by Logan Jacobs
There was a tin shack on stilts nearby and a large collection of canoes pulled up along the shoreline. There were also several floating docks tied to pilings and tents had been set up on half of them.
“Oh, I suspect I’m going to miss the Petermore tonight,” Maruk sighed as he swatted at a mosquito.
“Welcome to Denny’s Landing,” Cat announced with a grin as he started towards the shack. “We can rent boats here and stay for the night. Tomorrow we’ll cut through the swamp and head for Alasia. It’ll put us ahead of anyone using the roads by at least a day.”
“I hope they have something that will fend off the native wildlife,” Maruk replied as he swatted at another mosquito.
“I have something that might work,” Lena mused as she opened her pack.
“I’ll see what they have to offer inside,” Maruk said as he glanced at my beard.
The shack was surprisingly cool inside and larger than I realized. There were shelves packed with fresh foods, canned goods, stacks of assorted camping supplies, and an entire aisle devoted to various sprays and potions guaranteed to keep the mosquitoes away. Maruk bought one of each kind, much to Lena’s disappointment.
There was no Denny, it turned out. Denny had died about fifty years earlier, but his grandkids now ran the place. Denny’s grandson was now a grandfather himself, and he carried a bawling baby in a papoose on his back. I thought Denny’s grandson might also be deaf, since he didn’t appear to hear the loud sobbing that was taking place right behind him.
“Cat!” the gray-haired man with brown eyes and a boxer’s nose called out joyfully when he saw the elf. “Haven’t seen you in ages!”
“Been busy,” the elf replied as he was swept into a hug. “Who is this?”
“My grandson, Nathan,” the man replied. “He and his siblings are staying with me and the missus for a week while Meg and Card are at some sort of religious retreat.”
“Which church are they trying out this time?” Cat asked with a grin.
“Some smooth-talker from Chilgosh,” the man sighed. “Claims he can teach you how to find inner peace.”
“At least he’s not promising to take them to the moon,” Cat laughed.
“True enough,” the man declared. “I never did understand the appeal of that one. But listen, you know Mirena is going to insist on cooking dinner for you tonight.”
“I will never pass up one of Mirena’s meals,” Cat replied. “Pellas, let me introduce you to some friends. This is Imogen, Lavinia, Gabriel, Dehn, Aerin, Lena, Emeline, Yvaine, and Maruk. Oh, and Merlin.”
“Quite a crowd with you this time,” Pellas noted as he shook hands with each of us and patted Merlin on the head.
“We’re heading for the Chasm,” Cat said.
“Really?” Pellas commented. “You didn’t seem very taken with the place last time you were there.”
“Well, the pay is good,” Cat replied. “Say, I’m glad to see you have so many canoes available, but I’m surprised there are so many. Isn’t it crabbing season?”
“It is,” Pellas sighed as he sat down on a stool behind the counter. “We should be packed with people on both sides of the swamp. But the stories have gotten around.”
“What stories?” Lena asked as she sniffed one of the mosquito sprays.
“About the swamp witch,” Pellas stated.
“Those stories have been floating around since your grandfather started this place,” Cat pointed out.
“Yes, but we’ve lost a fair number of people this last year,” Pellas explained.
“When you say lost, do you mean lost or, well, dead?” Emeline asked.
“Lost,” Pellas replied. “Sometimes we find the canoe just floating in the water, but that’s it. No sign of the person who’s supposed to be in the canoe. I thought maybe they had fallen out and drowned or been attacked by an alligator, but there’s been too many for that.”
“How many have you lost?” Lavinia demanded.
“Well, let’s see, including those guys who went out about two weeks ago, I’d say that was twenty-six,” Pellas sighed. “We’ve sent out search parties but, so far, we haven’t found anyone.”
“But there are some people here,” I said as I remembered the tents.
“You can get a lot of money for blue crabs,” Pellas explained. “Even more now that there aren’t as many being caught.”
“We won’t be crabbing,” Cat said. “We’re just heading to the other side.”
“Well, I don’t want to discourage business,” Pellas remarked. “But I do like you, Cat, and Mirena would never forgive me if something happened to you.”
“We’ll take care of him,” Imogen assured the man.
“Besides, if anything tries to kill us, we’ll kill it back,” Dehn declared.
“Um, well, you get the idea,” Cat agreed.
“And a lot of people haven’t disappeared, right?” Emeline asked.
“That’s true,” Pellas said. “That’s what I keep telling people.”
“So, dinner with you, Mirena, and the grandkids tonight,” Cat replied, “and then we’ll head out in the morning.”
“Mirena will be happy,” Pellas declared. “And here, I can put you on barge four. It’s near the eucalyptus so you won’t have so many of the bugs to contend with.”
“That will be just fine,” Cat assured him.
Maruk stifled a groan and grabbed several extra bottles of bug spray. Yvaine, Aerin and Lavinia did the same. I wasn’t feeling all that excited about a night in the swamp either until I tried to picture Maderel in a tent on a floating dock trying to swat away the mosquitoes. No doubt he knew some manipulator spell that would keep the pesky creatures away, but it was still fun to daydream.
The evening turned out to be pleasant. Mirena was a good cook, and I ate more than my fair share of blue crabs, crawdads, and grilled shrimp. The grandkids, all six of them, spent the whole time running around the camp, with occasional moments to stop and grab something to eat. Lavinia watched the children with trepidation, and I could tell that she was trying to imagine her own child running wild like the Pellas’ brood.
“It’s not that terrible,” I whispered in Lavinia’s ear.
“Is that what they’re like?” she demanded as one of the girls started screaming when one of the boys ran off with her ice pop.
“Not all of them,” I assured her. “And not all the time.”
“How would you know?” she asked. “You’ve never had kids.”
“Don’t you remember what it was like to be a kid?” I teased.
“It was harsh and brutal and no one ever offered me a thing,” she replied.
“It won’t be like that for our children,” I insisted. “We’ll spoil them rotten with love.”
“As long as they don’t scream,” she grumbled as all six kids ran off screaming towards a flock of egrets that waded in the shallows.
“Well, I think that comes with the territory,” I replied.
“Mine won’t scream,” Lavinia declared.
“You’re just going to tell him… or her not to scream?” I asked.
“Yes,” she replied.
“You do know kids don’t listen to their parents, right?” I inquired.
“Mine will,” she insisted.
“Good luck with that,” I murmured.
Lavinia gave me one of her death stares, but I was saved by the arrival of Mirena’s dessert, a luscious and wonderfully cool lemon icebox cake.
By the time we returned to our floating dock, I was feeling less anxious, if not exactly content. I’d sent Merlin out on a scouting mission, and he’d reported that no large traveling band of mages could be seen. Maruk had stumbled across a combination of bug sprays that seemed to work, and I was able to share a tent with Cat, who took up very little space and never snored.
Breakfast was a handful of nuts, dried berries, and a fresh pear from the cart outside Druban. Cat and Imogen had already moved five canoes to our dock, and they bobbed g
ently in the water as it lapped against our little manmade island.
Mirena and Pellas came out to bid us farewell and Cat was wrapped in another bear hug. He promised to visit again on the return trip, and then we were paddling into the slow-moving river that was the Glass Swamp.
Merlin and I shared a canoe with Maruk, since I was the only one heavy enough to counter his weight. Still, the backend of our canoe sat low in the water and every so often I heard a slight scraping sound as we passed through an especially shallow area or floated past a piece of debris wedged in the silt.
The live oaks and Spanish moss that dominated at the edge of the swamp gave way to the denser and more eerie world of the mangrove. Clusters of cypress trees formed small islands that were home to spoonbills and snowy egrets. Crabs and lizards scuttled over low-hanging branches, and I saw more alligators than I really wanted to see.
Cat and Emeline were in the lead canoe, and Emeline spent the entire time with her head behind a map while Cat paddled. We seemed to be making good progress as far as I could tell, but Cat suddenly brought his canoe to a halt and turned back to Emeline. Emeline shook her head and looked at her map again, then pulled another one from her pack.
“Don’t tell me we’re lost,” Maruk mumbled.
“Not sure,” I replied. “But it doesn’t look good.”
“What’s going on?” Imogen called out from the canoe she shared with Aerin.
“This isn’t right,” Emeline replied. “And Cat agrees. We should be nearing the far edge by now.”
“We’re lost,” Maruk sighed.
“Not lost,” Emeline said quickly. “But not where we should be.”
“So, lost,” Lavinia snorted.
“I don’t know why we took these damn boats,” Dehn added from his spot behind Lavinia. “This water’s shallow enough to walk in.”
“Only in some places,” Cat replied. “And do you really want to spend your day walking through water filled with alligators and water moccasins?”
“So where are we if we’re not where we’re supposed to be?” Imogen cut in.
“I don’t know,” Emeline admitted. “This shouldn’t be here, according to the map. This should be, well, more towards the middle.”
“Well, then we do know where we are,” Lena declared. “We can just navigate from there.”
“Cat?” I called out.
The elf still looked worried, but he gave me a nod and set off again. The plant population grew denser as we moved along. There was barely enough room for one canoe to pass, and we were soon paddling along in single file. We reached another curve in the water and Cat stopped again.
“Okay, this definitely shouldn’t be here,” Emeline said nervously. “Everything keeps turning towards the middle.”
“What’s in the middle?” I asked.
“An island,” Emeline replied.
“That’s where the witch is supposed to live,” Cat added.
“Charming,” Maruk sighed. “And why does she live on an island in the middle of a swamp?”
“There are a lot of stories,” Cat said as he scanned the surrounding area. “Jilted at the altar, chased out of town by an angry mob, hiding from the Academy. Take your pick.”
“I think the more important question is what she does with people who venture onto her island,” I mused.
“Well, that’s pretty straightforward,” Cat replied. “She kills them though the method she uses varies depending on who’s telling the story.”
“She ain’t gonna kill me,” Dehn declared as he stomped his boot hard.
“Don’t do that!” Lavinia hissed. “Are you trying to sink our canoe?”
“Someone seems determined to drive us to the island,” I remarked. “Maybe we shouldn’t disappoint them.”
“We may not have any choice,” Imogen added. “Every path seems to lead there.”
“Let’s keep going,” I instructed. “I’ll use my mana this time to watch for magic. Merlin, you need to go up and see if you can find a clear path for us.”
Merlin chirped and then flung himself into the air, taking on his hawk form. He skimmed low over the water until he reached a wide enough clearing in the canopy and shot upwards towards the blue sky that just peeked through.
“Right,” I said. “Let’s go.”
We set off again. Emeline still had her map open on her lap but she had given up on trying to follow it. Cat followed the curve of the mangroves until they brought us to a wider part of the river. Emeline looked at her map again and then pointed towards the right.
“We should be able to find our way out through there,” Emeline asserted.
Cat set off once again, and we followed as closely as we dared. I opened up my mana and watched the swamp closely. It was subtle at first, but then I saw the strands of magic that snaked through the area. As Cat paddled towards the right, I saw the subtle shift of the waters and the plants so that even as we thought we were moving to the right, we were actually heading back towards the center of the swamp.
“Hold up,” I called out.
“Can you see magic?” Aerin asked as she glared at a nearby cypress.
“Yes,” I replied, “And it’s definitely leading us towards the center.”
“No wonder those poor people never made it out,” Lena said softly. “They didn’t have a mage who could see what was happening.”
“Well, I’m not sure I can get us out unless we plan on setting the whole swamp on fire,” I replied. “I need to examine the spell more.”
“In the meantime, this magic is just going to keep leading us deeper into the swamp,” Lavinia pointed out. “And even if we do break it, the witch will just recreate it once we’re gone.”
“So now we’re going witch hunting?” Imogen asked in an amused voice. “I thought our mission was so important that we couldn’t stop for anything.”
“It is,” I sighed. “But we can either sit here until I figure this out, or we can keep going forward. I might figure it out before we get to the island anyway.”
“I suggest we keep moving,” Yvaine said as she looked around the spot where we sat. “It looks like the wildlife may be a part of this spell as well.”
I turned my attention to the water and saw that several alligators were circling nearby. I also spotted a pair of buzzards that had taken up residence in a nearby cypress and a few tree snakes making their way towards our flotilla. Not to mention the water moccasins and snapping turtles that watched us expectantly.
“I am all for moving forward,” I agreed. “Let’s just see where this thing takes us.”
We resumed our trip through the cypress and mangroves. Emeline tucked her maps back into her pack and turned her attention to fighting back the sawgrass with her paddle. It had gone from being a mild annoyance that sometimes brushed against our skin to a dense thicket that grabbed against the canoes and choked off our route.
Dehn was the first to resort to more drastic means. He pulled out his axe and tried to swing at the blades with little success. Lavinia let out a string of curse words and threatened to hit the halfling over the head if he didn’t sit back down. Dehn let out a cry of frustration and started digging through his pack even as Lavinia yelled out him to keep using the paddle. Dehn finally let out a triumphant whoop and stood up. In his hands he held a pair of long gardening shears.
“Are you kidding me?” Lavinia yelled at him.
“Don’t tell me you got those in Altrua,” I called to the halfling.
“Um, no,” he replied as a blush started to creep up his face. “I thought they looked handy, though, so I picked them up.”
“Picked them up where?” Aerin asked as she pounded her paddle against a heavy patch of grass and briars.
“Oh, good lord,” Yvaine snapped. “Rezo said a few items had gone missing from the household, including gardening shears. You could have just asked. I wouldn’t have told you no.”
“I was going to ask,” Dehn said sheepishly, “but then we got busy.
By the time I remembered, we were already on the road, and I just figured I would put them back next time we were at your house.”
“Dehn’s a thief!” Aerin yelled out in a sing-song voice.
“I am not!” Dehn declared angrily.
“Oh, sit down and help with these damn reeds or whatever they are,” Lavinia growled. “We can figure out if you’re a thief later.”
Dehn scowled at the rest of us before he returned his seat. The sound of paddles punching through sawgrass was joined by the steady snip-snip of the shears. It was hot and heavy work, and I was on the verge of launching a massive fireball attack on the whole mess when the grass opened up and a small rocky island appeared.
There was enough actual soil here for a few palms and shrubs, and if the house standing in the middle of the island hadn’t looked so creepy, I would have said we’d found a nice little hidden key where we could spend our spring break.
Merlin finally returned and chirped plaintively as he dropped onto my shoulder and shifted into his puca form.
“I know, bud,” I said as I scratched his chin. “Seems like the only way out is to confront whoever has cast this spell.”
We beached the canoes on a small patch of sand and then climbed out as quietly as we could. Emeline stumbled over the edge of her canoe but Cat was able to keep her from falling backwards into the water. Dehn hit the beach with his usual grace and sent water splashing in every direction. I winced at the noise and Lavinia gave him a swift jab in the shoulder.
No one said a word after that. We drew our weapons and moved towards the broken down bungalow. As we approached, Imogen, Cat and Aerin peeled off to the left while Maruk, Yvaine, and Lena went towards the right. I nodded to the other members of my group as we stepped onto the porch and received their own nods in return.
The wood groaned as soon as I put my foot on it, and I could feel it dip under my weight. Some other boards had already surrendered to the elements and gaping holes dotted the porch. The glass in the windows was long gone and all but one of the shutters lay smashed on the porch. Mold and moss and a few things I couldn’t identify had started to grow along the surface of the house, though I could still see flakes of a bright purple paint.