Carousel Seas – eARC

by Sharon Lee

  “If my legs were longer, I could walk across the harbor on the bows of boats.”

  Borgan looked out over the accumulated company.

  “Is getting a little thick, isn’t it? I’d hate to have to try that walk myself, but I take your meaning. Wine?”

  “Please.”

  He poured and we settled side by side into deck chairs. Idly, I wondered where our visitor would sit, when or if they arrived. If Gray Lady carried a third chair he wasn’t being in any hurry to bring it out.

  I raised my glass, “To the land and the sea,” I offered.

  Next to me, he raised his glass in answer.

  “Stronger together than apart.”

  We drank. I sighed…

  …and a high, fretful voice reached us clearly across the water.

  “How much longer, Grandpa? I wanna see the fireworks!”

  “Should only be another couple minutes, Eddie. Now, remember what I told you about keeping your voice down, because sound carries over the water, and we don’t want to bother our neighbors.”

  “But our neighbors aren’t here!”

  “Sure they are,” said a second high voice that seemed older than the first child’s voice. Possibly a sister. “Everybody around us on their boats, they’re our neighbors, because we’re near each other.”

  Depending on how old she was, that was either a good or a darn good parsing. It probably wouldn’t satisfy her little brother, though.

  I sipped my wine, listening to other, lower voiced conversations, and watching the stars. It was good and dark by now, and I was starting to enter into Eddie’s feelings. When were they going to start the show?

  It was just about then that I heard a faint plash, as if someone had thrown a beer bottle into the water. I turned my head toward the stern.

  “That’ll be her,” Borgan said comfortably.

  “You were certain of me, then?” came a deep, rich voice. A shadow moved in the darkness at the stern, resolving almost immediately into Nerazi, quite completely naked, save the sealskin thrown over her shoulder.

  She’s a queenly woman, is Nerazi, her skin brown and smooth, her face round, her eyes large and dark and liquid. Her hair is silver, and worn in a single long braid, much like I’ve taken to wearing my own black, much shorter hair.

  “I thought you might stop by,” Borgan said. “Mug o’wine?”

  Nerazi dropped her sealskin on the deck somewhat in advance of Borgan’s right, from which point she would be able to see both of us and the fireworks, if they ever got going.

  “Did Princess Kaederon not instruct you in the proper vessel for wine?”

  Back some years ago, a lot of people had called me “Princess Kaederon,” now Nerazi’s the only one. She might just do it to tweak me, though I doubted it. Nerazi rarely does anything for only one reason. It was possible that she wanted to be sure that I remembered that I’d been a princess, once, though all of my House is dead, our servants unmade, and our lands forfeit to the enemy who had destroyed us. Who had then been destroyed himself, by my hand, so it was anybody’s guess who held the Sea King’s honors now in Sempeki, the Land of the Flowers, since the heir-by-blood—that’s me—has no intention of returning.

  “Ahzie told me it wasn’t nice to give a lady her wine in a coffee mug,” Borgan admitted, “and he sold me two wine glasses and a bottle of wine and a contraption to open the bottle with. But, see, I never figured to be entertaining two ladies at the same time, so you caught me short-glassed. Other thing I can do is offer a beer.”

  “Thank you,” Nerazi said drily. “I will hazard the mug.” She settled cross-legged onto her sealskin and met my eyes. Hers showed red in the starshine.

  “Good evening, fair Nerazi,” I said, showing off my court manners. “I trust that all of your affairs prosper.”

  “It is seldom that all of one’s affairs flourish, my lady, but I have no cause for complaint of my treatment at the hands of the universe.”

  “Does the universe have hands?”

  “Thank you,” Nerazi said, taking the Bug Light mug from Borgan, and, “Surely it must, for are we not warp and weave of the universe?”

  Fortunately, I didn’t have to answer that, because Nerazi raised her mug with great seriousness.

  “For those present: joy, constancy, and hope.”

  The air shivered a little as her words struck, which meant that a true and powerful well-wish had just been bestowed upon us by one of the most puissant trenvay I know, period. Borgan might be badder than Nerazi, magically speaking, but Borgan has the edge of being a Guardian.

  “How fares your grandmother, Princess Kaederon? Her passings up and down this land are sorely missed.”

  Nerazi and Gran go ’way back. I’m not sure I want to know how far back, actually—but at least I didn’t have to dance with the truth here, as I’d had to do with Henry.

  “She’s entered her tree and is taking healing there. It’s the opinion of my grandsire that she has taken a wound to her soul. Sempeki is not…kind to souls, and especially to those souls rooted in the very heart of the Changing Land. I hope—but cannot know—that she will emerge soon, and hale.”

  “That must be the hope of all of us who value her,” Nerazi said solemnly. “And your lady mother, does she thrive? She also was struck to the soul in Sempeki, was she not?”

  The torment my mother had endured had nothing to do with Sempeki. She’d freely given her soul to the man who had murdered our House, in exchange for my safe passage to Gran. The man who had taken my mother’s soul and sinned upon it as if it were his own—he was dead now; my mother’s soul was returned to her, and she had the…courage, I suppose it is, to have forgiven him. To pity him, who had laid waste to Houses and bloodlines not only in the Land of the Flowers, but across all of the Six Worlds. We got off light here in the Changing Land, but we really don’t have much for an Ozali to want.

  “My mother is frail, but improving. Dancing at Midsummer Eve was a tonic for her.”

  “Excellent. Her many friends hope to see her soon and often among us.” Nerazi sipped wine. “Friend Borgan, you may wish to know that the ronstibles have again taken up residence in their natural abode.”

  I sat up straight, my heart cramping in my chest. Ronstibles are sea witches, close enough, and not too very long ago, the pair of them tried their very best to kill Borgan—or at least imprison him indefinitely. He’d managed to elude them, but—

  “You told me you’d taken care of them!” I blurted.

  Borgan threw me a startled glance over his shoulder, then held out a hand.

  “It’s okay, Kate,” he told me.

  I put my hand in his.

  “How exactly is this okay? If they’re on the loose, they can start hunting you again. And if they catch you, they might not stop at just putting you to sleep this time!”

  “Well, see, I can’t destroy them—I told you that, remember it? They’re the sea’s children; I’m the Guardian. They’re just exactly how the sea made them.” He paused, his fingers warm around mine. “I could’ve imprisoned them, but that brings a whole ’nother set of problems. Nerazi and I did sort of suggest that they not come back into Saco Bay, but Saco Bay’s their home.”

  “So, if you didn’t kill them, or imprison them, what did you do to make yourself safe from them?” I asked, in what I felt was, under the circumstances, a reasonably calm tone of voice.

  Borgan glanced at Nerazi.

  “We made it so, besides not being able to directly do me harm, which the sea enforces—Nerazi and I, we made it so they can’t touch me; can’t come within ten feet of me without being repelled. That’s written in the Gulf now, wave and water.”

  “It is also,” said Nerazi, “written into the ronstibles’ souls. I made sure of that binding, Princess. The ronstibles will break themselves before they are able to place one webbed finger upon Borgan’s knee.” She moved plump shoulders in a shrug.

  “The fact that they have returned to the place they hav
e made their home for a very long time, is not…surprising. But it was noticed, and Borgan needed to be made aware.” Another sip from the Bug Light mug, which she lowered, her head tipped to one side.

  “I believe they are about to begin,” she said quietly.

  And right on cue came the thump of a canister being launched, followed by the bright blooming of a red flower directly over our heads.

  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 f
riends, 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.”