Beneath the Waves

by Ali Vali

“Need any help?” Vivien said, loud enough for her to hear.

  “All you need to do is relax and enjoy.” She handed Vivien a plate and flipped on the soft lighting she’d installed so they wouldn’t be in total darkness once the sun finished setting. Vivien glanced at her when she sat across from her before dropping her gaze to her plate, but looked back up when she cut a small piece of her fish and dropped it overboard.

  “Bad bit?” Vivien asked.

  “Old custom of mine. I like to give back a little in thanks for what the waters give up whenever I take something from them.”

  “You’re an interesting person, Kai Merlin,” Vivien said as she tossed a little piece overboard as well. “I think I’m going to like working with you.”

  “Maybe we’ll show each other different ways of seeing the world both under the water and above it.”

  “I’ll drink to that,” Vivien said and tapped her glass against hers again.

  The pure sound of the crystal made Kai’s optimism rise. Maybe she could heal at least some of Vivien’s old hurts. If she could, it’d ease her mind as she moved forward with her life and her future responsibilities.

  *

  The sun streaming through the small portal window next to Kai’s bunk highlighted the few dust particles in the air, and she watched them, finding their irregular patterns relaxing. She didn’t have anything on her schedule until Vivien decided to pull up anchor, so she waited to hear any movement from Vivien’s boat. She’d been awake for a few hours, thinking about what her mothers had said, and was being lazy while she waited.

  “She still doesn’t trust me,” she said aloud softly. She wasn’t used to this much solitude, but she didn’t find it unpleasant. Though Vivien didn’t totally trust her, the night before had been nice enough that she’d let her guard down. “Hopefully it wasn’t for only that brief second.”

  Oba drifted into her thoughts, and she closed her eyes in guilt that she hadn’t been on her mind as much as she would’ve imagined when they parted. Her feelings for Oba had cooled without much effort, and her mother Galen’s words floated as easily through her mind as the visible dust in the space. No one who you truly love can be too far from your thoughts, her mom had said over and over.

  She wasn’t ready to admit it fully, but perhaps her bond with Oba wasn’t as strong as she’d wanted to believe, and only their proximity had fanned the heat between them. And if it had, would it return when she finished with all this and returned home? Whatever the answer, she’d spend time answering it when she returned to start helping with some of the royal duties.

  In the quiet it was easy to hear Vivien step out on her deck, so she got up and went to see if Vivien wanted to spend more time with her. She paused until Vivien got off the phone. Whoever she was talking to wasn’t making Vivien very happy.

  “I need a few days,” Vivien said loudly, but it wasn’t quite a yell—yet. She seemed to be working up to it though. “Don’t threaten me unless you plan to follow through, so if you want, fire me.” A yell out of what sounded to be frustration followed that.

  “Bad morning?” she asked, almost laughing when Vivien clutched her chest and spun around to face her. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to startle you.”

  “Eavesdropping isn’t very nice,” Vivien said, pointing the phone’s antenna at her.

  “True, but it’s hard not to when you have loud conversations out in the middle of nowhere. Are you leaving me for that corner office?”

  Vivien stared at her for a long while before shaking her head. “I was hoping to stay around. I really need a few days off, and if you can stand my company we could spend some more time together.”

  “I’d like that, but you know all my secrets here, so how about a short trip?”

  “Where?” Vivien leaned against the rail, suddenly much more relaxed in her stance.

  “You said you enjoy diving where there’s something to see.” She held up a finger before going back down to her desk. “How about we go look at something?” She waved the map Etta had drawn for her.

  “Is that one of Professor Sinclair’s?”

  “It’s one of mine, and one of the reasons I took this job. The Gulf still has secrets to tell, don’t you think?” She walked along dropping bumpers so Vivien could tie up to the Salacia. “Only I don’t want to listen to engines the entire way there.”

  “I’d love to sail with you if you promise not to throw me off if I aggravate you, but you need to give me a crash course. It’s been a few years since I’ve been on a sailboat.”

  “Great. Pack for four days, and I’ll transfer your tanks over if you’ll come closer.”

  It took an hour to lift anchor, and she was glad Vivien didn’t mind one of Antoine’s boys taking her boat in until they got back. The extra room aboard the Salacia was smaller than hers, but all Vivien’s gear fit nicely and they’d comingled their rations.

  They were headed to a spot off the Louisiana/Mississippi coast, and the wind was strong enough for them to move at a good clip. She’d left Vivien alone with the map and the dossier she’d put together on it. So far Vivien had barely lifted her head, and from her expression she was incredibly happy. At least as happy as Kai had seen her since their first meeting.

  “This has to be a hoax,” Vivien finally said.

  “You want to go back?” She almost laughed at how quickly Vivien shook her head. “Then tell me why you think so, and if you’re persuasive enough, we can go barhopping instead.”

  “It’s far enough out, but too close not to have been spotted before now with all the offshore activity in that stretch.” She pointed to the line marked on the map. “And usually treasure maps don’t come with a big red X where the loot is. I’m surprised Etta gave you this.”

  “Etta confirmed, or tried to, but like I said, the map’s mine. The reason for the big X, one in a long line of them, is I’ve covered a large portion of the ship’s original course.” She tied the wheel off so she could sit with Vivien for a bit. “This trip should finish that course. Then I’ll have to start widening my search zone, taking into consideration tides and storms since it went down.”

  “What exactly are you looking for?” Vivien asked as she leaned back as if to enjoy the breeze. The wind wasn’t up and the sky was pristinely blue, making Vivien’s eyes seem a perfect reflection of it. “Etta’s report was short and fairly non-informative, which isn’t like her at all. Usually I have to condense what she sends me.”

  “Maybe Etta doesn’t exactly believe me, and that nonbelief was magnified when she couldn’t find any record of the Valhalla Sun. The name’s as close as I could extract from the ancient Viking language.” Vivien gazed at her with a slight smile, as if humoring the fantasy she was hearing. “I can tell you don’t believe me either, but I didn’t have a whole hell of a lot to do in the North Sea but read, and an old text I found in London led me to the Valhalla Sun.”

  “Vikings being in North America before Columbus isn’t a new story, but finding them this far south would be something, if you can prove it.” Vivien combed her hair back and put on a ball cap with a fleur de lis on the front to keep it out of her face. “Why here, do you think?”

  “The book was a forgery of an even older account of the journey the ship took from Scandinavian shores, only the Vikings weren’t the only ones aboard.”

  “They took little green men from Mars with them?” Vivien laughed but rested her hand on her arm as if to cushion the blow of her joke. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t tease you, considering that’s what my father thinks of my wild-goose chases, as he loves to call them.”

  “You want to hear the rest?”

  Vivien squeezed the portion of her arm where her hand still rested and nodded. “I’d love to.”

  “The Vikings were familiar with the northern sections of what’s now the United States, but many of their voyages were made with members of the Knights Templar. Proof of their being here comes from the rune stones they left along the way, which have been found over th
e years.”

  “Like the Kensington Runestone discovered in Minnesota? I can’t remember when.”

  She nodded before going to check their heading, wanting to anchor before dark. “Swedish immigrant Olof Olsson Ohman found it in 1898, and scholars have debated its authenticity ever since.”

  “Do you think it’s authentic?”

  “How religious are you?”

  “No one can accuse me of being a good Catholic, so don’t worry about insulting me.” Vivien’s emotions seemed to swing toward a controlled enthusiasm, and Kai wanted to bring her to a place that’d reignite that carefree girl she’d been. To get Vivien there she didn’t mind sharing the search for an answer to a mystery even the libraries in Atlantis didn’t have the answer to. “I thought the Kensington Runestone was proved a hoax.”

  “Depends on who you ask, I guess, but if the Templars were here and left clues to unlocking their secrets, it makes sense the church would try their best to discredit anything found that would in turn discredit them.” She made a slight correction to their course and scanned the horizon. They were alone and she seldom felt fear, but she was always vigilant. Her mothers had repeated that lesson on a regular basis.

  “So you’re a conspiracist when it comes to—?” Vivien’s phone rang. “Sorry,” she said as she removed it from her bag and answered it. “Hey,” Vivien said, then listened for a long while. “Tell him I’ll be happy to put in overtime if my not being there throws us behind, but I won’t be there until probably next week.”

  She checked the radar of the Gulf floor while Vivien finished. They were at the edge of where she wanted to start their search, so she lowered the sheets and glided for a bit before dropping anchor. Vivien turned away from her and wrapped up what sounded to be an uncomfortable conversation, though she ended the call by saying, “I love you.”

  “Do you need to go ashore?” she asked when Vivien dropped the phone back into her bag.

  “No, I do want to finish our talk. What exactly do you think you’ll find?”

  “There are plenty of conspiracies as to what the Templars were hiding, from the truth of Jesus’s relationship with Mary Magdalene to the keepers of the Holy Grail, the cup that brings great power to its owner, if the legends are true.” She sat close to Vivien and put the map between them. “I don’t know what they were hiding. If anything’s down there, it’s a breadcrumb.”

  “Which will lead to another one? That’s really the only reason you’re here?” Vivien asked as she studied the map.

  The old ones were works of art compared to their modern counterparts. She enjoyed the artistry that was a testament to the contact sailors through history had with her ancestors. “One of the reasons. Don’t try to put me in a box so you can dismiss me if I don’t meet your expectations of who I am or what I want. If you do, bringing you here was a mistake.”

  “Who’s jumping to conclusions now?” Vivien asked with a smile. “I haven’t been the most open person since we’ve met, so I guess you’d immediately assume that about me.”

  “I’m sure you have your reasons, but hopefully you’ll see I’m not like most people. The last thing I’m interested in is power within the company. I’m happy where I am because it gives me the freedom to do the things I enjoy.”

  “You’d be the first.”

  “I know you don’t believe me yet, but how about a deal?” She held her hand out, and Vivien stared at it like she was holding a dead fish. After a pause, though, Vivien took it. “Give me a few days before you make up your mind about me, and there won’t be any hard feelings no matter what.”

  “Sounds like you’ve got it all figured out.”

  “Nah.” She squeezed Vivien’s hand before releasing it. “You’re not the challenge here, Boss.” She stood, rolled up the map, and tapped it against her leg. “Whatever’s down there is, and I’d like to share it with you.”

  “If it helps—I believe you.”

  “Then let’s get ready for whatever comes next.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Vivien sat at the Salacia’s bow and stared up at the stars. It was a cloudless sky, and the low light of the quarter moon made the sky an awe-inspiring blanket of twinkling lights. Kai had told her to relax while she fixed dinner and to call Franklin back and smooth things over. Kai had seemingly figured out what made her tick in a very small amount of time.

  Her father was pissed she’d taken off, but she wasn’t eager to go back. What Kai had offered and that she’d come into her life at all were so out of the norm for her, she’d questioned her sanity for coming along, but her skin itched with a feeling of being alive.

  “Is he sending help thinking I’m going to chop you into little pieces and chum the water, or is he okay?” Kai asked when she reappeared with a bottle of wine and a couple of glasses.

  “Frankie’s fine, and he said thanks for taking me away from the cluster the office is right now. Seems my father’s on a work binge, which means he lives to give orders and the world is supposed to fall at his feet to get everything done.” She held both glasses as Kai opened the bottle. “Do you have experience getting away from overbearing parents?” she asked, realizing Kai had given away very little information about her life.

  “My parents expect a lot, but we get along fairly well.” Kai placed her glass on the deck and lay down close to her. She appeared at ease, and Vivien vowed to work on reaching the same state. “You can put that Palmer rock of responsibility down out here. This is supposed to be fun,” Kai said as if she’d read her mind with the accuracy of having a cartoon-text balloon over her head.

  “Do you always say the first thing that pops into your head?” The other strange phenomenon she was experiencing around Kai was her sudden attraction to Kai’s physical attributes. Up to this point in her life she’d experienced only the opposite extreme in that she could tell when someone like Steve was near her. That innate sense was her one trigger to avoid uncomfortable contact.

  “Sorry. I’ll keep my mouth shut and enjoy the night.”

  “You don’t have to, since you’re exactly what I’m not used to. It’ll be good for me to put my normal aside for a little while, since I complain about it enough.” She tried the wine and hummed because it was so good. “Need any help with anything?”

  “Give me fifteen minutes and you can help me bring up the stuff I’ve got in the oven.”

  “So how do you want to do this?” she asked, and smiled when Kai moved closer.

  “I’m open to suggestions,” Kai said, and she believed her. “But I thought we could start tonight after dinner.”

  “After dinner?”

  Kai laughed, she assumed at her tone. “Still prescribe to the hour after a meal before swimming, huh?” Kai said and laughed. “Let’s stay dry and try to do some mapping before we get in the water.”

  “Do you want me to guess?”

  Kai pointed to the very front of the bow, where she saw something under a red-and-white tarp. “It’s got enough lights to navigate at night, and the cameras will do a good job of spotting abnormalities on the bottom.”

  “You’re like a scout—always prepared. I’m glad you asked me, so if I haven’t said it before, thanks.” Partnering with someone like Kai might advance her own search for answers, if she was willing to have a little imagination when it came to investigating these kinds of hard-to-believe stories.

  “You’re welcome to come with me whenever you like and you’re free.” Kai stood and went down to retrieve dinner. When she joined her in the small galley, her mouth watered as Kai put what looked like lobster mac and cheese on the counter.

  “Keep feeding me like this, and I’ll take you up on that offer whenever you make it.” She leaned forward when Kai held up a forkful of the dish and closed her eyes as she took a bite of the almost decadent meal. “You really are something else.”

  “I’ll settle for something different,” Kai said, smiling.

  “Mission accomplished then.” She helped take everything
up to the deck and sat to watch Kai drop what seemed to be a very light mini-sub into the water.

  Once it was below it wasn’t hard to see where it was since it was like a glow worm under them. Kai set a laptop between them and set the rover into motion. Unlike the ones on their rigs, Kai’s moved on its own in a grid-like pattern that the cameras attached recorded. So far all it showed in the forty feet or so of water was the flat, sometimes grassy bottom typical of the Gulf’s bottom.

  “You really think anything will be here after all this time?” she asked, wishing like a little kid that something would pop onto the screen. “We’re at the cusp of the dead zone, and it’s hard to guess what the melt from up north has done to the currents over that many years.”

  “There’s no way to know for sure, but I tried to factor that unknown in and put it all into the track I came up with.” Kai’s attention was on the monitor, but she seemed aware of everything else near her since she’d flick her eyes around every so often like a good sentry. “My worst nightmare is that someone has already found what I’m looking for and it’s part of a fence or filling a pothole in their yard.”

  “Hopefully you’ll have better luck than I’ve had over the years.”

  “I’m sure you’ve found your share of stuff.”

  She gazed at Kai’s profile and wished she could read her as well as Kai seemed to be able to do with her. “How would you know?”

  “You strike me as not only someone who plans but follows through,” Kai said as she glanced away from the monitor and looked at her.

  The scrutiny hit her in the gut, and the warmth in Kai’s smile made her drop her fork and put her plate down. It was crazy—she wanted Kai to reach for her, to make some connection no matter what it was. She never craved being touched by anyone, and when did she start using words like crave? “You must get people to go along with you a lot,” she said and snapped her mouth closed, not wanting to sound combative.

  “Not really. You seem pretty immune to my charm.” Kai laughed. “How about you watch this for me and I’ll clean up? Could I interest you in dessert or a night swim?”