The Last Nymph

Maera was a nymph. Or was she? She claimed to be a genuine Nereid from antiquity. Right out of the pages of Greek mythology. Well, that's what she told Doc Roussos who lived alone on the island. Kalamos was remote and sparsely populated. An exquisite pine-covered jewel that rose steep and majestic out of the turquoise and cobalt Mediterranean. Maera would visit Doc on those summer nights uninvited. Arriving unannounced, she would appear at his ruin--a formerly destroyed Venetian castle. It was a place over the years he had more-less inherited, as volunteer custodian of the archaeological structure.
But who really was this honey-haired girl who began to invade Doc's chosen isolation? Somewhere in her twenties, beautiful, and with a musical voice and a graceful gait, she seemed real enough to the retired professor. But it was her nightly stories which gave him pause for disbelief. They were tales from a long-ago past. And not just of previous ages, but romances and adventures Dr. Roussos had been long familiar with. Mythological accounts capable of beguiling a charmed listener well into a world time before time . . . But were the stories all she offered him?