Winter Tide Page 9

  I smiled in spite of myself. “I can assure you, Mr. Day, that the symbols that call my people are not conducive to the things that wait out in the cold. It’s the attempts to summon things that you can’t get to any other way that carry the true danger.”

  We sat in the study, with its warm browns and crisp papers, and I felt at my back winter creeping through chinks in the window. And I spoke to my friend and pupil of colder, vaster reaches, and tried to hold between us a little space of warmth in which we could take our comfort.

  CHAPTER 8

  After some discussion, we decided to alternate days at Miskatonic and Hall. Should Spector’s masters require some justification for the Miskatonic days beyond the possibility of new leads, and the promises made to me and Caleb, the alternating schedule also gave Dawson time to track Upton. But the morning paper carried new reports of Russian aggression, and I worried that they’d pressure Spector for fast results, rather than complete ones. They might not be entirely wrong, either—if Russia did have agents who could wear any body, at some point they must use them.

  I did not try again to apologize for Dawson’s duties with us, or Skinner’s presumed reaction. Their relationship must be all claws and blades: law and custom gave him a thousand types of power over Dawson, while she had only the one, pointed firmly at his heart. She’d made it clear that it was not my place to discuss this with her, nor to try and help her free of their well-honed tangle.

  Charlie and I spent a relatively quiet day in the Miskatonic library, pouring over a copy of On the Calling of Kinds that I’d managed to finagle from the librarian in lieu of yet another Book of Eibon. Orne wrote in engaging style, alternating his slightly eccentric taxonomy of creatures that could be summoned, and “receipts” for doing so, with cautionary tales of impromptu methods gone wrong.

  Spector chatted with the Special Collections librarian, apparently trying to overcome his poor first impression. I heard him sympathize, casually, with the man’s worries about the wrong sort of people accessing dangerous books. He didn’t—yet—press for stories about specific people who might have tried to do so.

  During a break, Charlie procured a phone and made a long-distance call to the store, checking with the colleague he’d left in charge, and I started on a letter to Mama Rei. I left it unfinished, though, distracted by an all-too-vivid image from Orne’s book—a story of uncontrolled summoning in battle. I feared it would make an easy addition to my nightmares. The unnamed war seemed to have been part of the Roman Empire’s early expansion. Perhaps the specifics would have been obvious to a man of the air, better versed in the details of European history. Orne described in detail the defending tribe—“barbarians,” as he would have them—who knew their territory and way of life lost, pressed to desperation against the wall of surrender. They, or perhaps merely a single skilled magician among them, chose instead to beg help from any creature that might hear.

  In the first minutes, it seemed their pleading would bear sweet fruit, for monsters arose from the caves and streams to fall on the legions: Creatures of claw and diaphanous wing flown from far worlds, willing to take the barbarians’ part in exchange for later favor. However, the call never paused at the boundaries of this world, but carried into Outside Realms, to beings of hunger that know nothing of human borders and fears. Where they entered, they made a field of peace: blackened grass, corpses cold and still, and dust where the wings of Yuggoth had descended to join the battle.

  It was the desperation before the call that plagued me now: if the swords and spears of the Roman Empire could drive people to such lengths, how much worse the threat of absolute destruction? What might the people of Hiroshima have called to avenge their memory, if they had known what was coming?

  That day, Dawson confirmed that one Daniel Upton, an architect, had been institutionalized following a murderous scandal in the mid-’20s. She had not yet managed to identify the asylum, but there were few in the area that would have made appropriate oubliettes for the son of a respectable family. She would soon find our quarry—assuming he was still alive—and I considered what I ought to say to him. It seemed an awkward situation, and a small scrap to offer Spector.

  So just as I had been grateful for the respite of our day at Miskatonic, I was now grateful for the trip to Hall that would give me additional time to plan for meeting Upton. For what I ought to do, if he were still sane.

  Mid-morning there came a knock on the door to our reading room. Expecting Asenath’s old friend, I got up to answer it, and was surprised to find Audrey Winslow waiting nervously outside.

  “Hi,” she said. “I’m sorry to bother you when you’re working. I heard you were here. I could help if you like.”

  “I don’t think—not unless you read Russian, I’m afraid.”

  “Oh. No. Mr. Barinov taught me how to write my name, that’s all.” She peered over my shoulder at the others, still engrossed in their texts.

  I put on my best voice for confused customers. “Miss Winslow. How can I help you?”

  “Oh.” She craned her neck further to look at the others, looked at me again, took a deep breath. Then she curtseyed somewhat awkwardly and dropped her voice. “Miss Marsh. I wish to serve you, and learn at your feet as your apprentice. If you’ll have me. I’m smart, I do well at school, I’m the fastest reader in our group, and I’ve even managed to make spells work a couple of times, almost, little ones, but I know I could do it!” This last said with a defiant air, eyes still downcast. “I would serve you willingly and absolutely, I only wish to join your”—her eyes flicked up and past me—“retinue.”

  I could only stare. I heard rustling behind me, and Caleb whispering something snide to Dawson. At last I found my voice, strained with shock. “You have me mistaken. Where did you get the idea that I have a retinue? Or take servants?”

  “Jesse said he went to the chapel and found you leading a service before the altar, with your brother serving behind you. That you were speaking of deep secrets, and dismissed him from your presence. And everyone in our group knows a little about the Cult of Dagon. He said you were a high priestess.”

  I ignored the choked sound from my brother. He could afford to think this funny. “Jesse … Mr. Sadler. Didn’t you say that he likes to make everything seem more mysterious than it is?”

  She shrugged. “He uses fancy words. But he usually knows what he’s talking about.”

  “And didn’t you say you don’t believe in magic?”

  “I don’t think it’s the right word for what we do—for what you do. But I know you can do things with it that aren’t possible any other way. I’ll call it whatever you like, if that’s what it takes to learn.”

  I checked over my shoulder. My brother now sat with an innocent, wide-eyed expression. Dawson looked between the two of us, her expression exceedingly dubious. Neko put down her book to watch in fascination. Spector appeared entirely too amused. Trumbull continued reading, blandly.

  Charlie came to my rescue. “Miss, I think you’re very confused. And bothering Miss Marsh.”

  She curtseyed again. It fit her just as poorly the second time. “I’m terribly sorry if I’ve offended you, miss. My lady? But I do want to learn this, more than anything. I’ll prove myself however you want, take on any task. Please, I beg of you.”

  A part of me wanted to slam the door or let Charlie drive her away. But amid her errors and desperation, she had asked a real question. I took a ragged breath. “If you promise to cease bowing and begging and giving me titles I haven’t earned, I will”—I thought on how many witnesses this needed, and whether one of them really had to be my brother—“go for a walk with you. Charlie, if you can spare a few minutes, I’d appreciate the company.”

  As he rose I realized that he was still using the cane, and the sidewalks were still slippery. “I beg your pardon, I ought not to have asked. Maybe…”

  “No,” he said. “I’ll be fine.” And there was no way to gainsay him without injuring his pride. I would
go slowly.

  “Sister dear—” started Caleb. I did the only thing I could think of to short-circuit the act, which was to stick out my tongue at him. He laughed and let be.

  We made our way cautiously out into the cold. I was grateful to see a bench nearby, and led the way to it. I swept away the patches of snow on the seat, and took a wet spot for myself.

  “We don’t really need to walk,” I apologized. “I just didn’t want the others staring.”

  Audrey’s eyes darted between us. “All right. I’m not bowing.” She lit a cigarette and took a defiant drag.

  Charlie frowned fiercely, and I took strength from his protectiveness. “Thank you. I appreciate that. I’m sorry that Mr. Sadler gave you the wrong impression, but I’m really not a high priestess. The people with me—some of them are friends, and some are family, and some are studying the same material for their own purposes. Mr. Day is my student, but he isn’t my servant. I work for him. At his bookstore. We help each other learn; I don’t know much more than he does. I’m sorry.” I held back any further apologies for not being that which I did not wish to be.

  “But you do teach. Magic.”

  “I learn magic. And he learns alongside me.”

  “I would learn. Regardless of what you call it.”

  I heard in Charlie’s silence that he was, like me, unwilling to simply dismiss her. He knew too well what it was to yearn so strongly.

  I trailed my hand through the snow on the back of the bench, and composed myself. I asked the traditional question, which had no traditional answer: “Why do you wish to learn?”

  “Power,” she said simply. She put the cigarette to her lips.

  “Ah.” Charlie knew this one. I nodded at him.

  “Magic isn’t for power,” he said. “That’s the first thing Miss Marsh taught me. If our studies brought power, I wouldn’t need this.” He tapped the cane on the ground for emphasis.

  “And I would still have … more family than I do now,” I said.

  She looked between the two of us. Now that she had determined not to cringe before me, her eyes grew colder. “Do you remember what I told you the other day? About Innsmouth girls?”

  I thought back to our conversation. “That we know what we want.”

  “And you go after it. I’m sorry for whatever happened to your family. I can guess from some of the rumors. I don’t expect to turn into Superman. I just want a little more control over my own life. Everyone else thinks that’s unreasonable; do you?”

  “No. I’m just not sure magic is the best way to go about it.”

  “Oh? What is, then?”

  I looked at Charlie, at a loss. I’d been free for all of three years; I barely knew how to rebuild my own life.

  “That’s what I thought,” she said. “Magic is good enough for you. Why are you learning it, if not for power?”

  There had been no mentor to ask me that, when I restarted my studies. I could no longer remember whatever foolish answer I had given my father, when he first asked. “It’s my birthright. I want it back from those who stole it.”

  “And that isn’t power?”

  Still I hesitated. “It would slow us down,” I said to Charlie. “We’d have to go back to some of our early practice.”

  He didn’t look entirely pleased, but said: “It’s up to you, Miss Marsh. Not my place to say how much we share.”

  I could tell, even from a few minutes in her presence, that Audrey had been granted a relatively easy life. Little had been denied her—and yet, in the thing she had been denied, I heard echoes of my own desperation, held tight through the years in the camp.

  Turning to her, I said: “All right, we’ll try this. I’ll take you on as a student. But we don’t know how long we’re in Arkham for. It could be weeks or months. If things go very well, or very poorly, it could be days.”

  Audrey lifted her chin. “A start is more than I have now.”

  “Then we’ll begin. Tell me what you know—or what you think you know.”

  * * *

  May 1943: The guards are distracted again, as they were before the Nikkei came to the camp. Outside the warden’s office, I hear raised voices. The next day, they begin calling prisoners inside in pairs. There are over two thousand Nikkei now, and the rotation takes a long time. Rumors swamp true reports.

  They call me and Caleb into the office together. Soldiers stand in the corners, guns trained. But that’s not what captures my attention. On the desk are two sheets of printed paper, two pens. My eyes feast on the words without even trying to interpret them. Letters, not traced secretly in sand, but gathered in an impossible abundance of sentences and paragraphs.

  The warden’s voice draws me back. His hair has grown gray and grizzled during his time here, and he glares with well-worn dislike. “Fill out the forms. Don’t make any mark other than ‘yes’ or ‘no.’”

  The first question: “Are you willing to serve in the armed forces of the United States on combat duty wherever ordered?” The second: “Will you swear unqualified allegiance to the United States of America and faithfully defend the United States from any or all attack by foreign or domestic forces, and forswear any form of allegiance or obedience to the Japanese emperor, to any other foreign government, power or organization?” I can barely suppress laughter. But the unvoiced hysteria dies as I consider: whoever ordered these questions to the camp made no exception for us.

  I glance at Caleb: “You could.” The rest goes unspoken: he could get himself drafted as a soldier. Get away from this place where he’s lived since he was six, to fight and perhaps die for a country that’s done nothing to earn his loyalty—far away from walls and wire and dry air, with a better illusion of freedom.

  But he smiles at the warden, takes the pen, and scrawls “NO” twice in unpracticed, childish handwriting. Unwilling to risk separation—and in truth, unwilling to give over whatever remains of my self to such an oath—I do the same.

  Still, I let the pen go with reluctance, and leave clutching a new and secret hope: they are starting to forget why they were afraid of us.

  * * *

  Audrey turned out to be familiar with a certain amount of theory, though intermixed with a great deal of nonsense. When she forgot herself—or rather, when she forgot her exaggerated ideas of my station—she was also prone to wild speculations about the “rational” foundations of the art.

  What she truly lacked was any practical experience. After a few of her stories I decided that the essential problem with her “wild” college set was that they expected the cosmos to provide human-scale drama. They’d bought a sheep from a local slaughterhouse and sacrificed it on Hallowmas, hoping thereby to earn visions. There had been visions of a sort, but there had also been much drinking. Another time, they’d painted themselves with a paste of dead tarantulas—these stolen from a Miskatonic biology lab—in an attempt to summon a thankfully imaginary spider god.

  “Sally got a rash all over her belly,” Audrey told us in disgust. “She claimed she was ‘spiritually pregnant.’”

  “Miss Winslow,” I said hesitantly. I did not wish to become like Spector’s masters, automatically suspicious of anyone who dealt in magic. Nor did I wish to assume, as did some of our elders, that short-lived men of the air must invariably misunderstand and warp the ancient texts. The “wild” students with their risqué reputations were probably harmless. But I could not bear the thought of being further disappointed later on. “Has anyone been hurt in these rituals? Worse than a rash, I mean, or against their will.”

  “Not that I know of. You hear stories about how intense things were in the old days, but I think it’s just people trying to sound daring. The sheep is the only time I’ve even seen blood.”

  “Ah. Well, that will change.” And I told her about the Inner Sea.

  * * *

  Spector cornered me after dinner. He’d acquired a cigar from somewhere, and I had to breathe shallowly. “Miss Marsh, I don’t mean to pry. But what arrangement d
id you come to with that student?”

  It had been close to noon by the time we returned to the reading room, so I could hardly deny that something had transpired. “And yet you are prying.”

  He sighed. “I have to report, and justify, anyone who learns about the mission. I have to fill out ten duplicate copies of a five-page form for anyone who learns about the mission. What you do on your own time is your own business—I just need to know whether I ought to fill out that paperwork. Please say no.”

  I smiled in spite of myself. “No. She is naturally curious about our interest in her friend’s papers, but I haven’t told her why we want them.”

  “Ah.” His eyes narrowed. “She knew him?”

  I hurried to forestall this line of thought. “I don’t think she knows any more about what he was working on than the interests he shared with all of her cohort. They don’t appear to have been at risk of accomplishing any legitimate magic, let alone anything you need to be concerned with.”

  He looked at me a long moment and nodded. “I trust your judgment.”

  “Good.”

  But the conversation shook me, and I wished for a fleeting moment that I had what Audrey had supposed: a retinue of pliable followers whose judgment I need not fear.

  Trumbull, of course, didn’t quiz me about Audrey, an unlikely source of either occult wisdom or historical documentation. Neko teased me gently about my would-be acolyte, but that I could withstand.

  Once we were alone in our room, she turned more serious. “What’s going on with Caleb?”

  I turned off the lights and sat on the bed. Electricity probably wasn’t dear for Trumbull’s budget, but it was a hard habit to break. “He’s angry. And frustrated, even now that we have access to our books.”

  “I don’t mean that. He’s always been angry and frustrated. He was angry and frustrated in the … in the camp … but he didn’t hold me at arm’s length.”

  I stared, though I doubted she could see. “He’s more comfortable with you than he is with me.”