Skunk Man Swamp

by P. D. Workman

  “What are you talking about?”

  Maybe actual magical practitioners didn’t watch movies about magic. It would be like cops watching cop shows and complaining about all of the inaccuracies. Reg’s face warmed.

  “I don’t know.” She closed her eyes and again pictured the figure she had seen in her vision. Where was he? That tall, dark-cloaked figure had to be close by. She had felt drawn there. She knew that’s where he had been. But everything was fuzzy and confused when she tried to focus on his image. “I’m sure we’re in the right place. He was close by. But… I don’t know where he is now. Maybe… he can cloak himself. Maybe he knew someone was looking for him.”

  Damon sat back, frowning. “Maybe,” he agreed. “But if he’s lost in the swamp, why would he not want to be found? Why would he be cloaking himself?”

  “He could be in danger,” Corvin suggested. “Not from us, of course, but he could be trying to avoid some other person or creature. It might just be a coincidence that he hid himself as we got closer.”

  Reg looked around. “If he was here, then he’s not exactly lost, though, is he? I mean? He’s in civilization, not lost in the swamp.”

  “Unless…” Damon thought it through, “someone else is hiding him. What if he was captured or kidnapped? He could be here, but within a force-field or held under some kind of spell.”

  Corvin nodded. “It’s possible he’s under someone else’s power.”

  “I thought he was this powerful wizard. If he’s so powerful, then how does someone kidnap him and keep him under their control?”

  “Power is relative. Just because you are powerful, that doesn’t mean there isn’t someone more powerful.” He raised an eyebrow at Reg. This was something that Reg had experience with. On several different occasions.

  “Okay, yeah,” she agreed. She had thought that they wanted the wizard at the Spring Games because he was the most powerful, but maybe someone else didn’t want him to go to the Games, and that person—or creature—was stronger. “So do you think he is here? Or came through here? Do we spend our time looking for him or…?”

  Damon considered this thoughtfully. Corvin and Reg watched him, waiting for his decision. The waitress brought their dishes, asked briskly if they needed anything else, and then hurried away before they had time to answer.

  They all tasted their meals and made appreciative noises. Reg looked around and waited for Damon’s answer.

  “I think that if he is here or has been here, then we need to trace him backward and try to get more information. The rumors were that he was closer to the Ghost Village. It will be easier to trace him backward than forward, maybe get some more intelligence as to what’s going on, enough information to predict his movements and be able to home in on him.”

  Reg looked at Corvin to see what he thought of this. If the wizard were nearby, then it would make more sense to try to find him there.

  “Why go backward?” Corvin asked, echoing the sentiment.

  “We know where he’s been. We don’t know where he’s going.”

  “Isn’t that why we have a psychic with us?”

  Damon looked at Reg, then nodded. “Yes… and if Reg has an idea of where he was going next, that would be great, but…” He trailed off.

  “We can at least look around here for him,” Reg pointed out.

  “Well… I wouldn’t know where to look. Do you?”

  “We can walk around this development, or hamlet, or whatever you call it. See if we see him or can pick up his trail.” Reg met Corvin’s eyes again. He was nodding in agreement. “It’s stupid to go looking for him somewhere else when we know that he’s here.”

  There was silence for a few minutes. Reg looked down at her plate and pushed the food around. She wasn’t very hungry. She was more angry than hungry. Why would Damon bring her along, beg her to come with him, if he wasn’t going to listen to her when she connected with him?

  “The thing is,” Damon said slowly. “We don’t really know that he is here.”

  “Yes, we do. I—” Reg stopped speaking and just looked at him.

  He didn’t believe her. He didn’t think that Wilson was there at all. He’d gone along with her, but he hadn’t seen any sign of the wizard and didn’t think they were going to find him in a tourist trap like that. He thought she’d made a mistake.

  “You say you think he is here. But if you knew where he was… you would go to him. Or describe where he was. Or tell us what he could see. Something. But once we got close to the location you thought he might be, you said you couldn’t see him anymore.”

  “Yes,” Reg agreed. “But that doesn’t mean—”

  “I know these things aren’t always straightforward. You’re tired and hungry and Corvin said that the water was bothering you… So it’s understandable that you lost the trail. Or realized that you’d gone the wrong way to start with. That’s fine. We’ll just backtrack until you… pick up the scent again.”

  “I’m not a hound dog.”

  “I know you’re not. But if you can’t feel him here, then we can’t find him here. We should go to where he has been recently so that we can track him.”

  “I suppose,” Corvin said grudgingly. “As long as you’re not going to try to go all the way back to the beginning and start all over. If Reg could tell that he’s been in the area, then we shouldn’t have to go back too far to pick up a solid trail.”

  Damon shrugged, looking uncomfortable. Why would he want to go all the way back to the beginning? That didn’t make any sense at all. Unless he didn’t trust Reg’s psychic senses at all.

  He didn’t think that Wilson had ever been in the area.

  Reg stared at Damon, trying to vaporize him with her eyes. He looked away.

  “So you don’t believe me,” Reg said.

  “It isn’t that.”

  “You think I was wrong. You don’t think he was ever anywhere near here.”

  “Other rumors and sightings put him north of here. By quite a bit. I don’t want to waste time looking somewhere he isn’t, letting the trail go cold.”

  “You don’t think he’s here. Or ever was.”

  Damon shook his head, not answering aloud.

  Reg slammed her palm down on the table with a loud crack that made everyone jump. She stood up and stalked across the restaurant to the public restrooms and shut herself into the ladies’ room. She hit the wall several times before her anger dissipated enough to do some deep breathing and try to calm herself down. Her palms were warm, and she didn’t know if it was from hitting the table and the wall, or because of her internal fire. She didn’t want to end up burning the place down. Light Damon’s hair on fire, maybe. But then, she’d tried that once and he’d simply put it out with his own magic.

  She paced back and forth across in front of the stalls, muttering to herself. How could Damon invite her along, beg and cajole for her to help him, and then ignore her advice when she gave it? Yes, it was true that she hadn’t been able to point directly to Wilson and say, “There he is,” but that wasn’t usually how psychic vision worked. It was vague. It needed work. The person the vision was for had to put some effort into interpreting it. She wasn’t a GPS tracker.

  The woman from the couple with the young child came into the restroom and looked worriedly at Reg, frowning at her unusual behavior. Reg ducked into one of the stalls and closed the door, as if she had just walked in the door and was there to use the facilities herself. After a moment, the woman’s footsteps walked to the stall at the opposite end and she shut the door.

  Reg flushed after a short time, washed her hands, and returned to the table. She stood beside the table, looking down at Damon, not returning to her seat. He looked up at her.

  “Uh, Reg. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to imply that… I mean, I do trust you, and I know that you’re doing your best to help find him. And I didn’t expect to find him the first day, so it isn’t like you let me down. I just hope you understand that…”

  “
You’re a jerk,” she snapped.

  Both men looked up at her awkwardly. None of them had finished eating, but Reg was no longer interested in food. She stood there for a moment, then shrugged. “I’m going outside. I’ll see you when you’re done.”

  She walked out of the restaurant.

  Reg looked around. It would take a few minutes before Damon came out after her. Even if he decided to pay his bill right away and chase after her, he still had to get the waitress’s attention, use the machine or his credit card to pay, maybe box up the rest of their meals, and then look for her. Corvin could chase after her sooner, but he probably didn’t care to. He would be more civilized and not want to rush his meal.

  She wandered down the boardwalk, looked up and down the street, and did a slow circuit of all the areas around the restaurant. She looked for any sign of the missing wizard or anywhere he might have gone. Wizards R Us or wherever wizards would go in the area. It might just be a tourist trap, but wizards took vacations too. There had to be a reason for him to be in the area. Someone might have seen him. He might have left his imprint on a place or an object. Just because Damon didn’t have any faith in her psychic power, that didn’t mean she was wrong about Wilson being in the area.

  It was twenty minutes before Corvin came out of the restaurant and wandered through the settlement or followed her scent until he came upon her. Reg looked around for Damon, but he was nowhere in sight. Had he ditched her? Or was he still stubbornly waiting in the restaurant, expecting Reg to return and apologize?

  Well, she wasn’t going to apologize for being angry. She had every right to feel the way she did.

  “He’s just settling up,” Corvin said, raising his hands in a calming gesture. “He’ll be out shortly.”

  Reg blew out her breath and nodded. She looked toward the water, the direction they had come in from. “How long before our guide is here and we have to go?”

  “If you want to look around for a while longer, we can do that.”

  Reg grunted, irritated. But she probably would have been annoyed at any answer he had given her. He didn’t say she had to leave or that she had to stay.

  A few minutes later, Damon joined them. He didn’t try to explain or excuse his actions, but he didn’t start accusing her or saying that he didn’t want her around anymore, either. They both looked at each other.

  “Did you have anywhere else you wanted to look?” Damon asked grudgingly. “Or… is there anything we can do to help?”

  She had a sneaking suspicion that Corvin had something to do with the questions. He’d put Damon in his place and told him to start behaving like a respectable warlock. Like someone who knew how to deal with a psychic.

  “Do you have anything that belonged to him? You said you have information about where he was last seen; maybe you should share what you have. It’s sort of dumb to keep it to yourself and then expect me to work blind.”

  “I… don’t have anything that belonged to him. Sorry. I know they do that sometimes… but since I’m just someone trying to find him, I don’t have anything from his family.”

  Reg nodded. She had expected as much, but she also knew he wasn’t telling her everything he knew. She waited for the rest.

  “I told you he was seen north of here,” Damon offered.

  “Yes.”

  “I don’t really know much more than that. I thought that we should go to the last place that he was seen. Ask some questions. See if maybe… you can pick up something there. He might have left some kind of clue or some kind of imprint on the place, right? Something that you could feel?”

  “Yeah, maybe. Depending on how long he was there and how long ago it was.”

  “That’s what I’m hoping. Your psychic powers are prodigious…”

  If they were so prodigious—assuming “prodigious” meant she was good—then why didn’t he trust her when she said that the wizard was there? She knew Wilson was close by, even if they couldn’t see him.

  Reg was silent. Corvin and Damon waited. Damon scratched his jaw, waiting for some kind of reaction or direction from Reg. Finally, she shrugged. “I guess if you want to go somewhere else, then we go somewhere else.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Reg was quiet as they walked back to the dock where the boat had dropped them off in. Damon called Tybalt and they sat on benches in the shade awaiting his return. Reg didn’t have anything to say to Damon and didn’t feel like talking. So they all looked at their phones, ignoring each other, until Tybalt pulled the airboat in once more. Reg took a seat in the back so she wouldn’t get the spray from the river in her face.

  Just as the boat started to pull out, she realized she was hungry.

  How stupid was it to go out in a pout and not eat her meal? How childish. And she knew better. After living hand-to-mouth for so long, she knew better than to give up a meal for something as stupid as pride. She had to take food where she could get it. Even though now she had the money to buy food, they were out on the water; there was nowhere to buy it.

  Corvin looked over at Reg. He nudged a bag with his toe. Looking down at it, Reg realized he had packed up the food and brought it with him. “Did you bring a fork?” Reg asked in a low voice, not wanting Damon to overhear. He was up at the front, talking animatedly with Tybalt. Telling him where to go or some other story about the lost wizard, she assumed. Tybalt looked at the river ahead of him, nodding occasionally, not exactly enthralled at the story.

  “There are a couple of forks in there,” Corvin confirmed.

  Reg picked up the bag and carefully untied the knotted handles at the top. “Thanks. I guess I was too mad to realize how hungry I am.”

  “Take care of yourself. Don’t let pique get the better of you.”

  It was what Reg had just been thinking, though not in those words, and it bugged her that he thought he needed to advise her on it.

  “I know,” she said evenly.

  He shrugged, one side of his mouth curling up into a small smile. “Redheads are known for their temper, aren’t they? I have found most of the redheads I know to be… passionate.”

  “Watch it, or I’ll make you sit in the front.”

  His smile broadened. He watched her tease the bag open and check the boxes within to find her own lunch.

  “I should eat all of these.”

  “Go ahead. It isn’t like they’re going to last. You can’t leave food in this heat for long. That’s just asking for food poisoning.”

  “Why did you bring it all, then? Planning to feed the fishes?”

  “We could. You never know what might surface to eat it.”

  Reg had a sudden vision of slimy things swimming up from under the murky water and shook her head. “No. Ew. No.”

  She found her catch of the day and dug in, trying to quiet her grumbling belly. “There must be all kinds of fishing around here. Unless it’s banned in a national park.”

  “No, there’s fishing—quite a lot of it. There’s a very wide variety of fish in these waters. Both fresh and saltwater.”

  “Because it’s so close to the ocean.”

  He nodded. They sat, watching as the airboat raced down the river. It was all so green. And wet. And it smelled like… Reg couldn’t quite put a name to the brackish scent. She didn’t like it, but it wasn’t horrible. It would probably smell better if the water moved faster, but it seemed to practically stand still.

  “Does it flow when it rains?” Reg asked.

  “The flows were all altered when they tried to drain the land to make it into farmland,” Corvin explained. “They have a project on the go to try to rehabilitate the flow again. I’m not sure what kind of changes that will cause to the ecosystem, and whether it will restore any of what has been lost.” He shook his head. “They’re hoping so, but only time will tell.” He raised his brows. “Or a psychic. Any predictions?”

  Images flashed before Reg’s eyes, but they were gone too fast for her to make sense of them. She blinked rapidly, trying to catch s
napshots of a few of them, but they were all too fleeting.

  “Uh… no. Things will change. But I don’t know… whether that’s good or not.”

  “Things always change.” Corvin looked out over the water. “Like the river, if things don’t move forward, they get stagnant.”

  After eating her lunch, Reg could hardly keep her eyes open. She had been up much earlier than usual that day, and the sun on the water made her eyes want to close for protection, and as soon as she closed them, she would start to drift, her thoughts jumping illogically from one thing to another.

  Eventually, she decided she would just let her thoughts wander as they would and have a nap. It wasn’t particularly comfortable in her seat on the airboat, but she’d slept under far more physically uncomfortable conditions before.

  Even as she slept, she was aware of the water around her. But in her mind, she could see far more than she could when she had kept her eyes open. She could see some of the things that moved beneath the surface. And some things that didn’t move. Not only garbage and fallen trees, but bones buried there long ago. People who had ventured out into the Everglades and never returned. She was glad that it wasn’t like the enchanted lake in Harry Potter, where the dead things came to life again and tried to catch them.

  Was the wizard down there with the bones? Had she been wrong when she saw him at the last settlement? Or had she been right about the location, but had limited herself by looking for the tall, cloaked figure when his body was under the water or the soggy ground?

  Reg nearly screamed when long, cold fingers wrapped around her arm.

  She jumped awake, pulling away and putting her fists up to protect herself. The air crackled around her like static electricity on a grand scale. Corvin snatched his hand back, his eyes wide.

  Reg swore and blew out her breath. “Holy crap! Don’t grab me like that. What are you doing?”

  Tybalt and Damon looked over their shoulders at Reg. Everyone was acting like she had done something surprising when she had just reacted to a perceived threat. Anyone would have reacted the same way when jerked out of a dream like she had been.