Chapter Two: Clarisse

It seemed that the Greek island of Elafonisos was a particularly sunny place considering it was part of the only country in Europe that had a majority of hydrokinetics, water-breathers, and the like. Weathermen were known to be flooded away from the place, but Clarisse was absolutely convinced that some had been snuck in, if not to maintain the lush vegetation and clear waters, then to maintain the country's tourism industry.

A soft sigh of lazy happiness sounded from Clarisse as she flipped herself over, pulled her hair up, and stretched herself over the towel. Yes, the weather was just right with enough sun to start an early summer tan, but enough wind to cool her off. The waves made for excellent background music, and for once in her life, she was absolutely content.

The sun was gone. She could feel the sudden presence of a shadow relieving her tanning session, and once she dared to rotate her head to see what was the matter, the bucket of sea water was thrown upon her.

"You little pieces of shit!"

Clarisse scrambled up, shaking off the excess of wetness that had drenched her. She gritted her teeth up at the two boys in the air above the water, each the same height and build with the same fine hair, but were discernable upon closer inspection. The one with the red swimming shorts was flipping and laughing through the air while the other, with blue shorts, hovered just above the water with a lesser sense of balance, but still holding his stomach with even more joy.

She picked up a rubber ball that had seemed to wash up, tossed it in her hand, and whipped it at the boy in the red shorts.

It hit him square in the forehead, and with a sort of stumble, he could keep himself in the air. However, he did lose that one second of concentration, which resulted in letting his twin fall with a small splash into the water.

"Clarisse!"

A strange thing happened. Clarisse turned around with a whiny face, but then suddenly, instantly, her face was blank, surprised even, and she blinked a few times. She looked about herself, and then scowled and wiped the droplets of water from her body.

"Clarisse, no throwing!" her mother called angrily again.

Clarisse blinked a few times at her mother. "Sorry, did I throw something?" She looked genuinely confused, and followed with, "I was just tanning, when I suddenly I was..."

"You're only thirteen, what do you need to..." This time, her mother stood up, keeping her sun hat on her head. "Enough! Come here! All three of you!" she roared.

The two twins walked sheepishly away from the water with their heads down. Clarisse looked cross about her mother not understanding, being her school geek and... and having a particularly unusual marital situation. Nevertheless, she followed the boys up the sand. Upon seeing her one brother in blue shorts trying his hardest not to laugh, she gasped, screaming, "You! Didn't I tell you never to mess with my memory again! You little twat!"

She chased him while he ran with such a laugh that made him loose his breath faster, allowing his sister to almost tackle him if not for their mother's furious voice.

The three of them eventually stood in a line in front of their mother, all with their heads down in fear.

"You! All of you! I'm sick of it! No abilities for the rest of the trip!" Kate growled.

They all shouted in protest, but Clarisse found herself to be saying louder than the others, "Why don't you ask Dad what he thinks?"

Adam was on his back, silent, full in the sun. He had been complaining about how unfashionably white his skin was for the past month. Once Kate elbowed him, he woke up, lifted his head with squinted eyes, and made what he could for what was happening by what he saw.

"Listen to your mother," he yawned and went back to sleep.

The three started yelling again, in outrage, but were shot down with one look.

Kate hissed, "Clarisse, no aiming, no throwing, no thinking about accurately hitting anything."

"Not fair! I didn't even-"

"Which leads to Luke, no wiping anyone's memories!"

Luke, the twin in blue shorts, was still trying not to laugh, but once Kate glared deeply at him, he found that he stopped immediately.

Kate rested her eyes on the final child, glaring with a, "And Jeremy, no levitating anything or anyone, not even yourself."

Jeremy smiled sheepishly, and accepted it.

"Got it?"

There was a collective sigh and a jumble of mumbles resembling, "got it."

Kate leaned back in her chair, "Good. Now you can go off and play or whatever."

Luke and Jeremy slumped off back to the waterline, kicking at shells, but the carefree atmosphere was gone. They whispered glumly to each other and every once in a while, glared back at Clarisse.

She looked back at them with silent contempt as well, but held her nose high, picked up her towel, and laid it straight in her mother's view of the beach. If those monsters tried anything again, her mother would be there to witness it.

For the next half hour, she continued to lay comfortably in the sun, although shooting looks back at her brothers to catch them plotting some other horrible mess. They looked innocent enough, digging with their hands to form a sand castle with a moat and everything. Yes, they would come up with some wretched scheme soon enough, right when they thought she wasn't listening...

A gust of wind blew suddenly through the beach, tossing Clarisse's hair up. It was a gust undeniably from a speedster. She turned her head and squinting, still pretending to be asleep or not paying attention.

"A message for you, Mr. Watson," the speedster withdrew a folded white paper from his bright red jacket, and wiped the sweat off his forehead with his baseball cap.

Adam blinked, pushing himself awkwardly off the ground with another yawn. He took the letter, which made two beeps of confirmation as it recognized his fingerprints. He muttered something of a thanks to the messenger, who nodded off and was gone in another flash of red.

"Who's that from?" Kate asked as he read, moving his eyes back and forth swiftly down the page. At a certain point, he laughed, then continued to smile and mouth some words slightly as he read. By the time he finished and sighed with a roll of the eyes, he folded up the letter four times, and threw it into the sand in front of him. The chemicals within the letter reacted, and it burst into a flame, being soon reduced to ashes, which were gone in the breeze.

Kate asked again with more impatience, "Well, who's it from?"

Clarisse's father seemed indifferent to respond. He shook the sand from her hair and said, "Nothing really to worry about. It was from Elizabeth. Said her family knows that I'm alive and are attempting to find me." He smirked a little bit, laughing a little.

Clarisse's mother slapped him across the face. "Don't you be so confident! What if the government slips? What they break through the crypto-dissimulation and they find us? What if when they do catch you, you aren't saved by your time-traveling great-granddaughter?"

He rubbed his cheek, not opposing the action at all. "It won't happen again. I'll admit, last time I was foolish and careless, but believe me, Kate, it won't happen again."

Kate leaned back into her chair holding her head, murmuring "This is it. You're going to kill us all just because you're a foolish, selfish bastard."

"Believe me, Kate," he leaned over to her, and lowered his voice to something so soft that Clarisse couldn't hear.

"I've got it," Adam leaned back into his tanning position. "Just trust me, I've got things up my sleeve that you don't even know about. Nothing bad will happen, Kate. Nothing."

There was such a long and silent pause that Clarisse controlled her breathing to listen better. Her mother turned to her side, muttering what Clarisse swore she heard as:

"You're not even wearing sleeves."