Cleo saw the picture in Sophia’s hands. She smiled and said, “That is pretty Mama. Who made that?”

“My mother.”

She nodded her head. “I thought so. She’s an artist like me.”

“Yes, she is.”

The light in Cleo’s eyes dimmed. “Do you think she will ever want to meet me?”

This question was painful. What to say that wasn’t sugar coating or a bold faced lie? “Maybe, some day.”

Cleo’s eyes went back to the painting. She asked, “Do you think Grandpa would let me have that picture. I like it.”

There was no way Cleo was taking this thing home. “Um, I don’t think so. Its best not to ask.”

Cleo frowned. She put her little hands on her hips and said, “Grandpa always says it doesn’t hurt to ask.”

This was a lie, one of the biggest lies adults told children. Sometimes it hurt very much to ask.

From the kitchen her father called out. “Come on little girl! We got carrots to pick.”

Without another word about the picture, Cleo turned on her heel and ran back to the kitchen.

Sophia sighed. Perhaps her adventure in the garden would make Cleo forget about the painting. One could hope.

For a few moments, Sophia stared at the castle. It was so pretty an the front doors were open. Once she had dreamed of running through those doors. After her first wave incident, she had done her best to avoid the painting. It had hung in her parents room. After their divorce, Her mother had taken it down. How her father had ended up with it, she didn’t know. One thing was for sure, it was going back in the closet. She picked it up off the bed. As, she put the painting back into the closet, she felt something shift inside the frame. Sophia shook it. There was definitely something in there. She turned it over and shook it again. What was it? Curiosity could be a dangerous thing, but she knew she would neither eat nor sleep if she did’t open up this painting. She also knew she might not sleep or eat if she did. In many ways she felt like she was holding a ticking bomb. Was it about to blow up in her hands?

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She lay the painting on the bed and rummaged through her battered old desk. In the top drawer she found a pair of scissors from grade school. With a dull blade she pried the stables off. . She removed the cardboard backing and found a small blue notebook. On it’s cover, was a crude drawing of a castle. Beneath the castle written in a childish scrawl were the words, The Sea Castle.

Fear tore through Sophia. She began to shake, she opened the little blue note book, in it were the words, “The first time the waves took to me I was seven.”

Tears pricked Sophia’s eyes. It had happened to her mother too, only she had been two years older than Sophia had been.

For the most part, Sophia didn’t believe in magic or the supernatural, but her mother had. Probably still did. She continued to read, “The wave came up and tickled my foot, and then it made me laugh. It wrapped around me like a hug and took me into the water. Underneath I could breathe. I felt so at home. No one was yelling or telling me to straighten my clothes or brush my hair. I went far below, to a place I had never been before. A beautiful lady was swimming in the water. She smiled at me and said, “My dear, you are in uncharted waters. She took my hand and we swam to the sea castle. We were just about to enter its pearl doors when a great hand snatched me right out of the water. It was daddy. He was mad and I hated him.”

Sophia’s mother had never talked much about her dad. He was the typical white, controlling man of his time. To Sophia, he was grumpy, but she knew he loved her. He had died from congestive heart failure soon after Cleo’s birth. She remembered how happy he had looked when he his held his new born great granddaughter. He had whispered to Sophia, “Your mother should be here.” Yes, her mother should have been there, but she wasn’t. Though Grandpa’s diagnosis had been CHF when he passed, Sophia believed his real heart failure happened when her mother disappeared.

Footsteps sounded in the hall. It was Kate. Sophia stuffed the note book in her jeans pocket and stuffed the painting under the bed. Kate entered the room and said, “There you are. I got a minute if you want to talk about what the doctor said.”

No, she didn’t want to talk that, but she did say, “Um, he gave me a referral to a friend of his that lives in Corpus.”

“Good.” Kate came into the room and wrapped her arms around Sophia. She said, “You know I’m here for you.”

““Yes.”

*

The reading light spread a soft glow over her mother’s words. Beside Sophia, Cleo slept with her arms wrapped tightly around poor old Whaley. She touched her bright hair and thought, “This must never happen to you.”

It seemed Sophia’s mother had many experiences with the sea. Every time her family wen to the ocean, she visited the Sea Castle and the bright tall woman with shining skin, who lived in the castle. According to her mother the woman was lonely and was only happy when Sophia’s mother visited. Her mother’s experiences were nothing like her Sophia’s. There wasn’t any pain mentioned or even any fear. As she read, Sophia began to suspect that her mother had made the whole thing up. She also recalled some vague memories of her mother telling her stories about a woman who lived in a castle beneath the waves. She continued to read her mother’s childish scrawl. The last line in the notebook was, “One day the sea lady won’t be lonely anymore. Right now I can’t leave my mama or my papa, because I am not grown, but when I am grown, I will go and I will be with her and we will be happy.”

A chill went through Sophia.