Britt's short greying hair buffeted in the breeze as she sped southward through the Florida Keys, her Mets cap long blown off and lying somewhere on the blacktop of U.S. 1. Splurging the few extra bucks to rent a Mustang convertible at the MIA car rental counter was just the ticket for an amazing spring afternoon in the sun.
She could've programmed the location of her late mother's beach house into the GPS but already had a vague idea where it was located and opted for silence and the whirring sound of tires on the road.
Initially, Britt was disappointed that that her mom had bequeathed the rundown, hurricane-battered property a good two-hour push southwest of Miami. It was the booby prize of the estate while Britt's elder sisters gleefully picked off the Manhattan condo and Long Island cottage. Phyll misread her love of scuba diving and assumed her little girl would love the cozy pile on the sand a few fin strokes from a lovely reef.
Wrong again, Mom.
Still, escaping New York's shitty weather for a few days in the sun wasn't a horrible prospect. She'd poke around the property, talk to the local real estate agent she'd already contacted, then chill out on the beach and tan her blindingly pale white skin before migrating back north.
Britt was a few weeks away from the big 5-0 and a year out from her divorce. She was also stalled in the middle of her third novel and her agent, while sympathetic to the deaths of both her marriage and mom, was getting antsy for the first draft. Britt had no idea where the novel was headed any more than she had a notion on a direction for her life.
She was pretty sure, though, that she wouldn't find it in Aunt Maggie's squat on Magnolia Key. That's how the family still referred to the joint coming up on 40 years since the woman disappeared and was eventually pronounced dead in the absence of a body. There was a lengthy investigation by the state police and later Phyll hired an investigator to continuing hunting for the 29-year-old single woman, to no avail.
The logical first place to look was the turquoise blue expanse of sea at her doorstep. A marine biologist, Aunt Maggie would often dive solo just offshore, sometimes venturing into deeper waters on the wall, but a thorough sweep by the police marine unit found no traces of her. Working out of the University of Miami, her intimate acquaintances all seemed to be subaquatic, with a dry social life and just the one human friend topside.
She was just gone -- and eventually the ownership of the home was passed to Phyllis Perry, Maggie's rumored college flame, who remained a bud after graduation. The inheritance was unexpected and Britt's family rarely used the premises. After Britt's father passed, Phyll hired a local realtor to rent it out to vacationers who did more damage than hurricanes Floyd, Andrew, Irene and Charley combined.
On the few occasions Britt came here with her ex, they'd scuba dive, beachcomb and fuck in Maggie's four-poster. Decent memories of a love that disappeared as mysteriously as Maggie. One day it was just gone too.
Britt lifted her shades to check herself in the rear-view and spotted a couple more crow's feet as she squinted in the sun. Her face was a little fuller these days and she cursed herself for not bothering to try on her t-shirts before discovering in the airport washroom that her beach body had added a few dunes since she'd last worn them.
She muttered under her breath and recalled a t-shirt emporium connected to the dive shop about half a mile from the house -- she'd have to restock her wardrobe tomorrow. Hardly her fault that Haagen Dazs was still cheaper than marriage counselling.
She pulled into the gravel driveway just as the sun began its early evening plunge into the gulf. Britt grabbed her duffel bag out of the trunk and braced for the worst as she strolled up the door but was delighted to find the agent had straightened things up, replaced a few shattered windowpanes and tidied the kitchen and living room. He even left a basket of fruit -- "Welcome Home!" the card said. She snorted and grabbed a banana. Dinner. Then she saw a few swigs left in a dusty and sticky bottle of tequila on the counter next to the rusty fridge. Dessert.
After polishing that off, Britt eventually poked into the three bedrooms and quickly decided to take the master with the four-poster, history be damned. The beating sun on the drive down and the early flight conspired to drain her energy and an early evening was decided. She shucked her clothes, grimaced as she caught her near-Rubenesque figure in the full-length mirror by the bed, and climbed in.
Sleep came quickly, followed by dreams -- full-colour, detailed midnight movies of dreaded events and silly encounters with grade school teachers and Hollywood stars. It was typical nocturnal theatre until she found herself underwater, communing with dense schools of fish. She was naked, of course, and even asleep she worried about getting harpooned by a Japanese whaling ship. She recognized the grand coral heads as underwater landmarks about a hundred yards offshore in real life. Which this wasn't.
It was then that Britt heard the voice for the first time. Half-asleep the urgent whispers lifted Britt from her deep slumber and her eyes opened. "Who's there?" she grunted. She sat up and heard nothing. She looked over at the mirror and in the half-light considered her full, sagging breasts. She lifted them then playfully released them like an avalanche unleashed on a mountain village, killing everyone in sight. "Jesus," she muttered.
Britt lowered her head and then the voices resumed. Now she could understand what they were telling her:
Come to me! Come to me!
Britt leapt out of bed, wondering if she were somehow still asleep and that this was some high-definition dream. She felt her body lock into automatic pilot and went along for the ride, her feet leading her into the kitchen and then to a cabinet in the corner. Her hands gripped the termite-infested wood and tugged it away from the wall to find a small doorway, tall enough for a hunchback munchkin. Amazed at her unexplained perception, she leaned over and pushed the door open and saw a stone stairway descend into the foundation of the house. She flicked a cobwebbed light switch and was relieved when a ceiling bulb stuttered to life below.
At the bottom of the short stairway she found a second door and wondered if she'd become Alice in Wonderland. This door was stuck in its frame, swollen from salt air and apparent decades of disuse. She leaned into it with a shoulder until it gave way with a complaining creak. The basement yawned open before her -- cooler than the house above, the air thick with the musk of old salt, mildew, and rusted tools.
Barefoot, she entered the room, every creak of the boards beneath her seeming too loud. She soon paused as she detected something strange in the air. Not just the scent of damp wood and the sea but something sharp, chemical, and oddly sweet. Rubber.
Against a limestone wall under another dangling bulb that cast a cone of yellow light, stood a dented, olive-green metal locker. Her hand found the latch before she realized she'd moved. It popped open with a heavy clunk.
Inside, the contents were arranged with care: a black wetsuit hanging from a hook, its arms slightly bent as if it recalled a body, long yellow fins stacked neatly below and, resting on the floor of the locker, an ancient set of steel scuba cylinders along with a Voit Swimaster double hose reg assembly. All in pristine condition.
But her eyes then turned to the yellow U.S. Divers oval mask, suspended from another hook at eye level.
