Carousel Seas (7 page)

CHAPTER EIGHT

WEDNESDAY, JULY 5

HIGH TIDE 6:48
A.M.
EDT

SUNRISE 5:06
A.M.

The day after the Fourth dawned hot and bright.

Considerably after dawn, I climbed Heath Hill from the Kinney Harbor side, thinking that I’d pay a family visit.

At the top of the hill, I paused and looked up, to the height of land, and the big so-called “seaside cottage” defacing it.

The house had been the property of the local drug lord, one Joe Nemeier. The Maine Drug Enforcement Agency, the FBI and the Coast Guard had caught up with him just two weeks ago, and swept him, all his employees as could be located at the time, and for everything I knew, those who had tried to hide, too, into a tidy net and taken them away. That was fine by me—Mr. Nemeier and I had a problem from the start, and it’d never gotten any better. The opposite, in fact, with him first sending a boy with a knife to rearrange my face for me, as a friendly warning to stay out of his business, and, when that didn’t work, a girl with a gun to just plain kill me—which hadn’t worked, either, though it had cost me a perfectly good coffee mug.

Looking up at the house, and the empty eyes of the windows overlooking the ocean, I wondered what would happen to it. Anything purchased with the proceeds of illegal drug sales was supposed to become the property of the police, or applicable law enforcing agency. The house, I guessed, was evidence, and in the custody of one of the three enforcing agencies.

Unless they mounted a round-the-clock guard, they were going to have trouble keeping people out of it.

Well. I shrugged. Not my problem.

My
problem was sleeping inside a tree at the heart of the Wood at my back.

I turned away from the house, and stepped into the shadow of the trees.

The air was noticeably cooler within the perimeter of the Wood; I hoped that was just an artifact of tree shade and not a marker of the Wood’s current mood. The last time I’d been inside, I’d damn’ near froze my nose off,
that’s
how cool it had been. Of course, the Wood had been through some trying times. I hoped its lacerated feelings had healed over the last few days.

“It’s Kate,” I said, and tucked my hands into the pockets of my jeans, prepared to wait for however long it took.

But apparently the Wood had recovered its equanimity.

“
Welcome, Kate
,” the voice of the trees whispered inside my ears.

Before me, a path opened between the low growth and the saplings. I slipped my hands free and followed it.

* * *

My mother, Nessa, was alone in the glade at the center of the Wood when I arrived. She was sitting on the soft, plushy grass, frowning at the cell phone in her hand.

“Good morning,” I said.

She looked up and smiled, putting the cell phone on her knee.

“Katie! It’s good to see you.”

“Good to see you, too.” I crossed the glade and sat down on the grass across from her. “New toy?”

She sighed, and held it out: a prepaid flip phone like Gregor sold.

“It seemed like a good idea at the time, but it’s seeming less so, now.”

“Just takes practice,” I said, and glanced around the glade. It was unusual to find her completely alone; if Mr. Ignat’ had already left—for errands or to do maintenance on Keltic Knot, down in Fun Country—Arbalyr, his companion, should have still been in evidence among the branches, mounting guard—and a not inconsiderable guard, at that.

“Father had something to do, and his bird went with him,” my mother said, correctly reading my glance. “I’m fine, Katie. The Wood protects me.”

“It’s not that I doubt the Wood’s ability, especially after its recent . . . display. But I’d rather not have to be cleaning up any lifeless corpses.” I shook my head. “It’s high Season, down there in the town. Lifeless corpses
can’t
be good for business.”

She laughed, which made me smile. My mother had come back from the Land of the Flowers nothing more than a wraith, a thought of her former self that a careless breeze might shred. Her sojourn in-Wood had been good for her, if she had energy enough to laugh. In fact, I thought, looking at her as she glanced down to fiddle with the phone again—in fact, she looked not just well, but
very
well. Her pale skin glowed with an inner radiance, and her brown hair was lustrous and silky, the curls as heavy as grapes.

“But you didn’t come by to watch me fuss at my phone,” she said abruptly, putting the gadget facedown on the grass, and raising her head to smile at me again. “What can I do for you?”

“As it happens, I dropped by because people have been asking about Gran, and when they might see her again.”

“Which people?”

“Henry. Nerazi. Me. Possibly the Wise, real soon now.”

She shook her head, green eyes twinkling.

“Katie, what have you done?”

I sighed.

“Well, it’s more along the lines of what I didn’t do, if you want the truth. And what I didn’t do was stop a strong, old, and very sly Ozali from busting the prisoners out of the carousel. Worse, when I could have closed the Gate and prevented the escape of the Ozali and the surviving prisoners?

“I let them go.”

My mother nodded.

“Good. None of them belonged here.”

“Well, that’s three-quarters of the family happy, and Borgan, too, but I’m not sure the Wise are going to take that view. I’m not even sure
Gran’s
going to take that view.”

“Mother
hated
what they did to the carousel,” Gran’s daughter said, heatedly.

I blinked, then shrugged.

“So, okay, the family and Borgan are pleased. The smart money still says the Wise won’t be, and I’d really like to talk to Gran before they come down on me like a ton of bricks.”

“Have you talked with Father?”

I laughed.

“Not only have I
talked
to him, he stood by as moral support while I set up the decoy that was his idea. He said it might buy us some time. The word
might
here is making me a little nervous.”

“Well, but, Katie, Father’s idea of the abilities of most Ozali is rather . . . elevated. So, if what he said was that your decoy has a
chance
of succeeding, what he
meant
to say was that it has an
extremely high chance
of succeeding.”

“If these were just any old Ozali, that would be a comfort,” I admitted. “But the Wise?” I shook my head. “They must be sharper than your average—or even your average elevated—Ozali.”

“There’s that,” she said, and gazed off into the trees, chewing her bottom lip, apparently deep in thought.

That gave me a good chance to study her. My first impression of a significant, general improvement in her health and well-being had been spot-on. Mother was positively glowing.

“Dancing at Midsummer Eve agrees with you,” I said.

She looked into my face, an arrested expression on hers.

“Certainly, it helped,” she said slowly. “But Midsummer Eve was only—the beginning.” She reached out and took my hand.

“Katie, I’m . . .” She hesitated and then laughed, shaking her head. “When I was your age, I’d’ve said that I’m
walking out
with Andy.”

I blinked, remembering the
trenvay
guitar player at Midsummer Eve, with his hot eyes, and the intense, low-voiced question:
Are you home now?

My mother’s grip softened, as if she thought I disapproved, but honestly, who was I to disapprove of anything that made her this happy?

“You guys go ’way back, though, right?” I said, putting my free hand over hers.

“Andy and I were good friends, and we might eventually have set up together, but your father arrived on the Beach, and he was . . .” She shook her head, and through the land I felt old sorrow, wryness, and a sort of wistful amusement.

“Nathan was quite something: complex, moody, mysterious, exotic—everything Andy wasn’t. I must’ve inherited some of Father’s wanderlust, or I was just too young to value simplicity, straightforwardness, and constancy.”

She squeezed my hand, and gave me an earnest look.

“I don’t want you to think—I loved Nathan; and I loved Andy, too. It was just that . . . as I thought at the time, I loved Nathan more. Mother did ask me if I was certain, and of course the instant she asked, I was more determined than ever, though not more certain. Andy never asked me to stay, or pressed me . . .” She smiled.

“So, I married Nathan, and went back with him to the Land of the Flowers where I had adventures enough to last me for the rest of my life, no matter how long it might be. All that in addition to the marvel who is my daughter.”

“For whom you bartered your soul,” I said, my voice harsh in my own ears.

“It was what I had,” Mother said simply, and squeezed my hand again. “I’d do it again, Katie. If it was needful.”

There wasn’t really anything to say to that, so I glanced aside, a little embarrassed by the brightness of her eyes.

“Are you angry with me, Katie?”

I looked back to her face, startled. “Angry? How could I be
angry
? I was horrified, frightened for you . . .”

Nessa laughed.

“Not about that!” she said gaily. “I meant about Andy.”

I blinked.

“Hell, no, I’m not angry about that, either! I wish you every happiness, Mother, and if Andy can give you that, then I’m all for him.”

She laughed again and released my hand.

“Well, he can’t give me
every
happiness, but . . . happiness enough, and sharing—and music, too!”

“Then I can’t find any fault with the man,” I said stoutly. “He play anywhere else except private gigs and Midsummer Eve?”

“He plays at all the places in town. Tonight, he’s playing at Jay’s—seven to one.”

“Maybe Borgan and I can stop by after the park closes. It’s past time for me to find out what kind of music he likes.”

“It’s going well with Borgan, then?”

“Yes,” I said, hearing the conviction in my voice, and feeling it reflected back to me from the land. “I’m pretty sure he’s not simple, or straightforward. To hear him tell it, though, he’s as constant as the tide.”

“He would say so,” Mother pointed out. “Do you trust him, Katie?”

“Yes,” I said, and the reflected truth of
that
damn’ near knocked me backward.

My mother smiled.

“You’ll do fine, then.”

I smiled back at her.

“That had better be a well-wish.”

“Of course it is.”

* * *

The day had turned into a scorcher, and night hadn’t brought much relief. The only thing that made the proximity of the carousel tolerable was the wind generated by the passing of the animals. With the ride locked down for the night, it was stifling under the roof, and when I stepped out to pull the storm walls together, heat rose in waves off of the asphalt and smacked me in the face.

By the time I had the walls in place and the door closed, you could’ve wrung me out like a dishrag and hung me over the fence to dry.

I’d just slipped the padlock key into the pocket of my jeans, when I felt a . . . frisson, like something with a lot of cold feet had marched down my spine. Straightening, I reached for the land, sending a query, and almost immediately receiving the impression of
weight
, somewhere in the darkness to the right; in the space between the carousel and Summer’s Wheel.

A weight on the land—mundane folk don’t often have much, or any, land magic in their makeup. They pass along and over the land as unremarked as dead leaves dancing across the street on a playful breeze.

Trenvay
, though . . .
trenvay
are tied to the land; they
are
magic; and despite what they tell you in novels, magic has weight, though it shouldn’t, according to Mr. Ignat’, be a
burden
. Others who are not native to this land of which I am Guardian may also have weight. Specifically, those who possess
jikinap
, such as an Ozali from another of the Worlds might—and those would also weigh upon the land. The more powerful the
trenvay
or the Ozali was, the heavier they would stand.

The person skulking nearby, now . . . I thought they might be
trenvay
of a certain age and service. Respectable; say, middle-aged.
Possibly
Ozali, but if so, an Ozali new to power.

Whoever it was, they were motionless, as if they had crouched down and were hoping to pass undetected. Another reason I was thinking
trenvay
. I still didn’t know all of the Archers Beach
trenvay
, though I was working on it. If somebody decided to take action and meet the Guardian, and then been overcome with shyness . . .

I’m not particularly scary-looking, but some
trenvay
are so timid, rabbits look heroic in comparison.

So, a timid
trenvay
, come to see the Guardian, now trembling at their own temerity. That was how we’d play it.

Again, I reached to the land, projecting calm welcome, and spoke very quietly, trusting that my voice would carry far enough.

“Good evening. My name’s Kate. I’d like to meet you; to learn your name and your service. I guarantee your safety. Nothing will happen to you while you are in my care.”