Winter Tide Read online

  Audrey looked at me intently. “Whither thou goest, I will go.” I blinked at her sudden formality, and she added. “It’s from the Bible. Wouldn’t hurt you to know something about your neighbor’s religions, either. But I’ve learned more from you, more of what I’ve always needed to learn, than from any class at Hall. If you go to San Francisco, I’ll go too.”

  I felt grateful and frightened, and uncertain whether to express either. I settled for: “What’s your family going to think about that?”

  She shrugged uncomfortably. “That’s my problem, isn’t it? I could tell them I met a guy, which is technically true. Though they’d rather a Miskatonic brat.”

  “You could stay out here for a few years while you finish school,” said Caleb. “We’ll be learning too. And sooner or later, Aphra does have to come back to the Atlantic.”

  “Wherever we go,” I said, “we’ll all have things waiting for us elsewhere.”

  * * *

  Eventually, the conversation turned from Innsmouth to Innsmouth’s books, and whether even our elders might be able to overcome the greater barriers we now faced. We considered probing Trumbull’s increasing frustration with the current situation. I hoped that would change her mind, for she could make an even more formidable barrier than Barlow—and one the elders might not willingly cross.

  When at last hunger drove us downstairs, Neko curled alone on the couch, reading more of the Plato.

  “Did you notice anything odd with the weather?” asked Audrey.

  “I was reading. Is the weather broken?”

  “Not at all. I’m going to find lunch.” Audrey went into the kitchen, while Neko got up and peered out the window.

  “Good, you didn’t break it,” she said. “And you wonder why I don’t want to spend my time practicing magic.”

  I lingered as the others went after Audrey. “Neko, do you know what you want to do after this? I mean, after we’re done in Innsmouth?”

  She turned from the window. “Caleb and I were talking about that, too. He wants to stay here, I guess he told you? What about you?”

  “I’m willing to help rebuild. And I suppose that means children, though I’m not yet sure of the least horrible way to go about that. But I’m not ready to move back to Massachusetts. Our family in San Francisco—that matters too. I wish I could have everyone together.”

  She perched beside me on the couch. “You’re so much better at family than I am. Mama will be happy about that, even if Caleb isn’t coming back. I still want to find space for myself, somehow.”

  “Do you have any idea where?”

  “I don’t want to go away forever. But I wish I had more good excuses for travel.”

  “Maybe even to more exciting places than Arkham?”

  “Maybe. But I don’t need adventure. If I wanted that, I’d go chasing after you every time you do crazy things. I just want different.”

  CHAPTER 22

  We were still at the dining room table, finishing the last of our leftovers, when Trumbull stalked in.

  “I despise faculty meetings.”

  “And yet,” said Audrey, “you went to one.”

  “If I don’t, they assign me extra classes. Or nonsense secretarial work. Or advisees. Today, at least I got to watch Skinner trying to pretend he wasn’t upset about the library. And trying to decide whether to pretend he had nothing to do with Barlow’s arrival, or to claim more control over the creature than he actually has.”

  “Are you certain this place is as stable a repository as you thought?” I asked tentatively. “We have decided to rebuild Innsmouth.”

  “No place outside the Archives is truly stable. Nevertheless, this isn’t mere unreliability. Oaths were made to keep the records safe and available, and the Miskatonic librarians are violating that trust. If Mr. Spector cannot check his wayward colleagues, we may indeed need to consider alternatives.” She fixed me with an amused look. “After some other appropriate sanctuary is built, not before. Better that some of our documents should be inaccessible for a few years than that they should be exposed to the vagaries of climate and weather.”

  It was a start, though Caleb’s closed expression suggested he found it less than sufficient. Dawson’s hand hovered near his arm a brief moment, before she glanced around and let it drop.

  “So what constitutes an appropriate sanctuary?” I asked.

  She smiled, not kindly. “We’ll send an architect, of course. There are a few decent designers among your elders, but the libraries of R’lyeh and Y’ha-nthlei don’t have to hold paper.”

  I resisted the urge to point out that Innsmouth had held those documents for centuries in buildings of common brick and wood, that they’d been stolen through no fault of those protections. But stolen they had been—and it occurred to me that it might well have been a Yith, nervous over the fate of those abandoned materials, who informed Miskatonic when our books sat unguarded.

  And now it was entirely in her power to set the conditions under which we could be trusted to reclaim them.

  I was still pondering this, trying not to let it show on my face, when Spector walked in.

  “Well, that was useless,” he said. He took off his hat, started to hang it on the rack, looked at it a long moment. Then he turned and went back out the door. I hurried after him.

  I found him still on the porch, glowering. He looked ready to hit something, if he were the sort of man who lashed out in anger. When we’d first met, when I attacked him in unthinking fear, he’d simply held me off—more self-control than Chulzh’th had shown.

  Reminded of the results of Chulzh’th’s temper, I touched my sleeve above the cut-in sigil. Elsewhere, Sally changed position, fearful and angry and determined. She itched with frustration. I guessed she was still at the hospital, and hoped Grandfather didn’t expect me to divine her precise actions and intentions through this thin connection. Perhaps if I were older and better practiced, I’d get more from it. Presumably betrayal, which it was designed to detect, would be announced in clearer fashion than the background hum of fretfulness over her wounded lover.

  “I’m sorry,” Spector said, words falling as if strung on wires. “Professor Trumbull—I didn’t think I could speak civilly to her.”

  “Why not?” Though in my current state, it seemed entirely understandable.

  “I’ve spent the morning dealing with enough indifference. A dozen people have reminded me of all the processes”—that word pushed through the restraining wire, a hurled stone—“that keep Barlow’s team in the field once they’re assigned. A half dozen others are trying to break through those processes, but I’m here, and can’t do more than I already have to speed them along.”

  “What Barlow’s people are doing…” I was no Audrey to find precise and slippery words that would allow Spector to deny their meaning. I forged ahead. “Would your masters—their masters—care, if they set that alarm themselves? Or are they permitted such things for the sake of their research?”

  His headshake was half nod. “Technically they’re here to track evidence of Russian spies, same as I am. But they could claim just about any research in support of that goal—same as we have, frankly.” He sighed. “The fact is, there are people at the agency who see us both as mavericks. Mr. Barlow with his mystical mathematical theories, and that crazy Jew Spector who works with crazy people.” He shrugged apology. “We could both end up on short leashes at a moment’s notice, if someone takes it into their head—and we both have supervisors who’ll go to the mat for our gambles.”

  Somehow, in spite of my doubts, I’d hoped that Spector represented some fundamental improvement in the state’s attitude toward us. Clearly that was what he wished to be. Barlow, if I were lucky, merely saw me as a relic of an outdated tradition. But Peters seemed sympathetic to older opinions. Other factions might back him in that.

  “I don’t blame you for being upset,” said Spector. “But you look like you’re thinking about something else.”

  Gamble
s indeed. “Suppose we were to rebuild Innsmouth.”

  His lips parted. “Is that possible?”

  “As what it was before, no. As a place for those with even a little of our blood to come together … we might be able to make something new. But not if we’d risk another raid.”

  “Aphra, no, I promise it’s not like that. We may have our debates, but no one wants to go back to the persecution of the ’20s. No one’s even talking about that.”

  “For how long?”

  He pulled out a cigarette, flicked his lighter, inhaled acrid smoke. “How many generations do you expect me to speak for? For all I know, the country could turn around in ten years and decide to lock up all the Jews. We run or fight when we have to, and we rebuild in between. Works a lot better than the alternative.”

  I hesitated. “Skinner was suspicious as soon as he met us, and he isn’t the only one who still remembers the old libels. Peters all but accused us of sharing magical secrets with the enemy.”

  He frowned. “Peters is a twit. When?”

  “In the library. After he tried and failed to get that book.” A gust of wind blew smoke across my face. I turned my head and coughed, hoping he wouldn’t notice. “I’ve learned to take it seriously when people threaten me. But I don’t know whether he was trying to stir something up, or if he just said what the rest of them were already thinking. I need to know how much Innsmouth would scare them. If it existed.” The wind changed again, and I took a grateful breath.

  “We really have … the raids, everyone’s clear on what a bad idea they were. Some on purely practical grounds, because most of the actual nasty cultists went to ground and didn’t get caught, and some because they’ve genuinely realized it was evil. But…” It was his turn to hesitate. “You remember what I said about Israel. And how my superiors reacted.”

  “Yes.” His people had lost their own home—and were now fighting to remake it. Seeing that in common between us, I gave in to a question that hadn’t occurred to me when he first brought it up. “I hope you won’t take this as some sort of accusation, but why don’t you go? My people—Innsmouth was bad enough, but if R’lyeh and the outpost cities had been destroyed too, and then rebuilt, I’d want to go home.”

  He shook his head. “Israel is building on a myth. I’m not against myths, and I’m glad it’s there, but the home of my people is New York—a place that wanted us and took us in and where we can live in safety. I’m American, even if some people don’t want to think of me that way. Like I said, we build where we are, even if it might not be safe forever.”

  “I can understand that.” And appreciate his bravery, even while I tried to decide whether I could—or should—share it. “They weren’t afraid of you as an individual, but they got scared when you had a place to go.”

  “Better than the alternative.” He sighed. “Peters is a twit, like I said. Whatever his suspicions, I think he brought them up to keep you worried about yourself, instead of about whatever he was trying to do—because that was almost certainly on orders.”

  I felt my lips quirk. “It didn’t work—I’ve had plenty of room to worry about both.”

  He took the cigarette from his mouth, examined the spark at the tip. “You know, if Barlow’s playing fast and loose, it’s not our supervisors finding out that he worries about. Their reaction could go either way, and he’s dealt with it before. But he has to be careful about the university administration and professors. They can’t just kick him out, but they could make his life very uncomfortable if they learned things he didn’t want brought to public attention. The agency might rein him in to keep them quiet.”

  He watched me expectantly over his little fire, and I wished again for Audrey’s skill at reading people. “I assume he guards those secrets carefully.”

  “Yes—though I don’t know much about what kind of, ah, non-traditional security Barlow uses in the field. I do know that last time he went after a budget increase he wanted to demonstrate the efficiency of ‘recursive exponent wards’ or some such. You saw more of his methods this weekend than I did.” Another apologetic shrug, another drag on his cigarette.

  I blinked over eyes that felt suddenly dry, doubtful of what I thought I heard. Was he really implying that I ought to play spy against his colleague? “I told you before that I don’t like ciphers.”

  “I apologize,” he said. “They’re the best I can offer right now. But you should trust your own judgment on the answers—I do, or I wouldn’t have said anything in the first place.”

  The door opened, and Charlie joined us on the porch. He pulled out his pipe, accepted Spector’s offered light. “The professor apparently doesn’t want us smoking inside. Sorry, Aphra—it’s just been a hell of a week.”

  “And seems likely to continue hellish,” agreed Spector. “I’m sorry, Miss Marsh, I didn’t realize you were so old-fashioned.”

  “It’s not a problem outside,” I said. I didn’t want to mention how even a whiff of the smoke sometimes set my lungs aflame. It was probably only my own fears and memories, given that Caleb didn’t seem to suffer from his own cigarettes.

  Still, I excused myself. The two of them might appreciate the time alone, and I wanted to find out what Trumbull knew about recursive exponent wards.

  Inside, I realized that Dawson might need deniability as much as Spector did. Perhaps he’d find an excuse to pull her away. I took Audrey aside into the living room, hoping that Caleb might catch hints of our discussion and make his own judgments about what his lover would wish to know.

  “It sure sounds like he wants us to check up on Barlow’s guys,” she said when I’d finished telling her about my conversation with Spector. “The question is whether we want to.”

  “I’d certainly like to know what they’re planning,” I said. “If we can learn something that will force them to leave campus, so much the better.”

  “You know I’m not afraid of a little trouble. But this is riskier than our raid on the library. There could be real legal consequences if we got caught—or a bunch of mad FBI agents if they figure out who ratted on them.”

  “I know what it is to be on the state’s bad side,” I told her. “They don’t wait for provocation.”

  “Provoking them doesn’t help, though.”

  “Not knowing their plans can be worse. If they’re after what it sounded like the other day, it could be bad for a lot of people, not just us.” I paused, inhaled. Audrey wasn’t the enemy. I wasn’t even sure whether she really disapproved. “Are you against the idea, or just playing devil’s advocate?”

  She laughed. “A little of both. Sometimes you feel safer if everyone else is a little nervous too.”

  I sat on Trumbull’s stuffed chair and rubbed my forehead. My skin felt stretched and painful. “I’ve been nothing but nerves since Barlow caught us. Worse since Peters accused my people of—whatever betrayal he thinks we had the freedom for. If we’re found going through their things, they’ll have more ammunition against us, and that does scare me. Sometimes it’s all I can do not to catch the next plane to San Francisco, or run back to Innsmouth and beg the elders to solve this, whatever it takes.” The words fell from my lips like cursed gems in old stories: even with Audrey it was a hard confession.

  She squatted beside me, put her hand on my knee. “Hey, it’s okay. We’re going to make this work.” But she also asked, curiously: “Could they do that? Solve the whole thing?”

  I shook my head. “No more than parents ever can. They might be able to help with the books, if the Yith won’t stand in their way, but I already know the limits of their ability to oppose the state.”

  She sucked on her lip. “My parents can usually solve any problem, as long as it can be solved by throwing money at it. Not always worth the cost, though.”

  “Throwing money, the elders could do. There’s a lot of gold in the ocean. I don’t see how that helps here, though.”

  She sighed. “Me neither. And I’m sort of glad we wouldn’t have to ask my f
olks, if it came to that.” She stood and gave me a hug. “On the other hand, I can promise that if they try to grab a Winslow, they won’t find it easy to make everyone shut up and look the other way. And if they come after you guys again, I’ll call in every favor we have in every newsroom that owes us one.”

  “You’d do that? I mean—” Realizing that she might take my doubt as an insult, I changed course. “Do you think that would work?”

  “Papers are always looking for a good scandal. From what you said, in the ’20s they managed to make you look like the scandalous ones—but Daddy knows how to point reporters in the right direction, and so do I.”

  I leaned back to look at her, trying not to feel jealous. I ought to be grateful that we now had friends who carried such influence. Hadn’t Caleb said we’d do better with connections outside the town?

  Before the raid the Marshes too had freely exercised their influence, albeit within a smaller sphere of privilege. Perhaps if we’d endowed a building at the university, or funded charities beyond the town’s borders … but avoiding the outside world’s attention had seemed safer. We had always recognized that some problems could not be solved with gold.

  “Thank you,” I said. “It means a lot, knowing that there’s someone who’d try not to let us be forgotten, this time.”

  She smiled, a little sadly, and leaned against the arm of the couch. “Don’t worry. You’re pretty unforgettable.” She shook her head and let the smile spread. “This kind of planning really is borrowing trouble. I can distract Dawson so you can talk to Trumbull. She’ll know how to make this work if anyone does. Do you normally run midnight raids every night?”

  “Only since you got here.”

  Caleb stuck his head into the living room, and snickered as he caught this last. “Deedee’s gone outside to do something with Spector. I don’t know if she’s decided what, yet.”