He remembered the first time he had heard the tale--the Haunting Story of a beautiful woman swallowed by the sea who beckons men with phantom lips to a watery doom--and though he had been but a boy, he had pulsed with heartache. How unfair, he had thought, for such a creature to be lost under the sway of Poseidon. His imagination painted many vast imageries over the years of what she would be like--swirls of cerulean blue, sea foam green with obsidian eyes--and he yearned with curiosity to capture a glimpse of her. It was no surprise then that, as soon as he was able, he had traded dry land for long nights on rocking wood and sea legs that jellied at ocean born squalls. Wet ropes tore and calloused his young hands, rum became a permanent taste upon his tongue and salt water dripped from his pores. Each night, as the stars glittered above and the lapping waves rocked against the side of weathered wood, he would hang a lantern over the railing of ...