Click to download from Amazon or turn the page to read excerpt…
Prologue
Poland. Modern day.
"These are the best in the world," Antoni said, handing a file folder filled with documents to Martinius. "Although, I'm still not sure why you want to look abroad. We have a perfectly good team available to us here in Gdańsk."
Martinius took the file folder in his age-spotted hand and pulled his chair up to his wooden desk. It was the same desk that had been used by his father and his grandfather before him. "It's very simple,” he answered. “This is not just any job. We need the best there is, Polish or not."
"I can't think how your supporters will feel about us choosing a foreign team," Antoni speculated. "I don't have a problem with it, may the best company win and all. But we might hear grumblings in the village if you know what I mean."
"We have only a few supporters left now and most of them aren't even Polish. The world forgot about The Sybellen long ago. Who we choose is none of their affair." Martinius took a pair of wire specs from his front pocket and perched them on the end of his nose. His eyes were still good for a man well into his seventies, just a little help with the reading was all that was needed. "Thank you, Antoni," he said, by way of a dismissal.
Antoni nodded and left the room.
Martinius began to flip slowly through the pages in the folder. A hot cup of Darjeeling tea sat at his right hand. The early morning sunlight dappled through the trees and fell across the pages, lighting them for his consumption. As he lifted his steaming teacup to his lips, he flipped over one of the loose pages to expose an article with a photograph underneath. His eyes widened in shock and the cup halted halfway to his lips. His hand trembled and he set the teacup down, missing the saucer and leaving a water ring on the antique wood.
Martinius used both hands to pick up the page and hold it in a patch of un-dappled sunlight to ensure his eyes hadn't betrayed him. “It’s not possible,” he said, squinting at the photograph. “Is it?”
Chapter 1
Mom?" I spluttered around my toothpaste foam as I stood in our living room in my pjs with my toothbrush in hand. The morning news was on and beside the anchors heavily make-upped face was a photograph of movie-star Rachel Montgomery partying on the deck of a yacht with her entourage.
I was getting ready for the last day of the school year when I heard the words “storm,” “yacht,” and “rescue,” come from the television.
During the week, we always kept our small screen TV tuned to the news in the mornings. Most of the time I ignored it, but not when there was news like this.
"When we return," the anchor was saying, “more details on Miss Montgomery's hair-raising rescue from our own Devil's Eye Cove." Then it cut to commercial.
"What is it, Targa?" I heard mom through the screen door as she replied from the driveway where she was loading up her work truck.
"There's been a wreck!" I managed to get out before toothpaste suds dribbled down my chin. I ran into the kitchen, spat in the sink, and grabbed a towel to clean my face. It took me no time at all to get from the living room to our kitchen because they were the same room, the only division was a small kitchen island.
We live in a renovated trailer. Since my dad passed away when I was eight – which was almost nine years ago now – our quality of life has backslid. Mom didn't work at that time so we could no longer afford to stay in the two-storey we had in the suburbs. We had downsized to a doublewide located in the trailer park at the edge of Saltford, the small Canadian east coast city where we live.
The trailer park is pretty, as trailer parks go. The residents care for their properties and small gardens as though they were Italian villas. 'Trailers don't have to be trashy,' is the unofficial community motto. If I'm really honest, mom and I are the worst residents in the park if property beauty is the measuring stick. Our place is nearly the very definition of a trashy trailer. We have no garden or even so much as a geranium in a flowerpot. We have gravel instead of a lawn and the concrete steps leading up to our front door have a menacing crack right down the middle.
Don't think that we’re destitute though, my mom works her ass off to make sure that I have whatever I need. But the state of our home has never been a priority for her.
As the commercials played in the background, I rinsed our stovetop espresso maker out in the sink. I lifted the lid on the overflowing compost bucket under the sink to dump the old grounds when the lid snapped off its hinges and the bucket shook. Slimy onion skin and rotting orange peel splatted onto the ground and on top of my bare foot. I sighed and held my breath as I picked up the stinking mess and took the bucket outside to dump it.
It's my job to make note of anything that requires maintenance. My mom spends too much time working to worry about the house. According to her, as long as we are warm in the winter and have electricity and running water, we live like royalty.
My mom Mira MacAuley is the opposite of materialistic. She's so far in the other direction that she can't relate to people who spend their time investing in art for their houses, thousand-count cotton sheets, or a nice vehicle. She doesn't judge people for their choices, she's just bored out of her mind to find herself in conversations revolving around these things and consequently has a tough time making and keeping friends. Not that she cares. Sometimes, I think I'm the only person in the whole world who matters to her at all. She cares about my friends, but only because I care about them. If someone is important to me then they're important to her, too.
I brought back the empty bucket, rinsed it out and put it back under the sink before continuing to make the espresso. I put fresh coffee grounds in the reservoir and twisted the top and bottom together. I lit our sixty year-old gas stove with a match and set the espresso maker over the blue flame.
I looked out the front window and saw that mom was just about finished loading her gear into her work truck. The boxes of diving equipment that she lugged around were just part of the many props she needed to keep the illusion for her job intact. They were also the bane of her life.
Every black box was stamped with the words BLUEJACKET UNDERWATER RECOVERY & SALVAGE. The same was written on the side of her truck that Simon, her boss, had given to her as part of her new contract. The vehicle was a perk that no other employee had and is a testament to her value. The ironic thing is that of all of the Bluejacket employees, my mom needed the truck the least.
I smiled as she threw the last box in the back and the whole truck shook as it landed with a thump. That box must have contained the diving weights. She slammed the hatch and looked up with her crystal blue eyes to see me watching her. She gave me a sheepish grin. I shook my head at her.
The espresso was bubbling and as I went back to the stove to pour it I felt a wave of sadness wash over me. I know how much she hates the facade she has to present to the world, and I also know she does it because she loves me.
Sprinting up the drive and taking the porch steps in a single bound, she came into the house. She closed the door behind her with too much force and I winced as the house shook. My mother is stronger than anyone I know and she shows our property the same disdain she shows her useless diving equipment.
"Really, mom?" I said as I held out her java, “tens of thousands of dollars in company equipment that Simon has entrusted to your care and you treat it like it's a wrecking ball."