“I napped when you napped.”
“I’m planning on the same thing.” Otto smiled at his mother. “Thank you for coming. You’ve been so patient. Just ... thank you.”
Rachel’s eyes glistened but the tears no longer fell so readily for either of them. “You just take good care of her. I’ll be back in a few weeks to check in.”
“I will, Mother.”
A whistling sound heralded the tram’s arrival. Moments later it slipped into the station with a squeal of magnetic brakes and a gust of ozone-charged air. The doors whooshed open and a half dozen people got out, scurrying off without looking up.
Leaving a kiss on his cheek, Rachel stepped onto the tram. She paused at the door. “Take good care of you, too,” she said.
“I will, Mother.” Otto had just time to say it before the doors whooshed closed and the tram pulled out, accelerating on its magnets until the whistle of its passage died away.
Otto stood on the platform for a few moments more. He looked down at his daughter, still asleep and unfazed by the bustle and noise of the tram. He felt a smile tugging his lips and he marveled. After a few heart-stopping moments, he’d mastered the sling. He’d been certain that he would drop her trying to get her into or out of it, but found it quite secure. After a bit of practice, it became second nature. Her slight weight offered no burden, and he only had to remember not to bang her into things, which was no real hardship. The warmth of her cuddled next to his heart worked wonders on his mood.
Otto took up his staff and strolled back along the platform toward the beach and the waiting cottage. It would be time to feed her by the time he got back. He sighed and felt a strange contentment that he was—at last—going to spend time alone with his daughter. The noise and obligation to his guest, welcome though she might have been, had just left on the tram. Instead he heard the familiar whispering of the breeze past his ears and the tinkling of the shells on his staff. The comforting sounds always served to center him, to focus him. He glanced down at her once more and felt his smile broadening as they went.
* * *
The cottage felt strange to him. For the first time since he could remember, he had little to do. Sarah slept, his mother had cleaned the cottage—removed Carla’s clothing and toiletries. She’d left a box of fishing gear in the closet, but the bedroom felt out of kilter without the little things that mattered. She’d even left him a large pot of soup. He’d have food for a week, if he didn’t get bored from eating the same thing every meal.
He considered trying to carve a bit, but lethargy settled on him like a blanket. He settled onto the divan, his gaze going to the worn cushion beside him. He put his feet up and snuggled down, pulling the comforter off the back to wrap himself in. He let his tears slide down, washing his cheeks silently for a few moments until he fell asleep.
Sarah woke him with a little hiccupping cry after what seemed like only moments. He blinked awake and had to turn on a light to see her. A quick whiff told him why she’d cried and a glance at the clock reminded him that both of them needed dinner.
“Okay, kiddo. Let’s get you cleaned up and we’ll see what we have in the cooler.”
He scooped her up and found solace in the little things for a time. Eventually, she nodded off and he put her back in her bed. He folded the comforter and draped it over the back of the sofa once more. He slipped another stick onto the fire and savored the small wisps of wood smoke. His stomach growled.
“Time to feed me, I guess,” he said, and went off to warm the soup.
After his meager meal, he rolled the bassinet into the bedroom and made sure she was zipped into one of the sleepers before shucking off his outer clothes and sliding between the sheets of his very cold and empty bed. He reached over to touch the covers on the other side before sleep claimed him.
He didn’t struggle against the sandman. He’d be awake in a couple of hours and needed to get some rest. If he was going to take care of Sarah, he needed to take care of himself as well.
CHAPTER FIVE
Cape Grace: May 15, 2332
OTTO CHECKED THAT SARAH’S hat was tied under her chin and her jacket was zipped up. He’d already checked her boots and mittens. He knew if he checked much more, he’d have to start again from the beginning so he opened the door to the brilliant but chilly morning. “All right, Sarah. Time for walking.”
“Walkin’,” she said, and marched out the door, arms swinging and knees high.
Otto grinned, taking up his staff and hat before hurrying outside to make sure she’d not gone too far without him. His gathering bag hung over a shoulder, they started down the long stretch of coarse sandy beach. A higher than normal tide overnight had brought in a bounty of driftwood and seaweed.
Sarah stopped at the edge of the sand and waited for him to catch up. She looked up at him. “Carry me?”
“Can’t. Have to find driftwood. You’ll have to walk.” He held in a smile. She always asked and he had been refusing for almost a year.
“Hard walkin’ san’.”
Otto nodded, keeping a serious expression on his face. “It is hard walking in the sand sometimes. Come on, then. Best get started.” He took a few steps out onto the loose sand and peeked over his shoulder to make sure she followed.
“Okay, okay. Walkin’.” She stepped onto the sand and followed in his footsteps.
A bent and twisted piece of wood half buried in the sand caught his eye. He stooped to pick it up. There was something in it, but he couldn’t tell what. He held it up to the light and turned it this way and that before putting it into his bag. Some pieces were like that. More lately but perhaps he was just getting old.
Sarah tottered along on her stumpy legs, her warm clothes giving her a bit of a waddle, but she didn’t seem to mind. She kicked at a pile of seaweed, missed, and fell on her padded rump. She giggled and climbed back to her feet. “Missed it,” she said with a shrug before kicking it again. Her boot connected solidly and the small knot of weed flipped over. A tiny sand crab had sheltered under it and scooted off to find more cover. Sarah squeaked and pointed. “Crab, Dada. Foun’ a crab!”
Her antics never ceased to amuse and sometimes amaze him. “You did, indeed, clever girl. What else can you find?”
“What you fin’?” she asked, patting his bag.
“Only one piece so far,” he said, pulling a long face. “I’ll have to work harder to find more.”
They wandered along, Otto picking up pieces and tossing most of them back to the sand.
Sarah found one and tried to throw it out into the waves but her short arms couldn’t get enough momentum behind it. She splashed the lacy edges of the wave with her boots.
“Don’t get too close, Sarah.”
“Won’. Just ’plashin’,” she said her eyes as bright as her smile.
He found a pile of small loose sticks and stirred it with the butt of his staff. He crouched down to look more closely. Sarah ran over and put her hands on her knees, bent over the pile.
“Wha’cha fin’?”
“Sticks,” Otto said and picked up a smooth, gray stick about a centimeter across and several long. “See?”
“Good stick?” she asked, tilting her head to the side and staring at the wood.
“Just a stick, I think,” Otto said. “I’ll save it.” He tucked it into his gather bag.
“You carve it?” she asked, squinting up at him against the sunlight.
“Maybe. Maybe use it in the fire.”
She nodded and leaned over again, looking at the collection of driftwood.
Otto spotted a nicely twisted and gnarled piece. He picked it up and turned it back and forth, looking for the grain.
“Carve it?” Sarah asked again, looking at the wood in his hand.
“Maybe. Looks like a cat, I think.”
She bit her lip and nodded. “Cat. You founded it.”
He didn’t see anything else that he liked so straightened up and started down the beach once more. “Come a
long, Sarah. We have a lot more beach to cover.”
“All righty, Dada.” She stood and clapped her mittens, shaking off the sand before trotting along behind him.
They trudged along for half a stan, picking up pieces of stick and shell. Mostly they tossed them back down but occasionally Otto slipped one into his bag.
Every so often, Sarah picked up a piece and presented it to him. He always accepted her small gifts and, after a serious examination, slipped each into his bag.
It was a game they had played most fine days since the heart of winter had broken.
The coughing sound of a boat’s engine starting up wafted across the bay.
Otto shaded his eyes with his free hand and looked across the water.
“What is it?” Sarah asked.
“Fishing boat. Getting ready for the season.” He looked down at her. “You remember last year? The fishing boats?”
Sarah squinched up her face and made a show of trying to remember. “Nope.”
“During the fishing season, the boats go out and catch fish for people to eat.”
“We eat fis’?” she asked.
“Indeed we do, my girl. Indeed we do.”
“Fis’ is good?”
“We like it very much.”
She seemed to take his assertion at face value and mimicked his stance, raising a hand to stare for a few moments before turning back to the beach. “Come on. Fin’ sticks,” she said.
Otto chuckled a little and joined her. “Perhaps it’s time to walk back now.”
Sarah looked up at him and then back down the beach the way they’d come. “Okay. Have a snack?”
“We’ll have lunch when we get back home.”
She seemed to ponder that for a few moments. “Okay. Lunch and snack.”
He chuckled again. “At least one of those.”
They walked back along the sand, walking where they hadn’t left tracks yet. They fell back into their quiet sauntering, picking up and discarding sticks—occasionally finding a pretty shell or interesting piece of sea glass. Some of them went into his gather sack.
They approached the end of the beach once more. As Otto stepped onto the path to the cottage, Sarah came running up with one last piece of driftwood. “Foun’ a crab,” she said, offering the wood to Otto.
Her grin made him smile back at her before he looked closely at the wood. When he reached for the stick, he nearly snatched his hand back.
For just one moment he saw a sand crab hidden in the small flattened driftwood in her mittened palms.
He took the offered wood and held it up to the light. The sand crab showed itself to his practiced eye once more, locked behind the twists and grain but there.
“What do you think it is?” he asked, looking down at the earnest face gazing up at him.
“Crab. Foun’ it.”
He looked at the wood and then back at Sarah. “Yes, you did.”
She beamed. “Lunch now?”
He slipped the piece of wood into his sack and nodded. “Lunch now. You hungry?”
“We have fis’?”
“Probably a sandwich.”
“Cheese sammich?”
He grinned at her. “Peanut butter?”
She brightened even more. “Jelly?”
“If we must,” Otto said and struck off down the path. “It will be a great hardship, but I’ll make the sacrifice.”
“Good,” she said and took his hand, walking beside him. “Whew. Long walk tucked me right out.”
“Me, too,” Otto said, looking down at her. “Me, too.”
After a lunch of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches with some crunchy carrot sticks, Sarah toddled off to nap without complaint.
Otto retrieved his gather bag and pulled the sticks out, sorting the larger sticks into the wood box beside the stove. After so many stanyers he could usually spot good whelkies relatively quickly. The wood itself seemed to flow differently. The grain and twists marked the trapped animal figures for his blade to free.
He stared at each stick as it came out of the bag, occasionally finding the figure immediately. More often the figures were elusive, if they were there at all. He pulled out Sarah’s sand crab and for a moment it seemed like the tiny crab scuttled across his palm. He stared at it for a dozen heartbeats. He set the driftwood aside for later and pulled out another piece. A stick of firewood, nothing more, so he placed it into the wood box. As he pulled his hand back, he saw the sinuous shape of a weasel in a stick right on the top of the waste pile.
He pulled it out and held it up to the light. Did he miss it? Was it a stick he hadn’t actually looked at before discarding? He placed it gently beside the sand crab and sat very still for a long time.
CHAPTER SIX
Aram’s Inlet: September 18, 2332
JIMMY PIRANO STARED out over the bay for what must have been the ten thousandth time. “What’s her name again? Shelly something?”
“Shelly Chambers,” Tony said, taking a sip from his mug. “Lives out at Bleak Point.”
“Her father a shaman?”
“Yeah.”
“He putting her up to it?”
“Nope. He’s fighting her on it.”
Jimmy turned back to look at Tony. “Seriously?”
Tony nodded.
Jimmy sat behind his desk and let that idea roll around. “You know why?”
“Why he’s fighting or why she’s pushing?”
“Him.”
“Not directly but the story is that he sees it as a lost cause and she just needs to get over it,” Tony said. “That’s what Harriet Drover says.”
“Drover’s the company rep?” Jimmy asked.
Tony nodded. “You know her?”
Jimmy shook his head. “Name only. There’s thousands of them.”
Tony snickered. “Yeah. Well. I looked her up. Twenty plus years as rep at Bleak Point. Spotless record. People seem to like her. She’s got good recommendations from the regional supervisor. They’re doing well in terms of managing quotas and budgets.”
“She’s not putting this Chambers girl up to it?”
“Not as far as I can tall, and it’s Chambers woman. She’s thirty-four. Married. Two kids.”
Jimmy gave his head a shake. “Why? She’s married. Doesn’t need the title. What’s going on?”
Tony shrugged. “I’d guess she just wants to be recognized as a shaman instead of the wife of the harbormaster.”
“She’s got about as much chance of that as I do of flying,” Jimmy said. “What’s the mister say about it?”
“No idea. Drover forwarded the paperwork through channels with a note about Shelly’s father. Nothing about the husband.”
Jimmy sighed and started typing on his console.
Tony sipped his coffee.
“You wanna run down to Bleak Point with me?” Jimmy asked, pausing to look across the desk.
Tony shook his head. “Not really. Long trip. What d’you hope to find out?”
Jimmy settled back in his chair and laced his fingers together over his chest. “I’m not sure. I want to know what’s behind this. Why now?” He reached for the keyboard again but paused, his fingers on the keys. “Don’t you have some books to cook or something?”
Tony laughed. “Or something.” He levered himself out of the chair and ambled toward the door. “You really need an assistant that’s not me.”
Jimmy snorted. “We tried that once. That didn’t work out so well.”
Tony paused at the threshold, looking back at his boss. “You need to learn to delegate more, Jimmy.”
Jimmy waved a hand. “I delegate. I delegate to you.”
“Yeah,” Tony said, his lips screwed into a grimace. “You need to learn to delegate more to somebody who’s job it is to be delegated to.”
Jimmy shook his head and grunted. “Find me somebody.”
“Do I look like I work in Personnel?”
“You work across the hall from them,” Jimmy said, shaking his
head. “And you know me. If anybody can find me an assistant, it would be you.”
“Yeah, Nicolas worked out so well,” Tony said.
“Not Nicolas. Nicolas couldn’t find his ass with either hand. Book smart. People stupid.”
Tony snorted and waved a dismissive hand in Jimmy’s direction before walking through the doorway, leaving the door open behind him.
Jimmy sighed. “Damn bean counters.” He turned his attention to the screen and sending messages to Harriet Drover and Jack Flanagan. Another woman looking to be recognized as a shaman would not sit well with home office. He needed a lot more to go on before he booted this ball up the field.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Bleak Point: September 20, 2332
HARRIET DROVER MET Jimmy at the shuttle pad. A slender, middle-aged woman with a retro haircut and no apparent attempt to hide the gray streaks, she offered a hand as Jimmy stepped out of the flitter. “Mr. Pirano,” she said. “I didn’t expect you to come all the way to Bleak Point for this.”
Jimmy shook her hand. “Call me Jimmy, and it’s the fastest way for me to see what’s happening here.”
Drover nodded, swiping a bit of windblown hair out of her face. “I’m Harry or Drover, depending on who’s talkin’. My spouse calls me Harriet when she wants to piss me off.” She grinned and beckoned toward the admin building. “Let’s get settled and I’ll fill you in as best I can.”
Jimmy followed her through the hallways up and to the second floor to an office that could have been the mate to his own: the windows overlooking the harbor, the metal console, and a pair of chairs. She had a basket of greenery hanging in front of one of the windows and a different table against the side wall, but it looked so much like the one in his office that he did a double take.
She stood back from the console rather than taking her seat behind it. “Coffee? Tea?”
“Coffee would be greatly appreciated.”
Drover nodded and pressed a button on the console. “Alistair, would you bring us coffee, please?”
“Coming up.” The man’s voice sounded like he was standing in the room.
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