by Tom Deitz
Engol bade them farewell from the shore, resumed his gull-shape, and flew south toward the fleet.
And two selkies and their prisoner started toward the sea.
They had not even reached the first line of breakers when something attracted their attention further out, beyond the most distant swells to the north.
Tagd halted for a moment, puzzled, and then his already round eyes rounded further with wonder.
For as he watched, a ship rose into view from beneath the very waves. Of some white material, it was, that might very well have been bone, and with sails of blue and silver, worked in an overall design of scales, over which three human legs in blue conjoined at the hips ran in an endless circle. Fear rose in Tagd, for this was not expected; this was not part of the plan. Was it some trick of Lugh’s? Did the Ard Rhi of Tir-Nan-Og command not only vessels of the water and of the skies, but of the deep seas as well?
But then Erioch barked a chuckle next to him, and he realized what had happened.
The vessel had fully risen now, and was gliding toward them, undisturbed by the breakers that flashed and fought around it. An instant later the carved wooden dragon at its prow tapped the shore.
A man stepped forward from where he had been hidden at the trailing rudder. He was as tall as anyone Tagd had ever seen, in Faerie or the Lands of Men, and more muscular than any warrior of the Sidhe he could recall. He wore a simple loose robe of blue and green brocaded velvet, open to the waist where a belt of golden shells bound it, and had hair sleek as wet black sealskin. Atypical for the Sidhe, a beard spread across his chest.
And apparently had no concern for his fine raiment, for he hopped across the low gunwale, landing chest-deep in the water, and strode toward the selkies.
“Do not bother to manshape for me,” he called casually, for already Tagd was changing again. “I know you for what you are. Show me the sign, and I will show you one, and relieve you of your burden.”
“Manannan mac Lir,” Tagd managed to bark, ignoring both orders from surprise as he reclaimed his human form. “So you have entered the fray.”
Manannan shook his head. “I owed Finvarra a favor, which he has now demanded. For the rest, I wait and see. Though,” he added, gazing south, “it appears that someone else may have made my choice for me.”
Tagd recovered himself, waded forward, and raised the ring. The Lord of Caer Ys met him, showed his own hand where an identical bauble glittered, twin to that so recently embedded in Tagd’s flesh the pain had not yet left him. Silver touched silver, light flashed once more, and words poured into Tagd’s brain without benefit of hearing: Deliver your charge to this one, then be about your business.
Tagd nodded stiffly and shuffled aside as the man stooped, lifted the prisoner (who was scarcely larger than a well-grown seal pup), and strode with him back to the vessel. He was still watching in stunned amazement as the ship slid away from the shore, turned gracefully, and slipped back beneath the waves.
“So Manannan now has the boy,” Erioch observed in human shape from the spray-slapped shore behind him—just as the shouts of warriors reached them from the fleet to the south.
PART I
WINDS BETWEEN THE WORLDS
Chapter I: Ancestral Voices…
(Sullivan Cove, Georgia—Friday, June 13—oneish)
“Now who in the Sam Hill is that?” JoAnne Sullivan wondered aloud to nobody as tires whined and ground in the gravelly mud at the foot of the hill below her family’s house, striving without much luck for traction on what in antediluvian times had passed for a driveway. She sighed and stuffed another dripping load of washing into the new Kenmore dryer in the kitchen’s northeast corner before stalking toward the westward back door (the kitchen was in the downstroke of the old T-shaped farmhouse and flanked by porches on either side), snagging a tall glass of Dr Pepper as she went. Unconsciously she smoothed stray blonde hair out of her face and wiped her damp hands on the tail of the single surviving Clifton Precision Softball T-shirt she wore above cut-off Wranglers because it was too hot and sticky to wear any more and too messy in the kitchen to risk anything better.
“Dim that down!” she hollered left into the tacked-on den that made the base of the T, where a nearly naked Little Billy was ensconced in front of the tube engrossed in “Chip ’n Dale’s Rescue Rangers”—loud enough to drown out k. d. lang’s latest on WZEL-FM, which she’d been listening to.
“But Maaaaa, you made me come in!”
“Hush up and mind me!” JoAnne snapped before she could catch herself. No sense being such a bitch over so little, especially when the protest was valid.
Not that it let him off the hook, of course: as soon as the sun had ventured out that morning the little varmint had been out there in it, muddying up the miniature Enotah County ’possums gym shorts Davy had given him for his birthday and the burgundy T-shirt that matched ’em—which had been the genesis of the current round of washing. It had pissed her off mightily, too; and he had gotten sunburned in the bargain. By the time she’d hauled him back inside, his arms and cheeks were a fair match for the rest of his ensemble. She should have known better, though: he’d proven noisy at best and underfoot at worst, and his television was about to give her a headache she didn’t need.
Wurrr-urr-urr-urrrrrrr.
Scowling, JoAnne sidestepped Tiberius, the yellow tomcat that tried to rub her legs, and eased onto the porch. Her brows practically collided, then, as she saw the heavy mass of clouds glowering above Bloody Bald out at the cove beyond Uncle Dale’s place where Big Billy was supposed to be re-anchoring the old man’s new trailer for the second time that spring. There were always clouds there now, and it gave her the willies. Magic, David said it was, though the border with that place was supposed to be closed off. But she didn’t like it, not one little pea-pickin’ bit!
Wurr-urr-urr-urr-uarrm.
The spinning persisted, grew louder, and she followed it toward the blood-red slash of the Sullivan Cove road and the spindly green shoots of the closest hunk of cornfield, mostly underwater now, as a result of last night’s downpour. Or maybe it was the night before’s—they were starting to run together.
A once-white Chevy S-10 pickup was slowly fighting its way up the drive, easing past her white Crown Vic, which was still in the ditch at the turnoff where it had slid that morning in utter disregard of the six loads of gravel her menfolk had unloaded the previous weekend, which had washed away three days later. Eventually the truck made it to the relative solidity of the side yard and squished to a halt, though the driver kept the motor idling. A stray beam of sunlight glanced off the bumpers and chrome light bar atop the cab, masking her frown with a squint. It was good to see the sun shining off something these days. Mighty good indeed.
The passenger door opened, dispensing a tiny, round-shouldered old lady in new Sears sneakers and a faded calico dress that had never heard of either color or fashion. JoAnne’s heart sank: it was Minniebelle Coker, who lived in the next hollow up the main highway. At least eighty-five, Minniebelle was one of that vanishing school of mountain women who didn’t believe in calling ahead and didn’t think anything at all of dropping by unexpectedly to spend the day. Oh well, she was a good-hearted old soul, and anyway, it’d give JoAnne an excuse to sit down and cool off for a spell.
Minniebelle had paused at the door to retrieve something from the seat, then tottered across the soggy yard, leaving her grandson Marcus to clunk the door shut behind her. Marcus stuck his thin, ruddy face out his window and hollered, “Just got a call ’bout another goddam ruckus. Be back ’round three, if I can.”
Minniebelle nodded, and JoAnne’s heart sank further. That meant she had to put up with the old biddy for at least a couple of hours.
But still…
Taking one final swig from her Dr Pepper before abandoning it on the weathered gray porch rail, JoAnne navigated the creaking steps and walked barefoot through the yard to meet Minniebelle halfway and relieve her of her burden: a corrugated c
ardboard box in which nestled four identical Ball jars.
“Thank-ee, gal,” Minniebelle squeaked. “I reckon I’m just plumb wore out and rotten. Ain’t got strength for nothin’ these days.”
“I ain’t quite that far gone,” JoAnne replied, trying to retain some semblance of both humor and hospitality, “but I’m pretty sure I’m a little bit mildewed.”
“Ain’t never seen such rain, ’ve you?”
JoAnne shook her head as she took Minniebelle’s arm and helped her up the steps. “Not in my lifetime.”
“Nor mine neither,” Minniebelle acknowledged beside her. “This much just ’taint natural.”
*
“Lots of unnatural things been goin’ on, as a matter of fact,” Minniebelle opined with special emphasis half an hour later. “’Specially ’round these parts.” She took a swallow of ice tea and regarded her hostess sharply.
JoAnne eluded that gaze and stared out across the thick-grown yard, thinking she probably ought to get David at it come Monday morning. They were sitting on the front porch now, eating the morning’s biscuits globbed with the fresh batch of strawberry jelly which had been the contents of the mysterious jars. Minniebelle was a famous canner, and this was only the first of many loads she’d drop by over the summer, as things came into season.
Unfortunately, though, she was also a famous gossip and busybody, and the last thing in the world JoAnne needed was for somebody to start asking questions about “unnatural” things. ’Specially when there really had been strange things goin’ on that she knew about, and probably a right smart more she didn’t.
“Mighty strange things,” Minniebelle offered again.
“Like what?” JoAnne asked innocently, having decided it was best to find out exactly what her guest knew—’cause what Minniebelle knew was bound to be the maximum anybody did.
“Like…oh, like all that sickness you folks had two summers ago: first pore ole Dale and his stroke, and then the littlest ’un just turns off for a while. You ever find out what’uz wrong with ’em?”
JoAnne cleared her throat uncomfortably: what was she going to say? They’d been sick and healed, that was true, but she didn’t believe half of either the cause or the reason herself, and didn’t want to believe even that part: that there was a whole other world overlaying this one, a world where magic happened and once in a while crept out to torment her family.
All these things flashed through JoAnne’s mind in an instant, but her reply was the well-rehearsed line she’d used on the non-local parts of the family—and on Minniebelle herself at least twice before.
“Miracles happen. They just happen, and I’m glad they do.”
“Seems to me like you been usin’ up more’n your fair share, though,” Minniebelle shot back. “Both of ’em sick one day and healed the next. I ain’t never seen nothin’ like it.”
“I hadn’t either,” JoAnne replied truthfully, thinking of the year she’d spent wondering how the healing had been accomplished before she’d followed another old lady up the mountain and found out the truth of the matter.
But Minniebelle was not to be daunted. “And then,” she continued, forging ahead, “…JoAnne, I hate to say it, but your oldest boy’s just gone plumb off of the kazip. Why, I’ve heard all kinds of things ’bout him. Just acts strange and all, and then last summer when everybody thought him and that Hughes gal had run off that time, and them Gypsy-folks got their wagons burnt—why, law! My boy Marcus seen that part, ’cause he’uz ridin’ with the sheriff that night, and he seen that fire. Oh, he told what they told him, too: said it was fire runnin’ fast on spilled gasoline, but he told me what he really seen: said there’uz a strange boy there just waved his hand and made that fire. Said he rode off and wasn’t ever seen again. Said there’uz some mighty fine horses there, too…just a little too fine, if you catch my meanin’. Wouldn’t you say that was strange?”
JoAnne finished off her second biscuit and checked her watch, wishing Minniebelle would just go on home. She even considered offering her a ride—except, of course, that her car was stuck beyond redemption. As for the pickup, which would have made it, Big Billy had taken it over to Dale’s.
“Well?”
“I ain’t got nothin’ to say,” JoAnne replied shortly. “It’s our business and Davy’s and his buddies. Everybody come out all right.”
“Yeah, I reckon so, far as you folks’re concerned. But Marcus got in a lot of trouble over it ’cause they was too many holes in his report. But that ain’t the last of it, neither…there’uz that stuff the next day: all them lights up on the mountain: I seen that! Was out Sunday mornin’ huntin’ for ’sang, and walked up the ridge, and seen them clouds come a-rollin’ in toward that mountain over yonder”—she pointed left, to where the shoulder of the proper Appalachians crowded in. Lookout Rock, JoAnne knew, was what she was talking about.
“But they weren’t no ordinary clouds, no siree,” Minniebelle confided. “They’uz like them clouds in that movie thing—Close Encounters, or whatever ye call it: that’un ’bout them spaceships, and that crazy man made a model of out of the mashed taters. Only I watched real close, an’ I seen shapes in there. Couldn’t make ’em out, but they looked kinda like boats, or somethin’: long, skinny boats with great wide sails. And then them clouds come back and they all vanished.”
“So you think we’ve been havin’ spacemen visit us up here in Sullivan Cove?” JoAnne managed a serious laugh in spite of her discomfort, for Minniebelle had certainly seen true—just interpreted it wrong.
“I’ve seen stuff ’bout it in the Enquirer: Folks loses time, or forgets where they were, and all; and they find out them saucer folks has carried ’em off. Shoot, I hear they even carried off Elvis!”
JoAnne rolled her eyes. That clinched it: Minniebelle was about to slip right on off, and she didn’t know whether to be grateful for the change of topic or worried about the poor old woman’s mind.
“An’ another thing ain’t natural,” Minniebelle went on blissfully, before JoAnne could reach any sort of conclusion. “All this rain! Why, law, girl, I’ve seen rain, but nothin’ like this. Straight down all day. Clear sky one minute, and clouds the next—and…why, land, the dreams I been havin’!”
JoAnne’s eyes narrowed abruptly. “What kinda dreams?”
“Bad dreams, gal: dreams ’bout hatred and killin’, and…and monsters!”
“I been havin’ nightmares too, and so has Davy. Can’t hardly sleep for ’em.”
“I dreamed I got mad at Marcus and stuck a knife in ’im! Woke up in the night and I had one in my hand, and was walkin’ out the back door toward his trailer!”
“Jesus, Minniebelle, you be careful!”
“Jesus,” Minniebelle observed pointedly, “ain’t got nothin’ to do with it.”
“Minniebelle!”
“So where’s your young ’un now?”
“I got two,” JoAnne snorted with unexpected impatience.
“I got ears to hear the littl’un; it’s the big’un I was wonderin’ ’bout.”
“He’s over at the lake with his buddies and their gals, I reckon—’cept his gal ain’t up here yet. Some kinda pre-graduation cook-out, or somethin’. He’s graduatin’ tonight: first honor.”
“Smart boy, I always said. Smart and polite and good lookin’—real good lookin’—’cept he needs a haircut. But weird.”
“I’d thank you not to talk ’bout Davy like that!”
“But he is! Everybody knows it. Why, them things he goes on about—”
“Goin’ on ’bout things don’t make you weird,” JoAnne snapped, feeling her day’s suppressed irritations start to escape their bonds. “Davy knows things, is all. He likes to know things. There’s two things that makes folks think you’re weird, Minniebelle,” she added, her voice rising with every word, “knowin’ too much—and not knowin’ enough! Up here folks say Davy’s strange ’cause he’s smart and interested in things most folks ain’t. But down there in Athens
where he’s gonna go to school it’s you and me that’d be strange ’cause we’re so ignorant! Do I make myself clear?”
“Books don’t make you smart, neither, gal,” Minniebelle gave her back promptly, though her usual feistiness was edged with something harder and her blue eyes looked cold as steel.
“They sure don’t!” a male voice rumbled unexpectedly, as Big Billy sauntered out of the house, stuffing the tail of a clean white T-shirt into his jeans, though he seemed to have already sweated through it. JoAnne jumped a little, having neither heard him come in the back door nor tromp down the hall.
“Maybe me and Minniebelle was havin’ a private conversation,” she flared. “Ever think about that?” (What was gettin’ into her today? She wasn’t this bad when she was on the rag, yet she was picking fights everywhere. This had to stop and quickly, before she went too far.)
“Looks mighty public to me,” Big Billy drawled. He sat down on the swing and scratched his belly absently. Davy had finally got him to running, and he looked as good as he had in years. He seemed to have dropped another couple of pounds, too, JoAnne noted, trying desperately to shift her train of thought and thus defuse the potentially explosive tension. It was hard, though; good looks didn’t help her husband’s tongue or his temper, which were no great shakes at the best of times.
“Minniebelle brought us some strawberry jelly,” she managed finally, reaching down to pick up the tomcat that had arrived along with her spouse.
“Strawberries, huh?” Big Billy grunted, casting a distrustful blue eye toward Minniebelle, whom he was a little afraid of. “Surprised you got any. Everything we’ve got’s under water.” He swept his hand in an arc before him indicating the flooded bottoms. “Might as well hire Chinese and raise rice.”