Sea glass is what happens when you leave broken glass on the beach. The waves and sand wash over the shards again and again, day after day, for years on end. Gradually, nature wears down the sharp edges, leaving a perfectly smooth piece of frosted glass. This particular piece was about three inches long, one inch wide, and bright green.

“It matches your eyes,” I told Riley.

“Yes, but that’s not why I chose it,” he said. “Well, not entirely. I must admit, the idea of you carrying a constant reminder of me is appealing.”

“I’ll bet it is,” I said teasingly. “So what’s the other reason?”

“This is no ordinary bit of sea glass,” he explained. “It did not come from a broken beverage bottle left by a careless human. You hold in your hand the fragment of a statue that once stood in the central square of Atlantis.”

My eyes widened, though by that point, nothing should have surprised me.

“The statue depicted the city’s patron goddess,” Riley continued. “All Atlantians worshipped her, as she provided for them and kept them safe. They loved her, all of them.”

I ran my fingers over the glass, trying to wrap my head around its story.

“What was the goddess called?” I asked. “Atlanta?”

“No.”

Riley wrapped his hands around mine, so that my fingers pressed against the cool glass on one side and his warm skin on the other.

“Her name was Andromeda,” he said.

For the first time in my life, I felt grateful to my parents for my ridiculous name. Maybe they knew what they were doing, after all.

“But that is not why I chose it for you,” Riley continued. “A millennium ago, this glass was all flat sides and sharp edges. Beautiful, yes, but you would not want to hold it in your hand. Since then, the ocean has washed over it and transformed it into something new. Just as you have transformed me.”

What could I say to that? Absolutely nothing. So instead, I simply reached up and pressed my lips to his.

My life had finally begun.

That is not dead which can eternal lie,

yet with strange aeons even death

may love.

Acknowledgements

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

There are so many wonderful people who aided me on my writing journey, but I know exactly where to begin:

To my husband Linley and my five precious children, Marianne, Josh, Allison, MattA and MattB, you are all such trouble and always getting so dirty and leaving such a mess for me to clean up, but you are all worth it. Sometimes I don’t know how you survived the novel-writing process in our home, having to endure so many nights of Chinese take-out and Dominoes!