Seawitch

Shelly made a face and shook her head. “I could do that kind of magic but I won’t and I don’t want them here. They stir up bad feelings. Take them and do as you like.”

Father Otter inched forward and started to reach for one of the objects in the pile. Shelly sucked in a breath and made fists of her hands at her sides, as if she were restraining herself from slapping him away. I did it for her, though the movement sent a flare of nauseating pain through my chest and sides. Father Otter flinched and glared at me.

“Don’t. It won’t help you or your people and now is not the time to get greedy.” I turned back to Shelly. “You don’t plan on . . . using your siren wiles on other boats, do you?”

“No. Well . . . not that way. I might like an occasional frolic, but I have seen too much death and pain and I don’t have any taste for killing if I don’t have to.”

“Then I’ll thank you for giving these to me.” I wasn’t quite sure what I was supposed to do with the things, writhing and foaming as they did with shadows and shades.

Solis glanced up from his watch. “Fifteen minutes,” he said.

I frowned. Fifteen minutes from what?

The surfaces of the objects on deck—bells and bottles, bowls and boxes—shimmered and sparked a moment; then the gleams of color that bound them fell away, unraveling like rope decayed to dust.

“Just touch them,” Solis added. “I think I’ve guessed it right.”

I bent forward like an arthritic old woman and brushed my fingertips over the nearest of the crusted trove— another bell, this one much smaller than Valencia’s and not as heavy, gleaming a bit of brass through its veil of seaweed and barnacles. A flood of silver mist and white light burst out of the bell, flashing for a moment into four images: two young women and two men. They let out a sob and a cry, then leapt for the night sky above us, spiraling away into the scattered starlight of the Milky Way’s spangled band.

I turned an amazed glance on Solis. “Everything balances out—we lost fifteen minutes the first time we rang the bell, so this time we had to regain it.”

“What about the bubble around the cove?”

“Why would ringing the doorbell count on that timer?”

It was loopy, but it made as much sense as anything else in the Grey and more than some things. “How did I miss that?”

He shrugged. “Busy.”

I suppose they would have responded as well to anyone, now that the spell was broken, but everyone seemed to have agreed it was my job to let the ghosts out of their shells. As uncomfortable as it was, I managed to creep to each of the receptacles and brush away the last remaining strands that held the souls of the drowned at bay. Each time they poured out and upward in swells of lambent mist and shimmering light, sighing and weeping, then crying out in joy and vaulting for the deepening night sky that stretched above us, pierced like black velvet with the brightness of stars. The river of the Milky Way, tipped for a while into our planet’s tilted, whirling view, seemed to grow brighter and thicker as the ghosts rushed away from their captivity into freedom. An uncanny wind blew them away in coils of silvery mist that turned a massive head in our direction just long enough for me to recognize the passing shape of the Guardian Beast shepherding the spirits of the dead onward. It didn’t pause to say thank you and the velocity of its passage rocked and shook the boat as easily as an autumn leaf. I got no sense that it cared the deed was done or done by me. The balance of power in the area had been leveled and that was all that concerned it. There was, indeed, nothing human or humane remaining in the Beast and I finally put that niggling thought away, relieved.

When the last spirit was no more than a memory of sound and light in our senses, I eased back into my chair once again, satisfied but struggling with my exhaustion and discomfort. I glanced at Shelly, who was still standing, looking up at the sky, smiling a bittersweet kind of smile.

It seemed wrong to break the moment but I had to. “I think . . . we’re done here,” I said.

She lowered her eyes to mine, her expression growing more grave and a touch sad. “I still need peace with the otter people.”

I glanced at Father Otter and she took that as I meant it; it wasn’t up to me.

“Will you stay a moment as my witnesses?” she asked, looking from me to Zantree and back. . . .

As we nodded to her, Father Otter cast rapid glances at each of us, lingering longest on Shelly and Fielding. He stared hard at Fielding, who shrank from his gaze, for a moment, then turned back to Shelly, asking, “You don’t want this one?”

“What would I want him for?”

“Revenge. He harmed you, he broke your power, he ruined your value, and he allowed your mother to imprison you.”

“Why should I care after all this time about what was or could have been? None of that is important anymore. Do you want to keep on living in the past? Living in a state of war because of some stupid dispute hundreds of years old? We could do a lot for each other, my people and yours. We don’t have to keep on killing each other. You and me . . . we don’t have to be friends but we could at least call a truce and let our people heal.”

Father Otter scowled but it wasn’t the angry expression he’d had before. “Your people, our people . . . That may be enough for the Puget folk, but none of the others will abide by such a truce.”

“Not at first but we can do our best for ourselves and let the rest come around in their own time.”

“What about the Columbia people? They will kill and die and they will not respect our truce if we cross the bar.”

“Then maybe we should send an emissary. Someone who’s from the Columbia.” Shelly turned her gaze and looked hard at Fielding. “We can net two fish with one cast: Send Gary away from here and let him be useful elsewhere. And never come back,” she added under her breath.

“What does it net us to send him away?”

Shelly laughed and the sound set my teeth on edge. “You don’t actually want him to stay? Disruptive, whining, self-centered idiot that he is.”

Fielding sat down hard on the deck. “I’m not that bad!”

“In a shark’s eye,” Shelly shot back. She looked at Father Otter. “Am I right?”

Father Otter was clearly calculating something. “We can send him back to his mother’s people . . . Though we hate to give such a prize away. . . .”

“Gary’s no prize,” Shelly said.

Father Otter turned his head and cocked it to one side. “To the Columbia people he is. His mother was the last royal dobhar-chú on the river.”

Fielding made an ugly face at Father Otter. “You lied to me! You said you didn’t know anything about my mother!”

“Her whereabouts. Who she was—certainly we knew that, whelp!”

“You didn’t say so.”

“Why should we give such information to you when you brought us nothing but trouble? And you didn’t ask the right questions.” Father Otter turned his attention back to Shelly, as if Fielding had disappeared. “We will consider sending a message. . . .”

“Don’t pretend you don’t want him gone as much as I do.”

“What do you offer us to make it worth our effort to conduct him safely back to the Columbia? Our folk outnumber yours and we could order them to attack again.”

“That battle will not be as easy as you think, Fa Dobhar-chú. My mother’s power no longer restrains mine and you don’t know what I can do. . . .” She gave him a cunning look and stared him down for a moment. Having made her threat, she paused and then her face brightened and she added, “Besides . . . I have treasures: pearls and the salvage of hundreds of lost ships. . . . Such knowledge as your folk could do much with. And I will share with you if you become my allies rather than my enemies.”

Father Otter smiled a little; it wasn’t a greedy smile but an appreciative one.

“What if I don’t want to go back to Oregon?” Fielding objected. “You can’t compel me, either of you. Not if I choose to live in this form.”

Solis cleared his throat. “In this form you will return to Seattle with me and stand trial for what happened