Chapter Twenty-Seven: Hold Fast
This episode is part of a larger story, Soft Touch. If you haven’t yet, you can go back and read it from the beginning right here.
Maybe I can only say this because I took a preemptive sea-sickness tablet and had a big, bracing breakfast, but – I really like being out on the ocean.
The coast glides past on one side of us. Tall black cliffs wreathed in mist and crowned with evergreens, looking very small from this far out. In all other directions, there’s just the sky and the open sea.
There are things about this experience I thought I wouldn’t like that are surprisingly nice. The wind is rushing powerfully through my hair and crashing against my face, but it’s refreshing, invigorating. The boat gives the occasional hard bounce on the big waves – and a lot of smaller bounces on the little ones – but it’s actually sort of fun. Aiden and I keep grabbing hold of each other whenever there’s a big bounce, and eventually from behind us we hear Robin laughing at the sight.
A few times a burst of spray rises up to splash us, but other than that the ride is impressively smooth. No matter what kind of wave faces down Moondancer, she glides right through it, then keeps soaring forward.
After some time Aiden and I get up and carefully take the side platform to get back to the covered lounge, where Robin is at the wheel. The windshield goes directly up into the roof, and the roof sweeps down to form slender walls around the lounge area. As a result it’s much quieter here than the rest of the boat, and we can talk without yelling.
“Robin, this boat rules,” Aiden tells her, impressed. “Have you seriously had it for seven years?”
“Yeah, how’s a girl that young get her hands on enough money to afford something like this?” I ask, holding onto a railing as Moondancer leaps on the waves. “Tell us because we’re curious, not jealous and planning to steal your methods.”
Robin lets out a laugh, keeping her eyes on the ocean.
“I’ll list you the procedure. Step one: accept a bunch of contracts for dangerous but high-paying expeditions, then save as much of the money from them as you can. Step two: buy the boat in pretty bad shape and slowly fix her up during your time on land, whenever you have the chance and when you can hunt down the right engine parts. That’s a long step, that one takes years. But it feels good, too. Step three: accept that now you’ve bought the boat you won’t have too much money again for a while. Live on the boat so rent isn’t an expense. Maybe accept a few more of those dangerous expeditions before you go back to the more chill science expeditions you like better. And step four: end up with a killer, kick-ass boat.”
“Aw, man.” I pull a sad face at Aiden. “We can’t steal her methods. We don’t know anything about boats.”
“That also sounds like a lot of incredibly hard work, even though you made it sound simple,” Aiden tells her.
Robin gives her shoulders a little shrug, her bangs blustering around her eyes in the wind.
“It’s worth it, though. It’s real freedom. It means you can just sail away from everything when you need to.” She takes a deep, long breath of salt air. “It means a brand new sky whenever you want one.”
Aiden and I look at her thoughtfully, then tilt our heads back in tandem to gaze up at the sky we have today. It’s swirled with puffy grey clouds, which let down a fine, shimmering, sunlit drizzle. It’s making the boat a little slippery, but it is very beautiful.
“Why Moondancer?” Aiden asks, dropping his gaze back to Robin.
She breathes out a laugh, shaking her head.
“I actually gave her a big tough-guy name at first. When I met Faith, she told me she didn’t think it matched very well. I’d always kind of thought so, too, so I told Faith to pick something else. Told her I’d use whatever she said. And she immediately blurts out Moondancer, like the girliest name, I couldn’t believe it. But I promised, so we rechristened her together.”
“So your boat is trans, too?” I laugh, caught by surprise.
Robin nods solemnly. “And happier than ever, flying her true colors.”
Aiden and I both laugh, and Robin flashes us a brief grin. But at the thought of Faith she grows serious, nibbling her lip. I watch her thumb tap absent-mindedly on the navigational equipment.
The rain starts to hit harder against the windshield, the waves growing choppier. Moondancer lifts and falls with them. There’s a faint thump from somewhere beneath us.
Robin arches an eyebrow. “Did you put your stuff in the starboard cabin like I said, Aiden?”
“Yeah,” Aiden says, then pauses in faint embarrassment. “Wait, I – which is starboard, again? Left or right?”
“Right, if you’re aboard and facing the bow.”
“Oh. Shit.” Aiden winces apologetically, already heading for the door. “Sorry, Robin! I’ll go put that stuff in the right place. I think I heard cabinet instead of cabin, so-”
“It’s okay,” Robin cuts in, firmly but gently. “If it helps, port has four letters and so does left. Hold onto the railing while you go down the stairs.”
Aiden disappears below decks, flashing Robin a look of grateful relief.
I find myself doing the same thing on a couple of different occasions as time begins to pass by. I deeply appreciate that Robin isn’t making us feel stupid for having no idea what we’re doing or talking about when it comes to boats. She has a smooth, gentle way of filling us in. Somehow she makes it feel less like she’s lecturing us on something we should know, and more like she’s sharing a fact we might happen to find interesting. As a teacher I’m impressed, and taking mental notes.
By the time a few hours have passed Aiden and I are moving pretty comfortably around Moondancer. And Robin, as it turns out, is really easy to talk to.
“It’ll be nice to sleep on the boat, although I’m starting not to mind camping so much,” I tell her, sitting cross-legged on one of the ivory lounge seats by the helm. “The main thing that still concerns me about it is bears.”
Robin glances at me in amused surprise. “Why bears?”
“What do you mean? Because they’re terrifying, obviously!”
“What?” Robin laughs, widening her eyes at me. “Are you kidding? I love bears. They’re the cutest.”
I gape at her in disbelief. “Okay, no, you’re kidding me. Bears? Bears are the cutest? You’ve been at sea for too long. You forgot how scary land animals are.”
Robin counts things out on her fingers as she begins listing them. “Soft. Fluffy. Those ears!”
“You’re thinking of a teddy bear, not a real bear! A real bear would eat you for breakfast!”
“Yeah, and she’d be so cute that I’d let her,” Robin says promptly. “I’d let her and I’d thank her.”
“No!” I laugh, then turn around as Aiden comes down into the lounge. “Are you hearing this madness?”
Aiden drops down next to me, his warm blue eyes baffled. “Only caught pieces of it, but it sounded like a bear and breakfast argument?”
“Your poor boy here is afraid of nature’s most adorable animal,” Robin tells Aiden gravely, as if diagnosing me with something unfortunate.
I spread my hands at her incredulously. “I think you mean nature’s largest terrestrial predator!”
“Alright, we can save this debate for another time,” Aiden says, folding an arm around my shoulders and placing a hand over my mouth. “Right now it’s time to summon our ghost. Sure you don’t mind, Robin?”
I bite Aiden’s fingers until I’m free to speak again. “Yeah, why don’t you mind, actually? I thought sailors don’t like having ghosts on their ship. Are you not superstitious at all? That’s unusual, for a sailor.”
“Oh, no, I fear and respect all that shit, believe me,” Robin answers firmly. “I just don’t believe that you two, personally, are friends with a ghost who you can summon onto my boat.”
“Okay, well – then I feel a little bad, because we are going to summon a ghost onto your boat,” I answer with a wince. “A real ghost. I just need to tell you so before we do it.”
Robin contemplates me with a baffled look, breathing out a laugh. “You were serious, then? About the Ghost Office, and all of that?”
“Yep.” Aiden stretches out his long legs, crossing them at the ankle. “We just finished up with a witch. She was tough.”
Robin gives him an understanding nod. “Right, naturally. And now you’re after an illusion?”
“No, the illusion is dead,” I explain. “A different illusion killed him. Which is unfortunate, really. He was a close friend of the witch. She’s the one who told us about him. And she gave us his necklace, in case that might help us find his territory.”
“Sure,” Robin agrees, still nodding along.
“Anyways, since he’s dead we’re just going there to find something we need in order to deal with a different illusion. A hydria.”
“Mhm, that all checks out. And what kind of illusion is a hydria?”
“No, a hydria is like a clay jar for pouring water. We need to return it to its owner. Although – yeah, I guess technically it is an illusion too. But not a living one. It’s an illusion of an object, so it’s different.”
Robin glances between me and Aiden a few times, then breathes out another laugh. “Psychs me out, how much you really believe it. You sound so serious.”
“Have you never had a brush with something you couldn’t explain, Robin?” Aiden asks. “Out at sea?”
Robin sighs deeply. “Why do you think I don’t want to sail past that one stretch of coastline I mentioned? Why I’m taking us on a route that takes way longer, purely so we can avoid it? Because every sailor in Port Sitka knows that some creature haunts those waters. Our grandparents warned us. More than a few of us have had brushes with it, ourselves.”
I sit up with interest. “Really? Can you tell us more about that? What does it look like?”
Robin stares at me with wide eyes, half-laughing. “Why, is the Ghost Office going to investigate?”
Aiden shrugs his powerful shoulders. “We investigate all kinds of things.”
Robin falls silent, biting her lip as she faces the ocean again. She bends her head slightly forward, so that the escaped curls from her auburn braid flutter down to hide her expression.
“Is that why you guys are trying to help me?” she asks quietly, after a long moment. “Because I’ve noticed you and Calla asking me questions like you’re looking into what happened to Faith, and… I can’t help wondering why. You guys don’t even know her. You barely know me.”
Aiden and I look quickly at each other, surprised by the question. I guess after long enough being a Guardian – or being in love with one – it only feels right and natural that we should try to help when someone’s in trouble. I can see how it would seem odd from the outside, though. We never even asked Robin if she wanted our help in the first place, something that’s only occurring to me right now.
“Well, like I said,” Aiden answers slowly, taking time to choose his words, “We investigate all kinds of things. Sounds to us like you’re basically having to investigate what happened to Faith on your own. But we’re all headed to the same place anyways, and you really shouldn’t have to do this all by yourself, so… why shouldn’t we help?”
“If you’ll let us,” I add hopefully. “We can’t do worse than the cops, right? At the very least we can back you up while you investigate.”
Robin lifts her gaze to us again. She stares intently at Aiden for a long moment, then at me, then gets her eyes back on the water.
“Okay,” she says.
“Really, Robin?” I ask brightly, full of relief.
Robin shakes her head at herself, but nods in answer.
“One thing you learn living most of your life on the ocean is that you’ve got to trust your instincts, so… yeah. Fine. Thank you. And you can summon your ghost, although I will say I still don’t believe you about him.”
“Oh, sweet.” Aiden slips the ghost glasses onto his face, then cups a hand around his mouth. “Hey, Will! You’re all good to come on board!”
A moment passes, and nothing happens. Aiden and I look at each other in confusion.
“That’s weird,” I murmur.
“Yeah, where is he?”
I sit up a little more, starting to get worried. “You think he’s having second thoughts about leaving Ketterbridge?”
Robin is glancing back and forth between our faces, increasingly puzzled.
Aiden hesitates, then tries again. “Hey, Will? We’re ready for you, man.”
There’s another brief silence, then a soft shimmer in the air. Will materializes on the deck in front of us, radiantly bright with all of Kasey’s energy. His heavy workboots, his white flannel shirt, his windblown blonde hair – every detail about him glows with perfect, crisp clarity, right down to the tiny scar on his jaw.
His eyes are tightly shut. He opens them very slowly, blinks hard a few times.
“Hey, dude!” I call cheerfully, raising my hand in a wave. “You made it! You left Ketterbridge!”
Will slowly looks around, his green eyes going very wide. “Yes, I… I did…”
He sounds like he can’t believe it. His gaze travels over the open ocean, over Moondancer, then the distant black cliffs. Then slowly up to the sky, where they stay.
Robin’s words drift through my head. A brand new sky… Something Will hasn’t had for some two hundred years.
Will stands frozen for another moment, then suddenly lets out a sharp, wild, giddy laugh. Aiden and I watch as he bounds up onto the front of Moondancer and stares out at the horizon. He puts one boot up on the railing, gathering himself like he’s about to leap.
Aiden and I both instantly forget that he’s a ghost and spring to our feet in alarm. Yesterday Kasey laid down a full explanation of the things she will do to me and Aiden if any harm somehow comes to Will on this trip, and now the frightful, vivid pictures she painted in great detail flash through my head. I know they must be on Aiden’s mind, too, given the panic in his eyes.
But Will leaps into the air off the front of the boat, then soars high up into the sky overhead. His translucent form shimmering in the hazy rain, his arms thrown wide open in bliss.
Aiden and I, having just rushed to the front of the boat, burst into laughter when we hear Will’s screams of delight from above us. I sink back against Aiden in relief, looking up at him with wide eyes. He returns that look, and we both laugh again, turning back to watch Will go diving and swooping around in his brand new sky.
Robin has been staring at us, her eyebrows furrowed in growing confusion. She opens her mouth, then seems to decide it’s better not to ask.
Aiden comes back and cracks her one of the drinks from the cooler, starts pulling out some snacks for everyone. I shake some rain out of my hair and sit back down, glad for the toasty warmth of Aiden’s body against my side. Robin zips a jacket over her crewneck, slinging her long braid over her shoulder. Will glides along above us, then descends to ride on the roof. Gazing around with wide, wondering eyes, the cold rain falling right through him.
“Weather’s picking up!” Robin calls to me and Aiden. She doesn’t spill one drop of lemonade as she takes a sip, although the waves are starting to rock Moondancer with growing ferocity, and the rain is growing thicker. “Nothing to worry about, though! Just be careful walking around, and we’ll be fine!”
I have to think she’s right. The weather may be a challenge, but Moondancer forges fearlessly ahead. Cutting through it all to take us where we need to be.
~~~~
Even with the rain, even with having to cling to the railings to navigate the boat, I really like the ride. It doesn’t even feel like it’s been that long before Robin calls out that we’re getting close. To the inlet, to the mountains. Hopefully to the territory of the dead illusion.
It’s hard to make too much out as we draw closer, between the rain, the ocean mist, and the deepening dusk. We got here with very little sunlight left in the sky, in part because Robin wasn’t joking: she took us far out from the coast to avoid the area haunted by that creature all the sailors in Port Sitka are afraid of.
That choice added time to our trip, and the landscape is mostly dusky purple shadows as Robin begins to draw Moondancer closer to the coast. The rain veils everything, making the trees and cliffs and shoals into dreamy, dark indigo phantoms, constantly shifting in the soft downpour.
The lights from our little vessel might be the brightest thing left in the day. Especially with Will sitting on the very front of the boat, a glowing piece of silver in the boundless landscape.
It’s an odd experience. The sky is full of clouds, so no moonlight or starlight peeks through as night falls. The ocean just slowly becomes a vast darkness with the occasional scattering of little chips of light, and the sky slowly becomes pure darkness, too.
So I really can’t say how Robin knows when she suddenly announces: “We’re headed up the inlet now.”
“Are we?” I ask in surprise, joining her at the helm. “Oh, that’s good! Unless – is it? Should we not try to navigate this place in the dark?”
“Yeah, that’s generally a bad idea,” Robin agrees. “But there’s a dock at the campground, and that’s not too much farther ahead. We can stop there for the night.”
I don’t know how, but despite the weather and the darkness she gets us there. Some forty-five minutes later, a wooden dock suddenly looms up in the lights thrown off by Moondancer. Robin briskly gets us tied up, hops back onto the boat, and retreats under the roof with me.
“How’d you do with the world’s tiniest kitchen, Aiden?” she asks, dropping down onto one of the seats as Aiden comes upstairs with dinner in his hands.
“The hardest part was just trying to stand up down there,” he laughs softly, handing over the steaming bowls to me and Robin. “But I think I did okay.”
The food smells incredible. Father Leo wasn’t joking. Being at sea makes you hungry. I’m starving, even though we’ve been snacking all day. I dive into the bowl of toasty hot chili and cornbread without waiting.
Aiden sits down beside me with his own bowl, tossing his chestnut hair out of his face. “Where’d Will go?”
“He ran up the dock,” I explain, as Robin glances back and forth between us in baffled amusement. “I think he’s still excited to be roaming new territory.”
“I don’t blame him,” Aiden laughs, then adds, for Robin’s benefit – “He’s been in Ketterbridge for like two hundred years.”
Robin’s eyebrows arch up high. She pops a piece of cornbread into her mouth, shakes her head, and offers no comment. But she does blink in confusion when Aiden and I both look up quickly, noticing Will coming back to the boat in a rush.
“Jamie, Aiden,” he says breathlessly, leaping on board. “There’s a cabin up the path with lights on! I poked my head inside, but nobody was there.”
We both blink in surprise.
“Robin,” Aiden says slowly, “You said the campground has cabins… is there a reason any of them would have lights on? We’re the only ones at the dock, and no one can get here by land, right?”
“Yeah, but the campground keeper is always here. It’s a year-round job.” Robin shrugs her shoulders, stretching out her legs. “Guess they figure it’s cheaper to pay someone a small salary to be here all the time than it would be to repair everything at once when the weather gets good for camping again. Why?”
“Will says there’s a light on in one of the cabins,” I answer without thinking. “But no one is in there.”
“Makes sense it’s the campground keeper’s cabin,” Will says, flinging himself down on the seat next to Aiden. “It looked a great deal more lived-in than any temporary lodging would.”
“Anything in the other cabins?” I ask hopefully.
“No others had their lights on, so I could barely pick them out of the darkness. I could check in the morning.”
Robin is staring hard at me, her fork hovering forgotten just above her bowl.
“What…?” she begins slowly, narrowing her eyes. “How the fuck…?”
“You should head home, Will,” Aiden jumps in hastily. “We need to conserve your energy.”
“I’ll confess I do wish to see Miss Lavoe… are you quite sure you won’t need me tonight?”
“We’ll call you back in the morning,” I tell him fondly.
Will stands up, gives us a polite bow of his head, and vanishes softly, his form melting away into the rainy night. I can tell he’s eager to talk to Kasey about today.
Aiden takes off the ghost glasses and slips them safely into his pocket. Robin is still watching us in confusion, but I guess she must be too tired to give it too much thought. She waves a hand as if to say she can’t deal with this right now, and moves on.
I get it. I’m exhausted, too. Being at sea makes you hungry and tired. It must be pretty early in the night, but I feel like I could fall asleep against Aiden’s shoulder as soon as I’m done with my food. I lean my cheek against him, listening to him answer Robin’s questions about us, how long we’ve been together, what we do for our regular jobs. Normally it would be me who takes over in this kind of conversation, but Aiden must know I’m too tired for that at the moment. I flash him a grateful, adoring smile beneath my lashes.
Robin can tell we’re both too tired to talk much, I think, because she gently launches into a story of her own. One that we listen to with a lot of drowsy laughter. It’s about someone she sailed with once who thought it would be a good idea to try to teach himself how to breakdance while on a three-month voyage out at sea.
“Turns out none of the skills translated onto land,” Robin tells us, her light brown eyes dancing with laughter. “He said it was a whole different experience without the boat rocking. The first time he tried to do the worm he just smacked his face directly into the ground. He looked so surprised. I’ll never get over it.”
“Sounds like something our friend Noah would do,” Aiden laughs, trailing his fingertips over my shoulder. “He threatened several times to come after us on a Sea-Doo for this trip.”
“God help us!” Robin sputters, drawing more laughter from us both.
Mine ends in a contented sigh. The warmth of Aiden’s touch, the sound of the rain, the rush of the waves against the boat, the hot dessert we had, Aiden and Robin’s voices around me… it’s all very soothing. Starting to put me to sleep. I close my eyes in a yawn, drowsily blink them open again. Then I sit bolt upright, my heart missing a few beats.
“There’s someone coming down the dock towards us,” I whisper, cutting off Robin and Aiden’s conversation.
They both twist around to peer through the rain. Spotting what I just noticed: the bobbing glow of a flashlight in the misty darkness, coming right for us at a brisk pace.
Aiden starts to sit up in alarm, but Robin waves a hand at him. “No worries. That’ll be the campground keeper coming to see who’s here. I’m guessing he saw our lights.”
“Do you know him, Robin?” Aiden asks, stacking up our bowls and setting them aside.
Robin finishes off her IPA and gets to her feet, dragging the sleeve of her jacket over her mouth. “No, but I knew the old keeper. I liked him because he always talked fondly about his daughters, called them ‘my little girls’. Eventually I came to find out his little girls were sixty-two and sixty-five years old.”
“Aw!” I laugh, putting a hand to my heart. “Please tell me that old man got to retire peacefully?”
“A while ago, yeah. Went to live with his girls. From what I heard they were happy to have him.” Robin squints through the rain at the approaching flashlight beam. “I haven’t met his replacement yet.”
She easily crosses from Moondancer to the dock with one sweeping step. Aiden manages the same, and I awkwardly scramble after him, grateful for the hand he offers to help me. I straighten up right as the new campground keeper stops in front of us and lowers his flashlight. The glow of the boat is enough to see by.
“You the new keeper?” Robin asks, pulling her hood up over her auburn hair. “Nice to meet you. I’m Robin.”
“Bruce,” he answers stiffly.
He’s a lean, middle-aged man with a grim expression on his face, and deep frown lines that indicate this is the usual state of things. The hood of his jacket is pulled up over his hair, casting shadows across his eyes. But I still sense a glimmer of irritated hostility in them, one that gives me the impression we’re not supposed to have tied up at this dock, or – something. I’m not sure. I can just feel that he doesn’t want us here.
Robin senses that, too. She gives him a cautious nod of greeting, then asks – “Dock’s still free and open, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” Bruce answers, in a tone that indicates he sorely wishes that wasn’t the case. “Just thought I’d come see who our new arrival is. If you’re here to camp, you may want to go home and come back another time. We don’t have too many cabins available right now. Midway through some repairs.”
“Not a problem for us. We’re staying on my boat, just mooring here.”
“For how long?” Bruce asks icily.
Robin narrows her eyes, and I exchange a swift, uneasy glance with Aiden.
“Is there a problem, or something?” Robin asks, an edge of impatience coming into her voice.
Bruce lets out a snort of mirthless laughter.
“It’s one problem or another every night,” he says, smiling unpleasantly. “That’s what it’s like raising a teenage girl.”
A growl comes into his voice, and the cold smile simmers into a glare as he adds - “She’s run off again tonight. Don’t suppose you’ve seen her? Short girl, long black hair, dresses like the devil already has her soul. Attitude and behavior to match. Name of Maggie.”
Robin’s expression is hardening the more we hear from Bruce.
“No,” she says, with barely-concealed irritation. “We haven’t seen anyone. We just got here. But I wonder how Maggie would like you describing her like that to perfect strangers.”
Another snort of humorless laughter from Bruce.
“You don’t know my daughter, or you’d see I’m justified. Sneaking off, stealing, disobeying me at every turn, finding every possible way to degrade herself, enough to make me glad her mother isn’t still with us to see her. As of late we can add property damage and pyromania to the list of her charms, too. So you’ll want to watch your boat. I doubt you’d be so sympathetic if it was on fire.”
Robin’s eyes flash dangerously, and I suddenly remember that she has a quick, blazing temper. I almost forgot, because Aiden and I didn’t set it off at all today. But now her hands are tightening into fists, the fire in her eyes brightening with every word Bruce speaks.
She opens her mouth angrily, and I hastily jump in.
“We haven’t seen her, Bruce. We’re headed to bed for the night.”
He nods, clicking his flashlight back on. “Then I’d better keep looking. Got to find her.”
“What’s the hurry?” Aiden asks, his deep voice stiff with dislike. “Where could she run off to out here? There’s nothing else around.”
“Yeah, that’s why I moved us here.” Bruce spits into the ocean, turning to go back up the dock. “Keep her away from bad influences. But they still come to us.”
He casts a lingering, unsmiling glance at us over his shoulder, then sets off into the rainy night.
“I do not like that man,” Robin says, through gritted teeth.
“Seriously!” I find myself scowling indignantly at his back as he retreats. “Who talks about their own kid like that?”
“Maggie sounds pretty cool, though,” Aiden decides, helping me back onto Moondancer. “Hope she doesn’t torch our boat. Should we move it away from the dock, Robin? Just in case?”
“No,” Robin says flatly. “I see no reason to bother doing that. I don’t trust anything that nasty man has to say.”
We’re all in agreement there, so we head below decks for the night. Now that Bruce has left I’m remembering just how exhausted I am. I think the same is true of Aiden and Robin. We move around each other in tired silence as we get ready for bed.
Robin’s cabin is the door at the end of the little passageway. Ours is off to one side, facing the tiny kitchen and the storage cabinet where Aiden mistakenly put our bags at first. Robin’s cabin has a bed big enough for two, but Aiden and I have bunks.
I have to smother a laugh when I see him experimentally crawl into his, and catch the dismayed expression on his face when he realizes just how far his long legs hang off the end.
“Guess I’ll be taking the top bunk, then,” I laugh softly, climbing up to it with my water bottle and my book about agroforestry. “You’ll have to curl up down there.”
“Easier said than done, dude,” Aiden grumbles, unsuccessfully testing out different positions to lay in.
Robin leans through the door in her pajamas, then lets out a snort of laughter when she sees the situation.
“Sorry, Aiden. You’re just not built for a boat this size. Man like you needs a warship of some kind.”
“This is our warship,” Aiden answers sleepily, drawing a quiet, tired laugh from Robin.
“You guys need anything?”
“No, we’re good. Thanks.” I sit up some more, giving her a warm smile. “Seriously, Robin, thank you. We really appreciate you taking us here, and letting us stay on your boat. You’re the best. Except for your wild misconceptions about bears being cute, which sincerely make me worry for you.”
“Yeah, alright, no problem,” Robin laughs quietly, giving me a lazy little salute. “Goodnight. Thanks for cooking, Aiden. That peach cobbler was killer. Smart to make enough that we could each have three servings, that’s good thinking.”
“You’re welcome. Oh-” Aiden sits up as Robin starts to close the door after herself. “Sorry, would you leave that open? I usually sleep with an open window. I get why I can’t do that in a boat, but the door, too, that’s like…”
He trails off anxiously, and Robin hesitates for a moment.
“I, um – okay. Yeah.” She gives him a reluctant nod, tugging at her shark tooth pendant. “No problem.”
With that she disappears into the passageway, leaving us gazing after her in confusion.
“Why didn’t she want to leave it open?” Aiden whispers.
I give my shoulders a baffled shrug, then lay down to test out my bunk. Surprisingly comfortable, although even I’m a little cramped. Poor Aiden.
I lean over the side to talk to him, keeping my voice to a whisper. “Has the illusion’s necklace done anything today?”
“No, it’s just been sitting in my pocket,” he whispers back. “I’ve taken it out to check on it a few times, but nothing’s changed. By the way, have we talked about how huge the necklace is? How big was this guy?”
“Yeah, I know. I’m relieved we won’t have to battle it out with him, like we did with Violet.” I rest my chin on my hand and gaze down at Aiden, growing sad. “But I do feel sorry for Violet. Losing her friend.”
Aiden reaches up to gently pinch my cheek. “We can still help the other illusions, Keane. That’s what we’re doing here. That, and hopefully helping Faith. Get some rest, so we’ll be good for both tomorrow.”
I smile down at him, coaxed into drowsy reassurance by his deep voice. “I love you.”
“I love you, too, Linden,” he murmurs, his blue eyes swimming with warmth in the low light.
He flips the lights off, and I roll over, pulling the blanket over myself. It’s strangely peaceful, to lay curled up on the boat with the light rain falling outside. I can hear it tapping everywhere, feel the rolling of the little waves beneath us.
I’m so tired, and it all feels very cozy, but… I can’t sleep. Time keeps passing by, and I’m still laying here awake. I think it’s been an hour, maybe longer.
It takes me a long time to identify the problem, but I get there.
I lean over the side of the bunk, breaking the rainy quiet with a whisper. “Aiden.”
“Yeah?” comes the immediate, sleepy response.
“Oh, you’re still awake, too?”
There’s a pause, and then – “It’s really hard to sleep without you right next to me. I’m not used to it anymore.”
“Yes!” I whisper, reaching down over the side of the bunk for him. “I can’t do it, Sugar Maple.”
Aiden catches my hand and kisses it, breathing out a quiet, groaning laugh. “Me, neither. But we have to, there’s no other-”
He breaks off, his hand tightening around mine in surprise as there’s a soft, distinct thump from somewhere within Moondancer.
Aiden and I glance swiftly at each other. He releases my hand and sits up, peering through the darkness.
“Robin?” I call softly.
No answer, but after a moment we hear the click of a door opening. Soft, stumbling footsteps. Someone is definitely walking around on the boat.
Aiden and I catch each other’s eyes again, suddenly wide awake. Aiden presses a finger to his lips, then silently slips out of bed, hooks an arm around me, and sweeps me out of my bunk, setting me lightly on my feet behind him. The two of us steal over to our open door and peek out.
We both draw back in surprise as Robin – barefoot, still in her pajamas – goes slowly stumbling past us.
“What-?” Aiden steps out into the tiny passageway behind her, his blue eyes wide with alarm. “Robin? What are you doing?”
She bumps into the door that leads out to the deck, staggers backwards a little, and fumbles for the door handle like she can’t see it.
“Aiden, I think she’s sleepwalking!”
Right as I say it, Robin manages to get the door open. She goes through it and starts stumbling up the stairs to the main deck.
“Shit,” Aiden breathes, then rushes after her.
I follow him out onto the deck, where Robin is slowly staggering through the lounge, her head hanging down. Aiden gives her shoulder a hard shake. She doesn’t seem to notice.
“Aiden!” I shout anxiously, as she starts stumbling out into the rain.
Aiden catches her around her waist before she can slip, sweeps her back beneath the roof, and sits her down on one of the lounge seats.
This is finally enough to startle Robin awake. Her eyes flutter open, then stare up at us in hazy, blank confusion.
“What…?” she mumbles, rubbing her eyes with trembling fingers. “What happened?”
“You were sleepwalking,” Aiden tells her anxiously, as I rush to turn on the lights. “Is this why you didn’t want us to leave our door open? Good thing we did, it looked like you were about to walk right off of the boat!”
Robin sits back, waking up some more, then freezes as what Aiden said sinks in. She bites her lip, screwing her face up with pleading frustration.
“Please don’t tell anyone,” she blurts out desperately. “People don’t want to hire sailors who sleepwalk. And normally I don’t sleepwalk, I swear! I never have before in my life… it’s only… it’s only been recently, since Faith disappeared… since I started having the weird dreams…”
I exchange a bewildered look with Aiden, then sit down beside Robin, searching her face. “What weird dreams?”
She hesitates, like she’s just now realizing what she said. She lets out a despairing sigh, rubbing her eyes.
“You’re gonna think I’ve lost my mind, if you believe me at all, which… it would be much more logical not to.”
“Hey,” I murmur reassuringly, nudging her arm with my elbow. “We’re ghost hunters, remember? Clearly what’s more logical isn’t always the most important thing to us.”
Robin lets out a brittle laugh, dropping her head. She falls silent for a moment, then lifts her gaze to stare off into the rain, shaking her head.
“It’s nothing. Forget it. I’m probably just tired, that’s all. I’ve been walking at night when I’m supposed to sleep…” She trails off, staring at something. “What…? Do you guys see that?”
Aiden and I follow her gaze to the very back of Moondancer’s deck, where something white is bobbing in the water, brushing against the boat.
Robin crosses to it, forgetting about the rain. Aiden and I follow her, stopping behind her as she reaches into the water. Her hand comes back grasping a scrap of thick, white canvas. It looks like it was torn from something bigger – no, not torn, burned. The edges are deckled, and stained with black ash.
“What the hell…?” Robin murmurs, straightening up, staring at the dripping piece of canvas. “This must have come from somebody’s boat.”
“Does that mean someone really did torch a boat at this dock?” I ask, alarmed.
“Maybe,” Aiden answers slowly. “But that doesn’t necessarily mean it was Maggie.”
“But where’s the boat, then? There should be wreckage or something, right? If a whole boat burned?”
“Unless it happened a while ago,” Robin says, turning the piece of canvas over in her hands. “This piece could’ve washed up on shore, then gotten pulled back into the water today, given the rain…”
The three of us stare at each other, then drop our eyes to the scrap of canvas in blank confusion.
“The fuck is going on around here?” Robin mutters, gazing intently at the burnt scrap.
“I don’t know, but we do need to sleep.” Aiden firmly draws me and Robin back under the roof and out of the rain. “We’ll get to work in the morning, when we can see what we’re doing. Robin, I’m gonna put the cooler in front of the door to your cabin, so you can’t get out while you’re sleepwalking.”
“No need,” Robin sighs tiredly. “It only happens once a night.”
Aiden and I stare at each other in bewilderment, then follow Robin back below decks. She stops in the passageway downstairs, brushes some rain out of her eyes, and leans heavily against the wall, taking a few deep breaths. Just for a moment, she looks deeply exhausted.
“So… do we need to move the boat, after all?” Aiden asks uncertainly. “In case someone tries to burn it?”
Robin turns her head sharply to look at him, her eyes glowing with sudden fire.
“Burn my boat!” she says scoffingly. “Let them try.”
She disappears into her cabin and closes the door after herself, so I suppose that’s as far as we’ll be discussing it. But strangely I’m okay with staying at the dock. Robin has such fiery, furious conviction that you can’t help believing what she says. Strange, because the rest of the time she’s so perfectly cool and calm. It’s an odd combination, but then again… that sounds like a born captain to me.
I do wonder about the dreams she’s been having, though. I stare curiously at the closed door of her cabin for a moment, then head back into mine and Aiden’s.
I find him poking at the bunks, and lift an inquiring eyebrow.
“Shut the door for a sec, Keane. I’m trying to figure out if I can do something with magic so we can sleep.”
“Oh, could you?” I ask, with considerable relief.
“I don’t know. I’m afraid to mess with the actual structure of the bunks. What if it throws off the balance of the boat, or something?”
“Oh, yeah, I probably wouldn’t do that!”
“Maybe… hang on, I’ve got an idea.”
Aiden backs up, shooing me out of the way as his eyes begin to glitter like sparkling blue ice. In the center of our little cabin, he sweeps one hand in a long, wide arc, like he’s drawing a big half-circle in midair. His fingers leave behind a curve of softly-glowing Heliomancer light, which widens as he goes, until… until it looks like a big hammock, suspended in midair. A string of light rises from each end to fasten to the slender beams of the ceiling.
“No way,” I laugh softly, my eyes gone very wide. “Does it work?”
Without waiting for an answer, I sling a leg up onto the hammock and discover that it holds me easily. It’s comfy, too, despite apparently being made purely of light.
I roll into it and stretch out with a sigh of relief.
“Oh, Aiden, yes!” I reach for the bunks and snag our blankets as he climbs in next to me. “This means we have to leave the door closed and locked, though.”
“Yeah…” he agrees reluctantly, “But I’d rather have you sleeping beside me. That’s more important.”
I snuggle up close to him, my heart warm with love. My rain-cooled body is instantly warm, too, once he puts his arm around me.
“Is it gonna drop us on the floor when you fall asleep, though?”
“Dude, please,” Aiden grumbles, offended. “You seriously think I’m gonna let you fall on the floor? Come on.”
“Excuse me, why do you say that like somehow I should know how magic works when you’re asleep?”
“You’re ridiculous if you think I’d let that happen.”
“Sorry I don’t want to slam my head on the floor while I’m not even awake to catch myself! I guess that makes me ridiculous somehow?”
“Shut up,” he growls in my ear, his deep voice vibrating through me. “Enough out of you. Go to sleep.”
I laugh softly, stroking his chest with my fingertips. Remembering how tired I am. The glowing light of the hammock grows very dim, until it’s barely there at all. Adding only the faintest golden tint to the cool darkness.
Exhausted as I am, my head is spinning from everything that happened tonight. My mind darts from the burnt piece of canvas to Robin’s dreams making her sleepwalk, to the pink sweater I spotted on her bed when she went into her cabin just now. Like she had been sleeping with it in her arms.
There’s a lot to think about, more than enough to keep me awake. But the rain taps gently down outside, and the hammock rocks softly with Moondancer’s movements.
Now, in Aiden’s arms, I can finally let it rock me to sleep.
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