Free The Secret of the Emerald Sea by Heather Matthews

Things had been going so well, and then this! He stood in the wings as the other performers took their places for a nativity scene. Blake watched the crowd to try and figure out who had done this to him, and he wondered why.
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    Cupid sat in Jane’s arms, waiting for her to mention the obvious. But nothing came. Had no one truly noticed what had happened? Was he invisible, or his arrows invisible? Jane had a quiet smile on her face, as though she was asleep and dreaming, but with open eyes. It was obvious she was thinking about the young man who had just exited the stage, not the current proceedings.
    She kissed the Cupid on his cheek distractedly. He noticed her cheeks were even more flushed, and how alive she seemed tonight. He felt back for his arrows. Was there only one left? The other arrow must be gone forever, and the Cupid felt strange, as though some weight had been lifted. Everything had been invisible to the others! But Jane should have noticed, and she did not. The daughter of Neptune was as blind as the rest to the pathway of Cupid’s arrow.

Chapter Fifteen
     
    Jane could not sleep well that night. Her mind raced with images of the beautiful young man, and she kept waking up to see the little Cupid sleeping peacefully beside her, curled up in a ball like a newborn kitten.
    She got up and paced about the room, her heart beating fast. Her memories of her childhood with her mother were few because she had been so young, but the poetry had released them in a torrent, and she felt both despondent for what she had lost and grateful that she could now remember more, and so clearly.
    She walked back to the soft bed and watched the Cupid in slumber. It was when he slept that she always thought of the night on the raft. She felt her whole life was embroidered with magic now, and that nothing was real.
    Like a tapestry in rich colors, she saw the scenes of her life depicted in her mind’s eye: scenes of sea creatures and razor sharp arrows, flight through autumn skies in the arms of a winged creature, the village covered in light snowfall, her grandmother, the tiny crown that once sat high on a shelf, and next was found upon the figurehead of her mother, far under the sea.
    It was all quite miraculous, but too much for such a young girl. Her head ached with the desire to go home and live a simple life, but would that really satisfy her now? She knew it could not the way it once had, and she mourned for the girl who was now someone else. On this long and sleepless night, she even missed the island, where she did not need to play any part, but could simply be the strange girl that she really was, alone with the Cupid and the sand and the rocky cliffs.
    She tried to go back to sleep, but she tossed fitfully like a ship caught in the wrath of King Neptune’s darkest moods. She wondered, How will it all end? And who will I be ? And she dreamed of the honey breath of soft summer while the skies outside were icy and unforgiving, painting the windows with ghostly frost.

Chapter Sixteen
     
    Meanwhile, the Goddess Minerva was hard at work to discover the whereabouts of Neptune’s princess. She cloaked herself in rags and went to see the oracles that lurked in their dark caves and stirred great cauldrons that steamed with ill-smelling broths. She found these crones little help, for they told her strange tales and bid her beware of the Little One, which made no sense, as they assured her it was not a little girl, but a boy she should fear.
    “The boy is not what he seems,” one ancient old woman whispered as she cackled harshly to herself. “He will bring the girl to ruin.”
    “But where is the girl?” Minerva would plead. “Where is the girl, and who is this Little One?” She had stared into the rheumy eyes of the old witches who had long been consulted by the gods when their lauded powers failed them. She had never thought she would press gold coins into the gnarled hands of those she had always so