Tides of Tranquility

by Nadia Scrieva

  Varia sighed as she retrieved her phone and moved over to sit on her bed. She texted Glais about the fact that her mother was possibly killing Rolf, and could not resist a giggle when Glais replied with the words, “So that’s the huge noise upstairs! ROFLMAO! Or in this case… Rolfmao?” She was still chuckling softly when her mother reentered the room.

  Slightly flustered, Aazuria seated herself on the sofa in the room. She pulled her legs up under her and leaned against the arm. “What team are you?” she asked her daughter softly. “With the hashtags and all that.”

  “I don’t know,” Varia said with a shrug. “I don’t care. I’m team all-of-us-together.”

  “Good. Me too.” Aazuria closed her eyes as she rested on the sofa.

  “You had a nightmare, Mom?”

  Aazuria opened one eye. “How did you—oh. He posted about that too?”

  “Yeah. Is that why you’re here in my room?” Varia asked. “Come lie down in bed.”

  “It’s okay, sweetie. The sofa is fine for me.”

  Varia stared at the woman as a memory came back to her. She remembered being in the tiny metal cabin in Antarctica, when her mother would have her sleep in the corner of their small cot. Aazuria would place her body protectively between Varia and any potential danger. Now, she was doing the same thing—she was remaining close to the door in case anyone entered.

  “Mother,” Varia said softly. “You’re worrying me. What’s wrong?”

  “I thought I saw a man in my room earlier,” Aazuria said in a tired voice. “I was probably just dreaming, but it was so real. He said such cruel things to me.”

  “He spoke to you?” Varia asked.

  “Yes,” Aazuria said, shifting her body on the couch. “It was my father.”

  Varia squinted, making a sudden connection. “That’s funny. Aunt Elan said the same thing to me—she said she’d been hearing his voice in her head lately and it really bothered her.”

  “Is that so?” Aazuria mused. “I guess he’s just the type of man who gives you nightmares. The type who haunts your mind decades after he’s dead.”

  The thought of her grandfather being so evil made Varia shudder, and she crawled under the heavy duvet to keep warm. The giant bed engulfed her, leaving plenty of room to either side, but she knew she could not convince her mother to join her. For a moment, she wondered about her ancestors. If King Kyrosed was her grandfather on her mother’s side, and Vachlan was her great-grandfather on her father’s side, then what kind of person would she turn out to be? Would she end up doing really bad things as well? With guilt, she thought of the tattoo on her back. She still had not told her mother about its existence, and she felt really ashamed for keeping a secret.

  “Mom?”

  “Yes, sweetie?”

  “Please don’t fire Rolf. He’s really nice. He only posts those messages because he cares a lot. He doesn’t know how else to show it, but he’s super loyal and patriotic. He’s just too shy to talk directly to you, so he writes about you on the internet.”

  “Are you serious, Varia?”

  “Yes. I know you need to be strict and everything, but I wish you wouldn’t kick him out of the castle. He really adores you and loves working here.”

  “Fine,” Aazuria said with a yawn. “Maybe text your dad and tell him to take poor Rolf to the hospital. I left him lying unconscious in the hallway.”

  Chapter 7: Evacuation at Midnight

  Vachlan swam through the submerged streets of Bimini, ignoring his exhaustion. After his meeting with the CIA, he had chartered a private flight directly back to the Bahamas. Now, as he made his way to the house on the outskirts of town where Visola stayed with the kids, he could not keep away the sick feeling in his gut. He wondered what complications the future would bring. Approaching the windowless little dome-shaped structure, Vachlan punched in a code on the keypad to gain entry. He looked around cautiously before entering the house, and slipped inside rapidly, shutting the door behind him.

  With a frown, he took in the common room where toys were chaotically strewn everywhere. He knew that the kids would be sad that they had to leave many of their favorite things behind, but there was no time to properly pack. Moving over to the twins’ bedroom, he peered in to check on them. The room was pitch black, but his eyes were sharp as a nocturnal predator, and he could make out their sleeping figures in the dark. He was a bit disappointed that they were asleep, for he would never grow tired of their screams of excitement and ferocious little tackles as they welcomed him home. Carefully closing the door, he headed to his wife’s bedroom. Visola had fallen asleep with a globular lamp on the bed beside her, and a waterproof laptop. Curious to see what she had been doing, he swam into the room and reached over her, placing his finger on the touchpad to wake up the hibernating laptop. A smile came to his face when he saw that Visola had a document open, and it was one of his; a screenplay he had completed a few months ago. She had been reading his story.

  Every time he truly believed that his love for her had reached a maximum, and that he could not feel any more strongly toward her without having a hernia, she somehow managed to inflate his emotions without causing anything to rupture inside of him. She was surely a witch, as her ridiculously red hair proudly announced. Only a sorceress could possess such total control of all of his organs, and all of their functions, more so than even his own brain. Only an experienced enchantress could hold him in the grip of her spell for so many centuries, causing such irreparable damage to his person and repeatedly destroying his insides, only to let him live for more sweet torture.

  He fondly smiled down at her. Being a writer, his eyes returned to the laptop where he could not help taking note of the point at which she had fallen asleep, just to make sure there was not too much of a lull in the story. It was about one third of the way into the screenplay, after a small skirmish between the main characters. He nodded in satisfaction—at least she had not fallen asleep in the middle of the fight! Vachlan was startled when he felt a sharp serrated edge pressed under his throat. He looked down to see a giant knife lit by the screen of Visola’s laptop. She did not even have her eyes open, but she had turned to attack him out of rote reflex.

  He quickly reached down to squeeze her other hand, allowing her to feel his identity through the firm, familiar pressure. Her eyes remained closed, but he could see the relaxation in her facial muscles. Her lips moved in speech and he read the words as they filtered into the water.

  “Oh, it’s just you. Okay.” She turned over and went back to sleep, hugging her knife against her chest.

  “Viso,” he said, putting his lips very close to her ear so she could hear him through the water. “Viso, you need to wake up. We have to leave Bimini.”

  She batted away the bubbles dancing around her ear, for they created an annoying ticklish sensation. Turning to look at him in the soft lamplight, she pried her eyes open with a reluctant frown. “Under attack?”

  “No, darling. But it seems that…” Vachlan was interrupted by his wife tossing her giant knife aside and reaching up to intertwine her arms around his neck. She hauled him against her, wedging and locking a leg between his. She nuzzled his cheek happily as their bodies began to float a few inches off the bed, into the water-filled room. Apparently, she considered him a more comfortable bedmate than her machete, and knowing how fond she was of the primeval weapon, he found this rather flattering.

  “Sleep with me,” Visola mumbled into the water. “You’re always so busy.”

  He became temporarily distracted from his purpose, although he was sure that it was an important purpose. Ignoring the flashing red lights in his mind, he allowed his hands to circle around her body, combing his fingers through the short red hair that was glowing in the white laptop-light as it calmly floated all around Visola’s head. Lowering his face to her neck, he pressed a kiss against a sensitive spot—if anything on Visola could ever be considered sensitive. He breathed in the scent of her skin, which even the water, as much a
s it tried, could not dilute to render less intoxicating.

  She stirred, torn halfway between dreaming and responding to his touch. “You’ve been gone too long,” she complained.

  “It was less than a day,” he told her softly, unsure of whether she would be able to hear his voice in the water. He was unsure of whether he wanted her to hear, and be awoken from what seemed like a peaceful half-slumber. Warmth began to spread through his chest, and he admitted to himself that it felt nice to be missed. He found it endearing that she still overreacted to his every miniscule absence with childlike clinginess that rivaled the enthusiasm of the twins.

  “Hundreds of years,” she said, and Vachlan realized that she was fumbling to undo the button of his pants. “Make up for lost time.”

  It seemed that he found her a bit too endearing, for Vachlan’s body had been conveying a message to Visola that she understood quite well, even half asleep. He pulled away from her and cleared his throat. “Not now, Viso. We have to evacuate…”

  His protests seemed to wake her up completely, for she loved a good challenge. Grinning, she pushed her laptop and her globular lamp off the bed, and both floated to the ground. Grabbing the front of his shirt, she forced him down onto the mattress where his screenplay had been a moment before. She pressed her mouth against his as she climbed on top of him, laughing at his objections. “You want to evacuate me? I’ve never heard that one before. Evac. Vach. Mmm, yes. Evachlanate me.”

  He coughed on the water he was breathing as a clump of it seemed to get stuck in his throat. Visola give the impression of being fully awake, but it sounded like she was talking in her sleep. He wondered briefly if he was misreading her lips, but he knew her lips too well to mistake their intentions. She did not seem to be in a mood for reasoning, so he tried to wrestle her into submission. Of course, she was prepared for him. Laughing, she twisted his arms behind his back and locked his limbs into immobility. She smirked as she slid down the length of his body, dragging her chin along his torso.

  “Hey, Vach. Vacuum cleaner. Let me play with your hose.”

  “Viso!” he knew that if her chin went an inch lower that he would be unable to stop her. “Stop that right—” His body lurched as her lips connected with his most sensitive area. Vachlan bounded backwards and shoved his foot into Visola’s shoulder, kicking her clean off the bed.

  She went tumbling away, doing a somersault in the water. Grabbing the bedpost to steady herself, she looked at him in surprise. “Is something really wrong?”

  “Raincheck!” he blurted out zealously. “Raincheck, please!”

  “Sure,” she said with a confused shrug. She watched as he refastened the button on his pants. “I thought you said we weren’t under attack, tiger paws?”

  “Not exactly an attack,” he said in sign language, since he needed his mouth for deep calming breaths, “but we are in danger. It’s best that we get the hell out of this place and take the kids to Adlivun. I have a plane waiting for us on the surface. The CIA has been spying on you.”

  Visola began to chuckle gleefully. She wrapped her arms around the bedpost to hold herself up as her body rocked with laughter.

  “I’m not kidding, Viso. I think they might want to capture you to use as leverage against me. It’s what I would do if I were in their position.”

  Her laughter subsided and she released the bedpost to swim back toward him.

  “Have I been a bad girl?” she asked him with a little pout as she rested her elbows on his chest.

  “No,” he said. “It’s about me. They traced the epidemics in Asia back to what I did in Damahaar—or at least, they’re threatening to get me in trouble for that if I don’t help them with their current agenda.”

  “That actually explains a lot,” Visola signed thoughtfully. She nodded as she pushed herself away from him and retrieved her suitcase from beneath the bed. Opening a few drawers, she hastily shoveled guns and knives into the travel bag. Grabbing one of her long dresses, she wrapped her laptop up before sticking it into the same valise. She had already begun zipping it closed when she realized that she was only in her nightgown. Slipping out of the pretty garment, she stuck it into the same luggage before moving over to her dresser to retrieve and pull on a pair of armored pants. She noticed that Vachlan was lying on his side and staring at her body, so she turned to give him a better view, proudly exposing the scars from her caesarean section, and from trying to kill herself in front of him many years ago. “I know they’ve been spying on me,” she informed him dryly.

  “You do?”

  “Of course.” She retrieved a metal bra which she quickly tossed on and clasped behind her back before pulling on an armored vest. “I didn’t know it was the CIA until last month. That’s when they started to annoy me, and I decided to annoy them. They usually wait ’til you’re busy in another part of town, or at home writing, and then they position themselves around me. I find it really insulting—it’s like they think you’re an expert warrior and I’m a useless woman.”

  “Viso…”

  “I’m glad to know they finally confronted you about it. It’s been going on for about six months and I’ve been constantly on edge. I’ve been getting really antsy about this,” she admitted as she stooped down to tug on a pair of armored boots.

  “Please tell me you didn’t alert them to the fact that you knew they were—”

  “No,” she said ruefully, staring down at her metallic toes.

  “Viso!”

  “Vachlan. I only killed three of their spies this week.”

  “You killed—you killed them!” Vachlan rubbed his forehead in frustration. “Thanks a lot, darling. You really fanned the fire.”

  “I have children!” she shouted, gesturing to the next room. “Fuck anyone who gets near me with a weapon. I don’t care who the fuck they are! Fuck the CIA. Fuck MI6. Fuck the fucking Taliban!”

  Staring at her for an unblinking moment, Vachlan finally nodded. He scratched his ear in puzzlement. “You could have told me that we were being targeted, love.”

  With a carefree smile, Visola picked up her suitcase and signed with one hand. “No way! And ruin the surprise? Besides, you were so busy rebuilding the city of Bimini, and you were so focused on your writing in the evenings. I know how much you need to concentrate on your stories, and I didn’t want to distract you.”

  “Best wife ever,” Vachlan said fondly, getting out his own suitcase. “Go gather the kids, and I’ll be over in a minute.” Frowning as she left, Vachlan collected a few of his own personal effects. Checking to make sure Visola had exited the room, he moved into the corner and reached behind the mirror to collect a small USB key that had been hidden there. He shoved it into his pocket before grabbing his suitcase and moving after his wife. He was not surprised to see her trying to comfort Ronan as the little boy wailed.

  “I don’t want to go, Mama!” the little boy complained as he rubbed his little fists into his eyes. “I like it here. It’s warm!”

  “We have to go, munchkin. Remember the bad guys mommy put to sleep at breakfast? Daddy says more are coming.”

  “Why?” Ronan asked morosely. “Did they wake up and tell their friends you were mean to them?”

  “Something like that,” Visola admitted.

  “I told you not to be so mean,” Ronan said, adding emphasis by sullenly sucking on his thumb.

  Vachlan immediately felt a rush of pity and regret. It was one thing to learn that the children had been regularly witnessing their mother “disabling” spies, but another to cause them needless stress by moving them around. He felt it was very important to have a certain kind of stability in childhood. He hated to have to yank them out of their beds in the middle of the night and drag them to Adlivun with such urgency. Ivory noticed him standing in the doorway and a giant smile overtook her face. She swam directly at him, nose-diving into his abdomen.

  “Daddy, daddy!” she said in excitement as she tugged at his clothing eagerly. “Did you get me a present?
You said you were going to get me a present!”

  “Hey, sprite!” He grinned as he picked Ivory up and spun her around in the water rapidly, until she was giggling and waving her arms dizzily. For the grand finale, Vachlan reached out to horribly mess up her pale red hair. “I have presents waiting for you in Adlivun, and you’re going to love them.”

  “Oh my god! Did you get the thingy I wanted? The big thingy?” Ivory asked in sign language, making extravagant gestures with her arms to indicate size.

  “Even better,” Vachlan said as he positioned her in the crook of his arm, “but we have to grab a few of your toys and special belongings and take them to Adlivun now so that we can meet your new friend.”

  “I don’t need to bring anything,” Ivory said as she bounced in excitement. “Let’s go, let’s go! What’s his name? Does he have a cool name? Does he have a brother or sister for Ro-Ro?”

  “Of course, kiddo,” Vachlan said as he moved around the room, grabbing some of Ivory’s odds and ends. She was a very low maintenance child when it came to toys, clothes, and jewelry, but she did have a fascination for books and animals. He frowned when he came upon a bowl of exotic tropical fish hidden under a pile of clothes. There was even a seahorse in the bowl. “Uh, Ivo, I don’t think we can bring these with us. It will be too cold for them…”

  “No, please! Please daddy, I carefully picked them each one by one. They’re called the Spice Fish! Cinnamon Spice, Mustard Spice, Chili Pepper Spice, Mint Spice, the seahorse is Horseradish Spice, and… the ugly fish is Salt.”

  “Salt?” Vachlan asked in confusion. “That doesn’t seem as… interesting as the other names.”

  “Duh. Ronan named that fish,” she said with a roll of her eyes. “It’s the stupid one.”

  Vachlan smiled at this, and tried to balance the fishbowl in his left arm, which was also holding his suitcase and a few bags, while carrying Ivory with his right. “Well, when we get home to Adlivun, you can meet your new pet dolphin and give him a clever name, because you’re really good at that. Maybe Ronan will let you name his dolphin as well.”