GRAVESHORE SETTLEMENT

The water pressed against my mask like it wanted in. Twenty feet down, maybe a little more, and the light came through in greasy ribbons that looked half-dead already. I kicked once more and the beam from my headlamp caught the corner of what used to be a general store. Barnacles had taken the sign. The shame was still there anyway.

My regulator wheezed on the inhale, giving me a thin, metallic taste of oil and rust instead of clean air. The diaphragm was sticking, forcing me to draw hard on every breath just to get a lungful. The thing had been complaining since the third dive of the week, but I was not going back up empty-handed. Not again. The boat above me was running on fumes and favors, and Rob had already stopped asking when the next job would pay. I floated past a busted window frame and the current tugged at my fins like it was trying to decide whether to keep me.

The nursery was farther in than the maps said it should be. Not that the maps were worth much out here. The whole place had been scrubbed from every record anyone bothered to keep. I found the doorway half-collapsed and worked my way through on my belly, scraping the tank against the lintel. Inside, the cribs were gone to rot and the floorboards had buckled. Something brass caught the light near the back wall.

It was a box, latched and set into the wood like it had been nailed there by someone who planned to come back for it. The metal looked too clean for how long it had been down here. I reached out and the gloves made contact. Cold first. Then something else. The water did not just feel cold anymore. It felt like the kind of cold that had already decided who it was taking with it.

The vision came fast. A woman underwater, mouth open, hair floating around her face like it was trying to get away from what was happening. She was screaming. Bubbles left her throat. The sound hit me, too, even though sound was supposed to work different down here. The regulator jerked in my mouth and I nearly bit through the mouthpiece. My vision went white at the edges.

I yanked my hand back and the image stayed for a second longer than it should have. Then it faded. My chest was tight. The box was still there, waiting. I told myself it was just the depth and the bad air mix and the fact that I had not eaten anything solid in two days. Then I told myself to shut up and get the job done.

The wood around the box splintered when I worked the pry bar under the edge. It sounded like old bone breaking. The box came free with a cloud of silt that rolled up past my mask. I tucked it against my chest and kicked for the surface before whatever else was down there decided to come looking.

The climb up the ladder onto the Salt-Witch felt longer than it should have. My arms shook from the effort even though the dive had not been that deep. The sun hit my face and I squinted against it. Everything above the water looked too sharp, too bright, like the light had been ground into needles of glass to prove the world was still real. I dropped the box on the deck and it landed with a dull metal sound that did not match how warm it suddenly felt through the gloves.

Rob stood at the wheel, his eyes locked on the gray horizon. He didn't turn around when the box hit the deck, but his shoulders went rigid. "You good?"

"Peachy." My voice sounded like gravel sliding down a chute. I spat a mouthful of brine and let the regulator drop. Saltwater stung my collar. Between my boots, the brass box glinted in the harsh light. My hands wouldn't stop shaking, a deep, rhythmic tremor that had nothing to do with cold.

The engine hummed under the deck. The tide slapped against the hull in that steady, indifferent way it always did. I could still hear the woman screaming. It was quieter now, but it had not gone away. I could hear it behind the engine noise and the water sounds, like it was coming from inside my own head instead of from the wreck.

Rob cut the throttle. The diesel rumble dropped to a wet, heavy idle. He leaned over the console, staring down at the brass. "What'd you find?"

I didn't answer. I peeled the neoprene gloves off, my skin pale and pruned, and pressed my palms flat against my thighs to force the shaking to stop.

"Some kind of lockbox," I said finally. "Brass. Old. It was set into the floor of what looked like a nursery."

Rob kept his eyes on my hands. "You look like shit, Ray."

"Visibility's garbage down there. Current's pulling hard from the south." I wiped a streak of grease from my cheek. "Just swallowed some bad air."

Rob didn't argue. He engaged the transmission, steering us away from coordinates that didn't exist on any chart. The brass box sat between us, solid and silent.

I crouched down and touched the latch with my bare hand. The metal was definitely warm now. Not hot. Just warmer than it had any right to be after sitting in cold Atlantic water for however many decades. I pulled my hand back and wiped it on my wetsuit like that would fix anything.

The screaming had not stopped. It was quieter, but it was still there, threading through everything else. I could almost make out words now, or at least the shape of them. A name, maybe. Or a warning. I could not tell which.

Rob nudged the brass with the toe of his boot. "We opening it or what?"

"Later. Get us some blue water first."

He nodded and pushed the throttle forward. The Salt-Witch picked up speed, leaving a wake that would smooth out in minutes. The wreck below us was already disappearing back into the murk, and I hoped that was the last time I would have to see it.

The box sat on the deck between my boots. I kept my hands on my knees where I could see them. They had stopped shaking, mostly. The screaming had faded to something that might have been the wind through the rigging or might have been something else entirely. I could not tell anymore.

Above us, the Florida sun burned down like it was trying to erase everything that had just happened. I closed my eyes and the image of the woman came back anyway, her mouth open, her hair floating, the scream still caught in her throat. When I opened my eyes again the horizon was empty in every direction, and the only sound was the engine and the water and whatever was left of her voice inside my head.

The box was warm against my leg. I moved my foot away from it, my heel dragging on the fiberglass deck with a harsh, dry scrape. I rubbed my thumb hard against the seam of my jeans, trying to friction away the phantom heat of the metal, but the skin there felt numb. I looked at my hands one more time. They were steady now, but I could still feel the tremor deep underneath, waiting.