beside me.

I was twelve the first time I made a real friend. Before that night, being forced to the dance every two weeks felt like we were going there 'all the time'. But after the night in the sea I realized that two weeks is a very long time to wait for something. At each full and new moon a dance was held, and now, finally, the routine felt like my life beginning and not just my family's life. Each moon I would sneak off in the night to the docks and meet the boy at his father's fishing boat, and we would sail in darkness or in moonlight to the secret reef off the coast.

I was getting better at sinking.