Storm Surge

by Melissa Gunn

  “Why, thank you,” said Freya’s mother dryly. “In that case, call me Danae. Should we make it off this headland alive, I look forward to your mother’s falafel.” Her voice sharpened as she addressed her daughter. “Freya, are you up here on the cliffs at night with no light and no food? I thought I’d taught you better than that.”

  Freya flushed in the darkness, embarrassed and therefore annoyed by her mother’s words in front of her friends.

  “I do have food; I just didn’t want to waste it as were-bait. As for a torch - well, you won’t let me have a phone, and the solar lantern hadn’t been charged. It’s usually Tammy’s job to charge it.” She tried not to whine the last sentence, though it was hard not to. She hadn’t yet become accustomed to taking over the jobs her sister had done around the house. However, her mother latched onto that topic, though not for the expected reason.

  “Tammy’s absence is exactly why I am here. I can’t let her just go off with a pack of weres and not keep us updated on how she’s doing. She hasn’t sent a single message. When I saw a few weres coming up here while I was on my way home from the glasshouse, I thought I’d find out about Tammy from them. They looked human at the time, of course. Unfortunately, they weren’t prepared to share any information, and they turned on me when we were out of sight of town.”

  “That’s terrible, Mum. Didn’t you think of asking when other people were about?”

  “I had to take the chance I had. For all the good it did. As for phones, they’re not all that useful when they run out of battery. Which mine has. And I don’t have anyone to call in this town yet, anyway.”

  “But you could have called emergency services!” said Freya.

  “I don’t trust them. The weres control almost everything other than the station where your friends come from.”

  Aisha and Karim spoke simultaneously.

  “We control more than just the station!”

  “Well, a bit more. A shop or two,” said Aisha.

  “Yes, exactly,” said Danae. “Not emergency services, am I correct?”

  “Well, not exactly. But one of my uncles is on council.”

  “Hardly enough to make a difference. When Freya was injured, I tried to report it to the police. They wouldn’t record anything, said there were no witnesses. After that, I knew the authorities here were biased. So, no emergency services. Speaking of which, the leg bite seems to be a popular target for these were-foxes. I would appreciate it if you could help me up, and down the hill. Before any weres return.”

  “Yes, let’s go,” said Freya.

  “Good plan,” said Karim. “Aisha, you and I aren’t injured, so we’ll offer a shoulder each to Freya’s mum. Freya, any idea which way to go?”

  Freya was pleased not to have to be leader for this. It was too embarrassing around her mother. But she was concerned about her mother’s injuries, whatever they were.

  “Do you need us to figure out some bandages, or something?” she asked.

  “No, without light you can’t see what to do, and I’d rather get somewhere safe first,” Danae said.

  “Alright then. Light. Hmm.” While she was trying to work out which direction led homeward, there was a brilliant flash of light as lightning struck out to sea. It was quickly followed by a rumble of thunder that shook the ground. Freya automatically counted the seconds between the lightning and thunder. It didn’t take long.

  “That’s all we need, an electrical storm on the way! At least I saw the right direction. That way!” Freya felt somewhat foolish as she pointed, then realised that without the flash of lightning, the others couldn’t see her hand. The sea roared periodically on one side though, punctuated by the occasional raucous gannet. They stumbled along painfully. Aisha and Karim soon began to complain about sore shoulders. Apparently, supporting her mother wasn’t the easiest choice they could have made.

  “I’m right here, you know,” said Danae. “And I’m trying to take my own weight as much as I can.”

  “Sorry.”

  “There! I see the lights of the town,” said Freya. They had reached the cliff-path that headed down towards Freya’s house now, and with the sparse lights from the town she was able to see enough at last. She stopped and waited for Aisha, Karim and her mother to catch up. All three of them wore grim, pained expressions. Aisha and Karim had swapped sides, presumably to ease their sore shoulders. Behind them, the headland was still shrouded in black. While she looked, another flash of lightning lit up the area. There was no gap before the thunder, this time, and the rain abruptly redoubled.

  “Knowing my luck, the storm sprites will turn up now too,” Freya muttered to herself, thinking of her early experiences with sprites and the dangerous not-a-harpie-Nik.

  “What was that?” said Aisha.

  “Nothing. Let’s just get out of here as soon as we can.” Now was not the time to share her private fears. Not with her Mum listening, too.

  “Yes, we’d better keep moving. We’re at risk from lightning strikes here, and those weres could be anywhere. They live in town too, remember,” said Karim. He was clearly no longer enjoying this adventure.

  Karim’s words seemed almost prophetic. They had only taken a few steps down the hill when they encountered a new and unwelcome challenge: a line of were-foxes arrayed across the path below them.

  Honestly, here we are on the home stretch, and we have another obstacle to overcome? This is like some drawn-out nightmare.

  Freya stepped towards her tormentors with fists clenched at her sides. The faint pain from over-long fingernails reminded her that this was real, no dream.

  “What do you want?” she demanded.

  “I’ve told you what I want.” Her classmate, the red-haired Gareth, called out from one side.

  Freya ignored this as the catcall it was. Evidently his reputation was at stake again, since he felt obliged to give smart remarks.

  “This storm is right above us, we’re all at risk here.” On cue, another flash of lightning highlighted the russet hues in the human hair of the weres facing them. Freya thought she felt her own hair frizzling with the nearness of the strike. Storm sprites around for sure. “Look,” she said. “We don’t want a fight. We just want to go home. We need to get out of this storm. Let us past.” She scanned the faces she could make out in the gloom. More lightning helped her in this identification effort, though it didn’t help her nerves.

  No Tammy. No Lisichka. All males. Is this pack under control?

  Unexpectedly, her mother spoke up, her voice strained but clear.

  “Your pack has one of my daughters. Be glad of her, and leave me and my remaining daughter alone. Go back to your lives and leave me to mine.”

  Yeah, go Mum!

  Unfortunately, the weres seemed less impressed. Their voices overlapped in loud complaint.

  “We don’t agree with Lisichka’s decisions.”

  “We’ve decided to mete out our own justice. Maybe it’s time for a new were-haven.”

  “This town is getting crowded - we can’t even go out for a solitary stroll on the headland without finding foul-smelling demis in our territory.”

  “Then don’t keep my sister!” Freya snarled back at them. She was trying to make this town home, at least for a while. The last thing she wanted was for these arrogant weres to take over - especially since they clearly had no love for her or her kind. And what about Aisha and Karim? She glanced back at them. They were still ostensibly supporting her mother, although Danae appeared to be standing straight now. Maybe she was simply trying to appear stronger to these predators. Did her mother feel like prey right now? She’d already suffered a were attack tonight... Suddenly, Freya wondered how her mother had escaped the first attack. Maybe their unexpected presence had interrupted it. But how would she and her companions escape the new threat? With steep cliffs to one side, and dark farmland to the other, not to mention weres behind, they seemed to be trapped between... what was that old Greek story? Yes, between the Scylla and Char
ybdis. Stories... maybe that was the way out. Get them talking, at least. It had to better than having them attack.

  “So, you want to form a new pack. But I thought foxes lived alone. And you’re were-foxes, aren’t you? How come you’re working together?” said Freya.

  One of the not-very-much older weres gave a barking laugh. “Everyone seems to think foxes are solitary. That just goes to show how little you know about us. For a start, we’re weres, not foxes. So why should fox behaviour define us?”

  “You don’t seem to be letting human behaviour define you,” muttered Freya. Her comment was ignored by the spokesfox.

  “Let me tell you, both foxes and were-foxes are quite happy to live in groups. Usually we avoid being seen together, in case someone leaps to unfortunate conclusions. It’s handy to have a reputation as loners. But out here, no-one can see us but you. And you are trespassing.”

  Freya shivered at the menace in his voice. The cold rain didn’t help either, she told herself.

  Sure, it’s just the rain making you scared. Keep them talking, Freya.

  “OK, so you’re just socially inept, is that right? I can believe it. Any group that repeatedly attacks lone females can certainly do with some extensive social retraining. No wonder Lisichka doesn’t let you out unsupervised if she can help it. Your behaviour must be quite the embarrassment for her.”

  I wish I didn’t feel like such a hypocrite calling them socially inept. Pot, kettle, black?

  Freya was trying to get the weres to lose cohesion, but she didn’t think she was managing it terribly well. Currently, they’d all drawn closer together, and was that a growl she heard?

  “Freya!” Aisha whispered urgently at her. “What are you doing? I don’t think getting them angry is a great idea right now. Remember, I’ve used my summoning for the day. I can’t do anything else!”

  “Can Karim summon anything?” Freya whispered back.

  “Not that I’ve ever seen. He’s a potions expert, remember? He works in a quiet room with beakers of goo! But we’re all together here, and I want to get out of this alive. Please don’t make them any angrier!” Aisha finished her whispered tirade.

  No help there. I’ll have to come up with something else.

  “Mum, can you do anything? Get us past these guys somehow?”

  Her mother replied with depressing predictability.

  “No. I can’t. If I could have, I would have done so when they attacked me up on the headland. Even fast-growing plants don’t grow fast enough in this cold weather. If they don’t listen to reason, the best we may be able to hope for is the return of the matriarch to get them back in order. But it sounds like they are renegades anyway. She may have no control over them anymore.”

  Freya let out her breath in a huff.

  “There must be something we can do. Aisha, didn’t you say I should call on Bastet if I had problems again?”

  “Er, yes. But actually, I don’t know if that will work for you. I mean, it’s not like you’re a priestess of the cat goddess or anything. I guess you could try. But I’m not promising anything. And if she does send help... well, she’s not exactly... I mean, she always has a price. And the bigger the request, the bigger the price.”

  “Have you got any better ideas?” asked Freya.

  “Freya,” Karim spoke up at last - he’d been sagging rather, wilting in the rain perhaps. “I don’t think you should try Bastet. As Aisha says, she’s not your goddess, and she’s particular. But more than that, she’s not that strong. People will do anything for their cat, but most of them have never heard of the cat goddess. I’m not sure that she’d be able to do anything for us even if she did come. Plus, cats, you know. They’re self-centred. Bastet is very catlike. If it’s not in her interest to help you, she won’t. I can’t summon her, and Aisha’s already used up her summoning for the day. Isn’t there anything from your own heritage you can call upon instead?”

  Freya looked at her mother, and shook her head. She didn’t want to summon any water deities in front of her mother, even if there was one nearby. Of course, she didn’t want to be set upon by weres again, either. It was looking more like she’d have to do a summoning with every passing second. But summon what? The rain streamed down her face, making snakes of her long hair. Freya thought frantically.

  Stories, stories. There must be something I can use.

  “So, once upon a time I read that there are rivers in the sky. It sure feels like one of those is here tonight. I expect there will be flooding again if it keeps up like this. Funny, isn’t it, the way a river in the sky can turn into a river down here. And there was flooding last time we met, wasn’t there?” Freya couldn’t see her opponents faces clearly enough to read their expressions, but she saw them take a step away from her.

  That’s right, keep backing up.

  “In fact, I would expect this evening’s sky-river to burst its banks quite shortly. Say, in the next minute. What would you do if it did that? Seeing as you are downriver of us, so to speak?”

  The weres took another step back. Alright, summoning it was, they seemed to feel threatened by that. The only streams here were indeed in the sky, so she’d have to improvise.

  She knelt, and patted around blindly for long grasses. She came up with a handful of stems, and some bramble snagged her hand. She gingerly wrapped that around the grass, gaining a few more scratches in the process. Raising her handful high, she paced out a circle and began to sing, picking her words at random.

  “Ooh, scary, Valley-girl is singing.”

  “Do you wanna be a social media star, Valley girl? Shame you can’t keep a tune.”

  “You need to upgrade your microphone, Valley-girl,”

  Freya tried not to listen as the weres mocked her efforts. She needed some help.

  “Can you be a chorus, Aisha, Karim? Mum? Just sing what I do?”

  “Er. Sure. But I warn you now, I am not a good singer,” said Aisha.

  “That’s OK, join in anyway. I’m trying to do something different,” said Freya.

  She sang again, the voices of her friends trailing after her, a note or two behind in ragged chorus. After a few moments, she heard her mother’s voice join them. The rain increased in intensity. This must be what they meant when they said it was bucketing down. There was another flash of lightning, and for a moment it felt as though they would all be swept down the cliff by the surging torrent of rain. Water pounded on Freya’s head and shoulders, surprisingly painful. She put her arms over her head, trying to protect herself. The trickle of water down her back became a flood, and rivulets made their way over her face. She struggled to draw breath, there was so much moisture in the air.

  I guess there really are rivers in the sky. Thank goodness for that.

  Freya tried to lift her feet, and realised that her feet were ankle-deep and more in a stream of water. The water rose quickly to her knees, tugging her downhill. She clutched at Karim’s arm, afraid of being washed away. She couldn’t see the were-foxes anymore, though they had been only a few steps away. Surely that meant the water had done its job?

  How do I stop the rivers of the sky, now I’ve called them?

  “Lio!” Freya shouted, hoping against hope that he would be around, and hear her. A wind demi might know something about weather control. “Lio, help!”

  Someone cleared their throat behind her. Freya’s already pounding heart redoubled its pace as her adrenaline spiked. Both Nik and Lio were standing there. Lio’s storm hounds lunged eagerly forward, only to be stopped by their leashes.

  “Well, that was different,” said Lio. “I’ve never seen anyone summon with brambles, grass and blood before. Innovative. Well done.”

  Freya felt her face heat, unseen in the darkness.

  “Thanks. I think. But how do I make it stop?”

  “Good question. Luckily my brother owes me a favour,” Lio said cryptically. “Just a moment.” He splashed out of sight. Given the heaviness of the rain, that didn’t take long. Frey
a wondered what was going on out in the deluge. Then it was over, the rain easing abruptly to the merest mist.

  Lio jogged back into sight, looking a trifle smug.

  “Job done,” he said.

  Aisha and Karim turned to stare.

  “Do we know you?” asked Karim.

  “Oh, I do hope not,” said Lio. “It would be terribly rude of you to have met me and forgotten, after all.”

  Karim didn’t seem to know what to say to this.

  “If you want to walk around us, please do. We’re helping an injured woman here, so we can’t leave the path, such as it is,” said Aisha.

  “Oh, no. Far be it from me to inconvenience an injured woman,” said Lio, politely. “Nik, I believe you and I are not needed just now. Freya has taken care of her problem. But there may be something of interest to you down the track.”

  Lio took a wide berth around them, his hounds tugging at their leashes. The air around him smelled faintly of ozone. He looked at Freya and one eye fluttered in a half wink.

  “Beautifully done,” he said to her.

  Nik followed Lio down the hill, keeping her distance. She sent a pointed glance at Freya though.

  “Fancy summoning, but don’t do it again when I’m around.” She did not seem happy to be there.

  As Lio and Nik rounded their group, Freya saw that the were-foxes were further down the slope, scattered about across the field, apparently having been washed off their feet. As the wind-demis got close enough for the weres to identify, a number of groans went up from the pack.

  “Not them again!”

  “Tobes, I don’t think we’re going to be spraying any deodorant tonight.”

  “Lachy, you may be right, old boy.”

  “Come on, you lot. Nothing to see here.”

  They struggled to their feet and straggled swiftly away into the darkness, the wind-demis and storm-hounds disappearing after them.

  There was a damp pause.

  “That was enough excitement for me for one year. Can we go home now?” suggested Karim.