by Linda Jordan
Also by Linda Jordan:
Notes on the Moon People
Infected by Magic
Faerie Unraveled: The Bones of the Earth Series, Book 1
Faerie Contact: The Bones of the Earth Series, Book 2
Faerie Descent: The Bones of the Earth Series, Book 3
Faerie Flight: The Bones of the Earth Series, Book 4
Faerie Confluence: The Bones of the Earth Series, Book 5
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Rescue Mission
The Islands of Seattle, Book 1
Linda Jordan
Metamorphosis Press
Copyright © 2019 by Linda Jordan
Published by Metamorphosis Press
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places or incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, or persons, either living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Contents
1. Cady
2. Damon
3. Evangeline
4. Cady
5. Damon
6. Evangeline
7. Cady
8. Damon
9. Evangeline
10. Cady
11. Damon
12. Evangeline
13. Cady
14. Damon
15. Evangeline
16. Cady
17. Damon
18. Evangeline
19. Cady
About the Author
For Michael & Zoe
1
Cady
Cady was a finder. The gift ran through her blood. Either from her father, whoever he was, or her mom. Mom died from the flu, when Cady was only five.
Cady never found out who her people were or what powers they had. The people who cared for her didn’t talk about magic. It was evil to them. Both talking about it and using it.
She had been born all wrong. Mom hadn’t made it to the hospital. The neighbor’s mules had been pulling the cart, but with all the rain it got stuck in the mud of the new road. Hospitals were far away and scary places anyway. Not enough staff, or medicine these days. Ever since the last pandemic, things had been that way. At least that’s what folks claimed.
So, Mom had given birth with the help of the neighbor and a couple of other folks who happened past. Midwives were hard to come by, especially if you didn’t have money. And Mom didn’t. She was a weaver and most of her work was paid for by bartering. She’d always been rich with chickens.
Cady had come out backwards and with a broken arm. Her left arm never did heal properly and was always weaker than her right. Slightly misshapen, causing her to look off-balance, even as she’d grown up.
This morning the fingers on her bad arm tingled. A warning. Someone was coming to ask for her help.
She closed her eyes and breathed in the fresh air of dawn. It rained last night making everything smell good. The sky was clear. The sun just beginning to rise. A fine spring morning. She needed to plant today if she wanted food this spring.
The last few days she’d cleared the soil of the winter cover crop. The varied thrushes were over by her compost pile, sifting through the dead leaves and looking for insects. The sun was still low in the sky, shafts of light streamed through the leafless, big leaf maples that towered over her house.
Just there, through the stream of light, a movement. A woman, no a goddess, walked. She had long blond hair and wore a gauzy, muslin dress decorated with cherry blossoms and dandelions. Cady could see that where the goddess walked, meadowsweet in full bloom sprang up. The goddess paid no attention to Cady, of course. Intent on her own life.
Then the wind changed and Cady got a waft of her neighbor’s smoke. Joe was burning his garbage again. It stank, must be something awful in there. He raised goats and sometimes burned their carcasses if they died from disease.
She closed her front door and went back inside the tiny one room building that was home. She’d always meant to add onto it and make it larger, but time or energy never put in an appearance together.
It had been built as a guest house, Cady speculated. Once upon a time, when the world had been much different. The main house had long since collapsed, its remains reused elsewhere or burnt. Probably, taken down by the Big One, like most of the other large houses in this part of the world. Her little shack hadn’t been bothered much. When she’d found it twenty years ago and hacked away the forest intent on reclaiming the land, the building had some water damage. She’d patched up the leaks and added a small wood stove a neighbor had salvaged, to keep warm in the winter. The furniture that came with it, a bed frame, a wooden table and oak chair were still usable. The mattress, ruined. So she’d burned it and made a new one from some second-hand fabric; adding chicken and duck feathers that she and the other villagers plucked from birds destined for dinners. It had taken weeks to gather enough feathers.
There was a teeny bathroom, but city water was long gone, as was the actual city. What remained of Seattle was all islands. She and Joe shared a well with a solar pump. She had cold running water in the kitchen and felt blessed with that luxury. Cady used her bathtub to do laundry in, the drain had been re-plumbed with a large hose that took the gray water out to the garden. She had a composting toilet, another luxury in this part of the world. Baths, she took down at the lake.
It was a fine little home. Perfect for her.
She brushed her long, thick gray hair, then braided it and tied the tip with a strip of cloth from an old shirt. She dressed in old khaki pants, her dark leather boots and a long sleeved blue shirt.
The tea kettle on the wood stove sang and Cady poured the boiling water through the muslin bag of dried herbs and flowers. Mint, lavender and rosebuds scented the air. A lovely smell for early spring when none of those were available fresh.
She sat down at the table, her hands wrapped around the hot mug, trying to warm them. Feeling the ache in her fingers. Most of them had been broken at one time or another and even those that healed well told her it had been a cold night. She was only fifty, but arthritis had set in.
In the corner sat a bookcase stuffed with very, very old books. Some, she’d even read, opening the creaky pages. The glue in some was gone and many pages, completely unmoored. Several of the books were on gardening with photos of lavish estates, propped up by pesticides and irrigations systems that were no longer possible to use, let alone find the plumbing pieces for.
The world had changed so much since then. The flu of 2020, the polar ice caps nearly melting, and the Big One—the quake in 2032 that took out huge portion of the West Coast of North America, everything was different. In Seattle, more so than many places. But Cady heard that all of the devastation had ripple effects everywhere.
She dipped the tea bag a couple of times, then set it in a small flowered bowl which sat on the battered wooden table. Then sipped the hot tea, tasting the strong mint and lavender flavors. The rose subtly formed a background note.
Refugees had fled inland from every coastal city that drowned. What had that been like? To pick up and leave their lives behind. Entire countries were gone beneath the sea, their cultures lost. Those people had been assimilated into nearby countries. Sometimes though they’d ended up moving clear across the world. Except not in the U.S., who’d closed its borders as the pandemic spread. Too late, though. The pandemic still hit here.
The countries who took in refugees set up a trade embargo against the U.S. California got pissed off at the federal government, who wouldn’t help with the double whammy of earthquake disaster and rising ti
des. So California split off into their own country. Washington, D.C. was too busy managing multiple crises to deal with them. Then the Western halves of Oregon and Washington joined up with British Columbia to form Cascadia.
Washington, D.C. was way too busy to even take notice of Cascadia. They were dealing with all the quakes caused by fracking in the Midwest, overcrowding everywhere, horrendous hurricanes and tornados, and flooded cities of their own.
And the water kept rising. And the weather got wilder. It was as if the entire planet had turned upside down and was trying to destroy the plague of humanity.
But there was something else. Something that no one predicted. Not a soul had even expected.
With the complete disorganization of humankind, the disruption of technology and the toppling of societal structures, magic had returned to the world.
Just the thought of that made Cady smile. Magic. Where would her world be without it?
Perhaps, it had been caused by the mingling of cultures who’d rarely spoken and now lived side by side. Perhaps, it was the world shaking up like a handful of dice. Or perhaps, the quakes and the winds stirred up things that had long lay sleeping.
One day it was an Egyptian Goddess appearing in a town. The next, a dragon swept across a field, igniting the grass. The third day it was an old white preacher damning the wicked with fire shooting out his fingertips, lighting the entire church on fire. He burned to death, a testament to his own wickedness.
The incidents went on and on. Cities fell into the sea and quakes wracked the heartland. Seattle had stabilized, at least as stable as it would ever be. The Space Needle became the Sea Needle and the land transformed itself into the Islands of Seattle. I-5 which had once been far, far, above the water level now touched it. No one sane dared to drive on it, fearing its collapse.
Most people had already abandoned cars anyway, there was little gasoline available and its cost was dear. A few people made their own diesel, but re-used cooking oil was hard to come by because even fresh cooking oil was hard to come by and expensive.
Some people retrofitted their cars, making them run on solar power. If they had the money or skill. The roads were shot and there was no guarantee how long any structure that was ramped would stay that way, between quake damage and wet soil.
Cady’s mom had lived until Cady was five, but then another round of the flu passed through and took her. Cady was raised by neighbors, passed around from family to family, until she was fifteen and old enough to be on her own. Or so she thought.
She ran away to start her own life and made so many mistakes. Then again, that led her to where she was now. So perhaps they hadn’t been mistakes after all.
She sipped her tea. The flavors waking her up fully.
Time to get some breakfast and get on with her day. Get those greens and peas planted.
Monster shot in through the cat door and his black bulk streaked under the bed, as the door went kathump, kathump. He was her early warning system.
Someone was here.
Cady stood, peering out through the antique flowered curtains. She recognized Sarah, who was walking towards Cady’s house, with her arm around another woman’s shoulders.
Sarah never spoke to Cady. Sarah was one of those who didn’t have magic and probably didn’t trust it. They were still a few of those people around. How they survived with goddesses walking through the village puzzled Cady. Something must be very wrong for Sarah to bring someone to see her.
Cady put the tea kettle on again and lit the burner.
There was a knock on the door.
She opened it.
“Cady, hello,” said Sarah.
“Hi.”
“Can we come in? Beth needs to sit down.”
Beth, who Cady didn’t recognize, had a huge belly. Obviously pregnant and the baby must have dropped. Or else this was one of a series and her body normally carried low. Cady wasn’t a midwife and didn’t know a lot about babies, but she listened.
“Sure, come on in.”
She held the door open and closed it behind them.
The table had three chairs, Beth sat in one, breathing heavily. The woman looked ready to give birth any minute.
“Tea anyone?”
“Yes please,” said Beth.
“I have mint, chamomile, raspberry leaf or summer surprise—which is all sorts of dried flowers. Rose petals, calendula, borage.”
“Chamomile for me,” said Beth. “No wait, better make it mint. My digestion’s been awful lately. And I’m so sick of raspberry leaf tea, I don’t think I could keep it down.”
“I’ll have summer surprise,” said Sarah.
After she made tea and refilled her own, Cady sat down.
“What brings you here on this fine morning?” asked Cady, knowing it couldn’t be anything good.
Beth burst into tears.
“I’m sorry,” said Cady, gently touching Beth’s arm. The woman vibrated chaotic energy.
“It’s an awful morning. At the end of a horrible week,” said Beth. Her eyes looked puffy as if she’d been crying for a day or two. Her short dark, hair was greasy and unbrushed. The woman wasn’t taking care of herself.
Cady just waited, silent. Stirring the contents of her mug before removing the muslin tea bag and setting it in the bowl. Little rituals to ground herself and help her be open to whatever was coming.
Sarah repeated Cady’s actions, then took the bag out of Beth’s tea and added a spoonful of Joe’s honey from the jar on the table. Joe also raised bees who pollinated the plants in Cady’s garden, for which she was grateful, even without the honey that frequently came her way.
Beth wiped her face and said, “I’m sorry. I’m not usually like this, but this pregnancy has been really hard. And then Monday night, Sam didn’t come home. Neither did his friends. Some of them finally made it home on Wednesday, but three of them never made it out. Two were dead, but they said Sam had been taken prisoner and they couldn’t figure out how to rescue him. Then they went back the next day with more men, but Sam had been moved. They couldn’t find him. Or find any trace of where he’s been taken. I know he’s still alive, but I don’t know for how much longer.”
Beth sobbed.
Sarah moved the mug of tea in front of Beth, who wiped her face again and sipped at the tea. “I can’t live without him. We have three kids and this one is coming soon,” she said, her hand on her belly. “I can’t do it all by myself. I need him. My family’s all gone, dead, and his people live back East. There’s no one to help take care of the kids. The neighbors have been so kind, but I just need Sam back. And I love him.” Beth sobbed again, a deep sound almost like choking.
Cady felt the depth of the pain the woman was in. She closed her eyes, then opened them and nodded.
“What is it you want from me?” Cady asked.
“I need you to find him,” said Beth.
“Where did he go?”
“Into the Zoo.”
The Zoo had once been a place where animals were caged for peoples’ amusement and education. With climate change and changing values, the Zoo had been emptied of animals. A cargo airstrip for small planes and warehouses were built there after the quake. Now, it was a dodgy district where no one entered who didn’t have business there. It was completely fenced. The businesses there were run mostly by two different gangs, who still battled for supremacy.
No one in the village knew that Cady had spent years in the Zoo. Back when there were more than the two gangs.
“Whyever did they go there?”
“They had a deal with Roosevelt. To buy some alcohol to sell on this side of the water. Went to pick it up.”
Cady shook her head. She didn’t know whether the men were dreamers or just idiots. No one on the islands had that kind of money. Most people on this side of the Salish Sound made their own alcohol. But that wasn’t the end of Beth’s story she knew.
“And? …” Cady asked.
“Someone ambushed them. It was
a trap.”
“Who ambushed them?”
“It might have been Roosevelt’s people, might have been Morrigu’s,” said Beth. She picked up the mug with both hand and sipped her tea. An action more to be doing something rather than a need to drink tea. Her hands shook slightly.
“What would Roosevelt gain by that? I don’t understand,” said Cady.
“He gets the upper hand in the negotiations. He gets complete power over everything as long as he holds Sam hostage. He can demand we pay money for Sam alone. Then want more money for the alcohol.”
Cady said, “And Morrigu would get to screw up Roosevelt’s dealings.”
Beth nodded.
“I don’t care who has him, I just want him back,” said Beth.
Cady leaned back in her chair, feeling the hard wood grind against her sore shoulders. What Beth wanted was possible, but dangerous.
Cady had spent a lot of time in the Zoo. She’d practically grown up there. She’d run away to the Zoo when she was fifteen, following some boy in. Whose name she soon forgot in her struggle to survive. She’d learned how to steal and fight in one of the smaller gangs who used to run there. Luckily, she hadn’t been on either side of the main conflict and had been able to get out. Had survived. Because those who fought for Roosevelt or Morrigu only left the Zoo one way. Dead.
Roosevelt was a 6’5” black human, rumored to have some Blackfoot blood in him. No one knew. He did have powerful magic and was rumored to be ridden by Kalfu, even though Kalfu himself was never seen in this part of the world. He probably preferred warmer climes, lush with heat.
