by Jae Vogel
Chapter 4
Ohio had more than its fair share of backyard swimming pools. Much of the state spent the spring months paying for water trucks to come in and fill their backyard lakes. It was part of the local culture and nowhere was it more evident than the subdivisions outside the city of Scipio. An entire industry evolved around men who wanted to place small oceans behind their houses because it gave them status and the kids something to do in the summer months.
The working class families would pay for above ground pools, in the hopes they could do the installation themselves. It was possible to do it, but it was no easy task to carry out.
First of all, the ground had to be dug out in a radius much larger than the pool itself was going to occupy. Most of the time it was for maintenance, but some families liked the placement of crushed stone or small river pebbles around the pool to make it easier to work on the yard around it. Once the dirt was dug out, it needed to be transported somewhere. In some cases, the dirt could be hauled to the side of the house and dumped against it. If there were no better way to eliminate the dirt, it would need to be hauled out to a dumpsite. This was not too hard to do if you had children at home who were eager to get the pool up and become the talk of the neighborhood.
Next came the layer of sand beneath the pool, which had to be hauled in to the yard. Only the cleanest sand could be use as there could be no rocks or other imperfections beneath it. Once the sand was in place, it had to be smoothed out. This was often done with a big roller that was weighted down to accomplish the task. The sand needed smoothed to a mirror finish, nothing else would do.
Because the next phase involved the liner itself. Made of the highest quality vinyl polymer, the liner needed a smooth base, which would not puncture it. Once the liner was placed, the aluminum wall would be assembled in a perfect circle around the sand. The final part of the assembly took place when the liner was mated to the wall around the pool. The junction needed to be perfect so no water would leak out. When the liner was in place and the wall up, it was inspected for suitability, as any leak or warp in the wall could bring it down in seconds, sending a useless tidal wave across the yard.
The water truck would arrive and the neighborhood children would become quiet as the pool was filled. There was a special moment of silence as the fresh and clean water filled the pool. After the water was placed inside it, the parents would appear and check the pool for sturdiness. Only when the pool was pronounced safe were the neighborhood children allowed to make use of it.
Pool culture ranged everywhere in this Midwestern town. To the north of Scipio, there was an entertainment complex, which consisted of a drive-in movie theater and a swimming pool. Across the road, there was another swimming pool. Private pools where you had to pay an annual membership and pass approval by a committee where everywhere. Too far from the coasts for surf culture to exist, the young kids nevertheless created their own water culture around small fishing boats wherever they could find a lake. It was a thing particular to that time and place.
This is why Salacia Delphi’s big pool store did such great business in the spring months. Already the families were lining up to see what new pools she had for them this year. She’s spent the cold months unloading prefabricated pools and finding just the right balance of art and practicality for each one. It was a work of art to find the right look for each display and she was often seen spending hours to get the perfect effect.
Salacia Delphi was not a large woman, but she was not one to be trifled with. Woe be to the delivery van driver who thought he could drop his items and get out without giving her exactly what she ordered. Salacia was known to spend hours examining the manifest to find just one missing bucket of water treatment chemical. It was said she could tell you exactly where any item was at a given time in the any one of her stores. She was known to drop in at an unexpected moment and do an inspection.
Few people were aware of her abilities as a Water Element Grandmaster. She wanted to keep it that way. The less people knew about what she could do, the better. She would wait a good five minutes after everyone left before she would go out to her private pool and see what her water nymphs were up to that day. She’d brought a whole class of them from Greece with her that no one knew about. She’d found them at the bottom of a well on the island of Patmos and bribed them into coming with her. This batch could create a tidal wave with very little trouble. Since they would be inland, there was very little opportunity for a disaster of that scale to take place.
However, there were many other things this species of elementals could do and she planned to take advantage of them. Right now was not the time to make use of their powers, it would come later. So she kept them in her private pool when she was home and placed them back inside the safe while she was gone. It continued to worry her about what might happen should a thief try to crack her safe. He or she would be in for quite a surprise.
***
“So, now that we know the location of the Water Grandmaster,” Sean said to Dion. “Do we just walk over there?”
“We might as well. If they try to stop me reaching her, and they will, they won’t try anything until we get near the store.” Dion rolled up the map and put it in his jacket.
“I think they already have something planned,” Lilly said as she nodded toward the swimwear place across from them.
Dion looked at it and saw the swim team putting on their tracksuits. They formed a line and went to the back of the store where each one picked up their own suit and slipped into it. Next, they formed another line and marched out of the store, much to the disappointment of the men waiting on the outside. The swim team line swam out of the store and headed down the main concourse of the mall.
“You think they’ll go toward the pool store?” Emily asked Dion.
“They’re going in the right direction. Guess we’ll head there too and find out.”
The four friends stood up from the table and walked down the concourse in the same direction.
They didn’t notice any of Karanzen’s security guards watching them. However, it wasn’t important since the mall had plenty of new security cameras. The cameras covered only the areas with the heaviest traffic, but they still could track their movements through the mall. Right now, the officer was probably in his office doing the slow burn over the four of them gaining entrance to the mall. Dion kept in mind the offensive maneuver by Karanzen might’ve been a ruse to make them think he didn’t want them inside. The swim team elementals had appeared conveniently when he blocked the entrance.
The foot traffic picked up once they entered the main part of this section of the mall. There were quite a few people who made their way, as the day was good for an excursion to the mall. No one gave four young people walking together a second glance as they were assumed to be out shopping, just like everyone else.
The pool store had a small profile on the inside of the mall. Since it was open only six months out of the year, the mall had rented them a corner section that didn’t allow for much window space. It meant the windows could be cleaned with little trouble, but the potential customers couldn’t see the vast interior of the store. It compensated by having a large exterior display, which was where the actual pools were kept. The patrons of the store would enter from the outside through a gate or from another door inside the store.
When they reached the pool store, the water elementals were already there. Crowds of them stood at the entrance and blocked it as they chattered on with the store manager. Dion looked, but couldn’t see the owner who he needed to reach. He hoped she was inside the store somewhere.
The swim team made their way inside and soon had the same effect on the pool store’s patrons as they did on the ones in the swimsuit store. From the outside, they watched them walk through the store and talk with the staff. They would swarm around and check out the products on display. Once again, mass chaos had broken out.
Dion took them inside the store with him. No sales clerk greeted them, a
s they were all busy with the sudden appearance of the swim team. Still he could not see the form of Salacia Delphi. They wandered around the isles watching the nymphs in human form pull things off the shelf and put them back.
“Can I help you with something?” Dion heard one clerk ask one of the elementals as she picked up a box containing a raft from the stack and look it over. The nymph ignored him and placed it back, then grabbed one of the exact same types and looked at it.
This continued while Dion attempted to ask any of the staff about the lady who owned the place. None of them could help him because he was too busy ensuring the nymph he watched didn’t walk off with a product from the store. In effect, the staff was overwhelmed.
“Let me try,” Emily told Dion.
She walked into visual range of a sales clerk who was restacking a display the nymphs had torn down a minute ago. Emily gave him her best ‘little girl lost’ look as he made eye contact with her.
“Excuse me, sir,” she said to him. “Is Ms. Delphi in today? I needed to see her about a pool.”
“No,” he said, “I’m afraid she won’t be in until this afternoon. I can help you with anything you might need once they’re finished.” He glanced in the direction of the swim team, still picking over the store merchandise.
The moment he spoke, one of the nymphs discovered the outside display. She yelled to the rest of them who proceeded to file out the rear door in the direction of the pools. The sales clerks on the inside where relieved to see them go, but their problems were far from over.
Minutes later, the elementals were in the fenced-in area of the exterior store. Two senior sales people worked in this part of the store, as it was the most profitable part of the business. One was in the process of expounding on the attributes of a new pool model to a potential customer. He turned as the swim team column walked past him in the direction of the other pools. Both of the salesmen stood speechless as the girls proceeded to remove their tracksuits and stack them in a corner again. They stood there in a daze as the nymphs, still dressed in an assortment of bikinis climbed up the ladders on the pools and splashed into the water.
Sean saw two guys from his math class enter the store and watch the nymphs splash around in the pool. They came up behind Dion and the girls and stood next to them for a while, trying to figure out the source of the commotion outside. Finally, one of them turned to Sean.
“Where did that swim team come from?” he asked him. “We saw them in the swimsuit store and followed them over here.”
“I have no idea,” he lied. “We’re trying to decide who they are too.”
He remembered the names of the guys because they were twins. Not identical twins, but fraternal ones. They both wore glasses and were in his classes. It took him a few more minutes to remember their names: Doug and Dennis. One was slight of build and did not stand out other than having a brother who was in most of the same classes. The other played basketball and was bigger.
“Has anyone tried to speak to them?” Doug, the larger one said. “Not a bad looking one in the bunch.”
Sean, who still felt the laser beams of Emily on his back, turned to Doug. “They don’t seem to speak to anyone. None of the clerks in here or out there have been able to get them to say a word.” He was tempted to tell them the girls in the pool were all nymphs, but decided that explaining to them about water elemental wouldn’t help anyone.
Doug was the out-going popular of the two and played on the basketball team. He was in the company of the cook kids and seemed to have a different girl on his arm every month. Sean remembered him from elementary school as the fat kid who grew out of his weight and became popular when he filled out. They lived several blocks away from him in a new house his parents constructed a few years ago. Previously, they’d lived on a farm further out, but his dad sold it to some real estate developers and now the farmstead was a mass conglomeration of houses. His parents had done very well in the deal and lived in a one of the largest houses in the neighborhood.
Dennis, on the other hand, was a bit smaller and had no interest in sports. He spent most of the time in the library studying and working on another college application. He couldn’t count on a college scholarship, because his parents told both of them they would have to finance their own higher education. Dennis was obsessed with finding a college where he could get a full scholarship and not have to pay for anything. He figured it would be possible to get a job off campus to provide for his needs, but he needed a place where he didn’t have to worry about going into debt for his tuition. And he wanted a prestigious school where he could graduate and find a job in a month after he left college.
Although they were brothers, the two seldom socialized together. Doug had his basketball team friends and spent the summer at basketball camp. Dennis had his books and lab experiments as he tried to find another angle to get into college. If he didn’t know they were brothers, Sean would have wondered why they were at the mall together.
“We’re here to get some clothes for the spring,” Dennis told him. “We were coming out of the Better Men store when we saw those girls in the swimwear place. “Naturally, Doug had to stand there and try to figure out a way to meet one.” He glared at his brother.”
“You’re just jealous, little brother,” Doug sniped at him. “You spend all the time with the books; you’re never going to meet any girls. He’s mad because I dragged him over here to see if we could meet some of these babes. I’ve got the car keys and he’s stuck with me.”
“I really wouldn’t try too hard when it comes to these girls,” Sean tried to tell him.
“Why?” Doug countered. “You not had any luck?”
“It’s not that.” Sean groped for a word. “They’re not what you assume they are.”
“You’re going to have to explain yourself.”
Sean caught a collective look from Lilly and Emily. “I think they’re from some foreign country. They don’t seem to understand English.”
“Where?” Dennis said to him. “If any of them are from Europe I’d expect them to speak our language as it’s widely understood over there. I speak Spanish and German, maybe I could interpret.”
“See?” Doug said. “You just put him in the right situation and he comes around. I knew all he’d have to do is get out of the library for a few hours.”
Doug turned and looked at the girls. “So are you all double dating or something?”
“Something like that,” Emily said to him and moved closer to Sean.
“Never could see it,” he told her. “Prefer one-on-one myself. This has to be the first time I’ve ever seen you with a girl, Sean. Dion, it doesn’t surprise me. You have more attention from them than you know what to do about.”
Dion ignored him and turned from the sight of the splashing nymphs. “We’re here to meet the store owner,” he told him. “But she had to leave and it looks like we’re stuck in the mall for the next few hours.
“Come on, little brother,” Doug said to his twin. “Let’s see if we can go out there and make some connections.” The two went off in search of the nymphs who were frolicking in the pools. The two clerks still stood and watched them, unsure of what to do.
“I really should have warned them,” Dion said to his friends, “but I don’t know how to do it without making it impossible to find the Grandmaster.”
“What do they have to be afraid about?” Lilly said to Dion. “They seem harmless enough. At least they’re not trying to kidnap us like the last groups of elementals tried to do.”
“They have to be here because someone hired them,” Dion explained. “You saw them arrive on that bus. Someone, probably my uncle, paid for their arrival. These are not your normal lake and river water elementals. They have abilities I can only speculate. My uncle wants to keep me away from the Grandmaster so I don’t obtain any further powers that might threaten him. He’s brought this group in to carry out his plans. Keep in mind they may appear to be normal girls, but they are elemental
s.”
“What harm can they do?” Emily said. “I would think we’d be alright so long as we don’t get pulled into one of the pools.”
“They’ll find a way to work their power. All they need is a source of water to cause a flood or worse. And those two have no idea what they’re walking into.”
They watched Doug, with Dennis in tow; stroll over to the nearest pool that was set-up in the back lot. They walked over to the side of the pool and called to the two women who were swimming in it. The women ignored Doug as he continued to call out to them. Finally, one of them swam over to his side to see what he wanted.
“The problem with water elementals,” Dion told them. “Is that they are attracted to humans every now and then. You see, some of them were human at one time. I don’t know how it works, but sometimes an elemental starts out as a human. Sometimes a human ends up an elemental. It all depends on how they find their place in the universe. It’s really bad for a nymph to become infatuated with a human. They don’t do very well outside water and few people live close enough to large bodies of water. So what happens if a sailor should have a nymph fall for him? He has to stay constantly around a source of water or she will sicken and breakdown. It creates all kinds of problems for both of them.”
“You mean she could die?” asked Emily.
“There is no death in elementals,” Dion said. “At least not any death we would recognize. They can dissolve after a long time, but the process takes centuries. If they are out of their environment, they go into a form of hibernation and no one knows how long it can last. There are stories of water elementals that became normal again after they’d spent generations in a desert. The other problem of a water elemental falling for a human is what it can do to him. If she tries to keep him under the water, he’ll drown. Most elementals understand why humans can’t live under the sea, but some of the lower ones don’t understand why. Those elementals are very strong, so I assume they know better than to mess with humans.”