Chapter 17 Invisible Currents
Invisible Currents
Emma set her tablet on the wrought-iron table, the screen reflecting the mid-morning sunlight spilling across the veranda.
Beyond, waves rolled against the rocky shoreline in a rhythm she’d grown accustomed to over the past few weeks of living on the island—steady, patient, eternal.
She chose this spot with care: open air, natural light, a setting to put interviewees at ease while still maintaining professional boundaries.
Her notebook lay open beside the tablet, a printed job description paper clipped to the left page.
Cultural Liaison & Childcare Coordinator.
The position had been Zach’s idea—one of his rare moments of thinking beyond threat assessments.
‘If we’re bringing families to a remote island, we need someone the kids can trust. A local who knows the island’s hidden dangers. ’
She’d almost had to come without the notebook. It hadn’t been on the corner of her desk where it belonged. She always put her interview items in the same place, but this morning, she'd found it on the other side of her desk, under the staff schedules.
She shifted uneasily. She must have moved it without thinking. How else could it have gotten there?
Maybe she should work from the cottage more. Perhaps when Morgan wasn’t around and she was by herself in the office.
Footsteps whispered against stone.
Emma looked up, and Ana-Luz was simply there, as if she’d materialized from the dappled shadows beneath the colonnade. No announcement, no hesitation. Just presence.
“Ms. Rivera.” Emma rose with an automatic smile. “Thank you for meeting with me.”
“Ana-Luz, please.” The woman’s voice carried the texture of sea-worn driftwood—smooth, aged, shaped by elements she couldn’t name.
She moved with unhurried grace, the kind that suggested she’d never rushed for anything in her life.
Deep lines mapped her face, not with age alone but with something else. Knowledge, perhaps. Or patience.
But it was her eyes that made Emma’s professional smile falter for half a second.
They studied her the way one studies the ocean before a storm—assessing, measuring, peering beneath the surface for currents invisible to the naked eye.
Emma gestured to the chair across from her. “Please sit. Can I get you anything? Water? Coffee?”
“I am comfortable, gracias.” Ana-Luz settled into the chair with a quiet finality, tweaking the deep indigo shawl draped around her shoulders before folding her hands in her lap. Waiting.
Emma recalibrated, forcing her focus back to familiar territory. She’d conducted hundreds of interviews. Thousands might be more accurate. This was what she did—read people, found the threads that connected competence to culture, skill to team dynamics.
She tapped her tablet, pulling up her notes. “So, you’ve been caring for the village children for—” She glanced at the preliminary information Liz had gathered for her. “—fifteen years?”
“And before,” Ana-Luz said simply. “All my life.”
“At a formal school, or—?”
“At the village.”
Technically, an answer. Emma made a note:
Childcare: extensive village experience.
“You are comfortable with children of different ages? We’re expecting staff families with kids ranging from toddlers to teenagers.”
“Children are children.” Ana-Luz tilted her head, causing the beautiful red beads adorning her braids to clink. “They need the same things, no matter their age. To be safe. To be seen. To know the land beneath their feet.”
The phrasing caught Emma’s attention—‘to know the land beneath their feet’—but she filed it under poetic. Local flavor that would charm the resort families.
“That’s a lovely way to put it,” Emma said, and meant it.
“We want to make sure the resort respects local traditions.
We don't want to impose ourselves on the island without consideration for those who live here.” She paused, choosing her words carefully.
“What should we know? About the community here, cultural expectations, that sort of thing?”
Ana-Luz’s gaze didn’t waver. “The island remembers who respects it, and who does not.”
Emma blinked and waited for elaboration.
None came.
She wrote:
Strong local knowledge. Community ties.
“I imagine the families here have deep roots. Generations, probably?”
“Some places know who belongs to them,” Ana-Luz said, “and who doesn’t.” As if this explained everything.
A metaphor. Had to be. Emma nodded slowly, the way she did when interviewees gave philosophical answers that didn’t quite fit the question.
“So, in terms of programming—we’re thinking cultural activities for the kids.
Maybe storytelling? Local history? We’ll have a tutor to handle the actual lessons. ”
“There have always been watchers. Long before your families.”
The words landed differently. Not poetic. Just… certain. And not at all an answer to her question. Ana-Luz seemed to be holding a different conversation than she was.
“Watchers?” Emma echoed.
“Those who keep balance.” Ana-Luz’s fingers brushed along the edge of her shawl, tracing patterns Emma couldn’t see.
A chill kissed the back of Emma’s neck despite the humid warmth. She told herself it was the breeze from the ocean, the way it funneled through the colonnade.
“That’s fascinating,” she said, her voice steady, professional. “Do you mean… like guardians? Caretakers of the land?”
Ana-Luz cocked her head, studying Emma with renewed intensity. “You have walked the northern cliffs?”
The shift in topic appeared deliberate, though Emma couldn’t trace the logic. “Yes,” she admitted. “A few days after I arrived. The view was incredible.”
“The wind speaks loudly there.”
Emma waited for more, examining Ana-Luz’s face for context—a smile, a knowing look, something to anchor the statement to reality.
Nothing.
Just that calm, unreadable expression.
“It was… windy, yes,” Emma glanced at her notes, at the neat bullet points she’d prepared, and felt them slipping sideways.
This interview wasn’t following any script she recognized.
“Ana-Luz, I want to be clear—this position would involve daily interaction with resort staff and their families. Communication is important. Being able to explain things clearly, answer questions—”
“I explain very well,” Ana-Luz said, and for the first time, something that might have been amusement flickered in her eyes. “You simply have not yet learned to hear.”
The words shouldn’t have stung, but they did—a gentle rebuke wrapped in patience.
Emma drew a breath, resetting. “Tell me about the village itself. What the children do, what they need…”
Ana-Luz studied Emma for a long moment before she reached into the folds of her shawl and placed something small and cool into Emma’s palm.
A coin.
Old silver, softened by years of handling. Emma tilted it to catch the light. A ship rode stylized waves beneath a curling banner that looked like a veil billowing in the wind. The engraving was worn but deliberate, craftsmanship that spoke of significance rather than currency.
She flipped it over.
The reverse side wasn’t nautical at all.
A spiral rose from the surface—not etched, but raised, standing proud from the metal.
The ridges were precise, almost mechanical, like the teeth of a key.
Emma ran her thumb over it. The edges had been worn smooth by decades of handling, but the shape remained unmistakable.
It appeared… functional, not decorative.
“What is this?” Emma asked.
Ana-Luz’s eyes glinted in the shifting light. “A memory. It belongs to you now.”
“I—” Emma’s professional reflexes kicked in. “Thank you, but I can’t accept gifts during an interview. It’s policy.”
“It is not a gift.”
“What is it?”
“A reminder.”
The coin sat heavy in Emma’s palm, warmer than silver should be after being tucked in a shawl. Emma closed her fingers around it, feeling the spiral press into her skin. “A reminder of what?”
“Of what was once yours,” Ana-Luz said.
She stood with the same unhurried grace, gathering her shawl around her shoulders. “Come to the village tomorrow. Lunch. We will talk more then.”
It wasn’t a request, per se. Nor was it a demand. It was… a statement of inevitability.
“I—yes. Thank you.” Emma agreed before her logical brain caught up. “What time?”
“When the sun is highest.” Ana-Luz moved toward the colonnade, then paused, glancing back.
The light angled across her face in a way that made her features appear older, ancient.
“Storms reveal what sleeps beneath the surface, nina. The island is waking. You should know what breathes beneath your feet.”
Then she was gone, her footsteps fading into silence.
Emma stood alone on the veranda, the coin clutched in her hand, Ana-Luz’s words echoing in the warm air. The waves below continued their eternal rhythm. A gull cried overhead, sharp and sudden.
She looked down at the coin again.
The ship. The veil. The spiral that felt less like decoration and more like a mechanism with every passing second.
Pirates. Local legend. The island probably has a dozen stories about treasure and shipwrecks. Guests would eat up that type of lore.
But the coin felt heavier than it should have.
When Emma slipped it into her pocket and returned to her notes, she saw she had written almost nothing useful. Only fragments:
Village childcare—experienced
Cultural knowledge—extensive
Watchers???
Northern cliffs—wind
At the bottom, in handwriting less steady than usual:
The island remembers.
Emma closed the notebook, her fingers finding the coin through the fabric of her pocket. The spiral pressed into her palm, insistent. Unanswered.
Below, the waves kept their secrets.
Above, clouds gathered on the horizon, still distant but moving closer.