Carousel Seas – eARC

by Sharon Lee

  “A Powerball ticket?” I hadn’t known Gaby played. “She a winner?”

  Daddy’s laugh had an edge to it.

  “Is she a winner?” He repeated. “Well, I’ll tell you, I figured she might’ve caught a couple grand—big money for a little freak, right?—so, this morning, I come in early and walked around the corner to the Variety. You know how they put the big winning number up in the front window?”

  I nodded.

  Daddy shook the ticket at me.

  “This number was right there, up in lights. I ducked inside and asked Morris if there was more’n one winner. Just a single, he said—for one and a quarter million bucks.”

  He shook the ticket again, for emphasis.

  “One and a quarter million,” he repeated. “And she leaves it with me? It ain’t even signed—” He twisted his wrist, showing me the back of the ticket.

  “What the hell? She can’t mean me to have—No, she don’t mean me to have it—or not all of it—or she wouldna told me to keep it safe. Thing is, I don’t want to be holding this thing any longer than I gotta. And what I don’t have is a good way to get hold of her.” He gave me a tight grin. “And I figured you might—have a way to get hold of her.”

  “I can find her,” I said, frowning at the lottery ticket. One and a quarter million. That kind of money would change anybody’s life—even the life of a trenvay.

  “How’s this?” I said to Daddy. “I’ll find Gaby and ask after her intentions. Can you keep the ticket safe until I report back?”

  “Can and will. What I don’t want is to hold it long.” Another grin, slightly wider. “This ain’t no quarter, doll.”

  I laughed.

  “There’s that. I’ll let you know as soon as I’ve got answers. You’ll be here?”

  “All day, all night.”

  “You need to get out more,” I told him earnestly, as I went ’round the bar, “see people.”

  He laughed, sounding a little more natural.

  I nodded at Cael and headed for the door.

  * * *

  I left dog and man with Felsic at the baseball toss. I’d expected an argument from Cael, but it turned out that he was on board with the notion that Gaby’s service would insure that I was in no danger from her.

  Freed to my own recognizance, I queried the land, anticipating a nudge toward downtown, but instead found my feet taking me down Milliken Street, toward Walnut. Just short of the corner, I angled across the municipal parking lot, to the edge of a piece of wild land, its border an unwelcoming tangle of sea rose and saplings, woven together with wild grape vines.

  I stopped at the edge of the barrier, and, as if I had been on the edge of Gran’s wood, murmured, “It’s Kate.”

  Nothing happened; no welcome whispered inside my ear, nor did I acquire a sudden urge to be elsewhere. Leaves moved on the saplings and the sea roses, but under the same breeze that was teasing strands out of my braid.

  I took a breath, and reached to the land as I spoke her name lightly.

  “Gaby.”

  Some more nothing happened, then the bank of the roses directly before me parted like a curtain, and there stood Gaby, looking up at me with calm eyes.

  What had Daddy said? That Gaby had seemed steady last night, with none of the flinching tentativeness that usually characterized her? I saw what he meant; felt what he meant, too, because Gaby had more weight on the land, now.

  “Kate,” she said. “I was gonna come see you.”

  “I didn’t intend to screw up your timing, but you freaked Daddy out bad. He called me.”

  Gaby snorted. “That man don’t freak.”

  “In the usual way of things, I’d say you’re right. But he’s not comfortable holding that ticket. I caught the idea that he doesn’t trust himself with that much money, even if you don’t have a similar problem.”

  “I’m holding his coin,” she pointed out.

  “A lot less worth in that—I’m talking about Daddy’s point of view, here. He’s mundane, even if he’s not blind. A quarter and a million and a quarter—they don’t equate with him like they do with us. He’s scared he’s going to steal from you, and he wants this settled before he cracks. I’ll call that a good man—and a man who knows his limits.”

  She sighed, and nudged the gimme hat back up on her head.

  “He’s not gonna steal from me. Not so long as I hold his coin.” Another sigh. “Shoulda told it better, I guess, but I thought he knew. Safer with him than me, ’til I talked to you.”

  “I think even Daddy’d agree with that. I’m here, now; if you got time to talk?”

  “Sure. C’mon in.”

  She faded through the rose bank, and I followed her, keeping scrupulously to the path the land showed me—just a couple dozen steps, really, until I stepped out into a tiny clearing; a couple stumps at convenient height for sitting, a carpet of plush green moss, and salt cedars guarding the perimeter.

  “Sit an’ be comfortable,” Gaby told me, and I pulled up a stump.

  She sat across from me and took off her cap, running fingers through flattened hair.

  “I didn’t know you played the lottery,” I said, when a couple minutes passed without her doing anything more than resettle the cap.

  She sent me a quick, sharp glance, and snorted.

  “I don’t. But that ticket—it was in the returnables; mine by agreement.”

  A trenvay’s agreement is a potent thing, and I really couldn’t argue against it. If whoever had thrown the ticket away had been Sighted enough to make an agreement with Gaby, then they were Sighted enough to know they were dealing with somebody…Other.

  Or not. It’s amazing, how ignorant people are.

  Give it your best shot, Kate, I told myself.

  “The folks who agreed to let you have the returnables probably weren’t thinking in terms of winning lottery tickets,” I pointed out, gently.

  “Who’d I give it to at the town, then?”

  At the town? I frowned, memory providing a clear picture of Gaby rummaging through the beach trash cans. Not an unusual sight, at all. It just hadn’t ever occurred to me that she might have an agreement.

  “You got permission from the town manager?” I asked.

  She shook her head.

  “One mornin’, backaways, a feller in the beach jitney seen me ’bout my business, and asked me what was I doin’. Said I was after the returnables, and anything else useful, just like I done for years. An’ he said, well then fine, you go ahead and keep doin’ that.” She nodded once, decisively.

  “Said Department of Public Works on his jitney and on his slicker. His shirt said Nathan Quin.”

  The land volunteered the information that Gaby was telling the truth, though I hadn’t doubted her. This put a new complexion on the matter.

  Nathan Quin, whoever the heck he was, stipulating that he was alive, much less still employed by Archers Beach Public Works—neither of which was a certain thing, “backaways” being one of those words trenvay use when they want to obscure how long ago a particular event had taken place—Nathan Quin was not necessarily the original owner of the winning lottery ticket now in Daddy’s uneasy possession. Very likely, it had been accidentally thrown out, along with the soda cans, by a tourist. Who, if they were fortunate, would never miss it.

  And if they weren’t fortunate, it wasn’t really any of Gaby’s lookout. The ticket hadn’t been signed, which put it squarely in Finders Keepers territory.

  “Now, what I was thinkin’,” Gaby said, “is for you to take that ticket right down to Mr. Emerson and have him buy the land under the park. Ain’t nobody’s gotta know where the money come from.”

  Well, no. Somebody was going to have to pick up the check, and pay the taxes, but that wasn’t the first problem with this plan.

  “That’s generous, Gaby, but, here’s the thing—it’s not enough money to buy Fun Country’s land. They want over two million.”

  Gaby blinked, and made a recover.
>
  “Down payment, then.”

  That wasn’t a bad idea, either. A million-buck down payment would ease the pressure on the town, if the leaseback went through, and on the proposed limited liability corp., in the far-likelier-in-my-opinion case we were left to our own bootstraps. But there was something else. Something I’d heard…

  “Kate?”

  “Sorry, thinking,” I said, and continued to do so; letting myself sink a little into the easy contentment of this little piece of land. It was a nurturing and patient parcel, mixed wood, here by the parking lot, going to wetland up across from the old condos on Walnut. Ducks used the water there, and the occasional little white egret. There were frogs in abundance, cattails and a few water lilies. The trees sheltered the usual population of small lives and birds.

  In sum, it was a pleasant little wild space, that nicely balanced the parking lot next door.

  “Town owns this parcel, you said?” I asked Gaby.

  She nodded, her eyes narrowing.

  “They say charity begins at home,” I said. “So here’s what I’m thinking. Why don’t we—by which I mean I—ask Henry Emerson to find out how much the town wants for this land right here? My idea is to buy it and get it designated an in-town wild space—I’m betting that Ms. Wing, the librarian, will be able to put us in touch with the right State agency for that. That’s first, so you don’t have to lose any more sleep over whether or not they’re going to take the notion to plow you under for an auxiliary lot.”

  Gaby’s eyes had widened. She was trenvay, and her land came first with her.

  I’d kind of been counting on that.

  “Will…will Mr. Emerson do that, for me?”

  “He’ll do it for his fee, like the sane, sensible man he is. After we know how big a dent buying your land’ll put in your winnings, you can think about what you want to do with the balance. Might be something to buying up other bits and pieces around town, and setting them up as wild spaces, too. Or you might want to donate toward buying the land under Fun Country, or, hell, setting up a hotel for lost cats. But, that’s for later. If you want, I can stop by Henry’s office on my way back downtown and ask him to make the call.”

  “Yes!” Gaby said, her eyes blazing. “Please.”

  “I’ll do that, then. In the meantime, you be thinking about how you want to handle collecting the check from the Lottery Commission. If—”

  “You,” Gaby interrupted.

  I blinked. “What?”

  “You collect the money, and keep it safe,” Gaby said, rising to her feet, and looking down at me, her face bright and fey. “You’re Guardian—makes sense that it’s you, ’specially if there’s going to be these wild spaces—I like that, Kate. I like that a lot. It’d mean we’d be—we’d have less risk. Lil—you remember Lil?”

  “Sure I do.”

  “If she’d owned her own bit, that guy wouldn’t’ve been able to dump his septic truck and, and poison her, like he did!”

  That wasn’t certain, by any means, but I didn’t interrupt her.

  “I’ll think on it,” she continued. “There’s Fun Country, too. Town needs it—the whole town does, and I don’t wanna stint.”

  “No stinting,” I said, trying to sound soothing. “Nobody could think that.” I rose, and looked around me at the sweet little grove.

  “Nice place you got here.”

  Gaby smiled.

  “Is, isn’t it?”

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Wednesday, July 12

  High Tide, 12:50 P.M. EDT

  Her ebon lover had sated her; her ivory lover had soothed her. She lay among—almost she lay within—the strong waters of the pool, cherished and held close. Half dreaming within that constant embrace, she recalled a past.

  The sea was black and stormy; the sounds of fright and horror drew her. Foolish humans to go where they were never meant to go. She rose, grabbed one by his hair and pulled him into her embrace, covering his mouth with hers, and descending, until he let go his paddle; his desire warming the waters.

  When they were of a sufficient depth, she took her mouth from his. He gasped, and the sea flowed into his lungs; his eyes grew wide with terror; he reached for her even as the waters entered him, and she laughed to see him die.

  To the surface again, passing her sister, tenderly cradling a woman, the babe in its carrier already full of water.

  This time when she surfaced, knives met her. She leapt over their foolish craft, and snatched one kneeling at the stern, his bow and his attention focused on the depths. That one fought her on the way down; she tore out his throat and left him for the sharks.

  Her sister likewise slashed her next and left the body, drifting.

  They looked, each at the other. They looked above them, where the canoes floated.

  As one, they drove upward, slamming into the bottom of one with such force that it overturned, spilling all of the prey, screaming, into their arms.

  The sharks surged, she grabbed a sweet morsel, opened her mouth—and…the sea changed around them. She and her sister floated, caught inside the sea’s fascination. Even the sharks were still; the bloody water scarcely moved.

  A voice crashed around them like lightning: pain stitching through a truth so potent she tried to flee back under the waters, until the walls of their abode sheltered her from this voice, this truth, this…passion.

  “I bargain for my people! Give them their freedom! Give them their lives! Take me—I come willing, to love you and to serve you, for all of my life!”

  The sea…sighed. She—she hung, drained of all power, within waters glorious with love.

  Around her, the sea stirred; the sea gathered. She felt some part of her flow away, into the gathering wave; she was buoyed when it rushed past her, lifting her into ecstasy.

  The wave crashed; the sea swept the man into her embrace.

  He was afraid—no, he was terrified, his soul-light flickering. The backwave carried his terror to her and to her sister. It was sweet, and they drank of it, laughing.

  But the next ripple carried…a diminishment of fear, and the third was informed not with fear, but with wonder. His soul regained its glow, feeble at first, then more brightly, as the essence of the waters informed him, and he began to know what he had dared to become.

  His soul blazed in the currents then, and he gave himself to her, who was their mother. Gave himself as one who loved, as an equal; even as the sea accepted and loved him, her equal. They flowed into each other, sharing everything that they were—power to power, and heart to heart.

  Held rapt by the sea’s adoration, she was forced to witness. She could scarcely think, but she could feel her loss, all too keenly.

  Everything she had ever known, everything she had felt, the very certainties upon which her existence was built…

  Everything was changing.

  She raised her face then…and screamed.

  * * * * *

  Henry was on the case, promising to make the call that very morning, and let me know just as soon as he had ascertained the asking price for Gaby’s little piece of heaven.

  From there on, it got harder.

  “I’ll need to call in a financial expert, Kate. We’re fortunate that Beth Ordover’s right up in Portland.”

  “We are?”

  “We are,” he said firmly. “One of the top two or three in the country at what she does. I’ll make that call, too.”

  So, having put a considerable number of wheels into spinning, I went back to the midway, thoughts half occupied with what I might devise to keep Cael happily occupied. Might need to train him on the carousel, or see if anybody uptown needed a dogsbody. Not that gruntwork was a long-term solution; I was just looking for something to keep the devil from setting up a workshop.

  But, as was so often the case, I’d spent perfectly good worries on nothing. Cael was happy to continue to assist Felsic at the baseball toss, and Felsic was happy to have him with her.

  “Okay. If either
of you need me, you know where to find me,” I said, and wove my way through a surprisingly large crowd, given that the day was sunny, and already hot.

  “What a disappointment,” I heard a woman saying to her escort. “I didn’t know jellies came this far north.”

  “The waves are better in Ocean City,” opined a young man to his young brother. “You can bodysurf.”

  I frowned, and swung left, deviating from my intended course, and followed the wooden walkway over the dunes.

  There were some people on the beach, though not as many as the day warranted, and no one at all in the water.

  I crossed the beach to the ocean’s edge, past the lifeguard tower, flying its red flag—no swimming, that meant. It was usually deployed for storm tides, but today’s sea didn’t look stormy.

  Sort of the opposite, actually.

  I stopped at the water line, and looked about me.

  Jellies—by which I mean jellyfish—littered the wet sand. There were more in the water, red at the center and trailing hundreds of silvery tentacles. No sharing the water with those; their stings weren’t fatal—usually—but they hurt like hell. So that was what the red flag was about.

  As for the sea…

  The waves were sluggish, at best—definitely not bodysurfing waves, even if the body in question was jellyfish-proof—and the color was a sort of slate green, though the sky was clear and blue. There was a breeze, though not much of one; the air was heavy and carried a faint odor, which was maybe what fried jellyfish smelled like.

  I wondered where Borgan was, and if he knew that matters were this bad—but of course he knew. The Gulf of Maine was his service.

  And the Gulf of Maine was in mourning.

  I frowned, staring out over the turgid water, and reached for the land.

  The sense I received was slightly puzzled, and more than a little sorrowful. I understood—there was nothing the land or I could do here, except hope that Borgan’s contact—the guy who was “hard to net”—actually had some answers for him.

  * * *

  “Yeah, well, this is fine for a day,” Jess was saying, while I leaned against against the rail by the operator’s station. “Let it go on ’til tomorrow, even, and people’ll be takin’ their business up Route One to the strip, or the movies, up Freeport, or down to the Kittery stores, and we’ll be twiddling our thumbs, wishing for something to do, and wondering how we’re gonna live the winter.”