I slipped my T-shirt off and wrapped it around the scorpion key I’d removed from my neck. I hesitated at the edge of the boat, wondering how cold the water was.
“Hey, Viper! You’re in great shape — for a skeleton,” Doug said. He flexed his rugby-player muscles and smirked at me.
I ignored him and jumped into the water. Patches let out a worried whine, but didn’t follow.
The water in the North Sea was never all that warm, even in the summer, but as a man of the north, I was used to it. All the same, when I hit the water, my toes bunched up, my stomach clenched, and I felt the familiar sensation of goose bumps crowding my flesh. I burst through the surface and filled my lungs.
I spotted Aiby’s head above the water and followed her, doing the doggie-paddle so I could keep track of my distance from the reef below us. Much of the coast around Applecross was covered with gravel, but wherever shoals and reefs sprang up, towers like this one marked them. In some places, the sea floor was so deep that a submarine couldn’t even reach it.
As we swam, the blood in my veins began to warm. Schools of silvery fish darted below me. The undertow slammed me from one place to another, so I had to be careful to push off from the rock protrusions with my hands. After fifteen strokes I was nearly scraping the rock with my stomach. I got to my feet.
Aiby was several feet in front of me, moving with the agility of some sort of mystical sea monkey. She waited for the wave to crest, then balanced herself on her long legs and hopped from one stone to another. From there, she stretched out an arm until she could almost touch the wooden base of the signal tower. It had once been painted red and white, but the sun, wind, and salt had almost completely removed any color.
I watched as Aiby slipped a foot between the planks and pulled herself up, sticking to the tower like a spider in a web of wooden supports. I followed her, my cold gym shorts glued to my skin, dripping seawater.
“This way!” she said without even looking at me. “It should be up there.”
I didn’t know what she was talking about or how she could even know the structure of an old tower on a reef that she’d never seen before. But I climbed after her, grabbing the first of the cross-shaped boards and pulling myself up. I felt an encouraging wave of satisfaction. If there was one thing I was good at, it was climbing. Barn rooftops, trees, or signal towers, it mattered little — I could climb them all. I was skinny and weighed almost nothing, but strong enough that I could pull myself up with the fingers of one hand.
I climbed quickly — more quickly than Aiby, even. She was moving like a rock climber, her stomach pressed against the wood with at least two safe holds before reaching for a new one. I, on the other hand, climbed guided by animal instinct. I chose my handholds along the boards at the last minute, blindly relying on them.
I had almost reached the top when a piece of wood crumbled into a burst of splinters in my hand. I found myself connected to the tower by only my left hand, swinging fifteen feet above the bare rock of the reef, my legs dangling precariously. If I fell, the best possible outcome would be a broken leg.
I saw Doug below us, firmly gripping his binoculars. He might’ve been checking to make sure nothing bad happened to me, but knowing my brother, I figured he was aiming them at Aiby’s butt at the highest magnification possible.
I grunted and pulled myself up with the only hand that still had a firm grip. Another two grabs and I could see the wooden cage and the platform at the top. A beacon in the center could be lit to mark the presence of the reef during a storm. Aiby caught up with me, then we both squeezed through the bars. Her hair was shimmering from the water and her green eyes matched the color of the waves below us. She looked like a wild jungle creature accustomed to climbing trees. I felt like a land mammal trapped seventy-five feet above the ground.
Below us, my dog was running from one side of the boat to the other, as if trying to find the courage to dive in and follow me. Doug lowered his binoculars and bent over to pet Patches, trying to calm him. “Relax, old boy,” Doug said, handing my dog a tuna sandwich. “Those two will be back soon.”
I glanced out over the horizon. I could see all the way to the village. I recognized the little church and the post office, the dark-roofed cottages, and the old mill. There was the winding route of the Baelanch Ba — the oxen road — where it split and headed into Applecross. The other path led up into the mountains, which were completely covered by clouds.
I circled the tower. On the other side, the clouds were tangled up with the island of Skyle. Some gulls had taken flight near the coast, curious about our presence. The sea splashed below us in chaotic fashion, currents crossing each other in ominous whirlpools. At times, the rows of rock at the surface looked like a whale’s backbone.
Aiby was scratching away the salt deposits on one of the railings, seemingly looking for something. “Here it is,” she said, clinging to me. In the narrow space of the cage, I felt her wet skin press against mine. Even though I was careful to brush against her as little as possible, her hair kept brushing my neck.
Aiby was pointing to something carved into the wood. It was written in the Enchanted Language. I was so astonished by this fact that, incredibly, I managed to read it. “Tame the Leap of Magic,” I said.
“The Time for the Leap of Magic,” Aiby said, correcting me.
Well, I’d almost read it.
“Time is this place, Fin,” Aiby whispered. “And Magic is the sea down there below. It’s what surrounds us and hides us. Time and Magic are two sides of the same coin . . . like two things no longer able to be separated.”
Aiby faced me, her amazing green eyes six inches above my nose. I thought that Time had stopped high above the reef, and Magic was the distance separating our eyelashes. It felt infinite and immediate all at once.
Somehow we’d gotten even closer to each other. The tip of my nose was touching hers.
With her pressed next to me, it did feel like we were inseparable. And at that moment, for some strange reason I still don’t understand, I remembered the coin with two heads that I’d found in my jacket during Cumai’s funeral.
“My grandfather!” I suddenly exclaimed.
Aiby recoiled, bumping her head against the cage and pushing me away. She glared at me, the wind lifting her hair into the air so that it looked like snakes. “What are you talking about?” she asked.
I felt cold prickling across the surface of my exposed skin. I wasn’t sure what to say just yet, so I said nothing.
“In any case,” she growled, “it’s here at the top, Finley McPhee, that you can find out if you’re a Borderpasser or not.”
“Huh?” I asked her, completely confused — by her, the world, and myself. What had made me think of my grandfather right then?
Aiby pointed toward the waves, but I couldn’t focus. I felt overwhelmed by my stupidity. I peered out over the edge of the signal tower, keeping my balance. Down in the boat below us, my brother began waving his arms for me to climb down.
He was probably right. No matter where I looked, all I saw were the chaotic waves and endless expanse of the cloud-filled sky.
Mr. Lily had said magic happens when you believe it’s real. That it happens when you want it to be real. I’d been a fraction of an inch from kissing Aiby and I had completely ruined it. I remembered the Second Chance Watch I’d been given, but it was wrapped in my shirt in the boat. I wished I could use it to take me back in time to when my nose was touching Aiby’s.
Would I even get a second chance to kiss her? Or was that a once in a lifetime opportunity? I sighed.
“Finley McPhee?” Aiby said. “Are you okay?”
I snapped to, remembering I’d climbed up there to find out if I was a Borderpasser or not. Aiby looked frightened, as if she no longer thought I should take the leap of faith. I just smiled at her.
“Finley, if you don’t feel up to this, y
ou need to climb back down right away,” Aiby said.
Of course I didn’t feel up to it. I couldn’t feel up to doing something like that. Diving from that signal tower was more or less like throwing yourself off the third floor of a building . . . or like flying off a bicycle over a curve on the coastal road. The last time I’d done something like that, I had died and spent an extraordinary night inside a tree, playing cards with a magical creature.
Time and Magic.
A coin with two heads.
One male and one female.
I spread my arms wide. The wind, my friends, only speaks to madmen — and I heard it call my name.
I jumped.
“Finley!” Aiby screamed. Her hand brushed against my feet.
“FINLEY!” Doug yelled.
Patches barked loudly.
It was a fast drop.
I curled into a ball. I heard someone scream. I saw that Patches had finally found the courage to fling himself off the boat.
I closed my eyes and fell to pieces, like I’d dived into a mirror and shattered.
At first it hurt. The splinters began to sting. The wounds began to ooze sap. The sap thickened, running warm in my frozen veins.
I opened my eyes and found myself in silent darkness. But it was like the silence before a play begins, one brief moment before the curtain rises.
I waited.
Flashes of light flickered above me. I turned and saw the sky and the clouds passing by. They were moving fast while I remained motionless.
I saw the sea foam. I saw the exact spot where the rocks cut through the water, making it frothy. Bubbles of oxygen spread in all directions like pollen from a submerged flower. I floated, caught in a stasis that seemed to last an eternity.
I glimpsed a flash below me. Then another.
I turned again, and this time I saw the yardarm of an old ship, the wrecked and sunken carcass of a wooden relic. I touched something with the tip of my toe. I’d reached the bottom of the sea. I’d fallen thirty feet below the water’s surface, or maybe a mile. Impossible to tell.
The flash that had called to me was coming from an old coin. There were lots of them scattered across the sea bottom near a partly open trunk that had been swallowed up by algae.
The coins had no tails and two heads, the cargo of an ancient ship that had broken up along the reef and never returned.
Like Reginald Lily, I thought. Like the Reverend, maybe.
I took one, two coins. I took three. I grabbed a handful. I grasped them with my fingers and felt a pang in my heart. My head beat like a drum.
I was out of air.
Aiby, I thought.
I fluttered my legs and ascended, my eyes open as I aimed toward the shards of sky. The passing of clouds.
The passages.
I swam with only my legs, like a fish, and I rose.
I rose.
The air hit me like a slap.
I opened my mouth wide and gasped. The oxygen filled my lungs like it was electric.
“Patches!” I cried out.
He was swimming very poorly and his ears floated on top of the water like little furry creatures. All he could do was jump on my head and lick my face.
“Cut it out, buddy!” I cried. “You’ll drown me!”
I grabbed him by the collar and he clung to me. Somehow I began swimming toward the boat. I saw Aiby’s legs running along the reef. My vision was blurry.
I coughed furiously as my brother pulled me onboard, grabbing me by my gym shorts.
“A stupid brother!” he kept repeating. “That’s what I have — a stupid brother!”
I fell into the bottom of the boat and burst out laughing. The boat tilted as Aiby climbed in with Patches behind her. He jumped on top of me and licked my face.
I closed my eyes and opened them up again. “So?” I asked Aiby, who I found sitting next to me. “Am I a Borderpasser?”
This time, she smiled. “You are,” she replied.
“Of course you are,” Doug growled. “How else do you think you survived that?”
He pulled up the anchor and turned on the motor. I closed my eyes and opened them again, petting Patches.
I saw a gleam in the bottom of the boat. I stretched out my hand and grabbed a coin. Had I managed to bring one up from the bottom of the sea? Or was it the one I’d thrown from the hill on the night of the funeral? Had it landed in the boat docked below, totally by chance? That seemed unlikely.
But it was possible.
Anything was possible.
After all . . . I’m a Borderpasser.
All the lights were still lit at Cumai’s mill. They filtered through the closed shutters in the dark, making the mill look spooky to say the least. The old stone house had never seemed intimidating to me before. I’d passed by it many times, practically every one of the seventy mornings of school that I’d skipped to go fishing. The same seventy mornings that had caused me to flunk the school year.
The building was on the north side of town, perched on the riverbank like a tortoise made of white stone. It had no name. To us it was just “the old mill,” or “Cumai’s mill.” The river, however, was called the Calghorn Dinn, which meant “stinky puddle” in the language of the Little People. And I had spent many spring mornings along the banks of one of those puddles, fishing.
By the time we got there, it was already the middle of the afternoon. Doug stopped the boat a little bit upstream of where the river flowed into the sea, passing around a rock that was bigger than the rest. Before letting us step onto land, he warned us, “Either you tell me now what just happened or I’ll go to your parents and tell them everything.”
“You mean our parents, Doug?” I teased.
“Don’t try to be smart with me, Viper,” he said.
“I’m not trying to be smart,” I argued.
“Oh, yeah?” he erupted. “Then what do you call the ravens from last night? And what were you doing today at the tower? Testing your courage? You’re up to something.”
“Something, yes,” I admitted. “And I’m very sorry I involved you, but there wasn’t any other way to get to Sheir Thraid.”
Doug didn’t back off at all. “That goes for you, too, Aiby! No stories about picnics, giants, or I don’t know what. Not this time. I want the truth.”
“I’ll do what I can, Doug,” Aiby said.
“Then explain to me why we have to go into the house of someone who just died,” he said.
“Why do we need to go in there now?” I asked. “To turn off the lights, perhaps?”
Aiby gave me a dirty look. Before Doug could respond, she clarified, “We have to go look for a clue about Cumai’s brother.”
“What brother?” Doug insisted.
“Listen,” I stepped in. “Please just wait for us here, Doug.”
“Fat chance!” he shouted.
“Or at the pond,” I suggested. “It’s just for a minute. Go north from here until you get to the oak skull. Ignore the sign warning you to turn back. Then go one hundred or so steps farther. Your fishing rod is hidden in the hollow of the tree that was struck by lightning. There should also be some flies there so you can fish for a while.”
“My fishing rod?” Doug roared. “My fishing rod, Finley?!”
I’d made a mistake. A big one.
A while ago, I’d swiped Doug’s Deep Sea Victory fishing pole. When he’d been trying to prove I’d stolen it at the beginning of the summer, I’d narrowly managed to get to the pond just before he did to hide it. Ever since, I’d been waiting for things to calm down before putting the Victory back in its rightful place in Doug’s room.
I needed to change the subject quickly. “Okay,” I said. “Come to the mill with us and I’ll explain everything.”
Surprised by my change in attitude, Doug froz
e like a deer in the headlights of a car. In silence, he followed us toward old lady Cumai’s house. Patches trotted happily along at our feet.
The mill was silent. I couldn’t help but notice the glimmer of the electric lights sneaking through the blinds. I forced myself to examine the building.
Look, Finley, I thought. Look carefully.
The mill consisted of two floors and a dark thatched roof. The water in the stream was gurgling into many small pools that reflected the blue sky. The longer I looked, the more dense the tall shadows grew. Perfect for going to look for missing brothers and murderers.
We reached the wooden front door. It rested atop a massive stone doorstep. It was locked.
“Now what?” Doug asked.
“Somerled gave us the key,” I said.
“And who’s Somerled?” he asked.
“McBlack’s daughter,” I said.
“So why did McBlack’s daughter have the key to Cumai’s mill?” he asked.
“Actually, that’s a good question,” I admitted. “See, we have to go into the old mill because we think old lady Cumai was murdered.”
“Murdered? She was eighty years old,” Doug said. “And why? A crime of passion by her jealous, hundred-year-old secret lover?”
“That’s not funny, Doug,” Aiby said. “Cumai really was murdered.”
“Then who did it?” he asked.
“Semueld Askell,” she said.
Doug considered that for a moment. “I don’t know who that is.”
“He’s a dangerous visitor who’s hiding in the village,” Aiby said.
Doug snorted. “And he came all the way here to murder little old ladies?”
“Cumai wasn’t a normal old lady,” Aiby said.
“I agree with you,” Doug said. “She was a batty old lady.”
“Askell is a kinkishin,” I said, realizing the conversation was going nowhere.
“A what?” Doug asked.
“Someone who knows how to use Sidhe Strikes, I said. “They’re heart attacks. That’s how she was killed, with a Sidhe Strike.”
Map of the Passages: 3 (Enchanted Emporium) Page 6
