Beneath the Waves

Ancestors

Ria searched the word 'Chayal' and found out it meant soldier in Hebrew. So these soldiers were supposedly her enemy. She didn't know anything about them, and even Google had no images similar to that of the one on the paper in her book. The closest she got was The Nun from that horrific horror movie Chris made her sit through.

Chris.

Goddamnit, as if she hadn't already shocked her enough with the sea monster thing, now she had to tell her that she had a mortal enemy too. It seemed unfair to Chris that Ria was changing so much, it felt like she was moving in a direction that she couldn't stop, and for a moment she was afraid that Chris wouldn't be able to follow. She was scared, for the first time, that their relationship might be in Jeopardy and wondered if she should follow the Rite of Dissolution and just become human again.

At the same time she knew that she didn't want that. She had finally found who she really was and for the first time in her life she felt special. She needed to explore this more, she needed to know more. She needed to talk to her grandparents.

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Ria pulled into her grandparents' driveway in the gated community they now lived in. She wasn't sure how she was going to breach the topic, but she had to try and fish for information. If they knew anything, she didn't know how forthright they would be with what they knew.

"Ria, sweety, to what do we owe this surprise" greeted her grams

"Nothing serious grams, I just missed you guys is all" she replied

"Well we're definitely lucky today" she said to Ria, then "Harold, our Maria has come to surprise us"

"Oh Maria sweetie pie, it's so good to see you" her gramps replied from his recliner (he was always sitting in that damn thing)

Ria sat down on the living room sofa to the right of his recliner and as her grams brought her a glass of freshly made lemonade she said

"I was thinking about our family tree, and I was wondering if we had like a family tree book or something?"

"That's a strange question dearie, do you need it for school or something?" asked her grams

Ria laughed her reply "no grams I'm done with school, I was just curious is all"

"Harold, why don't you go have a look in that dump you call a workshop, maybe there's something in the photo album box" her grams looked at her husband, smiling

With a great grunt and moan her gramps got out of his comfy chair and shuffled off to the garaged (his workshop) grumbling and mumbling as he went.

Her grams laughed, "he's such a grumpy old man, I love him"

Ria smiled, after such a long marriage they still loved each other like they did when they were young. She hoped that it would be the same for her and Chris.

"Maria, did you hear me?" came her grams voice

"Sorry grams, what did you say?"

"I said, I think I know why you came here today", her grams, serious now, "it's about the legend, isn't it?"

"The legend?" she asked, confused

"The sea monster legend" said her grams

She almost fell off the couch, "the... the sea monster? You know about it?"

"Of course I do, it's a story that has been in our family for generations. How did you hear about it? I don't remember ever telling your mother" came her reply

"I kind of accidentally found an old book in the basement of mom's house. It had these stories about sea monsters and other creatures. I wanted to know if there was anything else I needed to know... I mean anything else to the stories that I couldn't find in the books"

"They're just old stories Maria, my great grandmother believed that they were real and would talk about how in her younger days her great grandmother would show them sea monster tricks. My memory isn't what it used to be though, so I don't remember much of that." she sighed.

"Do you remember ANYTHING about it grams? Anything at all?" she pressed

"I wish I did my dear, but I never gave them much thought to begin with, I never even told your grandfather about it. My family believed that those stories were true, but I wasn't interested in strange fantasy worlds when I had children to raise and a husband to feed"

"That makes sense grams, thank you though. I just thought they were... interesting, that maybe I could write a story about them or something like that." she covered

"I'm sure you could come up with better ideas than some silly sea monsters from back in the bible days" replied her grams

"Yeah" said Ria, mind already drifting to how unproductive this mission was. What did she really expect?

Her grandfather had been gone a while and she told her grams that she was going to go help him look for the book. She got up and headed towards his 'workshop', still lost in thought. She nearly knocked her grandfather over as she turned the corner of the garage.

He looked a little guilty as he said "look Maria, I was listening to your conversation about the sea monster legends and even though your grams pretends like she doesn't believe them, she used to keep detailed notes about it, she used to drive me crazy", with this he handed her a small leatherbound notebook and said "don't tell her that I gave this to you"

She took the notebook from him and put it in her pocket. "Thanks gramps, it'l be our little secret".

"She used to be obsessed, but could never get enough information. Her mother died before she could really ask her any important questions."

Ria thought for a moment and said "there's a secret room in the basement of mom's house, I found a lot of things in there"

"Hmm, a secret room, I guess we moved out of that house without truly exploring the basement, we just knew there were a lot of old boxes from your grams' grandmother and great-grandmother stored in there, we never really bothered going down there"

"Should I tell grams about it?"

"Better not sweetie pie, it might just make her miss her youth, and regret not being able to discover it all for herself"

"Okay gramps. Thank you, for this" she held up the notebook

"Anything sweetheart" he hugged her just as Ria's grandmother turned the corner.

"And this sappy moment? Is everything okay?"

Ria quickly stashed the notebook back in her pocket and turned to face her grams. She hugged her too and said "nothing wrong, just showing you guys some love. I've missed you"

With that she said her goodbyes, making an excuse about having to meet up with Chris.

"Send her our love" waved her grams as Ria got into her car.

She looked at her grandparents and could have sworn her gramps winked at her as she pulled out of the driveway and headed home.

Why would her grams lie to her about telling gramps? That's so weird. She probably knows there's more to it than she is letting Ria believe. She thought of the notebook in her pocket and felt a tinge of excitement at what new information was waiting to be discovered.