May took a deep breath, her last from the old world, and dove.

The colorful underwater tapestry was even more brilliant than she had imagined. The seaweed which, at low tide, lay on the rocks in ugly, tangled clumps, streamed like banners of amber lightning through the deep water.

Her bursts of speed amazed her. She gave a powerful kick and found herself racing to the surface, breaking through it in a high, arcing leap. The moon and the stars that had quivered in the sea now seemed rock solid and anchored to the sky. There was a slight tingling that seemed to radiate just beneath her skin and she realized that her legs had become a tail—glistening and beautiful.

Snow had started to fall, big fluffy flakes descending quietly from the dark bowl of the starry night. May was surprised to find that she did not feel the cold. The irksome variations in temperature that, on land, would make her run for a shawl, or don a chaffing high collared dress in the heat of summer, no longer affected her. For all those years, she had been but a clumsy visitor on land. This was her real home.

She swam until the last star faded into the dawn. The sea was still and, as May watched the sunrise, her exhilaration began to be replaced by a sense of loss. She had left the world Hugh Fitzsimmons knew and entered one he could never imagine. She swam slowly back toward land.

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Excerpted from May by Kathryn Lasky
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