“Whatever,” I said. It had to be the world’s worst save. I didn’t want to imagine any kind of poem Werling wrote, especially about me! To Ben, I said, “Listen, Werly’s been doing his best to make all of you sound like the Hardy Boys. I’d like some real answers.”
Ben said, “Okay. Ask away.”
“Why are you so interested in the clams?”
“Mussels are an important part of the creek’s ecosystem and are protected by law. They filter the water. Also, their violent destruction shows an evil mind at work—a threat that may do more damage.”
“Ding the cops,” I said.
“Ding the cops?”
“Telephone the constabulary,” I said.
“Dead clams don’t interest the police,” Ben said. “I thought Ally made that clear.”
I could see his point. Ally and the DNR guy had cleaned up the clams with no police around.
“Well, won’t the DNR do something? Will Ally go after the clam killer?”
“She’ll do her best, but DNR resources are very limited and stretched up and down the Mississippi, not to mention all the parks in the Cities. And besides, the DNR is just one of a multitude of agencies that oversee the parks.”
“So you River Ranger guys elected yourselves to do something?”
Ben thought about it and nodded. “That’s about it.”
I said, “You guys think you’re pretty hot stuff.”
“Listen, I didn’t ask you to get involved. And I don’t have time for this.” Ben crossed his arms and stared at me. “We’ve answered your questions. You can go home if you want to.”
Werling looked anxious at the last bit, but said nothing.
This direct approach was a long way from the wimpy character I’d always imagined Ben to be. I’d misjudged him, though I’d be damned if I would tell him so. The pearl and Cathal mysteries had hooked me. I was crazy about mysteries.
“I’m staying, Ben. I’ll be quiet as long as Werling promises to quit writing poems about me.” I glared at Werling and raised both eyebrows. He crumpled a little.
“About the Yukon! I was writing about . . . you know,” Werling tried to convince me. He was hopeless.
“Fine,” Ben said. He gave Werling a look and shook his head. Then he said to me, “We have to go back to the downtown library. If you’re going to stick around, you can help. We’re looking for patterns of activity and news related to pearls. It’s tedious work, but necessary. You’ll get bored.”
“I’ll help.” I crossed my arms and stared right back at him.
“Okay, then. I guess you can consider yourself a River Ranger.”
Werling grinned from ear to ear and held out a hand. I arched an eyebrow and projected my best withering look: narrowed left eye, tight lips, and a perfectly lifted nose. I had practiced it in my mirror. Werling just smiled back like an idiot, took my hand and shook it.
“Well, I can see you two want to be alone,” Ben said and turned on his heel.
“I want to be alone, but Werly is still here,” I said to his back.
Werling wielded my arm like a pump handle and said, “Welcome to the Rangers!”
Eleven
Ambush
Beyond the light-rail maintenance building, heading under the freeway overpass, was a stretch of undeveloped land choked with tall weeds. The light-rail bike path to the downtown library ran straight through it and isolated riders from view.
Ben was riding his bike in front of me, and Werling behind, when we were attacked! Six wild, mangy dogs leapt out from the high weeds ahead of us, to the left and right. The lead dog raced straight at me from the right, and I just knew he was going to spring. His yellow teeth were horrible, but what froze my heart were his eyes. They were red. I veered, but the dog suddenly howled in pain, stumbled as he sprang, and somersaulted past me. The second one yipped and jumped away, pawing at its face.
“Jeebus! What is this?” I cried.
“Keep going, Wendy. Around to the right,” Ben shouted as he rode straight at the third dog on our left. This one must have realized his friends were howling for some reason, because he danced away from Ben. I pumped my pedals like mad. The remaining three lost their momentum, and I got past them before they turned. I didn’t look back to see. The patter of feet quickened behind me and sounded like they were closing on us.
Werling pulled alongside me and turned in his seat to shoot a stream of sharp-smelling stuff back at the closest dog. I heard a royal yowl and no more pitter-patter of scary feet.
“Don’t slow down,” Ben urged. Like he had to tell me? He rode up on my other side.
I was going all out. With Ben and Werling next to me I chanced a glance back. Four dogs were down, writhing on the ground. The last two were standing, snarling at us as we got away.
“What happened?” I gasped. I got a colossal stitch in my side as we cleared the underpass and headed into town. Up ahead was the Cedar-Riverside LRT station.
Ben said, “Get past the station, then we’ll slow down and talk.”
We breezed through and glided. Ben stood on his pedals and looked back. “They’re gone.”
“Are you all right, Wendy?” Werling asked.
“Yeah. Jeez, thanks. What is that stuff, mace?”
“Our own special blend,” Ben said, and I detected a hint of pride.
I shifted to a medium gear and said, “Man, I don’t ride the LRT bikeway much, but I’d say there’s definitely a leash law or two being overlooked.”
“Those weren’t pets,” Ben said.
“They were jackals!” Werling exclaimed.
I recalled the dogs with Tweedledee and Tweedledum, the Shriner twins—same patchy fur and hunched backs with small hindquarters. “Some of them were outside the door with Cathal.”
“We are so taking the bus home.” Werling said.
* * *
We spent the rest of the day at the central library, where we fussed around with its computers and even dug into old microfilm records. There were three recent stories about pearl thefts. They all had two things in common: the pearls were black, and they were smashed to pieces. I said, “That’s so strange,” to Ben, who worked the computer next to me.
Werling peered over the top of my machine. “You found a story about smashed pearls, too?”
The librarian glared at us.
Werling edged around the computer counter and sat at my side. After looking at what I’d found, he whispered, “Last week in St. Paul another pearl was smashed. That makes four instances.”
I said, “Sweet mother of pearl, Batman.”
Ben frowned and held up a hand for quiet. His eyes were shut and his lips twisted left and right like a teeter-totter. When I gave Werling a questioning look he put an upraised finger to his lips. “He’s thinking.”
For my money, Ben looked like a cow chewing its cud. Finally his lip action stopped.
I said, “You’re thinking the pearl poacher and the clam killer are the same dude?”
Ben and Werling both turned to me with surprised looks. Ben waggled his head. “Very good. Your alliteration aside, yes, I think it’s highly likely.”
“Did Ally find any broken pearls around the clams by the creek?” I asked.
Ben stared at me again like I’d changed color before his eyes. “Very good, Wendy. That night I was out I spent examining the spot where the mussels were—among other things. I don’t recall pearl fragments, but then, I wasn’t looking for them.”
Werling rapped Ben’s arm with his bony knuckles. “I told you. I told him,” Werling said to me. “Brains . . . and beau—”
“Give it a rest, Werly,” I said, though I was flattered, which was kind of creepy. “I’ve read enough mysteries to figure out a few things.”
“I love mysteries!” Werling exclaimed. He stiffened his upper lip and said, “You’re taking the fall, sweetheart.”
“Jimmy Cagney?” I guessed wrongly—on purpose.
“No! Humphrey Bogart.”
“That’s mor
e hard-boiled detective fiction than mystery,” I said.
“Hercule Poirot was a detective,” Werling said.
“And he’s about as hard-boiled as a marshmallow!” I said.
Behind us, someone cleared her throat like a foghorn.
“I welcome your use of our library,” the pruney old librarian said. She stood with her hands on her thin tube hips. “But you have to lower your voices.”
I dropped my voice as low as it could go and said, “Sorry, is this better?”
Werling nearly burst trying not to laugh, but Ben said, “My apologies. My cousin there is under the impression that she’s a comedian.”
The librarian was not impressed by Ben’s excuse. I realized I’d gone too far and much as I wanted to deliver a devastating comeback, he was right. Boring, but right.
“Sorry,” I said.
* * *
Ben and I found the creek site again easily enough. Against Werling’s objections, Ben sent him back to upload what we found into HAL. The stink of the site alone still could lead us there. The clams were gone, but I supposed their juice or whatever had leaked all over and had soaked in. The bushes were trampled where Ally and Jackson had worked.
Together Ben and I slowly spiraled out, peering under leaves, on our hands and knees lifting twigs. In the background, the creek gurgled. I began to wonder if teaming up with Werling might have been a better idea. Burs stuck in my shoelaces, but I didn’t complain. Ben crawled along beside me. I asked for this.
I was glad the news stories mentioned the pearls being black, because I would have thought they’d be white. I asked Ben, “Why would anyone spend time looking for pearls only to smash them and leave them? It doesn’t make sense.”
“It does if you need to destroy them, or you’re looking for something very small but very important inside.” He stopped searching and picked up two white pieces that could have been parts of a pearl. He examined them and rested his chin on his knee in thought. “To see a world in a grain of sand, and a heaven in a wild flower; hold infinity in the palm of your hand, and eternity in an hour.”
“Right. Whatever,” I said. “Those parts of a pearl?”
Suddenly he straightened up like something bit him. He looked at the pieces, the dirt on his hands, and said, “To see the world in a grain of sand.” He laughed. “A grain of sand? What’s at the core of a pearl?”
“I don’t know. A baby oyster?” From his look, I could tell he was disappointed. “Okay, a grain of sand?”
“Maybe. Whoever was looking in the clams was looking for a specific pearl. There was something about it they didn’t find in the first four they destroyed. Cathal getting involved means it’s extraordinary, whatever it is inside the pearl.”
“Like supernatural?” I asked, but Ben didn’t have time to answer.
The bubbling creek that had murmured so steadily in the background abruptly got louder, splashing and sending spray raining down on us. Wind whipped the trees. A haze flowed out from the water and all around us.
“Ben?” I said.
“Wendy. Get ready for a strange experience.” Ben stood.
I hardly had time to get ready for a normal experience when a woman’s voice pierced the windy, splashing racket and said, “To hurt any of my creatures is to hurt all.”
As suddenly as the tempest blew in, it died away, but the haze shimmered around us. I looked at Ben and stood, too. “Did I hear a lady talking?”
Ben looked past me and bowed slightly. “Your Ladyship.”
I twisted around and saw the palest, most beautiful woman gliding through the bushes toward us. Her hair was pure white and her dress flowed over her body like sheets of water. In fact, the hem was dripping. She shimmered.
“Master Benjamin,” she said with the barest nod to Ben, and then she focused on me—not a particularly friendly look. “And you must be Wendy Adair.”
She was close now, and I could see her perfect face was ageless. It was also hard and threatening. It was all I could do to keep from running. I met her eyes and felt breathless.
“You have suffered a terrible injury, Your Ladyship,” Ben said.
His tone surprised me. It was respectful, I’d even say courteous. With a little work, I’d even go so far as to say deferential.
She gave me a final frown, as if I’d failed some test, and then looked at Ben. “Yes,” she said, “A tragedy, but for a change, not by human hand. Why do you concern yourself?”
“Not all of us mistreat our home,” Ben said. “The damage affects all. We should all work to set it right.”
Ben talked strange, like some Lord of the Rings fan. In some way I knew this was not the time to point that out to him.
The lady chuckled with no humor and it sent a shiver down my back. “Humans set it right? There is a fine thought.” It didn’t sound fine the way she said it. “But I did not come to argue. I came to warn you, Benjamin Preston. Leave this place alone. There is a battle coming. Stay clear if you value your life and the lives of your friends.”
“Battle? Can you tell us—” but Ben could not finish. The wind hit us, knocking us down, and the roar of the falls deafened us. Then it was over. The woman was gone.
“Crud in a cup. Who was that?” I asked, picking myself up.
“We call her Your Ladyship. She’s a water spirit, a naiad.”
“I don’t believe this.” However, the special effects were hard to deny.
Ben brushed leaves and dirt off his shirt and jeans. “Don’t believe?” He gave me a look of disbelief. “Trust your senses on what just happened and believe. She doesn’t show herself to many people.”
Twelve
Pearls and Jinn
The Rangers’ cave lights were bluish, probably some kind of energy-efficient bulbs or LEDs. The place really needed burning torches to make it complete, like Frankenstein’s laboratory, but then there’d probably be an angry mob banging on the doors, so forget the torches.
Ben told me bootleggers stored liquor in the cave during prohibition back in the 1920s and ’30s. Many of the natural tunnels were escape routes in case of a raid. Prohibition was kind of like the war on drugs, only the government gave up.
Ben, Werling, and I stood around Oliver, who leaned back on his lab stool and massaged his forehead. His dark skin was smooth and his black hair shone. The pieces of a busted white pearl we had found at the clam kill site lay on a plate before him.
“Von Baer found a parasitic worm at the core of pearls in 1830,” Oliver said in his clipped accent. “Contrary to what most people believed, a grain of sand isn’t what naturally starts a pearl. It is a parasite. More accurately, the larval form of a parasite.”
“The parasite is covered by the hard stuff?” I asked.
“Nacre. Yes, the mussel uses the same substance from which it creates its shell to protect itself from the larva. It adds layer after layer over the parasite. It is what makes a pearl so beautiful.”
Ben mentally chewed on this. I had learned that when his lips start doing gymnastics, everyone shut up and waited. While Ben and I were searching the creek, Werling and Oliver got in touch with one of the stolen pearls’ owners. As the news reports had said, their pearls were all black. They also found out that the destroyed pearls were freshwater pearls about the size of gumballs—very expensive.
I did my best to act cool, but this was all so fantastical that every once in a while I reached out and touched the cave wall just to remind myself I wasn’t dreaming. Werling kept glancing at me, and I didn’t encourage him by looking back. He’s about as subtle as a sledgehammer. I wondered if having a talk with him would help, but that would mean being alone with him again. Once was enough.
“We need to look up everything we can about pearl legends,” Ben finally said. “Famous pearls. Magical pearls. Owners of pearls. Stories about pearls. Large black pearls.”
“You think Eddy’s warning is connected to the pearl? I mean, about the battle.” Werling asked.
We’d
told our story about her ladyship at the creek, though I still had a hard time believing it happened.
“A connection? I wish I knew,” Ben said.
“There’s an ancient story my grandfather told me,” Oliver said. “The Yetima. It was a black pearl beyond compare. The story has a smashed pearl in it, too.” Oliver paused for dramatic effect and looked from one to the other of us.
Not only did he hate girls, he was a ham. What a loser.
“We’re listening,” Ben said, then added, “Please tell us.”
Ben didn’t do sarcasm, but if I’d said what he had, you can bet it would have come out sarcastic. We made ourselves comfortable, or at least as comfortable as lab stools allowed. Werling sidled around next to me. I liked the word “sidle.” It was like slide and idle combined. It really described his move. I sidled further away, dragging my stool with me. He sidled after me. I sidled away again.
Oliver was annoyed by our behavior. His serious buildup to his story was suffering.
“All right, stop already!” Ben commanded.
“He started it,” I complained, half-seriously.
“Did not!” Werling replied half-innocently.
Ben glared at both of us, and I felt about five years old.
Oliver watched our antics with disdain—another word I love. Part disrespect, part stain. Anyway, he cleared his throat, steepled his fingers, and, when he was sure we’d be quiet, he looked up at the rocky ceiling and started his story.
“In Oman lived a pious man who fitted out divers for his pearl fishery, but he and the divers fell on hard times. The divers kept coming up empty. All the pious man had left was his wife’s beautiful bracelet, and the choice between selling it for food or keeping his business in operation.”
“What’d his wife have to say about that?” I interrupted.
Oliver scowled at me, but Ben waved him to continue.
“She was a good, pious wife and did as she was bade.”
“In other words, a doormat.”
Ben gave me a severe look. “It’s a story, Wendy, and part of our investigation. Please, listen.”
“Sorry,” I said, but I wasn’t.
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