Carousel Seas (5 page)

CHAPTER SIX

MONDAY, JUNE 26

NAUTICAL TWILIGHT 9:49
P.M.
EDT

We carried our wine glasses out onto the summer parlor, and stood at the front rail looking over the dunes and the beach and the sea.

The tide had turned and was coming back in, but there was still a lot of sand laid bare, and a fair number of people scattered across it—mostly walking, a good number with their dogs, now that the daily curfew was done. From up the beach, toward Surfside, came the
snap-snap-POP
of cracklers going off.

“Early,” Borgan murmured.

“Got to get in shape for the Fourth,” I pointed out, though I wasn’t a fan of amateur pyrotechnics, myself.

“There’s that.”

I sipped my wine, eyes on the sweet swell of the waves behind the perambulating figures.

“Pretty night,” I said, eventually.

“Is,” he said easily. “Take your glass back inside?”

I handed him the empty.

“Thanks.”

I heard him move behind me, light-footed, and curled my fingers over the rail, eyes half-slitted, a deep contentment filling me.

It wasn’t all that long ago that the view from my apartment window had been of a parking lot and cars parked around a central “garden” that was nothing more or less than artfully arranged boulders and multicolored gravel.

Away is a different country, and they do some very strange things there.

Behind me, a board creaked gently—which he must’ve done on purpose, so as not to startle me—and then I felt him at my back, big and warm and solid.

“Why
Gray Lady
?” I asked,

“Little bit of long sight. Had a notion a lady was gonna come outta the fog and shake me up some.”

“Yeah? How’d that work out for you?”

“It’s been nice so far.”

I laughed.

“What I meant was—why do you live on
Gray Lady
?”

“Well, after all my time and trouble fixing her up from what Uncle Veleg’d left, I had to do
some
thing with her, and I promised the family I wouldn’t sell ’er. Besides, I like living on the sea.”

“But you could live
in
the sea,” I pressed, not certain where I was going with this, except now that I thought about it, most
trenvay
lived among, or on, or with their particular piece of land, rock, or swamp. Granted, a Guardian wasn’t . . . exactly . . .
trenvay
, but—

“Or,
under
the water. Like a mermaid . . . or a seal . . .”

“You don’t live in the land, do you?”

“Could I?” I asked, momentarily diverted, then I realized what he’d done. Never argue with a
trenvay
—
or
a Guardian.

“Your gran lives in a tree,” he pointed out.

“That’s because Gran’s a dryad. It’s what they do. Besides, mostly she lives here.”

“And why’s that?”

Damned if I knew the answer to that one. Gran had lived in Tupelo House during all my memory. I’d never thought to ask her why, even though I knew her nature.

“Gran does what she does,” I said to Borgan. “She has her reasons, and woe to any fool who asks her for them.”

He laughed. “There’s that. Takes a steel backbone to deal with Bonny. Well, then, speaking for myself . . .”

He paused, the pause stretching out until I was afraid I’d been something far worse than impertinent. Panic clawed at my throat, which was stupid, and I knew it, but . . .

“Speaking for myself,” he said again, very quietly. “The Gulf o’Maine’s my service and my support. I’m her Guardian, but that’s a knife cuts both ways. I swore to protect her, and guard her from harm; but, too, it’s up to me, to hold her from
doing
harm. Understand some things’re just nature; there’s no cruelty, or intention, behind ’em. But other things—there’s more behind ’em than nature. There’s malice, sometimes, because the land hurts her, and she wants to strike back. That’s where I reach in an’ guard her from hurting herself.

“If I . . . mingled with the sea, let her wash through my spirit, and surrendered all of me to be part of her—I’d fail my oath, and my Guardianship wouldn’t be anything other than wrack and whim.”

I felt his hands on my shoulders, warm and comforting, yet somehow conveying the information that he wasn’t quite as calm as his voice would have me believe. Slowly, in case it was the wrong thing to do, I leaned back into his chest. The pressure of his fingers increased, and I knew, at least, that it had been
a
right thing to do.

“The Gulf o’Maine, now,” Borgan said, still talking as low as if we were hunting tigers. “The Gulf o’Maine’s one of the richest and peacefullest pieces of water in all this world. There’s a lot of angry ocean out there. A
lot
of angry ocean. Add that into the weather shifting—no malice there, just nature. Science, like they say. Science or malice, though, landfolk are gonna die.

“If I can keep the Gulf alive; if I can keep her peaceful and . . .
disposed toward
the land . . . we’re gonna need the Gulf o’Maine, all the damn’ world of us . . .”

He snorted, then, maybe a laugh.

“So, long story short, that’s why I live on
Gray Lady
, and not with a mermaid under the sea.”

No,
my evil genius piped up.
Instead he started a relationship with a land woman—a
Land Guardian
—in hope that’ll count as another point toward the Gulf’s peacefulness toward landfolk.

I didn’t say it; I do know better than my evil genius. Mostly. This, apparently, was one of the less mostly times. My chest cramped a little, thinking it was the Guardian he wanted, not Kate Archer. I took a breath, to ease it, reminded myself that Kate Archer and the Guardian were pretty well inseparable, and leaned my head back until it rested over his heart.

We stood that way for a minute or two before Borgan took his hands away from my shoulders and wrapped his arms around my waist.

“Penny for your thoughts,” he said, still soft.

Well. It was lucky for me that I had a second level of thought running under the half-hurt.

“I was thinking that your approach makes sense, Captain, but I’m wondering—how far does familiarity go? When Prince Aesgyr and I shared power, all sorts of conditions snapped into place—including us not being able to hurt each other. Which I’m starting to think might include more than just sympathy for the devil. If, for instance, he comes out of Varoth—
or
Daknowyth—and parks an army right here on the Beach, how much is his influence worth? Is my nature stronger than our . . . bond?”

“That worries you, does it—the sharing?”

“Not the sharing,” I corrected. “The
results
of the sharing. In my case, will it be force enough to turn me from my service . . .”

“. . . and in my case, will it be enough to hold the Gulf from anger?” His arms tightened and I felt him sigh. “No way to know that, is there?”

This is getting ’way too serious, Kate. You had plans for this evening, remember?

. . . but if I was only his science project, then I wasn’t certain my plans were a good idea. I didn’t exactly know what I wanted from this new and still fragile relationship, but I was pretty sure I wanted
some
thing. Something . . . ongoing, and . . . steadfast.

I’m not all that good at even straightforward relationships. I didn’t think I could begin to handle one in which boy’s commitment to his duty drove his wooing of girl . . .

I took a breath, pushed thinking to the back of my mind, and turned around inside the circle of his arms.

When my breasts were pressing into his chest, I put my arms around his waist, and looked up into wary and quizzical black eyes.

“And you say
I
worry too much.”

The corner of his mouth twitched. “I try not to let it keep me awake at night.”

“That’s no good. I
particularly
want you awake tonight.”

“Maybe you can give me another reason, then.”

“That sounds like a challenge,” I said, lifting my hand and running my fingers around his braid. It was heavy and warm and
satisfying
in a way I’m not sure I can even begin to describe.

“How about we play a game?” I said.

“What kind of a game?”

“I’ll do something, and you’ll tell me whether it’s nice, great, wonderful, or terrific.”

“Those’re my only choices?”

“I don’t want to confuse you.”

“Fair enough.”

My fingers tightened on his braid.

“Ready?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

I pulled firmly, and he bent his head in response, while I came up on my toes—and captured his mouth with mine when he came into range.

Some time that I refuse to quantify in minutes or years later, I leaned back, knowing that he wouldn’t drop me; watching his face.

“So,” I managed, my voice shaking, “which is it?”

He looked thoughtful. “I’m going to kiss your ear.”

“No side trips! Make your choice, sir.”

“Well, the part where you yanked on my hair, I wouldn’t call that
nice
, necessarily. The kiss, that was . . . you sure about the ear?”

About the only thing I was sure of was that I wanted to kiss him again—ears not being entirely out of the equation—not to mention other things . . .

“The kiss, that
was
nice,” he said, and before I could whip up even a little bit of bogus outrage, he did kiss my ear . . . and other things . . . and sometime . . . later . . . we went inside and up to the bed.

Sometime
much
later, sated, peaceful, and just about to tip over the edge into sleep, I felt his lips against my ear again, and his voice so soft it seemed like my own thought.

“
Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious
.”

The goblins had offered her every courtesy, welcoming her into the cavern wherein they dwelt, rough fare though it was. Some effort had been made to make the stones more pleasing—sea grass rugs had been lain, and kelp curtains hung, to separate one area from another. There were treasures displayed, to her eye meager, though surely the best that goblins might have.

She had been given food, and drink, and a shelf lined with sea grass upon which to recline. They had observed the courtesies—neither Daphne nor her sister, Olida, asked for her name, her station, or her affiliation. They treated her, subtly, as one of a higher order, yet comported themselves with such dignity as even goblins might attain.

Olida, at least, bore wounds of a recent nature, and hers was the voice most raised in the listing of wrongs set against them by this other, this
Borgan
, who had seduced the sea away from them.

There was some trickery within the narrative, of which she took no offense. They were, after all, goblins; trickery was their nature. Still, this wresting—she thought it not a recent thing, no matter the pains Daphne took to tell the tale wide in certain portions, nor Olida, to obscure the precise course of events.

She had already deduced that this stranger sea was not bound to these, save as a sea is bound to all its creatures. This sea’s love—
that
lay elsewhere. Perhaps it lay with the creature
Borgan
, perhaps not. Wherever its present location, whatever its current object, she had decided before the goblins’ tale was half done that the love of this sea would very soon be
hers
.

The character of this sea pleased her; there was a calmness in its currents; a certainty of its power; a deliberation, and a pleasing order, in its movements.

Yes, this sea
would be
hers. The goblins were negligible; they would either yield, or they would die. The
Borgan
—
there
might lie a challenge, if only half of Olida’s charges were true. The sea itself . . . that would require subtlety, and sureness, and power. She might manage it—she
would
manage it, but first . . .

She must reacquire her name, her history, and the full sum of her powers.

From the goblins, she had hidden the extent of her disabilities. The same deep knowledge from which she drew her understanding of goblins counseled her to keep any injury secret from them.

It was the presence of this deep knowledge that gave her hope of a speedy reunion with herself. In the meantime, she listened carefully to the goblins, and put what questions seemed good. Eventually, she allowed it to be seen that she was weary, and somewhat weak in her limbs.