In the dream, he heard a voice that sounded much like his own tell him that the city was the source of all the terrors he had known as an infant in his crib when the world around him was cyclopean and menacing.

He wanted to turn back. In fact, it was paramount that he turn back, but Javy would not have it. She pulled him through the doorway of the city which, again, was like the doorway of the witch’s castle: a gigantic headstone-shaped wooden door with rusting iron hasps that creaked when they opened it.

Inside, they moved through a forest of tall, snaking reeds and crawling seaweed. They were not alone. Unseen forms glided through the weeds, following them, darting around them.

“She’s coming,” Javy said, her voice weak with fear. “She’s coming for us now.”

“Who?” Hubbs wanted to know. “Who is coming?”

“My mother. She killed me so my father could eat me,” she said and he recognized this as something from a fairy tale, too. “My bones were gathered in a silken scarf and laid beneath the juniper tree.”

Then he saw a shape coming through the weeds, a female shape that he knew must be her mother. It was draped in marine growths, sea slugs filling its open mouth. It held out hands that were the slimy tentacles of a mollusk reaching for him.

When the time is right, she said through the mouth of slugs, you’ll see me for what I am.

When he woke, he was moaning, scratching at his forearm. The itching was terrible, like a collection of dozens of mosquito bites. He pulled his arm frantically from the sleeve of his jumpsuit and saw that where the seaweed had stung him there was a patch of pink scales like those of a carp.

And from the shadows, he heard a voice say, “Tweet, tweet, what a beautiful bird am I…”

Hubbs threw himself off the bed, his skin crawling, seeming to creep on the bones beneath. As beads of sweat rolled down his face and systemic shock made him nearly pass out, he saw that there was no one there but him.

He was losing his mind.

10
MOTHER REGINA

In the wet porch of the Neptune, Javonivic watched Bell and Murphy being hoisted over the open moon pool by the hydraulic winch, Hubbs at the controls. The moon pool was circular, about twenty feet in diameter, and was the entry/exit port for the divers going into the lake and coming out of it. Only the pressurized atmosphere kept the water from filling the habitat.

He centered them over the pool.

In their huge, articulated Exosuits that resembled very elaborate pale blue suits of armor, they looked like robots ready to explore an alien world. And, really, that’s what they were doing.

On her headset, she said, “You boys ready to get wet?”

“Ready,” Bell said over the radio.