Cape Grace

by Nathan Lowell

  Jimmy shrugged. “I was hoping you might tell me about your father.” He looked out to sea, squinting against the light and letting the cool wind wash his face.

  Monty grunted but shook his head. He took a sudden detour up the shore to a chunk of driftwood in a small indent in the sand. He poked around with the toe of his boot and rocked the driftwood from side to side before dragging it off to reveal a cache of smaller sticks and shells underneath. He reached down and pulled up a few shells and a small twisted stick. He scrubbed each of them on the leg of his pants before thrusting them into the voluminous pockets of his coat. He straightened, still peering into the depression. After a moment, he nodded to himself and continued on down the beach.

  Jimmy watched the performance without comment and trailed along, keeping pace with Monty’s long legs.

  “What about him?” Monty asked after another few yards.

  “How well did you know him?” Jimmy asked.

  Monty scowled at the ground and kicked a pile of rockweed up the beach. “He was my da. What d’ya think?”

  “Did you know he was on the spectrum?” Jimmy asked.

  Monty snorted. “Fancy asshole labels for shit you don’t understand.”

  Jimmy nodded and listened to the hissing sound that the waves made as they rolled back down the sand.

  Monty glared at him but resumed his walk.

  Jimmy followed along.

  “Were you close?” Jimmy asked.

  “You close with yours?” Monty asked, shooting the question out of the side of his mouth as he stooped to pry apart a different pile of weeds.

  Jimmy shook his head. “Haven’t seen him in—a long time. It’s been a decade at least since I’ve seen him in person.”

  “You heard from him? Recently?”

  Jimmy shrugged. “A few stanyers ago. He sent me a message. Business.” Jimmy picked up a smooth stone from the beach and bounced it in his hand. The cold rock warmed to his touch. “About shamans, actually.”

  Monty grunted and stood, brushing his hands off against the back of his coat. He took a few steps down the beach. “That why you’re here?”

  “About my father?” Jimmy shook his head. “No. Well, not directly. About yours.”

  Monty grunted and thrust his fists into the pockets of his coat. “So you said.”

  Jimmy side-armed the pebble into the ocean and stretched his stride to match Monty’s.

  “What do you want to know?” Monty asked, not raising his gaze from the sand.

  “Your grandmother seems to think the story isn’t hers to tell,” Jimmy said.

  “My grandmother?” Monty asked.

  “Nan, yeah.”

  “When’d you talk to her?”

  “Yesterday. We had a nice chat. I wanted to know who the first shaman is.”

  Monty’s jaw worked as he chewed his words a little before spitting them out. “He’s dead.”

  Jimmy shrugged. “I think she’s still very much alive.”

  Monty stopped in his tracks and turned a glower on Jimmy, thrusting his head forward. “She?”

  “Yeah. Your grandmother was the first shaman. Your father ... well, let’s just say I wasn’t aware of just how closely tied I was to him.”

  Monty drew his head back, his pugnacious glower turning into a thoughtful frown. He squinted a little. “What are you getting at?”

  “I believe he was my half-brother and that your grandfather and my old man have a lot in common.”

  Monty stared into Jimmy’s face, like he hadn’t ever seen him before.

  “You didn’t know?”

  Monty shook his head. “That make you my uncle or something?”

  Jimmy grinned. The whole experience gave him a strange kind of feeling in his stomach. “I don’t know. Half-uncle?” He shrugged. “I asked Nan what I’d call the son of my half-brother.”

  “What’d she say?” Monty asked, his face relaxing just the tiniest amount.

  “Shaman,” Jimmy said.

  Monty started nodding and pursed his lips. “She’s got a way with words.”

  “So I’m learning.”

  Monty spun into action, taking several long strides down the beach, kicking at the piles of weed in his path.

  Jimmy watched for a moment before following him, playing catch-up again.

  “You’re about my age, aren’t ya?” Monty asked.

  “Younger. I think you’ve got me by a decade or so.”

  Monty tossed a side-eyed glance at Jimmy but nodded. He stopped suddenly, skidding a little. He crouched and picked something off the sand. He stood and held a broken piece of shell in the palm of his open hand. He flipped it over and a deep purple color showed on the inside of the otherwise unremarkable fragment. Monty grinned and held his hand toward Jimmy. “See that? That’s whelk.”

  Jimmy nodded. “Rare?”

  Monty gave a half-shrug. “As a thing? Not really. Not common but you can usually find the odd piece or two any time you come to the beach. What’s rare is the color.”

  “It’s a pretty color,” Jimmy said, not looking so much at the shell as watching Monty’s face change while he talked.

  “Mostly they have a little purple tinge to them. Almost white but you have to be looking close to see they’re not. Story I got was they darken with age, but I ’spect it’s got as much to do with diet as anything.” He polished the glossy shell with the ball of his thumb. “You see color like that maybe once a year.”

  “What’s the significance?” Jimmy asked.

  Monty stared at him. “Whelkies? You’ve heard of them?”

  “I thought they were driftwood,” Jimmy said.

  “Well, yeah. Mostly, but they all have a heart inlaid in them.”

  “A heart?”

  Monty nodded. “Well. We call it the heart. Some carvers don’t get much in the way of the heart shape. Just a bit of whelk shell.”

  “Like that?” Jimmy asked.

  Monty nodded again. “Lore says the color of the shell tells you the power of the whelkie.”

  “Darker is better, I take it?” Jimmy asked.

  Monty wrapped the shell in his fist and scowled at Jimmy. “You screwin’ with me?”

  Jimmy took a half step back and held up his hands, palm out. “Seriously. I have no idea.”

  “You’re the Pirano man and you don’t know whelkies?”

  “I know of them. It’s not something I’ve ever really come into contact with.” He snorted and rubbed a hand over the back of his neck. “Probably because I’m the Pirano man.”

  Monty pursed his lips and nodded slowly. His scowl loosening to a frown. “Yeah. I can see how that might be.” He thrust his hand into his pockets again and resumed his walk down the beach.

  Jimmy followed along, wondering at the strange trip and feeling an odd sense of peace. The waves washed the lower edge of the sand in quiet gasps. Gulls creaked above him as they soared on the onshore wind. Even the wind itself made sounds in his ears as it carried the scent of brine and something else to his nose. He paused and lifted his face, trying to place the aroma but unable to get a good whiff.

  “What are you doin’?” Monty asked.

  Jimmy shook his head and took a few steps to catch up. “Nothing. I thought I smelled something. Seemed familiar but I couldn’t place it.”

  Monty lifted his head up and inhaled. “Rain coming.”

  Jimmy shook his head. “Not rain. I know rain smell.”

  Monty shrugged. “Dunno. Seems like rain. Might be somethin’ else.” He shrugged again. “What else you want to know?”

  “Pardon?” Jimmy asked.

  “You came here to find out something. Wanted to listen. Remember?”

  Jimmy nodded, suddenly at a loss. “I need to figure out how to deal with the shaman rule and the women challenging it all the time.”

  “Why?” Monty asked.

  “Why what?”

  Monty sighed. “Why do you need to figure it out? What is there to figure?”
>
  The questions seemed to rattle around in Jimmy’s head for a few heartbeats. “Why do they keep filing grievances?”

  “Because it’s a bad rule,” Monty said. “Unfair. Sexist.”

  Jimmy sighed.

  “What?” Monty asked. “You don’t agree?”

  “No, actually.” Jimmy turned to look out to sea. “I agree with you.”

  “Then why doesn’t the company change it?” Monty asked. “Why don’t you change it?”

  Jimmy shook his head. “I’m the caretaker here. I don’t set policy. My father does. If I don’t enforce those policies, he’ll replace me with somebody who will.”

  Monty stepped up beside Jimmy, his extra height making Jimmy feel less like the uncle and more like the nephew. “Maybe it’s time to change the beach.”

  The idea itched in Jimmy’s brain. “Change the beach?”

  Monty nodded, pursing his lips and squinting out to sea. “Sometimes the beach here gets picked over. I come out and don’t find anything. Same sticks I saw yesterday. Too much sea glass, too little whelk.” He nodded, as if in confirmation of his own words. “So I take little trip up the coast. There’s a nice little patch of beach off to the east’ard. Sandy Harbor. No shaman there.” He glanced at Jimmy. “No cottage. Only four boats.”

  Jimmy nodded. “Lots of places like that along the coast.”

  “If the tide and the tram are right, I can jaunt over there. Walk the beach and listen to the world from there. Sometimes I hear something different. Sometimes it’s the same. Nobody walking the beach there, so better chance of finding something good.”

  “Different perspective,” Jimmy said.

  Monty nodded.

  Jimmy pondered the problem for a few long moments. “A new beach,” he said at last.

  Monty nodded again. “Tea?”

  “Tea?” Jimmy asked.

  Monty glanced at him. “Want some?”

  “Wouldn’t say no, but I don’t want to take you from your walk.”

  Monty’s grin wrinkled most of his face. “We’ll have to walk back. I didn’t bring any with me.”

  Jimmy looked around, only then realizing they stood near the far headland. He looked back along the sand. Their footprints meandered off into the distance. “Oh.”

  “Sometimes it goes like that,” Monty said. “You’re walkin’ along. Payin’ attention to what’s in front of you and lose track of how far you’ve come. It can go either way. You think you’re at the end and look up to find out you’re only a few steps from the front door. Other times you’re halfway up the next headland and don’t remember leavin’ the beach. Time’s funny like that. Brain don’t necessarily agree with reality.” He shrugged and turned back toward the cottage. “Come on. I need a cuppa.”

  Jimmy trudged alongside Monty. “So this is what being a shaman is like?”

  Monty snorted. “Some. It’s not really ‘like’ anything. More like you get up in the morning and the things need doin’ so you do ’em. Then you find it’s night and you go to bed.”

  “How do you know what needs doing?” Jimmy asked.

  Monty frowned and kicked a pile of rockweed over with the toe of his boot. He bent to pick up a stick, brushing the sand off and holding it up to the light. After a close examination he flipped it away and brushed his hands off. “Don’t know,” he said, continuing along the beach. “How do you know what needs doin’?”

  Jimmy laughed. “Seems like there’s always somebody wants something and needs me to do it.”

  “Yeah. That’s how I know, too.”

  “Somebody wanted you to walk the beach this morning?” Jimmy asked.

  “Apparently,” Monty said, casting a small grin at Jimmy. “You.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  Cape Grace: May 12, 2346

  OTTO KRUGG WATCHED as his daughter and father walked down the path toward the beach. He stood at the kitchen sink and smiled.

  “What do you suppose they’ll talk about?” his mother asked, leaning in beside him to look out of the small window.

  “Father doesn’t talk much while he’s walking.”

  “Even after?”

  “Even after.” Otto smiled at his mother. “You know he didn’t have the gift before his accident, don’t you?”

  Rachel offered an eloquent shrug. “I married him because he’s a kind, gentle, generous man.”

  “And he worships the ground you walk on,” Otto said.

  She answered with a tiny smile. “Perhaps.” She dried a couple of bowls and set them in the cupboard. “I didn’t marry him because of his position.”

  The two figures disappeared over the headland toward the beach and Otto focused his attention on finishing the dishes. “Thank you for coming out for her birthday.”

  “Thanks for inviting us.” Rachel leaned a hip against the counter and leaned in to catch his attention. “How’s the job going?”

  Otto shrugged. “Jobs. This is number three, I think.”

  “Since March?”

  “Yeah. Between not going in, going in and not getting the work done, and going in and doing it badly, she’s not getting the best reputation as a reliable company employee.”

  “What does she say about it?”

  He shook his head. “She’s easily distracted. She’ll start for the office and wind up over on the far side of the bay climbing on the rocks. Forgot where she was going. A couple of weeks ago we found her wandering on the tide flats five kilometers east of town.”

  “You have her checked out?”

  Otto nodded. “A couple of times, just in case they missed something the first time.”

  “They find anything?”

  “Perhaps a bit of attention deficit but nothing treatable. No sign that it might be latent neurotoxin damage.”

  Rachel relaxed visibly. “I was afraid to ask.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  She chuckled. “How is she otherwise? Friends? People she hangs out with?”

  “She shows absolutely no interest in anything going on in the village. She’d spend all day every day out on the beach when the tide’s low enough. Up on the rocks when it’s not.”

  “Sounds like somebody I know,” she said. “I swear if your belly hadn’t driven you home, you’d never have come in.” She smiled at him.

  He sighed. “Yeah.” Otto rinsed out the sink and ran a cloth over the counter.

  “So what’s next?”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “Keep trying to find a job she can do and go see Ed Comstock about the exemption in January.”

  “Think he’ll put it forward?”

  Otto thought about it for a few moments and shrugged. “I’ve no reason to think he won’t. He’s been pushing hard to get her a job. He keeps finding places for her to try. The exemption will give him a bit more time and give her a chance to stick in one.”

  Otto filled the kettle and put it on the stove.

  Rachel settled at the kitchen table. “How are you doing?”

  “Me?” Otto shrugged and joined her there. “All right, I guess. Why?”

  She gave a little side to side nod of her head. “She’s seventeen. It’s been a long time since you lost Carla. Anybody special in your life?”

  “Sarah. I don’t really have time for anybody else.”

  Rachel bit her lip. “You’re going to have to let go of her, you know.”

  “Sarah?”

  “Her, too, but I was thinking of Carla.”

  Otto swallowed but couldn’t move the lump in his throat. “I’m fine. Sarah takes up all my free time.”

  Rachel’s left eyebrow lifted just slightly.

  “She does.”

  “You walk the beach. Visit with the people in town. What else?”

  “There’s always somebody sick, seems like. Trying to keep track of her and make sure she’s not lost in town somewhere. We collect driftwood and carve. We fish. She’s gotten quite good with a handline.”

  “You two could run a crabber
here.”

  “Comstock would love that.”

  “You used to want to fish.”

  “Not since I was thirteen.”

  “You did well with me on the Patty.”

  The kettle’s shrill whistle interrupted and Otto set the tea to steep.

  “There’s only two crabbers here in town,” Rachel said.

  Otto stared at her. “You looked it up?”

  She nodded. “Of course. It’s something to consider.”

  “I’ll think about it.”

  Rachel sighed and leaned forward. “Don’t be that way. She’s going to have to find something here or the company is going to kick her off.”

  “I know, Mother.” Otto turned to the teapot and pulled the infuser out. “I said I’ll think about it.”

  She sighed again but didn’t press it.

  Otto glanced out the window. “They’re on the way back.”

  “So soon?”

  “Sun’s going to be down soon. Probably getting too dark to see well.”

  “I’ll get the cobbler out of the oven. Do you have candles?”

  Otto pulled a small package out of a drawer and they set the table for dessert.

  Sarah entered first and disappeared straight to her room.

  Richard followed her through the door a sour look on his face.

  “What happened, dear?” Rachel asked.

  Richard slipped out of his jacket and hung it beside the door. “She’s probably the most talented shaman I’ve ever met. She doesn’t just listen to the world. I’d swear she talks to it.”

  “Then you’ll convene a quorum?” Otto asked.

  Richard shook his head and dropped into a chair at the table. “I tried. I can’t get enough other shamans to go along. Even lobbied with Jack Flanagan. He couldn’t—or wouldn’t—help, either.”

  “Who’s Jack Flanagan?” Rachel asked.

  “Senior shaman. He knows almost everybody and where they’ve buried the bodies. No go. I’ve sent invites to every shaman on the South Coast. Literally. All four thousand plus.”

  Otto felt the floor tilt under him and he groped for a chair.

  “About half have sent regrets. The others just never answered. Only one said he’d attend. Jack Flanagan. I’m pretty sure it was only so he could spike it from the inside.”

  “Four thousand?” Rachel asked. “I knew there were a lot of shamans, but that’s a staggering number.”