by Les Goodrich
“And watch yourself. Do not underestimate Gwen. I’m no stranger to her store so I’ll slide in there and see what I can find out when I think the time is right. Reach out to me anytime young man. I think Ashenguild has just gained a worthy witch. I’ll leave it to you to tell who you wish or not. But let me know when you do. I don’t fancy another witch thinking I betrayed their trust like Jordan imagine’s I did with her craft name.”
“Oh. Well.”
“It’s okay. I know she hates me for it. It was my mistake. I’ll apollogize to her someday, but I kind of like ruffling her feathers a bit. She’s even sexier when she’s mad. Her feisty side. You know?”
“You have no idea,” Tanner said and stood and the two shook hands again and Carmine left back up the alley. The waiter returned and Tanner realized that Carmine had left without paying so he reached for his wallet.
“All taken care of,” the waiter said and he added, “Have a pleasant day,” and he scooped up the empty cups and spoons and vanished into the cafe and Tanner said, “Okay,” and left.
He was elated that Carmine had solved the name of the island and he was relieved to have his Ashenguild intentions made clear, but he realized as he walked that just because Columbus had called an island Isabella a few hundred years ago, that there was no way to prove that the passage in the pirate journal referred to that island specifically. He also knew that there was no proof that this island had a thing to do with the Aradia painting but he shook that away because it was all he had to go on.
Now that he knew Isabella to be Crooked Island, whether it was the island he was looking for or not, he at least felt better to know something. He decided to take that splinter of information to the one person who knew as much about old places as anyone in town and that was Slim Jenkins who owned the antique map store. Tanner walked to the store and he wondered if he should have just gone there days ago but the meeting with Carmine had proved useful so he walked on without regret.
“Go with what you have and start from where you are,” he said to himself.
The door creaked and the small bell above it chimed and Tanner stepped into the shop where framed antique maps covered every inch of the high walls. The shop was a musty maze of maps framed, folded and stacked, rolled, and pressed into books and there were old Saint Augustine tour books and vintage postcards and a grey and white long haired cat that slept on the front window ledge and watched people walk by on the sidewalk.
“Tanner, hi there,” Slim said and his turned head looked just over the top of the glass counter and he stood from his desk chair where the desk, covered in maps, faced the wall. “Thought I paid my add through ’til after Christmas,” and he turned back standing and shuffled through the parchments on his desk.
“You did, you did. Thank you. I’m here on map business. I need your help.”
“Well good, good,” Slim smiled and he stepped to the counter edge and Tanner weaved his way around stacks of framed maps to join him from the customer side. “What can I help you with my boy?”
Tanner pulled his iPad from his bag and found the note. Slim watched.
“Amazing. The contraptions these days.”
“Here it is,” Tanner said and he read the passage out loud. “I think it has something to do with Crooked Island in the Bahamas.”
“Crooked Island,” Slim said. “And Acklins. The atoll down south. Interesting place.” Slim moved around the counter and nimbly swung through the store and crouched his lanky frame over a rack that held ancient Bahamian maps framed in foam board matting and shrink wrapped in clear acetate. His spider-like fingers plied past four boards. Six. Ten. “I know I have one or two maps of it around here somewhere. Maybe in the Antique Island rack. But they’d be old.” He looked at Tanner.
“The older the better,” Tanner said and Slim moved among the stacked and leaning frames and tables covered with maps and books about maps. He flipped through more foam matted treasures.
“Ah-ha. Here we are.” Slim lifted a board of twenty by twenty-six inches that matted a hand drawn, sepia aged map of the Crooked Island atoll.
He looked upon it and his face relaxed into reflection and he seemed to be far away on the cracked shell shores where swift cotton clouds raced cool overhead and bottle-green seas churned to bleached foam above chrome shoals of fish. He imagined halls of shimmering fish where they darted in uncanny unison and he wondered how far down the waves were felt and he imagined pink sands ruffled in long ribbons and above them a barracuda lifted and dipped upon the current and his mouth opened and closed to gauge the tide.
“Did you find it?” Tanner asked and Slim pulled his gaze from the pressed parchment and its inked likeness and he looked at the young man who was merely boy to his old eyes and he nodded partly to Tanner but more to himself and he knew that all maps made his heart soar.
“Yes,” Slim said and he moved, as did Tanner ahead of him, back to the counter and the cat in the window turned to regard them and stretched and positioned his head upon his crossed arms to watch from his spot. Slim put the map on the counter and brought out a magnifying glass and placed it on the glass with the slightest clink of metal bezel then click of bakelite handle. “I believe your riddle is solved my boy,” Slim said and he pointed to a spot on the map. Tanner looked.
“French Wells,” Tanner read and he studied the handwritten place name at the southwest tip between Crooked Island and what was noted as Long Cay. “French Wells?” he repeated with a quiz on his face and Slim nodded slowly and spoke with a near whisper.
“A part of her is deep. A well is deep. No?”
“Okay.”
“And here, Gun Point,” Slim showed Tanner the location named on the map. “A part of her assaults. Gun Point.” He continued to indicate other spots in the same manner.
“A part of her is honest: the town of True Blue. And a part of her is crippled: Cripple Hill.”
“Amazing,” Tanner said. “Can I buy this map?”
“You may, if you wish.”
“How much is it?”
“Six hundred dollars.”
“Oh. Um, well, may I take a picture of it?”
“A picture?” Slim asked and Tanner pulled out his phone. “Contraptions,” Slim grinned. “Go ahead son, but only you and just this once.”
Tanner snapped a picture and zoomed in to be sure he could read the places and he could. Slim leaned and looked to the image. Tanner texted what he had found out in a group text to Carol, Jordan, and Brit, then a separate text to Dan.
“Thank you Mr. Jenkins and I’ll bring the new edition of The Last Dragon by. It’s out.”
“Very good Tanner. Tell Carol to stop by sometime, will you?”
“I will,” Tanner said and he left and the bell chimed and the cat’s eyes were closed again and Slim walked whistling to put the map back.
Chapter 15
Friends, Lovers, and Spies
On Friday morning Jordan walked along Water Street in the cool dark air and she made her way to the long dock to meet Shay when the Sun rose. The dock stretched out from a foundation where a house was torn down long ago and while the dock may have been technically private, no one ever seemed to be around, and people in the neighborhood used it to fish from or walk down but it was most often empty. The old curled wooden planks stood like a grey and Sun-bleached sidewalk that passed just above the highest grass standing tan in the shallows and the dock reached fifty yards from shore to its small pad at the edge of deeper water.
Pale light brewed on the eastern horizon and after twenty or so steps along the dock Jordan stopped and looked back to the black shore, then out to the end of the dock that stood invisible beneath the fog, and she thought that being trapped out there would be a bad thing if the wrong person happened by so she walked back, took out her wand, and cast a protection spell at the landing of the boardwalk steps.
“From no direction on this day may any evil pass this way. Only light may travel here, and only love may issue near. From n
o direction on this day may any evil pass this way. So mote it be. Blessed be.”
She turned and walked to the far end of the dock and sat and watched a slow sunrise. She watched the sky assemble gradients of pink haze above the margins of the world. She saw flocks of ducks beat above the horizon that were just specks of chattering red confetti and she heard porpoises blow in the fog-coated channel and in the distance the fog glowed a dull red by some unlikely reflection and it looked as if the Sun were shining through the Earth itself. A single cloud band revealed with its bottom cast in orange from the climbing Sun below and the cloud top stood black against the greying sky as if some floor hatchway of freshly fired clay tile were being lifted to vent a seething coal furnace into the dark room above. Aqua rays appeared suddenly like the crescent ribs of a just-opened hand fan and their broadcast striped the hammered clay clouds that became lilac then grey then ivory and the Sun stood red below them then yellow among them and it burned everything white and the day was born.
Jordan smacked a bite she felt on her neck. She brushed a buzzing from her ear. “I should have said no mosquitos may pass this way.”
The glossy channel stirred and a dolphin pushed through the surface and Jordan saw Shay's arm and her hand where she held the dolphin's dorsal fin and she let go and the great sea mammal spun and chattered and floated on its back. Shay stroked its stomach and the dolphin rolled and vanished. Shay swam up to the dock.
“Good morning,” Shay said. “Stand back.”
Jordan stood and stepped back from the dock edge. Shay turned and rolled under and lurched up in a twisting rain of riverwater to land sitting on the dock edge in one smooth motion and without ever touching the planks with her hands. She slung her hair back then slicked her hands up her face and back down over her head. Jordan moved up and sat by her and the two hugged.
“How was the Bahamas?” Jordan asked and gave Shay one of the two full coffee tumblers she had brought. For a minute Shay only sipped and said, mmmmm, Then she spoke.
“It's so beautiful there. And the fish are so abundant and big. White sand bottoms and sparkly blue and green water. There are rocks as big as fishing boats and under them thousands of lobsters. The Bahamians row in these wooden boats that have one oar at the back they sort of twist and it makes the boat go. The mermaids always swim up and talk to them since there is no loud or dangerous motor. In the Bahamas the locals all know about mermaids and everyone is friends. Not like here where people believe their own lies more than what their eyes see.
“My friend's wedding was amazing. It was at the edge of a big reef and everyone was floating above the white sand at the reef edge and the bride and groom came from behind and then over the coral and they were inside an enormous cloud of little fish we call silversides. They were in there but you just saw this massive swirling ball of tiny silver fish.
“When the school reached the edge of the reef it burst open into a million silver fish stars like a human fireworks and inside were my friend and her groom and they were already kissing and everyone laughed. A thousand needlefish made a roof above them where they held on the surface and watched. Thousands of bright yellow tangs flitted around their tails. Red and white stripped rockfish schooled at their shoulders and absolutely covered the reef walls behind the couple like a red and white curtain.
“The ceremony was delivered by the groom's grandparents and they told stories about being married and about children and they gave advice on a long and happy life together. Then the grandparents of the bride recited all of the names of the mermaids who had come before them and the living children and grandchildren including the bride who came last. Both sets of grandparents held hands, then they took the hands of both sets of parents who took the hands of the new couple and this made a big circle and they floated out some away from the reef into clear bright water. Then all of the fish on the wall and the needlefish above and the yellow tangs and the wedding guests swam below them and up through the circle.
“Big baracudas patrolled the perimeter and some of them were as big around as land trees and at the end they too swam through the circle even though it was not planned that they would and they leapt into the sky on their strong swift flight up and it was a delight to watch. Then the wedding ceremony was over.
“Mermaids and mermen had come from all around Florida and a few from the out islands. One of the girls from Biscayne Bay has a tail that looks like a clownfish. You know, bright orange with those white spots edged in pure black. She has a sexy little curvy double dorsal fin that same color too. She's real tan and gorgeous and her hair cut short and shiny black. She had an anemone purse. All the guys were hitting on her the whole time.
“The reception was on a beach and we ate fruits from land like pineapple and bananas. Did you ever have pineapple?”
“Yes I love it,” Jordan said.
“Oh wow me too. Delicious. And bananas too,” Shay said but she did not ask if Jordan had ever had bananas because she felt a little embarrassed after asking about the pineapple. She realized most people on land probably knew about those things.
The embarrassment didn’t last long because she thought there was much about the ocean Jordan would not know, and she smiled and shook her head as if to shake out those thoughts and she instantly returned to her innocent way and her natural excitement and she grabbed Jordan by both hands and held them as she spoke.
“And we ate cooked fish and cooked lobster the Bahamians made for us and they played music and everyone sunned on the beach and swam in the cove.”
“That sounds so cool,” Jordan said. “Did you learn any news about the painting or the spellbook?”
“Yes. From my cousins who came over from the Keys. The pirates left all the cave witch's things where they found them once they learned they were witchy belongings. Ghost pirates and they’re the worst kind of dangerous bastards. Deadly at the best of times and capable of great violence when moved by greed. Never to be trusted. But they're scared of curses and they fear dusty old legends and they’re superstitious beyond hope. Did you know that no pirate will ever step onto a ship with his left foot first?”
“No. Why not?”
“Bad luck. They’ll also never bring a black suitcase on board. What's a suitcase?” Shay asked forgetting the very idea of being embarrassed and knowing she was with her friend.
“It's a bag you carry clothes in,” Jordan said.
“Oh yeah. Clothes. Anyway, my cousins know some other pirates down there. That’s who told them about the ghost pirates and the cave treasure.”
“Where in the Keys do your cousins live?”
“On the bayside in what you call the Lower Keys, but I don’t know all the human names.”
“How do your cousins know these other pirates?”
“They buy weed from them.”
“Weed?” Jordan asked.
“Yeah but not seaweed. The land plant you smoke.”
“I figured. So your mermaid cousins buy weed from pirates in the Keys?”
“Yeah. They party pretty hard down there.”
“How do they pay for the weed?”
“With treasure.”
“Aye,” Jordan said and Shay went on.
“I guess the pirates grow it somewhere in Miami. They bring it in a boat to sell most of it in Key West. These aren’t ghost pirates they’re real live modern guys with fast boats. From what I hear they aren’t cutthroats. They’re just like, how do you say it, cowboys. Cowboys, right?”
“Yeah cowboys,” Jordan said. “And why haven’t they gone to get the treasure themselves?”
“Nah. They don’t care about old books and witch spells. Some of their kind might if there was money in it, but these guys have money. Plus it’s all tangled up with such bastards I think they’d just rather stay out of it. Especially since they see no profit in it for themselves. Nasty ghost pirates and Fomorians.
“The ghost pirates will only deal with the Fomorians to a point. Your bad witches have only talked abou
t any of this with the Fomorians as far as I can find out, so who knows what the bad witches know. I mean all Fomorians are liars and the ghost pirates are half the time.”
Jordan thought for a second, sipped coffee, then spoke. “Do you know where the island is?”
“I know the island. It’s down south like I thought. A gorgeous place. We call it Crescent Moon Island because from the water on the deep side that’s what it looks like. It’s really two or three islands curved together and they make a wide shallow bay between them. It’s quite nice. Mermaids actually spend a lot of time there because the cove is shallow and clear and, like you said, not many tourists. I think a few mermaid families live there. But where is the cave on the island? No idea. The island is big.”
“Do you think this could be it?” Jordan asked and she showed Shay the picture Tanner had sent her in the group text. She told her what Tanner thought about that being the place and why. Shay looked at it. She looked closer.
“Maybe. Is that looking at it from the sky or something?”
“Yeah it’s a drawing of an old map. Really old I think. Let me find a better picture of it.” Jordan searched through internet images and found a modern satellite photo of the islands. She showed the picture to Shay.
“Wow, is that little flat box magick?”
“Not really. Do you think that’s it?”
“So this is a real picture of it from above?”
“Yes.”
“And this light blue part is shallow water, and the dark blue side is where it’s deep, and the green is the land?”
“Yeah,” Jordan said and she looked at the picture with Shay.
“That’s it then,” Shay said. “See, this is the bay. Over here is deep. I mean crazy deep. Big sharks cruise this side. Mermaids always swim up from the west side. There’s a channel right here. I went there with my cousins a few times when we were kids.
“Tanner’s right. It’s all caves and coves and like I said, the islands are quite large. There are even caves you can only get to from the water. And they say the island has fresh water on it. I don’t know where. It all makes sense. The story of the Italian witch and now modern pirates hearing of ghost pirates on Crescent Moon Island. Or what did you call it?”