Winter Tide Page 8

  Some of those rumors were related to our topic of study. And this woman was the first I had met since the camps with memories of my town, my people. “Please tell me about her?”

  We drew chairs away from the table. “She had your look, but that same—she carried herself well, attracted people to her. She frightened a lot of people, too, but I always admired her drive. She had an … audacity about her, and we always expected great things.” She sighed. “Then she got married, like any ordinary girl. He was a Miskatonic graduate, years her senior but still spending all his time with the college students, and he brought out everything that was worst in her. And then, well, you know how badly it ended.”

  She wiped her eyes. “I’m sorry. It was a long time ago, but she was a friend.”

  “You hardly need to apologize for mourning,” I said. Neither of us had a handkerchief, and no one at the table had noticed, so she made do with her sleeve.

  “Did she ever offer you salt water?” I asked, suddenly curious whether she had held to our customs even after leaving.

  “Yes!” She laughed shakily. “We always thought that was strange, but she said it was a potent tool.” Her eyes slid to the books on the table.

  “A magical one,” I said, and she nodded.

  “She was very … she had quite a reputation.” She watched me carefully, and I did my best to look like someone who would not mock her past. “She seemed a magician sometimes, and she was certainly a hypnotist. She could catch you up with her eyes and make you feel that you were someone else, something else…” She trailed off wistfully.

  I swallowed hard, because that certainly fit the rumors. “You liked it?”

  I saw on her face first the fear that she had said too much, then the determination to bear witness to the truth of it. “This school can be confining, sometimes. Asenath made us feel free.”

  And yet, here she was, a quarter century on, still in the place of her confinement.

  Spector slipped in, bearing bandages and what appeared to be a scavenged cane. Our conversation stilled as he passed, and we waited until he bent to more properly dress Charlie’s knee, murmuring reassurance in exchange for grunted protests.

  “From what I heard when I was a child,” I said reluctantly, “Asenath may not have been as free as she seemed.”

  “Certainly not after she married Mr. Derby. Or after they got involved with that Upton fellow.” She regained some of her composure, and a proud tilt of her chin that made me ache so much for home that I thought she must have picked it up from Asenath. “I hope he rots another twenty-five years in that asylum, for whatever role he played in that sordid situation.”

  “Wait—he’s still alive? The man who—” I broke off, uncertain with what version of the story I ought to finish my sentence.

  She grimaced and fussed with her sleeve. “They never gave us a straight story, but either Upton or Derby murdered her.” She met my eyes, now that she had spoken it aloud. Spector’s head jerked up, and I waved him back to his notes. “Then Upton killed Derby, and blamed her for it. I always assumed there was an affair; she can’t have been happy. And yes, he’s still alive, locked up because of how he ranted about her.” She shook her head. “I never married. A woman with a brain who marries is a fool. Men will eat you alive.”

  That was almost certainly true of Asenath, though I didn’t think it would be a kindness to share what I knew. “I’m sorry for your loss. She left town when I was very young; I’m afraid I don’t have any memories to share. I knew some of her closer cousins, but they died years ago.”

  She nodded. “I heard rumors about what happened to Innsmouth, too. I’m glad to do anything I can to help a relative of Asenath’s, even a distant one.”

  “Thank you,” I said faintly.

  After she left, I joined the others at the table and took a free notebook. I wanted time to think over what she had said, and to decide what I ought to do with it.

  Spector stood and checked the now-closed door. “I’m sorry,” he said, “but when I hear the word ‘murder’ it attracts my attention.”

  “And when I hear the name of ‘Waite,’” added Caleb. He and Dawson had been murmuring together over marginalia, but apparently not loudly enough to block our conversation. In the camps, I’d grown used to the absolute fiction that people did not hear when there was no room for physical privacy. Apparently the habit had not taken with my brother.

  I sighed and put down the scarcely opened notebook. “It’s a very old case,” I told Spector.

  “With a Waite…,” said Caleb thoughtfully. Then, eyes unfocused as if summoning old memory, he chanted: “Old Man Waite will steal your eyes, Old Man Waite will steal your soul. Better run to the sea by the count of five, if you don’t want to pay Old Ephraim’s toll.” He reddened at the others’ looks.

  “Caleb, where did you get that?” I asked.

  “It was a song the kids used to sing. Don’t you remember? You have to run from the street to the porch of the old abandoned Waite house and back before the chant is over, but some people count way too fast.”

  “They hadn’t turned it into a song when I was young enough for that sort of game.” Of course the others would not be dissuaded now. “You all understand that this … this thing we’re researching— Body theft is a grave crime. The last suspected case in Innsmouth took place when I was very young. If I remember the details right, Ephraim Waite supposedly stole his daughter Asenath’s body, but was somehow dissatisfied with it. So he left Innsmouth as Asenath, and went to the Hall School. He seduced and married someone from Arkham, and then moved into his body, or tried to.”

  “Hold a moment.” Spector looked both queasy and as if he were having difficulty keeping up. “How many bodies at a time?”

  “Just one at a time,” I said, “unless he knew a whole different version of the spell from the one people talk about—I certainly hope not. I’m sorry—I’m trying to reconstruct something I overheard—”

  “—eavesdropping from the top of the staircase,” put in Caleb.

  I ignored him and went on: “—so I could be wrong on the details. But as I understand it, once Ephraim Waite had the husband’s body and forced the husband—‘Derby’ is the name the librarian gave—into Asenath’s, he killed Derby. And then a friend of the family killed him, in Derby’s body. That’s all I know, except that the elders seemed dissatisfied about whether they’d been able to do justice.” I took a deep breath, drawing in air rich with leather and old paper. “That librarian”—and I realized we’d never exchanged names—“was a friend of Asenath’s. Or rather, a friend of her murderous father, unknowing.”

  Charlie and Spector spoke nearly at the same time. “I’m sorry.” They looked at each other, then away.

  “So am I.” Asenath herself had lost whatever voice she might have had in the whole complicated story, dead before anyone noticed. I glanced surreptitiously at Trumbull. She was unlikely to mourn Asenath Waite as a person, but I wondered whether she regretted the lost perspective, the little piece of history fallen away into the trench created by Ephraim’s crime. Reluctantly, I added, “Mr. Spector, the librarian did tell me about a living witness. If you think it might help. It sounds like he’s the one who killed Ephraim, and probably knew what he was doing.”

  To his credit, Spector took the moment to think about it. “I believe it would,” he said slowly. “If he could suggest signs that distinguish a body thief … It could help not only to track down actual cases—if there are any—but also to avoid unnecessary paranoia. Unless you saw it yourself?”

  I did not look at Trumbull. Even if one dared judge the Yith, their art was not the same thing. I shook my head. “I was young, as I said. And my understanding is that Asenath—Ephraim, I mean—left town soon after the first switch, presumably to escape notice.”

  Spector glanced at Dawson, and she nodded. “Do you have a name?” she asked.

  “Upton,” I said.

  “There are a lot of Uptons in Morecambe
County.”

  I looked helplessly at Caleb. “He’s in an asylum…”

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I never heard any skip rope songs about Uptons.”

  Neko leaned forward, as intrigued by Caleb’s childhood as by Ephraim’s old crime. “I thought you said it was for playing keepaway with a haunted house.”

  “For the boys. The girls used it for skip rope.” More color in his cheeks suggested that he’d sometimes played the safer game as well.

  Dawson gave Caleb an amused look, but her tone was all professional confidence. “I’ll find him.”

  Kirill Barinov’s notebooks did not provide any hints of body switching that day—nor indeed of any magical mastery beyond the dilettantish. According to Dawson’s translation, he’d speculated wildly about the powers one might develop through proper study, but ultimately showed a deeper fascination for the legends of otherworldly creatures and gods. Like many at Miskatonic, his great hope appeared to have been finding secrets of physics and mathematics hidden in ancient lore, or the reverse. He seemed to take great enjoyment in the play of ideas with the rest of his crowd, whatever the topic. Certain names cropped up frequently in the English sections of his marginalia, including a few instances of “Sadler says” and “Miss Winslow made an intriguing observation.” As Dawson pointed out, the only possibility precluded by these entries was Kirill as an incompetent spy. It would have been easy enough to keep two sets of journals and leave one behind, or hide meaningful observations in some cipher that Dawson hadn’t yet detected.

  The helpful librarian had left by the time we were ready to go, but her evening replacement assured us that we could continue our work when we returned.

  Spector pulled me aside on the way out. “I wanted to warn you: Dawson says that Skinner is acting suspicious about you and Caleb. He’s not happy that we haven’t explained what we’re after, and he seems to have latched on to the idea that it’s something to do with”—he shrugged, looking embarrassed—“old rumors about dark arts and destructive powers that were hidden before Innsmouth was … before the raid. He seems to think you’re using us to go after … whatever he imagines you want to find. She’s trying to redirect him, but you may want to be careful.”

  “That, I’d figured out.” I tried to hide my discomfort. The rumors about Innsmouth had always included fantastical stories about everything from sacrificing our neighbors’ children to hoarding artifacts that threatened all humanity. Simply for Skinner to recall those libels, discuss them with others, would be a grave danger. “Wouldn’t it be better to tell him? I know he doesn’t cooperate willingly, but he might, if he knew what danger you were really after.” And it might distract him from his worst guesses as to why Innsmouth’s survivors were involved.

  But Spector shook his head. “Skinner is discreet only when his own reputation is at stake. I’m not authorized to explain the details of our mission to him, and I don’t think his inevitable curiosity is sufficient reason for headquarters to change that. I just wanted you to know—and to let me know if you see reason for greater concern.”

  Dinner passed with the usual awkwardness—although thankfully without Skinner’s personal presence. Afterward, I suggested to Charlie that we find a private spot to continue our studies. Caleb declined to join us, somewhat to my relief. Trumbull surprised me by offering the use of her workroom, “provided you do not interfere with my studies there.”

  We walked slowly back to the faculty row. The cane seemed to help—Spector had found a good one—but Charlie did not object too strenuously to my staying within reach of his elbow on the night-frozen sidewalks.

  Trumbull’s second-floor workroom had once been an ordinary study, with built-in bookshelves and a bay window overlooking the snow and moonlit shadows of the campus.

  “The knives are purified. Salt them when you’re done,” she told us before shutting the door.

  Trumbull—or rather, the entity that now inhabited her body—had pushed the desk to the side and stacked it with papers handwritten in miniscule but impeccable Enochian. Another table bore, along with a rack of knives and a water-filled glass bowl, a half-built machine that looked like some obscene hybrid of a chemistry set and a home radio kit. It did not appear to be on, but the open flasks gave off a faint, noxious odor only partly masked by the remnants of incense and melted candles. A series of hand-drawn diagrams studded one wall. She’d covered the open part of the floor with a thin slate slab, now a palimpsest of old chalk.

  A cushioned chair remained in concession to human comfort, and Charlie sank into it. He rubbed his knee gingerly. “I don’t know what to make of her.”

  “Well.” I leaned in to examine the diagrams more closely. They seemed related to astral travel, but beyond that I could tell only that they were far beyond my expertise. “That’s probably because she isn’t human.”

  “She’s not one of your people. You would have said.”

  “I’m human, Mr. Day. We share the world in three parts.”

  He ducked his head. “I’m sorry, Miss Marsh. I didn’t mean it like that.”

  “I know. But remember.”

  “So then she’s … is she a Yith?” He leaned back. “Of course she is. You did warn me.”

  “I did. But it’s different, meeting one in person.” I settled cross-legged on the slate and looked up at him. “It’s one thing to say that humanity is ultimately unimportant in the face of the cosmos. It’s another to stand before someone who believes, deep down, that your pain is trivial.”

  “I felt that. When she doesn’t care about something, she’s like a personification of the whole universe not caring.” He started to bend down, grimaced, and sat back again cautiously. “But they do important work—you’ve said so. And there were other humans there who did care, who helped me out—even if I was an ass about it.”

  “You were, rather,” I told him, and was rewarded by the quirk of his lips. “Charlie—” His given name slipped out without my thinking about it, and he didn’t object. “It’s cowardly of me, but I don’t want to think about the indifference of the universe tonight. I want to go through the Inner Sea, and see what we can do to encourage your healing, and then perhaps talk a bit about summoning.”

  “That all sounds fine to me.” But he hesitated and asked, “Not more dreamwalking?”

  “I’d rather not. She might be asleep.”

  His eyes widened and he made no further objection. I gathered up the necessary materials—the bowl proved to hold salt water—and drew the first-level seal, occasionally quizzing Charlie on the symbols. We centered ourselves—I on the waves and tide, he on wind and breath—and began the chant. Our voices entwined the room, calling on our own bodies and the rhythms they shared with the changing earth, the rush of wind, the water’s rise and fall through the ocean. As the words filled us, I washed the blade and pricked our fingers to let blood mingle with salt water. Even before the magic took hold, I began to feel calmer, to gain, not indifference to the day’s shocks of fear and sadness and hope, but some measure of equanimity. The tide sweeps in, the tide flows out, and you learn to accept the ocean’s inconstancy.

  And then the tide swept in. I felt how my body carried my mind, how it held my selfhood enmeshed in the weave of eyes and veins, bone and skin. I felt my blood: a river, a torrent, a reminder that my body had not forgotten the ocean in which it would someday dwell, or the form it would take there.

  But our ritual had another purpose, tonight. I surfaced and reached out to Charlie. I must see through his flesh, if we hoped to heal it. I touched his hand, and dove into the weaker, dryer currents that flowed through a man of the air. Through them I sought the signs of his injury, and the tools of healing.

  “I’m sorry,” I said when the ritual was over. “Maintaining health is always easier than repairing injury. Usually a new injury is simpler, but this one is so tangled in the old damage…”

  “I know. I saw.” He glared at the seal. “My knee’s been a problem for years. It sho
uldn’t be more frustrating now, just because I have some control over other things.”

  “We thirst more for water just beyond reach.” The old saying felt facile; I had known for a long time that it wasn’t true. “I’m sorry. There’s too much we can’t do.”

  He shook his head. “I think you had the right idea, earlier. Tell me about summoning.”

  So I did. We could not go far beyond the theoretical tonight, not without the appropriate books convenient to hand—Trumbull might have some, but this wasn’t a good time to ask her.

  Summoning spells would at first be more useful to Charlie than to me. It was possible to call on a specific individual, but far easier to summon by kind. A call to Chyrlid Vhel—the people of the air—would likely bring whoever was in the next room. A call to Chyrlid Ajha would bring either me or Caleb, unless we were very close to the Atlantic in just the right spot. A call to Chyrlid Fazh did not bear thinking about. It was always possible that some wayward Mad One might choose to answer.

  “Could we summon a Yith?” His eyes darted to the door, lids crinkling at the presumably entertaining image.

  “Unfortunately, no. Both because physically she’s a perfectly ordinary woman of the air, and because someone stronger-willed and more skilled in magic can always resist a call. Or follow it under their own power to find the source of the presumption.”

  “That sounds unpleasant.”

  “Yes. Miskatonic has a reputation for producing the sort of fools who try to summon the gods themselves, or their close servants. Fortunately for the school, they don’t usually get any response.”

  “Usually?” He leaned forward.

  “The gods have never responded to summons. But Earth is warm, and wet, and full of life. And there are things that care even less for our well-being than the Yith, and who have more dangerous interests. They wait for the opportunity in a badly used word, a misplaced symbol.”

  “I might do better to ask around until I found out where you were. It seems safer, somehow.”