Ghosmoure Saga: Discovery Ch. 02

Ghosmoure Saga: Discovery

Chapter 2

We three Ghosmoure children gathered around the small table propped just below decks on the sole quarters of the Esmeralda. It was my room, kitchen, bathroom all rolled into one and for the time being would be shared by my sisters while I make do with the hammock on the Wheel Cabin. Someone had to keep watch in case for any more surprises at sea.

Kit was the one that cooked this night's special, spaghetti with authentic Italian ragù. She made sure we would eat well and not content ourselves with tasteless MRE's that Tanner was sure to have brought if Kit hadn't intervened. My freezer was teeming with foodstuff like lamb shanks, t-bone steaks and other pre-packed homemade meals that made this expedition's food supplies seem more of a camping trip like the ones we did back when we were kids.

"Alright, we will be cutting it close," started Tanner, "Weather anomalies got us delayed from the estimated timetable. And the last satellite images and readings says that the newly formed island is deteriorating rapidly. All we need is a few key samples. Mission estimates are around twelve hours of operation, any longer and we risk ourselves getting blasted with unstable volcanic activity."

Kit nodded, even as she went for another helping of pasta. "Twelve hours, huh? It's doable."

I cast my eyes on both of them. Geology was always an interest of theirs but that was it. A mere interest. There was something they were not telling me. The Ghosmoure family has always prided itself with its gloried past, with our family tree having in its storied branches civil war generals, titans of industry and renowned academics. But it was our late mother that had instilled a great love for the greater ancient past, for archaeology. Too many mysteries all lying there in wait, as she was fond to say, hidden beneath our feet, under the unknowable waves and the immovable mountains. She dedicated her life to it, until eventually, it took hers. We... don't talk much of what happened with our parents. They disappeared on the northernmost reaches of the Arctic islands, off the coast of Greenland. I shook myself out of those bleak memories.

I drummed my fingers on the table looking at the both of them. Tanner and Kit may be different when it comes to personality but they understood one another in a way that made me feel alienated. They had this drive in them, whereas me..... well I don't have that much drive when it comes to academic pursuit or excellence. At the best of her moods, my mom would just call it my "free spiritedness".

"So this entire expedition is.... geological in nature, yes?" I asked the both of them after we were done with the pasta. I feel Kit did not use enough onions but it was still a good sauce.

Tanner and Kit shared a look, just for a second before answering. "Well yes. Absolutely," Tanner answered. Kit merely nodded, her long blonde curls bobbing with her head.

"Sure, it's not every century when an island is formed but.... Geology? You two?" I shook my head at them. Geology was a mere interest of theirs but it could never trump archaeology, our mother's love, one that trumps more than the love of her own children. Her own life, even. And I see it now on my sisters' eyes. They may try to conceal it but all evidence suggest otherwise.

They had found something. Something big. One that they risked it all and ventured into calamitous waters for. I don't like it, they are prone to make stupid choices when they get like this. Much like our parents did.

"Does the word.... Naabh'enda mean anything to you?" I said to them.

A sudden gust of wind made its way below decks, tossing the bulb into swaying. The waves thrashed only to be immediately silenced. It seemed to stretch on for an eternity before resuming once more. A look of genuine fear passed through my sisters' faces before they recollected themselves. What the hell was that?

Tanner was the first to speak, a look of incredulity in her eyes. Accusing even. "H-how did you -"

"I know I may give off like I never listened to mom back in the day, but I picked up just enough," I raised the sketch that had fallen from Tan's notes in the wheel cabin. It was a photocopy of a picture of an ancient hieroglyphics tablet etched in what seems to be obsidian, with caption below the picture stating it was extracted from some lost Siberian tribe that had inhabited the region some ten thousand years ago, vastly predating the famous Mesopotamian cuneiform, which was lauded as the first form of writing in human history, which dates around 3,200 BC.

"I didn't understand the entirety of the passage but just enough for me to translate one thing and one thing only. Naabh'enda. An object of great importance because it kept on mentioning it in the tablet. But that's about it what I gleamed from it," I explained and I stared at them hard, picking up from all those years Tanner spent staring me down. Time to give her a taste of her own medicine. I leaned forward and fixed them with my hardest stare, being the sole boy in the Ghosmoure litter, "You are searching for them aren't you? Further evidences of what mom and dad called as the people of the First Star. Or at least some remnants of them."

Tanner and Kit didn't say anything. Just looked at me. I almost shifted at my stare. I didn't know what they felt behind those eyes. It was the first time this happened. After I ran away from home, I kept in touch with my sisters. I didn't bother with my parents, they were the main reason I left. However, I felt like I would discarding a piece of my soul if I didn't sustain my familial relations with my sisters. Tanner would send me the letters sparingly. Being the big sister, she would scold me through the letters, to go back home. Her remarks were scathing and insulting but without her to say it to my face, I found them amusing. Kit sends me an almost steady stream of letters, at least once a week if it could be helped. But there would be times where eventually we wouldn't write to one another. We got on with our personal lives. It was inevitable and it was just life. But I always thought that she and I would be close enough to guess one another's thought.

Not this time, even my own baby sister, it seems is capable of change that I don't know what she is thinking about.

"I wanted to say.....," Kit began, trying to find the words, looking me with her baby blue eyes, so different from Tanner's cold Atlantic blue, "I -- I mean "we"---want you to be a part of this. This meant so much to mom and dad before....," she caught her breathe, almost sobbing, before going on,"..... But there are forces in this world that even we don't know so much of."

Kit fell silent and Tanner picked up the conversation after her. "We can't rightly say it now, because honestly? We don't know ourselves. So yes, under my suggestion, it was better for most of our colleagues, and even you Lee, to just assume that this expedition would be written off under Geology. The People of the First Star is a group of civilizations that has yet to breakthrough to the greater scientific community. Critics are ever wary of any claims regarding it and would bound at the chance to disprove that theory. The theory our mother worked her whole life for and one that our own father grew to love and realize its greater implications. As well as any relics present would be bound to attract buzzards to the site."

Tanner wasn't the least bit fazed by my glare but Kit was having trouble looking me in the eye, and instead twirled the last remainder of her pasta into an endless spiral. I must concede to myself that I lost this battle. There was no turning back with both of them being set. I suppressed a sigh, Tanner hated sighing in her presence. Thinks its a sign of weakness. I resolve that if I can't stop them, then might as well make them get back home in one piece.

"How did you even find the place? In the middle of the bloody Pacific too?" I inquired at something that had been nagging me.

"I have friends in the seismology department that has been monitoring at my behest. One of them pinged up the volcanic activity in this region. The coordinates correlated with some notes mom left behind and a significant number of artifacts we had collected over the years: The People of the First Star had also developed seafaring to such an extent they travelled the great seas, thousands of years ahead of the other known civilizations at the time. As well as other forms..... readings." she hesitated on that last part. She wants to say it but for some reason refuses to do so. Out of.... Shame?

I wanted to ask more but Tanner had retaken the reigns of the conversation by being eldest and put an end to for the night. "So I suggest we rest early, get it as much as we can. We don't know how many anomalies we may encounter once we arrived on the island."

Once they've made their bed in the cabin below, I kept watch on the deck. I looked to the skies and the stars reassured me we are heading in the right direction. I had always been fascinated with the stars. One of the few things Dad and I shared as a hobby. And one a few occasions, mom as well. I listened to the waves lapping against the hull and the wind ruffling my hair. There would be no more squalls. A quiet journey from here on out. But quiet doesn't mean peaceful however. Something had unnerved me, standing there on the rocking prow, the moon was out, bright. Sometimes when I am out in the open sea, I'd shut off all light and watch the stars above. It would be so dark you could see the Milky Way in all this splendor. It was like dreaming with both eyes open. I couldn't help but my lips were tugged into a little smile as I looked at the night sky.

The smile slipped however, as even deep in the night, the clouds once more began to spread and the cosmos were hidden from me. Still, I looked one, hoping for a gap in the clouds.

"What are you thinking?"

Kit suddenly snuck up on me, making me jump. "Jesus! You scared the shit out of me!" My reaction gave her a genuine good-hearted chuckle and her laugh was infectious I had to smile again, "Nah, just thinking of stuff," I said leaning against the railing.

Kit joined me. The scent of her perfume wafting into my nostrils, "You know, we really expected you not to be onboard with this."

"Still am, actually," I replied, "You two would have still went on regardless. I saw the look in both your eyes. Almost the same look mom had when she plans out her next trip to some remote, dangerous part of the world. The kind of look that says that you would follow your heart, regardless if it put you in a dangerous position." The kind that says you don't realize that there are people that love you and are afraid in putting your lives needlessly in danger as if no one cares for you. But I didn't say that last part. That would just lead into a fight with Kit and I don't need another argument with another of my sister.

"I can't lose you two," was I said instead. "Couldn't live with that regret. It's more cruel and more frightening than dying. Having to live on, knowing I could have done something. Be there with the you and Tanner, as much as you two drive me nuts."

Such is family, I had learned. Watching all the people I met in my travels, and how their relationships worked with their own family members. Some family you just had to runaway from and some you stick with them through thick and thin. Kit, and even Tanner for that matter, were the latter category. I need to be here with them. A family man I had met once told me that in family, the most important thing that can be done, is just be there with them.

"Regret can be more terrifying and painful fate than death itself," Kit uttered, eyes on the sea. I found myself nodding to her words. A fate where living is more frightening than dying.

"Besides," I began, "There's something that needs to be done with this rift in our family. You know it, I know it and yet we don't ever talk about it." I think it was time for me to address the elephant in the room. It was as good a time as any, "I just need to resonate with Tanner. God... that woman is an alien to me."

"Lee, don't say that," Kit said to me, a disapproving look in her eyes that I was surprise to find.

"What? I've been trying to reach out to her since I was a kid!" I found myself defending for some reason.

"So was I. But you have to admit. It's also kind of your..... fault," Kit hesitated to say. I found myself almost feeling betrayed by my baby sister no less! To say it was a stab to the heart would be an understatement. She was defending Tanner of all people too. "My fault? How is it my fault?"

"You're smart Lee. But it's just seems to us you don't apply yourself as much as you could." Kit reasoned, her tone appeasing. I try to keep my anger and disappointment level, try to sea reason in Kit's explanation. It was difficult.

"That's because archaeology --academia for that matter-- was never my passion. When are you going to accept that some apples fall off and then roll some ways away from the tree?" I said to her. "I did and I tried. But damn it Kit, I just was never happy about it. And mom and dad just kept on pushing it on me to the point where I had to lash out. It was suffocating. Didn't you feel like that too?"

"Sometimes, I did. But Tanner helped me through with it. She would have done the same with you too if you had asked."

"I did ask her!" I couldn't stop myself from raising my voice. Kit was unfazed by my outburst and she is ever an angel, listening to me. "But instead... she just---" I couldn't find the words to express my rage. The way Tanner looked at me when we were kids. Like as if I wasn't part of the family, not being able to live up to the Ghosmoure standard.

"And then there was the fighting, Lee. The fighting. You always got yourselves into fights for one reason or another." Kit's tone almost took a pleading tone. I couldn't help but be hurt by it. Especially I got into those fights for good reason. Seeing the big guy bullying the little guy just sends my blood rising.

"They started those fights, I only ended them."

"Your sudden enlistment into the Marine Corps? Mom and Dad almost had a heart attack when they found out you joined the Marines. Instead we have to hear through some contacts in the military. Worse was that you went AWOL. Why, Lee?" I didn't know how they would react. I didn't know myself what I wanted out of life. I just found myself at the recruitment center one afternoon, down to my last twenty bucks and my last good pair of socks as well. I still hadn't told anyone what was the exact reason why I joined the corps. They wouldn't understand. But hearing Kit's tone on the verge of tears broke my heart. Words tried to form in my mouth as I looked my sister in the eyes. Those words died without so much as a syllable uttered.

Silence reigned between us. The splashing of the waves and the creaking of wood was all that accompanied us in our odyssey. The sea air was cold and damning. I found Kit leaning against me and I remembered a much more innocent time where she just sidle up against me during those early Christmas mornings, simply because Dad told us I would be responsible for Kit's safety if Tanner wasn't around. I put my arm around her and gave her shoulder a reassuring squeeze.

"It seems we won't be finding any resolution here this night, huh Kit? And I was so looking forward to bury the ghosts of the past," I said.

"Me too, Lee. But you just can't rush these sort of things. But it's a first step isn't it? To air out our grievances. Make the necessary steps towards reconciliation?" Kit reasoned.

"Yeah," I found myself agreeing.

"Just take it one day at a time, bro. One step at a time," She reassured me.

I nodded, signaling the end for the night. One day at a time indeed. We had bigger fish to fry, making land to recently birthed island in the middle of nowhere, atop a still spewing underwater volcano that could blow more lava without warning.

"So where are you sleeping by the way? I don't see any bed here on the wheel," Kit said, peering back into the wheel cabin where I had been spending the last couple of nights. Those first few nights we took turns in the cabin below. Kit and Tanner had their own schedule to keep, working late in the night with their research and sleeping during the day and I had the cabin below all to myself those first few nights. But these last few ones had seen me as the lone guardian up here in the deck during nighttime.

I showed her where I stashed my hammock when I'm not steering the boat out of a storm.

"What? That looks very uncomfortable Lee," Kit said, genuine concern lacing her voice, "Why don't you just join us in the cabin below?"

I raised my eyebrows at that, followed by a quick shake of the head. "There's a lot of wrong with that suggestion. Firstly, That bed could accommodate two at the maximum. Second, it's just cramp and uncomfortable and I doubt any of us could get some sleep. Third, and most importantly, Eww."

"Eww? What's Eww about that?" Kit asked innocently. Does she not really get it?

I fixed her a cold stare.

"Because I get handsy when I sleep, tossing and turning? My hand will end up in places where it shouldn't be, with my sisters by my side. So yeah, Eww is fitting." I feel the ragù going back up my throat at the thought.

Kit only laughed throatily, "Oh come on now! Don't be like that!"

"I'm surprised at how naïve you are despite being a senior in college already. Now shoo, shoo! We have a big day ahead of us and I don't want Tanner breathing down my neck on why we stayed up late." I motioned for her to go to bed as I went my own way.

"Alright, alright. Jeez. Good night then!" She said turning her back and headed off below deck, "Oh and If you change your mind, just sidle up on either one of us, alright?" Kit called back, humor in her voice.

I narrowed my eyes at her retreating form, "Again, eww." That got another laugh from her.

I unhooked my hammock and set it up for the night and switched the lights within the cabin to something tolerable and only the floodlights outside to lit up our way. We may not have resolved our issues but it felt good, my chest felt like there had been a weight lifted off after me and Kit's conversation. I only wished the same would be said with me and Tanner's road towards reconciliation. I thought back to how it went earlier and saw a glimmer of possibility that Tanner may just be willing to take the first step with me in burying the hatchet between us.

So preoccupied I was with family matters that when I closed my eyes, I had completely forgotten the dark shadows of the colossal hunter in my dreams, trapped in a cold watery prison, much to my horror.

I tossed and I turned and I did not get a restful sleep that night.