Fantasy Life (21 page)

She was amazed she had stayed in bed. When she woke, nothing seemed disturbed. Her lamp was still on low beside the bed, her hi-fi playing the same record over and over, the last of the incense burning down.

She went to the window and peered out, but saw nothing. The storm had come. Rain lashed the glass and she could hear the wind howling ever so faintly.

For one brief moment, she pulled open the door to her widow’s walk and stepped outside. The lava rock which made up the walk was slick with rain, and cold to her bare feet. The wind whipped her hair around her naked form, and the rain pelted her skin.

She held her hands up, asking the water to help her see, and for a brief instant, she saw the ship, sliding against the cliff face, the panicked sailors running around on the deck like crazy people.

Then she choked, her throat suddenly full of something so thick that she couldn’t even swallow. She raised her hands to her neck and touched something slimy.

She pulled her hands back. They were black and dripping, her skin losing its warmth as the substance coated her. She shivered, her body temperature dropping.

She was going to drown. She was going to freeze to death. She was going to—

Her hands were still in the air, and her eyes were closed. There was nothing in her throat, but inside her mouth, an awful taste remained, as if she had swallowed a cup of sour Vaseline.

She looked down at the rocks below. There was no ship. And there were no sailors scrambling across the deck. The ocean looked angry, the swells spilling over the tallest points at the edge of the Devil’s Goblet.

A large gust nearly knocked her over. She clutched the stone barrier in front of her, catching herself, then reached for the door. She had to pull herself back to her room.

She had left the door open, and the rain had created a giant spreading wet spot in the shag carpet. The incense had gone out, either damped by the blowing rain or finally burned down.

The familiar scent was gone, replaced by the briny scent of the ocean, covered by the stench of rotten eggs.

Cliffside House South Tower

Athena Buckingham woke to find a man standing at the foot of her bed. He was dripping wet and naked, holding a seal’s pelt in his left hand.

“We don’t have a lot of time,” he said.

No one had ever invaded the towers before. She sat up, clutching her nightgown closed.

“What do you want?”

“There’s no time, Athena. We’re going to lose everything if you do not come with me.”

She knew better than to turn on the light. He would be six feet tall, black-eyed and black-haired, and one of the most beautiful men she had ever seen. She could already tell that from his voice, deep and rich.

She had never seen him before, but she had seen his type, and she knew how dangerous they could be.

“We have to set up a barrier,” he said, “and hope it holds. We don’t have the power to do it alone.”

He held out a hand, but she didn’t take it. She threw the covers back, stuck her feet in her slippers, and pulled her hair back with a barrette.

“Do we need to hang up your pelt?” she asked.

“I’m going to need it. You’ll have to trust me.”

A lot to ask on the first meeting, but she had done crazier things. For a brief moment, she wished her mother were
alive—she always handled emergencies better than anyone else—and then Athena let the man lead her out of her bedroom, down the stairs, to the levels below.

Cliffside House The Landing between the Towers

Cassie had pulled on a pair of jeans and a University of Oregon sweatshirt without drying herself off. She had tucked her long hair inside the sweatshirt because she didn’t have time to pull it back.

Her hair dripped cold water down her back, sending shivers through her as she ran down the circular staircase that led to the landing between the towers, flicking on lights as she went.

She had to get her mother. Something was going to go wrong. Something might have already gone wrong. Cassie didn’t know, but it was her job to sound the warning, and she had to do it now.

The sour Vaseline taste grew stronger on her tongue and the stench of rotten eggs had grown worse. Her eyes watered from the smell. She couldn’t tell if it was real or not, any more than she could tell if the sounds she kept hearing—the groaning of metal on rock—were real either.

When she reached the landing, she nearly collided with her mother, who was running after a man. The man was tall and beautiful, with the liquid eyes of a seal. He held a pelt in his left hand and he was naked.

A selkie, who had sought her mother out.

Cassie felt a jolt of surprise and stopped before she ran into both of them.

“Mother!”

“No time, Cass,” her mother said, dashing across the landing to the door built into the wall. Her hand scraped at the black rock, trying to find the hidden release.

“Mother, something’s wrong.”

“I know, Cass.”

“No, you don’t. There’s a ship. I think it’s going to hit the cliff.”

Her mother looked at her, fear on her face. The selkie was touching the rock now, searching for the same opening.

“Can’t you smell it?” Cassie asked. “The rotten eggs?”

“What kind of ship?” Athena asked, and for the first time in her life, Cassie heard fear in her mother’s voice.

“We don’t have time, Athena,” the selkie said. “Tell the child to go.”

“We need her,” Athena said. “Her powers can augment mine.”

Cassie looked from one to the other, feeling her heart pound. She had known that her mother did strange and magical things for Anchor Bay, but she had never known what they were.

“What do you want me to do?” she asked.

“Find the opening to the damn door for one thing,” Athena said.

Cassie braced one hand on the wall and let the house show her where the release was. It clicked open without her even having to touch it.

“I thought you said she wasn’t as powerful as you are,” the selkie said as he ducked inside the door.

Cassandra looked at her mother, who ignored her. She was holding the door open as if she expected it to close.

“I said her talents are different from mine.” Athena nodded at Cassie. “Go. Follow him.”

“Who is he?” she whispered.

“Whoever they sent this time. When there’s an emergency, you don’t have time to ask.”

Cassie stepped into the darkness, wishing she had a flashlight. She could hear the selkie in front of her, his bare feet slapping against the stone steps.

A beam of light came on behind her. Athena had a flashlight. Her mother thought of everything.

“Hurry, Cassandra.”

Cassie ran down the stairs, unable to see most of the way. These stairs were different from all the others in the house. They were shallower, sharper. She got the sense that if she fell, she would cut herself as she slipped down them.

“What are we doing?” she asked as she ran.

She could sense her mother behind her, pushing her forward, making her go faster than she would normally have.

“I have no idea,” her mother said. “He said something about a barrier.”

“What?”

“We’ll know when we get there.”

Athena seemed so accepting, as if nothing had changed at all, as if she did this every night.

Maybe she did. Cassie had no idea, and she wasn’t about to ask. She was worried about the staircase. The walls had grown narrower, and they were covered with water.

She had never been in this part of the house before. It had the damp chill of the sea. She wished she could smell something besides the rotten eggs, so that she would know how close to the water she really was.

Then another scent enveloped her: smoke. Her eyes burned, and she gagged again, stopping, and clinging to the wall.

“Cassie?” Athena asked.

“Fire,” Cassie gasped. She clutched the wall, unable to move. She couldn’t see at all. Smoke surrounded her, and she couldn’t tell if it was real or a vision.

“Here?”

That answered her. The smoke was part of a vision. But of when? Of now? And where?

“I don’t know,” Cassie said.

“Athena.” The selkie’s voice echoed from below.

“Go,” Cassie said, moving her hand in the direction of the voice.

“But this might be important—”

“Go,” Cassie said again. “I’ll catch you if I can.”

Even though she knew she wouldn’t. Her eyes were tearing, and her lungs were filled with smoke. Something was wrong. Somewhere. Something awful.

“Child, what can I do for you?”

“
Go
!” How many times did she have to say it? Athena had been right. Cassie didn’t have the same powers. Athena and the selkie would do fine on their own.

Even though Cassie was guessing. Her mind was working as sluggishly as her lungs.

She leaned her cheek on the wet stone and listened to her mother’s slippers click their way down the steps. Athena’s voice called out to the selkie, and he answered, his voice coming from far away.

Cassie closed her eyes, and gradually the vision faded. The smoke disappeared and the thick feeling in her throat was gone. Her eyes still burned, and her face was streaked with tears.

She wouldn’t be surprised if her skin were covered in soot. But she still didn’t know what had happened.

Or what had caused the vision to fade.

She sank onto the steps. She would need a moment before she could go farther, to join her mother and the selkie on the rocks below.

She brought her knees up to her chest, wrapped her arms around them, and rocked, trying to find some comfort.

Only she had a feeling she’d never feel real comfort again.

Anchor Harbor

The wind had come up. Rather than gusting at forty knots, it was sustaining at forty-five. John Aluke had to fight to get the
Anchor One
close to port. Even then, he knew it would take all of his skills to bring the tugboat in safely.

His radio crackled and hissed. It had been doing that ever since he’d radioed the
Walter Aggie.
He had been contacting them repeatedly, trying to tell them to anchor as far out as they could. The storm was serious, and this part of the Oregon Coast had the worst shoreline for a vessel in a storm. There was no working lighthouse, and the rocks were treacherous, especially near the twin pillars of the bay.

Aluke had seen too many pleasure boats hit the Goblet or the Candlestick and sink before anyone could get to them. Even though the
Walter Aggie
was not a pleasure boat—it was a tank vessel that wouldn’t fare well in these choppy waters.

The waves revealed the pointed rocks below the surface. The volcanic uprising that had created the Candlestick and the Goblet had littered the entire area with jagged rocks and a basalt shelf that had ground up more than one boat.

It took special skills to be a tugboat pilot, but to be a tugboat pilot near Anchor Bay took the best of the best.

And even Aluke was calling it a night.

The radio spit once more, then a voice said,
“Anchor One,
this is the
Walter Aggie.
We are at the rendezvous point, but we can’t see you. Over.”

Aluke cursed. They hadn’t gotten any of his messages. His hand kept one hand on the wheel as he lifted the microphone.

“Walter Aggie,
this is
Anchor One.
Do not go to the rendezvous point. Return to deeper water. We cannot tow you into the harbor in these conditions. We will come to you when the storm abates. Over.”

They didn’t respond. Aluke continued guiding his tug toward port, wondering what it was that made his messages impossible for them to receive. The captain of the
Walter Aggie
should have been smart enough to know they couldn’t dock in
this kind of weather. He had the charts; he had to know how treacherous this area was.

Aluke tried again.
“Walter Aggie,
this is
Anchor One.
Do not go to the rendezvous point. Return—”

“Anchor One! Anchor One!
We need assistance.” This was a different voice, and it was panicked. “Help us please! Help us!”

The hair rose on the back of Aluke’s neck. He’d never heard anything like this. Even in the most dire emergency, radio operators remained calm.

But this clearly wasn’t their radio operator.

“What’s the trouble,
Walter Aggie?”

The voice had disappeared. Aluke got nothing in return. He tried again, then again, the silence filling him with a panic he’d never felt before.

He’d never lost a ship. Were they in trouble because they had expected him? Or had they done something else?

There was no way he could help them. His tugboat was no match for this kind of sea. He kept steering inward, as he thumbed the microphone on and contacted the Coast Guard, feeling handicapped.

He didn’t know where the
Walter Aggie
was. He didn’t know what had gone wrong.

All he knew was that whatever it was, it was very, very bad.

The Base of the Devil’s Goblet

Athena stepped out of one of Cliffside House’s many exits, finding herself on what the locals called the Base of the Devil’s Goblet. Sea and time had worn the sharpness of the cliff way, bending it into a goblet shape, complete with stem.

Cliffside House grew out of the top of the Goblet, but stairways and secret passages all through the house provided exits at various points on the cliff. This one brought her to the top of the base, an unprotected area at the best of times.

On this night, it was damn dangerous. The wind was so strong that she could lean into it without falling, and it seemed constant, which was unusual for the Oregon Coast. The rain was so much a part of the wind that it seemed like someone had turned on a cold shower and leveled the showerhead sideways at her. She was drenched in an instant, and colder than she remembered being in her life.

The rock was flat here, and slippery. Her slippers gave her no traction at all, and she kicked them off. As she did, a wave slammed into the cliffside, the water frothing toward her. It stole the slippers as if they were its heart’s desire.