Seawitch

TWENTY-SEVEN

The waters of the cove fell still and silent as Solis guided the little boat back to the larger one. The surface no longer churned and there was no sign of the battling creatures of fur and fin, though I was sure they were somewhere. As we maneuvered to come next to Mambo Moon’s steps, I thought I heard a woman’s voice from the deck just out of view. Quinton, seeming prescient but probably just hearing the engine, leaned over the side and caught the line Solis tossed to him to help us tie up and come aboard. I needed a lot more help than I had when we left, and keeping Fielding in line had to be put in the hands of another.

The other being Father Otter, who jumped down into the dinghy as we left it and hauled Fielding out, fairly chasing him up on deck with sharp pinches and snaps of his teeth, reminiscent of the way he’d bitten and shaken the other dobhar-chú earlier when they were both in otter form. I was so startled to see Father Otter that I stared in bold silence as Quinton and Solis helped me on board and along the deck. But there was more yet to shock me: As we rounded the side and came onto the aft deck and into the glow of electric light shining from the cabin, I saw Shelly Knight standing beside the fish hold and talking to Paul Zantree—who was holding a slender, curved sword that was certainly not a pirate-show prop.

Shelly’s pale green hair swirled around her as if she were floating in water rather than standing on the deck in plain air. She was the same woman I’d seen in the photos and a few minutes before on the dock and yet she had changed dramatically—she glowed now and had a regal air, seeming taller and moving with ineffable grace. It appeared Zantree had lent her a bathrobe and that seemed a faintly ridiculous cover for such arresting beauty. Her skin reflected the light from the cabin like the surface of a pearl—a sheen of rose, green, and blue hovering over her exposed limbs and face. Her voice was very low but it cut through the creaking of the boat and the lapping of waves with the clear, quiet sound of water trickling over rocks, softly, gently wearing them away.

Zantree turned toward the commotion raised by Father Otter chivvying Fielding along and Fielding himself drew up short, taking a nasty smack across the head from Father Otter for doing so.

“Shelly,” Fielding breathed.

She gave him a cool glance, then looked past him to me as Quinton eased me into a chair. She pointed at a pile of barnacle-crusted objects at her feet with a finger tipped by a hooked white nail. “I believe these are what Gary was after. I’m sorry to have left you to confront my mother on your own but I knew the gateway would collapse soon and I had to take the chance that presented itself.”

Father Otter started forward, scowling, as if he meant to confront Shelly in some fashion.

Quinton put out his hand to restrain him. “Let’s not do that again,” he suggested.

Apparently things had been much livelier than I’d imagined here on Mambo Moon while Solis and I were in transit. I glanced at Quinton, who gave a tiny shake of his head. I wasn’t going to argue with his brush-off; all I really wanted was to fall into bed and sleep until I stopped aching.

Father Otter issued a guttural hiss, but took a half step back and made another ill-tempered snap at Fielding’s ear. Fielding flinched.

Shelly looked disgusted. “I won’t say I’m happy about the death of my mother,” she started, sending a quick glare at Solis, “but it is better for all of us that she’s gone. And I don’t need these, nor do I want them. Since I found Gary snooping around them and you had the Valencia’s bell on the dock, I assume it’s you who wants them. Though I suppose it could have been the dobhar-chú who sent him, trying to steal them and break my mother’s power.”

She gave Father Otter a dirty look. He curled his lip and gave a low growl in return.

I leaned back in my chair like a boneless thing, not caring how weak or impolite it might look—I hurt too much to play that game. “Why?” I asked, panting a little against the painful constriction of breath in my chest. “Don’t you need them?”

“No. When I realized how my mother’s power worked I went looking for something else. I knew how to make sure we weren’t closed in the cove again but I wasn’t going to do it for her sake—not after what she’d done to me. And now that she’s dead I can claim my own power; I don’t need this filthy stuff.”

“So the whole virgin thing . . .” I started, making a rolling gesture with my hand to encourage her explanation.

She rolled her eyes. “Oh . . . Mother . . .” She shook her head. “She couldn’t very well tell me I didn’t need her, could she? As long as I was a sheltered little fry, hidden away in her cove, she could control me and my magic. When I went outside, bad things happened and she used that to convince me to stay under her thumb. But I’m not stupid. I realized she had lied to me about power and about . . . your kind. I couldn’t and won’t do what she could do, but I can do my own tricks. I don’t need these,” she added, pointing again to the relics on the deck. She looked at Fielding. “And I don’t need you or anyone else to show me what I really am and what I can do for myself and my folk.”

Fielding looked stricken and moaned her name.

She sighed. “Oh, Gary. You’re such a selfish jerk. A pretty one, but still a jerk. My people have been devastated but we can survive—as long as we don’t have to fight our neighbors all the time. I could take you as a hostage, I guess, like some kind of royal insurance policy, but, frankly, I just don’t want you. If that makes Father Otter angry, we’ll have to find some other way to bring peace here. But you . . . ? I think we’d all be better off if you left.”

I cut in, trying to keep the conversation on track. “So, you can’t even use these?”

Shelly made a face and shook her head. “I could do that kind of magic but I won’t and I don’t want them here. They stir up bad feelings. Take them and do as you like.”

Father Otter inched forward and started to reach for one of the objects in the pile. Shelly sucked in a breath and made fists of her hands at her sides, as if she were restraining herself from slapping him away. I did it for her, though the movement sent a flare of nauseating pain through my chest and sides. Father Otter flinched and glared at me.

“Don’t. It won’t help you or your people and now is not the time to get greedy.” I turned back to Shelly. “You don’t plan on . . . using your siren wiles on other boats, do you?”

“No. Well . . . not that way. I might like an occasional frolic, but I have seen too much death and pain and I don’t have any taste for killing if I don’t have to.”

“Then I’ll thank you for giving these to me.” I wasn’t quite sure what I was supposed to do with the things, writhing and foaming as they did with shadows and shades.

Solis glanced up from his watch. “Fifteen minutes,” he said.

I frowned. Fifteen minutes from what?

The surfaces of the objects on deck—bells and bottles, bowls and boxes—shimmered and sparked a moment; then the gleams of color that bound them fell away, unraveling like rope decayed to dust.

“Just touch them,” Solis added. “I think I’ve guessed it right.”

I bent forward like an arthritic old woman and brushed my fingertips over the nearest of the crusted trove—another bell, this one much smaller than Valencia’s and not as heavy, gleaming a bit of brass through its veil of seaweed and barnacles. A flood of silver mist and white light burst out of the bell, flashing for a moment into four images: two young women and two men. They let out a sob and a cry, then leapt for the night sky above us, spiraling away into the scattered starlight of the Milky Way’s spangled band.

I turned an amazed glance on Solis. “Everything balances out—we lost fifteen minutes the first time we rang the bell, so this time we had to regain it.”

“What about the bubble around the cove?”

“Why would ringing the doorbell count on that timer?”

It was loopy, but it made as much sense as anything else in the Grey and more than some things. “How did I miss that?”

He shrugged. “Busy.”

I suppose they would have responded as well to anyone, now that the spell was broken, but everyone seemed to have agreed it was my job to let the ghosts out of their shells. As uncomfortable as it was, I managed to creep to each of the receptacles and brush away the last remaining strands that held the souls of the drowned at bay. Each time they poured out and upward in swells of lambent mist and shimmering light, sighing and weeping, then crying out in joy and vaulting for the deepening night sky that stretched above us, pierced like black velvet with the brightness of stars. The river of the Milky Way, tipped for a while into our planet’s tilted, whirling view, seemed to grow brighter and thicker as the ghosts rushed away from their captivity into freedom. An uncanny wind blew them away in coils of silvery mist that turned a massive head in our direction just long enough for me to recognize the passing shape of the Guardian Beast shepherding the spirits of the dead onward. It didn’t pause to say thank you and the velocity of its passage rocked and shook the boat as easily as an autumn leaf. I got no sense that it cared the deed was done or done by me. The balance of power in the area had been leveled and that was all that concerned it. There was, indeed, nothing human or humane remaining in the Beast and I finally put that niggling thought away, relieved.

When the last spirit was no more than a memory of sound and light in our senses, I eased back into my chair once again, satisfied but struggling with my exhaustion and discomfort. I glanced at Shelly, who was still standing, looking up at the sky, smiling a bittersweet kind of smile.

It seemed wrong to break the moment but I had to. “I think . . . we’re done here,” I said.

She lowered her eyes to mine, her expression growing more grave and a touch sad. “I still need peace with the otter people.”

I glanced at Father Otter and she took that as I meant it; it wasn’t up to me.

“Will you stay a moment as my witnesses?” she asked, looking from me to Zantree and back. . . .

As we nodded to her, Father Otter cast rapid glances at each of us, lingering longest on Shelly and Fielding. He stared hard at Fielding, who shrank from his gaze, for a moment, then turned back to Shelly, asking, “You don’t want this one?”

“What would I want him for?”

“Revenge. He harmed you, he broke your power, he ruined your value, and he allowed your mother to imprison you.”

“Why should I care after all this time about what was or could have been? None of that is important anymore. Do you want to keep on living in the past? Living in a state of war because of some stupid dispute hundreds of years old? We could do a lot for each other, my people and yours. We don’t have to keep on killing each other. You and me . . . we don’t have to be friends but we could at least call a truce and let our people heal.”

Father Otter scowled but it wasn’t the angry expression he’d had before. “Your people, our people . . . That may be enough for the Puget folk, but none of the others will abide by such a truce.”

“Not at first but we can do our best for ourselves and let the rest come around in their own time.”

“What about the Columbia people? They will kill and die and they will not respect our truce if we cross the bar.”

“Then maybe we should send an emissary. Someone who’s from the Columbia.” Shelly turned her gaze and looked hard at Fielding. “We can net two fish with one cast: Send Gary away from here and let him be useful elsewhere. And never come back,” she added under her breath.

“What does it net us to send him away?”

Shelly laughed and the sound set my teeth on edge. “You don’t actually want him to stay? Disruptive, whining, self-centered idiot that he is.”

Fielding sat down hard on the deck. “I’m not that bad!”

“In a shark’s eye,” Shelly shot back. She looked at Father Otter. “Am I right?”

Father Otter was clearly calculating something. “We can send him back to his mother’s people . . . Though we hate to give such a prize away. . . .”

“Gary’s no prize,” Shelly said.

Father Otter turned his head and cocked it to one side. “To the Columbia people he is. His mother was the last royal dobhar-chú on the river.”

Fielding made an ugly face at Father Otter. “You lied to me! You said you didn’t know anything about my mother!”

“Her whereabouts. Who she was—certainly we knew that, whelp!”

“You didn’t say so.”

“Why should we give such information to you when you brought us nothing but trouble? And you didn’t ask the right questions.” Father Otter turned his attention back to Shelly, as if Fielding had disappeared. “We will consider sending a message. . . .”

“Don’t pretend you don’t want him gone as much as I do.”

“What do you offer us to make it worth our effort to conduct him safely back to the Columbia? Our folk outnumber yours and we could order them to attack again.”

“That battle will not be as easy as you think, Fa Dobhar-chú. My mother’s power no longer restrains mine and you don’t know what I can do. . . .” She gave him a cunning look and stared him down for a moment. Having made her threat, she paused and then her face brightened and she added, “Besides . . . I have treasures: pearls and the salvage of hundreds of lost ships. . . . Such knowledge as your folk could do much with. And I will share with you if you become my allies rather than my enemies.”

Father Otter smiled a little; it wasn’t a greedy smile but an appreciative one.

“What if I don’t want to go back to Oregon?” Fielding objected. “You can’t compel me, either of you. Not if I choose to live in this form.”

Solis cleared his throat. “In this form you will return to Seattle with me and stand trial for what happened aboard the Seawitch.”

Fielding looked smug but the expression was wobbly. “By what evidence and under what charge?”

“Piracy, perhaps, or criminal negligence as the captain who allowed his ship to be taken and his charges killed. And as you are the only surviving member of the crew, the questions will be pointed. If your answers don’t please the court, you would be remanded for psychological examination at Western State Hospital, which could take quite some time in that landlocked and miserable place.”

Quinton cleared his throat, looking a bit uncomfortable. “Actually . . . if his answers or actions—like turning into an otter in the holding cell—set off the wrong alarm bells, he’ll be made to disappear.”

We all turned to regard Quinton with a range of emotions from curiosity to terror.

I raised my eyebrows at him. “This wouldn’t have anything to do with your dad’s little project, would it?”

He was pale and upset. “Yes.” He looked at the others and continued. “I can’t tell you much but certain groups within the U.S. government know that there are . . . people like Fielding and Shelly and Harper. One of these groups is headed by my father, who is even less agreeable than Father Otter here. If Dad gets wind of someone like Fielding, his agents will hunt him down and snatch him. He won’t even make it to court.” He shifted his focus to Fielding. “Once that happens, you get to be the biggest rat in their lab and these guys . . . they redefine the term ‘living hell.’ You really, really don’t want them to find you. Or even hear of you.”

“You’d narc on me?” Fielding asked, appalled.

Quinton gave an adamant shake of the head. “Not in a million years. Not to anyone and especially not to these guys. No one here would.” He cast a desperate glance around and all the humans nodded. “But if you are booked on charges, information about you will get out. That’s just the way the booking databases are connected to other parts of the electronic world and there are specialized programs cruising that information pool like sharks looking for the right kind of food—food like you. Once they figure you out, they’ll descend like ninjas and you’ll disappear in a small puff of paperwork that will claim you’ve been transferred to a special facility that doesn’t exist. No one will see you leave or where you go, and if guys like my dad have their way, you’ll never come out.”

Fielding’s eyes widened, his mouth gaped, and his chest began to jerk as his breathing went panicky and shallow. He was ready to bolt but there was nowhere to go.

I caught his eye. “I recommend that you go to back to the Columbia. As their royal dobhar-chú, you’ll be a lot safer than you are as Gary Fielding.”

“Only if you behave,” Father Otter put in. “Kin they may be but the Columbia folk are not easy. They will make you earn your place—as we should have done.”

Fielding nodded like a broken doll. “All right. OK, I’ll go back to the Columbia.”

Father Otter bared his teeth. “We will know if you do not.”

Fielding flattened himself on the deck, a cowed and horrified expression on his face. “Pax, pax,” he muttered.

Shelly gazed at Father Otter. “Can he be trusted to swim the whole way?”

“I’ll take him,” Zantree offered. He stood with his arms crossed over his chest, the gleaming cutlass in his fist making him look every inch the pirate captain, although the starstruck smile he turned on Shelly did somewhat ruin the effect.

Shelly seemed bemused by it all. “Will you? Why?”

“Well . . . I’ve got this big ol’ boat to myself these days and I rarely take her out, but now I’ll have a top-notch bar pilot along. I always did have a yen to cross the bar on my own. I’m sure Gary can teach me a few things—being half otter he must have a feel for the water I don’t. I think that would be a fine adventure. And . . . well . . . it would be my pleasure to do something for you.”

“You would take this risk for me? How can you trust him after what he has done? His presence nearly got your boat destroyed,” Shelly objected.

“Oh, I imagine your folk and his folk will want to check in on us once in a while . . . won’t you?” He turned his attention to Fielding with a gimlet eye. “And you won’t dare give me trouble. Will you?”

Fielding looked horrified but he nodded docilely enough.

Zantree looked back to Shelly. “First we’ll have to drop these folks off, though. If it’s all right with you.”

“Yes,” she replied. “It’s a wonderful plan. If Father Otter agrees . . .”

The dobhar-chú gave a stiff nod.

Zantree turned to me and asked, “You have any objection to being dropped off at Victoria? You can take the hydroplane in the morning and be home before lunch. I think Gary and I’d be best served to head straight on down the coast as soon as possible. Don’t you?”

I agreed. “That sounds like a plan. Can we pause long enough to drop this off?” I added, pointing to the Valencia’s bell lying on the deck.

“Where do you want to take it?” Zantree asked.

“Back to its proper home. Out where the Valencia went down.”

“Well . . . it’s a bit of a ways . . .”

Shelly smirked. “Not with my help.”

Zantree smiled like a kid with a present. “Would you?” I had the feeling Paul Zantree was utterly enchanted with the new sea witch—though not in the usual way.

Shelly’s smile warmed to something genuine. “Of course.” Then she turned to Fielding. “Be a better man this time, Gary. The nature of a second chance is that you only get one.”