Halfway Drowned (Halfway Witchy Book 4)

by Terry Maggert

  “Okay, you first. What did you find when you went in the water?” I was going to get my answers first, if we were exchanging secrets.

  “It’s what I saw, and what I didn’t see. There was something--caged, in that ship. And now it’s free. I know that because of the wreckage. Whatever broke out on that ship was angry, strong, and probably more powerful than a bear. It broke iron and wood without much problem, if the debris field is any indication.”

  “That’s what Wulfric said. Okay, what did you find, though?” I knew he was holding something back.

  “Nope. You first. Why was Wulfric in that ship?” Simple, direct, and impossible to avoid answering unless I simply shut up. He had me.

  “He was looking for the reason the ship went down. He found it.” Both statements were true. I felt armored with their legitimacy. “What did you find?” I pressed Eli for the last ace he was holding, and then he wouldn’t be able to shake me down for anything else, unless it was at my discretion.

  After a brief hesitation, he pulled a clear plastic evidence bag from his pocket. “This.”

  I took it delicately as my breath caught. “How did”--

  “In an air pocket, wrapped in hide, I think. It was tucked up in the beams. I wouldn’t have seen it as I hadn’t taken a look up through the bubble. Thought there might be floating debris. Instead, I found that. Mind telling me what you think it is, given the fact your boyfriend is a Viking?”

  I snapped my teeth in frustration as his comment hit home. “He’s tall and blondish; that doesn’t mean he’s a Viking.”

  “His name is Wulfric. He wears a knife and dives in lakes. He makes canoes of a design that I haven’t seen outside museums in Scandinavia. Care to try again?” Eli smirked. It was a nerd smirk, which is way more irritating than a regular look of smugness. I didn’t like it, or the fact that he was absolutely right.

  “I sort of forgot you were a marine archeologist.” I admitted this in a sheepish tone. It hadn’t occurred to me that Dr. Eli Delacourt would be versed in the styles of ancient canoes, but then again, I’d had other things on my mind.

  “Among other things, but yeah, that’s kind of my area.”

  “Hmph. Okay, so he’s of Norwegian descent, and he”--

  “No, he’s a Viking. I don’t know how or why, but he’s a real, live Viking who found something important in that ship. Just like I did.” Eli sounded a touch too smug for my taste, and my temper flared ever so delicately.

  “Don’t be smug,” I said, leaving no doubt as to my assessment of his views. “You have a degree, or degrees, and I have Wulfric. This is starting to edge into territory you don’t want to visit. Again.”

  He patted the air with his hands, swimming in apologies. “Hey right so, yeah. Sorry, I mean, he’s just a foot taller than everyone and kind of obviously Norwegian, and he has this--I don’t know, he’s not stiff. Just formal.”

  “So you’re convinced he’s a Viking because he has manners?”

  “In a sense, with all the other evidence, it seems logical to turn to you and Wulfric for something I need. I admit, I’m a little freaked out by seeing him underwater, but I’m outright scared by the thing behind him. Something isn’t right, and I need Wulfric to help me.” He waited for me to think it over as my anger ebbed. It took a moment. I don’t take well to being pressured. I shot Jim Dietrich with a spell that left him wobbly for an hour, simply because he made a veiled threat against Gus. I wouldn’t hesitate to do much worse in defense of Wulfric.

  “What do you need?” I asked. I determined that whatever happened next, we’d keep it simple. People find it more difficult to lie to me if the topic at hand is stripped bare.

  “His eyes. Or, rather, I need him to look at that and tell me what it means. I know the language, but I can’t decode it.” Opening the evidence bag, he removed a section of birch bark scrawled with runes that had to be a thousand years old or more. The bark was roughly square but ragged, as if ripped away in haste. The runes were drawn in hurried ink, smeared occasionally. I recognized that ink--it was something natural, similar to what I get on my spell requests.

  Unlike the letters that fall through my mail slot under the moonlight, there was a distinct hum of magic attached to the relic. I couldn’t discern the flavor, but it was there, a subtle back note that set my witchmark buzzing with recognition. Given my understanding of languages and magic, I could make a few assumptions about the meaning of the runes even if I couldn’t read a single symbol.

  “You don’t need him to understand this, but you’ll need him to read it,” I admitted.

  “Oh?” Eli twitched at my admission as his world got a bit stranger. I’d just confirmed the fact that Wulfric was a Viking, and not the kind you see on Halloween. The earth was tilting under Eli’s rather grounded, scientific feet.

  “Look at the way it’s written. I think we both know what it means, and I’m fairly certain I know who wrote it.”

  “What? How?” He narrowed his eyes, causing a bead of sweat to drop on the lens of his glasses. It was warm, and the sun was high.

  “I’ll leave that up to Wulfric, but I can tell you this--keep your people out of that wreck until he reads whatever it is you’ve found. Something’s wrong, and it’s my place to know such things. Do you understand?” I cocked my head at him, trying to impart meaning without revealing anything else about my unusual family. Or my talents.

  Actually, it was best if he knew precious little about Halfway, but the wreck turned that possibility into a dream as soon as the dragon’s head broke through into sunlight. Now, all I could do was damage control, and that meant I needed tea, and Gran, and advice. The bizarre fish scale would have to wait, but Eli was a different story.

  “I do, but I can’t make any promises. Time is an issue now, and if Wulfric could take a look at that tonight?” he wheedled, leaning to one side in emphasis of our situation.

  “I’ll have him look at it within the hour, but I’m not calling you. Where can we meet?”

  “The Pines? I’m in the mood for pizza tonight, and it’s the only place with booths where I can eat and work simultaneously,” he explained. The Pines was an excellent place to eat, but I’d never worked there. I like to get comfy with my pizza, not treat it like an afterthought.

  “Eight o’clock. Order three large--one with everything, one extra cheese, and one with bacon and onion. Wulfric and I will see you there, okay?”

  “Three large pizzas?” He smiled. I was used to this kind of reaction when people saw what Wulfric consumed in the course of a normal meal.

  “Yes, Wulfric is a big eater.”

  “So am I,” Eli said, waving at his slender frame. He was one of those people who eats like he’s hollow; I just knew it. After my frown died, he laughed and turned to leave. “I’ll order four just in case.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Tea with Gran

  “Do you like it?” Gran asked. It was a blackberry tea served cold with a twist of lemon, and it fairly sang on my tongue.

  “It’s lovely. Like summer came indoors.” I sipped from the tall glass, marveling at the bright flavors that were complex but familiar, like so much of Gran’s magic. She mastered spells as easily as she did tea, and I often wondered how much work it took to make the alchemy of her tea seem commonplace, even simple. The table creaked slightly under my elbows, a protest after decades of constant use. It was the center of my life in more ways than one, and it needed some care. So did I.

  I was in the right place.

  “What’s wrong, Carlie?” Gran asked. Her blue eyes bored into me with an intensity she reserved for our deepest excursion into the realm of magic. When Gran wanted me to understand the gravity of a moment, she could do so with a look. I endured the weight of her stare and looked into my tea, wondering what to say.

  “I’ll start at the beginning, with the ship.”

&nbs
p; “The Viking craft that seems to have appeared through a hole in time? The one that held a mysterious beastie?” Her manner was casual, but that was for my benefit. She understood something was up, but her superior patience gave her the fortitude to wait for my stumbling explanation.

  “You’re closer to the truth than you know, Gran.” I thought of Hallerna’s bones, lost in the dark for all those years. I must have worn the sadness, because Gran took my hand with a gentle touch.

  “Why don’t you start with the thing that’s bothering you most?” Gran asked.

  I exhaled slowly and shaped my thoughts. She was right, so I started with the most honest thing I could say, shocked at the realization that pushed forward onto my tongue. “I think I’m becoming a vampire.”

  If Gran was expecting anything else, she gave no indication. After a long moment of complete silence, she finally tilted her head, drumming her fingers on the table. A car honked somewhere, and I flinched. I could hear birds, and a fly, and even the distant hum of an air conditioner laboring to work. It was in a recreational vehicle, parked close by and left running by a tourist, no doubt.

  She inhaled through her nose, eyes closing in thought for the briefest of seconds. When she opened them, they fixed me with a gentle, searching look. “The spell you cast to save Wulfric has finally come to collect?”

  All I could do was nod. Tears welled in my eyes as I was gripped with shame, and weakness, and something else. It was fear. “I’m afraid, Gran.”

  “Of what?”

  “Leaving him behind. You, too.” I let my head tip down as exhaustion made my neck weak. Letting the secret out popped me like a balloon. I was relieved, but spent after the admission. My burden had been heavy, even if I wasn’t paying attention to it.

  “I can assure you that won’t happen, at least not in the manner you suspect. More on that later. What are your second and third fears?” Gran held up fingers as a sort of question. She sensed I was holding something back, and if my first confession was bad, the next ones would really come as a surprise.

  “The ship did fall through time, in a way. It was lost, and there was someone on board who’s stealthy enough to remain hidden from Wulfric at a distance of three feet. Sure, it was underwater, but still.” I grinned, a cheerless thing that barely touched my eyes. My head was full of swirling fear and worry. I felt sick, and even a little bit adrift. “Wulfric went down there in the middle of the night-- which you knew. What you don’t know is that something was right behind him. I know because Eli Delacourt brought me a picture of it. They had a little submersible taking pictures of the wreck, or rather, Eli did. It’s like his pet, and he uses it as an extension of his eyes, which leads me to my next problem. Something was down there with Wulfric, all right, and Eli knows. He also asked me some rather pointed questions about Wulfric that show the good doctor Delacourt to be a man of rather flexible thinking.”

  “He asked why Wulfric was capable of seeing at night in a shipwreck.” Gran raised a sculpted brow.

  “Worse. He told me Wulfric is a Viking and arranged for us to have dinner tonight. I tried to play dumb, but for some reason, we have the one scientist in the world who thinks that Vikings are still around. And in Halfway, I might add. He has a relic of birch bark, covered in some primitive Norse runes, and he wants Wulfric to translate.” Gran’s hand twitched in mine, the only betrayal of emotion after my report.

  “Interesting.” Gran rose, taking her glass to the sink slowly. She was stalling, and I didn’t blame her. I’d just dropped a lot of trouble on her doorstep, not the least of which was my suspicions about my own soul. As a White Witch, I’m limited in what I can do, but more importantly, I’m committed to Halfway. If I lose my purity, I’ll have to leave. It’s as simple as that. I thought I’d live too long and bury Wulfric, but the truth was far worse.

  “You’ve figured it out, then?” Gran asked, carefully not turning around. I knew she was on the verge of crying, and it scared me.

  “I’ll have to go, won’t I?”

  When she turned to me, the woman I saw looked old. A jolt of fear and pain went through me at the sight, and I averted my eyes before she could see them.

  “Yes.” One word, but a lifetime of weight rested on it.

  “What am I going to do, Gran?” My voice sounded small, like I was a girl again. Maybe I always had been, because an adult wouldn’t have flirted with blood magic for any reason under the stars.

  Except one.

  I thought of Wulfric, and decided that no matter what, he’d been worth it. “I’d do it again.”

  “I know. And that’s what scares me, dear. I don’t want to outlive another loved one due to the curse of blood magic, and I certainly don’t want to outlive you. You’re my heart, Carlie,” Gran said, her voice thick with emotion.

  “Can you--can you not tell me? What to do?” Desperation was at the door, and it rang in my voice.

  Gran’s answer was a slow, sad shake of her head. “I cannot go where you must, Carlie. This is your knot, and only you can untangle it. I trust you. I believe in your heart, and your purity, but as to this, ahh, surgery? You must cut the dead part from you, if only to expose your goodness to the light. Tread softly, child. The rest of Halfway depends on this, and as to that thing in the water? I don’t think you’ll have to look far.”

  “Why not?” I asked, my mind a storm of conflicted memories.

  “Because whatever it is will come to you soon enough.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  The Last Slice

  Wulfric is usually spare with his words. Eli Delacourt was not. For three minutes without a breath, Eli asked a series of questions ranging from the construction of dragonships to the Viking use of peat moss in iron production, and everything in between. I heard the words shiplap and spar and a dozen other marine terms in Eli’s rapid-fire interrogation that went from curious to giddy in the span of his unending, breathless debriefing. When Eli’s lungs gave out--something I thought I’d never see- he was forced to take a harried gulp of water. In the second of quiet, Wulfric held up an enormous hand.

  “A question,” Wulfric said, and it was a statement that brooked no argument.

  “Umm, yes?” Eli said, looking awkwardly to me for guidance. I put my hands up to let him know he was on his own.

  “Are we ever going to order food?” Wulfric looked pointedly at the empty table as I snorted with laughter.

  “Oh, I--sorry, Right. Sure,” Eli said with a sheepish grin, craning his neck to look for a server. When we made eye contact, a young guy hustled over with his pen out and pad at the ready. The server had pizza sauce on his shirt, and his hair was sticking up from an unseen brush with the plastic grapevines that decorated the wooden archway to the kitchen. Before anyone could speak, I used my own staccato restaurant voice to order four pizzas, drinks, and bread before Eli could fill his lungs and occupy the server for an hour with his endless questions.

  If you’ve ever worked in a restaurant, you understand that brevity is the soul of hunger.

  When the bread arrived, Wulfric and Eli began to methodically eat the entire loaf. It was akin to watching two caterpillars grind their way through a leaf, only to meet in the middle while reaching for the last slice. I watched in fascination, feeling rather like I was filming a nature program. The temptation to narrate our table’s events in a sonorous British accent was strong, but I held on to my dignity, because I knew that when the pizza arrived, things would be even more interesting.

  I wasn’t wrong. Eli managed to maintain polite chitchat with Wulfric until the server began depositing enormous pizzas on standing aluminum trays that covered our table like the scales of some delicious beast. Without a sound, both men began to eat. I took a slice, thought better of it, and then took a second in case I ate the first one too slowly.

  It was a good move on my part. After a meditative bite, I settled in to watch
the destruction of four pizzas while Wulfric and Eli smiled at each other over the platters as they ate. It was a companionable table, made even better when Eli looked around for a dessert menu.

  “Do you like tiramisu?” Wulfric asked him with the tone of an undertaker. Dessert was serious business.

  Eli looked as if he’d been asked to marry someone. “Do I? They have tiramisu?”

  With a wave, Wulfric called our server over and ordered four servings. “They’re a bit small,” he explained, making room by stacking his pizza plate on one of the metal discs before a different server whisked it away. With a haze of satisfaction descending on us, I nibbled my second crust while Wulfric regarded Eli, deciding what he was going to tell him.

  “Modern mankind has forgotten a great deal,” he began. Eli’s face broke into a smile of unalloyed joy at that.

  “How--I mean, um, why?” Eli sputtered, but Wulfric shook his head. Eli was going to have to hear Wulfric out on his own terms, although the pacing might kill him. I stayed silent, because Wulfric’s truth was mine as well. What he revealed was inexorably bound to me, and my family, and I trusted him completely. He would take care to be prudent, although Eli Delacourt had a sense of where the discussion was headed.

  “Why what?” Wulfric asked.

  That brought Eli up short, so he thought for a moment to clarify his question. When he was satisfied with his mental organization, he spoke. “Is the ship as old as I think it is?”

  “Yes,” Wulfric answered.

  “Is anyone in town, or anywhere else, in danger?” Eli asked. It spoke volumes about his character that he should ask that, rather than something to satisfy his burning curiosity.

  “From me? No. But from the ship? Yes.” Wulfric folded his hands as the server brought dessert, raising a brow as I demurred.