Halfway Drowned (Halfway Witchy Book 4)

by Terry Maggert

  I was in the middle, nudging him to bail out onto the dirt road that we’d followed to its end. We were nearly five miles from town on the most northern point of the lake, but it was still possible to hear the odd car horn on the light breeze. The air was warm, and there were stars strewn above us in a silver mist. Somewhere, a pair of frogs dueled each other for supremacy. They fell silent as we walked in unison to the water’s edge, the water lapping gently against an array of boulders that had been dropped by a forgotten glacier. The stones winked in the night, sparkling on a million tiny planes of quartz that spangled their huddled shapes. Trees cast looming darkness around us, spearing upward into the brightness of the sky.

  “Is he. . .are we in the right place?” Eli asked, stepping awkwardly on a piece of driftwood that snapped with a sharp report. He twitched, but stayed calm enough to look at me to see if I would answer. Gran reached out to him in the night, holding a hand for him to take. He did, and they began to walk together in silence.

  “He’s here,” Gran announced. And he was.

  Rene sat on the burled trunk of a blowdown that had been scoured bone white from sun and water. He was fuzzed at the edges, ethereal blue, and smiling at us as we approached. I heard Eli’s intake of breath even from ten feet away. To a scientist, seeing Rene’s cheerful wave must have been akin to aliens landing on the Eiffel Tower. It challenged everything he knew to be true, and yet, here was the outline of a man frosted in spectral blue, waiting for us to sit down and join him in a casual chat.

  “Where’s your girlfriend, handsome?” I asked, taking a seat on the ground. The grass had just begun to cool from the evening air and the scent of clover hung in the air. Gran sat as well, albeit more slowly, lowering herself to the log. She smiled at Rene, who waited for Eli to stop gaping and take a seat.

  “Make yourself welcome, friend. I cannot bite,” said the trapper who’d perished two centuries earlier. He really did have an excellent attitude. “My lady is with family tonight, discussing their plans for the fall. It seems that their social schedule hasn’t changed at all since they crossed over to this side.”

  Rene’ was dating Maggie, who had been the premier real estate agent in Halfway and an inveterate social butterfly. The notion that she would stop being busy because of a minor inconvenience like death never occurred to her. If anything, being free of a need to sleep made her life even better, though she occasionally complained about missing the pleasure of donuts. I completely understood.

  Eli sat down, his mouth a perfect circle of shock. Gran leaned over and put a companionable hand on his shoulder, shaking him out of his moment of awe. “You’ll catch flies that way, dear. Why don’t you ask Rene’ for his advice?”

  With a gentle shake of his head, Eli came back to earth, but only just. “Right. I think. You’re, um--you have a girlfriend?”

  “Of course. Who would wish to spend eternity without company?” Rene’ added a Gallic shrug, perfect in its subtle disregard.

  “I’m single. He’s dead, and he’s dating.” Eli shook his head again in disbelief. “I must be dreaming.”

  “A dream where you’re a lonely nerd who won’t date because he likes digging up shipwrecks more than dating?” I asked, smiling to take the sting away.

  “Well, now that you put it that way . . . huh. Okay, point taken.” He produced the bark relic, unwrapping it with great care. “I--beg pardon, Rene’, can you hold this? Or should I hold it up? I’d like you to take a look at it.”

  “On the ground is fine. Why don’t you tell me why you’re here, Eli?” Rene’ leaned back slightly, his outline adopting a relaxed insouciance that was even more French than his previous shrug.

  Between the three of us, we explained the rise of the ship, Wulfric’s dive, and the curious missing water sprite. Rene listened intently, grunting on occasion to confirm we should go on. When I finished the tale, I’d only omitted one thing--Wulfric’s sister. For some reason, I held it back out of respect.

  “And Wulfric has read this?” Rene’ asked, looking at the rune covered bark.

  Eli smiled slyly. “He has, but I’m not sure he read all of it.”

  “Indeed he has not, but for reasons other than you suspect, Eli. I believe our good witch understands something of this,” Rene’ said, reaching toward the inert piece of bark. His spectral fingers pinched together over the relic, then withdrew--

  I gasped. A ghostly version of the bark came up in his grasp. It fluttered softly in the unseen breezes of a world on a far different plane than the one I lived within.

  Gran chuckled knowingly. “The message exists in two planes. Ours, and theirs,” she inclined her head to Rene, who smiled.

  “I’ve never even heard of such a thing,” I muttered, watching Rene read, his brow furrowed with concentration. After a long moment, he carefully folded the glowing message and put it in a pouch that hung from his neck. It vanished with a spray of stars and vapor.

  “Quite common among magical beings, although the practice fell out of favor in the nineteenth century,” Gran said.

  “Why did that stop happening?” Eli asked, pointing to the relic.

  “There was a glut of charlatans and parlor women, but among them were real magical talents who started peeling secrets away for their own enrichment. After a rush of activity, there simply weren’t that many magical messages left to pick over in museums and collections. The people who used their ability for profit died out, and here we are, a century later, and none the wiser as to our own history.” She said this without any bitterness, but there was an undertone of something between acceptance and regret. I’m sure Gran’s world was very different from the place she’d known as a girl, and not all of it was good.

  “What’s on the hidden message, Rene?” I asked him, eager to keep our conversation from turning maudlin.

  “It is who, not what, and it is drawn rather than written. A most clumsy rendering, but clear enough that I can understand it.” He sounded confused, if not openly dubious of what his eyes--okay, ghost eyes, but still--had seen.

  With his glowing hands, he unfolded the hidden layer of the relic, holding it up so we could all see.

  “A worm?” I asked.

  “I don’t think so. Lean closer to me, dear. That’s better, thank you,” Gran said, as Rene’ brought the magical rendering up to eye level. It waved slightly in his hands, like a billowing sheet on a summertime clothesline. Her only answer was a thoughtful grunt.

  “May I?” Eli asked, already leaning in. He looked once, turned his head, and then snapped his eyes back decisively, as if trying to catch someone watching him. Pulling at his chin with three fingers, he nodded slowly. “It’s close to--well, I think I know what it is, but it doesn’t make any sense.”

  “What do you think?” Gran asked him. She sounded uncertain. It was an alien tone coming from her, so I sat up straighter, my body reacting to some unknown threat. Gran is never uncertain. Cautious and thoughtful, maybe, but the idea of uncertainty is beyond her. All she needs is time to solve a problem, and her confidence permeates everything she does.

  “It’s an eel, of sorts.” Rene’ sounded mystified.

  I punched Eli in the arm hard enough that he yipped. “Told you. They’re dangerous and squicky.”

  “Ow, quit it. Fine, they’re-- are you sure it’s an eel?” Eli asked.

  “It’s . . . close. There are some differences, as if the artist was trying to impart a sense of something else, but the image has degraded over time. The tail is wrong, far too broad, and it has arms. Despite Carlie’s assertion that eels are designed to grab her, in nature they’re more tubular. Of course, the face is a new wrinkle, too. I think the magic was weak to begin with, perhaps laid down in haste on the spectral fabric. I’m surprised it lasted this long, given its location,” Rene added.

  Gran was tilting her head back and forth, taking the measure of the image. “It
’s incomplete, or it was done with the intention of being understood by someone in particular, like a code.”

  “Would Wulfric understand it?” I asked blandly. It needed to be said, but the reasoning behind could stay in the dark. For now.

  “He might, but even then I’m not sure we’ll grasp the context. We need the artist, or a Rosetta stone of ancient familial runes. Neither are available, so we’ll have to do the next best thing, I’m afraid.” Gran sounded worried, which made me worried.

  Eli rubbed his brow with long fingers, then pointed toward the lake. “I know there isn’t a sea monster waiting in that lake, but I also wouldn’t have believed you if you said we’d be talking to a ghost. That means I have to revise my opinion about what’s possible.”

  “There is no sea monster in the lake. I would know,” Rene announced.

  “Okay. Did you know about the ship?” Eli wasn’t being aggressive, but the question made sense.

  “I--ah. No. I did not,” Rene’ admitted.

  “Then the next step has to be finding out what’s down there, other than the ship. I’ll need to send Gertie down for another quiet look. I can’t risk scaring the entire town because of a ghostly scribbling. It might mean nothing, or it might be the writings of someone who was close to death and couldn’t explain what was happening.” Eli stood, offering a hand to Gran. “If I can put Gertie in the water tonight, it’ll reduce the amount of time I’ll be on the lake.”

  “Less prying eyes, too,” I added.

  “Right. So, Gran, if you please? Rene’, it was my pleasure. I have so many questions, but I’ll have to wait.” Eli sounded mournful, like he’d seen the truth only to have it hidden again.

  “Rest easy, friend, I’m not going anywhere,” Rene’ said with a smile.

  “Because you’re bound to the place you died?” Eli asked.

  Rene’ laughed, sending blue sparks into the air as he slapped his buckskins in appreciation of a joke only he understood. “No, friend. My lady lives here. Why would I leave?”

  Chapter Nineteen

  Winking to the Bottom

  “Somebody tried to break it,” Eli explained, pointing to a miniscule chip on the lens. He was fuming with anger, a state that seemed completely unnatural to his usual frenetic good cheer.

  “Sabotage?” I asked. We were looking at Gertie, or more specifically, a lens on the little submersible that was critical for viewing the world underwater. There were clear pry marks on the small housing around a circular lens that was smaller than the palm of my hands. It was thick and elegantly shaped.

  It was also scratched and chipped, and the damage was intentional. Even I could see that, and I hadn’t built Gertie from scratch. I understood why Eli was angry because I was, too. Someone was deliberately trying to blind us, just as we were getting ready to take a leap forward and look for the missing part of our mysterious equation. I knew that eels, despite being slimy and gross, did not have thumbs and weren’t particularly good with screwdrivers, so I ruled them out as the culprits.

  I did not rule them out for future crimes, including, but not limited to making me scream when they invaded my personal space, but for now, they were innocent.

  “Sabotage,” he confirmed. The sun was up and we were on the beach, under the command tent where a general rise in activity was happening as Eli’s people began their daily work. They were subdued upon the news of Gertie being damaged, casting quiet glances in our direction as Eli rubbed his face in frustration. “I can’t repair it here, which means I can’t gather data. Not with Gertie, anyway.”

  I looked at the tiny chip, thinking there had to be a way. “Is that like the lens out of a telescope?”

  Eli frowned slightly. “It’s actually a lot more complicated than that. My lens is designed for a wide-scanning pattern that can move twenty degrees in either direction, thus rendering any necessity for”--

  “Yes. Or no. Please,” I snapped. It was early, I was low on coffee, and I was not in the mood for a complicated lecture on the dynamics of underwater lens technology. I’d left Wulfric and Gus sharing a plate of bacon and responded to Eli’s frantic call, but that didn’t mean I was in the mood for science.

  “Oh. Well, kinda. So, yes. It’s similar enough,” Eli answered sheepishly.

  I sighed in relief, because I was going to utter one of my favorite sentences in any language. “Friend, I may have a solution. It’s time for us to visit our local public library.”

  Chapter Twenty

  Nerd Fight

  Brendan looked at the lens with a critical eye, pointedly not touching it. “Just there, on the edge?”

  Brendan wasn’t just our town librarian, he was an amateur astronomer. He had viewing parties all summer long whenever there was something interesting going on in the heavens, taking advantage of the astounding clarity of our nighttime sky. He was a good looking guy, angular, tall and green-eyed, but he had an unfortunate habit of experimental hairstyles based on chasing a particular girl.

  In his current incarnation, Brendan was going for what I call gangster casual with a mustache kicker. It was an awkward look, but I’d have a quiet word with him later. I knew he liked the new assistant principal at the elementary school, a beautiful, upbeat woman named Dana, who woke up ready to tackle the world and change lives.

  Yeah, I found her kind of irritating, too.

  “That’s it,” Eli admitted. They were having one of those weird male standoffs in which two experts were circling each other like lions--okay, nerdy lions, but still--and trying to establish some kind of social order. The problem was that we didn’t have time for them to work out their natural uncertainty, so I took the lead, clearing my throat and pointing at the damaged lens.

  “Eli?” I asked.

  “Um, yes?” He looked at me sharply, noting my tone.

  “So, in order to move this whole thing along, I’d like to propose that we accept certain facts about each other. I’m a witch. That means I don’t know how to grind a lens or silver it or whatever it is you gentlemen are going to do to correct this situation. Brendan is a really smart guy. He has varied interests, and he’s curious about the wider world, too. Right, Brendan?” I peered at him as he stood, nervously listening to me using my most assertive tone, usually reserved for difficult customers or heretics who don’t like waffles.

  “Well--yeah. Thanks, Carlie.” Brendan smiled, but it was uncertain.

  Good. We were making progress.

  “And the good doctor Delacourt here is super brainy, has issues with some social skills, and knows every inch of this lens, because he built the submersible it’s housed in. Right, Eli?” I turned to him, smiling slightly.

  “Um. Yes?” Eli agreed.

  Seeing where I was going, Brendan interrupted me before I could speak. “Carlie, is there something about that ship I should know about?” His voice was tense with worry. He’d seen the effects of creatures not of our plane, so to speak. His experiences hadn’t been good.

  “Now you’re getting the point. I need you guys to fix this lens and get Eli back on to the road to finding out what’s down there. In the lake.” I pointed over my shoulder with a thumb, indicating the expanse of water outside the library’s walls. “We’re in a bit of trouble here, Brendan. Can you help? Quickly?”

  Without hesitating, he motioned that we should follow him to the basement. “Come with me.”

  In a minute we were all standing before a well-lit workbench while Brendan gave us a running commentary as he withdrew tools and materials from various drawers, all neatly labeled by a previous librarian. “I host three or four sky watching parties every summer, for the kids. I’ve had two accidents with the three inch telescope; both required me to do a little minor repair work. It saves time and money for the library, and I’ve been fooling around with telescopes since I was a kid. When Hale-Bopp came across the sky, I’d never seen anythin
g like it. My hobby took off, and, well--here we are.” He looked over the array of items, nodding that Eli could pick them up. Everything he needed to fix the lens was before him, a fine bit of luck given our relatively remote location in the mountains.

  “I watched Hale-Bopp from my backyard. It was like something from a movie,” Eli said, sharing a common thread with Brendan. “What do you sky watch here, in the summer?”

  “The usual. The Summer Triangle, moons of Jupiter. The kids like the moon, but then everyone does. Sometimes we’ll gather for a meteor shower, but it depends on what quadrant it comes from. The mountains can get in the way, and little ones can’t stay up all night waiting for the shower to move into clear sky.” Brendan spent a lot of time at the library in the summer. It was his home away from home.

  Eli looked around again with an air of appraisal. I saw Brendan stiffen, sensing there could be a territorial dispute. I understood. If anyone went into my cellar and critiqued the place where I cast spells, the next one might just be cast on them.

  “It isn’t the money,” Eli said with an air of conciliation.

  “What money?” Brendan stopped what he was doing to listen. So did I, although I’d just been standing there, waiting for them to reach some kind of détente.

  “About a million bucks. It’s in the submersible, but that’s not why I’m protective of it. It’s the idea. I built it, and now I think I’m the one who’s broken it, despite swearing to myself that I wouldn’t allow anything to stop my investigations.” Eli’s words were part anger, part resignation. He needed a working lens, but he was still holding on to the idea that secrets could be kept in Halfway. I had to step in.

  I plucked the lens from Eli, turned to Brendan, and slapped it into his palm. “If you don’t fix this, then something is going to hurt people, and I’m getting tired of not knowing what it is. I am this close to going into my cellar and casting a spell of discovery on a human bone, just so I can cast light into the dark places of our lake. Do you understand what will happen if I do that?”