Winter Tide Read online

  I invited the water into my mind. Only a crack—all I dared—and still it tore me from all sense of balance. I flailed against it, instinctively, then forced myself to mental stillness. What was in me now was vast as a storm, but far smaller than the ocean itself. It washed into the river of my blood, and I reminded it where the banks were, directed its flow where it would cleanse rather than destroy. I sent it washing over into the rest of the confluence.

  This is my strength. This is my protection. It is older and stronger and cleaner than the new-forged tools of the Earth. I make it yours, too.

  Under the wash of salt water, the dark tide receded—first in me, then in Charlie, then finally at its source in Audrey. This was nothing it had been created to fight. It seethed and pushed, but slowly drained away into whatever wellspring within her had birthed it. It did not disappear. Awakened, it was a part of her, and I suspected it would be always. But it fell away into quiescence, and left her blood the muddy roil it had been when I first saw it. Only a few glints of darkness remained to show that the protection—and the strength, and the danger—still remained, waiting.

  The connection between us started to fade, and I had time to think, Oh, my arms must have gone underwater, before I became entirely aware of my body: not only my arms, but all of me surrounded by ocean. I’d lost my footing; no sandbar told me what direction to kick. My lungs burned.

  Strong arms wrapped around me, and I felt myself held and lifted. I gasped sweet air, turned my head from an approaching wave, saw that it was Grandfather who’d pulled me up.

  “Thank you,” I managed. He stroked silently toward the shore, and seconds later set me back on the sand.

  He put his hands on my shoulders and gazed at me. “Aphra Yukhl, later we must discuss how one makes such risks less completely foolhardy.”

  “It worked,” I said breathlessly.

  “Yes. And if it had not, you wouldn’t be in a position to make that argument.”

  “We needed to do something in a hurry, and no one had a better idea.”

  He snorted. “I’ll tell you several stories that start that way. Later.”

  “Yes, Grandfather.”

  CHAPTER 30

  It is written in the Archives that, once upon a time, the gods looked out on a universe barren and unthinking save for themselves. And they tested and experimented until they sparked matter into a form that might, one day, be capable of thought. And Shub-Nigaroth, mother of fear, looked on the first life and said: it will fail, but for now it is good.

  Spector gave me a blanket from his car—unnecessary for warmth but welcome for my recovering modesty—and lectured me about hypothermia. Charlie fussed as well, though not before pointing out to Spector that cold wasn’t as much of an issue for me as sharp objects. I settled back and let them bicker; it would take both their minds off the night’s events. I felt strangely well. The ritual had been one of the hardest things I’d ever chosen to do—but I had chosen it, and survived, and saved myself and Audrey. I had not been helpless.

  Professor Trumbull and Mary Harris made their way over. “Miss Marsh,” said Mary, “could you please explain what you just did?”

  “In equations?” I thought about the logic of it, how the ocean might be a grand sigil for all that stood opposed to intentional cruelty. I doubted I could articulate it well enough to satisfy them. “No. I can feel the shape of it in my head, but what I did tonight—I was guessing too fast to describe it properly.”

  “I have discovered a truly marvelous demonstration of this proposition,” said Trumbull. Mary laughed; I didn’t ask.

  “Miss Harris,” I said. Then I hesitated. “Your team came to Miskatonic to learn magic for waging war.”

  She glanced at the others, and I wondered if I ought to have taken her out of earshot, but she said slowly, “You really aren’t the ones who shared those things with the Russians, are you?”

  I pushed Ephraim Waite firmly to the back of my mind. He’d forsworn our laws and our community, and would only be amused if he knew his crimes laid at our feet. “I’ve said that before, and it’s true.”

  She nodded. “I don’t know if Mr. Barlow will listen to me. But I’ve seen a little of Innsmouth tonight. I don’t think you’re loyal Americans—but I don’t think you’re traitors, either. Not that kind. You’d turn your backs on our troubles, but I don’t think you’d give to someone else what you never gave to us.”

  I drew myself up. “There’s only so much we can care about a country we’ll outlive—and that tried to destroy us only a few years ago. But our people fought in the First World War, and in the wars before that back to the Revolution. If we aren’t willing to protect a place, we leave.”

  She nodded again, more firmly. “And that’s what we’re trying to do here—learn what we need to know to protect the United States. No one wants another war, but we need to be prepared.”

  Now, I felt a wash of helplessness. We might know how to cleanse tainted blood, but we had never found spell or word to dissuade a state when it wished to do harm.

  Then again, Mary was not the state, but one person who might be reasoned with—and whose cooperation and advice might do what we could not. “Have you seen, now, why we have laws and rules about which magic is permissible? That it’s not merely superstition?”

  She smiled wryly. “I’ve seen that I need to take more precautions in my research, if that’s what you’re asking. And that Mr. Spector may be right about consulting with outside experts. Tonight has certainly been educational.”

  “Thank you,” said Spector. “I’ve been trying to tell Barlow that for years.”

  She sighed. “He cares very deeply about American security. And he’s very confident in his judgment—justifiably so, most of the time.”

  “You know,” said Spector. “I could use a new secretary. I might even be able to push through a raise—to something more like what an agent makes, given the types of material she’d probably have to deal with.”

  “If I hear about anyone looking for a position,” she said, “I’ll let her know.”

  Spector looked like he wanted to argue. Instead, he said, “We need better relations with the Deep Ones. If nothing else, think about the naval advantage.”

  “I’ve been thinking about it. That was quite the storm, earlier.”

  “The elders don’t normally take sides in the wars of the air,” I said. “But this is where we live, for now, when we’re on land and free.” Spector winced; Mary did not. “My father was too old, but I had uncles and cousins in the First World War. One of them was in the Navy; I know he got his ships through some hard weather. We can help—but there are laws older than this country that need to be followed.”

  She gave me a penetrating look. “Are you in a position to make treaties for your people?”

  “No. Are you?”

  She laughed. “Not in the slightest. But Mr. Barlow listens to me, even if it doesn’t always look like it, and other people listen to him.”

  “There are people in R’lyeh who listen to Archpriest Ngalthr. And others who listen to my grandfather.”

  She nodded. “What are these laws? Aside, one presumes, from avoiding overly general inventory equations.”

  Mary craned her neck as Ngalthr slipped up beside me. I continued: “I know you’ve been doing research into body theft. It’s not the most dangerous of arts, but it is the most destructive of trust, and of individual lives. And it’s forbidden.”

  “Which is what Upton came up against, I recall—I suppose that’s reassuring, after a fashion. If it’s true, it certainly makes it less likely you’d spread it around.” She paused. “Atomic bombs and outsiders in the world, and you worry about people jumping bodies?”

  “We ‘worry’ about all those things,” said Ngalthr. “We act against such crimes as fall within our domain, or we ensure the price is paid. If you find saboteurs or spies using such arts, we will gladly help you against them.”

  She nodded, and didn’t press h
im on what he had not said: that the crime was no more forgivable in potential allies. “One can only follow so many lines of research at once. If I had a more promising avenue of study to offer my superiors…”

  Ngalthr—a priest, but also often a mediator of R’lyeh’s millennia-spanning political squabbles and compromises—nodded somberly. “We might be able to suggest a few possibilities.”

  Later, he pulled me aside, and spoke softly so that the men of the air couldn’t hear. “Do you trust her promises?”

  I hadn’t yet slept, though fatigue was beginning to creep into my bones. I had been talking to Audrey and Jesse, listening to their stories about Sally and wishing I had a notebook. It took me a moment to realize that he was talking about Mary. “I don’t know her well enough to judge. I wouldn’t try binding her to it magically, though; her team would take it badly.”

  “One day, your family will learn that other people are not blind.”

  “I’m sorry, Archpriest. It’s been a long night. I truly don’t know—I think she’s honorable, but I don’t think she worries about following set rules and promises so much as what she thinks is right. And her judgment hasn’t always agreed with mine.”

  “Well. We’ll try this. We will watch and wait, and if need be we’ll move the spawning grounds yet again. Innsmouth will do for now, though. We’ll retrieve gold from our stores; it should be sufficient for you to buy back some of what’s rightfully yours.”

  Even tired, I could imagine the advantages of a small fortune. Miskatonic might not sell us our books, but the construction companies working on the outskirts of town were likely motivated by more straightforward greed.

  “Archpriest. There’s something you should know.” A glance told me that Spector and Mary and Dawson remained elsewhere. The plash of waves would cover our words. “I found Ephraim Waite’s journals at Hall. One of his cultists was exiled Russian nobility. And not pleased with his exile.”

  Ngalthr hissed softly. “You haven’t told them.”

  “I was trying to decide whether I should.” I hesitated. Speaking would make the choice real. “There are things they’d be able to do to protect themselves, however small, that would work better if they knew where the threat originated. But I think even Spector would feel he had to tell his masters. They’ve tried to blame us already, even without the details. With them, the paranoia would become even worse than it is now—and probably more destructive than any number of saboteurs and spies.”

  “The dangers of paranoia are much of why that art is so strongly forbidden. Yes, your judgment is good. Keep silent for now, and let me know if you learn of a reason to speak.”

  Hiding Ephraim’s secret would be far from a perfect protection. Barlow hardly seemed to need evidence to suspect us, and we still didn’t know who had visited Upton scant months before. The answer to that, when it came, might well spark its own paranoia. But for now, this was what I could do.

  Spector’s trust in me, ultimately, couldn’t weigh more heavily than the unknown lives saved or lost by my decision.

  Dawn, scarce stronger than moonlight, whispered behind the overcast as we drove back to Miskatonic. Mary drove Jesse home, bearing Sally’s body. She would tell Barlow what had happened, or most of it, but the public story would be that Sally, distraught by her boyfriend’s hospitalization, had wandered out into the blizzard and frozen to death. She deserved better, but it was a tale people would accept all too willingly. I didn’t ask Mary for details about how they’d have her found, or how they’d explain the sigils still scarring her arm.

  I supposed some secretarial duties were more pleasant than others.

  Audrey and I had spoken more with Jesse. He was exhausted—as we all were—but had agreed to cooperate with the story. I hoped his unbound promise would hold. At least Audrey seemed to have persuaded him that she kept company with me by her own will.

  * * *

  There was one more person who must hear the truth. Trepidatious and feeling out of place, I followed Audrey and Jesse into Leroy’s hospital room.

  He was awake and sitting up, though his skin still looked waxen. As soon as he saw us, he asked, “What’s wrong?” And then, “Where’s Sally?”

  “Sally’s gone,” said Jesse, his voice thin.

  “How?” He looked at me. “Why are you here?”

  “I was there,” I said softly.

  “Aphra tried to save her,” said Audrey. I bowed my head, not brave enough to protest the claim.

  “Like you did me,” he said reluctantly. “Did your family…?” He trailed off, eyes flicking to Jesse.

  “He knows about them,” I said. “He was there too. And no, not my family this time. Not … not for the most part. Jesse, perhaps you ought to explain the first bit, since Audrey and I weren’t there.”

  “Um.” Jesse took the single wooden chair, and sat, gingerly, beside Leroy. “After Sally told me to talk to Aphra about what happened to you, we decided we needed to know more. We were obviously getting into the kind of thing we’ve always talked about, and we needed some sort of power to protect ourselves, and to be able to stand up to whatever happened. So we snuck into the library.”

  “Without me?” Leroy’s enthusiasm was immediate and automatic. He flinched even as he spoke, but didn’t try to deny his reaction.

  “We found some restricted books that looked good. We thought we were doing all right, until the alarm went off…” He continued through their encounter with Barlow’s people, the federal team’s willingness to provide cover for their own ends, their offer of mentorship in exchange for shared texts.

  Aside from the need for a precipitating burglary, it was much how Charlie and I had started working together. At that time, I could hardly have claimed more experience than Mary—only a better awareness of my own limits.

  Up through the start of the inventory ritual, it seemed clear that Leroy would have happily gone along with every bit of their plan. At that point, however, Jesse was forced to admit amnesia and hand the narrative over to me.

  I summoned once again the half-lie we’d told Barlow: that we’d noticed the odd ritual in progress and been caught up in it when we came to investigate. “Then something else answered the summons. We’ve been calling it an outsider—one of the things that doesn’t belong in our universe, but waits for someone to make a crack in the world. It was … cold. And hungry. Professor Trumbull managed to banish it before it could spread, but it left a bit of itself in Audrey and Sally. And in me, through the connection that my grandfather made.”

  It hurt to tell the story, and yet it was also strangely relieving. I could speak of it, could explain things that at the time had felt beyond words, could turn them into something human. Leroy listened intently, but glared when I told him, not trying to gloss it over, what my grandfather had done and why he had done it. Glared harder when Audrey insisted that it had probably been too late to save Sally anyway.

  “We don’t know,” I said. “We can’t know.”

  “The ritual was hard for me, and I was doing a lot better than she was. I’m not excusing your grandfather, but I’m a lot more upset with Miss Harris for not bringing her to us earlier.”

  I went ahead and described the ritual for Leroy’s benefit. When I explained why we’d been able to make it work, he looked at Audrey with mingled horror and fascination.

  “Yes, yes, I know,” she said. “I’m descended from a bunch of murderous crazy people. I bet you are too, Mr. I’m-Related-to-Charlemagne.”

  “Probably, but they never did anything like that.”

  “My relatives could tell you stories about British magicians,” I said.

  Distracted, Leroy turned his attention back on me. “Your family aren’t healthy to be around.”

  While I was considering my response, Audrey said, “Healthier than Barlow’s people. Especially if you don’t try to poke them in the eye.”

  “He attacked me!”

  “She’s a girl, you moron. And you threatened her!”


  “Enough,” I said. “Chulzh’th lost her temper, and she knows it. If you’re going to admit I saved your life, then you should know that she did too—I panicked and did the healing ritual wrong, and she helped me get it back under control.”

  “Ah.” Leroy sat back, quelled. He looked at Jesse a long moment. “I don’t know what to do about this. You’re right, that we need … something. But if your spooks can’t be trusted, I don’t know where we can learn.”

  “You could study with us,” I said. “I should have offered earlier. I’m sorry.”

  The looks the boys turned on me then made it clear that, however much they might be pressed into keeping our secrets, they weren’t ready to treat me as a fellow human. My own reactions were a tangle: anger at their judgment, relief at the excuse to avoid further intimacy, shame at my relief.

  “I hope you find your own way,” I said. Then, apprehension twisting into the tangle: “Just, by all the gods, please don’t try to summon anything you haven’t already spoken to. It’s not an effective route to power.”

  Audrey nodded. “In general, if you think what you’re about to do might destroy Arkham, tell me first so I can grab anything I’ve left here.”

  “Are you still talking to us?” Jesse asked her.

  “Sure. Just not studying with you. Call me if you change your minds.”

  * * *

  I returned to the Innsmouth beach a few days later, with Neko and Spector and the confluence, to wait while elders brought up treasure from Y’ha-nthlei: mined nuggets, jewels and coins salvaged from centuries of shipwreck, and a few pieces of the worked gold jewelry so loved by R’lyehn artisans. These were not for trade; I bent my head as Grandfather placed one around my neck. It was heavy and cool, a thick bas-relief of elders and exotic cephalopods prostrate before gods.

  “From your grandmother,” Grandfather said. “She could not come yet from the central ranges, but sends this and her love.”

  I’d met Grandmother only a few times during my childhood. On land, before I was born, she’d kept house and raised her children well, but while she loved Grandfather she never loved such domesticity. After her metamorphosis she’d joined one of the exploratory companies that mapped the ever-changing floor of the Atlantic. That she’d heard already of my survival, quickly enough to send such a message and such a gift, was a small miracle.