Secrets of Stone and Sea, page 4
Kai threw a glance at Peter. Help me out here. But Peter didn’t say a word. How could he let this go? A monster was coming for them. They had to do more to fix this!
Their dad released them and shared a skeptical glance with their grandmother. “Neither of you are liars. But, being from Ohio, we’re not used to these sudden sea storms. A tidal wave … no, it was probably just a big swell. While I’m sure it was terrifying, next time, stay farther away from the water whenever you see a storm coming in.” Dad released them, and then said, “Now. Both of you, dinner is soon, and you smell like a reef. If you’re both really feeling all right, then go wash up and get some dry clothes.”
“But, Dad—”
“You’ll feel better after drying off and eating spaghetti and some nice, hot garlic bread. I know I’m already gar-licking my chops.” With a gentle pat on each of their shoulders, Dad returned to the kitchen to start dinner.
Kai followed him, about to argue again, but Peter just grabbed his arm and pulled him away. “I told you he wouldn’t believe us,” he murmured.
“He might have if you’d tried a little harder to convince him,” Kai returned.
As Kai and Peter went upstairs, Kai heard Grandma mutter to Dad, “That didn’t look good, Alex. The forest by the park was hit by something more than a big swell.”
Their dad breathed out loudly through his nose. “Thank heavens, then, that the boys escaped with just some scrapes. Poor kids. Must have been horrible.”
Kai resisted the urge to run back in and make his case again. But what good would it do? Sure, he and Peter were beat up and soaking wet, but that wasn’t exactly hard evidence of a supernatural sea monster on the rampage.
Unless Kai could prove that something monstrous and powerful was coming, no one would believe his story. Maybe he would go back out later and look for proof, but right now, a storm was raging, dinner was about to be served, and there was nothing to do but take a quick shower, change his clothes, and eat.
CHAPTER 5
PLATES AND PLATO
PETER
Sophie had come back home while Peter showered and pulled his splinters out. One, a piece of wood two inches long, still made him queasy to think about.
When he went downstairs, there was his sister, jeans soaked to the knee, holding a bag of reject taffy. “Hey, hey, hey!” she called in a TV announcer’s voice. “It’s time for another round of ‘What Flavor Was This Supposed to Be?’” She handed him a golden-colored piece of taffy. And then she stopped, examining his face. “What’s wrong? What happened?”
“Nothing. Don’t worry about it.” Peter stuck the taffy, which tasted like green apple, into his mouth and hurried off to dinner.
Sophie didn’t need to know, because it was over. So he and Kai maybe, maybe, raised some kind of sea monster. They tried to tell their dad, and maybe Peter could have pushed harder like Kai wanted, but if he had, what if Dad lost his temper and grounded them for lying? It would have been a mistake. No, they’d done all they could. Now, it was out of their hands. Let someone else handle this problem.
Kai, on the other hand, was a morose mess at dinner. He pushed his spaghetti around his plate, only ate one piece of garlic bread, and didn’t even smile when Grandma referred to a Revolutionary War–era musket as “modern technology.”
After dinner, Sophie brought down her laptop (the only computer in the house) for their video call with Mom.
As the computer started, Peter whispered to Kai, “Come on. Just act normal tonight. It’s not like Mom can help us with the monster.”
“You don’t know that. Maybe she could,” Kai said, but there was no fight in it. Peter knew Kai would keep his mouth shut. After all, Mom was on a dig in the Mediterranean, far away from all of this. What could she say or do to help?
It took a few moments to make the connection to Mom’s laptop, even though Mom was expecting their call. Though they could call whenever they wanted, they always called every Tuesday and Friday, right on time, and Peter looked forward to seeing his mother through the screen.
Tonight, when the image did appear, it was more pixelated than usual. Their mom looked fuzzy, and when she moved, the image would freeze and turn green in terrifying flashes that reminded Peter of the creature’s rise from the sea.
But still, he could see her eyes crinkle and her mouth turn up in a smile. The laptop’s glow lit her face, tingeing her golden skin bluish white, as she sat in her tiny cabin on the boat the expedition used.
“Hey,” their mom said, her voice buzzing through the bad connection. “How are you all doing?”
“Hello, Thera!” Grandma said. “It’s good to see you.”
“How are you?” Dad said. “It looks like your boat needs a new router.”
Their mother shook her head and smiled. “The router is fine. It’s just this storm. It’s giving us some interference. Don’t worry. Sam says it should even out soon.”
“A storm?” Kai asked, and he and Peter glanced at each other.
Peter shook his head. Don’t. Don’t you dare tell Mom.
But if Kai was about to speak up, he lost his chance. Dad touched Kai’s shoulder and said, “We’re getting hit pretty hard here. A real nasty nor’easter storm. In fact, the boys experienced a pretty nasty wave.”
“What?” Mom pushed a dark curl out of her eyes and peered at the boys. “Are you okay?”
“We’re fine. But we’re surprised you’re getting a storm, too,” Kai said. “At the same time.”
He shot a glance back at Peter, which Peter read easily. Two storms? At once? It has to be connected.
Peter scowled but ignored Kai. They didn’t need to tell Mom, because it wasn’t their problem.
Their mom frowned. “Oh. Well. Storms are common here. But I have to admit, this one does seem a little … angrier than usual.”
Kai nudged Peter, and Peter kicked him under the table. “No,” he whispered.
But Kai didn’t listen. “Angrier? Like a monster?”
As Peter and Dad sighed, Grandma said, “A storm can be a monster. Especially on the sea.”
Mom smiled wryly. “If the sea’s angry, I’m sorry. Sam’s been saying it’s because we brought this out of the ocean. The sea wants it back.”
She tugged on some gloves and lifted something that Peter could barely see. It looked like metal.
“Turn it this way,” Dad said, and readjusted the monitor so they could all huddle and peer through the pixelation to see what their mother had found.
“We uncovered it just this morning,” Mom said.
It was a gray metal plate, about the size of his math textbook, though much thinner. Peter squinted. It looked like there was a figure of some kind engraved on it, and small images all around it.
Not figures. More like hieroglyphs.
“It’s hard to see,” he said.
“Maybe I can fix that,” their mom said. She lowered the plate and fiddled with her computer for a few minutes, with Sophie providing advice. The video quality improved sharply, and their mother laughed.
“I probably shouldn’t be showing you this. This dig is hush-hush. But you won’t tell anyone, will you?”
She held up the plate again, right against the camera, and Peter’s blood drained to his feet.
That figure in the middle was the creature from the beach! The same wide-set eyes, the same snaky body and fishy face. Powerful, it held a trident in one hand as waves curled beneath it. In those waves, Peter saw a crocodile.
How? How could Mom have found a picture of the sea monster in the Mediterranean?
He turned to see how Kai was handling it. Not surprisingly, Kai had blanched. His eyes flicked back and forth over the screen, and his lips fluttered.
“How old is it?” Grandma asked.
“At least a millennium,” Mom said. She let them stare into the face of the sea monster for another few seconds before pulling it back. Looking at the plate’s front, she said, “We have our guesses about who this ugly guy here is, but so far they’re just guesses.”
“Well, isn’t it Poseidon?” Dad asked. “I mean, look at that trident.”
“And aren’t you in the Mediterranean? Who else would it be?” Peter asked.
Mom coughed and bit her lip. “It’s not Poseidon,” she said slowly. “This tablet predates Greece. It’s truly fascinating. What I wouldn’t give to know what this inscription says!” She tapped the hieroglyphs.
Kai cleared his throat. “It says, ‘Hail to the Sea, which gives and takes as waves ebb and flow, with salt like blood and sand like gold, that surges land and water with earthquake.’”
Peter slowly turned to face Kai, as did everyone else in the family. Kai slumped his shoulders, but finished. “‘We, the isle of your care, united in our devotion, honor and revere you, with light and with sacred metal.’ Um, that’s what it says, but it’s not an exact translation. Some of the words have multiple meanings that don’t work well in English.”
The only sound was the whirring of the laptop’s fan. The adults stared at Kai, who refused to look up.
Dad chuckled. “Nice one, Kai.”
Peter relaxed. Of course it was just a prank.
“I’m not joking!” Kai said. “I can read it.”
Sophie rolled her eyes. “Of course you’d say that when we can’t prove you’re kidding.” She reached across the table and pulled over the French book she’d been studying with her tutor earlier. “Now, if you said you could read this—”
Kai leaned over. “I can!”
He pulled the book closer and ran a finger under the words. “‘While many believe that the Louvre is the sole museum to visit while in Paris, one not worth overlooking is the Musée d’Orsay, where one can find great works of art produced by the Impressionists—”
Sophie snatched it back and read the passage. “He’s right.”
“French is one thing,” Mom said. She scribbled out a few words on a piece of paper and held them up to the camera. “I know you never learned Greek.”
Kai could read that, too. And Cantonese, and Danish, and Russian. One language might be explained, but every language?
“How are you doing this?” Dad asked Kai.
“I—I don’t know,” Kai said, hands trembling. They were all in shock, but Kai was in the center of it.
After a while, all eyes turned back to the tablet in Mom’s hands. “What did this one say again, Kai?” Mom asked.
“I’ve got to read it again.”
As their mother held up the tablet, Peter watched his twin read the same words aloud, again. Because Kai was reading the tablet. Peter noticed his eyes moving from right to left, reading the symbols backward. Then, the eyes tracked up and down, reading in columns. It was bizarre.
Chills rippled over Peter’s skin. His brother had become some kind of polyglot, able to read and interpret any language. How had this happened?
“I don’t know how I know what it’s saying, but I do,” Kai said, once he finished.
“I believe you,” Mom said quietly. She set the tablet down and looked at Kai, not saying anything for an uncomfortable minute. Then, she glanced at Dad. “Alex, I think we should tell them.”
Dad leaned back. “Yes,” he said. “All things considered.”
“Tell us what?” Kai asked.
Mom looked at each of them. “I’m not in the Mediterranean,” she said. “I’m in the North Sea, near Norway.”
Peter sat up. “Why?”
“And why didn’t you tell us?” Kai added.
“I suppose I was a little embarrassed,” Mom said. “Though, the truth is, this expedition is related to Greece, in a way.”
Dad winked at the boys. “It does if you sea things from a different perspective.”
Peter groaned. Leave it to Dad to make puns about this.
Kai piped up. “So it is Poseidon, then. On the tablet.”
Mom shook her head. “No. We’re certain of that. Yes, it has the trident, but the crocodile is an Egyptian water deity symbol, not Greek. There are symbols and references on this tablet to ocean gods from many different cultures. Including the Norse, which is why I’m in the North Sea. Our best guess is this is supposed to be some kind of depiction of the actual ocean, but embodied and possibly sentient. Alive.”
Kai scoffed. “The ocean come to life? That’s not possible.”
“Says the boy who seemingly conquered the Tower of Babel and can read any language,” Grandma replied.
“Fair point,” Kai said, and nudged Sophie’s French book closer, eyes wide.
“How is the North Sea related at all to Greece?” Peter asked. He missed how he felt earlier that morning, when everything made sense.
“It’s a long story. But it starts with Ric studying Plato and getting ideas. Since Plato was a Greek philosopher, Ric invited me because he knows I have a background in Greek antiquities.”
Mom bit her lip again and continued. “Plato wrote about an island. An ancient island with a magnificent, enlightened civilization. An island no one has been able to find. Ric and Sam decided to cross-reference weather patterns with stories about lost islands, and turned up enough connections in the North Sea to get funding. It was a long shot, but then we found this tablet, which only seems to confirm that we’re in the right place.”
Peter sat back, putting the pieces together. With a Greek archeologist for a mom and an English teacher for a dad, he knew what they were talking about. But who didn’t know the story about an ancient city that was a marvel of politics and engineering, medicine and arts, until it fell, and was destroyed in a single day and night, sinking beneath the sea?
“Are you saying that you’ve been out searching for—” Peter’s throat closed up.
Mom nodded. “Atlantis. We came out here to find the lost island of Atlantis. And now, thanks to Kai’s translation, I know we’ve found it.”
CHAPTER 6
SOLVING THE PATTERN
KAI
Atlantis.
It was a couple of days since the incident, and still his mind reeled.
The island of Atlantis was real. It felt like destiny—Mom was Greek, and now Kai and his family were wrapped up in Greek mythology, like fate had chosen them.
And fate had also gifted Kai with powers. He could read any language, understanding them like they were written in English. Although he couldn’t understand them spoken (Mom and Sophie both checked) that was still pretty cool.
Though, the Actual Ocean Come to Life, or whatever it was, had attacked Kai and Peter and was only escalating its attack. That wasn’t as cool.
The rain that started when the sea creature first appeared had continued for about a day before dwindling to a gentle but consistent patter. At first, nothing seemed too bad. The rain was a constant reminder of the event at the Point, but not dangerous. And sure, the jellyfish that filled the sea off the coast and beached on the sand, melting like jelly, were unnerving, but easily explained away.
But then it got worse the next night.
An eerie blue light that Grandma called Saint Elmo’s fire appeared around the Seaspire lighthouse. The wind howled words into people’s ears, causing police to prowl the streets, causing Sophie to come home early from work, white faced and clutching her ears. Nothing anyone said could convince her to reveal what she heard.
Finally, and worst of all, an underground surge flooded the church graveyard, making coffins float to the surface.
The next morning, Grandma had gone with her community committee to help clean the mess up, and came home that evening muddy and silent. She refused to tell them what she saw at the cemetery, instead saying, “We need to figure out what happened to you boys on the Point.”
Kai agreed. They were clearly involved now, and he knew things would only get worse. That’s how all adventures went.
So, that night, they called Mom again and tried to figure out how and why the creature rose.
Peter began by explaining, again, what the boys had experienced on the Point.
“We barely got back alive,” he finished. “And it was that creature.”
“And now we have a tablet that was from Atlantis, and Kai can read Atlantean,” Mom said.
Kai jumped in. “It’s connected. It has to be.”
Dad had printed out a scan of Mom’s stone tablet, and Kai couldn’t stop examining it. The hieroglyphs carved there flared in Kai’s mind, every one of them making sense. How? Last he checked, they didn’t teach Atlantean writing at school. He shouldn’t be able to look at the symbol of a circle with a vertical wavy line through it and think, That’s what the letter A looks like.
Though that’s not how it worked. That symbol meant “sea,” but it also meant so much more. It was related to the word for life, for power, and, oddly, the word for twin. He understood every meaning of that symbol, and how it interacted with the symbols around it. He knew that writing as well as he knew English.
It was all a pattern. The hieroglyphs, sure, the way they created meaning together. But the monster rising, the tablet, and the writing—it was also a pattern.
“I think I can read Atlantean because we let that creature loose,” Kai said.
Mom frowned. “Let it loose?”
“It,” Peter said. “The … Sea, or whatever we want to call it.”
“The Sea works for me,” Kai said.
“Okay, that,” Peter said. “The Sea said we released it from some binding. But we didn’t do anything. We just went to the beach.”
“You must have done something,” Dad said. Kai noticed his father’s hands were shaking.
Peter shook his head. “We didn’t do any ritual, if that’s what you mean.”
“Maybe you did one and didn’t know about it,” Mom said.
Grandma’s eyes lit up. “Your mother’s right. Rituals are just actions with meaning, set in an order. Without the context of that meaning and order, you may have thought you just did random actions. Tell me. Was there any blood when you went to the beach? Before the creature showed up?”
Kai touched his nose. “I got hit in the face playing Frisbee. My nose started bleeding. It stopped, but it started again when we were at the Point.”
