It all started during one of our family reunions. Us children were busy playing around, the adults were chattering as they prepared the food and tables for dinner. Auntie Azura had just been elected as one of the Blizzaria House of Lords representatives. Her name had been forwarded as Minister of Defense, but she rejected the nomination and it fell to Vera Soldana. I remember asking her, innocently, why she hadn't taken the post.
She was drinking a cup of NesHeli. She always seemed to have a cup in her hands. Maybe time in the snow made her hands cold and she used the warmth to warm them up. She alone paused at my question, turning from whom she had been conversing with and knelt down to my level. "Sweetheart, Blizzarins don't become Minister of Defense. We are far too crafty and we get bored very quickly."
"But wouldn't you want the Minister of Defense to be crafty?" I asked back.
She chuckled, "Yes, of course, but at the same time, we need to be reserved. Blizzarins are forever playing with spies and the like. Getting a message across Blizzarins is a family past time."
I didn't understand what she meant, and my face probably conveyed that message to her faster than any words could. She stood up and chuckled before handing me a piece of paper, "Here take this to your cousins and try to figure out what it says. It's written in plain Xelha, so there is no code or figurative language in there. Once you and your cousins figure it out, come back here and let me know what it says."
"It can't be that hard auntie," I spoke as I unfolded the paper. My mouth gaped as upon unfolding the paper completely, there was nothing on it. I flipped it over several times. Nothing. "Auntie! There's nothing here!"
"There most certainly is," she cackled. "Go find your cousins, I'm sure they'll be able to help you. A couple of heads are better than one."
I looked at her again as she took up her cup of hot cocoa, cupping the bottom and resumed talking to my other aunts and uncles. If she thought some cheap trick was going to keep me occupied, she had another thing coming. I ran off to find my mother who was helping to organize the tables.
"Mum! Auntie Azura is trying to trick me with a lie!" I blurted out to her.
"Auntie Azura has always been the crafty one, but to accuse her of lying is a serious offense young lady," my mother lightly scolded me. "So what has she done that you believe her to be lying to you?"
I handed her over a piece of paper. "See it has nothing on it! She wants me to take it to my cousins to keep us occupied and out of her way so she doesn't have to answer my questions!"
"Oh? And what questions are those?" my mother said as she glanced over the paper, running her finger through as if reading through something.
"I asked her why Blizzarins can't be Ministers of Defense and she said solve this and you'll find out."
"Ah," I'm not sure if she sighed or lightly chuckled. "Then there is a message on there, what it is, I can't tell, but if you asked her that, there is indeed a message on there," she said as she handed me back the paper.
"Clues?"
Mother shrugged, "She could have written anything, but it's likely only a couple of words. Take it to your cousins and I'm sure you'll all be able to come up with something." She then motioned for me to go outside and find my cousins. Still puzzled over the message, I found Ryo. He was the smarter one of us younger cousins. He was working on trying to break the record for fastest Rubix Cube completion, and so was the obvious first stop. I showed him the paper and he looked over it.
"Hmmmm, if there is something there and we cannot see it, maybe it's invisible?" he said after a few moments. He took the paper and put it on it's side and attempted to see if there was another layer. After a few moments of trying he gave up, "Nope, not double layer. Maybe invisible ink?"
"Oh! That could be it!" I snapped my fingers. I pulled out my phone and together we looked up invisible ink on Gelgoogle. One of our other cousins, Nuka, came over during the search. She was a bit older than us. When you began talking more about boys than actual schoolwork.
"Whatchya doing?" she asked.
"We're looking up solutions for invisible ink!" I responded.
"Eh?" she seemed confused.
"It's for smart people," Ryo quipped.
She shook her head, "No, I know what invisible ink is silly, I don't know why you'd be looking it up. Most of it is like... really strange chemicals."
"Then how are we going to look at this?" I demanded as I shoved the paper in her face.
She flipped it over a couple of times before going, "Oh. Maybe you should return to sender and tell them it'll be too complex for Elementary Schoolers to try to figure out."
"Hmm, that was an option..." I mused for a moment. I glanced at Ryo and he too seemed to nod in agreement. So the three of us returned to Azura. She was sitting at the islands, drinking yet another cup of NesHeli as she looked over the Blizzaria Gazette's post election results and punditry. "Auntie Azura, it's too hard. We can't get the chemicals you'd need to reveal the invisible ink."
She looked up from her reading and over to us. "Maybe you need some brain fuel. Want a cup of NesHeli, get the glucose flowing?"
"Yes please!" we all echoed in unison. Now, while Auntie Azura has no children, she certainly makes the best cup of NesHeli of the entire family. Though, that could be just because most of the family drinks hot tea and not NesHeli. She rested her cup down on the paper as she went to boil some more water for our cups of cocoa.
"I'm impressed you figured out it was invisible ink," she smiled. "You're very close to the right track."
The words encouraged us and we decided to have another look while we waited for the water to boil. We moved Azura's cup and found a single stroke had started to show. It wasn't a letter, but something was starting to be shown. Azura's cup was warm to the touch. It had been sitting for a while. Was the heat what we needed? Azura took up her cup and was content to watch us all discuss the newly revealed line while we waited for the water to finish boiling. Once the water had boiled and the mix had been stirred, we all got our cups and put them around the paper. Some lines began to show. Slowly. Here and there. Azura had made another cup for herself with the remainder and walked over to our spot on the table.
"Can we use your cup?" we asked her.
She shook her head. "Here let me show you the easy way." She folded the paper up before instructing me, "cup your hand like a soup bowl." I followed her instructions and she put the paper in my hand. She then rested my cup in my hand on top of the paper. "Now push the paper up towards the bottom, and count to sixty." I thought her strange, but she smiled and nodded. I grabbed the cup handle with my other hand before pushing the paper up on the bottom and counted to sixty. At first a little fast, though Azura didn't seem to correct the speed. Maybe she had already accounted for it. Once I reached sixty, I put the cup down and hastily unfolded the paper. There spread in large letters was 'You Win!'
"Whooooaaa!" the three of us cooed as we looked at Azura.
"And that's why a Blizzarin can never be Defense Minister. If you know how to both write and decipher that, you've joined the Blizzarin Family Game, Nagaro. Once in, you never get back out, and you're forever stuck sending and receiving messages like this. Reports, family letters, updates, challenges to paintball, the list goes on and on. And as Minister of Defense, you're more primed to use it. Extra messages hidden in plain sight. But as Defense Minister, you'd have to disclose this to a large portion of people outside the family. And so, we keep it to ourselves by not entering the Ministry of Defense. My messages become harmless political banter that no one other than my family will read about. And likewise, my family can send me things I might otherwise not be able to detect, and forward it onto the Foreign Ministry or Defense Ministry. That way, the source stays secret, but the secret it uncovers does not."
And ever since that day, every time I see a clip of Auntie Azura sipping her cup of NesHeli. The reporter or random bystander will always comment on how many cups she's had by the time the camera caught her. Yet all I can think about is how many messages she's deciphered and read, in plain sight, without a soul ever knowing.230Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡfpCxFWtdFh
