#beach tale

Arthur Harrow’s hair had turned grey almost completely and the lines on his face had multiplied. But at least he could walk again. And with the medication, Ammit’s voice and anger were kept at bay enough for him to have left the asylum and live a somewhat peaceful life at home. With you. And with your little family.

“Really?” You heard Arthur say with feigned surprise. He could act, you had to give him that. The way his eyebrows lifted and his grey eyes lit up in surprise. He’d almost fool you. He certainly fooled your toddler, for she ran up to him on chubby legs to show the shell she had just found on the beach.

“ ‘Ere,” she said, showing him the long and twisted seashell that was almost too big to be held in her tiny hands. Her eyes glittered with joy. “It is perfect!”

“It is,” her father concurred, his voice a soft hum. Then he knelt down on one knee to be at eye level with her. He had to use his cane for support, and rested one elbow on his raised knee to keep his balance. His hair fell in front of his eyes, a few hairs stuck to the side of his lips as he spoke to her. “It seems you have found the most perfect of all seashells,” he pretended to study the cone in her hand, then smiled up at her. “Well done.”

She was beaming with pride and closed her tiny hand around the seashell before she came dashing towards you. “Mommy, mommy, look!”

“My, such a pretty seashell!” you exclaimed, happy to play along and see your daughter beam even more. “It’s almost as if I’ve seen that one before,” you added sarcastically, knowing your daughter didn’t hear. She had already turned around to look for more seashells and was walking ahead of you, head bent and hair dangling in front of her face. A mirror image of her father.

Said father was pushing himself up with a groan, but managed to stand straight despite his injuries. His feet worried you the most. You knew they’d never healed properly. He used his cane, which was hard to use on the sandy beach. It kept slipping away between the grains of sand, but he insisted to take it along. You hadn’t seen him carry it around while he was still at the asylum, but once he got out, he brought it along wherever he went.

His brown shoes creaked as he walked. You were glad he wasn’t wearing his sandals and the risk of sand getting in was small. He came to stand next to your side and flashed you a crooked smile.

“Well, now,” he started as he leaned his head closer to yours. “And what is my dear wife implying?” he teased, voice sultry and smooth like honey.

You couldn’t help but blush as you looked up at him, noticing how close he stood to you. “Nothing!” you chirped. You definitely were implying something. This wasn't the first time your daughter had found the perfect shells after all. You knew how Arthur had collected them, bought them just so he could plant them during your walks.

Arthur grinned while he brought his hand into the pocket of his plain wine-red pants. Then he pulled out another seashell, similar to the one your daughter had just found. You were watching her with hawks’ eyes and hadn’t noticed Arthur’s gesture until he gently pressed his elbow against yours. Then you looked at him again and noticed the seashell in his hands.

You smiled up at him, knowingly and conspiringly, while he smiled back at you.

“You know me,” Arthur murmured while he gently put the shell back inside his pocket. “I only want the best of the best for my sweethearts.”

You gently grasped his wrists, halting him in his movements, then stood on your tiptoes to place a kiss on the tip of his nose. With a smile, you retreated. “I love you,” you knew you didn’t even need to say it. He knew. His eyes shimmered with something dark, something between love and lust.

It felt good to say it.

“I love you too,” his words, a daily ritual. But hearing these words always felt like they were new. Even after all these years spent together. You'd never get enough of saying them and of hearing them being said to you.

The two of you started walking along the beach, following your daughter’s footprints while you listened to her happy cries of joy and the soft sounds of the sea.

~*~Fin~*~

That is, until Ozy and his friends, after so many years, finally returned. They came with more friends this time, who hailed from even farther lands and had never seen this rough layout of ancient lagoons and coral rock.

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One after the other, Khleo and Theo jumped off the edge of the tallest rock. The sounds Theo made seesawed between bursts of boisterous laughter and raucous whoops as she cannonballed into the warm basin of liquid turquoise. 

Kipling, Vehanoush and Taro were keeping to themselves off by the entrance to the sea caves. Kip had them working on a project that she, when probed by Khleo, said was a secret and that no peeking whatsoever was allowed until they were finished.

Ozy and Bakri were hanging out in the shallows, right between the leaping rock and the entrance to the sea caves. Thanks to the ruins and the rocks, there was enough disrupted sunlight to create a warm, dappled umbrella of shade. 

Ozy was supposed to be helping Bakri ease into some deeper water to practice swimming, but the latter was more preoccupied by the faded glyphs on the broken limestone. The harder Bakri looked, the more he noticed a circular pattern forming. 

Before he could comment on it, Ozy pointed to a ring of glyphs and said, “Grey mages have always traveled the Doors in teams of three. The Elders sometimes referred to it as the cadre.”

Bakri studied the depictions a bit. Then he asked, “Why three?”

The beads in Ozy’s locs whispered as he bent closer towards the rock and dragged his finger from one glyph to the next. “Three roles. Three specific functions. First you have the locksmith. Then the architect. And finally, the support flex.” He straightened up. “They can be powerful forces to be reckoned with on their own, but together…”

There was someone calling Ozy’s name from off to the right. The grey mage’s entire demeanor changed as he waved to where Kipling was sitting with Vehanoush.

Ozy and Bakri waded over near the entrance of the sea caves. Normally, Bakri would have hesitated at the sensation of the water level rising up his back, but he was preoccupied by the glyphs shimmering in and out of focus along the walls. And by the sheer wonder in this blend of tropical waters and forgotten history.

Once they reached Kip and Vehanoush, it was hard to listen to what they had to say over the exclamatory echoes of Khleo and Theo hurling themselves off the rocks in the distance.

“We can go somewhere quieter,” Kip said as she spread out the project she and Vehanoush had been working on: friendship bracelets made from cowrie shells and dark twine. It didn’t surprise Bakri that Vehanoush had seemed to master the technique even though this was their first go at it.

“There’s a lagoon not far from here called the Enchanted Pool. The water is so clear that you can see all the way to the very bottom.”

Vehanoush’s eyes lit up at Kipling’s description. Ozy started nodding enthusiastically with every word. Just as Bakri was coming around to the idea of visiting waters deeper than the ones they were standing in, Vehanoush caught his attention with the bracelet they had made special for him. 

While she tied it around Bakri’s wrist and he was quietly admiring the smoothness of the shells, Ozy called out for Khleo and Theo. The grey mage’s voice bounced against the arching walls of limestone like a powerful bell. Despite this, they got no reply from the two cliff divers. Nor could they hear them splashing in the water.

Once again Bakri was being pulled in another direction. Though he didn’t mind. He waded through the shallow water with Vehanoush, keeping close to the sandbars while Ozy and Kip pushed into slightly deeper waters so that they could swim to the spot where they last heard their friends. 

Vehanoush showed Bakri the friendship bracelets they had made for Theo, as well as the other members of Bakri’s team, Heîv, Sevak, and Abisoghom.

Soon they wandered out from under the shade of the rocks and entered into sunnier waters. It appeared that Khleo and Theo had left their playground and instead sought refuge on another exposed shelf. Khleo was lying on her stomach, her arms folded under her head. 

Theo had taken advantage of Khleo’s lower back, resting her cheek just left of Khleo’s spine with her body facing away from the approaching group. Kip and Ozy both chuckled at the army of small conch shells slowly working their way up the rock and over Theo’s legs and hips. 

“They played so hard, they wore themselves out,” Bakri noted, smiling softly as he bent to pry a conch shell off of Theo’s ankle.

A soft ripple of noise came from where Khleo’s head was. “I’m up. Just resting my eyes.”

Theo interrupted them with a yawn and added, “Yes well, I’m definitely fast asleep.”

As soon as Kip said something about having a surprise for the two of them, they were both very suddenly upright and holding out their hands for Kip to drop gifts into. 

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The six visitors sat in a row on the reef, their legs dangling over the water. A shifting array of brown skin glistened with salt and tiny sand crystals under the midday sun. Kip and Vehanoush tied everyone’s bracelets on for them. Theo celebrated the loudest, laughing and positively delighting at the way her cowrie shells clicked and snapped the more she flicked her wrist.

Bakri asked Ozy to finish telling him about the glyphs and what they stood for. He wanted to know about those three roles that each door lord cadre fulfilled. And if those same roles applied to Ozy, Kip and Khleo – then how exactly? 

While Vehanoush and Theo were excited to hear about this too, Khleo reminded everybody how hungry they all were. So Ozy’s explanations would have to wait until they got some lunch. The three newcomers pouted, but agreed that it was definitely time to eat and hydrate a little.

Ozy reminded his new friends that they would have plenty of time to learn about the Doors. He promised Bakri that he would show him more glyphs in the sea caves. As well as the monastery where he grew up alongside Kip and Khleo.

He would show them everything worth seeing. He promised them.

Ozy really wanted his new friends to have that chance to see whatever they had their heart set on.