I turned and froze, my guts sinking in on themselves.

The sea was fairly calm and the last of the daylight played on the water from the west. I stared at the spot that had drawn my attention and waited, hoping against what my eyes had told my mind they’d seen.

It had looked like a person had been bobbing in the water, only their shoulders and head visible. But when I turned there was nothing, only the empty expanse of ocean reaching out into the gathering dark that crept in from the east.

I was climbing down the stone path to the beach before I even knew I was moving, shedding my shirt and shoes as I ran. When I reached the surf, I took two leaping strides into the water and dove under. As I swam toward the spot where I had seen the figure, I tried to undo the image with explanations of a surfacing seal or possibly a chunk of driftwood that had floated up from the bottom, but they both disintegrated as I ran through the split second that the person had been visible. I knew it was a person in that briefest glimpse, and worse, I recognized who it had been.

The water was frigid despite the warm air, and I tried to ignore its freezing embrace as I neared the place where Del had been. I submerged, diving ten feet or more into the brackish water, my eyes stinging with the salt and cold. There was nothing below the surface but several boulders encased with scum, their gray-green humps like the backbone of some buried giant. I rose for breath and dove again, and again. Each time I broke the surface I scanned the water around me, hoping for Del’s face to be there, smiling at my needless frenzy. She loved to joke and had played numerous tricks on me, but why would she do this? Even her sense of humor had bounds.

When I couldn’t swim anymore due to the shivering of my muscles, I treaded in to the shallows and ran up the path to our house, bursting in through the door, a fear inhabiting me unlike anything I had ever known before. I picked up the phone and punched in numbers that were utterly surreal to be calling.

“Yes, my name is Jason Kingsley. I think my wife is in the water near our home. I need someone to come now. Our address is—” But my words were lost as I looked out into the yard at Del standing with her back to me upon the grass. I dropped the phone and ran back to the yard, unwilling to let the relief rush in that longed to snuff out my terror.

“Del!” I yelled when I was a few steps from her, but she remained motionless. She wore a simple skirt that came down below her knees and above it a long-sleeved blouse. Both were plastered to her skin and I could see the outlines of her dark underwear and bra beneath them. “Del,” I said, coming even with her. I put a hand on her shoulder and looked into her face.

My breath snagged in my lungs.

Her eyes were black.

They were like two pools of used oil that reflected nothing. Her mouth hung open, her jaw limp. A bit of seaweed trailed from her lower lip. I drew a breath in, sure I was going to scream, when she looked at me, and her eyes were gray again. The blackness had gone from them in a flitting second that already didn’t seem real. It was her, my Del, standing before me in wet clothes, her hair drenched down her back like a cascade of gold.

“Jason?” she asked. Her voice was hollow and far away, as if she were speaking to me from the bottom of a well. Tears formed at the corners of her eyes and she reached for me.

I embraced her and brought her inside, leading her to the bathroom where I started hot water running. I drew her clothes from her and helped her into the bathtub as it filled. She shivered, bringing her knees to her chest as she stared at the wall.

“Honey, what were you doing?” I asked, pouring cupfuls of warm water over her back and shoulders.

“I don’t know.” Still the void in her voice, an emptiness that made me shudder. “I don’t remember.”

“What do you mean you don’t remember? You were in the water. What were you doing?”

She turned her face to me, her lips trembling as she shook her head. “I don’t know.”

I continued to pour water over her until the bath was full. By that time the beginnings of sirens were coming from Route 1, and I hesitantly left her huddled in the bath while I went to our drive and met the first responders, throwing a jacket on as I went. The emergency personnel were all understanding, their nods and smiles that of those who have seen terrible things and who were relieved to not be witnesses of another tragedy. Several offered to come inside and take a look at Del, but I declined knowing that she would be uncomfortable with more people in the house while she was vulnerable. I thanked them and said that I would bring Del in to the hospital if there seemed to be anything seriously wrong with her. As the last vehicle pulled out of our drive, I returned to the bathroom and found the tub empty.

“Del!”

“I’m upstairs,” she called down, and I hurried up the treads, unsure of what I would find. She lay beneath several blankets on the bed, her hair still wet and fanned out on her pillow. She looked at me, only her face visible above the quilt. She was so childlike that for a moment I imagined we were only kids playing a game that had gone wrong. We were married, had a house, student loans, groceries to pay for, electric bills, a car payment due next week on a vehicle that probably wouldn’t last into the next year, and here we were, reduced to exchanging terrified stares over something neither of us understood or knew how to deal with.

“Where did you go?” I asked quietly. The air in our little bedroom was cloistered and my voice didn’t carry the way it should have. She shook her head, her hair making a rasping sound against the pillow. “I saw you in the water. I saw you go under, Del.” She seemed to consider this, her brow pulling down as she blinked.

“I remember coming home and putting my stuff on the table. And then I turned to the fridge, but…” Her words trailed off and she frowned.

“What is it?”

The shake of her head again. “I don’t know. There’s a hole there. It’s all dark.”

Dark like your eyes were, I thought, and madness picked at me with a single ebony claw. I hadn’t seen that. I’d been panicking and imagined that there was something wrong with her eyes. I’d imagined that when she touched me…

“I need you,” she said, drawing one pale arm out from beneath the covers. “Come lie down.”

“We need to figure this out. We can’t just go to bed. This is serious, Del.”

“I know, but right now I need you to hold me. I want you next to me.”

Slowly I came forward and stopped at the bedside, drawing off the jacket I’d used to cover myself. My jeans were still soaked and they clung to me coldly like a dead second skin. I stripped them off along with my boxers and when she lifted the blankets for me to crawl beneath I saw that she was still naked. The sight of her body in the soft light as well as the longing look on her face brought about a warmth in my center, and despite the anxiety that still gripped me, I felt myself stiffen as I laid down beside her.

She intertwined herself with me, nuzzling close beneath my chin and wrapping her arms around my back. We stayed that way for a time before my hands started to play across her skin that was now warm. She sighed and drew even closer, her hand sliding between us to grip me. We moved together for a time on our sides, a thankfulness in our caresses that I’m sure we both felt. It was as if something of great velocity had narrowly missed us and the only way to show our gratitude was to pour ourselves into one another. When she rolled onto her back and I moved above her, she whispered something that I didn’t absorb right away. The sinuous rhythm of our bodies was too much and it was only minutes before our climaxes rolled through us both, the simultaneousness of them leaving us breathless and shaking.