Seaborn 01 - Saltwater Witch

by Chris Howard

  Saltwater Witch

  Chris Howard

  Saltwater Witch

  Book 1 of the Seaborn Trilogy

  Copyright © 2010 by Chris Howard

  www.SaltwaterWitch.com

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN: 978-0-9773807-1-8

  No portion of this book may be reproduced by any means, mechanical, electronic, or otherwise, without first obtaining the permission of the copyright holder except for brief passages quoted by reviewers or in connection with critical analysis.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the authors' imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  A Lykeion Book

  The Seaborn Trilogy by Chris Howard:

  Book 1 - Saltwater Witch

  Book 2 - Seaborn

  Book 3 - Sea Throne

  Please visit www.SaltwaterWitch.com for more Seaborn stories, maps, art, and other cool stuff!

  Prologue - The Ferryman

  1 - Kassandra

  2 - The Girl who was Afraid of Water

  3 - The Guardian

  4 - Ephoros

  5 - The Three Spies

  6 - The Math King

  7 - Gregor Remembers

  8 - Storm Brewing

  9 - Dream of the Deep

  10 - Princess

  11 - Beautiful Water

  12 - Too Much Water

  13 - Another Wreath-wearer

  14 - Matrothy’s Warning

  15 - Andromache’s Sword

  16 - Jill and Nicole to the Rescue

  17 - The Naiads’ Bargain

  18 - Saltwater

  19 - The Lithotombs

  20 - Wake the Olethren

  21 - The New Science Teacher

  22 - The House Bracelet

  23 - Lady Kallixene

  24 - The King’s Trap

  25 - House Rexenor

  26 - You Can Only Lose Once

  27 - The Agent of King Tharsaleos

  28 - The Storm

  29 - The Dead Army

  30 - The Wreath of Poseidon

  31 - The Maid of Ampharete

  32 - Late Arrival

  Prologue - The Ferryman

  Gregor Porthmeus pulled the boat’s wheel toward the Maine coast and watched sourly as the storm turned to follow him.

  The Atlantic rolled and peaked in his wake, long fingers of white foam clawing up the inside faces of the waves. He shoved the throttle all the way forward, hoping for more speed, and bit down hard, ground his teeth together so he wouldn’t bite his tongue. The hull cut through the water, lifted off a crest into the air, went vertical—bow first, and rode the steep canyon wall of water into the darkness below.

  On the way down, he passed a blur of silver-green off the port side, something human-shaped against the muddy gray sea, but when he blinked away the rain and looked back, it was gone.

  But it would return.

  It called his name across the waves, through the storm, a thin singing voice that reached his bones and made him glance over his shoulder one more time.

  Nothing there.

  Gregor shook more rain from his hair, inching his hands apart on the boat’s wheel, hands like wet bronze, stretched and polished around the knuckles; scar tissue, like welded seams, ran up the insides of his fingers.

  His brows folded into a worried knot at the bridge of his nose, and his eyes squeezed shut for a moment. He willed them open, holding back tears. Bracing his feet apart, he turned away from the storm-black horizon to search the inside of his boat, looking for the child.

  Rolled tarps and fishing gear skidded across the deck, tangling with the clothes and blankets thrown from the cabin.

  Like any man, he feared the storm, but it only went in so far. There were deadlier things out there, things that swallowed boats whole, punishments longer and more painful than any tempest, masters who didn’t expect their slaves to fail.

  “Kassandra.” He whispered the child’s name as if it were a secret, as if saying her name aloud might unlock something hidden inside him.

  He ducked to look in through the doorway, into the plastic and wood interior of the boat’s cabin, stopping on a curl of blanket sticking out from the shadows. The sleeping baby girl was right where he’d put her, under the bench next to his tackle boxes, wedged in place with wads of useless sea charts.

  “First they call me to bring her ashore, then they want her back?”

  Didn’t make sense.

  Gregor had picked her up—a tiny girl in a saltwater-soaked blanket, alone on a rock surrounded by towering waves, a rock that appeared on no chart he owned. His masters had commanded him to pick up the baby, and he’d nearly dashed open the hull of his boat against the rock, but managed to grab the girl without losing more than a few layers of paint and some barnacles.

  The first command had been pretty damn clear. Pick up the baby girl. Fail and die.

  It was also becoming clear someone wanted him to fail.

  And die.

  Hands slipping on the boat’s wheel, he shot another look over his shoulder.

  Something different moved in the waves, right under him, something large and made of ocean shadows, sliding just below the surface off the starboard side.

  And astern, someone sang the name Porthmeus in one long wailing note that stood his hair on end.

  Then things really went bad.

  The bow tipped into cold gray water, metal and fiberglass buckling, and the wheel hit Gregor in the stomach. Some monster from the abyss, toying with him all this time, sank its claws into the hull, stopped it in the water, and shook it hard. Windows shattered, wood squealed as if running along rocks.

  A rolling, clanking storm of tackle boxes, tools, silverware, and a baby wrapped in a blanket and wadded up sea charts tumbled from the boat’s cabin, pushed past Gregor’s legs, spilling across the deck.

  Gregor gripped the wheel tighter with one hand and pounded the throttle with his fist. His last chance. He leaned toward the bow, holding on. The engines roared. The deck tilted back and the cold gray Atlantic swelled over the gunnels.

  Chapter 1 - Kassandra

  The water felt good, and held me in its arms.

  It wasn’t the feeling I had expected just before drowning.

  But I’d been through worse.

  So I put my terror in a box, and shelved it somewhere in the back of my mind. Right next to a big locked box of rage, which came in handy sometimes.

  Then I pulled in a deep breath and held it, because I thought I was going to need it.

  Red Bear Lake closed over my head, smooth green folds of water, cool and gentle against my throat, and as the surface slipped away, a whispering voice drifted by, repeating one word, “Breathe.”

  I could feel an edge of panic trying to close in, but something in my head took over and mixed my own thoughts with strange new ones, distracting me. I will never know my real home—and I don’t mean St. Clement’s, my shitty boarding school in Nebraska. I mean my world. I will never know my language, my city, my people. I will never sing their songs.

  Some of them were my thoughts. Some of them weren’t, and someone was mixing them together inside my head.

  And some didn’t even make sense.

  I have a city?

  A flash of gold above me, and I looked up at a tiny loop of metal falling into the depths of Red Bear Lake with me, catching the sunlight in bright sparks.

  Paddling upright, I reached over my head through the green water, hooking it in my fingers. I pulled it in, stared at it a moment, and then looked up at the surface t
wenty feet above.

  It was Deirdre’s bracelet.

  Serves her right for pushing me in.

  And it was beautiful, fine links that looked like little overlapping triangles of gold. It was Deirdre’s and she deserved to lose it. I was about to let it go, lost forever at the bottom of the lake. I held my fist closed, looking into the black muddy depths below, and then opened my fingers, caught the bracelet and slipped it over my hand.

  Then let out more of my air.

  This seemed like the perfect time for panicking, but the silent gloomy lake was peaceful. Peaceful like death. Can my heart work after I’m dead?

  Nope, and I could hear and feel my own heartbeat thudding in my chest—so, not dead yet.

  A woman’s whispering voice glided by, a soft rustle like water running over sand. I turned my head to chase it, and heard sad piping tones, growing louder as I fell into darker and darker water.

  My mother’s song.

  I don’t remember anything about my mother or father, and the song I sometimes heard in the back of my mind was the only hint that I had once had a life somewhere else. There were words in the song but I didn’t understand them. Almost as if I had memorized the sounds of a different language—just like we’d been taught Frère Jacques at some point, but couldn’t say what the song was about.

  And that sparked another strange thought, wondering for the first time if I was American. And if not, what the hell was I doing here in the middle of it?

  The whispering again. “Breathe.”

  I ignored it. It had to be some trick of sound underwater—I was trying to convince myself.

  Until the whisperer used my name.

  “Breathe, Kassandra.” It was a gentle and motherly voice, but now the word “breathe” was a command, and I felt the air in my lungs climbing into my throat in response.

  “Ar—are you stupid?” My voice came out muffled in wobbly bubbles that shot to the surface, glassy little worlds of air that caught and coiled through long tangles of my hair.

  “Do not argue with me.”

  Swinging my arms out, I paddled in a circle, looking for the speaker.

  That definitely sounded like something a mother would say—do not argue with me, and I found myself scowling now and rummaging around for the keys to that box of rage.

  And the voice was getting impatient.

  The water was heavy against my skin. I kicked weakly. My throat burned, begging me to draw a breath.

  Then the thought that I couldn’t make it back to the surface hit me—don’t know why it took so long. My arms were thrashing around on their own. I can’t stop sinking!

  “Take the water inside you, Kassandra.”

  “Stop talking to me!” The shout was a waste of air. I could hear my own voice in my head, but it came out of my mouth as a gurgling rush of noise and bubbles.

  The motherly voice came back, commanding, “Close your eyes. Now!”

  I shut my eyes. The lake water burned in my throat, slippery and sharp and cold, like a mouthful of needles. There was a taste to the water, ancient chalk, a bitter rotting edge, something very old...and alive.

  Greedy for air, the lake swallowed my life from the inside out, swelling in my lungs, pushing under my tongue, icy against my teeth. The chill swept over my lips and cheeks, around my ears and forehead, fingering my throat, my toes and fingers, surrounding every strand of hair.

  The song grew stronger, walling off the rest of the thick fluid world around me.

  And it became mine—all of this. A spasm of understanding ripped through me.

  This is my world.

  On the outside, the lake water pressed against my skin. Somewhere deep inside, I felt a whirling current where my own thoughts had never traveled, sparks in the gloom of my closed eyes, flashing by me at first, and then they slowed down and let me catch glimpses of light reflecting off carved rocks, a sharp ledge over moving black water, a room with strong currents, spiraling endlessly around a wide lightless pit—the water falling into it, lost forever. I caught sight of a row of black doorways leading out of a wet stone chamber, and then it was gone.

  “Do not believe what they say about your mother,” the woman’s voice told me, and there was an angry edge to her words.

  My eyes snapped open, and I could feel my eyebrows climbing somewhere into the middle of my forehead. And here I thought she was my mother.

  “Your mother saved you.”

  “But...” A flash of angry teeth and fists, a voice shouting at me from the past. “Director Matrothy said my mother’s in prison, she murdered her best friend.”

  “No, she did not. She saved you. She saved me. I am...my name isssszzzz—uh! It won’t let me say it.” She struggled to speak, sighed, and as her voice faded, said, “I must go.”

  Swinging my hands out to claw at empty water, I spun in the gloom.

  “Please don’t!”

  I waited for an answer, breathed slowly, the water heavy in my throat and lungs. No one answered. The song had died, the voice was gone, and the silence hurt.

  I’m breathing underwater.

  Definitely have to tell my science teacher, Mr. Henderson about this.

  Then the lake jumped, blurred my vision, a ring of rapidly expanding water, like the shockwave of a bomb exploding in the depths.

  I looked past my feet, and a woman’s sickly pale face emerged from the gloom, her skin a washed out greenish color. Her long stringy black hair floated about her head, medusa-like. The skull of some small sharp-toothed animal floated in front of her, on a chain around her neck. The pale woman opened her mouth, grinning with rows of sharpened teeth as she grabbed my ankle and jerked me toward the bottom.

  Screaming, I threw my head back, reaching for the surface.

  The water thickened with clouds of silt, and this thing with sharp teeth dragged me like an anchor to the floor of the lake.

  It spoke to me, a raspy high-pitched screech. “Give me your other foot, girl.”

  I snapped one leg up and kicked. My heel caught the woman in the chin, cutting off a wailing tone that hit me with a thousand needle stabs.

  Soft ribbons of blood curled around me. Shit. Like real needles.

  You witch!

  I just floated there, looking down at this monster, thoughts racing through my head, but too fast to catch and act on any of them. That was all it took. A few seconds hesitation and I’d lost any advantage I’d just won kicking her in the face.

  Move your ass, Kassandra.

  Another screechy noise from below. The sound chased me, turning when I turned, diving deeper into the lake to follow me.

  I flipped on my back, trying to get out of its way, heading into the darkness, panicking because insane questions were lining up in my head. Who knew there were witches lurking in the depths of obscure inland lakes? Ratty black hair, pale skin, wearing aquatic mammal skulls as jewelry? Had to be a witch. What else could it be?

  And then a more important question shouldered its way to the front. I can swim?

  I had never had swimming lessons. A bathtub gave me nightmares. Five gallons gathered in one place was enough to make my knees shake.

  It was like dancing. I twirled in the water, ducking my head, arching my back against another attack of sharp noise. A glance back, and I kicked fluidly away. My body knew how to move, spiraling and bending, an acrobat dodging a drawerfull of thrown knives.

  Then, because it felt like the right thing to do, I stopped under watery sunlight about fifty feet down, paddling upright when everything went quiet.

  The lake witch shot out of the gloom, grabbed me, her grinning face shoved forward; fingernails like icy claws ripped through my shirt, digging into my arms, working their way to my throat.

  Nothing to hold on to, nothing solid to brace myself against. The witch pushed me upside down, and I kicked, twisting my shoulders out of her hold. Her sharp nails cut through my skin.

  Kicking away, I tasted my own blood curling in the water, a weird bitte
r tingling that slid over my tongue.

  Beneath me, the lake witch flipped over in one snapping motion—very fishlike—and came after me, teeth bared, something close to a smile on her face. Another quick look and I kicked straight up, cupped my hands, pulled the water past me, trying to get to the surface as fast as I could.

  The witch screeched again.

  Weaving through the water wasn’t enough. The sound chased me, and when it caught me, it went right through my shorts and shirt, though my skin to my bones, leaving hundreds of separate points of pain.

  In the water, noise hurts. Waving away more of my blood. Hurts like fuck.

  I tucked my head down, diving back into the darkness, slicing through a thick cloud of stirred up mud, and it swirled around me like a billowing black cumulus.

  Against the burn, I urged my legs to kick faster, leveling out when I sensed the lake’s muddy floor.

  Yeah, I could feel the bottom of the lake coming at me, a sort of tone way in the back of my head that pitched higher as I approached it. Swinging right, just half a turn to get me headed in the right direction, I pushed my aching muscles harder and shot back toward the surface.

  Off on my left, I passed the witch coming the other way, and she did a sharp kicking one-eighty and came after me.

  This cat and mouse game wasn’t going to end well.

  As fast as I pushed my legs and clawed at the water, it wasn’t enough, glancing down in panic as the sharp-toothed woman closed the distance.

  The water brightened, bursts of light catching Deirdre’s bracelet in distracting flickers on my wrist. The surface wasn’t far, but it was clear the witch would catch me before I broke through.

  And the anger building inside me finally jumped to the front, slid into my arms and legs. I spun to face my pursuer with my fists out, baring my teeth.

  “Leave me the fuck alone!”

  A wave of dizziness. My own voice rang painfully in my ears as if I’d yelled through a megaphone. The sound of my words rolled away from me, gathering momentum, shattering the water into a milky cloud of tiny bubbles.

  I hadn’t expected that. I fought the shaky feeling in my head, and let my body drift in a cartwheel that brought me upside down, facing the lake’s floor, shocked at what I had just done to the water.