by Sharon Lee
Me, I had a feeling that Prince Aesgyr’s rage had kind of burned the sleep out of me for the foreseeable future.
I shivered, trying to work the dream—no, the memory—out from the front of my head to the back, where I stockpiled the other terrible and desperate events of my life. Not that the memory that had woken me had been mine, exactly…
“Kate?”
I sighed.
“I didn’t mean to wake you,” I said. “Go back to sleep. I’m going up on deck.”
“Bound to be cold up there, this time of the mornin’,” Borgan said, reasonably enough. “Snuggle down into the warm and tell me about it, why not?”
“Because you’ve got to get up in a couple hours to fish, and growing boys need their sleep.”
His laugh rumbled in his chest, and I smiled in spite of myself.
“I’m thinking I reached my growth a few years back.”
“We’d best hope so,” I agreed.
“So what woke you? Bad dream?”
“Bad memory—and it didn’t even have the grace to be my own.” I shook my head. “Borgan, you don’t want to hear this.”
“Now, that’s where you’re wrong. I do want to hear it. Snuggle down here and tell me. That’s the Varothi’s memory plaguing you?”
Obviously, he wasn’t going to just go quietly back to sleep, damn the man. I slid back down under the covers and settled my head on his shoulder with a satisfied sigh. Borgan has very satisfying shoulders.
He shifted a fraction, and put his arm ’round my waist.
“So, then…” he prompted.
So, then.
I sighed again, and nestled my cheek against his skin, trying to figure where to start. He already knew that I’d shared jikinap—that’s magic, to you—with the Varothi prince who had engineered the jailbreak at the carousel. The prince being the wily sort, it seemed as if he had arranged for the sharing of power specifically so he could get my insider’s knowledge of the prisoners and the World Gate. That I would also be left riche—if that’s what it was—by some bits of his knowledge, skill, and memories hadn’t seemed to bother him at all. That neither one of us would, by virtue of the sharing, be able thereafter to give the other the sound trouncing we both clearly deserved, had apparently been perfectly acceptable to him.
That I would immediately report his transgression to the Wise—well, he had my number there, as five bound, empty animals, and Mr. Ignat’, could testify.
“I dreamed,” I said slowly…”I remembered the event—when Prince Aesgyr’s consort was taken from him, and the terms of his continued existence—unharmed—were spelled out.” I sighed, remembering the Prince’s horror, his anger, and his despair…
“He wasn’t pleased.”
“Guess not. Fixed it, though, didn’t he?”
“I don’t…think so. I think he’s fixing it, which is why he took Jaron to Daknowyth, instead of back home to the Land of Air and Sunshine. Something’s afoot, but he’s not out of the woods yet.”
“Took a big risk, then…a couple big risks.”
“Maybe not so big,” I yawned. “At least Mr. Ignat’s happy.”
“Old gentleman never did have any fondness for the Wise.”
“Well, who could? Hyperpowerful Ozali whose thought processes are just a little idiosyncratic? That sound trustworthy to you?”
Borgan’s laugh rumbled in my right ear.
“Not too fond of them yourself, seems like.”
“You?”
“I just keep my head down, is all.”
I snorted lightly, feeling my eyelids drifting down.
“Best you nap a bit,” Borgan murmured, and I felt a tingle, like salt spray over my skin.
“You putting a well-wish on me?” I asked him, sleepily suspicious.
“Would I do that?” I felt his chin nestle against my hair.
“Yes,” I said.
And slipped away into a deep and dreamless sleep.
* * *
I don’t know how such a big man can move so quietly. Or maybe it was the sleep-tight spell that let me snooze right through him getting up and out. Borgan’s a fisherman; fishing Mary Vois’ boat for her, by agreement. The boat had been Mary and Hum’s sole livelihood, all the years of their marriage. Hum’d died almost three years ago, and Borgan’s taking over the fishing of Mary’s boat for her is, so I gather, some sort of balancing on the part of the sea. Borgan being the Guardian of the Gulf of Maine, like I’m the Guardian of Archers Beach, any such promises the sea might’ve made would be his to keep.
Well.
I stretched in my nest of blankets, and threw them back, swinging my feet out and down to meet the cool deck.
Time to get doing.
* * *
Borgan had left coffee in a mug in the galley for me—still nice and hot with just a smidge of sea magic wrapped ’round to keep it that way.
What he hadn’t done, as I discovered when I hit above decks, was leave the dinghy for me to use.
Gray Lady being at her mooring, some distance away from the dock, this presented an interesting problem.
Or did it?
I leaned my elbows on the rail, and looked out over the stretch of sun-spangled water between me and the dock, wondering if I dared.
See, one of the things I’d gotten in the exchange of power with Prince Aesgyr had been the ability to go from here to there without going in between. Sort of like having your own personal tesseract.
I’d used this new skill three times, more or less by accident. Using magic by accident, as Mr. Ignat’ will be pleased to explain at length, is—short form—stupid. Magic use and spellcraft are all about control. Just like there’s more to firing a gun than pointing it, closing your eyes, and pulling the trigger. You need to have a target, and you need to have the skill and the control to hit the target. Otherwise, you’ll hurt or kill some innocent bystander, which will—trust me on this—make you feel like shit.
So, all the best arguments were for getting a handle on this new skill. And practice, as Mr. Ignat’ also said, makes perfect.
I considered the placid waters of the Gulf of Maine once more; eying the distance from Gray Lady’s deck to the dock.
I should, I thought, be able to do it. If I flubbed, I’d get wet, and be forced to display my less-than-elegant breaststroke to an unsuspecting world. An embarrassing outcome, but by no means life-threatening.
All righty, then.
I straightened, centered myself, brushed metaphorical fingertips over the power coiled at the base of my spine…
And willed myself to the dock.
Nothing happened.
I frowned. Before me, the sea glittered in the sunshine, and the dock—was gone.
I looked down at the weathered boards on which I stood. I turned to look across the water to Gray Lady, dancing a little jig at her mooring, like she was laughing at me.
Well, let her laugh, I thought, and looked down again.
“That,” I said to nothing more than the air and sunshine, “was slick.”
I bounced then, once; skipped to the end of the dock, and jumped down to the sand. Smiling, I turned north, heading up the beach toward Dube Street, and the old house overlooking the dunes.
Chapter Three
Monday, June 26
The Journal-Tribune was on the porch when I got home.
I’d had a pleasant walk up the sunny, already-warming-up-nicely beach. The Fourth of July was just a week and a day in the future, and the Beach was starting to fill up with tourists and summer people. Despite the fact that it was well before nine o’clock, people were playing in the surf, while little kids with buckets and shovels and starfish molds were hard at work on architectural sand projects. A pod of teenage boys engaged in a running game of Frisbee broke around me, the disc arcing above my head—“’Scuse us!” one boy called over his shoulder as they thundered down the beach toward the Pier.
I even spied one hearty couple drawing a bocce court in the sand.
Wh
o could doubt that summer had finally arrived?
It wasn’t until I was climbing the steps to the porch that it occurred to me to wonder why I hadn’t wished myself all the way home, instead of just across the water to the dock.
“Kate,” I said, bending over to pick up the Journal-Trib, “you lack vision.”
Or maybe not; it had been a nice walk, and I was feeling mellow and at peace with the universe.
Until I flipped the paper over so I could see what was above the fold.
CAMP ELLIS TO EVICT DUMMY CATS
…was the headline—and a shocking one, too. The Dummy Cats—so called because the colony was headquartered in the remains of a former railroad shed that had served the Dummy Railroad—were a Camp Ellis institution. The colony had been established at least fifty years ago, and had been stable for almost that long. The cats earned their keep by holding down the rat population—always a problem in a working harbor—and the whole town pitched in to keep them fed, and housed, and inoculated.
They were warp and woof of the town, as much as any other resident. There was no reason to evict them, unless the town councilors had unilaterally lost their minds.
But it appeared that the councilors hadn’t lost their minds. According to the Journal-Trib, a new resident—a summer person by the name of Talbot—had taken the cats in dislike. They were unsanitary, he claimed, and unsightly; they scared his wife, hissed at his kids, and were very probably bringing down the value of his summer residence.
He said this and more, loudly, to the townies, who, mostly, ignored him.
Then, he took his grievance to the town council.
In my opinion, the town councilors should’ve told the nice man from Away to eat his hat, but, in Maine as elsewhere, money talks. In this case, money was talking via big city lawyers who were threatening to bankrupt the town with legal fees unless the cats were destroyed—Option One—or moved—Option Two.
The councilors buckled. To their credit, I guess, they took Option Two.
“So,” said a raspy, cheerful voice behind and below me, “still looking for news of a friend?”
I pivoted in place and shook the paper lightly at Peggy Marr, who was renting the basement studio for the Season. Peggy managed the midway; she’s almost exactly as short as I am; plump, and fiercely competent. She has a sense of humor that I understand and a soft, gooey interior to balance the tough Jersey-girl exterior. Her fashion sense is…interesting. This morning, for instance, she was wearing pink sneakers to match her pink hair, black jeans, and a black T-shirt with the following message written out in glittery pink cursive: The truth will set you free, but first, it will piss you off. —Gloria Steinem.
In case it’s not clear, I like Peggy a lot.
“Good morning, Jersey. Cup of coffee?”
“That’d be swell,” she said, climbing the stairs. “Seriously, Kate—bad news?”
I handed her the paper and turned to deal with the door.
“Bad enough. Some guy from Away’s all offended by the Dummy Cats.”
The door opened easily, which it had been doing ever since I let Borgan in. I kind of missed the way it used to stick tight; the flat-footed kick required to get it unstuck had been…cathartic.
“Be a couple,” I told Peggy over my shoulder, as I turned right, toward the kitchen.
“No hurry.”
She leaned against the wall, frowning down at the paper. I got the coffee out of the fridge, started the water running in the sink, and slotted a paper filter into the cone.
Peggy sighed, and took the newspaper into the living room, adding it to the pile of guidebooks and maps on the coffee table.
“This is the kind of guy who gives the rest of us from Away a bad rep,” she commented. “Now I know why you folks say it that way.”
Peggy being from Away herself, she’d caught the nuance quick. I poured water into the reservoir, set the pot on the plate and hit the on switch.
“There’s Away and Away,” I told her. “The people who come up to Maine because it’s empty and unspoiled and like moving back twenty years in time, and who then start agitating for things to be like they are in Baltimore, or New York, or Philly—they’re the worst kind. The rest of you”—I gave her a grin—“can’t help having been born disadvantaged.”
Peggy laughed.
“How’d it go with the cell phone company?” I asked, opening the cupboard to get down two mugs. Peggy’s cell phone had been the victim of a tragic accident just recently, and I hadn’t seen her since, my own life having taken a turn for the hectic.
“They’re sending a replacement, free of charge,” she said. “The insurance covered it.”
I turned to look at her. “You had insurance on your cell phone?”
“The warranty was still in and the insurance came with,” she told me. “You can stop looking at my second head now.”
“Sorry,” I said. “You want a bagel?” I frowned, counting backward from my last visit to Beach Bagels. “Hang on; I might not be able to make good on that.”
I opened the fridge. It was looking kind of white and bare inside. Right. Time for a trip the grocery store. Good thing today was my day off.
“How ’bout we trade out bagels for scrambled eggs and toast?”
“You don’t have to feed me at all.”
I straightened enough to look at her over the half door.
“Look me in the eye and tell me you ate breakfast, or that you have any plans at all to eat lunch.”
“I’ll probably have a smoothie for lunch,” she said earnestly. “If there isn’t a crowd.”
To fill her free time in between managing the midway, Peggy also runs The Last Mango, feeding the world, one smoothie at a time.
“Hey!” she said suddenly. “I forgot you wouldn’t know—Felsic’s crew really did take care of the stand—you’d never know there’d been a fire.”
She hadn’t told me, but it wasn’t a surprise. Peggy was dating a trenvay—Felsic, that was—and practically the whole crew working the midway were trenvay. Repairing a wooden booth wouldn’t put them in a sweat. The machinery, though…
“I’m down one juicer,” Peggy said, as I extracted eggs, cheese, and milk from the fridge, backed out and shut the door with a nudge of the hip.
“That’s going to be dicey, with the Fourth coming right up, but the factory says they’ll express one, and it should be here in plenty of time.”
I started cracking eggs into a bowl. Peggy opened the fridge, and got out cream and what remained of my last loaf of bread.
She poured coffee and cream, and brought the mug with the sunflower painted on it over to the counter where I was working.
“Thanks.”
“It’s an honor to assist an artist,” she told me. “I’ll take care of the toast, too.”
The muted clang of a buoy bell wafted across the kitchen. I looked up, frowning.
“What the hell?”
“Doorbell,” Peggy said, already crossing the kitchen. “I’ll get it.”
Doorbell? Tupelo House’s doorbell was a ragged belling, like hounds giving tongue at the sight of quarry after a long chase. Having once been quarry, and heard the hounds belling behind me, I’d never really bonded with the doorbell.
…which now sounded like a buoy bell.
And why, I asked myself, whipping eggs with a little more vigor than was probably necessary, does the doorbell sound like a buoy bell now, Kate?
I sighed, gently.
Because Borgan—who had been forcefully apprised of my feelings in re the bell—had probably fixed it for me. Honestly, welcome a man into the house and right away he starts messing with tradition.
“Kate?” Peggy called from the door. “It’s Henry Emerson.”
“Henry!” I called. “C’mon in! I’m just about to scramble some eggs. Am I adding some for you?”
“Thank you,” Henry said. “I just had breakfast. A cup of coffee would be welcome. I apologize for intruding, but I have th
e letter here, and time is an issue.”
Hell, yes, time was an issue. I’d forgotten about the letter—well, no. I hadn’t forgotten about it; the press of other matters had just shoved it to the back of my mind.
“You’re not intruding,” I said, pouring whipped eggs into the frying pan. “Jersey, get the nice man a cup of coffee. And, hey—take a look at that letter, will you? If it’s not a conflict of interest, I’d like your opinion.”
* * *
Peggy cleared the table and made a new pot of coffee while I read the letter.
“Seems to cover all the points,” I said to Henry, and “Thanks,” to Peggy. “States the case clearly. I say give it to Jess, and let’s start getting signatures.” I became aware of the quality of the silence from across the room, and turned my head to look at Peggy, who was standing hipshot against the sink, arms folded over her chest.
“Not?” I suggested.
She sighed.
“I don’t bear any particular fondness for Arbitrary and Cruel, but they are my employer, so I gotta be careful, here,” she said, slowly. “I don’t think I’m telling any secrets if I say that corporate culture firmly embraces the ‘most profit for least effort, expense, and upkeep’ model of doing business.”
“Right. Which is why we’re being careful to show them how there’s money in it for them by keeping the park open past Labor Day.”
“…how maybe, if the committee’s right that there’s a market, there might be some unquantifiable amount of money in it for them, a couple years down the road.” Peggy shook her head. “In Arbitrary and Cruel Land, that’s tantamount to asking for a loan. Or a raise.” She shook her head, came back to the table, and picked up her mug.
“I don’t think that letter will make any difference to Management’s plans,” she said, and drank coffee with the air of a woman who has, perhaps, said too much.
I looked to Henry, who was being patient and poker-faced, because Henry’s a lawyer and that’s what lawyers do.
“Can’t hurt to float the balloon?” I offered. “Worst they can do is say no, like Peggy says.”
Henry nodded. “I agree. The final decision, of course, rests with the committee.”