"Hey…. Marcus? Hey!"

He heard someone calling his name, but he didn't recognize the voice. He didn't even know where he was. He felt sand beneath his head rubbing against the flesh of his neck so he assumed he was on a beach somewhere. What was more disconcerting however was that Marcs did not remember ever going to a beach. In fact he remembered very little of anything. He remembered his name obviously and he remembered heading to the island off the coast for some exploring but everything after that became a blur.

The girl from before was speaking again. "Marcus! Wake up!" He felt something cold splash against his face and he shot into an upright position thoroughly surprising the blonde haired girl who had been leaning over him.

He shook his head vigorously and blinked. He quickly swept his eyes around the area and found to his surprise that he and the blonde girl were the only ones there. "Uh… Do I know you?" He asked politely. He got to his feet and patted his feet for any signs of injuries. To his relief he found none.

"Do you… remember anything?" She asked delicately. "Do you remember me?"

"Considering I just asked who you were…. No." Marcus offered her a hand and she took it. His heart sped up slightly at her touch but he dismissed the feeling. "Sorry. Not great with names."

"I guess Rita was right." Ondina sighed. "You really did get rid of your memories."

Okay. Crazy. I can work with crazy. Marcus thought to himself. "Yeah. Memories. So crazy question, how did you get here? Where's your boat? Moreover what am I doing here?"

She blew out a disappointed sigh and shrugged. "You swam." She said simply. "I found you on top of the cliffs. It looked like you climbed up there."

Marcus glanced over at the cliffs towering over the island, illuminated by the moonlight. "They don't look that hard to climb. That part I believe. But I remember taking a boat over here… I borrowed it from a guy named Arthur."

"No." She shook her head. "You swam. You borrowed the boat the first time that you came here and a few times after that. But then you started to swim here."

"Look, I don't know what's going on here." Marcus said. "But that's a several mile swim. I'm a good swimmer, but I'm not that good."

"Maybe not now." She said. She stepped forward and very gently cupper his cheek with her hand. Her green eyes were absolutely captivating and Marcus found himself entrapped in their emerald depths. They were familiar. He was certain that he did not know her, but those eyes knew him. Of that he was certain. "But you were. You could make that swim easily."

"You know me." His words were quiet, yet filled with the confidence of the statement. "But I don't know you. Why?"

It was such a simple question to Marcus and yet he could tell from her eyes that it was nowhere near as simple to her. "Because you wanted to forget." She told him. "No, that's not right. Because you needed to forget. For your sake and for ours you had to let go. You sacrificed a part of who you are to protect something you weren't even supposed to have to protect."

The truth rang in her words, strong and steadfast. Marcus had no choice but to accept her words as such and yet they still made little sense to him. "Who are you?" He asked.

"My name is Ondina." She told him. Her hand dropped from his face and she took his hand in hers. "I… we…"

"Were we… together?" Marcus asked hesitantly.

"I don't know." She said honestly. "Evie says that we were, but we never really acted like the others do."

"The others?" Marcus inquired. He brushed his thumb along the top of her hand as they continued their contact.

"Our friends." Ondina explained. "Zach and Evie. Serena and David. Mimi and Chris. Cam and Carly. I don't suppose that you remember them either?"

"I'm sorry." Marcus said disappointedly. "The last thing I remember was heading towards this island. The next thing I know you are there waking me up and telling me all of this. Why can't I remember any of this?"

"Rita says that memories of magic are just as powerful as magic itself." Ondina said quietly. "By getting rid of your memories, and the magic attached to them, you were able to throw off the effects of the merman chamber."

"Merman chamber? Magic?" Marcus felt like his head was spinning. Magic didn't exist, everyone knew that. Yet if that was so then why was he still standing here with this girl, accepting every word she said as absolute truth? "I don't…"

"When you cast off your memories they had no place to go. They attached themselves to the others and I." Ondina looked back towards the cliffs, though her eyes were somewhere else. "The magic that had been storing itself inside you was expelled back into the island. When we managed to get you down you had lost consciousness. We didn't know what would happen to you after being exposed to such a strong concentration of magic like that. You weren't… Magic was not natural to you as it is me. Rita thinks that too much of it could have been burning you out. You instinctively knew that the magic was killing you so you did everything you could to get rid of it."

"I had magic?" Now his head was really spinning. Now that he was totally lucid he felt the gaps in his memory, almost like a hole in his mind. He knew something should go there and yet for the life of him he could not remember. It was like someone had taken a knife and cut out the memories with surgeon like precision. "If you are my friend why didn't you help me?"

"The memories I have right now are not my own." Ondina said delicately. "As I said before, the memories needed someplace to go. Raw magic is… dangerous. They attached themselves to us. Your memories. Every thought, emotion, and experience that you have had since you first arrived here are now with all of us."

"Assuming that all of this is true, how many people were my memories broken into? I had only one set of memories." Marcus was not arguing, not in the slightest. In fact he still could not take his eyes off of Ondina and she was similarly bound to him.

"The memories attached themselves to the ones who had the most significance in them. The memories of you and Zach's walks to school went to him. The memories of Rita speaking with you in private went to her. Your memories of our time spent together… they came to me. While we were waiting for you to wake up we pieced together your memories so all of us had a somewhat clear picture."

"My head is a scary place." Marcus murmured to her. His free hand came up and tucked her blonde hair behind her ear. "I hope my memories weren't all that bad."

"They were…." Ondina searched for words to describe what she had felt when she discovered the depth to which Marcus actually cared for her. "They were telling."

Marcus winced. "Not really something you want to hear from someone who has seen into your thoughts."

"In a good way." Ondina hurriedly added. "I was never really sure that you were happy when you were around me."

"Well, I can't say if I did or didn't before." Marcus shrugged. "But I like being around you right now. Is that worth something?"

"If I know you, and I do, that's worth a lot." Ondina tugged at his hand and led him down the beach. "Come on. Let's head back to Rita's house. The others will want to know you are alright."

"Still don't have a boat." Marcus reminded her. He frowned slightly when she released his hand and backed into the water.

Ondina smiled at him and gestured for him to wait on the sand. Marcus stopped just short of the water and stood there, puzzled, as Ondina fell backwards under the water's surface. She resurfaced a few feet away and waved to Marcus. "Were you serious about swimming back?" Marcus called, cupping his hands over his mouth for added volume.

"Of course!" Ondina laughed. She flipped beneath the surface and Marcus's eyes widened in shock when a bronze fish's tail slapped against the surface of the water. She resurfaced and beckoned for him with one finger.

"A mermaid." Marcus said as he waded into the water. "She's a mermaid. With magic. Apparently I'm dating a mermaid. Huh. Go figure."

Hello my readers,

I apologize for the second leave of absence. I have written and rewritten this particular chapter several times because I wanted to set up future chapters. That combined with another project I have been working on I have been rather swamped. My most sincere apologies. You can expect regular updates from here on. As always, thank you so much for your reviews and thoughts. You are the best. -Hallowed