"Zar, you'd be hopeless taking care of children, you're far too impatient for a person." Gabby gave a soft chuckle, pampering and petting Tibby's hair. Chip and Bo had settled, crouching around Sheila and gawking at the book and it's mesmerising transparent pages.

"I don't condone it, Gabby. You have spoken the truth." Zaren agreed, pouting his lips.

"Thirteen!" Sheila raised her index, her eyes totally immersed in the book. "Uh...somebody please take a note of it. It's thirteen parts in the first turn of the first spiral."

"There's nothing there to take your notes, you dumb-head." Zaren poked her forehead, teasing her.

"Ouch, Zar!"

"No worries. Gimme your dagger, Zar." Kai pointed towards Kai's belt, where the dagger was tucked in a brown leather sheath.

"Did you just call me 'Zar'?" Zaren crossed his arms with an impish scowl.

"Umm...do I still need to call you 'Sir'?

"No, 'Captain' would work fine too." Zaren nodded and handed his dagger over to Kai.

"Aye. Aye. Captain." Kai shook his head with a shrug and started etching the number on the wooden bar that separated the boat into two halves.

"Okay. Five in the second turn and eighteen in the third. Done?" Sheila kept a constant check on the numbers that were being etched on the bar.

"Yeah. Done."

"Coming to the second spiral, it's sixteen, seven and eight." She ran her finger tip along the large radial spoke running from the centre to the periphery, which somewhat decided the beginning and ending of each turn of a conch like spiral. Each turn had several small lines deciding the number she counted.

"Okay." Kai nodded scratching the plank with the tip of the dagger.

"Fourteen. Nine. One. That's the end. Now, Let me see it." Sheila hastily rushed towards Kai, making the boat to shake up and down.

'13,5,18. 16,7,8. 14,9,1'.

"M. E. R. O. G. H. N. I. A." She clasped her waist and bit her lip, trying to analyse the meaning of the word she had spelled.

"What's the meaning?" Zaren urged, fidgeting his feet as his strong and experienced arms rowed the boat smoothly.

"I don't know. It doesn't make any sense. I have never heard that word before." Sheila mumbled, as her eyebrows knotted into each other in confusion.

"Maybe it's in a different language. We should try using alphabets of other languages as well." Kai added his opinion, while he was wondering at the word himself.

"Makes sense. But, I only know few languages." Sheila gave up as she threw her hands in the air and sat down cross legged, blowing a curl of hair out of her face.

"So, that's another fail in a row." Zaren impassively scanned all the tiny islands that littered along the length of the kelp clogged sea.

"The blue moon sings the song of the sea,
tell me my sailor, can you hear it?"

Sal started to hum a melody out of the blue. He covered his face from the direct sunlight, with his hat and leaned back on the gunwale of boat.

"Dad, would you please stop it?" Kai cried, "this might be our only chance to survive."

"Kai, do you remember the song your mum used to sing?" Sal reluctantly peeked through his ragged hat, "you never slept without that lullaby."

"Are you serious right now? Dad, please don't give up on yourself, on...on me..." Kai hung his head low, disappointment clawing him from inside out.

"The conch, the shell, the sand to build a castle,
tell me my sailor, can you do it?"

Sal didn't mind what came out of Kai's mouth, as he continued with the humming of the age old song, which brought back a thousand memories inside Kai's heart. With it came a gush of tears.

"How many hours have we been out here?" Sheila asked to none in particular, "it must be the withdrawal effects of liquor. We haven't weaned him properly."

"A day or two, roughly." Zaren showed his hand in a so-so manner and sagged his lips down.

"Should we do something?" Kai pondered over the thought of losing his dad once again.

"Some more grog I guess?" Zaren arched an eyebrow, "which is definitely not possible when we are stranded in the middle of nowhere."

Sheila slowly nodded her worrisome face, "what was that song again?"

"It's called the 'song of the sea'. It was my mum's favourite, it was my favourite."

"Meroghnia." Sheila reiterated the word she had decoded from the book spine a while ago, "song of the sea. I got it!" She jumped from where she was sitting, jolting and shaking the boat.

"What are you doing, Sheila?" Gabby raged bleating her high pitched voice, "you are going to drown us if you jump around like a drunken monke---" she was cut off in the middle by Sheila's chirp.

"'Mere' means the ocean and...and 'ughnia' or 'oghnia', according to my limited knowledge in Arabic language from the medicinal books, has to be 'the song'." She explained breathlessly to everyone, as their eyes were gaping at her cheerful face.

"Okay the book has some hymns of sea, that's all? No treasure map, nothing?" Zaren barked without even a drop of hesitation.

"That's wonderful. You are a genius, Sheila." Kai made her face turn red for a thousandth time in just a couple of days.

"Hmmm...I am impressed with this girl's wits. Good job." The talebearer slowly decreased his altitude to compliment her. "Ah. Right in time, we are home." He flapped his straight wings to perch on a pointy and mossy rock that projected out of the calm sea.

"You said you'll take us to the mainland. I don't see any land in the first place." Kai got up scrutinizing the calm and endless blue that continued to meet the cottony sky.

"It's the carnage sea. Look underneath us!" Gabby cried holding a carmine red sea kelp in her hand. "Oh my god, nobody ever returns from the carnage sea alive. We are all going to die."

"Calm down Gabby. Nothing's going to happen to us, we'll just be fine." Sheila tried to calm her aunt down, as Gabby fanned her plump and sweaty neck.

"Traitor." Kai yelled to the seagull, his eyes bloodshot and his voice - a honk from a broken foghorn,"what did you want from us?"

"Honestly, I don't want anything." The tale bearer cocked his head. "It's the sea witch who wants the book."

"The sea witch? You are a good prankster, birdie." Kai blurted with a nervous laughter.

"The what?" Sheila and Zaren gasped echoing into each other as it dawned on them that the bird was a double agent all along.

"Forgive me Kai. You guys are good people, but I must do this." The tale bearer bowed down a little and the water around the pointy rock he was perched on, started to swirl and swirl into a big whirling maelstrom. The sky darkened, the atmosphere turned gloomy. The wind started to whoosh dragging and forcing them in and out.

With a thunder-storm in the background, a feminine silhouette materialised. Kai couldn't fathom the glimpse he witnessed in his foetal position, "I am so sorry. Please forgive me. I failed you all," he muttered silently.

The silhouette grew larger and larger until it could no more, it was as murky as a rainy cloud. Once when it was nearer, Kai gave in for her spearing ember eyes. The facade of her body floated just above the water. The wings on her back were raven black with feathers, which were almost the size of a man's arm and with the sheen of a metal.

"Hand me the Opus, I shall spare your lives." The Sea witch lent her smokey hand, her resilient words echoed inside everyone's skulls.

Sal sprung upright, reaching out for her. He stepped on the gunwale of the boat as it shook vigorously in the storm. "Dad, what are you doing? Come back here." Kai dragged him down just in time before he could venture any further, but, not without a scratch. Sal had hit his head to the wooden bar.

Chuchip cried, "aaargghhh!" her face as scared as a fawn without its mother.

"Shh...sh, it's okay sweetie. Look at me, see, Tibby and Bo are with you. Dad is gonna wake up soon, alright?" Gabby put her arms around all three kids, struggling to fight her own tearing eyes.

The talebearer hovered over Kai for one last time, to convince him, "just give the darn book away. You are going to get us all killed. Please, for the love of God."

'You take care of it.' Kai's mom's words shone from the tangle of thousand thoughts running wild inside his mind. "No. It's mine. It's ours." He commanded rising up with a wide and puffed up chest. "You have to fight me."

"You got to be kidding me. Just throw the damn book away." Zaren juggled to snatch the book away from Kai, but with no good results.

"It belongs to 'us', Zar. Stay out of it."

Zaren flinched away, his face confused and hurt to witness the strength and determination in Kai's olive green eyes. "No, you are wrong. And by god, you were wrong all this time."

Kai's decision was undeterred by Zaren's words. He held his head high and tightened his grip around the book. The look on the sea witch's face turned grim as she raised her arms up to summon the power.

Gabby chanted an unknown prayer as tears rolled down her cheeks to wet her dry lips. Her eyes shut, as tight as her hands clasping Tibby's and Bo's eyes. Sheila still had some strength left in her bones, as she comforted Chip despite her own growing fear.

The vortex of sea storm violently pushed and pulled them. The boat neared the mouth of the maelstrom and they suddenly got sucked into sea witch's torso, which was a tornado right above the centre of vortex. She broke into an ugly and mouthful laugh. "I shall pity you with one last warning."

Kai gritted his teeth, fighting the storm of turmoil inside his own heart. 'It belongs to me. But, my mom wouldn't be happy if all of us die because of her, of me, of this book,' he thought and closed his eyes to breathe in the mist of courage. "I yield. The book is yours."

The sea witch laughed and the sea storm suddenly seemed to slow down. The torrent of the water decreased, the thunderstorm disappeared. And, the woman infront of them now appeared endearing with all her grace. Her raven wings were now wide and open. She walked on the calm water flawlessly towards them, her each step kissed the surface only a little.

Kai's jaw dropped, his hands unknowingly raised up to give the book away, as if he was in trance. "You made a good decision." She appreciated him with a smile and flew away into the sky, until she turned around for a glance.
"Did I ever say that you are smart, Kai? Because you are not." She flashed a foxy grin.

"No. No. No. Don't do this to them, please. You take my life, my wife's. But, not them." The talebearer, pleaded as he flew across the sky to face her.

"Awe! You poor silly bird." The sea witch didn't hesitate to spill the sarcasm, "they don't know about you. Do they?" With that said, she snapped her fingers.

The talebearer's wings fell limp, and he started losing his height as they slowly began to deform. The feathers withered away with the wind. His beak shortened into a nose, his head into a face. His whole body jumbled and bent until it grew into a humane form. But, the face felt oddly familiar. Kai tried to concentrate on his face, it was wrinkly for a moment and the next minute, it was as young as his own.

"Uncle Jay!" Kai gasped, his mind trying to assimilate the appearance of what felt like a younger version of his beloved uncle Jay's.

"I am so sorry, son. I didn't have a choice. She has my..." Before Jay could complete anything, the vortex had caught the boat in it's teeth.

With another snap of her finger, the witch brought the wrath of a thunderbolt. It struck right at the middle of their boat, shattering it into pieces. And with that, their hopes crumbled into thin dust.

"Help. Uncle Jay."

"Please, help us!"

But, Kai couldn't see anything in front of his eyes, other than his mom's face, Chuchip's face. All that was his life was now, nowhere to be found. Soon, his bones would churn into sand, and his blood would become the red of the carnage sea.

"Noooo..." Uncle Jay stretched his arm, as the boat sank into the swirling sea. Kai remembered the memory of sea smothering him alive just a day ago. But, that memory was his mind's trick to hide the desperation to free himself from a larger sea smothering him at that unfortunate moment.

************************************

Kai's eyes swayed aimlessly as the briny water stung his eyes. He saw a silhouette of a light, which strikingly resembled a fish from waist down. He blinked once, twice, trying to hold his lungs from giving in for the unforgiving water. But, the third blink brought a nightmare along with it.

A lightening hood of thousand colours was hung upon the creature's face. A series of light beads garnered it's body, all along its length. An undulating sheath extended from inside of it's arms to it's torso. The creature slowly revealed herself from the hood by tilting her neck up.

Kai gasped and wriggled to stay afloat, as her haunting yet beautiful face was just an inch away from his. His lungs had already given up, as his mind started to cloud and his body started to jerk furiously. He felt a familiar sting on his legs and chest. He let out a shriek of agony into the bubbles that faded away into the abyss of darkness.

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Word count - 2380

Thank you very much for reading.
Tell me what do you think of the story till now. I welcome any constructive suggestions​. :)

Source of this image - Pinterest, it belongs to the rightful owner.

It took a lot of time to surf the internet to get this image, isn't it daunting and beautiful at the same time?!!
Hats off to the illustrator of this image. I am just...just...speechless!