by Sharon Lee
The black eyes widened in the narrow face.
“It means nothing to me.”
“As you say,” I answered, and turned toward the entrance road.
I hadn’t gone a dozen paces, when I heard her say, sharp and sweet: “Wait.”
I stopped.
“Do you know my name?”
I felt the question vibrate through me and connect with the land; felt the answer weigh on my tongue.
“Cathahouris,” I said.
I heard her whisper the syllables; then came a rustle, like a deer moving through high grass. Carefully, I queried the land; received the impression of absence.
Well.
I closed my eyes where I stood, and detached the tiniest possible grain of jikinap from the store coiled at the root of my spine. Gently—gingerly—I extended the very thinnest of feelers to the crumb of magic, and let the symphony of the land flow across it.
The process was roughly—very roughly—like copying music from a laptop to a cell except there weren’t any devices and the whole transfer was taking place on a metaphysical level not normally accessible to mp3 players.
Still, when I felt I had my recording firm, I hunkered down and planted the tiny seed of jikinap in the spongy marsh land. It wouldn’t last long. I hoped it would last long enough.
A reminder, that was all. In case she needed one.
Spell set, I came to my feet, snapped my fingers for the land and asked it to come to heel.
It did that, willingly enough, with a flutter that may have been a happily wagging tail.
I took a couple of nice, deep breaths, then walked away, back out the way I’d come in.
Chapter Twenty-Two
High Tide 7:28 p.m. EDT
Sunset 8:26 p.m.
The bonfire was going a treat by the time I arrived at the party beach, a minute or two after nautical twilight. I’d figured that nothing would really get started until Fun Country and the midway had closed for the night, but it seemed I’d figured wrong.
I walked into the fire’s shadow and added my offerings to the pile of driftwood and other fuel. I’d brought two good, dry tupelo branches, so Peggy was covered, in case nobody’d told her about the tradition that everyone brought something for the fire.
“Kate.” Bob came out of the dune-side shadows, and gave me a nod. “Glad you’re here.”
Bob had mellowed somewhat toward me since my return, but this was almost effusive.
“Glad to be here,” I said, truthfully. “They didn’t do Midsummer Eve, out where I was, Away.”
He shook his head, apparently over the strange ways of folks from Away, pulled a hardpack out of his shirt pocket and extracted a cigarette.
“Heard you took a walk out the Kite Track this mornin’,” he said, looking down while he fished a lighter out of the pocket of his jeans.
Well, this was interesting. I tried not to look too interested, though. No sense spooking the man.
“I had some concerns about the state of the land thereabouts.”
Bob lit his coffin nail, took a long drag, and sighed out smoke.
“How’d you find things?”
“Puzzling,” I admitted. “I did what I thought right—what I thought I could do. But I’m not sure I did any good.”
He nodded again, and slipped the lighter back into his pocket.
“Lillian and Catha were—I guess you’d call ’em best friends. Both liked the dances, the races, all the excitement, back when. Party girls.” He snorted; maybe it was a laugh.
“Lillian was the level-headed one—hey, she married me, right? Catha was wild. You’d’ve thought that track was her own personal party; that the owners and the bettors—hell, the horses and the dogs! That it was all hers. Her service. While Lillian was alive, Catha kept ties with us. But…after—the track was long gone, the people—well, I don’t have to tell it to you—and now Lillian was gone, too. Catha…she didn’t so much break with us, as she just drifted away.”
“I did what I thought best,” I repeated.
“I believe it,” Bob said, and gave me a grin. “In the job description.”
Startled, I laughed.
“More or less it is the job description,” I agreed and hefted the increasingly heavy grocery bag dangling at the end of my right hand.
“Where do I take the goodies?”
“JoAnn’ll take those off your hand,” he said, and pointed over my shoulder. I turned to look.
Strings of fairy lights straight out of somebody’s stored Christmas decorations glittered among the sea roses at the rocky foot of Heath Hill; tables had been set up in front of that natural boundary, and people were moving around them.
“Good deal,” I said, and headed that way.
Bob’s daughter was setting up the sweets table, carefully placing plates of brownies, cookies, whoopie pies, cupcakes and other temptations to their best advantage. She looked up as I approached, then straightened, a firm smile on her lips. The land fed me a sense of a deep reserve.
“Good evening, Guardian,” she said primly. “It’s good of you to come.”
“Good evening,” I answered. “My name is Kate. This,” I hefted the bag, so she could see it, “is homemade potato salad and a block of cheddar, for the feast.”
“You didn’t…” she began.
I hefted the bag higher. “Freely given; freely shared, between true companions, and friends.”
That was an old phrase, but Gran had made sure I knew all the old phrases. JoAnn looked—and according to the land, felt—startled. For a long moment, she didn’t move, then she smiled again—a little less firmly—and took the bag from me.
“The feast increases, with the goodwill of all.”
And that, by God, was the authentic, complete response. Bob had seen his kid educated, so he had.
“Is there anything I can do to help out?” I asked.
She glanced up the row of laden tables, and the folks still fitting in plates and bowls and tubs…
“It looks like we’re set here. Thank you for asking. Kate.”
“No problem. Thank you for organizing all of this; must be the last thing you want to do, after working in the restaurant all day.”
She shook her head, and this time the smile was almost warm.
“This is nothing like waiting tables. All we have to do is put the food out ahead, so everybody can help themselves. I’ll be dancing while they do.”
“Put that way, it does seem a lot less work. Maybe Bob can re-organize as a smorgasbord.”
“Not a chance,” she said.
I felt someone moving behind my right shoulder, and stepped left to make room for Henry Emerson, who was carrying an enormous cake pan in his two arms.
“How’d you get that down here without getting mugged?” I asked, while JoAnn darted two tables down to pass my donation off to the guy working there.
“I drove to the bottom of Heath Street, and walked across the dunes,” Henry said.
“Pretty clever.”
“Native slyness and a strong will to survive,” Henry agreed, and gently placed his burden in JoAnn’s outstretched arms.
“There won’t be a crumb left,” she said. “Henry’s cakes are wonderful!”
“Flatterer,” he said. “Has Andy arrived yet, Jo? He has my fiddle.”
“They’re setting up in the usual place.”
“Excellent!” He smiled, gave me a nod. “If you’ll excuse me, Kate?”
“I know better than to get between a man and his fiddle.”
He hurried off. JoAnn had already taken the cake away.
I turned back toward the bonfire, walking softly, watching the crowd.
“Evenin’ Guardian,” Gaby said breathlessly as she hurried toward the tables, a bag in each hand.
“Good evening, Kate,” said a woman I didn’t immediately recognize, walking briskly toward the fire, with a nice thick stick in her hand.
By the time I did, and answered, “Michelle,” she was
gone.
Shaking my head, I barely missed stepping on a short fella with pointed ears—and pointed teeth, too, as I saw when he grinned at me. He dodged under my arm, and ran toward the ocean, kicking up great gobs of sand as he went.
I queried the land as I angled toward the dunes, where the beach was less congested, and received an impression of sea roses growing in tangled profusion over a tumble of rock. Someplace up toward the Enterprise, I thought; it had that kind of feel to—
“There she is! Hey, Kate!”
I turned as Peggy rushed up, flanked by the two trenvay I had figured for Moss and Vornflee. She was wearing the same t-shirt and jeans I’d seen her in this morning.
“You’re gonna freeze!” I told her, seriously alarmed.
“That’s what these guys said, but, hey, there’s a bonfire, right? How cold can it get?”
Her escorts exchanged a look over her head.
“It can get plenty cold. It’s only June. Here, I’ll give you my shirt.” I was wearing long-sleeved denim over a t-shirt.
“So then you freeze?”
“I’ll be fine,” I told her, which was true; the land would keep me toasty, if I asked.
“Not necessary, Guardian,” the trenvay I had figured for Moss said. “Felsic went to fetch down a sweater.”
“Is that where she went?” Peggy glared at them over her shoulders. “What’m I, three?”
“Six?” the one who must therefore be Vornflee suggested.
Peggy didn’t quite not laugh, though she made a noble effort. “The pair of you are insubordinate.”
“We’re on our own time,” Moss said, placidly.
“Wise guys, too.”
The land twitched an alert ear, and in the same instant Vornflee said, “Here’s Felsic.”
I glanced to the left, and nodded at the stocky trenvay sloshing through the dry sand toward our position.
She, huh? I thought, as Felsic joined the group. I was still undecided, myself. The land, queried, returned its equivalent of a baffled stare, and a repeat of the assurance that Felsic was trustworthy.
“Kate,” Felsic said, returning my nod. “Peggy, you’ll catch your death.”
“So I’m being told. I was also told that you went to get me a sweater.” She actually sounded stern.
“A lend only, now,” Felsic said, managing to sound both soothing and amused. “Try this.”
This was a purple sweatshirt with a bright yellow fish of indeterminate species embroidered on the chest. At a guess, it was in Size Giant. Peggy eyed it without favor.
“It’ll spoil my look.”
Felsic continued to hold the shirt out to her by the shoulders.
“C’mon, Jersey,” I said. “Pretend it’s a Halloween costume.”
“Oh, cute. Cute, Archer.”
At that moment, a breeze obligingly ran among us, straight off the ocean, damp and, yeah—definitely chilly.
Peggy took the sweatshirt from Felsic and pulled it over her head. For a moment, she stood there, the headless purple Fixer, then the shirt rippled, as if the fish was trying to swim off of it, and Peggy’s head appeared. Her hands, not so much, and the hem of the shirt hit her slightly below the knees.
“You look adorable,” I told her.
“I’ll get you for that. Later.” She looked around at us—the Guardian and the three trenvay. “So, what’s to do?”
“Beer,” said Moss.
“Cupcakes,” said Vornflee.
“Music,” said Felsic.
“Music?” Peggy asked, looking at me.
“Sure thing. Fiddle, guitar, harmonica, spoons—like that. Soon’s they get tuned up, there’ll be dancing.” I did remember the dancing. I must’ve danced a marathon at my first Midsummer’s Eve, carried on the double wave of hormones and the land’s exuberance. The second year, I had better control, but the music had still beguiled my feet until dawn.
“Beer,” Peggy said decisively. “And a cupcake.”
“First,” Felsic added. The four of them started to move as a unit toward the mobbed goodies tables.
“You comin’, Archer?”
Well, why not? I thought.
I fell in beside Felsic, at the rear of the group; Peggy was walking ahead, still bracketed by her loyal insubordinates.
“She’s not likely to find trouble here, is she?” I asked.
“No worry, G-Kate, she’s safe with us.”
Which, come to think about it, was just a teensy bit disturbing.
“And without you?”
An oblique look from under the rim of the gimme hat.
“Safe enough.”
Yes, definitely a little frisson there.
“Don’t break her, unless you want the owners from Away up here, asking questions and upsetting things.”
Felsic snorted. “We know a gift when we see ’er, Kate. Don’t fatch.”
“Now,” Felsic continued; “it’s good we come up on you. Wanted to let you know I’d done some asking about on that question you set me t’other day. I’m hearing there’d been somebody—I’m tellin’ Seasons, here, a lot of ’em—somebody whose service was bringing ships in ’til they was torn open by the rocks or run ta ground at the narrow. The black wreck, that’s one of hers.”
I shivered, and Felsic threw me a look, unreadable in the fire-laced dark.
“Long story short, she had ’er service took from ’er—all proper done, with the trenvay in support of the then-Guardian—and there ain’t been nobody else since come into service near the mouth. That was a risk, which the then-Guardian knew it to be, but the other—that was worst.”
“I agree,” I said. There’d been a whole lot of information in that squib. If I was lucky, it’d only give me things to think about for the next decade or so. “Thank you for checking it out for me.”
“Happy to be of service to the Guardian. Well,” as we came to the tables, “don’t that look fine.”
I checked, but Felsic kept going. Peggy and Moss were three tables up, apparently having decided that beer came before any other pleasure. I didn’t see Vornflee. Felsic was already working the sweets, filling a plate, and with the clear intention of eating deserts first.
I wasn’t hungry, necessarily, so I stepped to one side, watching the crowds around the smaller fires, and the drift of bodies from group to group. The majority seemed to be trenvay, with a leavening of not-exactly-mundane humans.
Henry was human, of course—and as if the thought had called it, I heard a fiddle start up, playing something bright and bluegrassy.
I saw Joan Anderson go by on the arm of a tall, cadaverous woman with white-and-violet hair, and Mrs. Kristanos, wandering slowly by herself, drinking beer from the bottle. Nancy Vois passed within an arm’s reach, pacing a ginger haired guy in a leather motorcycle jacket, who could’ve been her brother.
The fiddle had been joined by guitar and pipe, and my feet were getting itchy. Inside my head, the land jumped and swung. I exerted my will—to not very much good effect, and realized that I’d started to move, lightly dancing toward the music across the joyous land.
I forced myself to stop, and took a couple of deep breaths.
A hand fell on my shoulder, and the land gave full tongue.
“Dance with me, pretty lady?”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Tide was going out, expanding the dance floor with each shortened wave. I didn’t want to think about what would happen when the tide turned.
Actually, I didn’t want to think—at all.
I wanted to dance.
I was holding Borgan’s hand, and he was breaking trail, dodging and weaving in time to the music’s beat, dancers dancing with the dance.
There was a sharp tug on my hand; we dodged to the right, and Borgan spun, claiming three square feet of sand. At the end of his arm, I spun, too, and let myself be drawn close, the music informing us, moving feet, and blood—
My connection with the land, which had gotten loose and warm under the sua
sion of the music, suddenly snapped tight. The weight of its attention crushed the music beneath it. I stopped dead, turning my head. Borgan, caught on the edge of a swing, staggered, recovered, and stood, holding my hand, and watching the side of my face.
Guided by the land, I…was staring into the dune-side shadows cast by the bonfire, my eyesight sharpened well beyond the ordinary, so that I clearly saw the tall, thin figure standing there, wearing a red circle skirt and a white twinset, a pair of strappy shoes hanging from the fingers of one hand. Her eyes were wide, her lips half-parted, and I felt her trepidation as if it were my own. In another minute, unless something happened, her courage would fail her and she’d bolt.
I took one step…
The firelight flickered as Bob moved between it and us. He threw his cigarette into the fire, and half-danced toward the thin, hesitating figure, his arms opened wide.
“Hey, sweetie; lookin’ good! C’mon gimme smooch!”
She dropped the shoes and ran to him, throwing her arms around his neck. I blinked away tears of relief, my heart slamming against my ribs as he hugged her tight, lifting her a little off the sand, and spinning her around.
I backed away from the land’s perception, turned and looked up into Borgan’s face. He had been watching the pair at the bonfire; now he looked down to meet my eyes.
“Who’s that?” he asked.
“Cathahouris,” I said, “from the Kite Track. I went out and talked to her this morning. Reminded her it was Midsummer Eve. She said she didn’t care.”
“Looks like she changed her mind,” Borgan said. “You still feel like dancin’?”
I grinned at him, the music filling me again, heating my blood, brain and heart; and the land already dancing.
“I don’t think you can stop me.”
* * *
Midsummer is one of the most-celebrated days in the world; a festival of light that outshines even Christmas. Longest day, shortest night, the sun at the height of his powers, recharging the whole world, and everyone on and in it.
Is that a great excuse for a party, or what?
Some traditions have an element of spirituality—of ritual. Some are not much more than a bonfire, and a dance.