Otto thought about it for a few moments and shrugged. “Not bad for a short season with a new boat. I haven’t followed the landings numbers but we made enough to pay for bait and fuel and put together a nice contribution to the company by selling to the locals.”
“True. The bait operation paid off, too. Bobby and Henry stepped up. We didn’t need to order any bait from the Inlet for the whole last half of the season.”
“Is there a ‘but’ I’m not catching?” Otto asked.
Comstock gave a small shrug. “You outfished both the established boats combined.”
Otto shook his head. “I don’t understand. Is that a problem?”
“Is for them.”
“What’s that mean? Exactly.”
Comstock looked at his feet and kicked a small pebble around with the toe of his boot. “Shaman don’t need a job. Some see it as taking away from those that do.”
Sarah started to say something but Otto gave her a little shake of his head.
“Is there somebody who needs the job?”
“Nope. Just wanted to let you know what’s going on is all.”
“Much hard feeling?”
“Hard to judge,” Comstock said, squinting out over the harbor. “I’m only getting low-level rumbles. Thought you might keep an ear open over the winter. You may hear more than I do.”
“They’re not likely to complain where I can hear, but thanks, Ed.”
“Sure thing.” Comstock turned, sauntered past the crane and into the storage yard.
Otto started for the cottage with a nod to Sarah.
“That’s stupid,” Sarah said, the words hissing between her teeth.
“Not really. I should have expected it.” Otto glanced at his daughter. “Let it go. I may not need the job but you do. You had fun this summer, right?”
“I did.”
“Can you see yourself doing that for a few seasons?”
Sarah looked at him with a frown on her face. “Probably.” She looked out over the bay. “I had to listen differently out there. It’s harder.”
“As long as you’re employed by the company, you’re safe.”
“Or married to somebody who’s employed by the company,” she said.
“You’re only seventeen. Let’s cross that bear when we get to it, huh?” Otto grinned at her.
They walked along in silence for a few paces before Otto asked, “You got anybody in mind?”
Sarah laughed. “No. When would I have time? For the last six months, I’ve been on the boat, on the beach, or on my back sound asleep.”
Her words made Otto laugh in sympathy. “Yeah, well. We got a late start. You’ll have more time this winter.”
“Maybe.”
“You know you can spend more time in the village if you’ve a mind to.”
“Yeah.” Her sunny mood seemed to evaporate right before his eyes. “I don’t know.”
“Is there a problem?”
She shrugged and scowled at the path, not looking at him.
“So, that’s a yes but you don’t want to tell me about it?”
Her lips twitched in to a quick smile before going back to a firm line.
“You don’t have to tell me.”
They rounded the last turn and the cottage came into view.
“The other kids think I’m weird.”
Otto’s brows shot up. “Even the ones you went to school with?”
“That was a long time ago and most of them aren’t around much anymore.”
“Weird isn’t necessarily a bad thing,” Otto said.
“Is when they won’t talk to you. Won’t let you even sit near them.”
Otto sighed and led the way into the cottage. It promised to be a long winter.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Callum’s Cove: November 11, 2346
SARAH STOOD IN THE kitchen and tried to imagine her father growing up in this cottage. “What was he like?” she asked.
“Who? Your father?” Rachel asked.
“Yeah.” Sarah looked out the window over the sink. “I have a hard time thinking of him as my age at some point.”
Rachel laughed. “I think everybody has that problem with their parents. I can show you some digitals if you want. I have a few.”
“I’ve seen some. He looked so serious. Even as a little boy.”
Rachel sat back from her console and turned her seat to face Sarah. “He had his moments. I think he was happiest working with me on the boat.”
“That when you were crabbing?”
“Yeah.” Rachel sighed. “It was just a short time. Things were such a mess.”
“He said he wanted to be a fisherman,” Sarah said.
“Oh, yes. He worshiped the fishermen. Your grandfather wouldn’t have it.”
“Why not?” Sarah asked.
Rachel shrugged. “Part of it is that your grandfather has a very strong sense of duty. That shamans are called to service. He took that very seriously and felt that it required him to step back from the world of fishers and farmers.”
Sarah took a seat at the table. “I think Pop has that, too.”
“He does now. As a boy of ten or twelve? He really struggled with the whole son of the shaman thing.”
“I know that feeling,” Sarah said, almost under her breath.
Rachel laughed. “I understand, hon. I’m sorry you’re having to deal with this.” She crossed to the stove and put the kettle on, rummaging for tea in a cabinet. “Your father hated walking the beach as a kid.”
“Really? How could he hate that?”
Rachel bit her lips between her teeth and arranged empty mugs on the counter. “Let’s just say, he didn’t find a lot of joy in it.”
Sarah weighed that in her mind for a few moments. “I don’t get it.”
“Well, he never understood the point of it as a kid. Your grandfather might not have been the best teacher.” Rachel shrugged and offered an apologetic smile. “Honestly, I don’t think Richard really came into his gift until after that fish nearly killed him. He’s been a much-changed man since then.”
“Was that when my father started changing?”
The tea kettle started screaming. Rachel pulled it from the burner and poured the boiling water into the tea pot to steep. “No. He’d started before that. Sometime after his fourteenth birthday, I think. Maybe before.” She smiled at Sarah. “A bit younger than you are now.”
“I can’t imagine not being on the beach.”
Rachel set the timer and joined Sarah at the table. “I think it was frustration at not understanding what he should be looking for on the beach while looking out to see the boats heading out to fish. They tantalized him with what his father wouldn’t let him have. Not the best foundation for a relationship.”
Sarah felt a small giggle working up in her chest. “I bet.” An image came to mind of her father walking the beach, his staff in hand and a ready smile for her. “I’m lucky.”
Rachel raised an eyebrow.
“Other than his obsession with me getting married before the company kicks me off the planet, we’ve got a good relationship, I think.”
“You walk the beach with him?” Rachel asked.
“I keep track of the tides,” Sarah said, feeling the grin on her face. “The cottage is behind the headland and you can’t really see where the tide is from any of the windows. I try to always know where the tide is so we can go out.”
“He wouldn’t fib to you about that, would he?” Rachel asked, eyes wide in surprise.
“Not anymore.” Sarah grinned back. “Not for quite a while actually.”
The timer went off. Sarah poured the tea into the waiting mugs and slid one across the table to her grandmother.
“He only wants what’s best for you, you know,” Rachel said before taking a sip.
Sarah nodded. “I know. It’s just ... hard. If I were a boy, this wouldn’t even be an issue.”
Rachel sighed and nodded.
“I don’t
know what I’ll do,” Sarah said, hearing the wistfulness in her own voice. “I can’t imagine not walking the beach. Every pile of weed could hold a treasure. Every bump and hole in the sand might be hiding something interesting. Every day it’s something new. Every step changes what I can see.” She sighed. “I don’t want to leave.”
“Maybe you’ll find somebody.”
“What? On the beach?” Sarah asked. In her mind she saw a body stretched out on the sand for a moment before she realized what her grandmother meant.
Rachel laughed. “Maybe. People other than shamans walk the beaches, you know.”
“I know but for a just a heartbeat I thought you meant a body on the beach and couldn’t imagine how that might help me.”
Rachel laughed again and looked down into her mug. “It’s not much help, I know, but something to factor into your thinking. Sometimes what we want isn’t what we need. When we’re still young, we have this picture of how things should be. We spend so much time fretting over why they’re not that we sometimes overlook what could be.”
Sarah sighed. “What did you want when you were my age?”
“I wanted to get my captain’s papers,” Rachel said. “From the time I was old enough to walk the deck, I wanted my own boat.”
“What changed?”
“I did.” Rachel’s smile seemed a bit sad.
Sarah squinted a bit sideways at her grandmother. “You don’t say that like you mean it.”
Rachel laughed. “Oh, I mean it. I was definitely the thing that changed. I believe that it was the best thing for me. Truly. With all my heart.”
“But?”
“But no matter how old or wise or foolish or ... old you get, there’s always that little piece of you that will whisper ‘if only...’ in your ear.”
“What do you do?” Sarah asked.
Rachel shrugged and sipped her tea. “Every branch in the road takes you someplace new. It’s the journey that makes you who you are. Trying to go back again seldom works out and nobody can choose your path for you. Sometimes even you.”
Sarah focused on not burning her tongue on the hot tea as she tried to digest her grandmother’s words.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Cape Grace: November 12, 2346
OTTO FOUND THE SILENCE a bit unnerving. He had the place to himself for the first time since she’d been born. He found himself wandering from room to room. Touching a picture here, a piece of rock there. He peeked into Sarah’s small bedroom and tried not to look at the photograph. There was only one. The picture of Carla on her boat. The picture from the funeral.
The knock on his door gave him a start. He opened it to find an old man hunched a dark blue peacoat, a black knit cap pulled down almost to his brows. “You Krugg?” he asked before Otto could speak.
“Yep. Otto Krugg. Can I help you?”
The man’s cornflower blue eyes stared at him. “Mebbe. Kin I come in? Freezin’ out here.”
Otto stepped out of the doorway and the man entered.
“Jack Flanagan,” the man said, pulling his cap off and stuffing it into a pocket. “You know me?”
“Your name is familiar, but I can’t remember how I know it.”
“Your father’s Richard Krugg. Perhaps he mentioned me?”
“Senior shaman?”
He nodded.
“Yeah, I remember. My father mentioned you when I was trying to put together a quorum to approve a new talent.”
“Your daughter.” Flanagan’s mouth twisted into a grimace and he looked down at his shoes. “Sorry about that. Couldn’t be helped. Not then. Not now. Company politics. Might get us all kicked off planet.” He looked up at him, his eyes flashing. “She’s not here, is she?”
“Nope. Visiting her grandparents in Callum’s Cove. Cuppa tea?”
“Love one. Thanks.”
Otto led the way to the kitchen and set the kettle on. “Why?”
“If you mean the tea, it’s cold and I like tea.” He plunked himself into a kitchen chair and unbuttoned his coat. “If you mean why I want to know where Sarah is, just checking.”
“It’s just us.”
He nodded once. “Good. I’m not here. We didn’t speak. This isn’t happening. I’m over in Maggie’s Landing this week.”
“How am I seeing you? Astral projection?”
He chuckled. “Your father said you’d be pleased to meet me.”
“You’ve taken a lot of trouble to get me alone,” Otto said, taking the seat across from the old man. “Why?”
Flanagan thrust his hands in his coat’s pockets and slouched back in the chair, stretching his legs out under the table. He pursed his lips and appeared to stare at the salt shaker. “I signed a non-disclosure agreement with the company. I can’t tell you what it’s about. You should have heard enough rumors about the company and shamans that I don’t have to say anything more about it?” His sharp gaze met Otto’s across the table.
Otto nodded. “This isn’t about the contract, though, is it.”
Flanagan shook his head back and forth once. “Crabbing.”
“You want some crab?”
“I want you to stop.”
The old man’s quiet words smacked against Otto’s head. “Stop?”
“Yeah. You can’t be on the company payroll. Not now.”
“Why not?”
Flanagan’s lips pinched together and he gave his head a little shake. “You’re a shaman. You’ve got protection under the contract. For now.”
“So?”
“So if you stay on the payroll, you’re going to lose that protection.”
“That’s preposterous.”
“No. That’s in the contract. Nobody’s ever paid that much attention to it, but it’s there.”
“But I’ve worked for the company before.”
“You were crabbing with your mother when you were a kid. Yeah, on the payroll, but nobody pays attention to kids until they get old enough to be kicked off planet.”
“I worked as a deckhand in Maggie’s Landing.”
He shook his head again. “One season. Economic hardship, right?”
Otto felt the heat climbing the back of his neck but nodded. “I needed the credits for food and heating fuel.”
“Extenuating circumstances and nobody was watching back then. They are now.”
“Why?”
“Can’t say, other than what you’ve already heard.”
Otto bit his lip. “It must be serious or you wouldn’t be working under an NDA.”
“Your father said you were smart.”
“What’s the problem with crabbing now?”
“Company job. Company payroll. You’re still carvin’ whelkies and tendin’ the village, right?”
“Yeah. What I can.”
“So, if you can be a shaman and still work for the company, the argument might be made that all the other shamans should be working for the company.”
The kettle’s shrill call pulled Otto to the tea pot and he set some leaves to steep. He leaned against the counter and crossed his arms. “Maybe they should.”
“You know that’s not going to work. One season, sure, but long term? You can’t be part of the solution if you’re part of the problem.”
“I’m a shaman. I carve whelkies. I walk on the beach. Sometimes I help people who need a shoulder to cry on or an arm to lean on.”
“You listen to the world.”
“I listen to the world.”
“What’s the world sayin’ right now?”
Otto looked down at the floor and felt his lips tighten. “It’s been pretty quiet.”
“How’s the company treating the people here?”
“Comstock’s a good man. He’s looking out for them. He’s even helping me with Sarah.”
“Ever wonder why?”
Otto stood very still, just his eyes moving as he looked into the old shaman’s face. “You?”
“Let’s just say, I never had a conversation with Ed
Comstock.”
Otto poured the tea and joined Flanagan at the table. “Like you never had this conversation with me.”
Flanagan smiled and blew across the top of his mug.
“She’s too unfocused. Keeps wandering off,” Otto said.
Flanagan sipped. “She carve?”
“Yeah.”
“Show me?”
Otto picked up his mug and nodded. “Shop’s this way.” Otto led the older man to the workshop and spilled a can full of whelkies onto the bench. “These are some of hers.”
Flanagan stepped up to the bench and set his tea aside. He leaned down and practically stuck his nose on them. He turned his head this way and that, not touching anything. Just looking at the oiled wood. He turned to look up at Otto. “Where are yours?”
Otto pulled a small drawer out of the back of the bench and upended it. “Some of mine.”
Flanagan stood up straight and stared at Otto, a crooked grin angling his mouth. “You didn’t learn to carve from your father, did ya.”
Otto shrugged. “He did what he could.”
Flanagan chuckled. “I’ve known your old man since he was a boy. Had as much gift as the average sand crab. He could make pretty whelkies but they had nothing behind the shell until he had that run-in with a fish.” He glanced at Otto. “I s’pect you know that.”
Otto shrugged again. “He did his best.”
“Oh, that he did. Did his best.” Flanagan’s gaze raked the figures scattered across the workbench. “Knew your grandfather, too. Now he was a shaman. He did things I’ve never understood. He carved his own way.” He waved a hand at Otto’s whelkies. “You got the gift. It shows here. These are fine work. Your granddad would be proud. You say you’re not hearing much from the world these days?”
“It’s been pretty quiet.”
“Engine noise drownin’ it out,” Flanagan said. His eyebrows danced on his wrinkled forehead. “There’s a reason we walk the beaches and it ain’t the driftwood.”
Otto nodded. “I wondered. Father has been out on the floating cities a lot lately. He says he hears better there.”
“Does he, now? Hmm. Interestin’.” Flanagan picked up his mug and took a loud slurp, his gaze running over the other half of the bench. “Some of hers, you said. She’s got more?”
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