“Three!”
He balanced.
“Two!”
Evie shouted, “I love you, Clancy!”
“One!”
Clancy jumped.
Below him was a three-foot-wide band of black sea, and he barely made it. He hit the deck hard and the boat lurched. Christina flew out the other side and hit the water.
Everything he had ever known, seen, and experienced raced through Clancy’s mind. He heard Evie’s scream somewhere off in the distance and he knew this was it. He would only get one chance.
As the lights swirled and the water sprayed, Clancy dove in after Jellybean, her point of entry into the water firm in his mind’s eye.
Freezing cold. Black. Silent. He pushed away any hint of doubt and pushed on. She might rise to the surface. She might not. She might be stunned by the cold. How many seconds did he have before she ran out of air? Before hypothermia set in? The water temperature had to be in the fifties this far from shore.
The searchlights penetrated the water, providing a dim wash of light. What a mysterious and otherworldly place this was, the cold undersea at night.
No Jellybean. She was nowhere. Nowhere.
He kept swimming, eyes open in the gray-green floating nighttime, his brain calling out to her.
Nothing. Nothing.
His lungs ached and his head felt full, like his skull was about to crack. He knew he had to surface to get more air, and started to push himself up.
Just then, he saw something. A mermaid tail. Her costume! She was there! Clancy pressed on, knowing he had one shot at reaching her. Closer, closer.
Something happened. The little girl began moving through the water as if she were powered by jet fuel. He would never be able to catch her. How could she move that fast?
Clancy startled. That hadn’t been Jellybean, because the little girl was right in front of him, suspended in the water, unmoving. He reached a hand out for her and missed. She began to float away.
He was down to his last seconds. He couldn’t resist the urge—he had to gasp for air in a place he knew he would never find it. His mouth opened. And that’s when he witnessed the impossible—a bevy of ethereal sea goddesses gathered around him, curiosity in their eyes and soft, sad smiles on their exquisite faces. So much beauty . . .
Funny how he had spent his whole life denying the possibility of mermaids, and here in the last flash of life he discovered he’d been wrong.
Suddenly he felt the water churn around him. A mermaid tail beat with force directly before him, silken hair cascading behind, the creature catching Jellybean’s lifeless body in her outstretched arms. Together, they shot toward the surface.
Clancy let himself go. He felt something solid against his chest and he embraced it, as he rushed up, up, to his death.
Oh, how he had loved Evelyn. He hoped she would remember him. Always . . .
In the next instant, everything exploded—air, life, noise, light, cold—he was slammed with it. Clancy realized that he was in the ocean and it was night and over the roar of boat engines and helicopters he heard a soft whimper. He looked down. A person was tucked under his arm. A child. Jellybean. And she was crying. She was alive! He was alive, too!
Wait.
What?
He and Christina were suddenly lifted from the cold water. When he next opened his eyes he had no idea how much time had passed. All he knew was that Evie was there, holding Jellybean and kissing Clancy all over his face.