Winter Tide Page 10

  “And more comfortable with Deedee than with me.”

  “Deedee?” I asked.

  “You know, the negro girl. Dorothy. Dean Skinner’s maid.”

  “Oh,” I said. “Miss Dawson.”

  “Well, he was calling her Deedee on the way home.”

  “Was he, now?” I thought about them leaning together over a book, and frowned. “Does she like that?”

  “He didn’t say.” She threw herself on the bed beside me, claiming a patch of moonlight. “He teases me, but he doesn’t really tell me anything. I think he’s hoping I won’t notice.”

  “That does bode ill.” I ran a finger along the bright square in which she lay. “I’m sorry he’s pushing you away too. I know you were close.”

  “Going out behind the cabins wasn’t even a big part of it. It was…” She trailed off.

  “I know you were courting. Casually. It’s all right.” In fact, I had backed my brother into a corner and demanded to know whether he was planning to breed with her. But he’d known, as well as I did, how our captors would have leapt on a mist-blooded child and its mother.

  “Do you think he’s courting Deedee? Miss Dawson?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “But maybe I should ask.” After all, we were no longer in the camp. And we had what our elders would consider duties. I felt a sinking nausea at the thought.

  She rolled over onto her stomach, making the mattress bounce. “I don’t even know if I’d want to—to be romantic with him. When we came out here, I was hoping. But I don’t want to stay here. I like Arkham, but what I like is being in a new place. Everything looks different. The houses are different, the food is strange, everything smells new. I was right, I want to keep doing that.”

  I dragged my thoughts away from my own concerns. “And you want someone who will travel with you?”

  “Or at least understand why I’m going. Or maybe I don’t want anyone at all. Maybe there aren’t any men who would put up with me. Men want a wife like Mama…”

  “Innsmouth men want—wanted—a woman who could keep impeccable house, but also knew her texts.” A clever woman, like my own mother, who could track the myriad traditions that held a proper home together. That wasn’t an option for Caleb in any case.

  I leaned over, awkwardly, to hug Neko’s shoulders. We didn’t often discuss either of our fathers. Talking about their lives came perilously close to talking about their deaths.

  “I’m so grateful that Mama Rei is who she is,” I said. “But not everyone … can or should be of the same kind.” Not everyone’s gills grow in the same, my mother would have said.

  “I can just eat hot dogs and frozen food from boxes,” she suggested. “Or become a glamorous star and eat all my meals at the fanciest restaurants.”

  “You cook perfectly well.”

  “Not the point. It’s not what I want to spend all my evenings on.”

  “Dive for fish and eat sushi every night,” I suggested, and we both giggled. Having raw fish on a regular basis still felt presumptuous: at home such treats had been offered only occasionally by my elder relatives. And I loved Mama Rei’s stories of her own grandmother, who dove for abalone in the deep waters off the Japanese coast.

  “I’m just the opposite,” I said. “I thought I would be pleased to be back in Massachusetts, and I am. It’s been so long since I’ve seen a proper winter. But I miss San Francisco constantly.” The feeling had been growing in me all day. “The store and Mama Rei and Anna and Kevin, the shape of the hills … It’s all right to travel a little, but that’s where I want to stay. Life there feels so comfortable. Safe. I suppose I’m more attached to comfort than I should be.”

  Neko flipped onto her back again. “Aphra, you’ve dealt with more discomfort than anyone I know. Well, you and Caleb, but he handles it differently. You’ve…”

  “I’ve what?”

  “You’ve never gone back anywhere, have you? We aren’t living exactly where we were before the war, but we did go back to San Francisco, and Mama Rei does the same tailoring work she did before.”

  “Innsmouth wasn’t there to go back to. Even though Caleb has tried.” I lay back beside her. “You’re right. A part of me assumes that I’ve left San Francisco forever.”

  She put a hand on my arm. “You do get to go back, you know.”

  “You’re right. Thank you.” My eyes widened to drink the moonlight, and I closed them to hold it in. I imagined the steep streets, the rocky beach, the well-organized shelves of westerns and cookbooks and dubious esoterica, all waiting for me as surely as the ocean. And in good time, I slept better than I had since getting on the plane.

  The next day Dawson met us at the Miskatonic library, and let us know with a sort of demure smugness that she’d found Upton. He had originally been placed in the Arkham Sanitarium, but later moved to a more isolated asylum in the countryside where his apparent disturbance, if not exactly improved, at least exhibited a less desperate shade of distress. There he remained. On Friday, after only a week in Massachusetts, we would put aside our books in favor of a less pleasant and more personal form of research.

  CHAPTER 9

  Pickman Sanitarium dominated the surrounding cornfields and pastures: a gated compound of crumbling brick edifices with gabled roofs. Fallen shingles protruded from the snow like gravestones, and the smell of manure pervaded all.

  We made a more imposing party than I would have liked. While Neko and Miss Dawson had chosen to stay behind, pleading a need to organize our notes from Hall, no one else could be dissuaded—even Trumbull, whom I would have preferred to leave behind for this particular expedition. But Spector’s ID elicited a flurry of excited cooperation from the attendant, who led us to a solarium. He evicted two patients who’d been attempting a tryst and promised that he’d bring Upton shortly, adding with a sharp look at Spector: “A sweet old gentleman, never tried to harm anyone.”

  None of us took a seat. The chairs had been luxurious once, but looked like they’d been here considerably longer than Upton. Cold seeped through the plate windows; drafts crept among their frames. I ran a finger along the glass and came up with a grimy film that smelled of cigarettes. Spector came up beside me and repeated the test, frowning at the dark smear.

  “Mrs. Bergman’s place is nicer,” I murmured. Mildred Bergman had been priestess of the congregation whose activities first caused Spector to contact me. The one who’d believed herself beloved of Shub-Nigaroth—and believed that if she walked unafraid into the Pacific, the deity would grant her eternal life. Spector’s raid on her congregation, at my behest, had forestalled her attempted apotheosis. When last I visited her, in the asylum where the state had placed her, she still hadn’t forgiven me.

  He wiped his finger on a handkerchief. “I did some research. A lot of these places have gone downhill in the past few years. The best ones are staffed by conscientious objectors, Quakers mostly. People who take on the work as a calling rather than the best of poor choices.”

  I blinked. “Thank you.” I hadn’t realized that he’d done anything beyond bringing Bergman to the nearest available facility; his masters certainly hadn’t required it. He shrugged uncomfortably and handed me the handkerchief.

  Footsteps in the hall distracted us, and the attendant’s voice: “See, Danny, there are some people here to see you.” And an old man’s querulous response: “I keep telling you no one’s come for months. They don’t want me—”

  The attendant stood at the door behind a man who must be Upton. His white hair was cropped short but poorly kept, and an age-stooped back took only a little off his height. Gray pants and shirt hung loosely on his gaunt frame.

  He stared at me, small eyes wide, then tried to back away. The attendant held fast. “You! No, I promised, you said—it was you! You said it would be safer, and it wasn’t, was it?” He surged forward suddenly into the room. “Don’t you blame me for it! I was here, I didn’t say anything! Leave me be—” The attendant grabbed his arms before he co
uld throw himself at me.

  “I’m terribly sorry, miss, he gets these fits sometimes. Been a while since the last one, but they pass. Danny, you calm now? You won’t make more trouble for us, will you?”

  Upton slumped in the attendant’s grasp, and remained so as the man cautiously loosened his hold. “No, sir. No trouble, I promise. Probably for the best.” He twisted to look over his shoulder, wincing. “Maybe you’d better leave us alone, sir. For the best.”

  “He’s right, sir,” said Spector. “I realize it’s irregular, but if we could have a few minutes.”

  It wasn’t something I’d expect in any respectable hospital, but this attendant was no conscientious objector. One of Trumbull’s bland gazes was enough to decide him. He backed into the corridor, and we heard him leave, footsteps a little fast.

  Upton drew himself up as well as his spine would allow, and looked first Caleb and then me in the eye. The others he ignored. When he spoke, he no longer sounded angry or afraid, only tired. “All right, then. Let’s get this done with.”

  I held out my hands and tried to soften my voice. “Mr. Upton, we mean you no harm—”

  Caleb interrupted. “That remains to be seen. What’s the ‘this’ that you think we came to finish?”

  He looked around as if he’d forgotten something. Spector found him a ratty chair. “Innsmouth.” He gave a hacking laugh. “Wanted to protect your reputation. And you couldn’t. I was still here, called mad for what I said. And now you’re back to take revenge.”

  I put a hand on Caleb’s arm. “Are you claiming responsibility for what happened to Innsmouth?”

  This time his black laughter descended quickly into a coughing fit. When he recovered, he said, “Of course not. I was here. But why should that stop you?”

  I felt Caleb’s muscles soften beneath my hand. I knelt, bringing myself back to Upton’s level. The others did likewise, or found more-or-less acceptable chairs—save for Trumbull, who remained silent by the window. I began to have an inkling of why she had come along, and could not decide whether I was grateful for her witness.

  “Mr. Upton,” I began. “We’re not here for any sort of vengeance. Caleb and I were—” And here I paused, for he certainly hadn’t sounded sorry about Innsmouth’s destruction. “You carry a piece of our town’s memory. Something that we missed, because we were children and the elders would no more than drop hints when we were around. We know what Ephraim did to Asenath, and then to your friend—but not what happened afterward.”

  “Ah. Just innocent children, then, are you?”

  I bristled. “Not for a long time.”

  “Heh. Well, I shot her. Him. Avenged Edward Derby, for all the good that it did. And tried to tell what I’d seen. The authorities had no other explanation, but they sent me here anyway—better that than believe such things possible.” He peered at me closely. “But they burned Ed’s body. Didn’t believe, but they did what I asked.” Another bout of alarming laughter, but then he turned serious again. “They put me in Arkham. I couldn’t bear it. She died there, he died—whoever died, they all did it there. Even with the body gone, the place was haunted. I begged my family, anywhere else or I’ll go mad in truth, and finally they sent me here. And then forgot about me.”

  I tried not to let my flinch show. For all that it had been more kindly meant than ours, Upton’s imprisonment had still stolen half his life. But he would not appreciate the comparison and I did not care to share it.

  “Well, then, I had a few weeks to think about what I was going to do, how I could convince them I’d recovered from murderous insanity and get back to my wife and my work. And then your family came. Some of them had your look.” Unnecessarily, he put his fingers around his eyes, and stretched the skin so that they appeared to bulge. “And some of them were worse.”

  For the first time he gave attention to the others. “Don’t know if you’ve seen their relatives yet. Ought to get out while you can. Horrible creatures, like great walking frogs, or fish. Big mouths. Scaly. Gills.” He wiggled his fingers beside his neck, and I put my hand back on Caleb’s arm. “They wore cloaks to hide themselves, till they had me alone. They asked me about old Ephraim, about Asenath and Ed. I told them—why not. And they thanked me for carrying out Ephraim’s just sentence. Thanked me! Then they talked with each other, some strange burbling, barking tongue, and then they said—” The manic energy faded from his speech, and when he resumed he sounded only a tired old man. “They said that it was safest to leave me here. That people were spreading terrible lies about their children—I suppose that’s you—and that if people believed me, they wouldn’t understand that Ephraim was a criminal, it would just be one more bloody rumor about Innsmouth.

  “And then they left.”

  Caleb’s mouth was set in a grim line. Charlie and Spector looked at us with near-identical expressions of sadness. I wished I had sent them away before hearing the story; I wished I could leave now. Trumbull had at least dropped her usual sardonic air for a more focused look, breathing slow and even as if preparing for ritual.

  When no one else spoke, I took it on myself. “I’m sorry for what our elders did. It was wrong. If you’d like us to help get you out of here—”

  He cut me off with another braying laugh, this time managing to swallow the cough at the end. “Don’t be ridiculous. My family is glad to forget their mad murderer, and they certainly don’t want to take in a dying old embarrassment. Better here than on the streets.”

  “Really?” said Caleb. His voice held an edge of mockery. “That’s not how I felt.”

  That gave Upton pause, but only for a moment. “You’re young, boy. You’ve all the time you could want to take advantage of your freedom.”

  “So I’ve come to learn. But when I came out here, I expected to die.”

  My hand tightened on his arm. “You said you wanted to find our books.”

  His laughter sounded healthier than Upton’s, but just as bitter. “Of course I did. But I expected our old Arkham neighbors to shoot me on sight. What else should I have done? A grown man who can barely read and write, no trade and no family to feed with one, and the ocean dried out of my blood—what else was there for me to do?”

  My breath caught. “You know that I’ve been studying with Charlie, relearning our old arts. Our blood hasn’t dried. We still carry the tide in our veins—the ocean is still waiting for us.” I should have told him before—it was obvious to me now. But somehow, it had never occurred to me that he didn’t already know. My stomach clenched at the realization of what I’d just revealed to Upton, even Spector. But I could not regret it, for my little brother’s sake.

  His eyes widened and he stared at me a long moment. Then he drew away and wrapped his long arms around himself, head tucked into a small sphere of private emotion that I dared not break.

  Upton looked between us. “It’s true, then. Innsmouth’s leaders really did make some terrible deal with demons under the water. And you actually want to turn into one of those things.”

  “No,” I said, still sick at having to speak in front of him at all. “It’s not true. And yes, I do. Those ‘things’ are my family.”

  Spector came closer and tilted his head at the door. “Miss Marsh, do you want to…?”

  It was an offer, not a hint, and I shook my head. “Go ahead and ask your questions.” I hoped Spector liked his answers better than I had. I retreated and sat near my brother. Charlie leaned down from his chair to put a hand on my shoulder, and I accepted the comfort mutely.

  Spector squatted and proffered his card to Upton. “I actually came here today on more immediate business. We have reason to believe someone may be attempting to replicate Ephraim Waite’s crime. As one of the few witnesses who’s seen a body swap, and knew it, I was hoping you might be able to share your observations—so that we can do the same if it becomes relevant.” He spoke smoothly, half-truths falling easily from his lips with no hint of rehearsal.

  Upton’s whole frame tensed.
His hands shook—I was suddenly unsure whether this was new, or whether I’d failed to notice it before. “Kill him. Shoot him as many times as it takes and burn the body. He can survive—just a scrap of flesh to cling to, that’s all he needs.”

  “Yes, sir.” Spector lit two cigarettes and handed one over. “But how do I recognize him?”

  Upton took the cigarette and slumped back. “He wanted a weak mind, a weak will. But smart. Lots of room to stretch, and no way to resist him taking over. Poor Ed. He couldn’t hurt a fly—not able, not willing, it wasn’t in his nature. He was nervous and scholarly and so frightfully poetic you could listen for hours when he got into a state. But when she was in his body—when Ephraim was there—Ed didn’t look like himself at all. Not just the determination, or the burst of will and confidence. Something dreadful and alien, looking out through my best friend’s eyes. Even people who’d never known him could tell something was off. He didn’t act like the person who shaped that face. Asenath always disturbed people.” He looked at me with narrowed eyes. “But everyone just assumed it was because she was from Innsmouth.”

  He waved the cigarette at Spector. “Now, see, I look at you: you’re not just a confident man, a strong one who’s used to people listening to you. Your body fits, it’s got muscles where you move the most and a face that’s used to your expressions. Or him, he sits down like someone who’s used to favoring a bad leg—but maybe the cane is new? I watch, you see, I always have to watch in case he tries to come after me. Those two, they’ve got Asenath’s horrible eyes and the heads that don’t look quite right, but they don’t act like they think it’s funny, the way she did. And they don’t look at everyone else like they’re thinking how they might taste.”

  And now, of course, he turned his attention to Trumbull. She was back to her usual sardonic look; individualized observations of human physiognomy were apparently not something that needed preserving for the ages. Upton looked her over, frowned more deeply, looked again. His hands shook harder, and he sucked on his cigarette to steady them. “You—you don’t look right. Not like he did—but not right.” He tried, I thought unconsciously, to push his chair back, but his strength wasn’t sufficient. Suddenly he whipped around to the rest of us. “Her! I don’t know what she is, but she isn’t a woman!”