Spirits of Ash and Foam

by Greg Weisman

  Maybe it was that German accent, but Rain didn’t like the condescension she perceived in Dr. Strauss’s voice. She pointed at Cousin Isaac. “Does he have malaria?”

  Josef Strauss looked up from the chart and found himself taken aback by the intensity of the young girl’s stare. Her almond eyes pinned him in place and forced him to croak out “No.”

  Rain and Isaac exchanged vindicated glances and firm nods. Strauss could believe what he chose. They knew.

  Rain absently scratched at her arm.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  DIAPAUSE

  MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 15

  Josef Strauss, more disconcerted than he’d care to admit, returned to his basement office to find his friend Jean-Marc Thibideaux waiting. At that moment I was still with Maq down at the harbor, but I could clearly see (with my eyes closed) the nods they exchanged as Strauss crossed behind his desk. With all due respect to our Rain—the Searcher-Healer, the Cacique-Bohique—when I imagined First Chief and First Shaman, it was constable and coroner that seemed to play the parts.

  Josef knew why Jean-Marc was there and checked his e-mail straightaway. The lab report from Miami was finally in. He skimmed it and frowned. Then he studied it, and the lines of his frown burrowed deeper into his face. He didn’t like what he was reading—and in particular, he didn’t like how it dovetailed with the myths he had just dismissed.

  Thibideaux waited patiently. Finally, Dr. Strauss nodded and said, “Mosquitoes.”

  “Milo Long was killed by mosquitoes?”

  “The anticoagulant I found in his system was mosquito saliva, which is a natural anticoagulant that also negatively affects the immune system and causes inflammation. Plus, it spreads diseases…” He cringed internally. “Like malaria.”

  “So the rash…”

  “Mosquito bites. Although not like any I’ve seen before.”

  “And we’re thinking the same swarm that killed Long attacked Naborías? Ah, the Tourist Board’s going to love this.”

  “Well, mosquitoes can detect and are drawn to octenol and nonanal in their blood targets. Those are both basically alcohol.”

  “Naborías had been drinking at his retirement party. He may not have been legally drunk, but I’ve got witnesses who described him as tipsy.”

  “Also, he was attacked at dusk. And most mosquitoes feed at dusk or dawn. So all that fits, at least.”

  “What doesn’t?”

  “The swarm itself. Only male mosquitoes swarm. But only females feed. A swarm that feeds doesn’t make sense.”

  “Could it be a new strain of mosquito?”

  Strauss considered this for some time. He was still troubled that the lab report seemed to be confirming Naborías and the girl’s superstitions, but he began to see a way to reconcile science with myth. “Or maybe just the opposite,” he said.

  Thibideaux again waited in patient silence while his friend checked his facts on the Net.

  “Diapause,” Strauss breathed.

  And still Thibideaux waited.

  Finally, Strauss’ lips curled up into a smile. “I’ve learned there are legends about these types of attacks. Legends of a mosquito demon child, or some nonsense like that. But if legend has a basis in fact, perhaps we’re dealing with an older strain of mosquito.”

  “Josef, I was born on these islands. I’ve never heard of this kind of mosquito attack before. How could this be an old strain?”

  “If it’s very old. Take the vampire.”

  Now Thibideaux was getting impatient, and it showed.

  Strauss held up his hands. “Hear me out. Take Count Dracula. You put a stake through his heart to kill him. But you also have to cut off his head. If you don’t, and if the stake is later removed from his heart…”

  “He rises again.”

  “And that’s diapause. Or a fictional version of it. It’s life on hold. A kind of hibernation. And it’s been scientifically proven to exist in some species.”

  “Including mosquitoes?”

  “Especially mosquitoes. Under the right circumstances, it’s theoretically possible for an entire strain to enter diapause for decades—maybe centuries—until some environmental trigger brings them back to life.”

  “So what do we do?”

  “Miami’s already alerted Vector Control on the mainland. I doubt they’ve seen anything exactly like this, but they’ve dealt with Africanized killer bees. They should be able to handle mosquitoes.”

  “When do they get here?”

  Strauss looked at his monitor screen again. Then he shrugged. “It doesn’t say. Or rather it only says…” He made air quotes with his hands. “‘Soonest.’ Tomorrow? Maybe Wednesday?”

  “And if another call comes in before then?” On cue, Constable Thibideaux’s cell phone chimed. The two friends caught each other’s eyes. You could almost see the ashes rising from First Fire between them. Thibideaux exhaled loudly and answered his phone.

  At exactly that moment, another phone was ringing. Iris Cacique held off answering it just long enough to give her daughter one last look of disapproval, saying, “Bacon, sausage, Lucky Charms. Was that really so hard to remember?”

  “Mom, I’m sorry. I went to Rusty’s, but I got … distracted.”

  Iris was hardly satisfied by that explanation, but the phone demanded answering. “Nitaino Inn.”

  Iris listened with an expression of growing concern. “No. No, I’m sorry, I haven’t seen them. Yes, of course. Hold on.” She turned back to Rain. “Rain, go check the Kims’ rooms. See if the kids are up there.”

  “What? Why?”

  “Their parents can’t find them. Wendy, John and Michael are missing.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  COLD HARD FACTS

  MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 15

  Missing children. This was the kind of call Thibideaux hated the most. He caught a ride on a Coast Guard helicopter across San Próspero from the Pueblo to Windward.

  Then came the interviews. With the parents. With witnesses. Then the canvassing for more witnesses. And through it all, the search. The lifeguard who had been on duty had remained at his post, but he’d called in every one of his peers, and they were already checking adjoining beaches and scanning the water as the sun went down. The U.S. Coast Guard used their helicopter and three cruisers, aided and abetted by two U.S. Navy cruisers volunteered by Commander Joshua Stevens (a father of three himself) from the base on Tío Samuel. Of course, the Ghost Patrol was out in full force, calling in deputy constables from Malas Almas and La Géante.

  Back to the interviews. Starting with Esther Kim and Fred Kim, mother and father of the three missing children: Wendy Kim, age eight, John Kim, age six, and Michael Kim, age four. (Jean-Marc was struck by the names of the children but couldn’t decide if they represented a good omen—or a bad cosmic joke. He caught himself looking up toward the stars, only just appearing, and counting out the second to the right. And straight on till morning.) Mr. Kim looked punch-drunk and stunned. Mrs. Kim wavered between fury and terror, between hope and despair. Tears seemed to be perpetually welling up in her eyes—but none fell. At least, not yet.

  The facts were these: The Kims had planned to go to the mall that day, but their youngest had begged to be taken to the beach instead, and the older two concurred. Pleased that Michael finally seemed more comfortable near the water—and not wanting either a fight or more whining—Mr. and Mrs. Kim had acquiesced.

  So, forgoing the mall, they decided to make an adventure of it. They boarded the Cross-Island Railroad, which cut through the interior jungle of San Próspero with a final stop in the small town of Windward on the opposite side of the island. Leaving the train station, they asked a passerby for directions to the nearest beach.

  “But the beach closest to the station is Windward Bar. This is Windward Strand,” said the constable.

  “I know,” Fred Kim said. “That’s what the lady recommended. She said Windward Strand would be less crowded and that it was only half a mi
le farther away.”

  Jean-Marc frowned. The statement was technically accurate, and perhaps during High Season, or even the summer, useful. But this time of year, none of the Windward beaches would be particularly crowded. Any local that knew enough to recommend the Strand would know that too.

  Esther Kim read his frown—and read too much into it. “Do you think she was setting us up? Getting us on an isolated beach so she could grab our kids?”

  It didn’t seem likely. Especially not with two adults present.

  Esther gasped, putting two and two together and getting eight. “Rain said there was this woman who tried to lure the kids into the water yesterday!”

  This time Thibideaux was careful his face revealed nothing. “Rain? Rain Cacique?”

  “Yes. She babysat them yesterday.”

  Fred Kim shook his head. “The kids said that woman was young and beautiful. And singing.”

  “The kids also said she turned into a mermaid!”

  “But they were with us when the lady at the station recommended the Strand. They didn’t recognize her, didn’t say anything to her or about her or—”

  “Maybe she signaled them not to.”

  “Besides, Rain didn’t say the woman tried to lure them into the water. She said the kids tried to go swimming with her.”

  “You don’t know what happened. You weren’t there. Not yesterday.”

  The last sentence was clearly accusatory. Thibideaux intervened before the dialogue between the spouses got too heated to be useful. “Why don’t you describe this woman to me. The one from the train station.”

  Fred said, “She was older. About sixty.”

  “More like seventy,” Esther corrected.

  “White, black, brown?”

  “Black,” they said in unison. Esther clarified, “Light-skinned African American with white hair. She had an accent. Maybe Jamaican. I’m not sure.” Fred nodded in agreement.

  “Anything else? What was she wearing?”

  Esther glanced at Fred, who shrugged. She turned back to Constable Thibideaux. “She was wearing a white peasant blouse and a skirt with vertical stripes.” She closed her eyes to picture it. “Green, white, pink, red, blue. Oh, and flip-flops.”

  “Okay, that’s good. That’ll help. And I’ll have a deputy talk to Rain later and get her to describe the woman she saw the kids with yesterday. But first, just tell me what happened next.”

  The Kims said nothing. Fred glanced at Esther, but she wouldn’t look at him.

  “You came to Windward Strand…” Thibideaux prompted.

  “Right,” said Fred. “We came here. Set up shop. The kids played in the sand and in the water.”

  “We were with them then,” Esther said, again with the same indictment against her husband, which he made no effort to deny. “We were watching them,” she continued. “Watching and playing with them.”

  The tears welled again but didn’t fall. “It was getting late. And we hadn’t had lunch.”

  “Do you remember what time it was exactly?”

  Mrs. Kim shook her head and bit her lip, as if not knowing was a great failing. Mr. Kim said, “Two thirty.” On that, at least, he could sound definitive. He pointed at his watch, assuming the mere fact it was on his wrist would back his story beyond dispute.

  “So I went to the food truck to buy us lunch,” she said bitterly, turning to glare at Fred Kim with a fury that threatened to boil over any second. He seemed to wither before her, to shrink into himself.

  Thibideaux wished he’d had the foresight to interview them separately. It was too late now, but he took Mrs. Kim’s arm and turned her to face him, holding her eyes with his own. “Mrs. Kim,” he said, “we’re going to do everything we can to find your children. But right now we don’t know what’s important and what’s not, so every detail we get from you matters. Now, stay with me here. Stay with me and tell me everything you remember, no matter how obscure.”

  Her head bobbed slightly, and she pressed her lips together to stifle sobs. But no sobs came. She gathered her thoughts and then spoke.

  Her story seemed ridiculous. One of San Próspero’s ubiquitous gourmet food trucks had materialized in the parking lot, and Esther Kim had left the kids with her husband to buy them all lunch. There was no line, but she waited about ten minutes while five different sandwich wraps were prepared. The truck itself blocked her view of her family. When the meal was finished and bagged, she started to head for the beach, but her path was blocked … by crabs. Twenty, thirty, maybe forty crabs. It was like a march, she said. The crabs walked sideways and drummed their pincers on the ground and against each other’s shells.

  Then there were the seagulls. When she was about to hop over the crabs, seagulls descended, flapping their wings and cawing, startling her back a few steps. The seagulls landed on the other side of the crabs and, like them, marched in a line with a strange side-to-side gait.

  Thibideaux tried to point out that gulls eat crabs, but Esther Kim simply shook her head and said, “Not today.”

  Esther hadn’t known what to make of it all, but it frightened her. She suddenly felt desperate to get back to her kids. Up until this point, she hadn’t noticed the shift in the weather. It had been sunny and hot all morning, but fog had rolled in while she was absorbed with the strange dance of crustacean and bird. She could barely see the crabs as she stepped over them. The gulls took flight again, emerging in flashes amid the haze, flapping their wings in her face as they departed. She kept going.

  The fog got thicker and thicker. She felt cold and wet and as if she would lose her way—though she knew it was only about thirty feet from the parking lot down to the sand. Something echoed in the mist.

  “What something?” Thibideaux asked.

  She couldn’t articulate what she had heard. Only what it felt like. “Despair. Despair and desire. And the same desperation I was feeling.” She found herself running through the miasma. She called out and received no answer.

  Finally, she emerged from the fog and found her husband, sitting in the sand at her feet. “He was staring out to sea with the stupidest smile on his face.”

  The kids were gone.

  Thibideaux turned to Fred Kim. He couldn’t confirm the crabs or the seagulls. He wasn’t even sure about the fog. He did remember being distracted by a song he heard on the wind. He had been watching his children playing in the sand one second. The next second, they were gone.

  When Esther heard this, she balled her fists. Finally, the tears came pouring down. Fred reached for her, but she turned her back on him. If these kids weren’t found—and perhaps even if they were—she would never forgive him. He would never forgive himself.

  Bailey Hall, the eighteen-year-old lifeguard, had a story similar to Fred’s. He had seen the Kims arrive on the beach. He had seen the kids playing in the sand near their parents. He had even seen Mrs. Kim leave her family, heading for the Rusty’s Gourmet Sandwiches truck. Then he too was briefly distracted by a beautiful song—though he couldn’t identify the source of the music. Seconds later, he heard Mrs. Kim shouting for the kids, who were nowhere in sight. Crabs? Gulls? Fog? He didn’t know what the constable was talking about.

  Cassie Barrett—Rusty’s twenty-year-old redheaded daughter—clearly remembered making the wraps for Mrs. Kim. From her vantage in the sandwich truck, she hadn’t seen any crabs or gulls, but she certainly remembered the absolutely “freaky fog” and the feeling of sadness it seemed to conjure. She had heard no song, and she never once saw the kids, not before or after the fog. She only came out of the truck when she heard Mrs. Kim screaming. Then she called the Ghost Patrol.

  Thibideaux consulted with Deputy Constables Perez and Stabler. He confirmed that everything possible was being done to find the children. He gave them a description of the old woman at the train station and told Perez to call Deputy Constable Mariah Viento—one of the few in the Pueblo not currently deployed in Windward to aid in the search—and have her question Rain Cacique a
t the Nitaino Inn about the woman she and the Kim kids interacted with the day before. Then Jean-Marc took a breath.

  Stabler, a veteran deputy, recognizing the sad inevitability in his boss’ exhale, leaned in and whispered, “Doesn’t look promising, does it?”

  Thibideaux glanced around to make sure no one was in earshot. Then, “We’ve seen it before. A parent gets distracted. Even a lifeguard gets distracted. And a kid wades out too deep.”

  “But three kids?” Perez asked, trying to find any excuse to not believe the Occam’s Razor obviousness of what Thibideaux was suggesting.

  “One kid gets in trouble. Another swims out to help,” Stabler said. “Boss is right. We’ve seen it before.”

  Jean-Marc was already sorry he had hypothesized anything. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. It’s only been a few hours. Keep up the search.”

  But the cold, hard fact—birds and beasts, fog and song aside—was that Jean-Marc didn’t see much hope.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  WARM SOFT TAILS

  MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 15

  At the Nitaino Inn, Deputy Constable Mariah Viento questioned the minor Rain Cacique in front of her parents, Alonso Cacique and Iris Cacique … and in front of her dead and invisible glowing grandfather, Sebastian Bohique, who stood behind Rain, resisting the urge to place a noncorporeal hand on her shoulder.

  In her notes, Viento would record that Rain seemed truly torn up about the disappearance of the three Kim children. When asked to describe what happened the day before, Rain seemed horrified—and yet not particularly surprised to learn the two incidents might be connected. She looked guilty enough that Mariah briefly wondered if Rain might not know more than she was saying. (But the young deputy decided this was merely Rain feeling responsible for having been with the children when they met their possible abductor. So Viento’s report did not mention Rain’s guilt-ridden glances over her shoulder.)

  Choosing her words carefully, Rain said, “I took the kids to Próspero Beach, to the Alcove. We played in the sand. We played tetherball. It was all pretty normal.”