Intertwined

"Cordelia!" Ivan, my half-brother, shouted from where he was standing by the lake.

I sighed as I looked up and saw him waving me over, towards the lake.

"Come in the water."

I ignored him and went back to my book.

"Come on, Cora. Are you a wittle scared of the ity bity water?" He snickered, and I just shook my head.

"Come on, wuss. If you don't, I'll tell Julie all your dirty little secrets." My head shot up and I glared at him.

"Screw off, Ivan. You're not funny," I shouted from my spot in the chair on the porch, annoyed of his teasing. He raised an eyebrow and shrugged as he turned towards the cottage and ran inside. He was right though, ever since I witnessed my mother drown when I was five, I've been terrified of the water. I wasn't scared of regular water – you know, the water that you use to drink, shower in, cook with, or clean with – but any other form of water, I was terrified of. But I was beyond terrified of this specific body of water because it was the one she had drowned in. Although I hated this lake more than anything, I was not about to miss coming down to the cottage this summer, especially not when my step-mom was expecting another child.

"Cordelia, Sal's here!" My step-mom, Melissa, told me, peeking her head out the door. I shot the lake a glare and turned around, walking into the cottage. The cottage that I came down to in the summer sometimes – when I wasn't in Greece with Sal, that is – was where I was raised. The cottage was big; it could fit a lot of people. The backyard was huge too and we owned all of it, including the lake, but we shared the lake with our backyard neighbors, the Madison's. The cottage resembled a French summer home – like the ones you see in the movies but instead of it being all white, it was brown and looked like autumn stayed year-round. It had a warm, loving feel to it.

I walked into the cottage and rushed into the kitchen, where I knew Sal would be. He was a pig, he absolutely loved to eat. I grinned as I saw him leaning over the island, grabbing the huge plate full of grilled cheese that Melissa had made. He went to grab one and stuff it in his mouth, but she slapped his hand away.

"Sal, that's not just for you. It's for your brothers and sisters too," she scolded. He sighed and turned around, threw a grin my way and walked into the dining room. I laughed and followed him in. He set the plate of grilled cheese down on the table and sat down beside Mike leaving me to sit down in-between the most opposite twins I've ever met; Lyla and Ivan. Ivan smirked and went to grab his grilled cheese but before he could, I slapped his hands away. I grabbed the plate and gave it to Lyla.

Ivan turned to look at me, a look of shock and disbelief on his face. "Oh Ivan, my dear, you know the rules," I said. His eyebrows pulled together in confusion, and I sighed. "It's youngest first, sweetie." He looked even more confused; I was never that nice to him. I flashed him my best innocent smile and turned to Lyla. "Go ahead Lyla, you first." She grinned and took two sandwiches off the plate, and then passed the plate to Mike. He grabbed five off the plate, which Lyla called him a pig for, and then he went to pass it to Ivan who had reached his hands out to grab it, but before he could take hold of the plate, I took his hands and held them at his side.

Sal laughed and grabbed the plate from Mike's hands, who was just beginning to understand what was going on, and took four sandwiches and placed them on his plate then placed two on mine. He put the almost empty plate down in front of Ivan and I let go of his hands. He quickly grabbed his share as he started to complain.

"You said it was youngest first!" He grumbled. I just shook my head and started eating while Sal just chuckled. "What?"

"You're so gullible. When has it ever been youngest first? Seriously, man," Sal said to him, speaking with his mouth full. I grimaced and threw a piece of my bread at him. My mouth dropped open, shocked as he caught it in his mouth. He quickly chewed and swallowed, then stuck his tongue out.

Beside me, Ivan was snickering. Annoyed, I smacked the back of his head. Unfortunately, that caused what he had been eating to fly out of his mouth and land on the sandwich Sal was about to bite into. Sal paused and his blue eyes crossed as he stared at it. Ivan and Mike laughed as he just shrugged and ate it like it was nothing. I gave Lyla a look and muttered, "That's absolutely disgusting." She nodded and continued eating.

***

"Cora, we're all going to go see the Madison's. Do you want to come with us?" I heard my dad, Rylan, ask from the entry way. I giggled at his question, my dirty mind processing it differently, and walked into the entry way. Sal, Ivan, Mike, and Lyla all had grins stretched across their faces which meant I hadn't been the only one to process what he'd said differently. I sighed and turned to my dad, answering his question.

"No, I'll pass. I don't want to start anything again. You know I don't get along with Julie. Unless you want Sal and Kyle to start fighting each other again, I'll stay here." Sal chuckled at the memory of our twentieth birthday party, two years ago.

I had been wearing a Grecian styled dress that I had gotten in Greece while Julie was dressed in a mini skirt that almost couldn't even count as a belt, a tank top that revealed her too small bra and hooker heels. She had said I looked pretty and I let it slip that she looked like a whore. She got so mad, her whole face went red and she called for Kyle. Kyle, her brother, had been talking to my brother so naturally, Sal followed him over. Sal checked Julie out, obviously, while Julie explained to Kyle what had happened. Kyle got so mad, he was about to punch me but Sal had hit him just as his fist was going to collide with my face. After that, it had been a full out brawl. Afterwards, we all thought it was pretty funny – well, everyone except for Julie that is.

I giggled at the memory and smiled.

I waved goodbye as Melissa spoke, giggling, "Okay, we'll see you around midnight. Have fun all by your lonesome."

"Yeah, right; Cordelia having fun? That's as ridiculous as the idea of pigs flying or hell freezing over," I heard Ivan respond, loud enough for me to hear, as they were walking out the door. He turned around to grin and wave. I shot him a glare as he got into the car. I watched as they drove away and once they were out of sight, I quickly shut the door and locked it.

I walked into the kitchen and looked out the window that hung above the sink. You could see the entire backyard and that's saying something. Our backyard was huge and super green, minus the water. I looked towards the lake with a shudder, the memory of my mother drowning trying to emerge. I shoved it back into its little Pandora's box in my head and watched the water rippling in the lake. Rippling? It shouldn't be moving at all, I thought to myself. I could swear I saw a glimpse of a head above the water. I quickly blinked and looked closer but the head had disappeared. I sighed and rubbed my sea green eyes. Maybe I'm going insane, I thought to myself.

But then I saw it again. I practically ripped the glass door off its hinges in my haste to get closer and see what it was. I noticed that this time, there was more than one head. There were five of them; five girls. They all had tanned faces, so I imagined the rest of their bodies were tanned. The one I had seen before flashed me a smile – a pearly white, blinding smile. She had sea green hair and from where I was standing, her eyes looked like a turquoise sea color. It seemed like all of them had the same eye color.

The one beside her had blue hair. When I say blue, I mean sea blue; a very vibrant sea blue. The one beside her had hair the same color as the water. I mean that quite literally, it even looked a bit transparent. The one beside her had green hair, green like moss green. The very last one didn't look like she really belonged. She had fiery red hair. Her hair actually looked like it was on fire. You could tell it wasn't though because some of her hair was in the water and it still looked the same. One by one they each flashed me a blinding smile and then dived back under the water. The last one looked at me as though she wanted me to follow her but then dived under, following her friends down.

I hesitated as I felt as if the water trying to pull me in and looked back towards the cottage. I shrugged, What harm could it possibly do? So, completely tossing aside my fear of water, I slipped off my flip flops, tossed my glasses on top of them and took my hair out of its messy bun, letting my wavy brown hair cascade down my back. I walked towards the water's edge and dipped my foot in. I sighed. For what felt like it would be the last time, I looked back towards the cottage then waded out into the middle of the lake and dived under.

I opened my eyes once I was underwater and gasped as I realized I could see everything. The water wasn't even hurting my eyes, not one bit. My eyes widened more than they already were; I was breathing. I was breathing underwater. Last time I checked, that wasn't normal. Something was very, very wrong here. I looked around frantically, looking for the girl with the red hair. I saw a flash of red in the corner of my eye and I quickly whipped around. I saw the girl and she motioned for me to follow. I nodded and quickly swam to her. It was weird. I have never even gone near a body of water once in my entire life and yet here I was, swimming as quickly as my body would allow me.

I groaned as my muscles started to spasm. The girl – was she even human? – turned around at the sound and quickly rushed forward. I tried waving her off but the pain caused my limbs to lock into place. Everything soon went numb. I realized then that not only had I over-worked my muscles but that the water had made me so cold that I had gone numb. I looked down at my legs as I floated in the water and noticed they had gone slightly blue, a purple like blue. The kind of color you get from a bruise but without the yellowish tint.

The girl's eyes followed my line of sight and her eyes went wide with panic. My eyes began to flutter to a close. The last thing I saw was a palace that was looming in the distance while the girl and her friends quickly swimming with me in their arms

***

"Cordelia! Cordelia! Cora, honey, wake up," I heard coming from a vaguely familiar voice. "Cora, sweetie, please, oh please, wake up." My eyes snapped open as I realized exactly who it was that was speaking. Only one person had a voice that sounded like that, only one; my mother.

With a shocking realization, I swam backwards and collided with something solid. My suppose-to-be-dead mother gave me an exasperated look. I lifted my hand weakly and pointed at her, "You're dead," I stated.

She gave me another exasperated look and swam towards me. She grabbed my hand and put it against her chest. I could feel her heartbeat.

"Okay, so you have a heartbeat." I paused and took a shaky breath, "Daddy said you were dead, that you drowned and when he dived under, he said he couldn't find you."

She gave me a sad look and motioned for me to sit down where I'd been laying down before and so I did.

"Do you remember all those stories I use to tell you and your brother before I died? About the Greek gods," she asked.

I nodded; I could never forget.

"Do you remember the ones I told you about Poseidon and the water nymphs?"

Those were my absolute favorite. So once again, I nodded.

"They weren't stories or myths. They're real, quite real actually. I'm a water nymph. Your father knew that too."

"I really wanted to stay with you, Sal and your father but Poseidon had only granted me five years. Exactly five years. I had to do something. So when I went to go into the water, after I'd said goodbye to you, I had hoped you would stay inside, but you had watched me, the one thing I didn't want you to do. When your father came to find me, I had to give him some of my power, so I could talk to him and vice versa. Every year on your birthday, he comes down to see me."

I stared at her. That explained everything. Why my father was under the water for so long without coming up. Where my father disappeared to every time on my birthday – I'd always figured he went to the library or something because every year, on our birthday, he'd have a new story about the Greek gods to tell Sal and I; one that we had never heard before. Now I guess she had told him one every time he went down into the lake.

"Wait a second, how come I can breathe, see and talk underwater?" I asked.

"That's because I passed that onto you, to you and your brother. If you'd practice swimming underwater your muscles wouldn't have spasmed, your skin wouldn't have turned blue, and you wouldn't have passed out. Why haven't you practiced?"

"You try swimming, or even being near water, after witnessing your mother drown." She laughed weakly and nodded in agreement.

I looked at my surroundings. I was in a room with walls of pearl-like marble, the furniture made of solid sea foam in the shade of green and there were windows overlooking what looked like an underwater courtyard with a marble fountain of water. How was that possible? I briefly wondered. There were different kinds of fish and weird creatures swimming around. I swear I even saw a couple of mermaids and mermen.

"Where am I exactly?" I asked her.

My mother gave me a look that clearly meant I was suppose to know the answer already. I thought about it for a second and shrugged.

She sighed and responded, "Poseidon's palace."

I gave her a disbelieving look and she flashed me an amused smile.

"Alright." I looked around my surroundings again and shrugged. "Why am I here though?"

"I don't know. Why'd you follow Mia down here?"

"Because," I paused, trying to word what I was going to say. "I felt like I needed to."

Her face morphed into one of shock. She quickly fled out of the room and I looked around in confusion. I went to follow her but the red haired girl from before, I think my mother had called her Mia, was at the door quicker than you could say Poseidon.

"Hello, I'm Mia. I'll be watching you while your mother isn't around," she told me. Watching me?

"Hi," I mumbled, disappointed that I wasn't able to follow my mom. "Why do I need to be watched?" I asked

"You did faint before, did you not?"

I nodded.

"Exactly. I need to make sure nothing happens to you. You're still not use to being underwater; I can tell."

I raised an eyebrow and she pointed at my legs. I looked down and noticed they were still a little blue, I muttered an "oh" and nodded.

I sat down on the bed and gestured for her to join me. I flopped back and she did the same. We stayed like that and talked about what our lives were like, above water and under water, for Zeus-knows-how-long. Soon, I was asleep.

***

What felt like a couple hours later, I was being shaken awake by someone. I opened my eyes and the first thing I saw was my mother's face hovering over me.

"Can I help you?" I muttered sleepily as I attempted to roll over and go back to sleep but my mother's hand grabbed my wrist.

"Lord Poseidon would like a word with you," she stated in her business voice. That voice had always scared me as a kid. I nodded and got up, stretching. I groaned as my joints locked in place for a few seconds. My mom gave me a worried look but I just waved her off. I nodded and she headed out of the room with me following. About halfway there, I assumed, Mia joined us. I gave her a smile and she smiled her blinding smile back.

My mother took a quick glance at the courtyard and suddenly started moving quicker than before. I was having trouble keeping up and I knew that soon, I would lose her. I suppose Mia noticed I wasn't beside her anymore because she turned around and rushed towards me. She picked me up and threw me onto her back, racing back towards my mother. Five minutes later, we arrived at our destination as we ran, or technically swam, into a very large room.

Have you ever seen a castle or a church with a dome? Well, the palace's throne room looked like that except it was probably much larger. There were windows surrounding us and they looked out into the courtyard that I just noticed was empty. Towards the end of the room, there were two thrones. One was occupied with a handsome – no scratch that: a gorgeous man – while the other one was empty and looked like nobody had sat there in eons.

Said man had black hair, beautiful green eyes, and he had a wonderful tan. He wore a pair of white Bermuda shorts, a blue button up shirt that revealed a sliver of his chiseled chest and in his hand he held a golden trident. I gulped as I realized who he was.