forword, forward

The wild barrier island of Assateague, and its slightly more civilized neighbor, Chincoteague, will never be the same when these people land on them...

Morgan; a young Merrow on a coming of age quest, is stranded on a barrier island, when pirates steal the one item that connects him to the sea.

Caitlin; Cowgirl in Training, has just had her rodeo summer shipwrecked when her Deaf family moves to the island of the wild ponies for her dad's teaching job.

Jason; Ultimate Geek, Son of the World's Best Cowboy, is in a showdown with The Summer That Bites, when he ends up on Chincoteague Island with his (snnnorrrre) aunt, no computer, and no way to finish his Sharkman comic.

Zan just wishes the Earth Life Foundation would take his century of aquired knowledge seriously, even if he does still look like a dorky 14 year old. After all, he could track down Morgan's pirates just as easily as anyone else in the E.L.F...which is not happening easily at all despite their "superpowers".

Earla; Dwarvish technical genius who can make anything out of chewing gum, duct tape, and old action figures...
Bran; Ravenkin who can fly anything from a Viking ship to a helicopter (just shield the electronics from his random energy channeling)...
Tas the Pooka, whose usual job is retraining problem horses and dogs by retraining problem humans...
Shaughnessy, a marine biologist/filmaker who's really a whale...
Plus a pack of independent minded sleddogs, some kayaks, wild horses, and a mysterious pirate ship.


This is the intro to a trilogy, and yet under revision. It's inspired by some of my own experiences with the barrier islands of Chincoteague and Assateague, with sleddogs, wild horses, kayaks and doing public sails on privateering tall ships, like the Pride of Baltimore II and Lynx, as well as other historic vessels like Schooner Sultana, Kalmar Nyckel (ask me about the earthquake) and the Longship Company's Sae Hrafn (Sea Raven)(that's us, below). For the uninitiated, "merrow" is another (Celtic) name for the male half of the mermaid species. 

This is copyrighted to me, Teanna Byerts. Several other folks have pre-existing copies.

​151318 words










The Merrow’s Cap






Outrider






The ship rocked in the predawn calm, like a bird resting on a branch nodding in the light breeze. The one on watch stood silently at the bow, staring out at a circle of iron grey sea and sky.
Amidships, lay a boy, bound in heavy ship’s line.
Line gradually parting under his sharp teeth, teeth that had cracked clamshells and bone. His hair, pale as wave foam, was nearly the only thing most folk would have seen in the shadows” that, and the dim eyeshine, like a cat’s. His skin, a shade of deep blue-grey meant to camouflage him six hundred feet down, made him another vague shadow among the things on deck.
They wouldn’t notice him shredding the last bit of line.
The heavy boots of the night watch clumped on the deck. The boy froze, rolling enough to hide the parting rope. Closing his eyes, pretending sleep. The boots clumped down the deck toward him. Paused. A snort, a sound like an annoyed walrus. Clump clump clump, back to the bow.
The boy opened his eyes. Not much use here, above water; plenty of light, but everything above water was a blur for eyes designed to see in the depths. He freed the last bit of rope, laid it carefully aside, curled his long swordfish tail under him and shoved himself across the deck to where the dolphin lay in her narrow tank. He raised himself up on its edge, studied it with his hands. He laid a hand on the dolphin’s round forehead, we can get out of this...together...I have an idea...
Two sea tails, powerful enough to propel bodies at lightning speed through water, lashed out as one. The dolphin lurched over the side of her prison tank, and together they slithered across the deck to the railing.
A shout came from the night watch on the bow. The sound of running feet. Chaos erupted belowdecks. Thunder of feet on the gangway up to the weather deck.
The boy grabbed the dolphin in a desperate hug, her eyes seeing far more clearly than his. Their tails lashed out, and they heaved themselves over the side and into the cold clear sea.








He fled, blasting through the grey seas with all the power his torn fins could muster. The dolphin paced him, holding back just enough for him to keep up. Far behind, in the dim, predawn light, the boy could hear the shouted orders and sharp clatter of a ship in crisis mode. Through the water, he could feel the distant cough and sputter of a small, fast boat starting up, then the scream of the engines, like the rip of shark teeth. Instinctively he dove, slicing down through clear, greygreen water, darker, deeper. He was seventy feet down in the flick of a fin, in three heartbeats; opening his mouth for the first breath of clean cold sea when he remembered.
Remembered what they had taken from him. Remembered what he could no longer do. He choked, spat out the mouthful of water, turned his face toward the dim light of the surface, so far away. Did something he'd never done before.
He held his breath. Not well and not long, for in uncounted turns of the seasons he had never had to hold his breath; not in the sea, nor in the ocean of air above it.
One heartbeat.
Two.
The surface was so far...so far!
Three heartbeats.
Impossible. He was not a whale. Darkness flickered before his eyes, the water pressed on him as it had never done before, holding him down, caving in his air-filled lungs. He bent his fins, shoved against the water that had always held him like a mother, faced toward the alien world of air and light and color.
So far... too far.
The grey sea blackened. Then something shoved him from below, a hard insistent push toward the surface. He erupted in a spray of silver, gasping, gulping in the cool clean air, the dolphin leaping beside him. He raised a hand, brushed a seaweed tangle of pale hair out of his eyes, staring back at the eastern horizon, all the glowing colors of the inside of a whelk shell. He couldn’t see the ship, or the small fast boat, but he could still feel the distant thrum of the engines, sounds carried far and fast by the sea, and his heart sank. He knew by the lay of the bottom, by the direction of the swells, by the way the seabirds soared overhead, that shore was not far away.
Not far. The dolphin agreed. She shoved him gently toward land.
My people do not go that way. It is dangerous he told her.
What lies to the east is more dangerous. She shoved him again, landward. My pod hunts those shores often, we swim behind the islands, in the shallows. It is safe there. No one hunts us there.
There are humans there...
Only in a few places, much of it is empty. It is Assateague, the Outrider.
Assateague. Assateague. Outrider. The Place Across. A thin, lonely line of sand at the very edge of the great land to the west. He knew of it from his clan’s stories, though none of them had ever been there. He turned his face to the grey west and swam.
Not far. Not far. The roar of the engine behind them was louder, closing fast, faster than the chugging boats that brought deep sea sport fishermen and wreck divers out here, where the water was clear and the sand bottom rolled like a desert ninety feet below. The dolphin could vanish into the sea, but he could not outrun the small boat, or the larger one it came from, not even with the good start he'd had. Not even hanging onto the dolphin’s fin. And he could no longer dive to the safety of the bottom.
But maybe he could fool them.
He porpoised, flying just under the surface, using the waves' energy to propel him forward, breathing in great ragged gasps as he hit air. Flick of the tail, breathe...tail flick, breathe...tail flick, breathe. The dolphin didn’t vanish, she paced him. He mirrored her movements, the movements of the master of wave riding. He glanced back. He still couldn't see them, but he knew they must have some way of spotting him from afar. they had been ready for him when he came to rescue the dolphin caught in their trap. He changed his course slightly, and wove an illusion.
Now they would see two dolphins, no more.
If he could keep this up.
He was slowing. More heartbeats for each finbeat now. More time on the surface trying to gulp in the air.
He could dive again, confuse the pursuers, vanish and resurface somewhere unexpected, out of sight. He dove, the dolphin pacing him down, down down. His muscles screamed for oxygen, his chest and throat spasmed like a fish out of water, blackness crept in around the edges of his world.
Impossible. In his entire life, there had never been a reason to hold his breath, for he could breathe both air and water.
Impossible. A Merrow could not drown.
He thrashed back to the light, to the air, gulped it in, the dolphin shoving him skyward, chirping that he shouldn’t have wasted time going down when he should have been going west. He shifted course again and heard the boat veer off.
The dolphin slid by him, offering a dorsal fin. He hung on, and they both slowed.
They’ll catch us both, he told her.
No. they won’t.
He was too exhausted to do anything but hang on, then he couldn’t hang on anymore.
The dolphin sent out a long warbling call.
Minutes passed, the roar of engines grew louder.
Fins sliced the water around him, rolling up out of the depths like a wheel.
Wheel, whale. Little whales. Dolphins, a whole pod. They flowed around him and his first dolphin friend. These newcomerswere a different species, the common dolphins of the offshore realm, brightly patterned in black, white and grey, not like the pale grey bottlenose he’d saved. They whistled and sang in a different tongue, but one he knew. They surrounded him, pushing, shoving (a bit roughly perhaps) offering fins to hang onto. Taking him shoreward...
To Assateague.
The boatwhine receded away to the north. Then he heard it shift, return south. He lifted his head for another breath, and there was a long green line on the horizon. The sound, the feel of the sandy bottom below him shifted. Then he heard the roar of breakers.
The dolphins left him, just beyond the last breaker, where the water changed from luminescent dawn-green to murky with silt. He surfed in, just the way he'd seen humans playing in the surf do it. The water tasted of sand and the air tasted of green, growing things, and the earthy smell of some large herbivore. The low waves crashed on him, rolling him over, filling his ears and nose with sand and grinding bits of shell into his wounds. He struggled, floundered with the last of his energy, and managed to pull himself onto dry sand. With his last bit of strength he wove one more illusion.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


The pinto stallion raised his head in surprise. Behind him, in a loose circle with their heads hanging relaxed in the early morning sun, stood his small band of mares, in all the colors of the island. The sea crashed in front of him, the wind off it blew the biting flies and mosquitoes inland. The stallion watched the waves roll up, and out of them stepped a black mare. Not really that odd, his band stood in the waves all the time, washing away the biting insects and their itches. He breathed deep, trying to recognize her scent. He didn’t.
She trotted out of the surf, trailing seawater. She stood a hand taller than him, solid black, a color almost never seen in the island ponies. He trotted around her, showing off, one eye scanning for her stallion (and finding none). He lowered his head, snaking it, thinking to drive her into his herd.
She turned, delivered a pair of hind feet directly into his muscled chest and trotted down the beach.
He snorted, turned, disappointed, to his mares.
She broke into an easy canter, a motion like the rolling sea. A quarter mile south she saw what she’d come for; a long low shape, sprawled at the edge of the high tide line. She slowed, walked to it, stepped over it, her legs like fenceposts, guarding.
Legends be the only stories as is true.”
(Grandpa Beebe, Misty of Chincoteague by Marguerite Henry)




Sharkman and the Little Fish Girl






Caitlin sat up hard in bed, Shania Twain gone silent. She pulled the headphones off sandy hair, cropped short as a cowpony’s coat, and laid the Ipod on the desk. Same dream again. Picked up the spongy Nerf basketball and chucked it into the basket on the back of the door.
The covers moved on the bottom of the bunkbed. Bri's angelic blond halo of curls appeared over the footboard. "What are you doing?' she signed.
"Go back to sleep." Caitlin signed. She tossed the ball again, straight through the hoop without touching.
A disheveled mop of dark hair appeared over the edge of the top bunk.
"Go to sleep, Aaron!" Cait's signs were sharp, the commands of the Oldest Sister; She Who Must Be Obeyed.
"You're not." Bri signed.
Aaron climbed off the bunk, sat down at the desk and turned on the computer.
"It's eleven o'clock, go back to bed!"
"You're not." he echoed Bri, signs fierce. He pulled up his favorite Star Wars site.
Cait grabbed him around the waist and wrestled him back toward the bunk. Bri leapt into the fray, walloping Cait with her favorite Chicago Bulls hat. Cait dumped Aaron on the bed, grabbed her Bulls hat out of Bri's hands and wrestled her way back to the computer. Bri grabbed at various arms and legs whooping and warbling like a whole pod of whales. Cait turned the computer off, Bri turned it on, Cait turned it off, grabbed Bri's Mermaid doll and held it hostage overhead.
"No!" Bri yelled. It was her favorite English word, and seemed to get people's attention better than the gentle Sign Language 'no'.
"Go back to bed." Cait signed with the other hand.
"No!." Bri said, louder.
Cait glared.
Aaron reached down and nabbed the Bulls hat off Cait's head, held it to the ceiling, grinning in silent triumph.
"Give it." Cait signed.
Aaron grinned, he had her, he knew it.
Cait turned and picked up Sea World. Aaron's triumphant grin faded, his hazel eyes widened. "You wouldn't." He had spent all day building Sea World out of cardboard and the Styrofoam pieces that VCRs and TVs came in, and paper and tape and glue and toothpicks. There were six different aquariums filled with fish he'd researched off the Internet, a dolphin pool with two trainers, balls, rings and other toys, and a whole audience. The best part was the orca pool, with one of the whales leaping high into the air, a trainer who looked much like Aaron, diving off its nose.
"I would." Cait told him.
Aaron glared, dropped the Bulls hat upside down on her head. Cait put Sea World back on the shelf. Aaron disappeared under the covers. Big sisters were a pain.
"Give my Mermaid back." Bri signed. She didn’t fingerspell “mermaid”, instead she made the signs for 'fish' and 'girl'; little fish girl.
"Go to bed." Cait said, out loud, even though Bri's hearing aids were in the box on the desk.
Bri could see her lips move, she wasn't very good at reading them, Sign was better anyway. She knew, though, what Cait was saying now. "Why are you awake? Did you dream about the Mermaid again?"
Cait's Big Sister face softened. "Yeah."
"Did you dream more? Or just the same? Where I was in deep water and the Mermaid came?"
"The same. A big ocean, deep water. I couldn't see the shore at all. Anyway, it's just a dream."
"No, it's not." Bri signed. "But don't worry," she held her Mermaid close, "the Mermaid's there too."
"Well it doesn't matter. We're not anywhere near the sea."






"Land whale!" Jimmy Flamini stands like a tank, football shoulders bulging out of a ripped tank top. Thirty yards up the hall, the tweed coated back of a teacher vanishes around the corner.
Flamini leers.
Sharkman turns from his locker, "What did you say?" He glares down at Flamini, grinning through six rows of shredding ivories. Massive muscles threaten to rip his surfer shirt at the seams.
Flamini backs up a step. "Oh...uh...I didn't...er..." He backpedals, tripping over his backpack, sprawling into the path of the oncoming girls' field hockey team, with their cleated shoes and really big sticks.


"Land whale!"
Jason thought about hiding behind his locker door, but too much of him would still be sticking out, waiting for the power slam that had become the daily punchline to Jimmy Flamini's stupid jokes.
"Hey bubbagut, ain't you related to Mrs. Freely? First initials I.P.? Whudja' have fer breakfast, a whole walrus?" Whump! Right in the gut. Flamini snorked through his nose, like some kind of mutant elephant seal. He looked down, "Hey, nice pants."
His gang snickered along with him, "Yeah," one of them piped up, "old fart's department at Walmart."
Snicker, snicker, snicker. "What's that on your shirt? Some kinda' barbie doll?"
It's an anime character, you redneck peabrains. Japanese animation. And she would kick your collective butts if she was here.
All the teachers told you to just walk away from them. It was kind of hard when they had you surrounded. And Jason's dad's advice was no better; just flatten 'em. Kind of hard when they outnumbered you by four. Jason fidgeted, holding his backpack up like a shield. His eyes fell to Flamini's ridiculously huge pants, and the eight inches of boxers they weren't covering. Against his better judgement, words fell out of his mouth. “Dude, you oughta try a staple gun, then they'd stay up better."
The gang froze into startled silence.
"Hey you little freak," Flamini said, leaning closer. He caught up a handful of the superheroine on Jason's shirt and crumpled her.
"Gack!" Jason managed to say. He really really wished he could throw a fireball or teleport or at least morph Flamini into a frog or something. Sadly, the best he could do was get squashed up against his locker, like the world's biggest geek.
Then Mr. McDonnell rounded the corner.
Flamini looked up, a jackal startled in the middle of a pounce. He traded swift glances with his crew and they fled.
Jason let out a breath, stuffed the last two books into his pack and fled the other direction.
Heather fell in beside him. "Hey, look at it this way; in three days you won't have to deal with him all summer."
"Yeah. I'll have to deal with killer cows and horses who are plotting to take over the world and my Dad The Ultimate Cowboy and then I've got three months to look forward to a ninth grade Flamini. Wonderful."
"Ahhhh, he'll probably flunk."
Jason smiled, almost. Three more days, three more days of mathpuke and deadhistory and englishbore. At least he would pass, with enough As and Bs to maybe get the new computer games he wanted.
"I'm getting straight As." Heather said, she was the only person who could say it without sounding like she was bragging.
Jason grinned. "Awwwwesome! Are they really gonna get you that graphics program?"
"Yep." Heather grinned back. “And the video editing one too.”
Jason held out a hand, Heather met his in the Secret Sharkman Shake. "Sharkman lives!" they said together. A little loudly maybe, heads turned, stared at them. A couple of blond girls with perfect hair, painted nails and the latest fashion brainfart. A couple of overmuscled football players. A sensibly dressed senior who'd never got anything below an A in her life, and never driven anything below a BMW. They frowned, rolled eyes, raised their noses a notch.
Jason didn't care. He and Heather had been working on this since the beginning of the school year, their own comic book. They had folders of sketches, dialog, storyboards, They had run around in the woods recreating major scenes, blasting each other with modified Supersoaker "lasers", haunting the thrift shop for costume pieces, striking superhero poses and shooting reference with Heather's digital camera. All they needed was a good computer program to organize it all, and Heather's printer.
They had all summer to work on it, three months of glorious freedom.
Except when he had to feed the cows, muck stalls, haul water, clean tack, chase horses, chase stupid cows, and ride stupider horses that tried to kill you. And rope things.
He hated roping things. His dad had grown up in Montana, been on the rodeo circuit, and had even once roped an emu. Jason had actually managed to rope something once; a Rhode Island Red rooster with an attitude the size of Mars. After he had lost the rooster and the rope, and got himself a couple of nice scars from the rooster's spurs, his dad had caught the annoyed bird and held it up laughing.
Jason did not think it was funny.
He did not want to be a cowboy, not here in Delaware, not anywhere. He wanted to be Sharkman. He was, instead, a land whale. Nobody had believed him when he first arrived, about the cowboy and ranch thing. A teacher had politely suggested 'cow farm', as in black and white spotted Holsteins and 'got milk?'. No, Jason had told them, cowboys; as in ranch, beef, roping, stock trailers, pickup trucks with five hundred pounds of Good Junk on the dash, boots and spurs and ropes and reins and chaps and blisters and sore butts. He brought pictures; the two hundred acres in Delaware, flat and grey-brown, scattered trees, barbed wire, just like north Texas, only the trees were loblollies, not mesquite, and there more foxes than coyotes. The kids were impressed for about a day and a half, until they realized that Jason wasn't anything like the cowboys they remembered from the movies and TV.
Only Heather had noticed the doodles around the edges of his homework, his school notes, his tests. Cartoon characters and aliens and superheroes; some of it from comics and games she recognized, and some of it straight from the warped right brain of Jason himself.
Especially she had noticed Sharkman. "We should produce a comic." she'd said.
He sat now in the last class of the last day of the school year, Mr. Miller droning on about something that happened to a bunch of guys who were all dead now. Blah blah...Napoleonic Wars blah blah blah British blockade Chesapeake Bay... blah blah blah...privateers...blah blah...Clippers...blah Baltimore blah blah...Thomas Boyle...blah blah...Chasseur... Jason yawned and Sharkman leapt across the page blasting bad guys.
It was going to be a kick-butt summer.






It was not a normal peas and potatoes kind of supper. It was a full blown pizza and ice cream Fisher Family Conference, the kind they had for Important Discussions and Really Big Decisions. Bri and Aaron and Cait sat in a circle around the table while their dad spoke, his hands weaving excited circles in the air. Mom sat quietly, a patient smile on her face. She glanced at Cait, shook her head minutely, her eyes said here we go again.
Cait watched in a kind of stunned daze as her dad told them how they'd be living several months on a tiny island on the sea-edge of Virginia, while he did some work with a nearby university, setting up a series of programs for Deaf students. She couldn't believe it. Not seeing her friends for three or four months, being stuck far from people who spoke her language, knew her culture, that was bad enough, but...
"What about my rodeo?" her signs were sharp, demanding.
Her dad cocked one eyebrow, like a professor of astronomy who has had a student tell him the earth is really flat.
"I've been practicing for two months now. Marc's going to let me use his second best roping horse! I'm going to..." she cut herself off. She better not tell them she was going to try bull riding as well. "I could stay at Marc and Judy's, I could study on the 'net."
Her father and mother exchanged glances. "I'm sorry, rodeo will have to wait." her mom signed. "You are living on Chincoteague this summer."
“You should like it.” Aaron signed, “It’s got wild horses.”
Bri’s eyes widened with wonder, she jumped up, bouncing excitedly, shouting with her hands, “And it’s where Misty lived! And Paul and Maureen and Grandma and Grandpa Beebe!”
“That’s just a story in a book.” Cait snorted.
“It’s true!” Bri asserted.
“Well, some of it is.” Aaron added. “Misty and Stormy and the Beebes were real.”
“True.” Mom told Cait and Bri and Aaron, “Some of it was fact. But remember what Grandpa Beebe said in the book; “Facts are fine, far as they go, but they’re like water bugs skittering atop the water. Legends now, they go deep down and bring up the heart of a story.”
Bri made a face at Cait. Nah nah nee nah nah! I was right!
Cait frowned, thinking how bad her roping was going to be by summer’s end without practice.
Dad’s face had that animated, excited look he always got when he was trying to convince them all that this would be an adventure, not an ordeal. “The horses live on the outlying island, Assateague, along with lots of other wildlife.” His hands described the shapes of the islands; “A long low stretch of sand, rolling up out of the sea, rolling over and over itself in the wind and the waves. Dunes and bayberry bush, loblolly woods and saltmarsh; with fox and deer, seabirds and ibis, egrets and eagles, endangered Fox Squirrels and wild ponies. And at the far end of it, tucked safely against Assateague's protective dragon curves lies a round egg of an island: Chincoteague. The people live on Chincoteague. They were once mostly fishermen and oystermen. There are some of those left, but now there are motels and gift shops and decoy carvers and artists too. And a National Seashore and Wildlife Refuge. And Pony Penning in July! And ranger-led programs where you can learn about the sea...”
The wave shapes her father’s hands were making caught Cait’s attention; the sea. The sea, and Bri lost in it. Cait had nearly forgotten the dream, it surfaced now like a whale seen through mist. She looked at Bri, frowned. It was a stupid dream, that's all. Not solid and real like the feel of a fast horse under you, or a rope singing out straight, or a ball sinking through a hoop.
Bri hugged her Mermaid doll tight, angel's smile on her face, eyes the greens and greys and blues of the sea. To the sea...to the sea! She couldn't wait.






Jason eyed the deadhistory clock; tick...tick...tick...the hands crawled across the face. It was the Thirteenth Law of Thermodynamics, he knew it; the hands of the clock move in inverse proportion to how close you are to the end of school. By the end of the day, time should be standing approximately still. He would be trapped here, for eternity.
BRRRRRIIIIIINNNNNNG!
Jason shot up straight in his seat. Stared at the clock, the departing students. He wrestled himself out of the cramped seat, grabbed his pack and ran down the hall, ignoring a teacher's godlike command to JUST WALK!
Flamini and his gang were nowhere to be seen, they'd hooked out, probably since last week. Jason let out a sigh of relief. He squeezed into the front seat of the bus, letting the talk, laughter, yelling, jabbing, music wash over him like surf.
The bus stopped, spat him out, and rolled off in a cloud of dust. Jason trudged down the long sandy lane between barbed wire and blank cow expressions. He threw his pack on a kitchen chair, where his dad was sure to grump about it. There was, of course, a list on the table of jobs he needed to do. He sighed, Sharkman fumed.
A rectangle of pink on the table caught his eye. He only knew one person who sent stuff in pink envelopes. Aunt Gracie.
It was addressed to all of them, him, Dad and Mom. He should wait.
Nah. He shredded the envelope, pulled out the letter, smelling of vanilla and coconut.
"...renting a cottage...Jason must come to spend the summer...lots to do...park programs (just like Aunt Gracie to push the educational aspect on Dad)...I know where he can get a part-time job...Pony Penning in July...beach..."
Beach. Cool. Sharkman in his natural environment. I'll pack my dive gear right now. No crazy cows, no roping stuff.
Uncool. No Heather. No Sharkman. Jason groaned. The whole summer? There went their whole project. Arrghh!
Wait...he scanned the letter again. Maybe Aunt Gracie had a computer. Nah. But he could take his. He and Heather could work online. Yes! He grinned a wide Sharkman grin. So where was this place? He looked again.
Chincoteague Island, Virginia.
Mush






"Wooooo! Let's go, let's go, that's it Bets!" Holly leaned into the turn, cold dawn wind blasting her hair back. Ahead, the pale world rolled away in drifts washed amber and rose by the rising sun. The little grey lead dog, not much bigger than an arctic fox, picked up the pace, flying feet seeming to tread air. Behind her, six other huskies stretched their legs, backs like longbows, folding and unfolding in matching rhythm, like music, like a winterdance, rolling like a great grey wave across the drifts.
Holly felt that power sing through the gangline, through the driving bow under her hands. She reached back, pedalling with one foot, then clinging, like a kid on a rollercoaster, when the rig hit a mogul, bounced, rocked, leveled. The only sound was the light drumming of dog feet, the jingle of dogtags, the whisper of wheels on sand.
And the rhythmic breathing roar of breakers. Behind, to the north, lay ten miles or so of empty beach, stretching all the way to the inlet, and on the other side; the crowds and traffic and shops of Ocean City, Maryland. Ahead, south, lay the rest of Assateague Island; twenty more miles of wild barrier beach stretching down to the NASA base at Wallops Island, and to the small round egg shape of Chincoteague, Virginia, the place Holly called home.
The team ran, like a pack of wolves on the trail of moose or deer, running flat out now, for the sheer joy of it, as their ancestors had for thousands of years. They ran fastest and longest when the wind had teeth of ice, but here at the edge of the sea, before the warm May sun peered over the edge of the world, the wind and the waves and the rolling drifts of sand were cool enough for a short run of a few miles. It rarely snowed here, and if it did, it was light sugar dusting; enough to make sandy snowballs on the beach. Here a sled was of little use, a rig was better; a light metal framework rolling on three fat oversand wheels. It had a platform to stand on, a foot brake to stop the dogs when they ignored whoa!, (which was often), the hoop of the driving bow like the one on a sled, and enough room on the platform to put a tired or injured dog in the dogbag for the ride home.
The wind was colder than normal for a morning in May, and the sun was rising red out of a green glowing sea. Red sky at morning, sailor take warning, Holly thought.
The dogs slowed to an energy saving trot. Bets, and the big swing dogs, just behind her, raised their heads, stood up a little taller on their toes. Holly stretched out of her crouch on the rig's platform and peered ahead. A dark blit on the horizon. Ponies on the beach again.
"Damn." she said. She liked the ponies. They were part of Assateague's history, folklore, and the reason the whole island listed hard to port under the weight of the tourists each summer at Pony Penning. But it was like running into moose on the Iditarod Trail, or skunks anywhere else...it was a positive nuisance when you were driving seven screaming Siberians who viewed everything not canine or human as a potential prey item. "Ok, this is going to be a big On-by here." Holly called over the wind.
Bets was ignoring her. Selective deafness. The dark blit loomed larger. Not just one pony. A whole herd.
Wonderful. The dogs picked up the pace again. Holly squinted, the ponies came into focus. She couldn't turn the dogs here, the van was on the other side of the pony herd, and the only road was the beach itself. "Ok guys..." She would just slow them down, jump off, grab the gangline behind the leader, and drag them on-by if necessary. One of the ponies raised its head, eyed the oncoming dogs with something uncharacteristic of Assateague ponies; alarm. They were used to predators no larger than horseflies, but they carried the memories of their ancestors, who had run from wolves.. and seven Siberian huskies looked very much like a wolfpack. The ponies wheeled and fled up into the dunes.
Bets and the two big dogs behind her dug in and swung hard starboard after them.
“YOU BET! ON BY!”
Bets wavered, then adjusted course, hauling the two dogs behind her, each twice her size, back in a more or less straight line down the beach.
They passed the ponies, a few of the less experienced dogs staring longingly after the dune they'd vanished over. The team fell into a floating, effortless trot, the pale dunes turned orange as the sun came up over the edge of the world. The sea glowed turquoise and the gulls wheeled and wailed overhead.
Holly saw Bets come up on her toes again, ears at attention, tuned into something farther down the beach. They trotted toward it, the dogs picking up the pace.
A black mare, alone at the edge of the waves. She stared at them, then wheeled and ran into the surf.
The dogs flowed by, eyes turning briefly toward the sea, then forward to the trail. Holly glanced back once, but the mare had vanished.
She looked down the beach again. At the edge of the swash zone, lay a long dark shape.
For an awful second, Holly was sure she saw a body. Then she blinked. What was there was even weirder, for this stretch of beach. She grinned, " Whoa! Whoa!” The dogs pattered to a halt. Holly leapt off, bare feet sinking into cool sand. She dumped the rig on its side, and set her snowhook into the sand for good measure. She ran up the gangline, one hand on that centerline connecting all the dogs. "Stay." she told her leader. She walked forward squinting at the rare thing lying on the beach.
A harbor seal reared its head, showing a long line of sharp doggy teeth.
"Well, well." Holly knelt, wondering why it didn't just flee back into the sea. Then she noticed its tail, a sizable chunk was missing, and there were slashes along its flanks, washed by the sea, and full of sand and bits of shell. She eyed the dogrig, and the bag on the platform for transporting injured dogs. She eyed the seal. It was way bigger than a dog, but it might fit. If she could wrestle it in there. Or she could call Park Service on the cell phone. She reached in her pocket and pulled out her phone, one thumb poised over the buttons. She hesitated, glanced back at the dogs. They were sitting, all of them, eying the thing on the sand not at all the way a team of Siberians, who had hunted their own supper for thousands of years, would eye a potential prey item.
More like... they way they might look at a new and interesting human.
Holly cocked her head, the seal barked at them, not a bark really, a long musical warble, like the language the huskies themselves used. Holly edged closer to the seal, the way she would approach a strange, and frightened dog; casual, projecting an aura of calm, of friendliness. She reached out one slow hand.
The seal flicked its head, jaws closed, and Holly tumbled over backwards.
The cell phone flew into the surf.
"Damn!"
From behind Holly, YouBet aroooed something that sounded like advice.
"Right Bets." Holly said softly. Holly narrowed her eyes, seeing with what she thought of as wolf sight. She wasn't sure when she had discovered it, if it was something she'd known all along, or if the dogs had taught it to her. But she could tell, when she looked at someone, who they really were, whether they were honest, sincere, or hiding something.
The seal wavered like heat waves over summer asphalt. The big dark eyes shifted to sea grey. A boy, maybe sixteen, with chiseled cheekbones framed by wave-foam pale hair stared back at her. His skin was the sort of blue-grey you’d expect to find on a fish, paler on chest and belly. Holly's eyes went down the shoulders and back, muscled like an Olympic swimmer; to a blue-grey tail that belonged on some kind of swordfish, except that it was horizontal like a dolphin's tail. She didn't blink. She stared at the chewed tail. Came back to his eyes, full of exhaustion, pain and fear...and defiance. She knew, before she touched him, that it was no costume, no special effects, no elaborate hoax to grace the front pages of supermarket tabloids. She reached for his shoulder, he flinched, hitched backwards, pushing himself with his hands, then collapsed into the sand.
"Easy." Holly said softly, as if trying to calm a frightened dog. She reached again, felt cool skin under her hand, then the texture of the tail, like wet snakeskin. She ran her hand down his body, noting the wounds, how the tail curved the way no human legs could. She found nothing broken, only sand caked wounds long washed by the sea and nearly bloodless. She considered that the first aid gear she hauled for herself and the dogs probably wouldn't work on a Merrow anyway. "What do you want me to do?" she said, meeting his deepsea eyes.
His eyebrows shifted, uncertain. He pulled himself up, sitting, leaning on one arm, spoke.
To Holly it sounded like whalesong, like the calls of seabirds, like wind and waves. It left a strange sad ache in her center. She shook her head, "I don't understand. Don't you speak any of our tongues?"
He searched her eyes, and she got the feeling he had something like wolf sight too.
"Do you want to go home?" she pointed out to sea. Although she couldn't imagine that he was stranded, like a dolphin, he could pull himself into the waves easily if he wanted. He was in some other kind of trouble. She glanced back at the dogs, all still, all eerily quiet, earth brown eyes and ice blue fixed on the Merrow. Somewhere beyond the low roar of the breakers came the faraway whine of a small boat's engine. She squinted into the rising sun but couldn't see the boat. Too far out, or hidden behind the sea swells.
The Merrow looked past Holly to YouBet, sang something soft and low to her. She yodeled back; "arroo-oo-rrooop." He looked up at Holly, pointed to the rig, himself, the rig again. Glanced once, worriedly, out to sea.
Holly followed his gaze and saw sea rolling to the horizon, white wings of gulls against blue-green water, the distant dark blits of fishing boats, and a more distant ship of some sort. She nodded, righted the rig, unhooked the snowhook. Without a word, the dogs walked forward till the rig was beside the Merrow.
With his tail curled, he fit very nicely in the dog bag.






The dogs lay sprawled on the porch, cold grey drizzle soaking yard, kennel and one big loblolly pine. Virginia creeper and greenbriar covered the six foot fence around the yard, hiding its contents from the quiet Chincoteague backstreet. A collection of sparrows and one iridescent black boat-tailed grackle squabbled over the bird feeder, despite the rain.
Over on Assateague, mosquitoes lived their lives as they always had, being the base of the marsh’s entire food chain. Chincoteague Town, however, controlled its mosquito population (to the delight of the tourists). Still, a few mid-day mosquitoes who had survived Chincoteague's mosquito control, and the drizzle, whined around everyone's ears. An enormous calico cat named Pirate Jenny watched the proceedings from her "crow's nest": a construction of poles and platforms looking a bit like the rigging of a tall ship, in one corner of the screened in porch. Holly sat on one side of the hot tub's wall, protected from the wet by a canopy on aluminum poles. She offered a second piece of cold pizza to the Merrow in the tub. On the ground was the sort of feast debris any teenager would leave; a pretzel bag, an empty box of fish fillets, leftover Chinese stir fry, half a blueberry pie and an empty orange juice gallon. Laughing gulls, ring-billed gulls and one big herring gull wheeled overhead, hopeful of scraps. The Merrow's tail, lower ribs and one arm were wrapped in various bright colors of Vetwrap, a shedding rake, usually used on Siberian coats, lay perched on the edge of the hot tub, where the Merrow had left it, after detangling his hair.
"Holly." she said again, pointing to herself. "YouBet" pointing to the little wolf-grey dog with the ice-blue eyes. "Nikki, B'loo, Agliuk...that’s Aleut for orca...” not that the Merrow would know or care...” Strider, Ace, Passion, Isabo," pointing to each dog in turn. "Pirate Jenny." she said, waving in the direction of the cat on the porch.
"Mrow." Jenny proclaimed.
The Merrow broke into a smile and returned the greeting; "mrrrow!"
"Ok, what's your name?" Holly asked pointing to him.
He stared at her, with that kind of reserved patience that Siberians and cats use on Lesser Beings.
"Holly." she repeated, pointing to herself, then she pointed to him, hoping pointing wasn't a rude gesture in Merrow culture.
He whistled something that sounded like dolphinspeak. It was loud. Holly flinched, three of the dogs sat up and warbled back, yodeling like a wolfpack.
"So," Holly said to him, "where do I find someone who speaks Merrow?"
He studied her with eyes like the sea, the rain hissed through the loblolly like waves on sand, drummed on the canopy like surf. The gulls wailed overhead. The Merrow looked skyward and wailed back.
Hawk Circle






Rain falls in the mountains of New York and Pennsylvania, trickles downhill, then rushes in whitewater waves over rocks, past the homes of fishercats and bears and whitetail deer, and hunting cabins, down the clear streams over trout and otters, into bigger creeks with carp and snapping turtles, and finally like the branches of a tree leading to the trunk, it all flows into the great river itself: the Susquehanna. She is shallow and broad and rocky, but her feet vanish into the great bay: the Chesapeake, home of the Baltimore Clipper and Old Bay seasoning, restored lighthouses and recreated tall ships, skipjacks and dying oyster beds. The Bay spreads out like a vast inland sea, rolls under the long thin ribbon of the Bay Bridge and eventually washes around the end of the Delmarva Peninsula, into the Atlantic. There Assateague lies, a long cutlass blade guarding the coast of Delmarva.
Following the path of the rain...backwards, up the Bay and River...came a small helicopter: a McDonnell Douglas Little Bird. Her kin usually wore drab military colors, and they had dodged bullets and rocket propelled grenades in places like Vietnam and Somalia. This one was the deep bright blue of the sky over high mountains. With her darting flight and her teardrop shaped fuselage she looked rather like a twenty-five foot dragonfly. On her flanks a dark silver raven spread broad wings against a pale sun...or moon. "Ravin' Maniac" was scrawled across it in loose, windblown letters. Under it, in smaller, neater type it said "Earth Life Foundation". Her cockpit had none of the spare orderliness of a military aircraft; a scattering of wire-wrapped stones dangled from the control panels, catching light like wind-ripple on water. An action figure from the latest fast food kid’s meal gazed out of the windshield like a figurehead on a ship. At the controls perched a lean man, not old, not very young; his face had the clean lines of a bird, and his nose had the sharp, sword shape of a raven’s beak. His dark silver hair was pulled back in a ponytail, one hand was swooping like a bird in flight, emphasizing his words, encompassing the wonders below. Beside him a grey-suited, middle-aged woman sat, strapped tightly into her seat, hands clenched on her briefcase. His pilot's license declared him to be one Brannan Hrafnson, and though Briefcase Woman had studied that document, and had also learned that "Hrafn" meant "raven" in Old Norse, (it sounded a lot like ”Robin” to her unpracticed ear) it had given her not a bit more confidence in his ability to fly.
He knew her name, but its meanings were lost in the centuries of her ancestors' history. Anyway, Briefcase Woman suited her better. She was an advisor of some sort to a Washington D.C. senator. Bran had paid no attention to her position in the political system; in a hundred years, what would it matter? What would matter was what she would tell her people in Washington about the Bay symposium she was attending. What would she learn about the vast silver water that flowed by under the Ravin's skids, this inland sea that was the heart of the land Bran called home? He had little confidence she would learn much, or carry much of what she did learn back to D.C. In his experience, people there cared more about acquiring power than knowledge. Briefcase Woman would come and listen politely to the things that needed to be done to heal the air and water and land, she would return to her world of concrete and steel and power and nothing would change.
They zoomed over the heads of freighters and barges trudging up the Bay, sunk low in the water, heavy with cargo. Over the wind waves, the wakes plowed up by sport boats, a few dancing sails of sloops and ketches and catamarans, and a black-hulled two-masted topsail schooner with a vast cloud of sail. Over the shallows of the Susquehanna Flats, the quiet urban sprawl of Havre-de-Grace, and up the Great River.
Below the Ravin', a dam pushed the shallow Susquehanna into a wide, deep lake, to the east, a windsurfer's bright sail danced against the dark wooded shore, to the west a line of spume marked the passage of a speedboat. Low, wooded islands dotted the far side, a flotilla of kayaks in a Crayola box of colors floated in their shallows.
Bran pointed, trying to be heard over the whupwhupwhup of the rotors, Briefcase Woman saw splotchy brown birds, seven feet of wingspan lifting them heavily off a rock to her right.
"Eagles!" Bran said, just audible over the engine noise, his face excited as a kid with a new comic book. "Immature bald eagles. I never used to see them back..." he broke off, and the Ravin' hiccuped over a boulder, its skids brushing the top of a small bush growing out of a crack.
Briefcase Woman's eyes widened in mild panic.
"...back in the seventies you never saw them. We've had some great conservation successes since then. They're everywhere, spilling from the Chesapeake Bay, up the Susquehanna River into the surrounding lakes.
"Wonderful." Briefcase Woman said through her teeth.
"Look there!" Bran pointed again. He spoke again and saw a politely confused look on Briefcase Woman's face. Hairy parrots? she was thinking, and he knew all she could see was a distant blit in the sky. "There's the parents!" Bran shouted again over the engine noise. Bran poked at the control panel and pointed to a screen near her knee; the screen danced, fratzed. He frowned, banged it once. It went completely blank. The faint acrid odor of frying electronics wafted through the Ravin's cockpit.
Crap, not again. Have to talk to Earla about that. More shielding, I guess. Oh man, Doc's gonna be peeved. Bran banged the screen again, to no avail, then produced a pair of binoculars, flying his rollercoaster course one-handed.
Briefcase Woman took the proffered binoculars, peered through a dancing dizzying circle. She could just make out two large brown shapes, white heads an unmistakable field mark; adult bald eagles. She handed the bouncing binoculars back to Bran, and gripped her briefcase again.
Ravin' dipped toward the water, and a flash of movement in it; Bran saw the huge carp, but he knew his passenger only saw the closeness of the water. Ravin' swept up and gleefully away, then tilted madly back in another direction. A ship-sized rock whizzed by at eye level, then one on the other side, and they were flying in a water carved channel, the rotors inches from boulders the size of lawyers' houses. Huge bare trees sprawled on top, washed there by powerful spring floods. Ravin' banked again, and Briefcase Woman was looking straight into a water carved hole with nothing but sky on the other side. The rocks swooped by in birdwing shapes, whalefluke curves, painted in subtle shades of ocher and mauve, wintergrass blond and owl brown. Small wind-twisted trees and bushes with toeholds in cracks blurred by below, to the side. Bran could see potholes in the rocks, miniature ponds, filled with water and life. If his passenger saw them, she said nothing. Seagulls flew up the river, white sail shapes against dark trees. A pair of osprey winged out over the water, one dropping feet first toward a fish in the river below. He saw her eyes go to it, but she seemed more concerned about whether the Ravin' would also maybe go into the river feet first.
His eyes scanned the curves of the river, the roll of the brown water, the size of the rocks. He broke into a smile. The Ravin' tilted, swooped past a low treeish island, flared and hovered over a rock not much bigger than a pickup truck.
She hung in the air like a dragonfly, then settled on it.
Bran saw Briefcase Woman's eyes go wider than ever. She froze like a deer in the path of a semi.
Bran cut the engines and the only sound was the quiet rush of water, and soft wind.
"You are parked on a rock." she managed to say. "I don't suppose this has anything to do with..."
"The fried electronics? No, the Ravin's fine. That was just a viewscreen." He grinned at her, opened the door and slipped out. "Thought you might like to stretch your legs."
Her face retained the kind of composure politicians have when someone has accused them of acting like pirates on a holiday.
Bran came around to her door and opened it, "Plenty of room." He undid the seatbelt and reached for her hand, helping her down to the rock. From amidships came a sudden banging. Bran opened the rear door and a rumpled and annoyed grey-suited young man emerged.
Fell out, actually.
Bran caught him, set him upright and shoved him against the Ravin's side. "Unless you swim well, you might want to stay there." Bran had dubbed him Velcro Boy, because he stuck to Briefcase Woman tighter than the famous hook and loop tape. He was some sort of assistant, pale and squishy, as if he spent most of his life in a chair, and he seemed to be unfamiliar with the presence of bugs or the feel of grass under his feet. He looked down at the boulder's edge, two feet from the end of his own shiny-shoed feet, and the brown fast water beyond. He looked up at Bran, eyes wide as a rabbit in the path of a coyote.
"Yeah, yeah, I know it doesn't look like a McDonald's." Bran said. He rummaged in the cargo/passenger hold and produced a bottle of blue Gatorade and a pack of colorful dried fruit. He thrust them at Velcro Boy. "This is better for you anyway."
Something zoomed by Velcro boy's head, he swatted at it in panic.
Bran's hand moved like the flick of a bird changing direction in flight. He deflected Velcro Boy's hand, and a bright blue dragonfly zoomed off downriver. "Try not to kill anything while you're visiting their home, eh?" He stepped to where Briefcase Woman was standing, peering into the silver distance of the river. He handed her the binoculars again. "Look out there."
She raised the binoculars and saw wings beating upriver toward the rock. Ten seconds, twenty, the dark shapes were still uncertain squiggles.
"Those are the eagles we saw before." Bran said.
"How do you know?"
His eyes flicked away from her face and downriver, watching the powerful seven foot wings, watching the way the primaries bent under the wind, seeing the great golden eyes, nearly keen as his own, the enormous yellow talons, capable of breaking a man's arm with their grip. He stood, silent as the slender trees on the island west of his rock. The wind whispered, the water rippled around the rock, he breathed a dozen times. Finally he said, "You can tell by the way they fly, by the shapes they make in the air, that they're not vultures, or hawks, or seagulls or herons. There's a pair that nest on this part of the river now."
"Your organization has studied them?" She continued to squint through the binoculars.
He regarded her, studied her the way she was studying the oncoming eagles. Studied? You mean peered at through telescopes, and stuck under microscopes, and written down information and put it all on a nice neat chart somewhere, with your own names, not theirs. I know their true names. I've talked to them. Flown with them. Called encouragement to their young as they dropped feet-first toward the rolling river, striking their first fish. And long ago I watched as the eggs broke and the young never hatched because of the poisons in the river, in all the land around. "Yeah," He said, "We've studied them."
"A conservation success story." she said as if it were a story about someone who'd won the lottery. But she didn't quite lower the binoculars.
"What are we waiting..." whined Velcro Boy. His Gatorade was empty, but the dried fruit had vanished, tossed back into the Ravin's hold.
Bran turned and gave him a long blue stare. Velcro Boy closed his mouth on the rest. Downstream seagulls called, the river rolled by. Bran's eyes went back to Briefcase Woman. He could change her mind of course, the way he'd silenced Velcro Boy. He could whisper the words she needed to tell the senator, and she would carry them, and it would change things. It would be easy, easy as an eagle snagging a fish.
No, it would be like fishing with dynamite; using power that way. And it was as likely to blow up the fisherman, and a lot of other things, as it was to blow up the fish. He turned his gaze from Briefcase Woman and sent a silent call down the river.
My Lady, I need your help. There is one here who is a messenger for her people. She needs to meet you. To understand.
Briefcase Woman tilted the binoculars up, and up and up as the distant brown shapes grew larger. They swept silently overhead, the larger one tilted and circled the rock, under the Ravin's stilled rotors, her great golden eye level with Bran's deep sky blue ones.
Bran nodded, almost invisibly, a bow of respect to a queen.
Briefcase Woman let out a gasp.
A single feather floated out of the sky, the eagle tilted again and was gone, beating up the river.
Bran reached, caught, and held the feather before briefcase Woman's nose. It was a dance of mottled browns, like the light on the river. She reached out a tentative hand and touched it. Bran passed the feather into her hand.
"If you were still using DDT, like they did back in the...” he frowned, as if he’d forgotten the dates, “...twentieth century...” he added vaguely, “...they wouldn't be here."
She nodded.
"The Lakota people of the Great Plains have a saying: mitakuye oyasin. All my relatives, we are all related."
"Ah." she said, twirling the feather gently.
Velcro Boy remained blessedly silent.
"You can't really keep it of course, native birds and all their parts are protected now by an assortment of game laws. But it was a sort of gift...from the bird."
"Ah, I see. Should I let it go?"
"Take it back to Hawk Circle. We have permits. We can use it in our educational programs."
Briefcase Woman smiled suddenly, like sun coming out of river rain. "Do your educational programs include helicopter trips to random river rocks?"
Bran gave her a pirate smile. He moved back to the rear door, opened it and stuffed Velcro Boy back inside.






A bridge loomed, and the Ravin' tilted through the space between it and the water, passed the towers of Three Mile Island nuclear plant, dove through a obstacle course of more bridges, treed islands, pontoon boats and power lines. Briefcase Woman's eyes were on the water now, and though she stiffened when they ducked under a bridge or too close to the trees, she seemed to be almost enjoying the view.
At last, Ravin' turned inland, and her flight leveled out, straight as crow flight over a patchwork of fields and woods embroidered with pale squiggles of highway. Pennsylvania Dutch Country; Amish buggies and huge horses the color of earth harnessed four abreast, combing the fields with plows and harrows. Interstate 83, the fake ancient architecture of the government buildings at Harrisburg and the urban sprawl beyond. And Camp Hill and York, and used car lots and fast food and malls and malls and malls. Then out over black and white cows and tractors and woods and a trickle of a creek winding its way through spring green hills. Below the Ravin' a creek split and flowed into a vast circle, coming around to meet itself again. Bran pointed. "There's Hawk Circle!" To the south rose a cluster of red buildings; an old bank barn filled with horses and the arenas beyond it. To the north there was a cluster of white buildings around an ancient barn, and nearly hidden in the woods, a circle of tipis. "That's the camp."
"S...scouts?" Briefcase Woman stuttered as the Ravin' hit an invisible air mogul.
"Anybody. A lot of urban kids get to come out here, experience the real world for the first time."
To the west lay another bank barn, nearly black with weathering. Bran pointed, "Endangered Species Breeding Facility."
"I've heard your people have had some success with binturongs."
"You've done your homework. We have the second largest breeding colony in the world. We're working on thylacines."
"What?"
He gave her an unreadable look, and a half smile.
The Ravin' banked east, skimming the treetops, flared and hovered over the collection of yellow buildings there. Then it settled, like a bird on a nest, between two buildings. Bran cut the engines.
He came around, opened the door and helped Briefcase Woman out, then Velcro Boy, and their baggage. They ducked under the rotors, Bran saw Velcro Boy's startled eyes go to the end of the rotors, inches from the building. They headed for the one marked "Earth Life Foundation: Educational Center". Briefcase Woman checked her watch.
"You're late."
Bran looked up into eyes the color of spring leaves. A young man with tousled blond and brown hair stood before him, looking past him to the passengers. "Running on Elvish time again, I see." he said just loud enough for Bran to hear.
Bran gave him a friendly thump on the shoulder, "Deal with it monkey-boy. We took a little tour. I wanted her to see the big picture; the Bay, the River, how it’s all connected."
The green eyes swept over Briefcase Woman, and Velcro Boy.
"Yeah, Wingnut." he said. "I can see they're impressed with Barf Bag Tours."
"Hey Maddog." Bran said, "Wait till she sees what you picked for the menu; eggplant du jour and steamed rutabaga, spinach pie for desert."
"It's steamed spinach and rhubarb pie. And vegetarian lasagna. And plenty of ice cream."
"The good stuff?"
"Yeah, Ben and Jerry."
"Save me some?"
"Maybe." He turned to Briefcase Woman, "I'm Ian Greenleaf. We're very glad you came, I hope our symposium will be entertaining as well as informative." He glanced at his watch again, "Most of the teachers and professors are already here. We did get a couple of legislators we thought we'd never get! Everybody's in the lounge now, so you can all get acquainted." He smiled like a kid on Christmas morning, "And three of the local news teams are here, as well as reporters from four of the local papers and one national one. And a lady from Newsweek." He tried not to look too prideful and mostly failed.
"Good. Thank you Ian." Briefcase Woman said.
Ian put a gentle guiding hand on her shoulder, "You have a few minutes yet. You want anything to eat? There's ice cream and some healthier stuff in the lounge."
"I gotta few more runs to make," Bran said, "but I'll be back by ten to take you home." He bowed with swashbuckler flair.
"Thank you, Brannan." she said politely, she hesitated, then shook his hand, and her grip was sincere, "for everything." She strode toward the educational center's doors with Ian, Velcro Boy trailing after. As she vanished into the building, Bran heard her ask Ian, "Can you get me the name of the closest rent-a-car place?"






Ninth grader Alexander Fox moved down the classroom's center aisle, sixty-seven pairs of eyes from ninth and tenth grade biology classes riveted to him. There wasn't anything particularly riveting about his appearance; blue jeans, river sandals, a hot pink and orange tie-dye t-shirt that proclaimed "love your mother" with a picture of planet Earth on it, a mane of unruly red hair that clashed mightily with the t-shirt.
Maybe it was the twelve-foot Burmese python he was also wearing; it looked like a thirty-footer on Zan's lean frame, big enough to swallow him, if it chose. Behind him, at the front of the room, a twenty-something woman was telling the class the difference between viviparous and oviparous. She was a college intern, working with the Earth Life Foundation doing educational programs. Zan had been given the job of being snake wrangler for her on this mission, though he would have preferred to also be doing all the talking. After all, he knew more than the intern would ever know, if she had five lifetimes to study all of the snakes on the planet. She had been given the job of doing all the talking; important training for her college degree, and for her future as an educator, and Zan had been relegated to the job any kid could do.
At least he’d convinced them to let him bring the big snake, Kaa.
I promise, he’d told the Grandmothers, no dropping Kaa on an unsuspecting cheerleader, no Crocodile Hunter stunts, and no special effects.
A few yards away a couple of tenth grade boys snickered to each other. They were bigger, broader than most, dressed in the latest fads, and apparently Zan's fashion sense did not meet their approval. Another even bigger, beefier one had the sort of arrogantly ignorant expression that shouted I'm too cool to show any interest in what you're trying to tell me. The first two snickered again, trading rude comments. A girl in front of them flushed red with embarrassment.
The snake flicked out a tongue, tasting the air, I smell fear. Yet they are dangerous, these two-leggeds.
Zan stroked a loop of patterned skin reassuringly. Snakes think in pictures, feelings, sensations, not words, though words were often how Zan translated snaketalk. They do not smell, they taste with their tongues, and they do not hear sounds carried by air, only the vibrations they feel as they lie close to Mother Earth. The big python didn't catch the whispers and giggles that Zan heard all too clearly, but Kaa did see the movement of two-legged creatures big enough to be dangerous, and tasted the air, and knew that they were afraid. Zan edged closer to Beef on the Hoof Boy. He froze in his seat, his body tensed like a deer in the sights of a hunter. His buddies fell silent, shifting nervously, trying even harder to maintain their cool. The big python adjusted a relaxed loop or two, the boys tried without success to become invisible in their seats. Zan tried hard to suppress a grin, and mostly failed.
A blond girl in the next seat smiled up at Zan, one hand hesitating in its journey toward a loop of snake near her desk.
"Go ahead, that's why he's here. Don't worry, Kaa won't eat you."
"I didn't think he would." she said, smiling more, and stroking the smooth-leather skin.
"Kaa?" a dark-haired girl said, "Like in Kipling's Jungle Books?"
"Yeah." Zan told her, smiling back. She was kind of cute. Probably more than two working brain cells too. And unafraid. He smiled wider.
Beef on the Hoof Boy was well behind them now, he snorted. "You named him after a cartoon character?"
"The book, amoebae brain, not the cartoon." Kipling Girl glared at Beef Boy and turned back to the snake, running a hand over sleek chocolate and coffee skin.
Niiiiiiccce.
Yeah, Zan thought back at Kaa, guess there's hope for the human race after all.
"What do you feed them?" someone was asking.
"Ones that size, a rabbit every week or so." the intern said.
A few girls in the front with carefully painted nails shrank in their seats, "Eeeeeww!"
Maybe not. Zan told Kaa.
The boys poked each other, whispering and making dares. "Hey," one of them whispered, "that little geeky kid can handle it..." They were thinking how easy it would be to wrestle the big snake off Zan. How much of a mad scene it would make. How close it was to the end of school. Who would stop them?
Zan heard them, their thoughts were so loud they leapt out at him. They reminded him of strutting young colts prancing around the edges of a horse herd, arching their necks, flexing their muscles. The kind of colts who usually got their butts kicked by the herd stallion.
He could let them make their move.






Shadowfox leaps out of the reach of the first strike. They are like lumbering oxen to his foxlike agility. Of course, he has been practicing with sword, bow and bare hand for twice the length of their paltry existence. He lightens his feet and makes the special effects from the latest martial arts flick look tame; runs up the wall, flips, twirls in mid-air, striking twenty times like lightning before he lands, light as a cat. They sprawl ignominiously on the ground. Kipling Girl and the others look on in admiration.






Kaa tightened a coil, bringing Zan’s attention back to the moment. Beef on the Hoof Boy and his buddies were still staring at him, whispering. Zan sighed. He could, in fact, kick their collective butts.
He could not. Could not use his gifts. Not that way.
He could let a toe trail out into their path, trip them. Accidentally on purpose let a desk slide into their path.
Instead, he turned and stared at the boys. One of them met Zan’s sea-grey eyes for a brief moment, and looked quickly away.
Kaa regarded the biggest of the boys for a moment, fixing him with a dark unblinking gaze.
The boy froze.
Zan could feel Kaa do the snake equivalent of a smile, I would like to meet him when I am bigger.
Half hidden by a loop of python, Zan’s hand moved.
Beef on the Hoof Boy saw Kaa wink, then heard him hiss softly, “I’ll see you again when I’m bigger.” The snake’s lip’s moved in perfect sync with the whispered words, then smiled in hungry, predatory fashion.
Beef Boy sat there, his mouth open like a grouper staring down a great White Shark.
“Hey,” his buddy said, “What’s up with you?”
Beef Boy found half of his voice, whispered hoarsely, “Did you see that?”
“See what?”
“He ahhhh...” No. No way he could say what he really saw. No way he could have seen that. Nope. He shook his head, “He, uh, winked.” Beef Boy said, shrinking into his seat.
“They can’t wink, zoophyte brain.” Kipling Girl said. “They haven’t got eyelids.”
Beef Boy shrank a bit farther. “Yeah. Yeah. I knew that.”






Zan let out a breath; the misdirection had worked well, even if the ventriloquism was pretty amateurish; Beef Boy hadn’t seen Zan’s lips move, hadn’t noticed the sibilant voice was just a raspy version of Zan’s own. Nobody else had seen the illusion.
The program ended, and the last of the questions trailed off. Kaa and the others were back in their dog carriers, the intern was talking to the teachers, Zan was cleaning up as the last of the students filed by on their way to the next class.
A couple of cute girls wandered by, taking one last look into the carriers, glancing at Zan and giggling, whispering among themselves. He knew what they were thinking and whispering, even if he didn't try to hear it, it leapt out at him, shouted at him, for he didn't have the age-long experience at blocking it that Bran and the others did. He's cute. He's kind of geeky. He's weird. No, he's cute. No, you're weird! Am not! Look at what he's wearing! It’s so last week! That’s a girl color! Clashes so totally with his hair too! What kind of haircut is that anyway? What are you, the fashion police? He's Jen's type! Giggles. Is NOT!
The boys just looked down at him like he was some kind of fungus, except for one bespectacled small boy who wanted to ask a dozen more questions, and tell stories about his corn snake breeding experiment and how he'd saved a huge black rat snake from being chopped up by the neighbor lady when it crawled into her basement. Zan smiled and answered the questions, his eyes trailing after the girls. He sighed. High school was so weird; cliques and what was in fashion and who was cool and who wasn't and gossip and competition. Five minutes from now something else would be in fashion. None of it would matter five years from now.
It wasn't that way at Hawk Circle, it wasn't that way if you were the only kid, if you went to no official school.
The girl who had read Kipling stopped, smiled at Zan. "Hey, this is my website and e-mail." she thrust a card at him. He gave her a nervous smile, took it. It was beautifully designed, with a running black unicorn.
"Um, really nice," he blurted.
She smiled nervously, "Photoshop. Did the unicorn myself though."
"Nice." Zan gave himself a mental kick, unable to think of anything more intelligent to say.
"You have one?"
"Huh? Unicorn?" Uh, as a matter of fact...
She gave him a strange look.
"Oh, yeah. Photoshop. Duh, yeah."
"E-mail." she said.
He blinked at her stupidly, "Oh, yeah." He rummaged for an ELF card. "Here."
She caught it as one of her friends pushed past, catching her and pulling her along. "Later!" she waved at him.
"Yeah. Later."
The last of the horde vanished down the hall to their next class.
Zan almost wished he was part of this big unruly mess, but he could never be.
In three years these kids would graduate. They'd go to college, grow up, get normal mundane jobs and have a bunch of kids who'd go to school, starting the circle all over again.
And Alexander Fox would no longer exist. He would vanish, quietly, as if he never had existed. Mirzithan would be much the same as he was now, a shade taller maybe, a hair closer to adulthood. He would still be part of the ELF, under a new guise.
His folk were long-lived, so long-lived that humans thought them nigh immortal. They did not fill the world with their descendants the way humans did, so there were no kids like Zan at Hawk Circle. None he could become close to.
None who would not be terrified to learn that legends, the faint memories of their ancestors, yet walked the green earth under the sun.






Bang. Thump. Thud thud thud. The sound of tools wielded against a stubborn bit of helicopter technology. Grumbles and the occasional emphatic comment on the lineage and character of the Ravin' Maniac came from somewhere in the depths of the chopper's guts. The glare of a single worklight threw dragon shadows against the hangar walls, and against a small single engine plane painted like the chopper.
"Doc...Doc? Are you there yet?"
"No." a voice rumbled from the depths of the Ravin'. “And if you don’t stop fryin’ things, you’re gonna be flyin’ 24/7 just to pay the bills.”
Bang, Thunk. Scrrreeeet! The spine cringing sound of a tool skating ungracefully across metal made Bran flinch.
“This ain’t some enchanted forest where folk live with no visible means of support.” Doc grumbled.
Bran fidgeted, the end of the hangar was open, letting in the wind and the sound of more rain. The curved metal roof blocked the sky though, and there was concrete under his feet, not the warm, living earth. The air was full of the scent of fuel and oil and grease, enough that even his insensitive nose was irritated. "Dead, desiccated dinosaurs," he muttered, trying to wipe a bit of grease off his hand. "Why can't you make this thing run on batteries or something? Dilithium crystals, maybe."
"We’re workin’ on it.” Bang thud thud thud. “Stop whinin' and hand me the..." the word was nearly lost in more emphatic banging.
Bran leaned down from his perch and proffered a tool to the mechanic, hidden but for his short stout legs, "Is this what you wanted?"
The tool vanished, to be thrust forth again, "Bloody Elves, can't tell the difference between a Phillips and a straight screwdriver much less..."
"Oh, don't be so hard on him, Dad." A sturdily built young woman in well-worn coveralls ducked around the nose of the Ravin'. Her nose was level with the tool in Bran's hand. She shook her head, reached into the toolbox and pulled out something that, to Bran, was identical to the thing in his hand. She shook it gently at Bran, "Just never fly this bird without a cell phone, and our phone numbers at the top of the list."
He cocked an eyebrow. "I have duct tape."
Earla Durgin gave him a sisterly thump in the middle of his chest. Bran rocked back as if an elephant had patted him. "Use duct tape on my Ravin' and you'll be wearing it."
"Your Ravin'?" The other eyebrow went up beside the first. "Your...!"
"Stick to flying, Birdbrain." Earla said, "and talking to trees."
Bran climbed back into the cockpit. Earla handed the tool off to her dad, then straightened, staring at the end of the hangar open to the night and rain.
“Bran..?”
Bran jolted upright, forgetting how close the Ravin's controls were to his head. "Ow." He stared through the bubble at a horse walking into the hangar. He ducked out of the Ravin', dropping the wrong tool on the ground.
"Hrafnson?" Doc's voice came from within the Ravin'.
Bran stared at the black mare, trailing water across the hangar floor.
Earla stared up at Bran, "Did something escape from the Grandmother’s barn again?"
“Nooooooo, no no no...” Bran said, walking toward the mare. "This one’s never seen a barn.” He stopped before her, held out a hand, touched the wet mane.
Earla studied them with eyes dark as earth. She sniffed, smelled the distinct scent of brine. Of seawater. She eyed the faint bioluminescence dancing in the black mare’s mane. She remembered some of the tales Bran had told her. “You know her... from your pirate days,” she said.
"I was never a pirate...I was a privateer."
"Whatever." Earla shook her head. "It involves water. Lots of water, with no solid land in sight. Not earth, not rock, not minerals. Water. Too much water." She studied the horse, improbably dripping seawater onto the hangar floor, hundreds of miles from the nearest shore. “She’s far inland for her kind.”
"Indeed.” Bran said. He turned to the black mare, “Ok My Lady," he said softly, "What's your story?"






The big indoor arena echoed with the muffled thuddity thuddity thuddity of a horse cantering. Galloping, actually, a bit too fast for the hundred foot by sixty foot arena. The horse careened around the narrow end, the young teenaged girl in the saddle stiffened.
“Loosen up!” barked the woman in the arena’s center. “She’s feeling your tenseness. You’re only making her stiff too.” Her hair was a wild mane of flaxen and white, her build suggested a tough little mustang, or someone with several black belt degrees in martial arts.
The horse’s rear half, scrambling on the turn, was white, tattered around the edges like a snowstorm, like torn paper, filled with dark egg spots in the center. Her front half, stiff neck thrown out to the wall, head too high, shoulders and front legs scrambling for footing, was bay, not marked with the Appaloosa spots of her rump but with shadowy stripes. On her legs were lighter stripes, like a tiger.
The girl was nearly the same color as the zebra hybrid’s glossy neck, and as wide eyed.
“Kittens!” Tas called from the center, “Where are those kittens you’re supposed to be holding?”
The kittens Kaisha was supposed to be imagining in her hands, to keep those hands soft on the reins.
“Ice cream!” Tas shouted, “melting ice cream!” Melt into the horse, or the zorse, as the case may be. “Ben and Jerry’s Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough.”
Kaisha smiled.
“Chunky Monkey!”
Laughed. Softened. The zorse, Nala, slowed to a banging trot.
“Try the canter again.” Tas said. “But not until you get her into a collected trot. Balanced. And don’t try so hard this time. Be light. Her father’s ancestors can spot a lion a mile away. Survive in a world of hyenas and crocs and wild dogs and leopards. When you give the command, just think it real loud.”
Kaisha slowed the trot, collected it. Bit her lip.
“Don’t think!” Tas said. “Do.”
A shift back with the outside leg, a slightly tightened leg muscle. A lift of the seat.
Nala lifted into a perfect canter. Circled the arena twice. Then stopped, haunches under her, ready for a quick move in any direction. Her head raised, big round ears radared on the door. Kaisha sat, deep in the seat, eyes following the zorse’s gaze.
The door that would admit a rider and a horse opened. A man walked in, followed by a fourteen and a half hand black mare; no halter, no lead, just wet, from the rain, and dripping on the sandy floor of the arena.
The man looked up at Kaisha, “How’s it goin’?”
“Hey Bran. Pretty good.” Her eyes went from the zorse’s ears to the black mare. She patted Nala’s neck reassuringly. The zorse took a step forward, sniffing.
“Never seen her here before.” Kaisha said.
“Saw.” Tas stated. “Never saw.”
Kaisha did an eyeroll, she hoped Tas had missed, “Saw.”
“I seen that.” Tas rumbled.
“Saw.” Kaisha said. “What’s her story.” She jerked her head at the black mare.
Bran smiled, but it didn’t quite make it to his deep sky eyes. “That’s what I’m here to find out.” He looked at Tas.
“Ok then.” Kaisha said. She swung off Nala.
“Give her an extra good massage, just like we practiced.” Tas said. She glanced at Bran. Turned and met Kaisha’s eyes. “You’ve come a long way. You don’t need me to ride her now.” She held out a hand, grasped Kaisha’s. “Just remember those kittens.”






“What’s one of Manannan’s horses doing here?” Tas said.
“Not just one of.” Bran said. “She’s the Black Mare.”
“Wasn’t that the name of one of your ships? I can never keep track.”
“She was the ship.”
“Why is she here?” Tas ran a hand over the mare’s neck, shining with seawater, dancing with faint bioluminescence.
“You’re the one who speaks horse. I just keep getting vague images of ‘island’ and ‘beach’ and ‘danger’. And apocalyptic flooding.”
“Great. Birdbrain.” Tas stroked the mare’s forehead, smoothing the tangled forelock. She lowered her head, shoved her nose into Tas’s chest. For a few long minutes they stood, silent, Bran watching.
Tas raised her head suddenly, one hand still outstretched. The mare gave Bran a long look, then wheeled and cantered out of the arena into the night.
“What?”
“Pack your bags, we’re going on an island vacation.”










Raven






Holly yawned, glugged down the last of the hot chocolate, opened the dog chow bin, began scooping out breakfast into bowls, swatting stray mosquitoes without thinking. Eight bowls for her own dogs, three for the rescue dogs she was fostering.
She stared out at the Merrow in her hot tub full of cool seawater laboriously hauled in the van from the channel, yesterday. “You need a name,” she said out loud. “One I can pronounce.” She fed the dogs, thinking furiously about names and their meanings. She shoved aside a few half-finished wax sculptures for future bronzes, pulled three books off the shelf, books about names.
“Mrrrow.” Pirate Jenny suggested, her mutlicolored tail weaving eel curves against the pages.
A...D....G....M...P...X. Holly flipped through pages of names. None leapt out at her
Jenny yawned, stretched. Jumped up on a bookshelf.
The Illustrated Marguerite Henry hit the floor.
“Jenny! That’s one of my old ones!” Holly picked it up and read the page before her, full of sketches of dancing horses from the tales Marguerite Henry had written. She flipped a page, sketches of Chincoteague ponies galloped across it. “Wesley Dennis illustrated Marguerite’s books about Chincoteague.” Holly said thoughtfully. She eyed the Merrow in her hot tub.
“Mrooooo!” Jenny said, it sounded like a resounding no.
“Ok, not Wesley.” Holly started to close the book and a picture of a dog caught her eye. “Morgan. Wesley’s brother. Morgan Dennis did dog pictures.” She flipped through the book some more, “And Marguerite Henry had a Morgan horse, like the one she wrote about in Justin Morgan Had a Horse.” She frowned, “It’s also the name of a historic whaling ship at Mystic Connecticut: Charles Morgan.” She shot the Merrow an apologetic glance. “Still...” She poked in her name book as something tickled at the back of her memory, “Aha! Morgan is Gaelic for "sea-born" and Welsh for "bright". Holly frowned up at the grey sky, “Though the weather since he’s arrived has been anything but bright.” She turned to Jenny, “You know, I’ve lived on Chincoteague since college, and never seen it this cold and rainy so late in May.”
“Mrrrrw.” Jenny agreed. Her eyes drifted up, to something in the trees.
In the dogyard someone arroooed gently. Holly looked up and saw grey velvet ears up and down the yard pricked toward something in the big loblolly.
Holly followed the dogs’ gaze, nothing, just green needles and tree shadow. She glanced at the hot tub. The Merrow had sunk below the rim, with just eyes and nose above water.
Holly stalked under the tree, looked up into the sprawly, open branches.
A whoosh whoosh whoosh of wings, a shadow detached itself from the tree trunk and blasted through the long needles, vanishing into the morning haze.
Not before she got a good look at it though. She frowned, it wasn't a normal sort of Assateague bird, seagull or fish crow or cattle egret.
It was a raven. A big, freaking raven. She knew by the wedge shaped tail, and the harsh croak it let out in surprise.
Or to startle her.
And it was the wrong color for a raven. She'd heard of them coming in white or chocolate or even bronze, but she'd never heard of one like this; a sort of dark silver, like polished steel, or a blue Greyhound. And not just the color, something else; she had caught it with her wolfsight just before it flew out of sight. A kind of blue light, like the sky over high mountains, played around its edges. Its aura was not at all like any ordinary bird she'd ever seen.
"What was that?" she asked Morgan. He leaned on the side of the tub, staring east, toward the sea and said nothing.
Back on the porch, Pirate Jenny let out one emphatic mrow, as if she knew something.












"Good, I thought maybe you left already!"
Ian looked up from the Ravin's cargo hold, a bag in one hand on its way inside.
Zan stood inside the hangar doors, a backpack flung over one shoulder. He strode toward the Ravin’.
Ian straightened, Zan zoomed by, flung his pack in after Ian's bag. "Whoa, who invited you?" Ian demanded, holding out a blocking arm.
"The Grandmothers.”
“Right.” Ian planted a hand in the middle of the little redhead's chest. "This is not a thylacine quest, we're not looking for new species in an inaccessible rain forest. We're dealing with..."
"...pirates. Tas told me. You'll need a good illusionist."
"Not this time.” Ian said.
“Who kicked your butt in that last swordfight practice?”
“Pirates gave up swords a century and a half ago.”
“...and you suck at archery.”
Ian glared. “I...”
“And Bran can’t do illusions, just sound effects.”
“You...”
“...better go with you guys.” Zan threw his bag into the hold.
Ian grabbed it back out.
“What?” Bran came around the corner.
They both froze, the bag suspended between them.
Bran eyed Zan, then Ian.
:You do realize,” Zan said to Ian, “that I’ve got a century and a quarter more battle experience than you.”
“I’ve got eight inches and sixty pounds on you. And frontal lobes.”
Zan gestured, and Ian turned a lovely shade of Barbie doll pink. Butterfly wings sprouted from his back.
“Can we just duct tape him to the ceiling till we get back?” Ian said.
Bran grinned. “Never know when you’ll need to turn someone pink.” He turned to Zan, “Get in.”
But You Can't Park That Boat in the Lobby






It was not the sort of thing anyone expected to see in this hotel lobby in a dusty little college town in Utah.
The impeccably dressed lady at the front desk looked up to see a man come through the door carrying a boat. She blinked. It was solid black and twice as long as her ten foot counter. A kayak, like the ones she'd seen at the lake last summer, only bigger. A long hollow spearhead shape with a hole in the center for one paddler to plug themselves into. The man was not exactly small either, she realized that when he stopped in front of her, towering over her neatly piled forms and carefully lined up pens. He looked like one of the Indians from the res, down the road, with his deep tan and his braid, his jeans and t-shirt. But the res Indians had no use for boats, the nearest sizable piece of water was half a day's drive away. She straightened herself up to her full five feet two inches, cleared her throat and said. "You can't bring that in here!" There was no regulation about boats in the lobby, she knew that, and she knew the regulations as well as she knew the order of the clothes in her closet. Regulations or not, it was not proper to have a twenty foot kayak in the lobby, or anywhere else in the hotel.
The tall man set it down, the middle against his sneakered feet, one end threatening to demolish a potted bush, the other slid an end table across the polished floor with a screech that made Counter Woman's skin crawl. The tall man didn't seem to notice. He smiled, wide and gentle as a sunny sea, and handed her a laptop computer. A paragraph on the screen informed her he was one David Michael Shaughnessy (with several letters after it indicating various kinds of college degrees), with something called the Earth Life Foundation, here to do a lecture at the college. He had reserved a room for a week. What was the best route to the college and where could he find decent seafood? "Just type out anything you want to tell me here," the screen read, "unless you speak Sign Language, I'm Deaf."
Capital D, she noted, as if he was telling her he was American or English or Ute. She eyed the boat, one pointy end firmly lodged in the potted plant, "You can't..." she began again. And there was that broad smile on a face with strong cheekbones and eyes the color of the sea. And something in them made her think he'd be about as easy to move as the sea. She sighed, went to the third pile of paper on the left, produced the information he needed and a room key. He made a gentle gesture with a hand that could have hidden her entire coffee mug, and took back his laptop.
He picked up the kayak with one hand as easily as if it were another laptop, and vanished down the hall.






Dark, dark under a starless sky, running, running, something behind, chasing, closing in...howling, a wavering song of warning, a shadow moves, pounces...
Holly sat straight up in bed shaking off the dream, and an enormous calico cat. "What the..." she said out loud and stared into Pirate Jenny's gleaming eyes.
"Mrow!" Jenny demanded.
Outside someone yodeled, another dog answered, at Holly's feet Strider arooed softly in reply.
"Night monkeys." Holly muttered, throwing off the blanket. Howling at imaginary night monkeys again. She found her shorts and a t-shirt and pattered barefoot down the narrow stairs, Jenny leading the way at a gallop. "The whole island'll be awake."
With Strider trailing her, Holly crossed the screened porch, trading the company of Pirate Jenny for a few dozen mosquitoes. She swatted at them automatically, her eyes and ears fixed on the dogyard. Five of the dogs were singing in ten-part harmony. She picked up the Rattle Can of Doom, an old soup can loaded with pebbles, it made a noise the dogs didn't like and got their attention quite effectively when they broke the human rules of polite social conduct.
Cold air, cold sand under her feet. Colder than May should be. She glanced up at the stars, glittering like Christmas lights. Something moved on the other side of the vine-covered six-foot fence bordering the yard. The dogs' noses were lined up on it like rifle muzzles. Holly froze, can still and silent in her hand. That was not the movement of a stray late-night tourist. She stepped back inside, quick and quiet as a wolf, and palmed her pepper spray, reaching for the cell phone that was no longer there, because Morgan had tossed it into the surf. She stalked across the yard again, glancing at the hot tub. She could see Morgan's tail, a faint shadow in the starlit water, but he had sunk as far below the rim as he could.
Holly trotted to the gate, swung it open and peered down the lamplit street.
Small tidy cottages, patches of sandy yard, clumps of low trees and bushes, the dark asphalt glittering under the lights with sand and shell fragments.
The dogsong stopped.
The street was empty.
But Strider stood on the inside of the fence, nose reading a new scent.






Mike Shaughnessy was halfway through his presentation, running one of his short films, one he'd shot a few years back in Johnstone Strait, off the island of Vancouver in west coast Canada. On the screen, a tall black orca fin rolled across the surface of the sea, another mirroring it exactly. His translator glanced at him, he signed: "...these two are young males, brothers, the curved fin in the middle is the matriarch..." he saw the translator stumble over that word, "the grandmother, the one around whom everything in the pod centers." Shaughnessy signed again, the young woman frowned, made a question with her hands. Shaughnessy turned to the audience and clearly said, “In Kwakiutl, they are called mak-eh-nuk.” The translator smiled, realizing she could never have said either Kwakiutl or mak-eh-nuk; both words contained sounds never heard in English. Shaughnessy signed to her again, she translating, “I’ll let the translator take over now, it’s better for me to Sign.”
A few days ago the audience had been college bio majors, today's class was the rez school, all of them from first grade on up. They lived about as far from the sea as anyone could; a world very different from the world of the Pacific Rim peoples Shaughnessy had come to know over the millennia.
Not so different after all, they were human, with all the complexities, good and bad, of humans everywhere. He had come to show them a glimpse of his world, and to capture, on this human storytelling medium of film, the stories of these people, to share with others. For days, kids of all ages had wielded cameras and microphones, lights and other equipment, and told their stories. A few had shown the kind of interest that might take them beyond these landlocked hills; to the sea, to the last rainforests, to Hollywood with a new voice.
He saw his translator look up suddenly, saw the shift of light at the back of the room as a door opened and quickly closed again. A latecomer to the show, one he would find and talk to later, after the kids. He instinctively began a quiet stream of echolocation clicks, beyond the level of human hearing, to identify the stranger, then caught himself.
Doesn’t work on land anymore. Use your eyes.
A lean man with dark silver hair nodded to him from the edge of the room. The look on his face was serious, odd for the usually lighthearted Ravenkin. Shaughnessy nodded back and turned his attention to the kids.
The lights came up and Shaughnessy found himself in the middle of a storm of questions. Bran’s serious expression melted as he fielded some of the questions, answering them with theatrical gestures and animated expressions. There was much laughing and general mayhem, and the reason for Bran’s sudden arrival was, for the moment, set aside.
But not forever.
“You got the email?” Bran asked.
“You probably got here ahead of it. Or of my looking at it.” Shaughnessy eyed the group of kids, dispersing. “You know I usually forget I have a phone, or email.”
“Yeah, I know. That’s why I used a Gate to fly here.”
“What is it?”
“Notice the weather?”
“Here, dry as ever.”
“Not on the east coast. It sucks.” Bran said. “Sucks my boots off, sucks my sneakers off. Landed the Ravin’ in a field the other day and it almost swallowed her.” Bran made a wry face, and the sign for mud. A lot of it.
“Ah.” Shaughnessy waited for the rest of Bran’s story. There was no use in telling him to cut it short.
“Surely you felt it...?”
“What? Like a 'great disturbance in the Force'?” Shaughnessy was all too familiar with Bran's love of pop culture. “I've been focused on these.” He gestured at the last kids trickling out of the auditorium.
“It looks like it went really well.” Bran said.
“Yes.”
Bran's face went serious. “Someone stole a Merrow’s cap, stranded him on Assateague Island. A kid on his coming of age quest. We have no idea who captured him, or why. But they failed to keep him, and the dolphin they used as bait. He’s safe for the moment, Ian and Zan are there. Tas and Earla are on their way. But obviously we need you.”
It was Shaughnessy's turn to fade to serious. “Things are out of balance now. Best we put them back.”
“If we can. We have no leads, no way to find these people.”
“You know the way of the hunter, Raven. Sometimes you lead us to the prey. Sometimes we wait for the prey to come to us.”
“Yeah.” Bran said. Shaughnessy’s life made Bran’s few millennia look short by comparison. And with that long life came long patience.
They strode toward the Ravin’, Shaughnessy with a small bag slung over one broad shoulder, the long black shape of a sea kayak slung over the other. His two ELF assistants were packing up his extra gear and loading it into a rented SUV. He slowed as he approached the chopper, realized he was holding his breath, and let it out.
He didn't hate flying. Flying was amazing, like swimming through the ocean of air.
It was the ceilings he hated. Car roofs, plane ceilings, and those cramped little traps they called seats on commercial flights. Good thing it had been Bran who'd flown him out here in the first place, and good thing the Ravin' had that big bubble window in front. He could imagine there was nothing between him and the surface, where he needed to breathe. And the Ravenkin was also a Gatesinger; he wouldn’t fly the whole thousand miles or whatever it was back to PA, he’d use a Gate to shorten the trip.
Shaughnessy laid the kayak along the Ravin’s skids, figuring the best way to lash it on safely.
“When’s the last time you even saw a Merrow?” Bran asked.
“Awhile,” he signed.
















The E.L.F.






Tuesday was antique mall day. Crack of dawn, Holly locked the gate, leaving the key in the whelk shell between the faded flamingo and the velociraptor, and drove the van across the causeway out of Chincoteague. Over Chincoteague Channel and Black Narrows. Salt marsh shimmered on both sides, seagulls and terns swooped and dived in an early morning feeding frenzy. The silver haze was giving way to a streak of color in the east, the sun might actually make an appearance today.
Of course, first perfect beach day in a week and I have to work.
Over Queen Sound Channel, Cockle Creek, Mosquito Creek. Wallops Neck and Shelly Bay Marsh to the south. The marsh changed to loblolly woods and a field of enormous radar dishes; NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility, and home of the NOAA Weather Bureau. Past the old roller rink called the Dream, past Ray's Shanty, and on into Virginia's mainland. A couple of small towns here boasted excellent used book stores and antique malls, places where Holly could find the rare and out of print books she sold at dog shows and on the internet.
She had carried her small TV out on the deck a few feet from the tub and given Morgan the remote, impressing on him the need to keep it all dry. She had hoped he would find PBS interesting, perhaps finding a documentary on sharks, or deepsea exploration. He had, however, discovered Cartoon Network and was amused. And just after that, the remote had keeled over, and not even replacing the batteries had made it function again. Holly chalked it up to water in the works, even though it seemed to be dry. Morgan didn't seem to care, he stayed glued to cartoonland as raptly as any land-spawned teenager.
Holly had left Morgan a bucket of shrimp, some ribbed mussels she'd found in the edge of the marsh, and three pints of Ben and Jerry's Chunky Monkey in a cooler by the hot tub, where he could reach it.
She returned at six to feed the dogs and Pirate Jenny and unload her books. She glanced at the other family house across the street; some tourist had parked their Jeep in the Wren’s Nest’s grass and sand driveway. Drat! She’d have to find them and explain why they couldn’t park there. She dropped the bags, strode over and studied it: PA plates (the one with the otter), red Jeep, white slash across the doors, turning them into big dive flags, stickers reading “save the bay” and “Earth Life Foundation” and a PADI dive association sticker. Two kayaks lashed to the roof racks. One big blue plastic one, a nice long lean sea kayak. The other bigger, long, lean, and solid black.
Nobody made black kayaks. She ran a hand along its side, warm in the sun. It felt eerily like a dolphin.
From inside the yard, someone arroooed that their human was starving them to death.
Later. She’d find the Jeep people later. She unlocked the gate with the key in the whelk shell, and swatted a few mosquitoes. The dogs lay sprawled in the late afternoon warmth. Jenny was coiled in her crow's nest, watching the yard with great greeny yellow eyes.
The yard in which a party was going on.
Holly dropped the bags on the ground and stared in disbelief.
“Rrrrooo rrrrrr orrr.” commented Strider.
Sprawled beside him was a huge black and white Landseer Newfoundland dog, its massive jaws open in a cheerful drooly grin.
Someone had fired up her grill, smoking with things she didn’t remember having in her freezer. Beside it stood a woman of medium size and medium age, and a build that suggested several levels of black belt martial arts. Her hair looked like something you’d find on one of the pinto island ponies; half flaxen and half white. A much shorter (and stouter) woman was grumbling over the plumbing in the hot tub, holding up a vial of water and squinting at it through goggles that looked like something out of a Jules Verne novel. She was wearing khaki breeches, the sort of baggy white shirt that would have been at home in multiple time periods, and boots you could have run three Iditarods in, and a leather corset. Morgan leaned on the hot tub’s wall, holding a bunch of mystery tools. There was a red haired kid (a particularly virulent shade of red) burning marshmallows over a small wood fire in a raised bowl. There was a very tall man with a very large bowl of shrimp, a shorter, younger man cooking on the grill, and a tall, lean man with a pint of Ben and Jerry’s in hand, pulling things off the grill with the other.
He had hair the precise color of a blue Great Dane. Or the sea in a downpour. Or the raven she’d seen two days ago.
“Raven!” Holly said. It was not a question.
His eyes were the color of the sky over the Rockies, and he seemed surprised when she didn’t look away. “Um, yeah.” He bowed, like a knight. Grinned like a pirate.
Holly scanned the assemblage again, “”Clearly you are not the folks Morgan escaped from.”
“No.” Morgan said. “Friends!”
“You speak English?”
“Now do. Yes. Funderful! Jen and Berry, awful!” Morgan said with a huge grin.
“Language spells are imperfect,” Raven said. To Morgan he said, “Awesome, is, I believe, the word you are looking for.”
Holly’s eyes went to the tall man; black hair with white streaks in it, he might have had ancestors from the anywhere in the Pacific Ocean. She squinted, saw with wolfsight, ancestors that were not human. “...you’re from the sea too.”
Beside him the redhaired kid signed something. The tall man nodded at Holly, smiled like sun rising over the edge of the world.
Her eyes went from the redhead to the short woman to the young man who mirrored Raven like a sleddog on a team. “Merrows and Elves and Dwarves and...you’re the only normal human here.”
“Ian,” he said, holding out a sandwich like an invitation.
Holly took it.
“Human, yes,” Raven said nodding at Ian, “Normal, no. I’m Bran.”
“Which means raven.” Holly said.
“Hrafnsson. Brannan Hrafnson,” he added.
“Which means raven.” Even though it sounds like robinson to those who don’t speak ancient Norse.
Bran smiled. Gestured to the others; “Tas, Earla, Zan, Shaughnessy.” He nodded at the Newfoundland, “Surf. Earth Life Foundation. maybe you’ve heard of us?”
“Ah, no.”
“Just one of many environmental dot-orgs vying for your tax deductible dollar.”
“E.L.F.? Isn’t that a little obvious?”
“You’d be surprised how many people don’t get it.”
“Educate, legislate, floculate.” Earla muttered.
“That’s not a word.” Zan said.
“Look it up.” Earla told him.
He glared at her, then in his best National Geographic voice he said; "The ELF’s continuing mission; Explore the natural world; Learn, and educate others to protect that world for Future generations. But if you mention Elves outside this yard, everyone will assume you're talking about Santa."
"Or Middle-earth." Ian added.
“Or D&D.” Bran said.
“Or Tinkerbell.” Zan said. He gestured.
The air around Tas shimmered, blurred, and silvery pink wings sprouted from her shoulders. Her wild blond and white mane morphed into a flower petal hat. “ZAN!” She snarled.
Bran laughed. He raised a hand as if ringing a tiny bell, a faint silver jingle was heard. Huge green moth wings sprouted from his back. “ZAN!”
The wings vanished.
Holly laughed. "Raven the mimic. And ..." she turned to Zan, “is that stuff real?”
He held up his sandwich, poked at it, “Is this real? Science says it’s just a bunch of energy fields colliding. E = MC squared. It’s all an illusion, matter, energy, it’s all the same. We just manipulate it better than your people.”
“You just don’t want to try to eat a sandwich he makes.” Ian said. “Or use a dogsled he’s magicked out of twigs and bark.”
Holly’s eyes went back to Morgan. “So, he’s safe now.”
“Not entirely.” Bran said.
“Why can’t he breathe water. And what was he running from?”
Bran gave her a quizzical look, head cocked like a bird.
“When I found him, on the beach. He acted like he didn’t want to go back to sea.”
“Did you see anything? Boats?” Bran said.
“I heard something, far away, an engine, but see... no...” she looked at Morgan.
“Dolphin distress, heard I. Help came. Caught got. Nothing can’t see.”
“What?”
“Merrow hasn’t got a word order, like English.” Bran said.
““No, I mean, can’t see what?”
“Pretty much anything above water. His eyes are made to see underwater.”
“Oh. Great.” She turned to Morgan again, “So you have no idea who kidnapped you.”
“He can’t even give us a description of the boat.”
“He got away, but he still can’t breathe water. Why?”
“You specialize in books.” Bran said. “You see us for what we are. You know the stories.”
“Some, like the selkie legends, the sealfolk who take off their sealskins to walk on land in human form.” She eyed Shaughnessy, no seal, but certainly a sea shape. “Or the whalefolk who take off their fins...” she added. The black kayak made sense now.
He smiled his slow knowing smile again.
“They are different from the Seal Folk.” Bran nodded at Morgan. “They do not shift shape...”
“We are half two shapes.” Morgan said.
“Long ago, the Elves and the Merrow folk were one people.” Bran said. “The Merrows took to the sea, with the help of swordfish and tuna and others, but only the fish part is at home in the sea. To breathe water, they need their caps. Their mothers weave them in their first days of life, but they can only make one, for the Sea-songs can only be sung once.”
“That is what these humans took,” Ian said, “and if they know about Merrows, then...”
“None of us are safe." Bran fingered something in his long stormsilver hair. “One more thing,” Bran said to Holly, “I meant none of us, your people included. You know what an Ojibway dreamcatcher looks like?”
Holly nodded.
Zan gestured, the air between his hands shimmered and came into focus; a spiderweb, woven of one single thread, inside a circle of twigs.
“One thread. What happens if you cut the thread?”
“The whole web disintegrates. What are you saying?”
“The Merrow’s cap, missing, is a cut in the thread. Oh, the whole world won’t self-destruct, not tomorrow, anyway, but things have already been thrown out of balance, and it will worsen. Notice anything weird about the weather lately?”
“Absolutely. Coldest, wettest spring ever.”
“Yeah.” Bran’s eyes went to Morgan. “So, how far above the sea is this island anyway?”
“Not very. And some of it’s below sea level.” Holly’s face went still as a winter night, “At least it’s not Nor-easter season. The Ash Wednesday storm of ‘62 nearly erased both islands off the map.”
“Hurricane season’s not far off.” Bran said.
“Hurricanes usually miss this part of the coast.”
“Usually.” Bran said.
Holly nodded, understanding. "What does it look like? The cap?"
"You ever watch those Cousteau specials on TV?" Bran said. “Or see their films, or read their books?”
"Of course."
“Those little red knit watch caps the whole crew of the Calypso wore?" Bran suggested.
“Ahhhhh.”
Bran nodded, a faint smile on his face.
"Uh," Zan said, "It looks just like those, anyway. Bright red, knitted...pretty much like the kind of hunting caps you can get at Wal-Mart in the fall for a couple of bucks."
"This was thought out, planned. With some money behind it." Ian said.
"You know why you never see Merrows on the front page of the news," Bran said.
"Except for those tabloids?" Ian said.
"Even with all those longline and seine net fishermen out there?" Bran said.
“Probably the same reason you don’t see Elves on the front page of the news.” Holly said. “Except I think it would be harder to hide a merrow, than the true shape of your ears.”
Here, among friends, Bran had no need for the misdirection he used, out there, among humans. He half smiled, rubbing one gently leaf-shaped ear, "Yeah.” He turned to Morgan, you want to show her?
Morgan only had to think of the familiar shape and it was there; the sea curve of a dolphin, floating incongruously in a hot tub in Holly’s backyard.
“Wow.” Holly said softly. She paused, “how long can you live out of water?" For the rest of your life? How long was that? Forever? And confined to a wheelchair or to floundering about on the surface of the water after knowing the three-dimensional freedom of the deep. He's beached, like a whale. And he’s just a kid.
"He has to get his cap back, or, as surely as a beached whale, he'll die." Bran delivered the line straight and hard as an arrow. "Not tomorrow, not the next day, not this summer, but he will die."
“We can hardly call the Coast Guard.” Holly observed. “Or the cops.” She scanned the yard, full of potential magic.”
"We hug trees, save endangered species. We don't track down leads, bust down doors, and engage in random gunfights and car chases." Bran said.
“We’re a bit short on Find Badguy spells.” Earla quipped.
Shaughnessy signed something. Holly understood bits of it.
“Sometimes the hunter waits for the prey to come to him.” Ian translated.
“There was someone outside my fence the other night. And it wasn’t him.” She nodded at Bran.
Tas glanced at Strider, “He told me. He has the best nose of your pack. I have the scent. But it led nowhere.”
“They’ll be back.” Earla said.
“What if they got what they want? What if that’s the cap itself?”
"Can't use it." Morgan said quickly.
"They can't?"
Bran said, "You can't put the selkie's skin on and become the selkie either. But if you steal the skin, you steal something of their power. You steal them. And eventually they die."
"They stole something they can't even use?"
"I don't think these people know what it is they have. I think from what Morgan told us, they wanted him. They tried to get him back."
"They tried to kill him."
"They tried to stop him, or at least some of the crew did. Maybe they're not all on the same page of the script."
"Well, then," Holly said, "you'll be staying on the island for awhile."
"Yes." Shaughnessy signed.
Holly said, "I’m sure your means of support are as difficult to come by as most non-profit research and educational organizations. I've got a second house across the street there, my family has a couple of properties here, they don't use them much. I'm pretty sure they're not going to need the Wren's Nest this summer." She eyed Morgan. "I can, in fact, make sure of it."
Ian was already translating to Shaughnessy, the big man looked at Tas, signed something. Tas looked at Zan, he glanced at Earla. A silent agreement circled the yard. "Good idea." Bran said.
Tas came to Morgan's side, leaned on the edge of the tub, one protective hand on his hair. She gave Holly a keen look; one eye coffee brown, one ice blue, like several of Holly’s dogs. "You got any more Ben and Jerry's?
Meanwhile, Back at the Ranch






Sharkman drifts through turquoise seas, every sense on alert. A tingle along his lateral line system...a faint rumble just at the edge of hearing...


“What the hell are you doing still in bed?” The voice had all the gentleness of a bronc coming unglued and stomping you into the mud. It was useless to try to burrow farther under the covers, Dad radar beat Sharkman’s invisibility systems every time.
“No school.” Jason mumbled. “Remember?”
His dad stood at the door, face like a granite outcropping in a thunderstorm. “there’s plenty to do.”
“But I’m...”
“Move it!” he didn’t quite shout it, but it was the kind of voice that made the most reluctant summer hand or green horse jump. And it carried the sure threat of serious consequences if it was ignored.
Jason sighed and crawled out of bed. The door slammed shut. He found his jeans, his beat up sneakers, a t-shirt that hadn’t been worn more than three days yet. He stomped downstairs and found a cereal bowl.
His mom eyed his feet. “You know what your dad thinks about sneakers.”
“Yeah, whatever.” Jason mumbled under his breath.
Mom turned, her stance like a solid roping horse holding a thousand pound steer. “Sneakers are for school. Boots are for cowboys.”
“I’m not a cowboy.”
“You are today. I don’t need you runnin’ a foot through a stirrup and gettin’ dragged from here to Montana. Or gettin’ stepped on by one of your dad’s...” her face shifted slightly, a flash of irritation, “...half-trained broncs.”


“I’m setting you up with this new safety equipment, Sharkman. It’s been road-tested by and given the Stamp of Approval by the Ancient Librarians Club of Cranbury.” The Secretary of Supplies for Superheroes Inc. sniffs and adjusts his spectacles. “We’d like you to fill out these forms first.” He drops a pile of paper the approximate size of Krakatoa on Sharkman’s desk.


Jason trudged through the horse barn, hay here, grain there. Scrub this, disinfect that. Scrape mud off stirrups, scrape green goo off bits. Sweep out the tackroom. Lug water out to the one paddock which someone, in their eternal wisdom, had seen fit to supply with no hose or automatic waterer.
Bud pattered up to Jason, tongue hanging in a joyous doggy grin. Bud was a Catahoula Cattle Dog and belonged to one of the hands. He was medium sized and his horse-short coat was about the color of a beat-up red pickup truck. He grinned up at Jason.
“Lucky scum, all you gotta do is chase cows once in awhile.” Jason thought about the watering trough, three quarters empty, and the forty-eight trips he’d have to make with buckets.


Sharkman grins as the lightbulb go on over his head...no wait, make that a...a...one of those glowing deep sea fish. Anglerfish. Yeah. A glowing anglerfish goes on over his head. Cool. What a picture.


“Come on Bud, I got an idea.” Jason went back to the tackroom, found the little red wagon he sometimes used for hauling hay bales, though it made the hands look at him like he was some kind of weenie. They usually just slung the bales in one hand, tossed them like they weighed nothing.
Jason found a noseband, a girth that wasn’t attached to a saddle, a stray stirrup leather from an English saddle that somebody’d got at auction, fixed and resold. Some binder twine from the hay bales and some duct tape.
Five minutes later Bud stood, hitched to the little red wagon, looking back at Jason uncertainly.
“Mush.” Jason said.
Bud stared at him.
“Oh, come on then.” Jason walked in front of Bud, tugging gently on a piece of binder twine attached to his collar. Bud followed obediently.
Two buckets of water would fit on the wagon, and Bud could pull them easily enough.
The trough was nearly full when Jason’s dad found him. “What...” he said with an expression like Darth Vader on a bad helmet day, “...is that?”
“Trough’s full.” Jason said quickly.
Jason’s dad looked at his watch. “You’d get it done a lot faster if you’d do it the right way!” His voice whined up a few notches. Like a jet engine about to blow.” He thumped the buckets off the wagon, released Bud from his harness.
Bud trotted off, looking uncertainly back over his shoulder.
Jason’s dad thrust the buckets at Jason. “Hurry up,” he said, and stalked off.
When he had become a small shape at the far end of the pens Jason said, “Wonder what you’re going to do for the rest of the summer without me to yell at?”


“I don’t like sending him on this mission.” The Secretary of Supersecret Scenarios frowns at Sharkman’s files. “It seems he’s used some very...ah...unorthodox methods in the past.”
Manta stands, her cape billowing out around her, “Yes, but he got it done. The missions you said could never be accomplished!”
A short, squatty guy, muscled like a cave troll, stands up, “Yes!” He thunders, “Mola knows Sharkman’s skill! Mola does not fight with anyone else at his back!”
The one known only as The Hammerhead rises, one fist slams onto the table, case closed. “He is the best. Do not question the judgement of Hammerhead! He goes.” He nods to Manta and Mola. “You too will be part of the team. The best we have!”
Sharkman, Mola and Manta head for the supply room. Sharkman passes The Secretary of Supersecret Missions. He grins broadly, showing all his teeth. The Secretary slinks back, ducks his head and vanishes down the hall in defeat.


“I don’t like sending him down there for the whole summer.” Dad’s grumbly voice from the kitchen. “What’s he gonna do, spend all day gettin’ sunburned on the beach?”
“Gracie’s got a job lined up for him. There’s a whole park system; National Seashore, Wildlife Refuge, Pony Penning...educational opportunities.”
“Pony Penning.” Dad snorted, “Big tourist trap. Half-wild scrub ponies.” He snorted again, like a cowpony scenting a coyote. “This here.” He thumped the table, “This here’s the real world. This here’s an education.”
“You’ll do fine without him.” Jason could hear Mom’s voice, lighter. Light like a steel rapier wielded by a musketeer.
Rustling of paper, a thud, like a notebook being slapped onto the table. “All I got here is a bunch of cheesehead high school kids. Don’t know anything about...”
“Well, they’re here to learn, aren’t they?” Rustle rustle rustle. “This one’s good. 4-H kid.”
Lengthy silence. Snort. “Yeah, well, I probably won’t have to yell at him to drag his butt outta bed in the morning. And he’ll probably fill the water trough like he’s supposed to.”






Tcka tcka tcka. The last of the e-mail to Heather trickled onto the screen. Jason stared at it. Typed over a few lines. Click. Beep. Sent. The last of the latest Sharkman script. The last scanned pictures till he could set up his computer in Chincoteague.
“Jasoooooooon!” The voice boomed from the kitchen.
“Now what?” He sighed and shoved himself out of the computer chair. Thudded loudly down the flight of stairs.
His dad stood in the kitchen, face like a storm about to break. “If you’d get your head out of....”
“Chuck!” Jason’s mom warned, “I don’t hold with that kind of language!”
“...those stupid comic books and the internet, you might remember important...”
“Chuck!”
“...stuff, like shutting gates!”
“Uh oh.” Jason backed up a step. “I’ll go fix it.”
“It’s fixed. We spent half an hour rounding up loose horses. Good damn thing they didn’t get into the grain room or we’d have a mess of colic and a mighty fine vet bill on our hands.”
“Sorry.”
“Nothing to be sorry about!” Jason’s dad stormed, “Just pay attention!” He stomped upstairs. Upstairs towards Jason’s room.
Jason stood, openmouthed, watching him go.


Sharkman’s sensors kick in, telling him the bad guys are up to something. Something big.


A minute later Jason’s dad stomped down the stairs, with two big boxes balanced in his arms. He thudded them down on the table.
“That’s my eighties Marvel stuff.” Jason said. Old comics that had been hard to track down.
“You need to spend less time in never-neverland and more time in the real world.” Jason’s dad pulled the door open and went out with the boxes.
“Hey, hey!” Jason ran after him. “What do you want me to do? I said I’m sorry!”
The boxes landed in the back of the pickup with a thud. The tailgate clanged shut.
“Where are you taking them?” Jason shouted, fighting back tears.
His father said nothing, just gave him The Cowboy Face, flat and grim. He locked the tailgate. Finally he spoke, “You got all summer to think about what you want to be doing different.”






Jason finished stuffing the last of his clothes into the old army dufflebag. The computer already sat, packed in a plastic tackbin, by the door. He threw the dufflebag into Mom’s hatchback. His dad was at an auction, with some of the hands. The ranch was quiet, except for the occasional low complaint from a steer.
“Well, Jason said quietly, “Guess he’ll be happy I’m gone all summer.” He stuffed the computer bin into the hatchback.
Jason’s mom sighed, “No, not really. He does love you.”
“Oh yeah, I can tell. You know how long it took me to find those comics?”
“He thinks they’re useless. I don’t get it either. It’s nice but...”
“Guys make a living doing those things you know.”
“And guys make a living playing football, and basketball, and riding bulls. But not many.”
“So chasing stupid cows around all day is going to make me a living?”
Mom’s eyes went the color of steel, “It’s what he decided to do. It’s what he loves.”
“I hate it.”
“Well, then. What are you going to do?”
Jason shrugged. “I could be a marine biologist, maybe.”
His mom laughed. “That’s as crazy as being a...”
“...cowboy?” Jason said.
She let out an exasperated breath. She studied her son with eyes softer, like grey rain, “He doesn’t understand that you’re not him.”
“He thinks I’m a stupid weenie.”
“No, no.” She pulled him close, “He doesn’t know what you really are.” She held him at arm’s length and looked at him. “Remember a couple of months ago, when you read The Hobbit in school? And you told me all about it.”
“I tried to tell Dad, but he thought it was stupid.”
She shook her head, smiling, “About Bilbo Baggy.”
“Baggins.”
“Traipsing off with the seven dwarves.”
“Seven is Snow White. It was thirteen with Bilbo. Thirteen dwarves.”
“He left his comfortable little Hobbity hole and went out into this big crazy world full of wizards and orcs and giant spiders and fairies...”
“Elves, Mom. These are fairies.” His hands made flitty butterfly shapes in the air. “These are Elves.” Steely-eyed, he fired an imaginary longbow.
Mom sighed, “Ok, elves and trolls and dragons and such. And he came back with treasure. And stories. And a magic sword. Well,“ she said, ”Here you go, Bilbo.” She let go and gave him a gentle push toward the car.
Jason laughed. “Yeah. Maybe I’ll meet some elves and slay a dragon or two.”
Hairy Trotter






Tas looked up from her pint of Ben and Jerry's, something dark and rich as river mud that Holly had found in her freezer. Despite the late hour the ELF had moved with surprising speed and efficiency getting their gear from the campground at Tom’s Cove to the Wren's Nest. The little cottage, like the one across the street, and dozens of others on the island, had housed watermen over a century ago. The ceilings were low, the stairs narrow, the upstairs rooms the size of most people's closets. It was like living on a landlocked ship. Sunny white plaster walls, breezy curtains, warm wood paneling formed the background for shells and Pony Penning posters, books and sturdy furniture rescued from thrift shops.
They sprawled now in the dark yard, lit by candles and tiki torches, a giant wolfpack: Siberians, Elves and Humans, a huge slobbery Newfoundland and one Dwarf banging away at the now empty hot tub. Pirate Jenny watched from the safety of a Siberian-free lap; Zan's. He was curled on a blanket surrounded by a pile of Holly’s books. The one in his hands was a particularly old and battered copy of Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea.
Bran perched on the edge of the hot tub, humming to himself, watching Earla swear at the plumbing.
"Never," Earla grumbled, "never put seawater in this kind of plumbing."
Morgan sprawled on the lawn with one of the dogs and a lot of candles. He was experimenting with this alien thing called fire; holding blades of green grass, or dried grass, or twigs or paper over the small flames and watching how they burned. He'd singed his fingers more than once, and discovered that a clump of shed dog fur smelled really bad when it burned. He looked up at Holly, “Need those transforming giant robots, track down the ship, we could, and blow up it.”
Everybody stared at him, Holly chuckling until she realized the look on his face was serious. And more than a little angry.
“You’ve been watching too much cartoon network, kid.” Bran said.
“What?” Morgan said. “Anything! Earla can build!
She grinned broadly at Morgan from the hot tub.
“Unlike Elves and Merrows, they don’t exist.” Bran said.
Holly chuckled.
“What about Ravin’?”
“Raven who?” Holly said.
“The chopper.” Ian and Bran said together.
“Flesh and blood ravens fly on crabs and fries and coffee.” Earla said. “And need less parking space.”
“Ravens can’t carry blasters.” Morgan observed.
“The Coast Guard might object if we start blowing ships out of the water.” Zan said. “This is a stealth mission.”
“You should be working on a French fry fueled helicopter, you know that?” Bran said to Earla. “After all, they made those french fry oil fueled cars work.”
“I’m fairly sure you haven’t only been having a backyard barbeque and tiki party since you got here.” Holly said.
“No.”Tas said. “I tracked from the place Morgan came out of the sea, where you found him, to here.”
“That was days ago, tide and wind and rain would have destroyed all traces.”
“You are a wolf person, you know the scent would remain.”
Holly glanced at her dogs, only Strider had ever shown any talent for tracking, and his wobbly rear end, the result of a battle with cancer, would prevent him from tracking more than a rubber ducky in the house.
“I can track quite well, by scent, in my other forms.” Tas smiled like a wolf.






The sun came up over the edge of the world, a coral sun in a turquoise sea. The warm orange light slanted across low waves of sand, turning it the color of fire, and the shadows purple. Those shadows would be gone in a few hours, blasted away by a hot golden June sun, now they scrawled across the sand like letters on a page, even the trails of insects leapt out like bold type.
Someone was reading that type, running with her nose to the sand, following a trail blurred by days of wind and tide.
But seven Siberians and a fat wheeled rig made some very large, hard to erase type.
There were few trails up here, most of the beachwalkers did not venture very far from the ranger station, a mile maybe, just beyond the range of the day tourists with their beach chairs and sand buckets. Here the island narrowed, the protective dunes rolled lower and lower, till there were only a few gentle waves of sand rolling up out of the sea, with some marsh grass behind them, and the bay beyond. If a beachwalker had come a bit farther this morning, they would have seen a stray dog, running with nose to sand, south down the beach as if following a trail. If they had mentioned something at the ranger station, they would have been told that it might be one of the "Eskimo Girl's" Siberians, somehow lost from the team.
If they had bothered to look closely, they would have realized it was far too big to be a Siberian. The long leggy canine had a red tint to its grizzled grey and white coat, and its eyes did not match.
She ran and read the trail: here a herd of ponies ran back up into the dunes, afraid of the running team. Here the team stopped, and moved on with a heavier load on the rig.
The wolf circled. Here someone had come ashore in a small boat with a powerful engine. It smelled of oil and grease and gas and rubber, probably one of the inflatables they called Zodiacs. Here someone on foot had begun following the trail of the team. The boat had gone back out to sea. One set of tracks continued down the beach, going slower and slower and with shorter, wearier strides.
The wolf stopped, sniffing the wind. Down the beach a couple walked north toward her, trailing their feet through the retreating wave swash.
The wolf wavered like heat waves over asphalt, melted and reformed.
A swimsuit clad Tas sauntered past the couple, grinned, "Nice day for a hike, eh?"
The man’s eyes followed her down the beach, until his partner dopeslapped the back of his head.
Faint hints of Holly's trail led to the parking lot, where Tas knew Holly had parked the van. Somebody else knew that too, he had tracked her that far. And he had asked at the ranger station why there were dog and wheel tracks on the beach. The rangers had mentioned the Eskimo Girl of Chincoteague, but when Tas asked, they only remembered the man as unremarkable and ordinary in appearance.
Tas retreated to the Jeep, taking one last sniff at a handful of sand. She let it run out of her hand, teeth bared in a grin. She at least knew his scent now. She would have no trouble recognizing him when she met him again.
The problem was, where was he now?






“They came here,” Tas said, searching. “Strider and your other dogs heard them outside your fence the other night. Strider knows their scent. Now so do I.”
“But where are they?”
“That I don’t know. I tried one other thing...”






Noon, Holly was still in antique land, Tas had just returned from her beach tracking.
“Morgan,” Tas said, “I need a chunk of your hair.”
“What?”
She caught a thick lock of blond hair, produced a knife. With a quick flick she removed a chunk.
"Hey!" He protested. He raised a hand to his head.
"Don't worry about your hair. You still look better than than the guys on TV." Tas assured him.
“Why?”
“I could just put my hand on your head, but that would be like looking for Venus with the sun in the sky.”
“What?” he said, bewildered. “Why are you looking for Xena?”
“Vee-nus.” Tas enunciated. “Little crescent of a planet visible sometimes...nevermind.” She patted his head and retreated to one of the big old loblollies at the back of the yard. Tas sat at its base, legs folded, hands clasped around the lock of hair, her eyes staring at Morgan, no, past him, through him. To some other world than the one of salt marsh, tourists and mosquitoes.
Hair, skin, feathers; it held power, it held the essence of something, of someone. Humans stuck things like that under microscopes, broke it down into cells and molecules and DNA, stuck it in neat tidy order on some taxonomic table and figured they understood it.
That was not how Tas understood it. The lock of hair was Morgan's. It was Morgan. And it was connected to him, to all the other locks of hair that had been part of him, to anything else that was part of him, like the cap.
. The lock in Tas' hand and Morgan's cap were connected as surely as all the waters of the world were connected.
Maybe she could see where the cap was now.
Track, seek, find.
She breathed, drawing the energy from the earth up through her body. Feeling the ancient power of the great tree behind her; its roots in the earth, its branches reaching into air and sun and starlight. Calling on Wolf, and her keen nose and long endurance. Wolf who could track anything anywhere, who could trot for days with her long ground-eating stride. Wolf the hunter, wolf who protected her packmates. Morgan was one of those packmates now.
Track, seek, find.
The waters spread out before her, dark iron under the thin bow moon. They rolled away east into the great sea humans called the Atlantic, the great sea Morgan called home.
A place alien as the moon to Tas. Her element was earth, green and growing, soft under the padded feet of hunting Wolf, rocky under the thundering feet of Horse. She shivered and remembered to breathe. Stars glittered in the waves, whales sang in the deeps. Not as many whales as before, when Tashunka had walked the rolling green grass seas of the Dakotas.
Track, seek, find.
Flashes of light, like fireflies, the flick of a shark's tail, the bioluminescent glow of a comb jelly. More flashes: Morgan's trail, a lock here, a hair there. Flash after flash after flash.
The whole sea was alight with them.
Tas came up gasping. Blinked at Ian, kneeling before her with his hands on her shoulders. "Hey!" he said, "Hey, you ok?"
"Damn!" she said, then looked at Morgan, "You...have...a serious shedding problem!"
"What?" Zan said.
"I'm amazed he isn't bald!" Tas waved a hand around the yard, full of small Siberian snowdrifts: bits of coat blown off the dogs drifting everywhere like ghost hamsters. "Shedding, like a bloomin' northern dog. His bloody hair's all over the sea! I can't zero in on one place, much less his cap!"












Finding Captain Nemo






On the breezy screen porch of The Wren’s Nest, Ian hovered over the keyboard of his laptop, focused like a wolf on a choice bone. A childish doodle sprawled across the screen. The doodle looked very much like a bear with too much tail. It was supposed to be a wolverine. The eight year old who had drawn the wolverine had only one picture in a book, and had seen the taxidermy one at Hawk Circle earlier in the year, in Ian’s art class. Ian wiggled the mouse with one hand, doodling his own lines with the graphics pen in the other hand, and making gentle suggestions. I like the way he’s looking at us. Wolverines have five toes, not four like dogs. Your line work and colors are excellent. The face is shorter, more like a teddy bear.
A teddy bear best left undisturbed.
Click, roll, click.
A shadow moved at his shoulder, a sudden voice said, “Hey, what’s up?”
Ian juggled the laptop, just barely prevented its demise on the floor of The Wren’s Nest, and a half hour of work vanished into the ether with one misplaced keystroke. At the moment, he looked rather like a disturbed wolverine. “ZAN!”
“Whoa, sorry.” Zan backed up a step. Two.
“Don’t sneak up on me like that!”
Zan’s excited puppy face faded to scolded puppy. “I wasn’t sneaking. I was...”
Ian’s expression of annoyance softened, “I know, I know. Being an Elf. You can walk over dry leaves without a sound. But,” he punched at the keyboard, “when you enter a room with a hyperfocused human in it, sneeze, bark like a zebra, honk on a didjeridoo, something.”
“Some zebras whinny like horses, or bray like donkeys, you know.”
“Whatever.” Ian frowned at the screen, punched some more keys. “What’s up.” He said over his shoulder.
“I’ve beat Morgan at five different video games, and he beat me at one. Shaughnessy’s out talking to fish or something, and since I don't swim as fast as he does, or hold my breath as long, I got to stay here working on a case of Nintendo-Thumb. Tas is helping Holly with her books, after spending all morning tracking to no avail. Earla’s doing something at Holly’s house with a lot of tools. She told me I’m a typical hammer-impaired Elf and to go away. Then she gave me some of those little Keebler sandwich cookie elf things. And told me to go away again. Bran’s...”
“...out talking to birds or something. I know that.”
“There’s nothing to do.”
“Go to the beach. Surf.”
“Surf’s not exactly Hawaii Five-uh-oh today.”
“Go talk to birds too, or wild ponies or loblollies or mosquitoes.”
“I mean, there’s nothing to do to help. Help find Morgan’s cap.”
“Nothing much the rest of us can do either. We wait. They want to find us as much as we want to find them. Weren’t you there when Shaughnessy gave me that patience lesson?” It was a redundant question, both Ian and Zan remembered it all too well.
Zan made a face, “That was the longest three days of my life.”
“Mine too. I’ll never eat cream of broccoli soup again.”
“Or pink bologna. Especially with anchovies.”
Ian’s face looked as if he’d just bitten into three week old road kill.
Zan fidgeted, There must be something I can do.
Ian frowned at the screen, click, roll, click. The original wolverine drawing resurfaced, unscathed. Click, click, click. Roll roll roll. Lines emerged on the drawing, this time in a particularly virulent shade of purple. Ian glared at it in annoyance, muttered something under his breath. Click, poke, click click.
“I mean, besides go away and leave you alone.”
Ian straightened, gave an apologetic look, “I didn’t mean to think that quite so loud.”
Zan shrugged, “It’s ok. Happens all the time.”
“Yeah, I guess it does. I got to be a dorky teenager for seven years. You get to do it a lot longer.”
“Yeah.” Zan made a face. “Sometimes I just wish I could, you know, change as fast as you do.”
Ian turned from the screen, met Zan’s sea-grey eyes. Eyes that had seen twice as many turns of the seasons as Ian’s had. “No. No you don’t.”
“Yeah, yeah, we each have our own place in the circle of life. Our own gifts.” Zan’s voice shifted to Lecture Mode; like a narrator from a special on the secret lives of white-fronted bee-eaters. It was the voice he’d heard all of his life from those older and wiser, the voice he used when he stood before real fourteen years olds, trying to explain the usefulness of bats or snakes or spiders. “We’re all different leaves on the same tree. All rivers headed toward the same sea.” He hopped lightly up to perch on the back of the foldout lounge chair, balancing it effortlessly on two of its legs. “I still want to kick some bad-guy butt.”
“Take your bike, take an island tour. Both of them.” Ian emphasized the word “There’s stuff to see on Chincoteague. There’s a bike trail on Assateague. See if you spot any guys with eyepatches and wooden legs. Besides, knowing the lay of the land might prove useful.”
Zan half smiled. Then his face brightened, “I bet Morgan’s getting bored, stuck inside Holly’s dogyard, like he’s in a zoo or something. He could follow me in his chair. We could talk to the rangers at the visitor’s center, have a bike-chair race, go paddle around in Tom’s Cove.”
“No!” Ian said flatly. “They’ve been watching. They’re waiting for an opportunity like that.” “Isn’t that what we want? To lure them out? Make an attempt on Morgan so we can catch them?”
“With a little more backup.”
“I still have a century and a half more battle experience than you do.”
“The local cops might have issues with you taking out pirates with a longbow. Or carrying one around Chincoteague. Ditto for the sword.”
“I got the illusions.”
“Don’t even think it. Make one mistake and there’ll be all kinds of official uniforms crawling around the islands trying to round up stray elephants or yaks or indricotheres or something.”
“The indricothere incident was NOT all my fault.”
Ian gave Zan the sort of look parents give a twelve year old who has asked for a tattoo.
“I could take Surf.” Zan suggested.
“He’s a service dog. A water rescue dog, not a pirate attack dog.”
“But...”
Ian got up, shoved Zan toward the door, easily as a Mastiff pushing a Jack Russell Terrier.
“But,” Zan protested.
“Go.” Ian said sternly, “Have fun, and don’t take rides from anyone flying a Jolly Roger.”






The beat up mountain bike was Earla’s concoction; knobby tires that could climb like a mountain goat, a smooth shift through thirty-six gears, a suspension that would give a heavy boned Dwarf a level ride on railroad tracks, yet was sensitive enough to balance Zan’s light weight. The nicks and dings were badges of honor, relics of rough rides in impossible places. With the skateboard, it was one of Zan’s favorite pieces of human technology; a bike gave you wings, gave you the speed and power of Horse in places you could not take a horse.
Zan drifted from Willow, down the maze of backstreets, to Main Street. He had not had much chance to explore the islands yet. All he knew of it were the lines on a bright yellow, blue and green map in his backpack. Yellow for the island town of watermen and tourists, green for the places left to the wild things, blue for the shallow waters in between. The late spring traffic was beginning to thicken as Memorial Weekend approached; The Official Beginning of Summer, though for Zan it was not Summer till after Solstice at the end of June. Cars edged by him at a slow motion summer pace; minivans and SUVs packed with kids and surfboards and beachtoys. A pickup truck with a Virginia plate and a Pony Penning sticker, a hatchback with two sea kayaks strapped to roof racks, a white rental van.
Main Street shot southwest toward Wallops Island, owned by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Three miles north of that lay the Wallops Flight Facility they’d passed on the way into Chincoteague. The NASA visitor’s center there was less than five miles from Main Street, an easy bike ride on level Virginia shore land.
You are NOT, I repeat NOT to go to Wallops alone!
Zan sighed, stopped the bike on Main Street and looked south over the water; he could just see the enormous radar dishes, the spikey shapes of small rockets angled at the stars.
But I wouldn’t DO any illusions while I was there. Really. Promise.
Remember the Video Arcade Incident? The whole place fried its circuits and went down because you won a game. All we’d need is one whoop of excitement, one moment of forgetting how you’re channeling energy. One random illusion frying a major NASA project.
Phooey. It would be weeks till he could pry someone loose to go with him.
He shoved a foot against the pavement, flying down Main Street again. Docks, boat ramps. Tourist traffic turning off the drawbridge behind him; he paid no attention to the SUVs, the Hummer, the cars and trucks and one white van.
Gulls wheeled and wailed over the Narrows, the Channel, the ocean beyond. Sport fishermen heading out to catch gray trout and bluefish, flounder, drum and bass. Hunched along the docks were the rusty hulks of commercial fishing boats, bristling with spearlike things he didn’t know the names of, things to handle longlines and nets. Captain Bob’s Marina, and the end of the island. Here the Chincoteague Channel cut off the island’s nose, rushing between Chincoteague Point and the rest of the island across the mouth of Tom’s Cove, and out to sea.
He lifted the bike and hooked it over a shoulder, stepping lightly along the edge of the marsh, salt water and marsh mud squishing through his sandals between his toes. Another step and he sank to his ankle in marsh goo. He extracted his foot, slooshed it off in the nearby water, lightened his feet and walked on, leaving only the faintest trace of his sandal’s tread in the mud. He could clearly see the end of the Hook, a mile and a half away across Tom’s Cove. His eyes scanned to the left, across the low sandy rise of the Hook. A bump interrupted the low sand and sea grass; the abandoned Assateague Beach US Coast Guard Station, three and a half miles across the water. It would be no more than a bump to a human with binoculars, but he could see every detail, every board, every peel in the paint. The whelk shells that had been washed up by winter storms. The Piping Plovers guarding their nest. He could go there, he could walk that beach and not frighten them off their nests. He could watch them, listen to their wisdom, see them dance with the edges of the waves. But there were human laws, human laws meant to protect the birds from random tires and nosy dogs and unwary feet. Human laws that closed that beach from March to August, till the plovers’ children were raised and flown. Human laws that included Zan in their jurisdiction.
He turned away from the Hook and Plovers and exploration of the untrodden end of the world. He stepped back across the marsh, barely bending the grass and only half noticed a pair of men floundering in the mud a hundred yards away. Back on the street he pedaled past early season tourists in slow moving cars, houses and shops painted in the cheerful colors of ice cream and beach towels and sea shells. Art galleries and gift shops, decoy carvers and a hundred kinds of food. Drug stores with boogie boards and bikinis on their decks. Kids tugging at parents’ arms; “Buy me this! I want that!”
He stood in a back corner of a gift shop studying a model of a sailing ship. He glanced around, no one was looking, so he fiddled with air and light and the energy of the sand beneath the store’s foundation. A copy of the ship appeared in his hands. He grinned in triumph, turning it over, admiring the rigging, more complete than the original model because of his memory of a certain pirate movie he’d seen too many times.
Someone nearby made a noise, a throat clearing noise which had less to do with post nasal drip and more to do with a dim view of kids who played with items they could not afford. Zan looked up. A middle aged woman was giving him a severe expression, one that said put that back or I will call your parents and have you grounded for eternity. He gave her an apologetic smile and put his copy on the shelf. He fled, hoping she would look away before it evaporated into mist.
He pedaled past teenagers out of school early for Memorial Day weekend; swimsuit clad girls in giggly groups, boys in packs like young wolves. The girls glanced at Zan and giggled louder. The boys trailed their eyes over him, measuring his probable strength, or lack of it, against their own. Zan ducked and rode by them, half wishing he was part of the pack, half glad he wasn’t. He rode around the block, found a quiet corner with no traffic and thought about the latest teen hearthrob actor he’d seen on magazine covers. What kind of bike would he ride? With a little effort, it appeared; the dark haired actor and the thousand dollar mountain bike. Zan’s t-shirt, with its outrageous battle of neon green, hot pink and screaming yellow vanished, replaced by something the mundane world considered tasteful. Zan grinned, pedaled around the block again. The giggly girl pack was juggling fifteen flavors of ice cream on their cones. They glanced at him.
Looked again. He heard a startled exclamation and caught the sight of three cones hitting the sand in surprise.
He could turn, do a wheelie and spin the bike, laying rubber. Hop a curb, look cool. Go back and talk to them.
Yeah, right. In his own geeky kid voice. He waved, smiled and rode around the corner, made sure no one was looking and let the illusion vanish.
He stopped for ice cream, careful not to look straight into the eyes of the young lady behind the counter. She handed him a double chocolate cone with a bored smile. A handful of napkins followed it, as if he were twelve and needed a mother.
He pedaled north, ducked down a couple of backstreets to see what might be there. He didn’t notice the van that followed him through three turns, then lost him.
He stopped at the Kite Koop on Main Street, filled with books and horse models and plastic fairies and wings of cloth, dancing on their strings, in all the colors of rainforest birds, of tropical reef fish. Perfect for sailing on an open beach, where the wind was never still.
“That’s a really great one.” A voice said behind him. “You can do some terrific tricks with that.” The young man went on to describe how it flew, his hands flying like seabirds.
“Cool. How much?”
Too much. Of course, he could talk the guy into selling it for less. Easy.
Like fishing with dynamite. The next thing Zan said was; “How old you have to be to work here?”
“Sixteen.” Kite Guy said apologetically. “You got a few years yet, kid. But we got some good books over there,” he gestured toward one of the book racks, “and some great starter kites.” He held up something that wouldn’t have challenged a ten year old. “I bet you’d be great at it.” He gave Zan the kind of smile meant for cute and annoying little brothers. Then he turned to talk to a guy with a couple of little kids in tow.
Yeah, well, I’m way older than sixteen. Way older than you. Not that I can prove it or anything. And I know about kites. About flying. I learned from the best; Ravenkin, Dragon, others. Zan fled back to the street, mounted his bike, pedaled on.
The used book store was just down the street; an old brick building overrun by ivy and shaded by ancient trees. Zan found the door, half hidden in the ivy and creaked it open. Shadowy shelves of books filled the interior, reached to the ceiling. No one was at the counter but he heard vague rustlings farther back in the shop. Soft-footed, Zan slipped between the stacks and ran a finger over the titles, some older than he was. His finger hesitated, fell back on a familiar title.
“Jules Verne’s Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea,” Zan whispered in surprise. The place made you want to whisper. The cover showed a picture of a fantastic underwater ship, not at all like a modern submarine, a ship entangled in the tentacles of a giant squid. Zan paged to the date the book had been printed; older than Holly’s beat-up copy, and in better shape. It had been science fiction when it was written, more than a lifetime of Men ago. Shaughnessy had taken him aboard the real Nautilus once, the nuclear sub they’d named after Captain Nemo’s sub in the book. Nautilus lay docked in Connecticut, retired, obsolete. A bit of history tourists could visit with cameras and audio tour guides, history born about the same time Zan was.
He paged through the book, humans change so fast. What will they have done when I am grown. He cradled the book like treasure and walked around the end of the bookshelf; more shelves sprawled off into the twilight. Traces of summer light filtered through the windows and the ivy and trees beyond. “Where’s the door?” he said softly to himself. And the cash register.
“Lost something?” came a voice. A woman with grey hair in rows of neat braids appeared at the end of the bookstack. She was the color of woodland earth, of bay horses. Something about her felt like quiet forests and firefly summers. She peered at the book, at him. For a moment her midnight eyes met his. He quickly looked down, finding something interesting on the dusty cover of “Twenty Thousand Leagues”.
But she had seen. He tensed, thought about fleeing out the door. If he could find it.
“Now that one,” she said gently, “is a classic.”
He looked up and her dark eyes were smiling. Underneath was something else, something Zan had felt when he’d flown with Bran the first time. When he’d seen the sea light up with the green magic of bioluminescence. A sense of wonder.
“How much?” Zan asked.
“How much you got?”
He rummaged in the pocket of his backpack. Produced a five. “It’s for a friend.” He explained. “Her name’s Holly.”
“Really? Holly Harper?”
“Yeah, you know her?”
“We’re kindred spirits.”
“Oh yeah. Books.”
She smiled, as if she meant more than books. She turned and wandered back down the aisle. Zan followed her around a corner and there was a window with ivy growing through its edges, the door, a big glass case and a chair. The woman sat in the chair behind the case, put the five in her register and began wrapping the book in paper. “We do a lot of book trading. I was thinking she might want this one. Didn’t get it pulled off the shelf yet, though. So many books. So little time.” She met Zan’s eyes again, and hers were warm as summer rain, “You read much?”
“Oh, yeah. Definitely!”
“Well, go find a couple books for yourself. Looks like you’ll be here for awhile.”
Startled, Zan met her eyes again, she had said that as if she knew something.
The woman smiled, “I’m Maya. Sometimes I get feelings about things. Like you. Is there anything I should...keep my eyes open for?”
“Ah.” Zan said, not sure he should say anything. Bran and Shaughnessy were better at reading what lay beneath the surface of people. The surface of things was like water. It hides, it reveals Shaughnessy had said. If you knew how to read the surface of the river, you knew where the rocks were, the drowned logs; the surface of a lake or bay told you what shape the bottom took...sometimes. Sometimes things lay hidden, things only the best of mariners could decipher. Still, there was something about Maya that Zan liked. Something that reminded him of the Grandmothers, even though she was human. “Pirates.” He said at last.
“Pirates.” She said, and she didn’t smile as if he was a five year old telling stories. She waited for Zan to say more.
“They stole something important from a friend of mine.”
“Ah.” She looked at Zan with deep eyes.
“They’re here, somewhere on the island. We don’t know who they are or what they look like.”
“I’ll keep my eyes open.” Maya said. “Go find yourself a few books.”
He did, poking through the stacks of old books for a few minutes till he found three of the seven volumes of C.S. Lewis’ The Chronicles of Narnia, ones he had read but didn’t own. There was also an old copy of Sea Star; Orphan of Chincoteague, by Marguerite Henry, and a reprint of The Mask of Zorro by Johnston McCulley. Zan brought them to the counter and Maya finished wrapping the Jules Verne book, handed it over the counter to him. She carefully bagged the others as if they were pirate treasure.
Her eyes drifted to the last book in Zan’s pile; a masked hero on a black horse reared on the cover, brandishing his sword. Maya’s face went all thoughtful, her eyes seemed to be focused on something other than the book. “You know, the bad guys don’t always ride the black horse. And the good guys don’t always ride the white one.” Her eyes refocused on Zan’s and their look carried the weight of warning.
Zan nodded, laid the book carefully in his pack. He hesitated, meeting her eyes again. Wrapped around one of his arms were two intricately woven bracelets. He had seen Maya’s eyes light on them and smile. He pulled them off and handed them to her. “I wove these, borrowed some mane hairs from a couple of island ponies. Found those shells on the beach. That bit of driftwood too. And this is...”
“Sea glass, broken bits scoured smooth by wind and sand. Beautiful!” She meant the whole thing, both of them.
He grinned at her, waved farewell and went to get his bike.
More traffic on the street, tourists trying to get a jump on the crowds, get the best accommodations for the weekend. Zan squeezed by a line of cars hung up at the traffic light on Main. Turned a corner onto an empty street. He slowed for a stop sign and a white van pulled up beside him. The passenger side mirror passed within millimeters of his helmet.
Instinctively his shields snapped up, energy charged from the ground, from the air itself through him, pushing him, driving the bike forward like a spooked horse. He spun around the corner, dodged an oncoming car, skewed the bike to a halt, laying rubber.
Behind him something in the van snapped and sizzled. A thin line of smoke trickled from under the hood. The engine died with a faint boomph.
“Hey, anchovy brain, watch where you’re driving!” Zan yelled at them. He saw the partly open side door slam shut, saw the smoke, spun the bike in the other direction and pedaled off, before they could blame him for the meltdown.






He pedaled down Maddox; the last thing on Chincoteague was the McDonald’s. The Mickey Ds at the end of the universe, the last bit of civilization on the edge of North America he thought. The road leapt across Assateague Channel, and wound through the marsh on the west side of Assateague Island. Marsh gave way to loblollies. Herons and egrets and gulls and terns fed in the lagoons along the road. Cars and minivans pulled over, families with binoculars, birdwatchers with scopes the size of the NASA telescopes at Wallops lined up to watch the birds.
Zan skewed the bike to a halt, watching the watchers. Some paged through field guides, trying to put a name to what they were seeing. Others scribbled in books; sketching, like Ian, or writing notes.
Looking at the surface of things.
Zan dropped the bike in the sand by the road edge, walked with the easy grace of a stalking heron. He stopped at the edge of the narrow lagoon, a few yards from a middle aged couple with a big scope and three field guides. He folded himself on the sand.
He saw the curves of the great egret’s neck, like the curves of the twining greenbriar in the woods, like the waves rolling up on the beach. He saw the spear of the beak, striking like lightning. The bright eye, the legs long as a new sapling. Feathers like wave foam. He saw more; the faint glow of the bird’s aura, its energy field. He felt its hunger. Its patience. Saw through its keen eye into the shadowy water at its feet. The red-haired boy coiled on the sand was forgotten, he was the bird, leaning slightly into the wind from the sea, watching the silver flashes of fish, then striking. Missing. Striking again.
A car door slammed, too close. A small child tumbled out screaming “Birdie, birdie!”
The egret spread pale wings and drifted out over the marsh.
Zan blinked, became himself again.
The family stopped, a few feet away, the children milling around like loose puppies, picking things up, dropping them again. Mom swatted at a few mosquitoes “Can’t they do something about these?” she complained. Dad wondered if they could go crabbing here. “Let’s go to the beach,” someone whined.
Zan’s eyes traveled from the Whining One to the lagoon, back to the Whining One, now kicking at something in the sand. Zan turned his eyes back to the shrubs by the lagoon, raised his hands, hummed something under his breath.
A bright pink flamingo stalked out from behind the shrubbery.
“Hey, cool, look at that.” Whining One’s brother said. “Looks just like your tutu lamp.”
The flamingo stalked through the lagoon, trailing little wave ripples. On the road behind Zan tires screeched, doors slammed.
“I thought flamingoes lived in Florida,” the mother said, swatting another mosquito.
“They got pelicans here.” Father said uncertainly.
The flamingo lowered its head and dabbled upside down in the lagoon.
“I wanna go to the beach now!” Whining One complained.
Out of the corner of his eye, Zan saw a camera lens the size of a NASA scope line up on his flamingo.
“Oh crap.” He whispered. He waved his hands frantically and the bird lifted into the air, much faster than any flamingo could. It flapped out of sight behind the trees with the speed of a falcon.
The photographer grumbled something Zan didn’t quite catch. His friend laughed, “That would have beat the heck out of George’s Stellar Sea Eagle sighting. Too bad.”
“What do you mean, too bad. This is the new camera. The one with sport continuous mode. I got thirty shots at least...”
Zan grabbed his bike and fled toward the sea.






He poked through the visitor’s center. Both of them; the one for the Wildlife Refuge and the one for the National Seashore. Stuffed birds and painted panels, video clips and words on displays, piles of beach debris; shells and skulls and mermaids’ purses; all of it was designed to tell the human tourists something about Assateague, as if the displays were trying to interpret the island from a foreign language into one the tourists understood. He wished Morgan could have come along. It would be hysterical to watch Morgan discussing sea life with one of the naturalists.
Zan stroked the fake fox squirrel tail, poking out of a bag at one display. It showed how scientists bagged the endangered squirrels, studied them and released them again. At the far end of the room he caught a glimpse of familiar movement. He turned, saw a girl about his age Signing something to a younger boy.
Zan stared. The girl glanced up at him, staring back as if he was being rude. He dropped his eyes quickly. He hadn’t meant to stare, to make her feel self-concious. He had been surprised to see someone using a language he knew well. He thought about going over and talking to her, but when he looked up, she was gone.






Sometimes it was good to be alone. Sometimes you needed time to listen. To feel the life around you without interruption. To understand what it was to be a tree. A twining bit of greenbriar. A wild pony escaping the mid-day flies by standing belly deep in the marsh.
Sometimes it would be better to have someone to tell about it. To share it with. After all, that was what the Firstborn did; pass their wisdom on to others.
Zan trotted down from the observation deck. Wind tossed the few twisted loblollies here. The ponies he’d been watching wandered off behind some bayberry bushes, crow-sized cattle egrets stalking the bugs pony feet stirred out of the marsh grass. Back down the trail into the cool shade of the piney woods, the sandy floor carpeted with pine needles and tangles of greenbriar and poison ivy. Wind tossing the highest branches above him. He dropped the bike by the trail and thought of the ponies, the cattle egrets, the great egret feeding in the lagoon.
It became a dance. A kata. Tai chi Assateague. The slow pace of grazing ponies, the jerky stalk of cattle egrets. The sway of the great egret in the wind from the sea. The coil of its neck, the lightning strike of its beak.
A muffled crash interrupted the sigh of wind and whine of mosquito. Zan spun with inhuman speed and came face to face with a girl, her battered mountain bike at her feet. His gaze glanced off her face and landed on a stray squashed pine cone at her feet.
“What you doing? Practicing karate? Pretty cool,” she said.
Zan looked up, it was the girl from the visitor’s center, without the little brother. She had eyes like leaves and stone and river water. He glanced away from them and focused on a couple of her few freckles. His hands moved. “Yes,” he signed, “Well, sort of. It’s not exactly a real kata.”
“You know Sign?” Her face was incredulous.
“Yeah. I got a friend who’s a marine biologist; Shaughnessy. He’s Deaf.”
“How do you know that I know Sign?”
“I saw you, in the visitor’s center.” Zan signed, embarrassed.
“Oh. Yeah. I remember.” She tapped her helmet, “Hard to forget that hair.”
Zan flushed nearly as red as his hair.
“No, it’s cool. Good color. Bri would like it.”
“Bri?”
“My little sister. She loves the Little Mermaid movie. Same hair.”
Zan’s face suggested that was almost as cool as being compared to Barbie.
“Uh, well, it looks cool on guys too.” The girl made a face.
A face Zan recognized. He’d made it a lot. The I just stuck my foot in my mouth all the way up to my hip face. He laughed. “Cool.” He signed. “The last person who said they liked it was one of my Grandmothers.”
She laughed. “I’m Cait.”
“Zan.”
“Easy name to spell.”
“This is the short sign for it,” Zan cut a Z shape in the air in front of him, as if he were carving it with a sword.
“Like Zorro.” Cait said, smiling.
Zan grinned, “Well, actually, my last name is Fox, Alexander Fox.”
Cait frowned, not getting it.
“Zorro means fox, in Spanish.”
“Ohhh.”
Zan danced back, wielding an imaginary sword, leaping and spinning in midair with the kind of skill a movie actor would have taken months to learn. For a moment the air beyond his hand shimmered, wavered. He landed, hiding his hand and a fading illusory rapier behind his back.
Cait was squinting, as if she’d seen.
“Uh, you live here?” Zan signed, hoping he could misdirect her, make her think she hadn’t seen anything. Make her think it was a trick of light and tree-shadow and imagination.
“For the summer. My dad’s working on a school project.” Her face registered irritation.
“You don’t like the beach?”
“Beach is fine. But none of my friends are here. No rodeo. Nobody speaks Sign. Well, except you, I guess.”
“Rodeo?”
“I was practicing for rodeo.” She made a motion like throwing a lasso. “Has to wait.”
“Bummer.” Zan said out loud.
“What?”
He shrugged, spelled it.
“My dad’s one friend says that. I think it’s from the Hippie times.”
“Oh.” Zan said, and studied the pattern of pine needles on the trail. One decade or another, it was all the same to him, but humans seemed to change even their language every few turns of the seasons.
“You live here?” Cait was signing.
“Staying for the summer. I’m with the Earth Life Foundation. We’re, uh, studying the salt marsh.”
“Oh.” Cait’s face said that would be as exciting as studying mosquitoes. She smacked one on her arm, then another.
Zan flinched. Mosquitoes were the basis of the whole marsh’s life force. The bottom of the food chain. They were as important to the marsh as eagle or heron or pony.
Cait smacked another one. “Blast. Should have brought more repellant.”
Zan waved his hands at her, pushed his shields out to surround them both. The mosquitoes, safe for now, whined off in search of other prey. He heard a faint dragonfly hum, a cell phone on vibrate mode.
Cait looked down suddenly, reached into a pocket of her shorts and pulled out a cell phone. She punched the keypad with one thumb, studied the screen, then punched some more keys. “Gotta go. They’re wondering where I am. They went up the lighthouse trail and are back at the car now.” She chucked the phone back in her pocket. “See ya!” She grinned at him and pedaled off.
He watched her go for a full minute before he realized he hadn’t asked her where she was staying.


Bri's Mermaid


"Try this." Earla said to Morgan. She reached out a hand with a vague blur in it.
It was breakfast and Ian and Bran were cooking eggs. Or burning them. Or something. To Morgan's sensitive nose, it smelled awful. Or was that awesome? He could never remember. Zan and Shaughnessy had already vanished with Tas, to get some groceries; Tas and Zan to the Island Foods grocery, Shaughnessy to the open sea.
Morgan reached out hesitantly, connecting with Earla's broad hand; circles of glass, some wire.
“Put 'em on,” Ian said. “Here, like this...” He slid them over Morgan's ears.
The whole world snapped into focus, as if he'd just dived underwater. "Wow." He pushed himself up off the chair with his hands, and looked out the window. "Wow!" He could see not just the green blur of the trees, but each individual leaf. A tiny bird whose song he recognized was a complex pattern of sand, brown and white, not just a series of musical notes lost in a green blur.
Earla grinned..
"Now," Ian said, "you can see the stars."
“Yeah,” Bran said, “the ones in the night sky, and the ones on your favorite TV shows.”






“What is that? I want to go closer! I want to see!” Those words from a small Merrow child, his pale hair floating out from under his red cap, his starboard hand firmly in the grip of an older brother. Somewhere at the edge of his sight a shadow passed over the sea floor, across the sunlit surface. Much clearer came the sound and feel of a large...something...moving across the ceiling of his world. Something not a whale, not a school of baitfish. Not anything from his world.
“It’s a ship, such as Men use to cross the skin of our world,” his brother told him.
The small blond child thrashed his fin, hauling his much larger brother forward a fathom or two. “Oooooooo, I want to see! Let’s go let’s go let’s goooo! Let go!” He yanked at his brother’s hand.
The brother hauled him back, not so easy in open water with no reef or rock to brace against. “No. We are close enough.”
“I can’t see!” He wriggled and thrashed like a fish on the end of a fisherman’s line. Finally he wiggled loose and swam after the sound of wave against hull.
In a few tailstrokes his brother had caught him, and held him back.
The small Merrow child wailed long and loud about the stupidity and unfairness of older brothers. Not even a fat lobster for supper made Morgan feel any better.






“Wait.” Morgan said, halting his wheelchair in front of a Chincoteague shop window. He had experimented with his wardrobe (doing illusions of clothing he'd seen on TV) and skin color most of the morning. Since his own steel blue color wasn't remotely acceptable in human society, he'd tried out a few human shades, settling on one three shades darker than Ian's deep tan.
Which led Bran to refer to him as Surfer Dude. It had taken him awhile to realize Bran meant the wild pony, blond maned and dark bodied, famous on hundreds of postcards and T-shirts across the island, not the cool guys surfing on TV.
Beside him Bran ambled to a halt. Surf, clad in his official Service Dog backpack, moved into the shade of the shop’s awning and lay on the concrete, tongue hanging. Ian hung back a few yards, eyes hidden behind dark shades, scanning the tourist-sprinkled street like a secret agent on a mission.
Bran grinned at him, “It’s not like they’re going to drive up in broad daylight, throw some van doors open and haul him inside without a whimper.”
Ian gave him a long cool stare and continued scanning the lazy streets.
Morgan laid his hands against the rough dry brick of the building’s side, so different from living coral or wave-washed rock. He stared into the window. It was full of what Bran called ‘touristy gifty things’; bright bits of colored glass that caught the light, glass made to look like fish or shells or sailing ships or lighthouses. There were strange little sculptures made of shells, a mermaid doll, and a model of a ship with sails.
“Why,” Morgan squinted at the doll, “are they always mer-maids?”
“Because guys do the art.” Bran said.
“Because mer-maids are cuter, less intimidating. No power to frighten mere mortals.” Ian said dryly. “Like cute little Santa’s Helpers.” He made a face.
“What?” Morgan looked baffled.
“History becomes legend becomes myth.” Ian said. “Then that degenerates into terminal cuteness. Fat guys in red suits at the North Pole with pint sized elves in curly toed shoes and jingle bell hats.” His face showed distaste. “Humans have largely forgotten who you are. You are echoes in their memories. Stories relegated to the nursery.”
Behind Morgan, a woman paused, a near-teen girl dawdling behind her, a small boy bouncing ahead. The girl peered into the shop window at the mermaid dolls, “Look Mom!”
The boy made a face, “Girls are so duh...” His eyes fell on Morgan, on his off-road wheels, his illusory jeans and his sea-grey eyes. He stared, wide-eyed, until his sister pulled him along.
Bran’s eyes followed them down the street. “Echoes...”






They hovered in the surf, just offshore, pretending to be seals. The two older brothers watched three girls, land girls, collecting seaweed and mussels from the rocks. They were giggling and talking to each other in voices that had the sounds of earth and footfalls. The older boys shoved each other and laughed softly, measuring the grace of these land girls against the beauty of their own.
Morgan thought they were just stupid. His brothers, that is. He waited till they were engrossed in girl watching, (more listening and scenting than seeing) then swam closer. They had a little boat pulled up on the sand, that’s how the girls had got to the island. This one had oars, and seemed to be without the smelly, noisy thing that powered some of the other boats. Morgan bobbed up beside the boat, still wearing his seal disguise.
Reached up, caught the gunnels in his hands...which looked like seal fins... and pulled himself halfway out of the water to look inside. Rope, an anchor, oars, blankets, a basket. The boat was leaning in the water, tilted over under Morgan’s light child’s weight. He ran a hand over the soft fuzzy wool of the blanket, so unlike anything in the sea. Then he reached toward the mysterious basket, wondering what it held.
Onshore a sudden shout, then laughter. Morgan looked up to see all three girls staring at him, one laughing, one running toward him waving him off.
He splashed back into the water, so startled he forgot to remember to look like a seal.
The running girl stopped, mouth hanging open in shock. She pointed.
By the time the others caught up all they saw were ripples and the disappearing fins of seals.






“You want to go in?” Ian said to Morgan.
“Sure.” Morgan wheeled himself toward the door. Behind him, Surf heaved himself to his feet and followed, brow wrinkled.
The shop was narrow of aisle and cluttered with things; art prints and t-shirts and drapey sarongs for covering beachwear, glass souvenirs and dolls and pony models and ships.
“Careful Fishboy,” Bran said, “you break it, you bought it.”
A woman behind the counter looked up, saw Surf and started to say “Dogs aren’t...”
Bran pointed at Surf’s pack, with its handle that could be reached by one in a wheelchair, “Service dog.” he said flatly.
“Oh. Of course.” She smiled an embarrassed smile.
Morgan’s eyes went from Bran to Shop Woman. Her eyes went from Surf to Morgan, and he saw something in them; sympathy and sadness, as if he was some sort of oil-slicked seal pup.
She came out from behind the counter and hovered over him, “If you need anything...”
Morgan looked up at Bran, what do I tell her?
“Just looking.” Bran said with his most charming swashbuckler smile.
Shop Woman smiled back, and vanished back behind her counter, sneaking occasional peeks at Surf’s shaggy bulk filling her aisle.
Morgan maneuvered down the cluttered aisle, not so different from swimming a narrow cleft in a reef, a reef full of delicate lifeforms that could be damaged by the wayward sweep of a fin. He poked at ship models and seashells, held up a t-shirt with the lighthouse on it. Made some fashion experiments with a hot pink sarong.
Bran shook his head, trying hard not to laugh.
Morgan peered through a kaleidoscope, into a tiny fake aquarium with plastic fish. Humans seemed fascinated with his world, and yet...
And yet they feared it.






The sea had been filled with the noise of engines for days. It grew, like thunder before a storm, then the storm roared overhead; a vast fleet of ships, larger than the greatest of the whales. The Merrows watched, listened, from the twilight deeps.
“Are they the good guys, or the bad guys?” Morgan asked.
“We don’t know,” his mother answered. “It is their war.”
“Theirs,” snorted one of the brothers, “but it affects all of us. All of the sea.”
The steady roar of engines was interrupted by a new set of sounds, sounds made by a ship Morgan had glimpsed before, one that moved beneath the waves.
Then there was fire and thunder and the shouts of men, and one of the great ships falling into the sea.
The Merrows were not Guardians of Men, but when a foundering life crossed one’s course, one could not ignore it, so they swam into the midst of that maelstrom of fire and fear and falling wreckage.
“Why are they so afraid?” Morgan asked. And he learned how different these folk were from his own. He knew they needed air, like the dolphins he and his brothers disguised themselves as, but dolphins were not afraid like this.
The brothers pulled many from the wreckage that day, pulled or pushed others toward boats, or other flotsam. In the dark hours before the moon rose, an exhausted Merrow child let his illusion slip. Two men clung to a sinking bit of wreckage. One saw Morgan for what he was, not his vanished disguise, he panicked and thrashed away into the dark sea. Morgan did not see where he went, though he felt how terrified he was, and how near the man was to the end of his strength. The other stared into Morgan’s sea-eyes, his own wide with disbelief...then with the kind of fear men had when they looked into the heart of the sea.
Morgan nearly fled himself.
“No, wait.”
Morgan didn’t understand the gasped words, but he felt the meaning of them. He turned to see some of the man’s fear replaced by something else...wonder. He reached out a hand and towed the man to one of the small boats drifting in the night sea.
He knew the others in the boat saw a small dolphin child, nothing more. But the one he had saved stared back through the darkness until Morgan had vanished.






Lighthouses and pelicans made of seashells and sculptures of stout men holding ropes or wheels or other seafaring objects. Morgan held up a furry stuffed whale. “Do they really think whales have fur, like the dogs?”
“No. It’s just art. People expect toys to be fuzzy and cuddly.” Bran said.
Ian snorted, “Depends what you call art.”
“Oh.” Morgan left it in his lap, running his fingers over the fuzz. Fuzz, fur, not something he encountered much in the sea. “Can we take this?”
“Yeah, sure.” Bran said.
“How about this?” Morgan held up a seashell sculpture with googley eyes; it looked vaguely like a blue crab.
“Our budget’s kinda’ limited.”
“Oh.” Morgan did not understand this budget thing at all. In the sea, there was everything you needed, if you knew where to look. Here, there were so many things, but they all belonged to someone else. Earla had tried to explain it; money and wages and stores and commerce. Morgan had traded with coastal folk before, but that was just exchanging something he could get easily and land folk could not...fish or lobsters...for something land folk could get easily and he could not...cheese or bread or meade.
A shop the size of a reef, full of things you exchanged bits of paper for, that was weird, just weird.
Morgan shoved himself farther down the aisle, Surf looking expectantly back over his shoulder, wondering if Morgan needed his help.
I’m fine. Go ahead. He shoved on the wheel grips and his elbow brushed something on a shelf. Behind him, Bran’s hand flicked out and caught it.
In the reef, Morgan had the use of six directions, not four, and more importantly, his eyes were not boggled by his own illusion.
Crash!
His illusory feet were still placed squarely in the center of the chair’s footrest. His fin, coiled as tightly as he could make it, had relaxed and swept something off the bottom shelf.
“Mroo?” Surf inquired.
“Oh crap.” Bran said under his breath.
Ian, near the door, turned like a startled wolf.
“Now what?” Morgan whispered.
Surf gingerly retrieved the largest piece of the object and held it out to Morgan. He piled it into his lap, reached overboard and picked up the smaller pieces; bits of shells and glue and another pair of googley eyes.
Shop Woman appeared around the corner, her face like a science teacher who’s just seen a cloud of green smoke in the back of the class. She saw Morgan, lap full of broken seashells, and Surf, grinning up with one last piece in his mouth.
She opened her mouth, glaring at the big Newf.
Surf dropped the last piece in Morgan’s lap.
“Sorry,” Bran said, “Morgan’s having a little trouble navigating in here.”
Am not. Too tight, and I can’t go Up! “Sorry,” he echoed, at Shop Woman.
Shop Woman’s glare moved from Surf to Morgan, and shifted to embarrassment. “Oh...ah...no problem,” she said with a forced smile.
Bran dug in a pocket and produced a ten, “Will this cover it?” He glanced at the fuzz whale also still in Morgan’s lap. “And the whale?”
“Oh, don’t worry about the seashell thing. It’s ok, really.”
Bran smiled at her, tucked the ten in her hand, pushed Morgan down the other aisle and fled.






The wreck lay on the bottom, masts broken, lines scattered by the storm tides, a debris field sprawled behind it for twenty times its length. That’s how Morgan found it after the storm, first a bit of wood, then a scrap of canvas, a crate, a barrel, some soggy bread escaped from its cupboard, dishes, spoons, bits of cloth, a mirror somehow unbroken. A teacup perched, intact, on top of ballast rocks from the hold. Morgan swam among the debris, lifting each object and studying it, wondering what it was for. Then the ship itself loomed out of the pre-dawn gloom, a vast ghost on the ocean floor.
Morgan swam around it, wondering at its immense bulk, larger than any whale. At the complexity of the masts and lines that, his father told him, made it fly on the wind like a bird. He found an open hatch and peered into the dark hold, afraid at first to go in. His oldest brother teased him, but didn’t make any move to be the first into that dark underworld.
It was Morgan who went in first. Morgan who found the deep polished wood of the captain’s furnishings, the shining galley gear, the marvelous prisms that let light down belowdecks, the chest of extraordinary things from the world above.
It was Morgan who found the first body.






Morgan rolled down the sidewalk, one hand on Surf’s harness, getting a free ride from the big Newf. With the other hand he fiddled with the weird fuzzy whale. he peered up into shop windows full of t-shirts and surfwear, posters and art prints and decoys. Humans seemed to need an awful lot of stuff to survive.
What did they do with it all? In the sea, you picked up what you needed, when you needed it. You carried nothing with you, at least, not for long.
Three blocks later, Morgan handed the fuzz whale to a small boy who was asking his mother to find one for him.
Tourists passed, strolling or striding, some on the street on bikes or four-wheeled pedal surreys, or scooters or scooter cars. Traffic crawled at a turtle pace, and Morgan watched the odd procession go by, glad Earla's glasses let him see it as sharply as if he was underwater.
It was like a reef at dusk, when the fish changed watches; the day fish going home, and the night fish emerging. The cars were mostly the colors of sand and sea, with a few scattered fish colors; reds and bright blues, one yellow, one the green of a flashing comb jelly. The scooters were fish colors, and the little three wheeled cars that you could rent at the same place as the scooters. The clothes were as varied as the colors on a reef. Morgan tried to memorize their patterns and styles so he could copy them later with his illusions.
Clothes, now that was just really weird. In the sea, clothes would be in the way, would slow you as surely as barnacles on a ship’s bottom.
“Why do they wear them?” Morgan had asked his father.
“To stay warm.”
“Why do they wear them even when it’s very hot, then?”
There had been no answer to that question, and neither Bran nor any of the others had come up with any better answers.
Everyone here on land was twice Morgan’s seated height. Except the kids. The adults glanced at him and let their eyes slide off him to something else, as if they were afraid to stare. The kids stared, until they were pulled away by their parents. A few girls wandered by him, clad in scanty beachwear, pretty as any his brothers had watched on long ago beaches. Only now, Morgan could see all the details of their faces, the graceful, or goofy movements, the way clothing hung off their bodies.
They giggled at each other, glanced at Morgan, and their giggles turned to whispers.
Morgan wondered if he should say hi, or something. Wondered if he would be on land long enough to get to know any of them. What he would do if he did become friends with any, how hard it would be to hide what he really was. If there would be any who would not care what he really was.
Then, with one sneaked backward glance, they were gone.
“Is my illusion ok?” Morgan whispered.
“Fine.” Ian said.
“Do I look weird or something?” No one had told him he’d have to change his face to blend in with the tourists and native Chincoteaguers.
“No.” Ian assured him. Your face is just fine. Your clothes are just fine. Your legs are just fine.”
“Why do they look at me like that? Or not look at me?”
“Not look at you?” Ian said.
“Oh, brilliant, 007, you haven’t noticed?” Bran said.
“Noticed what?”
“Wheelchair syndrome. It’s nearly as good as painting your hair blue and wearing a tutu.”
“Ohhh.” Ian made a face as if he had tasted something bad.
“I didn’t see anyone with blue hair, should I try it?” Morgan asked.
“No, no, no no no.” Ian said.
“What’s a tutu?”
“A pink fluffy thing ballet dancers wear. You’d look bad in it.”
“What’s ballet?”
Ian and Bran exchanged glances, “I am not demonstrating it in the middle of the sidewalk.” Bran said.
“What has that got to do with wheelchairs.”
“Ask Bran, he’s the one who goes off on these weird tangents.” Ian said.
Bran said nothing, looking at Morgan as if waiting for him to say something.
“No one else has blue hair.” Morgan observed. “Or rides a wheelchair. I am somehow different. Even if I look like them.”
“Yeah.” Bran said.
Morgan said, “and that disturbs them.”












Sharkman vs Crapzilla






Sharkman raised his double-barreled laser cannon; he patted it, staring down its long barrel at the pack of villains closing on him. "Ok Bessie, let's dance." Green fire erupted from Bessie's business end and surprised baddies dived for cover far far too late.


"Dude, the used shavings go in the wheelbarrow."
Jason blinked, looked up at the pile of fresh sawdust sprinkled over the top of this morning's work, like crumbled peanuts on a twirly top cone. "Oh crap." he said.
"Way to go Whaleboy." The slender sixteen year old girl in perfect cream breeches laughed, staring down the length of her perfectly made up nose. Behind her another breeches-clad girl giggled. With a toss of their perfect ponytails they strutted down the barn aisle to their lessons in the big indoor arena.
"It's Sharkman," Jason muttered under his breath.
The middle aged woman on the other side of the stall door shook her head and went on down the barn aisle. Behind Jason, a pinto pony dropped a fresh load, plop plop plop. Jason glared at him, "What are you laughing at?"
The pony snorted.
It was June. Deadhistory was history and Jason should have been perched on a computer chair with Heather, cooking up new Sharkman adventures. Instead he was picking up horse poop at Misty Acres in Chincoteague. Gee thanks Aunt Gracie.
Oh honey, I found you a great job! It's outdoors...
Yeah, when he wheeled the poop cart out to the manure pile of doom: Crapzilla.
There are lots of nice kids your age.
Cute horsey type girls who thought he was the biggest geek on earth.
You'll have spending money to do fun things on the island.
Like what? There was one movie theater which only showed stuff the rest of the world had already seen. The only reason anybody went there was to look at the hoofprints, immortalized in concrete, of Chincoteague's most famous resident; Misty, the island pony who'd become famous from that book Marguerite Henry wrote a zillion years ago.
You could go surfing.
I don't surf. Blond guys with six-pack abs surf.
Clamming.
I don't like clams.
Fishing.
Boring.
There's lots of birds...
Little old ladies watch birds. And guys with SUVs and PHDs and telescopes the size of the NASA toys at nearby Wallops Island.
You'll have your own transportation.
If you could call the beat-up adult-sized tricycle transportation. It was the kind of thing little old ladies used to go shopping.
The cottage Aunt Gracie had rented was about the size of a whelk shell. Sharkman was definitely getting claustrophobic in there. And none of his adventures were being worked on because there was not even a phone; therefore no internet! And it had been so rainy and cold that even Sharkman wasn’t getting much beach time.
Arrrrggghhhh!
Sharkman was going to have a summer that really bit.




Sleddoggin’






When tourists came to this small island off Virginia’s coast, they expected to see shops with carved ducks and egrets in the windows. They expected wild ponies on the beach. They expected mosquitoes, steamed crabs (all you can eat), pink and turquoise houses, fishing boats and pirate stories around a cozy beach campfire. With marshmallows.
They did not expect to see sled dogs. Sled dogs pulling a boy on a skateboard. One big black and white dog; one slightly shorter, slightly hairier, black. One red-headed boy. It was early enough for most of the tourists to be snoring still, but a few lucky ones stared in startlement, leapt out of the way, or fumbled for cameras as the team blurred by.
One tourist clicked off a shot, way too late, as the strange sight vanished around a turn, with no audible command. An old man, his voice full of generations of Virginia sea sounds, squinted after them, turned to the tourist, “Heh. Eskimo Girl musta’ dyed her hair.”
Jason, trundling toward Misty Acres, half asleep on Aunt Gracie's huge tricycle, didn't register the weirdness of the skateboarder's power source until he shouted “SORRY!” and ricocheted off the trike's grocery basket. Jason stared after the redheaded boy, doing gyrations on the skateboard worthy of the most agile of the X-Men.
Something weird about that kid. Cool weird. Jason thought about trying to catch up, pedaled faster for a few heartbeats.
Yeah right. He panted back to a crawl, the team and skateboarder vanished around a corner.




Zan crouched, jumped the skateboard, clicked onto the sidewalk again, hands tight on the tow rope attached to the dogs’ gangline. They slowed, saw the empty early morning street and stretched back into a gallop across it, skateboard flying over the curbs.
The skateboard flew as if the concrete and asphalt had waves, or snow hills. The rider twisted and turned, spun on the end of the rope as if he had wings. The dogs ran, tongues hanging joyously, the only sound the jingle of dogtags, the patter of feet on pavement. At the other end of Willow, Zan called the team to a halt with a silent command.
“Hey,” a voice said, “you practicing for that big race in Alaska?”
Zan turned and saw Cait, lounging on a beat-up mountain bike as if it was a cowpony. “No, it’s not cold enough long enough here to practice for a thousand mile race. We just do short runs for fun.” Zan said.
“Where you get the dogs?”
“Our friend, Holly, up that way a few dozen houses. We’re staying at one of her places.”
“My dad wants to meet your marine biologist. I figured it wouldn’t be hard to find a kid with hair like that on an island this small.” She gestured at Zan. “Hey, let me try that thing with the dogs and the skateboard.” She swung off her bike, letting it tumble to the ground. B’loo and Agliuk grinned up at her, Liuk stood, eye to eye with her, paws on her chest. She staggered back, laughed and shoved him back down, patting him ferociously.
“I don’t know...” Zan signed.
“What? You think I can’t? I can skateboard fine.”
“The dogs...” Zan began.
“I like dogs.” She thumped B’loo amiably. He grinned back.
“...go really fast. They’re strong.”
“Maybe you think a girl can’t do it?” Cait’s eyes held a challenge.
“No, no noooo! It’s not...”
“Maybe I’m too little? Maybe little Deaf girl can’t do sleddoggin’, huh?”
“No, no, NO! Uh...” nothing intelligent would come out of his mouth so he shut it. “Here.” he said, and set the skateboard down. Little, yeah. Little like a fishercat. Zan thought. And a fishercat was not someone you wanted to back into a corner.
“You tell me how to do it, what to tell the dogs.”
“Ok, sure. Here,” he handed Cait the gangline. “I think they’ll do one more run before they get too hot. You say gee to go right. Haw to go left. Whoa to stop.”
“Same as horse.” Cait signed.
“Same as horse.”
Cait adjusted her helmet. “Good.”
“One more command. On-by. That’s for when they see a squirrel or a garbage can or a tourist or anything else they want to investigate...or eat.”
“I don’t think they eat the tourists.” Cait said.
“Well, no, not really. Kiss them to death. They’ll eat Kleenexes, sometimes.”
“Gross.”
“Just say on-by, like you mean it.”
“Got it.”
“Can I use your bike? Mine’s back there on the porch.”
“Sure.”
Zan stood for a moment in front of the dogs. Wait he told them silently. Listen to Cait. Please!
They grinned up at him, three blue eyes and one brown, none obedient.
Zan got the bike, he was taller than Cait and the seat was a little low for his longer legs, but it would work ok. He pointed it down the street. “Willow Street’s pretty quiet. No traffic. Just run down to the Carnival Grounds and I’ll help you turn them, and come back here.”
“Yeah, ok.” Cait perched on the skateboard. “Mush.” she said.
B’loo turned and looked at her as if she’d spoken Greek.
“It’s hike.” Zan said, and fingerspelled the word carefully for Cait.
“Hike?”
“I don’t know why.” Zan shrugged, “It’s just hike.”
“HIKE!” Cait shouted.
The dogs took off. Cait lurched at the end of the gangline, pedaled ferociously and hung on. They roared down the street.
“Ohcrap.” Zan whispered and spun the bike hard after her, standing off the seat. He passed her, drew even with the team, running flat out, grinning great grins of dog joy. Turn at the Carnival Grounds you big foozle-headed oafs!
They ignored him. Plunged on down the street to Bunting, ducked hard a-port and galloped toward the swampy middle of nowhere. Cait clung to the gangline, jumping the skateboard over curb and bump, swerving hard to miss a kid on a tricycle, dodging a squirrel the dogs hadn’t seen, hopping a pothole.
Zan pedaled hard after her, drew even with the team. “Whoa!” he said. He crowded them with the bike, hardening his own shields and pushing them in front of the dogs.
They pattered to a halt and looked up at him, panting heavily and happily.
Doofus. Zan thumped Liuk on the head. He grinned back. Zan turned to see if Cait was ok.
“Why you stop?” She looked almost annoyed.
“Uh, well, I thought...you know. It’s hot. We should go back now,” he said lamely. He caught the neckline in his hand and turned them back they way they had come.
“You think I can’t stop them.” Cait said out loud
“Hey, with more practice, they’ll pay attention to you better. You skate really fine though! Really fine.”
“Oh.” She smiled. “Yeah. I do it a lot at home. Not with dogs though.”
Zan walked beside the dogs, on hand on the bike, one trailing in front of B’loo’s nose, making an invisible wall.
Cait hopped off the skateboard, flipped it into her hand and came up beside Zan. For awhile they walked in silence. Then Cait poked Zan in the shoulder, signed to him, “Hey, I have an idea. I could practice roping if you be the steer!”
“Huh?”
“Skateboard. You ride this skateboard, I get mine.”
“You brought yours?”
“Yeah, I ride mine, rope you.”
“And I get a severe case of road rash falling on the street.”
“No, no, I let go of the rope.”
Zan thought about it. Thought about Tas and cowponies and how easy it would be to do an illusory steer. Then he pictured a steer running down Willow Street. With Tas-horse in pursuit. Not good. Way weirder than sleddogs. Way weirder than Cait roping Zan on a skateboard. “Yeah. Yeah cool.” he flashed Cait a grin, “I think that would work.” his grin widened. “But I might be harder to catch than a real steer.”


He was harder to catch than a real steer. They lined up on the edge of Willow, Cait with her rope in hand, Zan crouched on his skateboard. Cait dropped her hand, Zan shot down the street, weaving and jumping as if he were snowboarding the death slope. Cait flew after, circling her rope once, twice.
Miss.
Again they lined up. Zan took off like a bronc out of the chute. Cait blasted after him. He glanced back, thinking maybe he should slow down. Run straighter. Give her more of a chance.
The expression on her face was like a fisher studying a porcupine. How do I flip this thing? How do I get to the soft part?
She threw and missed.
“Maybe I should go slower.” He suggested.
She stood, balanced on the skateboard, hands on hips, rope looped against her cowboy jeans. “Steers don’t go slower. When I play basketball, they don’t make the net lower.”
His eyes ran down then up her short frame, “You played basketball?”
“I play.” Present tense. “With Hearing kids.”
Zan looked down, embarrassed.
“Go again.” Cait said.
“Yeah, ok.”
“Fast.”
“Ok.” He said uncertainly.
“Fast as you can.” She demanded.
His eyes landed on hers for a moment, and she stared back instead of ducking away as if she had seen too much. He nodded, understanding something about her, “Ok Fishercait, fast as I can.”
“What? What is that?”
“Fishercat?” He spelled it out, then again with the “I” in it; FisherCait. “Bigger than a mink, smaller than a wolverine.” Zan told her. “Lives in the Pennsylvania woods, hunts porcupines. Little, but tough.”
“Oh. Cool.” She grinned, spelled FisherCait, her eyebrows a questionmark.
Zan nodded, “Good name for you.”
“What’s your name then?”
“Shadowfox.”
“Fox is little too. And clever.” She gave a laugh, tugged at a lock of bright hair sticking out of his helmet, “And red.”
He grinned back, a wide toothy fox grin.
“Ready?”
Zan shoved off, pedaling furiously. He could have lightened his feet, he could have drawn on the energy of the heart of the island beneath the asphalt, he might have shielded himself from the rope, letting it slide off.
He just skated, hard.
Cait crouched, cutting down the wind, pedaled once, threw the rope.
It landed around Zan’s shoulders. For a moment he thought of the possibilities; roadburn, banged elbows, random broken bones. Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea...
She let go.
Zan leapt off, kicked the board into his hands, grinning. “Hah hah hah!” He held out a hand and she rode by, smacking it in glee.
“Told you.” She said.
“Yeah. Awesome.”
“You want to try it?”
“Maybe later. I’ve never roped anything. I guess I’d be pretty awful at it.”
“What you want to do now?”
He stared at her in surprise, nobody had asked him that in awhile. Usually he followed the older guys around, doing whatever they were. Or he helped with programs that were already set up. Or he went off on his own. What do I want to do now? With another kid?
“Hey,” he said, “You ever try surfing?”






Bri knew mermaids were supposed to be found on misty mornings, singing by the sea. Sitting on wave splashed rocks rising out of the fog, calling warnings to sailors, or wishing they could shed their fins and dance on land.
This one was coiled on the lawn by the fire, experimenting with fire and shishkabob.
Bri stood just inside Holly’s gate, staring, while her family wandered into the yard making introductions. The yard glowed with the warm light of tiki torches, canine snowdrifts piled in odd corners, a big calico cat surveyed the scene from the screened porch. Cait and the redheaded kid, Zan, were already at the far end of the yard, ignoring the little kids, Bri and Aaron, as usual.
It didn’t matter. Bri had found her mermaid from the dream.
Well, mer-man.
Boy, fish-boy, she signed to herself. He didn’t look much older than Cait, not old enough to drive a car anyway. There was a wheelchair a few yards behind him on the lawn, even though he seemed to have legs. They had to be pretend legs, and must not work on land. She walked up to him, clutching her mermaid doll under one arm, like a talisman, stopping a stride away, with no words at all on the tips of her fingers.
Probably Merpeople didn’t speak Sign anyway.
He looked up at her with eyes the color of the sea. They widened in surprise. Then he signed, small and secret, so no one else could see; “You know. Like Holly.”
Bri nodded her hand in a yes.
“None of your family can see.”
Bri shrugged, “My sister’s a dork.”
“What is dork?”
Bri made a face that transcended language.
Fishboy grinned, “So’s my big brother.” Then his grin faded.
“Where is he?”
“Far away.”
“That’s sad. I’m Bri, what’s your name?”
“Morgan. Well, I have another, but I can’t spell it.”
“Is it like a whalesong?” Bri glanced across the yard to where her dad was already having an animated conversation in Sign with Zan’s marine biologist.
He looked surprised, “Yes, only louder, higher.” Morgan’s eyes went to the mermaid doll Bri was clutching. “What’s her name?”
“I don’t know yet. She’s just the little fishgirl.” Bri signed.
“Fish-girl.” Morgan made the two signs, “What you call us?”
“Yes. Is there a better name?”
“No, that’s fine. She looks like you, maybe you are a little fishgirl too?”
Bri giggled.
Morgan’s eyes followed Bri’s to Shaughnessy. “You can see him too.
“He’s a whale.” Bri said matter of factly.
“Orca.” Morgan spelled out.
Bri made the ‘cool’ sign. “The tall one’s...”
“Bran.”
“He’s a bird, sometimes, isn’t he?” Somehow it wasn’t too surprising in a yard that already contained a whale and a fishboy.
Morgan grinned. “Yeah.
“And she’s,” Bri nodded at Tas, talking to Zan and Cait, “a horse. When she’s not a wolf. And Zan and Tas and Bran are the same somehow, only different.” She gave Morgan a quizzical look.
“You have to ask them. I can’t tell their stories.”
“Oh. Well, what are you doing?” She pointed to the shishkabob stick, forgotten in the fire.
“Experimenting with fire.” He pulled the shishkabob from the flames and held it out to Bri. “Grapefruit doesn’t work very well. I like steak better, not like anything from the sea.”
Bri wrinkled her nose. “It’s burned,” she signed.
Morgan’s face fell, “Oh.” He sniffed it, tasted it himself. It tasted rather like a piece of burned shipwreck. “Isn’t that the idea? To burn it in the fire?”
“You cook it!” Bri made the cook sign.
To Morgan the sign looked like a dying fish. “Yes, you burn it.”
“Only a little.” Bri signed in exasperation. “You never cooked before, did you?”
“It’s hard to make fire underwater.”
“You can’t make fire underwater at all.” Bri signed as if to a very small child.
“You can, sometimes.” Morgan asserted. “Shaughnessy told me of torches divers use. And there are...” his hands made shapes in the air like volcanoes erupting.
“Oh. Volcanoes and stuff.” Bri signed, “You never cook in a volcano?”
Morgan laughed, “No. We warn all the seacreatures and swim away. Fast.”
“You could make a fire on the beach.”
“I’ve seen fire on the water,” he continued, “burning ships, I’ve pulled men from them. And seen fire on the beach. But I have never studied fire before.” He held out a hand toward the marshmallow fire as if wanting to touch it. His hand drew back, his eyes focusing on something long ago. “One of my friends was burned once, by Men who had a beach fire. He escaped, but it was long before he was healed.”
“Why?”
“They were afraid of him.”
“Why?”
“Even Holly cannot tell me.”
“Oh. That’s sad.” Bri reached out and caught a length of Morgan’s hair, fiddled it into several strands, the way she did her dolls’ hair.
Morgan sat, a ship moored by his own hair. Bri braided, twisted, frowned, pulled it out and began again. At last she sat back, smiling.
Cait appeared, signed at Bri, “What are you doing? He’s a guy, not Barbie.”
Bri stuck out her tongue, did a little dance that said you are a clueless and idiotic Big SIster who knows nothing about high fashion. Not to mention Fishboys. Hah, you don’t even know he’s really a fishboy!
Morgan ran a hand over the braids. “Feels fine.”
“You want to see? I’ll get a mirror from Holly.” Bri said.
“Mirror?” Morgan signed, very small so only Bri could see.
“You don’t know what a mirror is? I thought all fish-people had mirrors, so they could comb their hair.”
“Sometimes I find strange things from ships, but...”
Bri trotted over to Holly, holding her hand up in the sign for mirror. Holly cocked her head in that way that said huh? Bri glanced at Morgan.
“Merr-ror?” he said uncertainly. He’d only seen it spelled and had no idea how it was pronounced.
“What?” Holly said.
Bri held her hand up in front of her face, like a mirror.
“Mer...thing you look in.” Morgan said.
“Oh.” Holly vanished into the house. A minute later she reappeared carrying a small mirror. Bri handed it to Morgan.
“Cool,” he said.
Bri grinned in triumph, making another face at Cait. She scanned the yard for more hair to test her skills on; there was Shaughnessy, but he was still in the depths of a long conversation with Dad. Cait had wandered back to the other side of the yard and was talking about some kind of cowboy stuff with Tas. Bri’s eyes fell on Bran’s blue-grey mane. She went to him.
He turned and studied her with deep blue eyes.
“We went over the Rockies once.” Bri said. “The sky at the top was that color.”
He smiled. “Sky’s my element. But you already know that.” He glanced at Morgan’s new braids.
In short order he had been shanghaied into sitting by the fire while Bri tried to remember how to braid four strands instead of three. Her quick little fingers separated the strands, then paused.
There was something stuck in Bran’s hair.
“What’s this?” She pulled at it and a dark silver feather came into view.
His hand closed gently over hers, stopping the tugging. He turned and looked at her with eyes full of stars.
“Oohhhh.” Bri signed, very small so no one else could see, especially not Cait. “That’s for when you turn into a bird.”
“Yes.” He patted the sandy lawn in front of him, Bri sat. “My people are Ravenkin. Elves who...”
“Do you know Santa?” Bri interrupted.
He laughed, then it faded into the kind of look Mom and Dad had, when you asked them about your Christmas present. “Long ago, one of my grandmothers fell in love with...” his eyes traveled to where Shaughnessy was leaning out of his lawn chair, nodding at something Bri’s dad had signed. “...your people have some names for those folk, but none of them are their real names.”
“Not Elves?”
“No. Other folk. Older. Wiser. One wore the shape of Raven. All of us who are his grandchildren have his gift, of turning into birds from Raven’s family; crow, jay, rook, magpie, raven. But we have to learn how to use that gift. We choose a bird, follow it for its whole lifetime. Learn its language, its songs, how it raises its children, flies, hunts, lives. When it leaves this world, we are gifted with some of its feathers. That is how we change our own shape into the shape of the bird we followed.”
“What if you lose it?”
“It’s hard to lose.”
“What if someone stole it? Could they turn into a bird then?”
“No.” His face shifted subtly, and Bri’s keen eyes caught it.
He looked almost afraid.
And Really Bad Eggs






Morgan poked at the eggs in the skillet, watching them burble and sizzle in the shallow pan. Under them blue fire danced. Blue like water, not the warm yellows and reds of the outdoor fire. Why? Why blue? Holly said something about gas. Different fuel. Different fire. And no smoke. Why? The faraway fire of the Sun was yellow, or white or red sometimes. Never blue. Why?
Weird.
He fiddled with one of the knobs on the stove and the fire leaped up eagerly. “Cool!” Morgan said out loud.
Zan reached past him and readjusted the flame. “If we burned more than just the eggs, that would be a bad thing.”
Pirate Jenny watched from her perch on the table amidst piles of books. Beside Morgan, three of the dogs watched the stove intently, waiting for some morsel to fall to its doom.
You really like this stuff? He asked them.
You are one of the pack now. And you have the food. Share.
I know, it's the Way of the Pack.
Zan reached past Morgan's shoulder and grabbed the handle of the pan, whisking the whole thing off the burner.
"Hey," Morgan complained.
"They're done."
"How can you tell?" They looked ruined to him, and smelled like things he had smelled downwind of burning ships.
"Mrow." Pirate Jenny said.
“Looks like you two haven’t burned down the kitchen yet.” Holly said, coming through the porch door.
“Hey, fire’s my element.” Zan said.
“It’s obviously not his.” Holly said, gesturing at Morgan.
Zan scraped the eggs off onto two plates, paused, “Want some?”
Holly eyed the eggs. “Maybe later.”
Zan thrust a plate at Morgan, along with a spoon and some toast, "Here, try this."
He poked at the mess with the spoon.
“Helps if you add toast.”
“Oh.” He forked the half burned eggs over the toast and tasted it. “Better than grapefruit shishkakbob.”
“Anything,” Holly said, “is better than grapefruit shishkabob.”
“But I think eggs are better raw.” Morgan said.
“Revolting.” Zan said.
“Abhorrent.” Holly added.
“Loathesome.” Zan agreed.
“Repugnant.” Holly said.
Morgan offered Pirate Jenny a spoonful of half burned eggs. She sniffed it politely and declined. Morgan lowered his plate to the floor. Three dog noses converged on it...
Share! He reminded them.
...and inhaled its contents, without arguments.
“You eat eggs?” Holly said, “I thought you’d live on a diet of, I don’t know, lobster and scallops.”
"We find things at the edge of the land. Sometimes we trade with fishermen for land food. Or did in the old days. Not so much anymore." Morgan said. “Only a few places are safe, only a few people know us.”
“You traded fish and lobster for eggs?”
"No, we trade lobster for bread. Cheese.”
“Seems like those fishermen were getting the best of that deal.” Holly said. “Where’d you get your eggs then?”
“Islands where the birds nest.”
“Rookeries.” Zan said.
“Where the boats don’t come, we take only one egg from a few nests.”
“Yeah, plenty of eggs, plenty of birds to grow up next year.” Zan said.
“If you go to the islands where the boats can reach,” Morgan said, “they take too many eggs. None to grow up." Both Zan and Morgan’s faces showed disgust.
The dogs looked up at him expectantly, More?
Morgan spun his chair to face the fridge, opened it and reached for the eggs.
"Ah ah," Holly warned, the pack's Alpha Female making a proclamation, "not unless you're going to eat them yourself, the dogs have had enough. Their harness won't fit if you keep feeding them eggs. Lean dogs are healthy dogs."
Morgan looked at the dogs, Sorry. No.
“There are,” Holly said, “people who take from the world without giving back, or thinking of the future. There's laws now protecting birds like that."
“I am not so sure,” Morgan said, “that your human laws are any use. I have seen islands where there are fewer and fewer birds each year."
“Birds have more problems than egg pirates. Global warming, pollution, pesticides, habitat loss. We make laws, but the people on the other side of some arbitrary line on the map have different laws.” Zan said.
“Mop?”
“Map, like what we used for the game?” Zan said.
“Sounds the same.” Morgan said.
Holly vanished into the front room and returned with a large piece of folded paper. She shook out the paper, it rattled like a flock of gulls taking off. “This is where we are now.” Her finger traced the outlines of Chincoteague and Assateague.
“What’s this?” Morgan pointed at a line across the island.
“The Maryland state line. This part is Virginia, this part is Maryland.”
“Maryland? Virginia? Different? Bran told me what it looks like from the air, it is all the same; sand and loblolly and wax myrtle and bayberry and marsh grass. And in the water it is all the same too; sand and things that burrow in it and fish and dolphins that swim over it.”
“Well, it is all the same trees and sand and gulls and ponies and deer and sharks and dolphins. Maryland and Virginia are just different states. Different governments. Different laws.” Holly’s words trickled off like a drying stream.
“In the sea there is one law.”
“Ah.” Holly said, as if she understood.
“So, where do your eggs come from?" Morgan asked.
"Big buildings full of chickens. People raise them to sell the eggs. Chicken City Road right here on the island used to have a lot of chicken houses. The nor-easter of ‘62 washed most of them away. They never rebuilt them."
“Chicken houses? They keep the birds away from the sun and the sky?” His face showed distress, “They might have flown away from the storm except for the buildings.”
“Not really,” Zan said, “they’ve bred chickens to be good eating and lousy flying.”
“Yeah, really.” Holly said. “The buildings make it easier for the farmers: keeps the chickens away from predators. Keeps them from running off.”
"It is not the way they were meant to live.” Morgan said.
“No, it’s not.” Holly said.
“What's there, on Chicken City Road, now?"
"Tourists."
Morgan gave her a quizzical look.
"People from other places, getting away from it all."
"From what all?"
"From their chicken cages.”
Morgan’s face showed bafflement.
“Concrete, steel, cities and jobs and stress. The tourists come here to get back to the real world."
"Their world isn't real?"
"It isn't real good."
“Oh.” Morgan didn’t understand at all. “Why would those people on that ship want to keep me away from the sun and the sky and the sea, like the chickens?”






The wind was off the cool June sea, and the sun, the one legend said Raven himself had set free and carried into the sky, was hidden, as if it had been stolen back again.
The stolen Merrow’s Cap was like a rock dropped in a pond; the ripples spread out, and out, and out. Farmers and fishermen saw changes in crop and catch. The rest of the folk in the Chesapeake Bay region, those who thought surf and turf and baked potatoes came from the supermarket, complained about the lousy weekends.
Off the coast of Virginia, a small fishing boat rode the sea swells. A screaming flock of gulls circled the boat; white wings, long and sharp like jib sails, knifing the wind. The fishermen, intent on their sport, didn't notice a different set of wings; broader, darker.
The gulls circled and the stormsilver raven soared with them, asking when he could if they knew anything about a Merrow, and a ship.
The memories of birds were long, if it was important to them. But that ship had apparently been totally lacking in either fish guts or cheese curls.
None of them remembered.






Tas-wolf stood, dark wet nose nearly against the poison ivy and greenbriar winding its way up Holly's fence. A few nights ago, after Bran had been here for the first time, someone else had stood here, trying to peer through the dense jungle covering the fence. The dogs had seen, and Pirate Jenny and Strider had told Holly as best they could, for even the wolf-woman couldn't understand their speech as well as an Elf. Holly had not even mentioned it until recently; she'd thought it might have been one of the ELF folk.
Tas-wolf snorted, the scent was old and overlaid with a thousand other ones. If the one who had stood here was the man she had tracked down the beach, she couldn't tell, that scent might be buried under the others, or perhaps someone else had stood here, wondering how they might get a Merrow out of a yard full of watchful "wolves."
She trotted through the gate, blurred, shifted and went up to the house on two shorts-clad legs. Holly and Morgan looked up as she walked through the door, the scent of eggs making her mouth water.
"Mind if I use your bike again?" she asked Holly.
"Sure." Holly waved a hand in the direction of the shed.
Strider looked up from his comfortable place on the floor by Morgan's chair.
Tas met his ice-blue eyes and smiled, "Oh," she added, "maybe just the rig."






Morgan was beginning to feel a bit like a chicken in a coop. The human need for walls and ceilings, to hide away from the wind and rain and sky mystified him. Merrows could breathe wherever they were, in air or water, so Morgan did not have Shaughnessy’s dislike of ceilings. He had often gone into undersea caves or hollowed out spaces in reefs or wrecks. But he did not stay there. He was used to the open sea. To feeling the current through his hair, to the vast ocean of sound, to the changing light of shallows or deeps or sunlit reefs or twilight rocks. He was used to the changing panorama of reef fish, of pelagic wanderers, of migrating whales.
Now he was watching the changing panorama of Animal Planet and ABC, CBS, NBC, and PBS. Or playing CDs or DVDs.
Does nothing ever have a proper name, or just letters of their alphabet?
Bran and Ian and the others were busy; with their search for the ones who had stolen his cap, with other ELF issues they could not entirely leave behind. Zan had gone off somewhere with Cait, searching for wild ponies, or pirate treasure, or something. Even Bri was gone, with her mom on a ranger led educational program.
As if they knew more about the sea than me.
So Morgan coiled in his wheelchair and flipped through the channels.
Pirate Jenny watched him from a perch high above the breathing Siberian fur rugs at his feet...
...tail. He hadn’t bothered doing an illusion here, in the house. Well, he had, but something about it had seemed...
Hard. As if he was a small child practicing it for the first time.
“Mrrrowww.” Pirate Jenny said.
“I don’t need to have legs here.” Morgan told her.
“Rrrw.” A disbelieving rumble that said there was more to it than that.
He set down the remote and a hand moved in the air like seaweed in current.
A shadow flickered and went out. Morgan frowned, waved his hands again. A mouse flitted across Holly’s floor. It was a fairly reasonable looking mouse, though it moved more like a crab. Morgan had seen a mouse on TV, but he was more familiar with the movement of crabs.
Pirate Jenny yawned and curled up, her spotted back to Morgan. Lousy illusion. One of the dogs raised a head, saw the mouse and snapped at it as it scuttled by, her jaws closing on empty air.
Morgan glared at Jenny and went back to flipping through the channels. The history channel was running something on the Great War. He remembered it; the churning of engines drowning the other seatalk, the explosions, the taste of death in the sea. In the whole world sea. The tales had come from the far side of the world too, of vast destruction beyond the scope of the Merrow tongue to describe.
Flip flip flip.
On Animal Planet someone was using helicopters to move elephants. They seemed to be in conflict with the local humans. Wouldn’t it be easier to just move the humans?
Flip flip flip.
Three of the movie channels seemed to have a lot of things blowing up. The cartoon channel had things blowing up, but more artfully.
Flip flip flip.
Was the world of humans the way the news showed it? Or the way the movies showed it? Or Disney? Or the thousand commercials that told you your life would be perfect if only you had this toothpaste?
What was toothpaste for, anyway?
Flip flip flip.
The science fiction channel was showing how someone hoped life would be in the future. Things were still being blown up a lot.
Flip flip flip.
Morgan barely heard the soft bare footsteps.
"Must be in the y gene." Holly said.
"What?" Morgan looked up, startled.
"Males, no matter what the species," Holly held up a hand and gestured as if holding a remote, flip flip flip. "Maybe I should have called you Flipper."
"I am Swordfish clan, not Dolphin. The shape of my folk, Swordfish gave.”
Flip flip flip.
Holly peered over Morgan’s shoulder at the TV. "Find anything interesting?"
Jenny peeled one great golden eye open, are you kidding?
Morgan shook his head, “Your world....it's full of..." he frowned, searching for the right word, "amazon things.”
“You mean, amazing?”
“Amazing. Great... beauty. Great... terror. Things I don't understand."
"Yeah, me either. " Holly reached for his hand and caught the remote out of it. "Come on Flipper, we need to spend a day on the beach."






Tas' wolf nose...even her horse nose...was keener than her Elf nose, and that was keener than any human's. But a one hundred and forty pound wolf trotting through the streets of Chincoteague alone might have raised more attention than she needed. So she perched on the platform of Holly's dogrig, pedaling it with one foot, and sniffed the air, the cool damp places where scents lingered, the places her quarry might have gone, might have touched. And safe in the dogbag on the rig, lay Strider. She glanced down at him, grinned, Now that's a switch, the sleddog on the rig, and the Two-legged running it!
Strider grinned back, this was a good game. A hunting game, and the prey was the one who had stood by the fence that night, wanting to take Morgan. Or at least Strider's prey was that one. Tas was sniffing for someone else, someone she had tracked down the beach.
They combed the island; each street, each dirt lane, each store, each motel parking lot, each gift shop, art gallery, decoy carver. Even the Misty memorial statue. Tas would halt, help Strider out of the bag, then he would walk like a sailor too long at sea, nose reading the news.
Nothing. Nada. Zilch.
Back in the bag, back on the road. Pedal pedal, sniff sniff.
The sun walked across the sky behind the clouds and sailed away over Texas and California and Hawaii. At the Maritime Museum, Memorial Park, the carnival grounds, Tas pulled water bottles, trail mix and dog treats out of her pack and shared with Strider.
Back in the bag, back on the road. Pedal pedal pedal, sniff sniff sniff.
Nothing.
If either of their prey was still on the island, they were doing a good job of being invisible.






The creatures of the sea knew no more than the birds. Shaughnessy could not find the dolphin who had jumped ship with Morgan. And even if the others he met had paid attention to the shape and sound and smell of human craft, they would not have remembered when they had seen them.
Sometimes Wolf chases down his prey, sometimes Orca travels miles for dinner.
And sometimes the hunter waits for the prey to come to him.






Morgan had spent enough time on the edges of the land to deal well enough with gravity. Wheeling the chair up the long wooden ramp to the beach was not hard, wheeling it across loose sand was another matter. Surf, wearing his Service Dog gear, hovered nearby, wanting to be useful. Morgan ignored him. Ian and Holly came to his side to help but he waved them off, frowning at the Dwarvish contraption. He grumbled at it under his breath, heaving as hard as he could, and getting eighteen inches further down the beach.
His swim suit clad butt and legs wavered, like heat waves over asphalt.
"Uh oh." Zan trotted in front of him and gestured around his surfboard, eye-blasting colors against the silver of air and sea and sand. He sang softly.
Morgan thumped to a halt and looked up, startled.
"Your illusion is slipping." Zan whispered.
"Crap." Morgan said, frowning.
"I fixed it." Zan said, like a kid who's just got all As on his report card.
"Thanks." Morgan said, looking not at all pleased. He went back to ploughing through the sand.
Zan's grin faded and he fell back.
“Wasn’t his suit green and orange before?” Ian said.
“Aahhhgh!” Zan said. “Maybe nobody’ll notice.
"Wheels." Morgan said from a few feet further down the beach, "Whose idea was wheels anyway?"
"I don't know," Ian, said, "Lost somewhere in the mists of time. Sorry, we're still having a little trouble with the anti-gravity thing."
Surf stuck to the starboard wheel like velcro, requesting permission to be of service. Holly shoved at the back of the chair till Morgan waved her off, “I guess wheels would be an alien concept to someone who lives in a world where anti-gravity is normal.”
Morgan set his brows a bit lower and harder and shoved again on the chair to minimal effect.
“Roooo.” Surf muttered.
"We'll get Earla to make fatter wheels." Zan said. "Like those ones on the beach wheelchairs the Park Service has.”
Morgan stopped, stumped by too many yards of loose sand, and poured off the chair, still a good fifty feet from the surf. He moved the way he'd always moved on sand, rather like a seal, but with his leg illusion still intact.
Two grandmotherly ladies hiking the beach stopped and stared.
"Oh man." Ian said. Surf bounded after Morgan, Ian hot on his furry heels.
Morgan was faster, he hit the surf and plunged in. Home. Back in his natural element. He flowed out on the backwash of a beached wave, leapt the next one, and without thinking, vanished under the third.
"Uh oh." Zan said, and leapt on the surfboard, riding the backwash out.
Morgan came up sputtering and coughing, thrashing violently. Surf and Ian plunged in, and Holly after them. They caught up to him in seconds, Zan already bobbing up and down on the board to port. Morgan flailed his arms at them, "I'm fine!"
"Yeah, right." Ian said. But he backed off. Surf swam in uncertain circles around them, hoping someone would need him.
"I forgot." Morgan said. Forgot he couldn't swim the way he always had. Forgot he was no longer at home here. Forgot he needed to breathe air now.
Forgot that he'd spent a long time on land, doing nothing to strengthen himself. The moon had gone from the shape of his own tail through darkness to the curved shape of his tail again in the time since his capture and rescue. And with the moon growing from its swordfish tail shape, and the sun beginning to swim down into the west, the day’s tide was at its highest. There were no rocks on this long low sandbar that barely poked its head above the waves, nothing to break ships or unwary swimmers. Not like the steep rocky cliffs much farther north. But the sea was still strong here, the waves roared in and caught their feet on the sea floor, piled high and dumped with a crash on sand and mole crabs and broken bits of shell and swimmers.
"You ok?" Holly asked.
"He's been out of the water for two weeks." Ian said. "Well, except for the pool, but he can't really exercise in the pool."
"Maybe we should have started in Tom's Cove." Holly said.
"I'm fine!" Morgan snapped. He floundered for a moment, one hand resting on Surf’s furry rump. Then he began to let the waves hold him up. He rolled with them, rode them up and down like a drifting seagull. Drifted away from Surf and the others. He closed his eyes and felt the circular breathing of the great water. He could still use the energy of the wave to move himself. He could still leap, he could still fly off the breaking crest, swoop down the backside into the trough. He could still surf in, the way humans did sometimes. He played in the roiling water, and the silver clouds brightened and tore apart. Blue sky and yellow sun peeked through. Holly and Ian fled to the beach to lie in the sun and get warm. Zan leapt and yelled beside Morgan, or rode the surfboard, making small illusions of shark fins, or leaping dolphins farther out to amuse himself and terrify or delight other swimmers farther up the beach. Surf plunged in and out of the waves, swimming out to inquire if he was needed, then emerging onto dry land, a great dark soggy Monster from the Deep, dripping, then shaking in an eruption of silver.
Morgan had played on the surface, the thin divider between the worlds, before. The part of him that had hands and hair loved air and sun and the surface of the waves. But the fish part belonged to the sea, and it called; the sunlit shallows, the cool dark deeps. The glittering schools of baitfish, the immense power of a humpback whale. They called.
He ducked below the surface and saw as far as his hand; here the breaking waves churned sand into a soup he could not see through. And he had no sooner dived than he had to surface to breathe.
He rode the waves out, out and out to where the water began to clear. He heard the others shouting at him to come back, to stay closer to shore. He ignored them.
He was home.
He felt the bottom come up under him as he rode over the sandbar, then it dropped out from under him into twenty feet of clear cold water. The breakers were gone, leveled out into big sea-swells and wind chop. The shore was a thin line, far far away. The yellow sun paled, and the sky went silver again.
Home.
His tail flicked, he sank, rose again, and realized he had never swum this long on the surface. Especially not after being beached for two weeks. And there was still a sizable chunk of his tail missing. It was not like swimming underwater. It took work to stay on the thin skin between the worlds. It was hard not to sink.
He sank.
And rose to the surface again. Not without effort.
He sank, and pulled himself back up again, from grey green water to storm grey air. Far away, on the beach, he heard Surf’s warning bark.
He suddenly understood why humans were so afraid of his world. Why they were so desperate to stay near the ceiling of his world, where the air was.
He sank, bobbed back up, gasping.
It was a long long swim back. Too long.
How ridiculous. A Merrow couldn't drown.
He sank again, longer this time, and realized he was still as good at holding his breath as Shaughnessy was at breathing water. He hauled himself back to the air in a panic.
He couldn't call the dolphins again, not this time, they were too far, and it would take too long. He sank and thrashed back up again, flailing at the water with desperately tired flukes and hands.
"Hey, dude." the voice came from somewhere on his starboard side. He blinked through soggy hair, saw a flash of outrageous color amidst the grey of sea and air. A hand reached out and grabbed his hair. Morgan flailed a hand up and that was grabbed.
“Thrash your tail!”
Morgan beat his tail against the water one last time. Felt himself pulled. He found himself sprawled across Zan's surfboard. "I guess we gotta put a PFD on you next time," Zan said.
"Great." He coughed, "A Merrow in a lifejacket." He saw that his legs were back, though his baggy shorts were a third impossible set of colors. "Thanks." he said, and meant it.
Zan stood, easily as if he was standing on dry land, stepped up to the bow of the board leaving Morgan sprawled across the rest of it, flukes trailing in the water. Zan crouched on the bow like a ship's figurehead. "Ok," he said, "take us in."
"What?"
"You're the one with the engine." His hands moved like a tail. "Gonna be a long paddle otherwise."
"Oh." He inched around until his tail hung aft, the rest of his body still sprawled across the board. His flukes waved, and the board slid toward shore. Out of the deeps, past the low breakers of the sandbar. Past a few gulls bobbing in the waves. Morgan felt the shift in the currents here and turned the board north, paralleling the beach.
"What are you doing?" Zan said.
"The current is going out to sea here, we paddle across it, catch another going in, to the beach."
"Oh. A rip. Yeah, that's how you got out there so fast." He stood, "I can see it." Zan crouched again and stroked the water with his hands. The board slid across the narrow rip and turned toward the beach again.
They surfed in on the breakers, higher now as the tide came in and the water piled up on the beach. Zan perched, arms outspread, on the tip of the surfboard, Morgan lay flat on the rest of it, holding on tight.
The water tasted of sand and the air tasted of green, growing things, and the earthy smell of the ponies who had been there an hour before. The waves broke, foamed into a seething mass of air water and sand, rolling Morgan off the board, filling his ears and nose with sand and grinding bits of shell into his skin. He struggled, floundered with the last of his energy, and, with the help of Zan and the big Newf, managed to pull himself onto sand going wet with rain.
He was aware of the others running up to him, crouching beside him and asking questions he didn't want to answer. He stared out at the sea. At what humans saw as a horizon, a line between the ocean of water and the ocean of air. His eyes, without Earla's glasses, did not see that far, so he saw a great silver circle.
One he didn't belong to anymore.
Beached






It was dark. Dark and cold and wet, none of which should have bothered him at all. He could see in the blackest sea, see with his ears, his whole body. His world was water, warm with Hawaiian sun or choked with icebergs.
What terrified him was that there was no way up. He was flying through a maze of tiny rooms, walls close around him, and another wall overhead, between him and the thin skin of the surface where he needed to breathe. The strange thing was he'd gone in there out of curiosity. He wanted to see what this odd thing on the bottom of the sea was.
I know what it is, it's a ship. A ship underwater. Shipwreck. Stay out.
No, no, I want to see...there are strange things here. Things I've never seen before. A fantastic underwater ship in the embrace of a giant squid; a strange pole, like a narwhal’s tooth, that sprouted lightning; a great round wheel, golden, like the sun...
No, there's no way UP. Stay out.
It's ok, I can breathe in here fine.
No, no...
Then flight and fight and someone’s bones breaking under the strike of his flukes. Mast and line and the dark wood of the ship’s rail and the pale grey sea beyond; rope under his hands and falling.
And trying to breathe the clean cold lifegiving sea and choking on it.






Shaughnessy sat up hard, breathing as if he'd just dived a thousand feet. His eyes registered moonlight coming through the thin screen walls of the tent; a sharp quarter moon, like a swordfish's tail. He swung out of the hammock, catching the shreds of dream before they vanished into mist. Surf sat up, dark eyes questioning.
It's ok, buddy, go back to sleep.
Not his dream, he was pretty sure. In all his years of diving with human gear, he had kept clear water above his head, letting his human companions do the wreck penetrations, trailing their lifelines from wreck reels into the dark innards of sunken ships. Of all the seven directions, Up was the most important, because that's where the second ocean lay, the ocean of life-giving air, beyond the ceiling of the sea. Ceilings; cars roofs, house ceilings, were a barrier to Up. The tent had a very thin ceiling, blue, dancing with wind and light, like seawater. And thin enough to rip through easily. It was easier to sleep in the tent, such sleep as he needed; not very much.
There was another reason to sleep out here: If Morgan's captors came, they would find him guarded by a most attentive wolfpack. Not that Holly's Siberians were guard dogs, it was not their way to attack the unknown stranger. But the wolflike Siberians, and Surf, would raise an alarm.
And Shaughnessy would know it; orca and wolf were the same spirit, wearing different shapes for land and sea.
He unzipped the mosquito-proof door and slipped out. Immediately a miniature airforce attacked, pricking him with their needle beaks. Begone, little sisters, find other blood tonight he told the mosquitoes. He stalked across the street, amazingly silent for such a tall, muscular man. He walked to the big vine covered fence around Holly's dogyard, opened the gate and shut it carefully behind him. The dogs sat up and watched, one or two made soft arooos at him, he could see their expressions, even if he could not hear their talk. Quiet little wolf brothers, the humans need their sleep.
In the middle of the hot tub floated a raft; despite his fascination with human beds, Morgan couldn't stay out of water for the whole night.
The raft was empty.
Shaughnessy halted in his tracks, glanced at the nearest dogs.
What's wrong? Nothing's wrong! Everything is as it should be! they told him.
Shaughnessy nodded at them, whistled the merrow's true name. Bran had sung it to him in his whale form, when he could hear it with his sea-ears. He knew the merrow's tongue as well as the merrow knew his, but they could use neither now, here, on land. It was all right, they would use the Sign language humans had made, and where Morgan did not know that well enough, they would talk the old way, mind to mind.
Morgan surfaced suddenly, gasping for air. Pulled himself up and clung to the side of the pool.
Shaughnessy walked up to the edge of the pool and leaned on it, his eyes went to the raft drifting on the opposite side of the pool.
“Hate sleeping on the surface.”
“You fell off.”
“Did not.” Morgan looked embarrassed. “Meant to. Wanted to practice breath holding.”
Shaughnessy smiled, whale-wide.
Morgan glared soggily up at him. “Go ahead, you breathe water.”
“You have held your breath, once.”
“Can’t!” Morgan signed emphatically.
“You told me of your flight from the pirate ship. You held your breath long enough to reach the surface.”
“Only few heartbeats.“
“It was a start.”
Morgan made a sign for finished. That's all.
Shaughnessy regarded the merrow with deep sea eyes and a face as expressionless as orca’s. “You remember your fear.”
Morgan looked away.
“You are not awake to practice holding your breath.” Shaughnessy suggested.
“Why are you awake?”
“I'm always awake. Or at least partly.” Shaughnessy told him.
“You've walked long among humans... I thought you know how to sleep like them, not like a dolphin.”
“No, I am what I am. I had your dream.”
Morgan nodded, signed “Remember. Some from when I explored shipwrecks; masts and line and wings of canvas.” He studied Shaughnessy’s face, “You never went in a sunken boat.”
“I have rarely gone belowdecks in a floatin’ boat either. And then only briefly.”
Morgan understood. “No way Up.” He frowned into the night for a moment, “Doesn't help, that dream, does it?”
“Maybe. Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea.”
“What?”
“In your dream; the underwater ship with the oversized squid trying to devour it.”
“Squid don’t eat ships.”
“They didn’t know that when the book was written. As far as they knew, the squid was real and the ship was just science fiction.”
“Oh. The book Zan found for Holly. Holly said the ship is Nautilus. Zan said it lives in Connecticut. Only nobody uses it anymore because it is...” he frowned, trying to remember the English word, or the sign, and coming up with neither.
“Obsolete. Old. Out of date. Replaced by something newer. But when the book was written, long ago, that ship was a dream that hadn’t been made real yet. Science fiction.”
“Maybe I am remembering Zan showing me the book.”
“Maybe. Maybe you’ve been watching too much Cartoon Network too, playing too many video games; that strange pole with lightning.”
“No. No.” Morgan flinched, “That’s real.”
“The taste of the water around the dreamhull was wood, not steel. Strange. Most ships are steel or other high tech materials now. Was that an old memory? Of wrecks visited? Of ships you sang the warning songs to, with your brothers. The ships that flew on the wind and creaked and sang like living things?”
Morgan frowned, “We saw wrecks like that, wings of canvas shredded, lines trailing through the water like big jellyfish tentacles. This one had an engine, roaring like a volcano, though I think...I think...the hull tasted of wood, not steel.” He scrunched his face into a tight ball of trying to remember. It didn’t help. “Aaagh! I was trying to save the dolphin. That's all I was remembering.”
“I know.” Shaughnessy smiled, “But if it was a sailing ship, it would be easier to find.” The smile faded. “You didn't tell us you injured one of your captors.”
Worry shadowed Morgan's face. “Is that bad?”
“He broke the law.”
“Human laws? There are human laws about us?”
“No. Not the brief local laws of humans. The older ones. He broke them, he suffered the consequences. The point is we can find him. They would have to take him to a hospital.”
“What?”
“Healers. Their healers. We might be able to find him.”
“It's been days. Many days.”
“There are some, not here, not any of us, but our friends, who can track him. Maybe.” His hands were still for a moment. “Think again, what you can remember about him, even if you couldn't see him clearly. I only felt his presence in the dream. I did not see him.”
Morgan flinched, hunched as if it hurt to remember. It did. He felt a hand light on his shoulder, the kind of reassuring touch his father gave him. He closed his eyes, placed himself in the dream again. His eyes opened, “Dark hair.” He stopped signing, frowned.
“Most humans have dark hair. How tall?” Shaughnessy held up a hand to shoulder height, then to the height of his eyes, then lower, his own eyes questioning.
“Not as tall as you. Taller than Ian. Wider than you, more like...Earla. No, not so strong, more fat. Hairy face. Red here.” Morgan made a motion where the man’s beard had red shading. “It was his leg I broke.” He went silent, thinking. His eyes widened suddenly, “The ship and the squid were on his arm. Here.” He slapped his upper arm. “No, wait, not his. The other man. The one who had the lightning pole.”
“You mean a tattoo?”
“What?”
“Art, like Ian’s sketchbook. Only on the skin.”
“Oh, yes. Yes!” Morgan's face showed relief. "We can find them now?" he signed.
"We can look and know what we are looking for." Shaughnessy signed back. “And the Lady is coming. With her we can catch your boat.
“If we find it.”
“When we find it.“
Morgan stared past Shaughnessy and the trees of the dogyard, and the houses of Chincoteague to something beyond.
“What do you hear?” Shaughnessy asked.
“Gulls. Gulls in the dark. In the marsh guts, on their night nests.” Gulls haunted the edges of the sea, and for one who lived in the sea, they were the voice of the land. Now, they sang to Morgan of the sea, and Shaughnessy felt it. “Everything that fell off a ship, I looked at,“ Morgan told him, “ships that fell to the bottom. Wonderful things humans make with their hands.”
“I know. Hands are an extraordinary thing. It's why I chose to walk on land in human form.”
Morgan nodded, understanding why Whale, who had no hands, would want to do that. “Now I am here, beyond the edge of the land, land where those things came from, and all I can think of is going back to sea. But I can't.
Shaughnessy leaned on the side of the tub, and tucked Morgan under one protective arm, like an orca calf under the fin of a protective elder.






There were folk in the ELF who understood how to hack their way through the jungle of paper that was human culture. They knew how to create identities for people who technically didn't exist, because they did not have birth certificates; perhaps because they had been born a thousand years ago. Those people did not often have death certificates either, because they did not die, at least not with the regularity of humans, therefore, they had to vanish with a plausible explanation before humans questioned why they were aging so well, and there were folk who could make that seem to happen. There were folk who could change memories, erase incidents, remove certain hard evidence: film footage, tapes, bodies. Occasionally something would slip through and wind up as a tabloid cover, or an urban legend. Or maybe a good idea for a science fiction movie, or a fantasy novel.
It took a few days, but a small investigative team set out from Hawk Circle to discreetly scour the ERs of Maryland and Virginia for evidence of a recent patient who had a broken leg and a big fish story.
His was one of the few Morgan remembered clearly, but he seemed to have vanished as completely as an aging Elf.
Chunky Merrow






It has been days trudging across the burning dessert...
Jason frowned, did desert have one s or two? Oh, yeah, burning dessert, that would be when Aunt Gracie made cookies, boy, was she a lousy cookie cook...
...burning desert. Sharkman gasps, drags himself the final yards over the dune.
Eureka! At last the vast and rolling sea lies before him. The sea wind revives him, he races to the surf...
“Ow ow ow ow ow!” Jason did the no flip flop hop (he'd left them in the trike's basket), juggling towel and cooler in one hand and Sharkman's Surf Gear in the other. He bobbled past the beach umbrellas, the towels, the beach chairs, dropping his gear at the high tide line. He looked again at the tide chart he'd got from Barnacle Bill’s Bait and Tackle . Tide: falling. Wind: southeast. Coming off the sea, therefore no bugs on the beach. He pulled his mask around his neck, stuck the fins' foot straps over one arm, and ran into the surf.
“WHHOOOOO HHHHOOOOOOOO!!!!! It was kind of cold.
The surf smacked him in the face and sent him sprawling. He blobbed back up, floundering; mask still around neck, fins still on arm, check.
“WHOOOO HOOOO!” Sharkman plunged over the next breaker with all the grace of a bounding dump truck. He came up in the zone behind the breakers' white manes, where the waves were just beginning to drag their feet on the bottom and curl over. He pulled the mask on, then the fins. He upended like a diving duck and opened his eyes.
The surf was just clear enough to see a few yards. Behind him, sand roiled into the breakers and made zero vis, 'inside the mask' as divers said. Here he could see the bottom, six feet or so down (depending on whether a wave was rolling overhead), see flashing shadows of fish. He dived, soaring across the bottom, slick as a shark. Little lady crabs waved their claws at him; out out off off! The pale shadow of a big whelk shell appeared in a dip in the sandy bottom. He surfaced, breathed deep and dived again, hand reaching, then grabbing the big shell.
“Whooot! He yelled, surfacing with his find.
A couple of bikini girls dipping their toes in the edge of the sea stared at him as if he was some sort of strange jelly blob creature.
He didn't care. Sharkman lived.
Seaward of him, a few kayakers plied the waves, some surfers waited for bigger stuff to ride in on, a couple of swimmers way out on the sandbar stood in waist deep water. Pelicans soared just over the waves. Laughing gulls sent out their high pitched cackles overhead, searching for beach picnic leftovers.
Out there, way beyond the surfers and kayakers, Jason saw a fin. It rose, along with a low, long dark shape. Rolled like a wheel across the surface. Not a shark, they weave across the surface. A dolphin. He blinked, no way, no way it was what it looked like.
A dolphin, a really big one. No way, there weren't any orcas this close to this coast.
It was gone. Maybe it had never been. Maybe it had only been a trick of wave shadow and imagination.
Then it was there again; a long low dark shape with a high bit in the middle. It came closer.
Duh! One of the kayakers. That's all.
The kayaker surfed in, his boat a long, lean, black sea kayak, meant for swift, efficient travel over long distances. The paddler was clad in a black wetsuit. No, not entirely black, with some white bits on it. He flowed along the waves as if he was part of them.
Cool! Sharkman lives!
Jason kicked his fins, surfed in on the next wave, meaning to try to catch the kayak guy and ask him stuff about it.
Wave check, wave timing: epic fail.
The next one was the big one that comes every fifth wave or so. It smacked Sharkman upside the head and sent him head over butt over ears over tail, grinding him into the sand at the sea's edge. He floundered up, spat out some sand.
Mask: check, fins: check.
The next wave smacked him in the butt, sending him sprawling again.
Sharkman, how many times have I told you, never turn your back on the sea!
Jason trudged backwards out of the sea (the only way you could walk in fins) and collapsed on his beach towel, the giant whelk still in his hand.
The man with the black kayak was nowhere in sight.






Morgan felt the Wren's Nest door shut; chunk! His ears registered it too, but they were focused on the video game he was trying to beat. And here on land, sound was softer, as if it were buried in sand. The game screen vanished, eclipsed by a bright green t-shirt with surfboards on it. Morgan looked up in annoyance.
Ian dropped a package in his lap; brown papered and taped to withstand a hurricane. Morgan recognized the ELF logo on the box. He paused the game, looked up, half annoyed, "What?"
"I asked them to send a few more of our games from Hawk Circle for you." Ian eyed the frozen image on the TV screen, "You can start one of them when you get bored with this one, which should be approximately an hour from now. How did you get to that level already?"
Morgan shrugged. “This human magic is easy.” He clicked the game off pause.
“Yeah. You’ve had a lot of practice. Where’s your red-headed instructor?”
“Went off with Cait and the bikes somewhere.”
“Ah. Bri and Aaron?”
A shadow of disappointment flickered across Morgan’s face. “Their parents went to Cambridge, Cait said. The frenchfries went with them.”
Ian gave him a puzzled look, “Oh, smallfry.”
“Smallfry, frenchfry, it's all the same.”
“I think Bri’ll be bored there. She’d rather have your sea-stories.”
Morgan almost smiled. Then his eyes focused on the screen again, his face sharp and still as a shipwreck rock.
Ian picked up an empty ice cream pint, another, tossed them in the kitchen trash. He came back to the living room, half smiling, "You're going to be the size of a walrus if you keep eating that stuff."
Morgan glanced up at Ian, hair nearly the same sandy color as his own, but streaked with earth brown. The young human's eyes were the color of the sunlit leaves in the backyard, and he moved with strength and confidence through this strange world where everyone stood on their tails, where the earth pulled at everything, where air was not just another thin ocean beyond the ceiling of the world, where fire burned, where light and color dazzled the eye.
"Why don’t we go for a swim in Tom’s Cove." Ian suggested.
Morgan gave him a withering look, and turned his eyes back to the screen.
“It’s quiet there. Build yourself up for the next assault on the surf.”
Morgan’s eyes stayed on the video screen. There was no point to floundering about on the surface. It was not the same as sailing through clear green water or a silver cloud of herring.
"You can't just stay here, hidden away from the sun and air.”
I don't want sun and air, I want my sea back.
"We could hike around the park, that offroad chair Earla designed'll handle any of the trails." Ian studied him, "I'll race you on my bike."
Morgan punched the controller’s buttons, a bit harder than necessary.
"Ah, I know how you feel."
Human, how could you know? You who have lived no more summers than the grains of sand I could hold on a fingertip. I swam these waters before your grandfathers filled the sea with the noise of their engines. Before most of the great whales vanished. Before shark and oyster and sturgeon were decimated. Onscreen, a medieval fighter swung a sword with vengeance.
"Morgan?"
"Leave me alone." Morgan said. He heard Ian let out a hiss of air, the sound Morgan had come to recognize as a sigh of frustration, a sound that could not be made by anyone who breathed water.
"Morgan. Ok, I know that's not even your real name. I can’t pronounce that one because I'm just a Merrow-impaired human.” Ian paused, then, quietly, “We need you."
"Need me?" Morgan’s voice was edgy with anger he hadn't even known was there.
"You're the one who knows what the boat smells like, the taste of the water around the hull, the sound of the engines."
Morgan glared at the video screen, silent.
Ian hesitated, the words he needed lost.
"And the boat has vanished into the great sea. A sea I can no longer swim. Go away."
Ian stood, a shadow at the edge of Morgan's field of vision. He stayed silent for awhile.
Morgan went back to ignoring him.
Ian's hand moved with the swiftness of a wolf snapping up a mouse and Morgan found his thumbs poised over empty air.
Ian danced back, a wolf daring his packmate to steal back his toy.
Morgan was in no mood for that kind of game. His tail flicked out; a move that had stunned sharks, broken one of his captors, stove in the sides of whaleboats. Among his friends, he always held back his power, but anger and frustration cut it loose this time, leaping like a harpooned whale.
Ian leapt the sweep of the tail, but the edge of the fin caught his foot and he went down, rolling out of the way.
Bran appeared in the doorway, "What?"
"Nothing.” Ian said. He stayed on the floor, holding his ankle, face struggling to stay calm.
Bran's eyes went from Ian to Morgan. He came across the small room in two steps and stood before Morgan. A hard hand gripped Morgan's face, eyes like a mountain storm about to break looked into sea-eyes. "That's my swordbrother." Bran said very softly, "He helped heal you. I think you owe him an apology."
Bran was not the Ravenkin's real name, anymore than Morgan was his own. It was the one he used now. He'd had others, many in the long long years he'd walked the land, longer than the years Morgan had swum the waters of the Atlantic. He was not Seafolk, yet he knew the sea. Raven was sky and wind and rain and weather. Thunderbird. With the Merrows and Selkies his kin had raised storms, or calmed them.
Right now, he looked like he was about to raise one all by himself.
Morgan found it hard to keep looking in his eyes, but he did. You don't understand.
Yes, I do.
And Morgan saw why: Fire and falling and a tangle of wood and cloth and engine, and a Ravenkin who could no longer fly. Not on his own damaged wings, or on the artificial wings the humans had made for themselves, the ones that had nearly killed him. It had happened when Ian's grandfather was young, and not even the great healers of the Firstborn could mend that broken wing.
But, eventually, a mere human had; the Swordbrother Ian.






From his spot on the floor by the door, all Ian saw was Bran and Morgan in an eyelock. It took all of five seconds, as humans counted such things. He had seen things like this take longer. Much longer. He had learned that to an Elf, five heartbeats or three days was much the same.
Five seconds. Nothing happened, no epic struggle from the pages of a comic book, no special effects laden movie action scene. But Ian knew there was a war going on. One he could not help his swordbrother with this time.
Five seconds later Morgan dropped his eyes, and sagged in the chair. Bran knelt and gathered him in his arms and held him.






"Want me to call Shaughnessy?'
"No, I think I can handle it myself." Ian hopped, one-footed, an arm around Bran's shoulders.
"It's broken..." Bran started to say.
"Hairline, maybe. Or a bone bruise. Just get me out to the yard ok?"
"What happened? You dodge my sweeps all the time."
"I guess Merrows are faster." Ian said.
"No way, Dogbreath."
"Way, Wingnut."
"You just weren't expecting a guy in a wheelchair to kick your butt."
Morgan huddled in his chair, a few feet from the door, distress on his face. The human words of apology were short, too short.
"You know, we can't get through the door at the same time," Ian said.
Bran grunted something that sounded like a disagreement and juggled Ian to starboard.
"Ow. Left, left. Your other left!"
Bran continued more or less to starboard.
“Shield side, not sword side!”
"I’m ambidextrous. Anyway, I never used a shield."
“Port then.”
Bran juggled Ian back to port, grunting with the effort.
"You know, I could probably crawl out there faster."
"Why not just use my chair?" Morgan said quietly.
Raven and Wolf looked at each other, "Brilliant, Sherlock, why didn't you think of that," Ian said to Bran.
Morgan swung out of the chair, sitting on the floor. Bran lowered Ian into it and shoved him out the door, down the ramp that Earla had installed over the steps for Morgan's benefit, and into the yard. "Now where?"
"In the back."
"By the brambly stuff? And the poison ivy?"
"Yeah, lots of energy there. It's green, it's growing." Ian eyed the wild backyard tangle, “rather ferociously.”
Bran started to shove the chair, Ian caught the handgrips and pulled away. He stopped by the raspberries, and looked up at Bran.
Bran eased him out and let him down on the sandy grass.
"Get Morgan will..."
Bran was already heading back into the house with the chair.






Ian sat in the sandy grass, framed by a mad tangle of poison ivy, raspberries and greenbriar. Loblollys rose behind the undergrowth, along with a small stand of imported bamboo someone had brought to the island years ago. He breathed, like a dolphin surfacing; once, twice, thrice. He felt his own energy descend like roots into the ground. He felt the green growing energy of the tangle of woods behind him. The bump of sand that was Chincoteague, rising out of the marsh and shallow waters of the bay. The trees and greenbriar and saltmarsh cordgrass and roses and bamboo. To those who could see it, the energy was green as light through spring leaves or clear water.
Bran sat facing him, hands out, not quite touching him. He breathed in the power of sky and rain and cloud and the hint of salt spray from the sea. To those who could see, he glowed with light like the sky over mountains. Even if someone had seen them (past the fence and the green things) they would only have seen three men, perhaps discussing the latest baseball scores.
Morgan saw the light; green earth and blue sky, and how it flowed together, coalesced at Ian's ankle. It glowed, like turquoise sea. It made Morgan's heart ache. He hadn't planned it, but the song happened anyway. It flowed out of him. A song of apology, of longing, of sorrow, of loss.
The turquoise light sputtered like a candle flame.
The song needed to strengthen that light, not blow it out. It shifted, like the wind that blows off the cool sea by day, then from the cooler land by night. The song of a dolphin pod on the move. The wail of a flock of seabirds at dawn. The distant song of a wolfpack heard from the rocky shore. The light glowed, like the sea at dawn. The song flowed, danced around it, encouraged it to burn brighter. From across the street, Holly’s pack joined in.
Ian moved his hands and the light sank back into the earth. He opened his eyes.
Morgan fell silent, watching Ian with wide, bright eyes.
"Well?" Bran said.
"Yeah." Ian flexed his ankle, smiled, "Yeah."
Morgan let out a breath. A sigh of relief, the kind of sound that could not be made by one who breathed water.
Ian reached over, caught Morgan's hand, gripped it hard, like a brother.
Pack, pod, flock. Morgan smiled.
"I think," Bran said, "It's time to take you back to sea."
“I’ve been back to sea.” Morgan began, and his voice choked on the last of it.
Bran and Ian reached for him at the same time, and at the same time said, “We have something that might help.”


Scurvy Cumbersome Underwater Bothersome Apparatus
(S.C.U.B.A.)






"Singularly confused unicorn breeding association." Ian said.
"Simply cantankerous umiak building agency." Bran snapped back.
"Salesmen compiling underwear bearing aardvarks." Ian suggested.
"Salmon carrying umbrellas boarding alpacas." Bran said.
“Somewhat crabby undercover beached amphibians.” Ian said.
"I am not crabby.” Morgan said. He glanced at Shaughnessy, “Seven curious Uzbekian bouncing aardwolves."
"Where the heck did you get that?" Ian said in astonishment. He followed Morgan's glance to Shaughnessy.
Shaughnessy’s face was pure innocence. His eyes wide sea-grey pools of purity.
"Not fair." Ian said, "telepathy doesn't count."






S.C.U.B.A.
Self Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus. Morgan held up a tentacley tangle of hoses, each about as fat as one of his fingers, and stared at it uncertainly. Two of the hoses ended in fat round objects, that just fit in his hand, one just ended, and a fourth ended in an object that made him think of the neoprene boots Bran was wearing. In fact, Bran had called it a boot, though only a whelk could fit a foot in it. What fit in it instead, were a number of smaller round things with numbers and needles that told a diver how long and how deep he was and what direction he was going in. All of that was somehow really important to land folk, human or otherwise. The whole octopus tangle attached to eighty cubic feet of air, squished by mysterious human magic into an aluminum tank a third the size of Morgan's tail. Air one had to pay money for.
Humans were weird.
The air tank attached to a bulky, scratchy piece of human clothing; an inflatable vest called a bouyancy compensator. It was not called by its proper name, but by its letters; BC. A lot of things in the human world were like that; CD, DVD, ATM, ATV, TV, NASA, SCUBA. It made Morgan’s head spin.
The BC would help a diver float or sink, depending how much air was pumped in or out of it. To protect Morgan's skin, there was a light stretchy shirt like the kind kayakers and surfers wore to protect them from the sun. To Morgan, it looked like a comic book superhero suit. For Ian, Bran and Shaughnessy, there was also a weight belt, to neutralize the buoyancy of the layers of neoprene that kept them warm in a world without sunlight and fire.
Land folk...even the Elves...needed so much stuff to just visit his world. And once they were there, they could not stay very long at all. They got cold. They used all their air. And stranger things happened: their blood absorbed nitrogen from the compressed air they breathed and if they stayed too long or too deep, it bubbled out of their blood and hurt or killed them. Or, Shaughnessy had explained, if you held your breath as you rose toward the surface, the compressed air in your lungs expanded like a pufferfish in a panic, and a bubble could burst through your lungs into the rivers of your blood, blocking the life-energy to something important, like your brain, or your heart.
Morgan perched now on the edge of a broad, flat sit-on kayak, remembering when he had first entered the sea. His mother had woven his cap from her own hair, sung the sea-songs. The distant deserted beach was warm with sun. The colors of sea and sky and tree and flower were brilliant, and the earth pulled on him, holding him down when he wasn't safe in his mother's arms. Then she had taken him down to the breaking waves, splashing through them, laughing and reassuring him that Mannanan’s horses would bear him up, not trample him into the sand. Then he had taken his first breath of the cool salt sea, the great circle of life that cloaked the world like his mother's hair.
A hot June sun was floating up over the thin line of sand that separated Tom’s Cove from the great ocean beyond. The tide was high, and Tom’s Cove was as deep as it ever would be; five or six feet. It was deeper this day, tomorrow’s full moon made this a spring tide, the highest of the month. The black kayak thrummed with sea songs no human could hear, Shaughnessy sat on the other side of it, balancing it, and watching as Bran adjusted Morgan's scuba gear. Ian floated on the other kayak, the smaller yellow sit-on, it made Morgan think of bananas. In the middle of that one sprawled Surf, soggy from swimming, and cheerfully drooling on the gear. A few yards away floated a bright red dive flag, slashed with a white stripe, waving in the sea breeze, warning boats that there were divers down.
"Won't need a weight belt at least, doesn't need a wetsuit either. Not yet anyway." Bran said.
Not yet. The loss of his cap hadn't affected his ability to see underwater, to stay warm, or to make people see what he wanted them to see when they saw him. Not yet.
Like now; all that the clammers and windsurfers in Tom's Cove would see if they came close was a blond kid in surfer shorts and dive fins.
Nothing to worry about. Not yet.
A stray horsefly, blown on the wind from the marsh, buzzed around his ear. He curled his tail and swatted at it.
"You know, humans can't do that." Ian said.
"Huh?"
"Touch their ears with their feet."
"Oh." Morgan sat again, wondering how humans managed to spend so much time on their butts. His was beginning to feel a bit flattened and sore. He really didn't like gravity very much.
Bran turned to Shaughnessy, "If he actually needed a weight belt, we'd have to use a weight integrated BC. He's got no hips."
Shaughnessy nodded. Morgan's ribcage and spine tapered straight into his tail; there was no pelvis, no hips, not even the faint vestige of bone like whales kept from their days on land. "He really ought to try to use a mask though. It's going to look weird if someone sees him." Shaughnessy signed.
Morgan had flatly refused to use the dive mask, it squeezed his head, tangled his hair, and closed off his vision to a tunnel straight in front of him. I feel like I'm wearing a jellyfish on my face he'd said. And doing an illusion of a mask was no better. He could see the illusion too, so it cut off his vision as well as a real mask.
"Ok buddy, ready?" Bran asked, thumping him on the shoulder.
Surf nudged him, grinning a great Newfie grin.
Morgan buried a hand in Surf's thick head fuzz, flashed the divers' "ok" sign to Bran and Shaughnessy and Ian; first finger and thumb making a circle. He didn't really feel ok, he didn't trust the human technology, he didn't like the weight of it, the smell and taste of plastic and rubber and metal, the awkwardness. He felt like an oversized hermit crab, and like the crab wearing somebody else's shell, he was going to go straight into the bottom muck and never come back up.
Don't worry, Surf gave him a reassuring and soggy schlurp.
Bran gave his own gear one last check and slid into the somewhat murky chop in the middle of Tom's Cove. His fintips brushed the bottom, his head just out of the water. He fed some air into his BC and floated up, reached out a hand. "Come on."
Morgan took a deep breath...of air...and splashed back into his own world.
A world gone suddenly alien. The air in the BC made it float up and choke him. The regulator honked like an angry goose and tried to wiggle loose in the chop. Morgan bit down on it and the rubber mouthpiece disintegrated between teeth that were designed to crack shells. Bran reached over and yanked on the BC, made an adjustment and tilted Morgan back in a position only slightly more comfortable. He saw the regulator with its chewed mouthpiece, frowned and stuck it through a stray strap on the BC. He pulled out the octopus, the backup regulator, and handed that to Morgan. "I forgot about Merrow teeth. Maybe Earla will have to make you a mouthpiece out of titanium." He flashed the dive sign, "Ok?"
Morgan nodded. Returned the sign. Yeah, sure. And maybe I'll dance on that Dancing With the Stars show too.
"Stick your face in the water. The regulator works better that way."
Morgan tilted forward, thrashed forward. The BC floated him in the chop like a mad balloon. Surf plunged off the kayak and swam in worried circles around him. Bran reached for the left side of Morgan's chest and let some air out of the BC. Morgan sank below the waves and tried to remember how to breathe underwater. He took a breath, water flowed in through his nose and he floundered back to the surface. One hand found Surf's rump fur and hung on.
Shaughnessy, all 6'5" of him standing firmly on the bottom, grabbed Morgan by the straps of his BC and lifted him above the reach of the low chop.
"You're not supposed to breathe through your nose," Bran said. He looked at Shaughnessy.
"He really ought to have that mask." Ian said from the yellow boat. "The mask would cover his nose, and keep the water out. I guess he’s used to breathing through his nose underwater."
"No! No." Morgan sputtered. "I forgot. Breathe through my mouth, right?"
"Yeah," Bran said, "that's where the mouthpiece goes, not up your nose."
"Oof." Surf suggested. Try again.
"Ok. Yeah. Ok. Let's try again." Morgan said, feeling not at all like trying again. He took a breath of the warm air of Tom's Cove, full of the rich smells of marsh and sea, and engine oil and exhaust. He stuck the regulator back in his mouth and Shaughnessy let him back down to bob like a rubber duck in his inflated BC. Morgan reached for the inflator and let the air out of both lungs and BC. He sank.
Bran hung in front of him, one hand on Morgan's BC, steadying him. Surf's white paws paddled by, then vanished as he climbed back onto the black kayak. A moment later, Shaughnessy appeared. "Breathe." Shaughnessy signed. His hand moved in slow easy waves, like the roll of a whale across the surface.
Morgan breathed. And felt the strange sensation of cool, dry air flowing into his lungs, even though he was surrounded by water. The regulator wasn't honking now that it was submerged, but the rhythmic roar of the escaping exhaust bubbles was like the roar of boat engines. He couldn't hear the rustle of sand moving in the current. He couldn't hear the speech of fish, the distant crash of wave on shore, the faraway song of whales, the scrape of a whelk walking across the sand. He might as well be as Deaf as Shaughnessy. And the murky wind and current and boat-churned waters of Tom's Cove were not to his liking. He had swum in surf, where you could only see with your hands, but since humans had traded sails for noisy engines that made the sea taste foul, Morgan had not come into the inlets and bays, where there was more boat traffic than in the open sea. He had stayed in the deeps where the water was cold and clear.
He fixed his sea-grey eyes on Shaughnessy's own sea-eyes.
"I know, I know." Shaughnessy signed. "Human technology. Weird stuff. Took me awhile to get used to it too."
"But you never breathed water. Breathing air underwater is..." Morgan gasped and floundered to the surface.
Shaughnessy caught him, held him with his face just above the low waves. "Easy, easy." he said out loud. He turned Morgan's head and looked into his eyes again.
Morgan made the "ok" sign, stuck the regulator back in his mouth and sank. He could feel the water pressure build up in his ears.
Shaughnessy put a hand to his own nose.
Oh, yeah, pinch nose and equalize ears. Something Morgan had never, ever had to do, breathing water.
Shaughnessy signed, "I never breathed water. But I am used to holding my breath in the sea; in my true form or in this one. Learning to keep breathing when I was below the surface, that was hard." His eyes crinkled in amusement. "I had a very patient teacher."
"One of the other Seafolk?"
"No, human. And the gear was harder to use back then."
"When humans still had sails?"
"No, later, less than a lifetime of Men ago."
"They change so fast." Morgan was floating now, just off the bottom, no longer a vertical man, but horizontal like a fish. The way he was meant to be. Bran floated off his left side, and Shaughnessy stayed in front, facing him. Morgan breathed, slower now, more relaxed. His tail tip touched the sandy bottom, a small crab scuttled past and it tickled. Morgan breathed in and floated up a few hands-lengths, breathed out and floated down.
"Good." Shaughnessy signed. He turned with dolphin grace, flicked one black and white dive fin and drifted off.
Morgan followed with a single flick of his tail, the sort of flick that shot him effortlessly past cruising dolphins. The tank lurched on his back, the BC dragged at the water, slowing him to a snail's crawl. He grumbled into the regulator, and realized he couldn't talk underwater, except with his hands. He turned to Bran, signed as loud as he could, "This is..." he could not think of a sign adequate to describe his frustration.
Bran laid a reassuring hand on Morgan's shoulder, "...like flying a loud, clunky sputtering chopper instead of just being a bird."




Fish Out of Water






Unlike humans, Whale needed to think about breathing. Even when they dozed, half of the whale or dolphin mind was awake, remembering to breathe. They had to travel to the ceiling of their world to breathe; gliding across it like a wheel...whale, wheel, whale...breathing out and breathing in, in one brief blast. Like humans, Merrows were surrounded by what they breathed, they did not think about it. They swam, they floated, they slept, they breathed. And when they climbed out onto the edges of the land, they breathed the air.
They had no reason to ever hold their breath.
Morgan had a reason now. And it was making him crazy.
Scuba was easy compared to this.
Shaughnessy swam, clad in mask, fins and snorkel, surfacing and diving, flying just under the surface as easily as a dolphin. Morgan followed him, without a mask, wearing his own natural fins(disguised by an illusion), snorkel stuck through Earla’s headband. With the snorkel sticking out of the water, Morgan was like a dolphin, blowhole on the top of his head where it belonged. He could breathe fine as long as he stayed on the surface, but to go under, he had to hold his breath.
He was not having much luck; holding his breath at the right time, remembering to breathe out when he surfaced, remembering to wait (one, two, three) for the snorkel to drain a bit before he breathed out, remembering to BLAST the air out as he cleared the snorkel, coordinating all of the above...
He surfaced again and again, spitting out the snorkel and expelling gouts of water. "This is nuts!" he signed as loud as he could to Shaughnessy.
Shaughnessy just smiled and turned and swam off.
Easy. Fluid. Like a dolphin.
"Yeah, it's easy for you Whaleboy." Morgan muttered under his breath. Not the most polite thing to say about one of the Elders, but he didn't really care right now. He just wanted his cap back.
He was stuck with a headband and a snorkel.
At least he could really swim this way, unencumbered by excess gear.
Swim, dive, choke, sputter. Swim, dive, choke, sputter.
Well, he was getting good at the sputter part.
He surfaced, tail coiled under him.
Shaughnessy surfaced beside him, glanced at him. His easy smile faded. He pointed down at Morgan’s tail, stirring the weed bed. “Your illusion is slipping.” He signed.
Can’t be... Morgan looked down and saw the mooncurve of his tail. He swore like a mariner (a late night movie had given him some interesting English words), glad Shaughnessy couldn’t hear it. He focused on his tail.
Nothing happened.
Come on, this is easy. You think of what you want them to see, of how the light dances off it.
His tail remained a tail.
Shaughnessy frowned.
Morgan gave him a look just short of panic.
“I don’t do illusions.” Shaughnessy signed, “I can’t help you.”
It’s beginning. With the cap lost, I’m losing who I am.
“Try again.”
Morgan shut his eyes, thought of the shape of legs, of his distant ancestors who had danced on land before turning to the sea. But I don’t want to be on land anymore.
But I’m stuck there. He felt a touch on his shoulder, Morgan cracked an eyelid.
“Come on.” Shaughnessy said. “Try again.”
The tail wavered, and the mooncurve shifted into a pair of bright green fins with ‘Mares’ printed across them.
Morgan breathed out a great sigh of relief.
For now, he was still part of the sea.








The wind was nearly still and the waters off the west side of Chincoteague were flat under the hot June sun. To the south, a line of houses straggled alongside the channel, then more houses, a few condos, hotels, and docks and deepsea fishing boats and the drawbridge. To the north lay Wildcat Marsh, part of the Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge, home to marsh grass, birds and lots of bloodsucking bugs. West lay the expanse of the bay, and east the rest of Chincoteague Island, and beyond, the long low dragon shape of Assateague. The full moon would rise as the sun sank. It had passed high noon and was starting its swim down into the west. The tide was pouring back into the shallow waters around the two islands, it would be at its highest just before sunset.
Morgan and Shaughnessy paddled north on the incoming tide. Morgan was used to using his tail for propulsion, not his arms, though they were strong enough. Balancing on the thin churning film that was the boundary between water and air was harder. Like riding a horse, Ian had explained. Like sailing the wind, Bran had said. Like skateboarding, Zan had told him. Morgan had done none of those things. He had played on the surface many times before, leaping like dolphin or marlin into the wind, but he had been in the water when he started his leap. Ian’s knife-blade boat floated on the water; Artemis rolled with each wave, tossed like a wild pony, spun as if to throw Morgan back into the sea.
“Maybe,” Morgan suggested, heaving on the paddle to little effect, “he should have named her after a sea goddess, not an earth one.”
“She is well named.” Shaughnessy replied, “Like the Huntress, she will help you if you know how to speak to her.”
Morgan struggled to learn that language. He knew boats from below. He liked their shapes; like dolphin or whale or fish. He had brought driftwood to hunters of Greenland for their kayaks long ago. He had watched them slide out into the rough cold sea after food for their families.
Paddling one was wholly different than watching.
At last Shaughnessy signalled for a halt. Here, the currents and eelgrass had left the water clear as it was far out to sea. Morgan’s arms ached. His center ached from the twisting motion of his upper body, his tail ached from kinking against the inside of the hull. His fin even ached from being bent like a concealed coral polyp. Shaughnessy dropped anchor in four feet of water. Morgan backpaddled to a halt, frowned, considered how he was going to get out of this thing.
Artemis twitched on a wave and dumped him unceremoniously into the bay.
Morgan popped to the surface, shouting expletives at the wind, the waves and the boat. Most of them were things he had learned from the bits of human culture he saw on TV, on DVDs, on his games.
Shaughnessy could not hear him, but he could read his face. Shaughnessy gave him a long patient look. Made a loop-de-loop motion with his hand.
Morgan, grumbling, chased down the boat, drifting away on the wind. He flipped Artemis over and yanked the bilge pump out from under the deck bungees. With his yet bent and aching tail propped against the sandy bottom, he began bailing Artemis out. A hundred yards away, a pair of ospreys screamed at them from their nest atop a tall pole. He was sure they were laughing. He pulled out his snorkel, stuck it through the headband Earla had designed, and stuck his face in the water.
Another sound came across the water, a nearby sound, like dolphin songs.
Morgan spyhopped, balancing on his tail. The marshgrass shore was a handful of lengths away, he could see the vague blur of a house, and a dock protruding into the water.
“Morgan!” someone shouted.
One hand on Artemis, his tail disguised for the time being, Morgan swam toward the dock.
“Why are you in the water, and not in the boat?” came Cait’s voice.
A closer disturbance in the water erupted into blond curls, Bri giggled and signed at him, “You fell out.”
“Did not.”
“Saw you.”
He made a face at her. “Why are you here?”
“This is where we are staying this summer.” Bri said to Morgan, pointing at the little house behind them.
“Staying?” Morgan questioned.
Bri tried another Sign, “Living.”
“You live here.” Morgan’s hand made a sweep of the world around him; marsh and island and sea beyond.
“We live here.” Bri pointed at the house, her face showing bewilderment.
Like Holly’s house. Like ships at sea, came the whisper of Shaughnessy’s thought.
Oh. Morgan thought. It’s weird how they need walls, floors, ceilings. Things to sit on. Places to store more things.
Shaughnessy smiled in agreement.
“Don’t fish-people have houses, under the sea?” Bri was asking.
Morgan glanced up at the dock, but Cait had vanished to the other end of it, gesturing in sign at Aaron, bent intently over his sketchbook. “No.” Morgan’s hand made a sweep again of the whole horizon, “We live...all of this is our home.”
“Oh.” Bri giggled, “What do you do when it rains?”
Morgan laughed.
“Shaughnessy said he would bring you, to show me dolphins.”
“Dolphins?”
“Dolphins. I want to see dolphins.”
Morgan gestured at Shaughnessy, “There’s one, right now.”
“He’s a whale.”
“Orca is the biggest of the dolphins.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
“I want to see.”
“Not here, it’s too shallow for him to be Orca.”
Bri made a face.
“What about Cait and Aaron?”
Bri shrugged, “They’re doing other stuff.”
“I don’t know if I can find any dolphins.”
Bri looked disappointed.
“They might be busy hunting, or playing. They might be far out at sea. There are many other things here to see now.” Morgan suggested.
“What?”
Morgan searched for the human names, for the signs, Shaughnessy had taught him. “Burrfish.” Shaughnessy prompted.
“Pipefish.” Morgan added. “Triggerfish. Flounder. Lizardfish.”
“Lizardfish?” Bri made a face, “That’s weird.”
“They hide in the sand. When you disturb them, they go...” his hand flicked like an arrow, released, “POOOF!”
Bri giggled. “Show me one.”
“Show you?”
“You are Fishboy. You know where they are.”
“Ok.”
"Why are you using a snorkel? Can't you breathe water?"
"No. Not now."
"Why?"
He told her the tale; pirates and kidnapping and the stealing of his cap.
Bri’s angelic face looked older, sadder for a moment; “Like Bran’s feather.”
“You know of that?” Morgan said, wide-eyed.
“Yes. But I won’t tell.”
“I know.”
“Bran and the others, they’ll help you find your cap.”
Morgan nodded.
“Can I help?”
“I don’t think so, Little Fishgirl. But if you see any pirate ships...” he almost smiled, “let me know.”
“Ok.”
Morgan fiddled with the snorkel, "How did you learn to use this?"
"My dad taught me." Bri gestured at Shaughnessy, “Is he teaching you?"
"Yes. I'm not very good at it."
"I wasn't very good at it at first either. But now I can hold my breath a long long time.” She looked at Shaughnessy again, “Maybe not as long as him.”
“Nobody can hold their breath as long as him. Except the seal folk.” Morgan laughed. “Come one, I’ll show you a lizardfish.”
“And a burrfish too.” Bri said.
“Ok, and a burrfish.”
“Are there seahorses? I saw one in the aquarium at the visitor’s center.”
“There are a few.”
“Show me!”
They swam out from the dock in three feet of clear, tea-colored water. At first there were only green-brown weedbeds splotched with the oranges and yellows and coral colors of sponge and tunicate. Bri warbled and tootled through the snorkel, like a dolphin, like a circling seabird.
Below them in the weeds appeared a squiggle of dark, like a carousel horse in slow motion. Morgan pointed, from where he floated on the surface. Bri chirrupped with glee, floating just above the seahorse, then dived down, wriggling like an otter pup. She hovered, just off the bottom, one hand cupped around the seahorse, not quite touching, its dark graceful curves like a question mark against the pale page of her hand.
They found the burrfish; a boxy, thorny collection of stripes with eyes like a cartoon character. It stared at its reflection in Bri’s mask. Morgan caught it gently and held it up. It puffed itself up in surprise, then wobbled off, a weird cartoon balloon. Bri giggled through the snorkel and popped to the surface. She spat out the snorkel and signed to Morgan, “If they suck it all in, do they look like this?” She sucked in her cheeks and made a fishface.
Morgan laughed.
They found lizardfish and skate, flounder and a pair of enormous triggerfish. Morgan floated on the surface, breathing through his artificial blowhole, trying to hold his breath and mostly failing. He watched Bri dive, hold her breath for fifty heartbeats. It was easy for this child of Men, but not for a Merrow.
Bri surfaced. “No dolphins,” she signed, sighing.
“Sorry, no dolphins today.” Morgan signed back. “Except for the one really big one.”
Something splashed into the water, nearly on Bri’s head, she turned, caught a small, round object, soggy with bay water, and threw it back. Cait stood in the water just off the dock, signing; “Come back, it’s time for dinner.”
“I guess I have to go now.”
Morgan nodded. “Later, Little Fishgirl.”
“Later Fishboy. Later we’ll find dolphins.” Bri said.






Morgan watched her swim back to the dock, still warbling like a dolphin. Her voice was strong and interesting. And somehow familiar.
Morgan the Merrow could still not hold his breath any more than the Orcafolk could breathe water. Around him, the water shifted, the tide began to move out, down the bay, through the channel. Little waves sprang up, sloshing against the dock, against the kayaks, against Morgan, over and over, more times than he had fingers. A line of brown pelicans flew over, beating the air like pterodactyls. One peeled off and folded himself, diving down on a fish. A black and white bird skimmed the waves, unzipping the water with her beak: a skimmer. The sun crept a little farther across the sky.
Then it hit him like a breaker. Bri’s songs were familiar because they reminded him of his mother's sea-songs.
You remember your fear. Shaughnessy had said. The fear of a young Merrow fleeing from those who had stolen his cap. The fear of a Merrow child pulling a floundering sailor from burning wreckage; the incomprehensible fear that man had of the reaching, cold waves. Fear Morgan had felt himself. The fear of a very small Merrow staring out at the Great Big Blue Unknown of the sea, when all he had known was the caress of sunlight and seawind, the warmth of sand, the pull of gravity.
His mother’s songs describing the wonders of that sea. His folk had been landfolk once. Once, so long ago they barely remembered, except at the beginning, before their mothers sang the seasongs. When that magic was woven, along with their caps, they became one with the Great Sea. Then, and only then, it was home.
Bri’s songs were seasongs.
Morgan poured himself back into the water, remembering those songs. They were no words that he knew, but they carried the rhythms of wind and wave and dolphin and bird. He drifted, remembered how he'd first breathed water. How he'd gone from air and sunlight bordered by rock and tree, to cool green deeps where manta rays flew like dreams.
He breathed and dived, and stopped breathing. The water here was tea-colored, not green, not yet completely warmed by summer sun. No mantas here, in these shallows, just their brothers, the southern stingrays, cownose and clearnose rays. Morgan slid past the bottom and a pair of whelks entwined, saw a startled blue crab scuttle sideways out of the way, caught the sunlit flash of killifish. He rolled back to the surface and breathed out, hard, like Whale.
The snorkel cleared and there was air in his mouth, not water this time. He grinned around the mouthpiece and dove again.
And again, and again, each time holding his breath just a little longer. He had not been in these shallow waters for a long time; most bays and channels were too noisy with boats and fouled with leaking oil. Now he flew across eelgrass and widgeongrass, algaes and sponges, deadman’s fingers and sea pork, clam mammies and moon jellies. This was where it all began. This was where all the life he knew from the great sea got its start. Burrfish and triggerfish, terrapins and seahorses. He swept by them, delighted in them. Leapt like a playing dolphin.
He finally came up, spyhopping at the surface, he listened, but away east, where the dock was a grey blur to him, there was silence. Only the distant whistle of the ospreys came across the water.
"Thanks Little Fishgirl," Morgan said softly, "thanks for the song."






They paddled back, this time Artemis rode the waves nearly as easily as Morgan had under his own power.
Shaughnessy signalled for Morgan to stop. He laid his paddle across his sprayskirt, signed, “It’s good you showed the bay to Bri.”
“I have not dealt with their kind much before.”
“I know.”
“I have seen them burn all the trees from their islands, tasted the poisons they leave in the water, seen the great whales all but vanish, seen the ghost nets drifting full of uneaten fish, yet I have never raised a storm against them.”
“You have saved some of them.”
“Do you think showing one small girl a burrfish will change things?”
“In twenty years, who will be responsible for the rivers, the bays, the sea?” Shaughnessy signed.
“We have ever been the Guardians.” Morgan told him.
Shaughnessy shook his head, “In twenty years, Aaron and Cait and Bri; all of the children of their generation will be grown, and making the decisions that change the world. We have always been the Guardians, Guides, but it is these kids who will change things.
“They will change things more than one Merrow, I guess.”
“More than any of us.”
They were silent for a long time, silence broken only by the quiet ripple of paddles slipping into the water, wind, and the keening cry of an osprey.
“Maybe...” Morgan paused, doubtful...”
Shaughnessy stood silent, waiting with the patience of one who has practiced a very long time.
“Maybe I can help teach them to change things.”






Ian moved across the twilight of Holly's dogyard. No, danced. He coiled and uncoiled like a striking snake. Pounded downward like a breaking wave. Hands moved like falcon talons, like the claws of a great cat. He froze in mid-stride, motionless as if Time itself had stopped, a hunting heron, waiting for prey. The heron struck. He was a lightning bolt, a blur of motion, faster than the eye could follow. Then he slowed, like a sweep of rain across the grass, drew himself together, rooted as deep as an ancient tree and bowed, westward.
Morgan watched from his pool, silent. Dogs lay like leftover snowdrifts in the shadows. From the Wren's Nest, across the street, came faint sounds of music and talk. "Why do you do that?" Morgan asked.
Ian regarded him for a moment, as if he had asked; why do you breathe? "It strengthens mind, body and spirit. Helps bring them into balance."
"You look like you are hunting. Or fighting someone."
"I am. It's a martial arts form. It's based on fighting skills."
"Who are you fighting?"
"Myself."
"What?"
"My greatest enemy is myself."
"Humans are weird." Morgan said.
"Yeah, I know." Ian came to lean on the edge of Morgan's tub, "It was Shaughnessy who taught me that, by the way."
"He is Seafolk. He would not have learned that in his world."
"He swam to China once."
"Where?"
"On the far side of the world." Ian said.
"Oh. Why?"
Ian shrugged, "Wanted to see the world, I guess. Learn something new."
"What did he learn?"
"Lots of stuff. He's only told me some of it; martial arts, medicine, stories, songs. Bad jokes. Whatever a people know."
"Ah."
"What do your folk do to strengthen mind, body and spirit?" Ian asked.
Morgan regarded Ian for several breaths, as if he had asked; why do you breathe? There were no words in Ian's tongue to answer such a question. "We are." he said at last.
"Oh." Ian nodded, as if he understood. "Like the dogs. Like Wolf. Like Whale. Like Raven. They live, they breathe, they run, they hunt, they swim, they fly. They are."
"Yes."
Ian leaned on the edge of the tub for awhile, staring up at the stars, silent. Morgan leaned on the other side, tail making gentle sweeps in the shallow pool. He turned his gaze skyward too, staring through the glasses Earla had designed for him."What are stars?" he said suddenly.
"What do you mean, what..." Ian said in surprise.
“Little lights in the sky, like the flashes of comb jellies. I never saw them before, none of my folk have.” he touched the glasses, “only a great black bowl above, and the bright spot of the moon. We hear of them from others, we hear stories of how they came to be, how Raven threw the bag of stars into the sky. But what are they?”
"Zan didn't give you the astronomy lecture?”
Morgan smiled, “He missed that one.”
“OK, “ Ian frowned, trying to conjure up his gradeschool astronomy lectures, and translate them to someone who had always lived underwater.. “...ah, above your ocean is an ocean of air, and beyond that an ocean of space. Fairly empty space. And floating in the emptiness of space, suns, like ours, but so far away they are no brighter than the flashes of comb jellies in the sea."
"Do they float around?"
"Yes. I mean, they appear to be still, but they're really moving, only so far away that they seem to be still. And it takes their light centuries to get here."
"How do you know all these things?" You are younger than a child of the Merrows, and your lives are as brief as a summer storm.
"Science." Ian said, "Scientists figure it out. They observe and they map and measure and peer through their telescopes and microscopes and calculate the square root of pi and make it all fit on a nice neat chart somewhere."
Morgan regarded him for a moment as if he were some strange new lifeform he'd just discovered on the bottom of the sea. "Humans are really weird." he said at last.
"Yeah, I know."








Morgan hunched over a bare sandy spot in Holly’s backyard, his tail was folded under him, the ends of his sand colored hair were singed and his nose was running. He blinked back tears, poked at the fire again. The flames flickered uncertainly. He frowned, trying to remember what Tas had said to do next. Oh yeah, more wood, maybe. He hitched himself across the yard to Holly’s woodpile and pulled out a reasonable looking piece of wood; twice the size of his arm. He dragged it back to the tiny fire, pulling himself on one hand, holding the wood in the other. He shoved it onto the fire. The flames licked at it as if they didn’t like the taste. Holly had something...what was it. That stuff she threw on the grill once, he remembered it. You squirt it on. Yeah. It was somewhere on the porch.
He walked on his hands, sliding his tail like a seal, found the can, and took it back to the fire.
Squirt.
Flames shot up like a three masted ship taking a hit in the middle of her powder magazine. Morgan let go the can as if it were a particularly evil sort of stinging jellyfish.
FFFOOOMPH! A great gout of flame and smoke leapt skyward.
Morgan slithered back, eyebrows singed.
The dogs sat up and warbled in surprise.
“Cool.” Morgan said.
Holly appeared on the porch, breathless, face registering stark terror. Her eyes counted dogs, and one slightly singed Merrow. “Whatthehell are you doing?” She shouted.
Morgan looked up, grinning through a mask of soot, “Hey is this fire big enough for marshmallows now?”






The fire burned down to marshmallow size an hour later. Morgan lay as close as he dared, poking a stick into the fire, with half a dozen white globs oozing off of it. Bran and Ian were dancing across the dark yard behind him, playing with sticks. He watched them; it was a practice fight, such as he and his brothers often did. Fast and furious, the sticks, long as Bran was tall, clacked together faster than Morgan could follow. The seafolk could fight, defend themselves, with tooth and tail and hand strike. And Swordfish Clan, like its namesake fish, often used weapons. Swords; they were usually as long as a Merrow’s tail, narrow, pointed, made of driftwood or narwhal horn or swordfish or marlin spike. Once in awhile, a Merrow could find a human-made steel sword in a wreck, or trade with landfolk for one. They were among the few things a Merrow would carry or possess.
Morgan watched Bran and Ian, fascinated. The moves were sometimes familiar, sometimes wholly alien. The long bo staffs swung and spun in ways they could not underwater, where the denseness of the sea would slow them. But they also worked in ways Swordfish used his long bill, in ways Merrows could slash and poke with similar weapons.
“Let me try it.” Morgan said.
Ian stopped, his bo planted, an incredulous look on his face. “Sticks wouldn’t work underwater...” he began.
Bran gave him a pointed look, “What part of Swordfish Clan do you not understand?” He handed Morgan his bo.
“You want me to do what?” Ian said to Bran’s nod.
It took thirty seconds for Morgan to figure out that the bos were much faster in air than his clan’s weapons in water.
It took Ian thirty-one seconds to realize maybe he should start training underwater.






Bran stuffed a handful of marshmallows on the smaller stick Morgan offered him.
Ian, panting and smarting with a few new bruises, went to the porch, picked up a backpack. Morgan heard the distinctive sound of the zipper.
Wonderful things, zippers, as long as you didn’t get your fingers or hair or something caught in them.
Ian held up a couple of round objects, silvery in the dark. “Ok. I got another martial arts form for you to try.”
Morgan eyed the small pack. Had to be stupid simple to fit in such a small space. “Sure!” he said, grinning.
Ian Pulled a pile of round disks out of the pack.
“Frisbees?” Morgan said incredulously.
“Not exactly.” Ian held the pack out to Morgan. “Go to the far end of the yard and hold this.”
Morgan eyed the disks with apprehension, some were metal, one looked very much like it had once graced the top of a cooking pot. Another was surely like the circular saw blades Holly had hanging on the tool rack. “I am the target?”
“No, the pack is.”
“What if you miss?”
“I don’t miss.”
“OK. I guess.” Morgan hitched himself to the far end of the yard, held out the pack. He frowned, gave it another look, and the disks in Ian's hands. “I didn’t know humans wielded magic.”
“What?” Ian said, startled. “You can feel that?”
“Yes.”
“Some of the disks have Moon magic. It’s really the Grandmothers’ magic. I just wield it. It was a gift.”
For a few breaths, Morgan left his hand resting lightly on the pack. He looked up at Ian, “OK. Let's see what you can do.”
Ian’s hand flicked, a fish changing direction.
The silver disk that might have once been a saw blade skimmed lightly off the soft pack.
Another and another and another hit the same spot.
“OK, you try.” Ian walked to Morgan and handed him the pack. “You just throw it, like this.” His hand moved again, like a fast fish. “I’ll give you a regulation frisbee. Wouldn’t want you to blow up the island or something.”
Morgan’s face showed consternation, “You could blow up the island with those?”
Ian laughed, “Not quite. Not this one anyway.” He put the cooking pot lid in the pack. Reached back in the pack, pulled out a bright yellow disk. “Try this one.”
Morgan did. It flew straight into the ground.
The second ricocheted off the side of the house, a tree, the grill, and went into Ace’s water dish, whereupon Ace tried to devour it.
The third flew over the fence, and was followed by a startled “ACK!”.
After a dozen more tries Ian produced a ball the size of an orange. “Here, try this.”
The ball came perilously close to one of Holly’s windows.
Ian sat down, studying the ball, two frisbees and Morgan’s face. “You haven’t done much throwing in your life, have you?”
“I live underwater. It is not a skill we could use. Not like swords.”
“Oh. Yeah.”
“Maybe I should stick to trying to learn about fire.”
“Oh. No, no, no.” And Ian’s face looked a bit like Holly’s after the fire starter can exploded, “No, no, actually, I think we could teach you to throw with a little more practice.”
Morgan shrugged. “Let’s try the bos again.”
Ian winced, “Maybe later.”









Sharkman vs Darth Wader






The 800 horsepower twin Mercury engines roar like a leashed dragon. The boat rears like a stallion, and ricochets over the waves: ba-dump ba-dump ba-dump ba-dump. Sharkman hunches at the helm, steely eyes fixed on a bright blit of color on the horizon. The sleek black shape of the enemy's boat is closing fast. He MUST stop them, and their lead is too great, even for the mighty Sea-Dragon. One foot reaches and flicks the end of a stray bit of rope into his hands. He lashes the wheel in place and reaches for one of his famous Sharkbite grenades...


The bright spot of color that Jason had spotted a half hour ago had at last resolved itself into a red square slashed by white. It bobbed quietly in the gentle chop at one side of the Assateague Channel, leaving a slow wake behind it as the diver towing it finned quietly along somewhere below. The flag was alone except for two kayaks moored maybe a hundred yards east. Behind Jason lay the east side of Chincoteague, ahead lay the long dragon curve of Assateague with its marsh grass and mosquitoes, and beyond that, the sea. GMCO’s Fishing and Recreation Map of Chincoteague-Assateague Virginia, stuffed carefully into a ziplock bag, claimed the blit of marsh grass to the east was Jane’s Creek Marsh, on the edge of Assateague. Barnacle Bill’s Bait and Tackle shop’s tide charts claimed that high tide was at 3:18 pm. Right about now, except you had to add fourteen minutes for the channel times. That meant the tide would soon go slack, briefly, then start running down the channel back out to the sea, making the return trip to Chincoteague’s eastern shore somewhat difficult for Sharkman, armed only with a pink flowered raft and a pair of fins. At last the sun shone high and hot overhead, undaunted by clouds. The roar of a small fishing boat receded down the channel, out toward the sea, its wake rocking the Mighty Sea-Dragon.
On the way back to Aunt Gracie's cottage, the Sea-Dragon was definitely going to meet with an unfortunate accident; Jason was not about to spend another day on a bright pink raft with flowers on it.
He sat up, his swim fins dangling under the raft, his dive mask pulled down around his neck, so it would neither accidentally sink to its doom, nor be seen as a distress signal. That much he had learned in a snorkeling class in school, the only gym class he had ever loved: a mask on your forehead means you're about to drown or be eaten by a giant squid. He knew the dive flag: he saw them all the time on trucks and vans and SUVs in Delaware, and every strip mall had a dive shop flying a big red and white flag.
Sharkman studied the evidence floating on the quiet waters of the channel before him: these divers had apparently paddled out here in the two big sit-on kayaks, and gone down in the channel. They had left behind a guard though, a dog the size of Godzilla, mostly black but with white markings on belly and sides and tail that made him look something like a shaggy orca. He sprawled in the middle of the big black kayak, mouth open in a grizzly bear grin that suggested kayak thieves would be eaten. His soggy fur showed he at least knew how to swim. Sharkman stopped a respectful distance away.
He studied the kayaks. The regular kind of sea kayak was a long, pointy spearhead shape, enclosed, except for a hole in the middle, the cockpit, that you plugged yourself into. These were more like hard plastic rafts, with hollowed out spaces to sit and spaces to tie gear down in; the sort the rental places would loan you for an hour or two. Most of the waters around the islands were really shallow, four or five feet deep at high tide, the kind of place better suited to snorkels than to scuba. The channels were nine to forty feet deep, here scuba gear was useful.
The first kayak was probably fifteen feet long, and the kind of yellow the Navy or someone used to call “yum-yum yellow” because sharks seemed to like it. Nothing in it except a few water bottles and a small cooler. A name scrawled across the bow in marker; Finrod. A couple of stickers on it: something official looking like a license, a dive flag sticker, one for some kind of eco-group (Earth Life Foundation, sounded like an eco-group anyway, and the logo had four animals on it) and one that said PADI. That, Jason knew from the local dive shops, was a dive training organization.
The other kayak floated a few yards away, bigger, longer.
And solid black; no name, no logo. Only one small license sticker, incongruously bright, stuck to the bow.
Weird. Stealth kayak. Nobody had black kayaks. Except that guy Jason had seen in the surf, and his had been the regular sort of sea kayak with a cockpit in the middle. Black, weird, the speedboats would run over them because they'd be hard to see. Even with a dog the size of Godzilla in it.
Dogzilla grinned, yawned and flumped down for a nap.
Jason flipped a fin, drifted up closer. Dogzilla ignored him. He reached out a tentative hand and touched the boat. It felt warm. Yeah, of course, it was black and the sun was beating on it.
A weird tingle went up Jason's arm. "Whoaaaaa." he said out loud.
Dogzilla sat up abruptly and let out a single deep "roof!"
Sharkman backpedaled a few yards and took refuge by the yellow kayak.
Sharkman needed something like this. Yeah, and it would take all summer to save up enough from shoveling horse poop to buy one. Two summers. A hundred.
Somewhere at the edge of hearing came a buzz.
Jason studied the water around the boats, glanced toward the dive flag. There should be bubbles coming up from the submerged divers. Maybe he could dive down far enough to see them. Wave at them or something.
The water rippled with wind chop and late afternoon sunlight. No bubbles.
The buzz at the edge of his hearing turned into a faint roar.
Jason pulled up his mask, spit in it, and sloshed that and some water around to make sure the mask wouldn't fog up. He set it on his face, adjusted his snorkel and fell over the edge of the raft, holding it with one hand. He paddled to the other side of the yellow 'yak, then farther out into the channel, toward the flag, still far away. Below him the grey green world dropped away into the Twilght Zone. He saw a brief fish flash. A shadow that might have been anything. More grey green sea soup.
Flip flip flip. Jason drifted along, occasionally looking up to check the position of the dive flag, but mostly intent on finding something below.
A cloud of bubbles rose like silver hail going the wrong way.
He glanced up, the dive flag was still a few hundred feet away. One of the divers must have got lost in the green murk. Well, he didn't have far to the surface if he needed to find the guy with the flag.
Jason studied the situation. To dive he'd have to let go of the raft. And take off the ancient PFD Aunt Gracie had dug out of the tool shed.
No loss. He let go of the raft and it drifted away toward Assateague's marshes. Jason breathed; once, twice, three times, slipped out of the PFD and dove.
The bubbles danced and tickled around him like upside-down rain. He pinched his nose and snorted air into his ears. Down, down into green gloom. The bottom was sand and silt, with patches of weedy looking stuff and seapork, and the boat traffic and wind had kicked up enough murk to drop the visibility to a few feet. Still, if he got close enough he could see something.
Clumps of dark weeds or algae appeared briefly and vanished into the murk. There were silver flashes of fish and for a second, the dark shape of a small ray. Then something bigger materialized out of the forest-green twilight. Something really big; a long deadly shape, not at all like a diver.
It moved.
Jason recognized a tail, a fish tail, and one that belonged on something big enough to eat him.
Sharkman shot to the surface, scrambling for the safety of the Mighty Sea-Dragon.
Which by now had blown into the marsh grass a quarter mile away. It sat there, a small hot pink dot, refusing to be of any use, or even to impale itself honorably on a stray stick and deflate.
"Ohcrap!" Jason hung vertical, fins waving below him. The PFD was closer. He fell forward and thrashed toward it, reaching out a hand...
A slight disturbance on the surface, only bubbles surfacing, no giant Fin of Doom, no shark reaching up from below to chomp him in half.
“Ok,ok, it's probably only hunting fish. Maybe just a nurse shark. A dogfish.” Jason caught his breath, unfogged his mask and dove again.
The faint roar was loud now, the snarl of a dragon bearing down on him. Jason spyhopped and saw a boat ba-dump ba-dumping up the channel toward him.
Toward him and the diver below.Crap, if the guy below surfaces now...and maybe he would, with that big shark or whatever down there!
"Hey." Jason waved in the direction of the incoming boat. "Hey there's a diver down there." He waved some more. The boat didn't appear to be veering from its course. "Hey!" he yelled, as if the guy could actually hear him. Far behind him, Dogzilla began to bark.
Now what? If he had been closer to the kayaks, he might have waved a paddle to get the boater's attention. Too far. He reached down, pulled a fin off, and waved it in the air.
The boat roared up, closer.
Jason waved the fin with the ferocity of a swordfighter. “Dude, they do not need the Evinrude crewcut!”
The boat roared up, the man at the tiller intent on something beyond Jason.
The dive flag and the kayaks.
“ROOF!” Dogzilla shouted.
Jason, thrashing on one finned foot and one bare foot, waved the airborne fin ferociously and shouted.
And incredibly, Boat Guy slowed.
Two boat guys, in a Zodiac.
"Hey mustard nuts,” Jason yelled, “that's a dive flag! And there's a diver down here, you're supposed to stay away from them!" At the moment, he couldn't think exactly how far you were supposed to stay away from it, but the guys in the boat were way, way too close.
They drifted up, engine rumbling. Somehow they looked like barracudas, hunting. Jason stuffed his bare foot back in its fin. Sharkman might need to make a quick getaway.
Jason backpedaled, realizing how far he was from shore. From Dogzilla (who looked like a pretty good thing right now). And how many other people were out here.
Just two guys in a Zodiac, some oblivious divers and Dogzilla.
And Dogzilla was gone.
Oh crap oh crap oh crap!
The Zodiac drifted closer, engine cut now, oars dipping the water. One of the men leered over the side at Jason. “You see one?”
“Nah!” the other snorted, “He wants to sign up as crew!” He guffawed. His voice didn't sound like he was from Virginia.
“See what? Jason said, backpedaling.
One stood, staring westward over the Zodiac's side, “I seen bubbles there...” he said uncertainly. He looked like one of those statues they sold in Chincoteague gift shops: the sea captain or fisherman holding a ship's wheel, minus the yellow foul weather gear (except for the hat; heavy canvas, stained, and smelling like Aunt Gracie's old paint rags). The other one looked like he belonged on the water too, tattoos and all. The one on his arm was very clear: a squid devouring a submarine that looked straight out of Jules Verne.
“He has to surface sometime,” the foulie hatted one said.
Jason eyed the dive flag, too far to swim to. “Ah, I think I saw bubbles over there,” he offered, “maybe a hundred feet.” He pointed toward the dive flag.
The tattooed one leered at him again, disbelieving.”And you was wavin' at us fer what? Maybe to sell us some oysters?”
Jason backpedaled, harder, glancing over his shoulder at the kayaks and the all too distant dive flag..
A dark shape bobbed to the surface twenty feet from the Zodiac. It floated there like a wayward turtle. Jason stared; a SCUBA tank still attached to its BC, inflated, trailing regulators and gauges like a jellyfish.
That's weird.
Both boat guys turned to look at it.
The quiet sea exploded in a silver geyser, something dolphin sized erupted beside the Zodiac, did a backflip, smacked Foulie Hat across the back of the head and vanished beneath the waves. Tattoo Guy floundered, swung an oar, and missed.
What was that? Half of it, at least, had looked human.
Tattoo Guy scrambled, forgetting Jason, oar in hand he peered over the side. Foulie Hat groaned and sat, then crawled to his knees, then picked up another oar.
Not exactly an oar, a pole about the same size.
The water erupted again, a twisting geyser on the Zodiac's starboard side. Tattoo Guy took a hit across the face from a length of blue-grey tail.
Fierce splash, then arms reaching to pull him overboard.
Foulie Hat swung the pole up and it danced with blue lightning, he spun it down on the starboard side, connecting with whatever... or whoever was there. Jason heard something a sizzle and pop, then the Zodiac was drifting nearly over him and an oar came splashing over the side.
Jason grabbed it and threw all his weight on it.
There was a shout, the oar came loose into Jason's hands, he swung it up with a satisfying SMACK against the head of Foulie Hat. The pole fell into the Zodiac, and from somewhere down the channel came the roar of another boat engine.
One of them floundered to the Zodiac's stern, Jason didn't notice which one, revved the engine, leaned on the tiller, and pointed the Zodiac back down the channel.
A few yards away lay a teenaged boy, head tilted back, floating on the water. He had pale sand colored hair, and skin the color of water a hundred feet down.
Whoever had leapt out of the water had most definitely had a fishtail.
Jason stared, unbreathing, for a fifth of a second. He had the odd feeling that he'd wandered into the middle of a movie, or a video game; cool special effects, awesome makeup.
The blood leaking redly into the sea was a bit too real.
Jason thrashed his way to the boy. “Hey, you OK?”
“Ffffinnne,” the boy groaned.
He most definitely was not, the blood was pouring from a head wound. “OK, OK, head wounds bleed a lot. Right.” Jason maneuvered behind him, hooked an arm around him the way he'd seen lifeguards do it. The BC and SCUBA tank floated a hundred feet away. “OK, we'll get your BC back on, and you'll be OK.” At least his brains weren't falling out or anything, yet. “Come on, help me swim here.”
Another shape came toward the floating BC, and resolved itself into the shape of a dog, swimming. The shaggy soggy black head connected with the BC, then veered toward Jason and the boy. A minute later, Dogzilla shoved the BC into Jason's waiting hands.
“...ssssOK, I can get it...” the boy mumbled, as Jason tried to help him get his arms into it. There was a good sized dive knife attached to the BC. Jason unsnapped the catch, pulled it out, stretched out the bottom of his T-shirt.
The one with his favorite Avengers heroine on it. He poked the knife through it, and ripped. Got a good wide strip of cotton, wrapped it around the boy's head, pulling it tight enough to, hopefully, stop the bleeding.
The boy put one hand up to his head. “Whhhhere'd... they... go?”
“Down channel. After that, there's the whole world. Only they can't get very far in a Zodiac. Must be a bigger boat out there somewhere.” Lot's of them actually, on an island famous for oysters and seafood. Jason stared at where the boy's feet should be stirring the water, just below the surface. He could see flashes of a huge tail, shaped like a swordfish's. He looked back at the boy's face.
His sea grey eyes widened a bit, then his color shifted from sea-grey-blue to medium human flavored brown. His long hair remained pale. The fin remained a fin.
“Cool.” Jason said. “How'd you do that?”
“...ddddooooo...what?” He squinted down at where his feet should be and frowned.
“Yeah. Don't talk too much. I'm gonna try to get you to the kayaks, and find your dive buddy. You got a name? I'm Jason.”
“Morrr...gan.”
“OK, Captain Morgan, we're gonna swim this way.”
“Rrrrrr.” Dogzilla muttered, circled Jason and Morgan once, then swam past, his tail sweeping the water like a big furry rudder.
”Surrrrffff.” Morgan mumbled
“Now? Now is not a good time to go surfing, dude.”
“Nnnoooo. Grab... butt furrrrr.” Morgan leaned back on the inflated BC, closed his eyes.
“Butt fur?” Jason looked at the dog, circling past once more. He reached out and grabbed a handfull of fur on Dogzilla's rump. Dogzilla began to swim.






They reached the kayaks about the same time as the other diver. He looked at Jason, at Morgan, at the t-shirt strip wrapped around Morgan's head, at the dog towing them both.
To Morgan he said, “You're supposed to stay with your dive buddy.”
“You......toooooo... ssssslow.”
He didn't pull himself up onto the black kayak as much as he seemed to Jason to levitate. He reached down and got hold of Morgan's BC, paused, glancing at Jason.
“He was blueish grey before. Now he's brown, does it matter? Either way he's got a fishtail. ” Jason blurted.
The diver didn't answer to that. He turned to Morgan, “1, 2, NOW.” He pulled and slid Morgan into the boat.
“Follow...FOLLOW them.” Morgan insisted.
“Not now, anchovy brain.” The diver slid Morgan into a more or less comfortable spot.
“No...no...”
“And if they come back?”
Morgan lay, head back, eyes closed, tail limp on the deck.
Jason stared, stayed, one hand in the deep fur of Dogzilla, one hand on the black kayak, humming with some kind of hidden power.
“Bran,” the other diver said, pointing a thumb at himself, and reaching for something in the back of the kayak. A drybag, he unrolled it, produced a blanket, and threw it over Morgan's fishtail.
“Jason. Dogzilla seems to know lots of stuff, he brought us Morgan's BC, towed us here.”
Bran cracked a smile, “Surf. Newfoundlands are known for their expertise in water rescue. He's better than most. Come aboard.” Bran said, reaching over the side to give Jason a hand up. Surf followed, clamboring onto the yellow kayak. Bran studied the head wound, producing a first aid kit out of the drybag. “Nice job.”
Jason smiled, a little embarrassed at having done something right.
Bran finished wrapping Morgan's head with gauze and tape.
“How is it?”
“Not as bad as it looked.” He lifted the blanket, peered at Morgan's tail, “Whatthehell caused that?”
“What?”
“Looks like a burn.”
“This one guy had a pole. OK, this is nuts...” Jason looked at the merboy again, “...or maybe not...it looked sort of like what would happen if you crossed a bo staff with a taser with a lightsaber.”
“Yeah. Morgan, at least, has seen it before. What else did you see?” He paused, reading Jason's face, or something more. “Of course, how do you know that we're the Good Guys?”
“I guess I don't. Except you guys have a cool dog.”
Bran broke into a smile. “Bad Guys never have cool dogs.”
“They looked kind of creepy. Or seemed..” Jason frowned, unable to put into words what he meant.
“Trust your feelings Luke.” Bran grinned. The grin faded, “what did you see?”
“Besides a merboy leaping out of the water and smacking them in the head? A merboy who was apparently wearing SCUBA gear.”
“Merrow.” Bran said.
“OK. Merrow.” Jason said. “But SCUBA gear?”
“He can't breathe water.”
“Obviously.” Jason waited for the why.
“The people those guys are with took something from him. They seem to want him back as well. What else did you see?”
“One guy had a hat, like you see sailors wearing in all those gift shop things, those foul weather hats...”
“Sou'westers.” Bran said.
“Yeah. It looked like canvas though, not that plastic stuff. And it smelled funny.”
Bran cocked an eyebrow in a questionmark.
“Really, he was that close. Smelled like...” Jason tried to find words to describe it, “...old paint rags.”
Bran stared at him blankly, then his face lit in an 'aha! “Oil. Oiled canvas. Oilskins.” He frowned, “Who uses that stuff anymore?”
“Huh?”
“Went out of fashion a few centuries ago... I think. What else?”
“They were drivin' a Zodiac. A red one. And the other guy had a tattoo.”
“A tattoo?”
“Yeah. A giant squid eating the Nautilus. You know, that sub...”
“...marine in Jules Verne's book.” Bran finished. “You sure.” It wasn't quite a question.
Jason nodded, “I, um, draw stuff a lot, so I really look at stuff I'm looking at.”
Bran stood, balancing easily on the kayak, rocking in the light chop. He stared down the channel toward the sea.
As if he can actually see where they went. And why did Morgan tell him to follow them? Like he could catch them in a kayak?
“Gone,” he said finally.
“Why are they after him?” Jason asked.
“That's what we want to know.”






“Where'd you come from?” Bran asked
“Delaware.”
“No, just now.”
“I'm staying with my aunt on Chincoteague. I have a...bike.”
“You swim all the way from Memorial Park or something?”
Jason pointed out to the marsh, where he could still see the hot pink dot that had been the Mighty Sea Dragon.
“Ah, shipwrecked. Too bad.”
“It was this awful raft Aunt Gracie had.”
“We'll collect that ecological disaster later. Where's your bike?”
“Back there.” Jason pointed to the far shore. Somewhere over there, in the park.
Bran stared, nodded, as if he could see it. “We're on Willow Street. We need to get Morgan there. And we need to get you there for now. I don't know where those guys went, but they know what you look like. And that you were with us. You can call your aunt there. Somebody will get your bike.”
“Is We, the Earth Life Foundation?” Jason pointed at the sticker on Finrod.
“Yep.”
“What do you do? Battle orcs on moonless nights?”
Bran turned, meeting Jason's gaze with bemused eyes the color of deep sky.
“E...L...F. And you've got a Merrow. Aren't you being a little obvious?”
“Not to most people.” Bran pulled the anchors (ten pound dive weights) holding the two kayaks in place. “What we do is try to educate your people. Education, Legislation, Future generations. We battle sprawling concrete and steel and pollution.” He pulled the yellow 'yak up beside the black one, hauled the paddle out of the water on its leash.
Handed the paddle to Jason. “Here, climb over on Finrod, stick close, and paddle.”
Sharkman lands on face in yum yum yellow kayak, news at eleven. Jason eyed the boat, like a giant floating banana.
Bran glanced up at him, waiting.
“OK, ummmm...” Jason wobbled to hands and knees.
“Go ahead, they're both really stable, not like sea kayaks. These are designed for diving off of.”
Jason fumbled to the edge of the black, boat, then sort of rolled, fell, crashed into Finrod.
Surf mumbled something at him in Newfie.
“Laugh it up, fuzzball.” Jason told him.
Bran chuckled. “Here's your paddle Captain Solo. Don't try for hyperspace drive, just stay close.”
Jason took the paddle, glanced at Bran picking up his own paddle. Hands about shoulder width apart, about chest level, check.
“The other way.” Bran said, flipping his paddle around, pointing one end at Jason's.
“Oh.” He flipped his paddle.
“The other other way, your blades are upside down.”
“Oh.” Jason's sunburned face turned a bit redder.
“Everybody gets that wrong at first.” Bran shoved Finrod sideways, drifting off far enough to leave space for paddling.
Jason dipped his blade in the water and followed Bran's lead. He wobbled port, weebled starboard and finally got the big yellow 'yak to go in a straight line. It was like flying. Like that cheesy country song Aunt Gracie liked so much; “like a bird upon the wind, these waters are my sky”... Bran made it look effortless, like a bird. Jason found it easier than most things he'd tried to do. Easier than soccer. Than gymnastics. Way easier than basketball. Much better than roping cows.






They pulled the kayaks up on the boat ramp, lifting the bows so they wouldn't scrape the hulls on the rough concrete ramp. Surf bounded out, grabbing the bow line from the black kayak and hauling it farther up while Bran waded back to slip an arm under Morgan. First he reached into the pocket of his PFD, handing Jason a key, “Open the blue Jeep over there, the one with the Raven on the door. Get the wheelchair out of the back.
Jason got it, fiddled with it for a moment and unfolded it.
Bran heaved Morgan into it, and into the Jeep, somehow, all without any random tourists noticing the boy in the chair made a shape unlike legs and feet under the blanket.
They loaded the boats quickly, tying them down without the bow and stern lines, to save time. Gear was thrown in the boats and lashed down. Jason clambored in the front seat, Surf managed to fit somewhere in the back.
It was only a couple of minutes to Willow Street, and only a few hundred yards from where Aunt Gracie's cottage was.
They pulled up in front of one of the older cottages on Willow, a small wooden sign announced that it was The Wren's Nest. There was a dive flag and a pirate flag (skull and crossed cutlasses) flying over the door with a giant mosquito puppet on the top where eagles usually perched on flags.
Jason pulled the wheelchair out again, they heaved Morgan into it, and up the ramp to the door.
It opened and a very short woman peered up at them through a set of shaded goggles, smaller lenses sprouting to the sides. She rumbled something in a language that to Jason, sounded like a cross between Klingon and wolverines having an argument. She vanished into the house, waving them to follow.
“Earla.” Bran said, “If she swears in three dialects of Dwarvish, you know she cares.” He heaved Morgan into the Wren's living room.
The E.L.F's secret headquarters looks more like Chaos Inc. Jason thought. There were stacks of plastic bins; some open to reveal dive gear or camera equipment or other things he couldn't identify. There were tents and sleeping bags, a clutter of electronics on a table, something that looked like part of a mad scientist's lab, books, piles of paper, files, and more than one computer, including a couple of very high-tech looking laptops. There were shells and bits of leaf and twig and grass and feathers; on windowsills, hanging from the ceiling and walls. Rocks in bright colors from one of the souvenir shops. A tacky touristy model ship. A model of the Assateague Lighthouse. Earla returned through the other door, trailing a young man with sunstreaked brown hair, and a redheaded kid.
The kid who'd nearly caused a spectacular wreck with a skateboard and sleddogs.
“Hey!” Jason said, startled.
The boy looked from Jason, to Morgan to Jason to Bran helping Morgan onto a foldout fouton. “There's definitely a story in this...”
“Two guys in a Zodiac. One with a rather interesting tattoo of a squid devouring the Nautlius.” Bran said from across the room. “Where's Tas? I need her nose. I'm going to try to see of I can still find a red Zodiac. She might be able to track them.”
“Hardware store, I'll get her.” Zan said.
“Tell her to start with Memorial Park. Oilskins. Tell her that.”
“Oilskins?”
“She'll understand.”
Zan scooped up a skateboard, slammed the door open and vanished down the street.
The sunstreaked man knelt by Morgan, holding his hands just over Morgan's head.
Behind him Earla appeared, holding a handful of rocks. Some were polished smooth, greens and blues and browns. Others were clear crystals. At least one was black and metallic looking. She held them over Morgan, humming softly to herself. The sunstreaked one moved his hands...
...Jason blinked. The faint green glow he'd seen must have been... no, there it was again, stronger. “Whoaaaaa,” he said softly.
Bran tapped his shoulder, “Phone's over there. Call your aunt, but stay here for now.” He paused, reached behind his neck and undid the catch for the puka shell necklace he was wearing. He wound it around Jason's neck, fastened it. “Now I can find you, if you need me. If those guys come back.”
Jason fingered the necklace; in the center hung a small dark silver feather. “How are you gonna go look for them? They gotta be long gone.”
“Maybe. Maybe not.” He grinned, “the E.L.F. has an aerial recon team of one; Brannan Hrafnson, Ravenkin.” He turned and headed out the back door. He paused, looked back, “One more thing, draw what you remember of the Zodiac and its crew.”
“Me?”
“Morgan is not an artist... and he wouldn't have seen anything but a big blur above water. He was diving, so his glasses were here.”
“Oh, eyes designed to see underwater. Probably sees on land like I do underwater.”
“Exactly. And his illusions are only to disguise himself, he can't make pictures in the air like, well, you'll see.” He turned and went out the back door.
Jason hesitated, then followed.
In time to see the wind pick up in the brush and tree hidden backyard. It swirled, picking up sand and mist and melting Bran...
It congealed, a dark silver raven cocked its head at Jason, let out a “graaack!”
“Oh,” the raven added, “eat Earla's brownies, not anything Zan offers you.” He lifted his wings and was gone.
















Sharkman Goes to the Dogs








Jason fidgeted in the living room, staring at the sketchbook Ian had handed him. The pages before the blank one he was staring at were full of superheroes, wildlife (observed from real life), various people, including Earla, Zan and Bran. Three older women overlaid with images of vulture, crow and opossum. There was also a superhero looking woman (often overlaid with a horse or wolf) and a man paddling a kayak; the reflection in the water was a killer whale.
All very realistic and awesome. Not at all like Jason's sketchbook. And Ian looked like he could kick the butts of an entire pirate crew all by himself.
“Go ahead,” Ian said gently, “just start drawing, the details, the memories will come.”
Jason stared at the book, afraid to mess up its awesomeness.
Ian cracked a smile, “Doesn't matter how many pages you use, there's more where that came from.”
“Yeah...ok.” Jason doodled aimlessly. Tried to remember. Now that it was important, he couldn't.
“Morgan will be out for awhile, resting. You might as well tell the rest of us your story.”
Jason doodled, and told Ian, and Earla, what had happened. “And then he was like FWOOOOSHHH! Straight outta the water. Smacked Foulie Hat upside the head and vanished back into the sea.”
“Foulie Hat?” Earla said.
“Like the foul weather gear fishermen and sailors use, those funky hats. What'd Bran call 'em?”
“Sou'westers.” Ian said.
Jason doodled, now he could remember the exact shape of the hat. And more or less, the face under it. He scribbled the other guy, Tattoo Man. And the boat. Then another panel, with Morgan reaching up to grab, was it Tattoo Guy? Into the water. And the weird lightpole.
“It looks like a comic book.” Ian said.
Jason froze, his smile fading.
“Looks fine.” Ian said. “You've obviously studied how the professionals lay out their pages, their panels and their action.”
“Yeah.” Jason said listlessly.
“Hm. More to that story than you're telling.”
Jason looked up, startled, into leaf-green eyes. “Can all you Elves, like, read minds, or what?”
Ian grinned, “I'm the lone human in this crew. And I don't read minds at all. But I was the kid everybody picked on in school, and I am still pretty good at reading kindred spirits.”
Jason scribbled furiously. “I had the world's greatest collection of comic books. Then right before I came here, Dad took them all...somewhere. Maybe he burned them or something.”
“Ohhhh.” Ian didn't ask why.
“He thinks I'm the world's stupidest geek. I can't do anything right.” The point of the pencil snapped. Jason glared at it.
“Just press the side, click it a few times, there's more lead.” Ian said quietly.
“And he's like the world's greatest cowboy. I suck at cowboy stuff.”
Ian shrugged, “Not everybody can be a cowboy. I mean really, can you picture Morgan riding a horse?”
Jason snorted.
“You saved Morgan's sorry butt.” Ian said.
“He doesn't have a butt.” Earla observed.
Jason scribbled in silence for a few minutes, Ian watching. Morgan's tale...or maybe it was tail... sprawled on for a dozen pages.
“Are those really the numbers on the boat?”
“Yeah.” Jason said. “And that's the kind of engine it had, and what was written on it.”
“Wow.”
“The portraits aren't that good.”
“Gives us an idea of what they looked like. The more you draw, the better you'll get. How old are you?” Ian asked.
“Fourteen.”
“That's better than what I was doing at fourteen.”
“No way.”
“Way.”
“How long are you here?”
“All summer.”
“The end of the river's a lot different from the beginning.”
“Bran said you're really an environmental group: education, legislation, future generations.”
“Yep.”
“Come on, you must kick some orc butt sometimes.”
Ian smiled, “Sometimes. This week it's pirates. And since you are now in on it, I guess we should tell you the whole story...” ...of the theft of the Merrow's Cap, how it had undone a strand in the web of life and weather, and how the E.L.F. and Morgan had come to be on Chincoteauge looking for a man with a smelly Foulie hat, and one with a squid tattoo.








The slam of a door announced the return of Zan. He dropped the skateboard by the door, came into the living room to eye Morgan (still fast asleep on the foldout fouton) and Jason's work in the sketchbook.
“Cool,” he observed. He flipped a page, Sharkman leaping across it, blasting bad guys in a Zodiac. “Cool, you got more?”
“A whole Sharkman comic book. A bunch of finished drawings, a lot of research, a script. Some video. My friend and I were working on doing it as a webcomic. But I can't work on it here. My aunt's living in the Dark Ages. No phone, no TV, no computer.”
“No distractions. You can draw more.”
“No way to edit video, upload drawings, or send stuff to Heather to work on.”
“You got your camera here?
“One. It shoots pretty good video, and excellent stills.”
“We got some computers that would probably be able to edit it. I could do some poses. Maybe Ian would too. I think Bran and Tas would too, maybe even Earla.”
“Yeah, but don't you have to look for a bunch of pirates?”
“Sometimes the hunter waits for the prey to come to him.”
It looked to Jason as if Zan was quoting somebody famous, or the Zen of ... something. “We still have stuff to do for Hawk Circle, while we're looking for pirates. Probably have some time for random editing.”
“Cool, that would be awesome.” Sharkman lives, after all. “Soooo,” Jason said, what do you do? You're a kid, like me. What are you doing here, on a mission that clearly demands tenth level fighting skills... He couldn't think of something to say out loud that didn't sound dumb.
Zan gestured. The Wren's Nest's living room blurred and became the heaving deck of a pirate ship; the one from the film Jason had seen four times (without his dad knowing). Masts loomed, apparently through the non-existent ceiling. Beyond, clouds of white sail filled the sky (a stormy shade of grey). A horde of pirates swarmed past, cutlasses flashing as they closed with the crew of another brig alongside, her rigging tangled with theirs. Fire and smoke flashed from one cannon, then another. Someone cut loose a line belayed along the rail and swung overhead.
It all happened in full color and eerie silence.
"How many times have you seen that movie?" Ian's voice came from one of the pirates, a disheveled one-eyed fellow covered in tattoos.
“Zan!” This from a short stout pirate in tall boots and a colorful headscarf, one lock of dark hair beaded outrageously. “How many times have I told you, no illusions in the house!” From somewhere behind her came the sound of electronics fratzing, and the faint acrid smell of smoke.
Ian blocked a cutlass stroke from a redheaded pirate.
"Avast!" the redhead shouted.
"Avast yourself," the scruffy pirate said in Ian's voice, " Jason's getting seasick."
The world wavered and they all stood in an ordinary living room again. Ian lowered the hand that was blocking a large kitchen spoon in Zan's. Zan tossed the spoon into the sink and sat down with an annoyed thump.
"Whoa." Jason said, as he tried to find his footing on the suddenly still floor. “Awesome special effects. But where's the sound?”
"I can do illusions, so can Morgan, though his are simpler, misdirection, to disguise himself. Sound is Bran's department."
"Elves." Earla snorted. Something sizzled and snapped again. "Zaaaaaaan."
Zan held both hands up as if warding off a hurricane. He backed up a step, two, and moved, placing Ian between himself and Earla.
Earla glared at Zan, eyebrows twitching like annoyed badgers, “This isn’t some enchanted forest where folk live with no visible means of support. This stuff costs money! Hard earned money, and unless you want to go out and fish for supper...” She stomped off to the pile of electronics and gadgetry on the table, one item sending up a thin trail of smoke.
Jason's eyes went from Zan to Earla to the frying electronics.
Ian said, "Elves channel energy in inconvenient ways. For running light over leaf or grass or snow, or frying electronics, or breaking even the most indestructible technology, choose an Elf. For fixing things, duct tape, baling twine and a Dwarf."
“Go outside and play.” Earla said.
“What about the Zodiac of Doom?” Zan said. “And its Fearless Crew?”
“Don't think it'll get far on Willow Street.” Earla grumbled. “Unless there's a sudden nor'easter.”
“They probably stuffed it onto a boat... or into a van by now.” Jason said.
Earla vanished into the kitchen, returned with two hefty chunks of brown gooeyness. She handed one to each boy. “Take these, go over to Holly's. I'm sure the dogs need some exercise or something.”






Sharkman blinks and double checks his GPS, chronometer and temperature gauges; yep, still on a barrier island off the coast of Virginia, still June, near twilight, still 70 degrees fahrenheit. He frowns, obviously the enemy has thrown him into some kind of weird alternate universe. With the Sharkscanner in one hand and Bessie in the other, he advances with caution.


The gate to Holly's yard creaked open to the yodels and howls of a wolfpack. Jason froze, then grinned. Huskies, a whole sleddog team's worth.
On an island in Virginia.
“Sundogs.” Jason laughed.
“Yeah.” Zan clicked the gate shut behind them, opened the 'airlock' gate and trotted into the yard to receive furry hugs, and long pink-tongued kisses.
The door to the house opened and a woman emerged, glancing from Zan to the dogs to Jason.
“Holly.” Zan said, “and this is Jason.”
Holly smiled, “Jason and the Argonauts. Jason, the little submarine camera that explored shipwrecks. Don't suppose you're a seaperson too?”
“Sharkman.” Zan said.
Jason reddened.
“He's a comic artist.” Zan asserted.
“Excellent.” Holly said. Her eyes asked questions her mouth wasn't.
“Morgan found a couple of the pirates. Two guys in a Zodiac, in the channel. Jason rescued him.”
“More like blundered into the scene of the crime.” Jason said.
“Yeah, well they woulda' got him if you hadn't slowed them down.” To Holly he said, “We have to go pick up his bike, it's at Memorial Park.”
“I can drive you down there.” Holly said.
“Noooo,” Zan said, “I was thinking maybe a couple of your dogs needed some exercise.”
Holly scanned the pack, “Take Passion, Ace and Isabo.”
“Harnesses? Maybe the rig?”
“It's a short enough run, sure.” Holly got the gear, and a gangline. Handed Ace, on a leash, to Jason. “Whatever happens, never let go.” She said.
“Right.” Jason said uncertainly.
Zan necklined the other two together, hooked the harnesses to the front of the gangline. “Ok, bring Ace up, he goes here, in wheel.” In front of the rig, behind the two leaders.
Holly smiled at Zan, “You're a braver man than I am, Gunga Din.”
Jason turned, “Wha..?”
“Kipling. Yesterday Zan skateboarded with B'loo and Liuk. Nobody skateboards with two dogs.”
“Why?” Jason said... and Ace leaped toward the gate, yodelling with excitement, dragging Jason with him.
“That's why.” Holly said, “don't let go.”






Zan balanced on the port side of the rig's platform, hands on the steering bar, Jason teetered on the other side, a death grip on the driving bow below the steering bar. The dogs shot out of the yard in a cheerful gallop, on a command of “gee!” swung right, down Willow, around the corner on “haw!” and on to the park. They showed great interest in a lady walking a Shih Tzu but kept moving when Zan called “on-by!”. They eventually slowed to a happy trot, and Jason lightened his grip on the rig. “Wow, he said, this is kinda' cool. How far can they go?”
“In the summer, not very. In winter, over a thousand miles in less than nine days, at least that's what the leaders in the Iditarod do. These guys won't run that far, we don't have enough cold weather here to train for it.”
“Heckuva fence Holly's got.”
“Siberian proof, mostly. They laugh at four foot fences, and tunnel under the rest.”
“They're dogs, can't you just tell them to stay or something?”
“They're Siberians.” Zan let go the steering bar, the rig tracking after the dogs by itself. He held one hand out as far as he could to port, the other to starboard. “This is the wolf.” He wiggled the port hand. “This is the Golden Retriever.” He wiggled the starboard hand. He moved the port hand about one millimeter to starboard, “and this is the Siberian husky. One hundred percent of its hunting instincts still intact.” To Jason's bemused look he said, “most breeds have had the whole seek-find-catch-kill sequence bred out of them, or only parts of it remain, like bloodhounds who have the track part. Or retrievers who have the catch and carry part. The Chukchi didn't have livestock, only dogs... except for a few who had reindeer... so they never had to breed out the hunt-kill instinct. In fact, it was kinda' useful if your dogs could hunt their own dinner.”
Jason's eyes had gone a bit glassy, for a minute there it seemed like he was back in school. The rig turned into the park, Zan called out a long “whoooooooa,” and stepped on the brake. “Where's the bike?”
Jason was glad Zan couldn't see his face in the near dark. “Uh, over there.” He waved vaguely. Maybe he could get over there and unchain it before Zan saw how dorky it was.
“Oh, the trike. Hey that'd make a good dogrig, let's hitch Ace to that.”
“What?”
“Got an extra gangline, right here.” Zan hopped off, laid the rig on its side, put his hand in front of the leaders' noses, “Wait.”
Jason got the trike, brushed off a random seagull splat.
Zan hooked the gangline to the vertical bar under the handlebars. “That should do.” He unhooked Ace, and hooked him to the trike.
“You sure about this?” Jason said uncertainly. He already knew Ace could drag him to Timbuktu, and on wheels would be easier. It was whether he could keep Ace pointed in the right direction.
“Yeah, just follow me. Gee for right turns, haw for left, and the most important: on-by-expletive-deleted for when they want to eat the squirrel, someone's cat, the teacup fluffernutter pup, or the dropped Kleenex.
“Uh, sure.” Jason said.
“You got brakes on that thing, don't you?”






The five minute rest the dogs'd had at the park was enough. Zan's two blasted forth like an arrow from the bow.
Ace followed.
“Whoooooooooooooooooooaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!”
Ace did not recognize that as any command he knew. He gallumphed after the others, then tried to pass them.
Jason clung to the handlebars, feet braced on the pedals, wheels spinning madly.
“GAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!” No need for the haw command, Ace plunged around the corner after the others, taking out a few dinner plate sized hibiscus flowers on his way.
Around another corner, a bit of crepe myrtle lodged in Jason's basket. A shout from somewhere behind him. A seashell stand loomed, Jason cranked the handlebars and squeaked by. A squirrel dodged out of the way, the trike banged through a pothole, one wheel fwipp-fwipp-fwipped through weeds on the road edge.
“Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!”
They were on Willow, trotting past the firemen's carnival grounds. Then Holly's fence loomed, and the dogs pattered to a stop.
Jason leaned on the handlebars, panting.
“Cool, huh?” Zan said, and led them all into the yard.




Broncocam












"What the hell is that?" It was more than half a year ago, and the speaker was one of those kids with the loud car and the louder stereo, the kind that registered 10 on the Richter Scale. He and his buddies were chain smoking at the edge of the parking lot before someone made them come in and actually go to school.
"Elephant on wheels." someone said.
"Crappy wheels." someone else said. "Where'd you find that, the dump?"
Jason and Heather were riding their bikes to school, and it wasn't the dump, it was a yard sale, and a few cans of spray paint had turned them into Sharkcycles.
Potheads Inc. said a few more things, louder and ruder. Stuff that would have got them a couple years in detention. Stuff that was definitely not rated PG.
Stereo Boy stepped out into the path Jason and Heather needed to take. He stood there, casually. Like a leopard waiting to pounce.
Heather lined up on him like a knight at a joust. She roared by, one hand out as if wielding a sword and caught Stereo Boy on the side of the face with her hand backed by the full force of Sharkcycle Two at top speed.
No one saw it, and no one reported it. The boys were too embarrassed to admit to anyone they'd been done in by a 13 year old girl.






From cold and rainy, June had transformed to hot as the middle of the Sahara. Hot mixed like gross school lunch vegetables with rain and lightning and wind, tornado watches and hail. The sea itself tossed like a dreamer in a nightmare with odd rip currents, strong longshore currents, and tides that leapt up the beach, or moped at its edges. Tourists and weathermen spoke of global climate change. Chincoteaguers, there for generations, dealt with it stoically as they always had. Only the ELF knew the whole tale; how the theft of one Merrow’s cap had unbalanced things as surely as a loose scuba tank in a small kayak.






Sharkman's foot twitches on the accelerator, the engine rumbles with pent force, a dragon waiting to be unleashed. The Sharkcycle leaps forth like an arrow from the bow. Dr. Sludge’s escape pod wavers onto the Sharkscreen, sensors zero in on it...beep beep beep beep...BIP! Target acquired...








Jason pulled up in front of the Wren's Nest, wondering if Earla or Zan had any way to turn the hideousness of the Triceratops trike into something cool. Zan ambled out, followed by a girl, short girl, short hair, boy shorts, T-shirt... and eyes like the water right around twilight.
Jason looked, looked away, suddenly embarrassed.
“Cait,” Zan gestured toward the girl, “Jason,” he fingerspelled it.
She nodded. “Hey.”
“Hey.” Jason tried to remember how you said 'hi' in Sign. He waved vaguely.
She grinned and waved back.
“He's got cows.” Zan said to Cait.
Her face lit up, “You cowboy?”
Jason made a face, one that suggested that living in a bubble on Mars would be more fun than having cows. "No. My dad's a cowboy."
Caitlin's face brightened, "Really?" Her hand flicked in a smooth motion: C to L, "Cool."
Jason said, "We live on a ranch, in Delaware. You know, ropes and reins and steers and mud and trucks and rodeo."
"Cool!" Cait said. "I'm learning to rope...in Pennsylvania."
"Oh." Jason said without enthusiasm.
Cait's smile faded.
"She's good." Zan said. “She’s been roping me on my skateboard.”
“He’s fast.” Cait said.
"Oh," Jason said, feeling stupid, “Well, I, ah, bet you're, um, better than me!" Of course, that wouldn't take much.
“When I get back home, I want to learn to ride a bull." Cait asserted.
"Whoa. That's nuts." Jason said.
Cait frowned at Jason. "Why, because I'm a girl?" Cait demanded. “Because I’m little? Deaf?”
Oh yeah, Sharkman sooooo impresses the girl. Maybe not the brightest crayon in the box today. "Uh, no. No no no! Because bulls are just nuts. They're big and mean and all they want to do is stomp you into the ground."
"Maybe it's because all humans want to do is eat their relatives." Zan said.
"Well, I'm going to do it." Cait said.
"What, have a steak?" Zan said.
Cait made a face at him, "Ride a bull."
Zan turned and pulled the door of the Wren's Nest open. “Come on, Earla's got some fresh brownies.”
She was frowning over a computer. A tall man and a lean, bearded man were having an animated conversation in Sign.
The tall guy looked familiar. It took Jason a moment to realize it was the kayaker in the surf... the one with the black kayak.
The one in Ian's sketchbook with the killer whale reflection.
He glanced up, met Jason's eyes with his sea-colored ones. Smiled.
Morgan, pale hair, no bandages, brown skin, legs folded neatly on the wheelchair footrests, was peering at a laptop.
Zan hauled Jason to the laptop and pretended to point at something, "They don't know," he whispered,casting a furtive glance at Cait and the bearded man.
In the kitchen, Jason could see Bran and Ian and another woman discussing something over another computer. Discussing it rather loudly, and apparently not agreeing. Surf was there, drooling on the floor, grinning up at the three kids as they came in. Zan ruffled a hand through Surf's bearlike head fuzz. Jason grinned as wide as Surf and thumped his broad, furry side.
"Mrrf." Surf said by way of greeting.
Morgan looked up, grinned at Jason (somehow, his teeth looked deadly). “Thanks.”
“Don't mention it.” Jason said. He eyed Morgan's 'feet', “Cool Nikes.”
Morgan eyed Zan, “Found 'em online.”
Cait waved a hand at the bearded man, "My dad." She explained to Jason, "They’re talking about mosquitoes. And swamp goo." She made a face that matched Jason's feelings about roping cows.
"Yeah!" Jason said.
“Dad’s got a whole marine biology course laid out for us this summer.” Cait added. “He talked to the Park Service and found out about all their programs. Now he’s finding out if Shaughnessy can show us some stuff. I guess we spend a lot of time in the swamp.” She made another face.
"Salt marsh." Jason said, "A swamp is fresh water. And it usually has trees."
"Oh, yeah." Cait said unenthusiastically.
“Cool.” Jason said, wish I could get in on it.
"Probably." Zan said.
"Probably what?" Cait said.
"Oh." Zan said, "Ah.” He gave Jason another furtive glance.
Cool, do we have a secret handshake too? Jason thought.
“Did some paddling yesterday, Bran showed me how,” Jason said, “and snorkeling. That was pretty cool.”
"I'd rather be ropin',“ Cait said.
"Hey," Zan said to Jason, "Aren't you working on a horse farm here?"
"Uh, yeah."
"Maybe your farm has some roping horses."
"No, no! NO! They don't."
"Oh." Zan and Cait looked disappointed. Zan's face brightened suddenly, "I got an idea. You could show Cait a thing or two."
"But I don't really..." Jason began, but Zan was gone, across the room, into the other one. Jason could see him leaning over the shoulder of the woman at the computer in the kitchen, the one with the wild looking pinto hair.
Pinto pinto pinto... the one in the sketchbook always overlaid with a drawing of a horse.
Or wolf.




The Children of the Night hide their identities from the mundane world, but Sharkman knows who they are. In the great battle against evil, they are his allies; the NightWatchers; werewolf and vampire, at least, those who feed on McDeathburgers and fries, not the Darksiders who prey on those who wander the streets alone.




“What’s he saying?” Cait asked.
“Don’t know.” Jason said. He tried to hear what Zan was saying, but couldn’t. He could see Pinto Woman’s face though, and it looked like the kind of expression Jason had seen on his dad's face when he asked to go to the comic store instead of the feed store. Not good, whatever it was. He hoped it had nothing to do with horses or cows. Especially cows. Jason turned his attention to the clutter in the living room. Some of it he recognized, but more of it looked like it belonged to some supersecret superhero squad. "Wow, look at all this stuff." he said, poking at something in an open plastic bin.
"Ahem!"
Jason's hand retracted, as if he'd touched something hot.
Earla stared at him from behind her computer. "That's highly sensitive scientific equipment."
"What's it do?"
"Fries the fingers off overly curious young men." She went back to poking at something on her keyboard.
Jason tucked his hands in his pockets and wandered into the kitchen to see what Ian and Bran were doing. Zan and the pinto woman fell silent. Ian looked up from the keyboard, smiled, “I think we...”
Pinto Woman elbowed him in the ribs.
His smile flickered, but he mostly ignored it, “...found you a ropin’ horse to practice with, guys.”
Cait grinned and let out a whoop. “Awesome!” she said.
“Oh crappola.” Jason said under his breath.
Ian motioned to the pinto woman, "Tas." he said by way of introduction.
“Of course.” Jason said. And that stupid song from that TV show Aunt Gracie liked (from the 60s maybe) was stuck in his head; a horse is a horse, of course of course, but no-one can talk to a horse, of course, unless, of course, the horse, of course, is the famous Mr. Ed!
Tas looked up at him and Jason noticed one eye was brown, and one blue, just like some pinto horses he'd seen. Or like some of the huskies.
Sharkman grins, turning on the charm.
Tas studied him the way his dad's best roping horse did, right before she slammed on the brakes and dumped Jason over her head.
"Hi," Jason said, feeling like a huge geek.
She held out a hand, and he shook it. Her grip made him think of a pro wrestler's. Then she smiled. Jason thought of sharks.
“We figured we could set up a little practice session for you guys.” Ian said. “Tas knows where we can find a horse.” He eyed her meaningfully.”Holly knows where we can find some space to practice.”
Tas gave him a long level stare.
“And Zan knows where we can get a cow.” Ian suggested.
Zan grinned, like a kid who’d just beat the highest level in his latest video game.
“One horse?” Jason said hopefully, “just one?”
“Hey, you can share.” Ian said.
“I think,” Tas said, “Jason would rather deal with the bloodsucking hordes of mosquitoes, flies and ticks in the marsh with you guys.” Her turn for meaningful looks.
“Well?” Ian said to Jason.
“Yeah. Oh yeah! Great! Can I?” Jason said.
“Shaughnessy wouldn’t have it any other way.” Tas stated, eyes fixed on Ian.
From somewhere behind them came the frrrrazzzt of electronics on the blink.
"Braaaaaan!" Earla said loudly. She stood up abruptly and marched to the computer he was now staring at in consternation. The acrid stench of fried circuitry wafted through the tiny room.
“Uh, come on guys,” Zan said pulling at Jason’s arm, “I think it’s time to go look at swamp goo or something.”






Sharkman takes his place among the Fearless Crew setting out into the Great Dismal Swamp.
Freeeeet...freeeet....freeeet...the soundtrack grinds to a halt.
Wait. There IS really a Great Dismal Swamp, and this isn’t it. This is too cool. And really, it’s not a swamp. A swamp has trees. Well, there’s trees here, but they’re not in the swamp. Marsh. Salt marsh. That’s what this is. The Great Marsh of Mysteries.
Freeeeet freeeet wheee wheeeeeeeee...the soundtrack resumes.
Sharkman takes his place in the bow of the Swordfish 5000. Its specially modified engines cruise at 60. That’s a casual stroll for Sharkman’s crew. When they’re not in a hurry. When they are, they just kick in the warp drive and BOOM!...








“Jason. Try to keep your stroke lower, short, easy, don’t dig in so hard. At that rate you’ll burn out before we get past the High School.” These words of wisdom came from Ian, knifing through the water in a sea kayak that made Jason think of Sharkman’s Mako Moray katana. the boat’s light hull was made of strips of natural wood, patterned like an exotic shark. Across the bow was the name Artemis. Ian’s stroke was low, easy, with the rhythm of birdwings, or maybe the running feet of the Siberians. Or Wolf, Ian's “totem animal”.
Morgan and Bran paddled the big yellow kayak with the very fishy sounding name of Finrod, Bri sandwiched between them. Jason was in the bow of the big black sit-on. Shaughnessy sat astern, stroking through the water as easily as Ian.
Easier. As easy as a dolphin. A really big one.
Aaron sat in front of him, doodling on one of Shaughnessy’s dive slates. He was pretty good for a little kid. Jason studied Ian’s muscled shoulders, the way his hands punched effortlessly toward the Artemis’ bow with each stroke, the way the paddle blade knifed the water. He mirrored that motion, found it as fluid and easy as Sharkman slipping through the water.






Holly knew a guy down at the end of the island with a couple of acres of mostly grass. George was one of the volunteer firemen, and kept a horse for his daughter, and one for himself, which he mostly used at the July wild pony roundup and auction, and the ones in spring and fall when the firemen took care of herd maintenance. His daughter’s horse was a Chincoteague mare, Dune, nearly fourteen hands tall. She was mostly dun; the color of a sand dune, with sunburned black mane, tail and legs. A splash of white sprawled across her withers like a breaking wave, and another foamed around the edge of her haunches. She liked carrots, jumping fences, and opening gates without any assistance. She knew nothing about roping. The other was a big mud-brown chestnut quarter horse, Fudge. He came from a long line of cowponies, but had never met a rope or a cow in his long life.
There was a one-acre pasture, fenced in with three strands of solar powered electric fence on steel green t-posts with bright yellow insulators, a one-stall run-in shed floored with sand, and a hundred foot arena fenced with three rails of wood.
George was at work, his daughter was at her summer job, and they had given Holly the use of the arena when ever she wanted.
“Those horses?” Cait asked.
“No.” Holly said, “Well, yes, you can use them, but I found a friend with a real roping horse.” She raised her voice a little on the last couple of words, they rounded the run-in shed and found a little medicine hat pinto waiting for them in the arena. She was about fourteen hands, a little bigger than most of the island ponies, sturdy but graceful, mostly white with a “medicine hat” patch of bright red chestnut around her ears and right eye and another, like a shield, across her chest. A narrow scrawl of chestnut ran down her back, her throat, and the centerline of her belly; it splashed up on her left flank, right before her stifle, and circled her butt at the base of her blond and white tail. Another splash of chestnut touched her right front leg, as if she’d run through mud. The edges of the spots were ragged, like torn paper, or the tops of waves blown by the wind, not smooth like the map-markings of the island ponies. The part of her mane that grew from the red-chestnut markings was golden, the mane that grew from the white part of her neck was white. The left eye was blue as winter sky, and the right as brown as sunwarmed earth.
“She’s not an island pony, is she?” Cait said.
“Nope. Mustang.” Zan said. “How’d you know?”
“The island ponies are all Tobiano pintos.” That pattern was the most common of the spotted patterns, and distinctive to the eye that knew what to look for. “She’s an overo.” Cait said. Overos looked like someone had splashed white paint at the sides of a normal colored horse. Like all pintos, they could be any color; bay, palomino, chestnut, black, dun. They could be mostly dark, or mostly white; it was the shape and placement of the white markings that set them apart.
The mare snorted agreement, it sounded like a laugh.
“Gear’s over there.” Zan said, waving toward the fence.
“Where’s the cow?” Cait asked.






Sharkman’s crew paddled north, in the shallow bays between the islands. Jason’s stroke evened out, like the ground-eating stride of a good pony. Overhead, grey and white wings cut the sky. They all pretty much looked alike to Jason, they all screamed loud, and most of them would stage an aerial battle worthy of Hollywood for cheese curls.
“That’s a Herring Gull.” Bran said out of the blue, signing it for Aaron and Bri. “that’s a Ring-bill. Laughing Gull,” he pointed to another grey-white bird that looked like all the others.
Laughing, Ringing, Herring, they all taste the same to Sharkman.
Bran cast a glance in Jason’s direction, the kind of look the Mathpuke teacher gave you when you had your Gameboy under your desk.
“Is there gonna be a quiz later?” Jason said, digging into the bag of chips he’d brought.
Bran gave him a long cool look. “No, but you should probably learn to recognize the Viking gulls,” one hand dived and snapped at an imaginary target. “They have a thing for sour cream and onion.






“Um. Oh! Yeah. The cow!” Zan smacked the side of his head and vanished back toward the run-in shed..
Cait went to the fence to collect the saddle and bridle. She slung the saddle against her hip, the way Mark had shown her, and threw the bridle over her shoulder. She paused to look at it before she went to catch the mare. She was still frowning at it when Zan returned, leading a small and sleepy looking brindle steer.
“Steer?” Cait said in surprise.
“What were you expecting, an emu?”
“Calf. You need two people and two horses to do steer roping.”
“Oh.” Zan said. “Well...” he cast an eye back toward the run-in, as if hoping a smaller cow might appear.
Cait interrupted him, “No bit?” she said holding up the bridle. Instead of the leather headstall ending in a maze of metal that went in the horse’s mouth, it ended in a stiff braided rawhide noseband. “A bosal?” Cait said. “That’s for training a young horse. Too soft, not much control for a finished horse.”
“Yeah, well, trust me, she’s better this way.” Zan shot a glance at the mare and she snorted. One ear twitched in what might have been a warning.
“Hmmph. Well, what’s her name?” Cait asked, slipping a hand under the mare’s neck to steady her as she slid the bridle on.
“Uh, Wolf.” Zan said.
“Funny name for a horse.”
“Funny horse. HEY!” Zan sidestepped as the mare’s haunches swung toward him, nearly knocking him over. He pointed to her chestnut chest shield, “That’s kind of shaped like a wolf’s head.”
“Ah, yeah.” Cait finished saddling up, checked her rope, an old one Mark had given her. Old, but really good. Really broke in.
Zan handed her a bike helmet.
Cait frowned at it. “Cowboys don’t wear helmets.”
“Yeah well, they woulda’ if they’d had ‘em. We have ‘em.” He thrust it at her.
She took it reluctantly and stuffed it over her short blond hair. “There’s no chute.”
“I’ll just let the cow go. You chase it...or whatever it is you do.”
“It doesn’t look very...” Cait squinted at the steer, “awake.” she finished. “And it’s a steer, not a cow.”
“Oh. Yeah. Right.” Zan stood, holding the rope to the cow’s halter. Steer. Whatever.
“You never did this before, did you?”
“Uh, no. Not really.”
“Go over there, at the end of the arena. I’ll start beside you. When I say go, let the steer go, and I’ll take off after it.”
“How fast do you want it to go?”
Cait gave him a look that said what? The gerbils in your brain have clearly fallen off their little wheels. “You open the gate, it runs.”
“There’s no gate.”
“Well, just pretend there’s a gate.”
“Ok.” Zan lined up with the steer. Cait lined up beside him, a few yards away. She looked at him, he looked at the steer, at Cait. She dropped her hand.
Zan let go the steer’s halter and it ambled off at a trot.
Cait watched it go, open mouthed.
“What?” Zan said looking up at her, still on the spotted mare, still beside him, unmoving.
“It’s supposed to gallop. Can’t you smack it or something?”
“Gallop?”
“Yeah.” Cait made galloping motions with her fingers. “It’s a timed event. You’re supposed to see how fast you can rope the calf. Or steer. That usually means you need a cow that’s moving fast.”
“Oh.”
Wolf snorted her disapproval. It still sounded like a laugh.
Zan made a face at her and trotted to the other end of the arena and collected his cow.
Steer. Whatever.
He brought it back to the starting line and held it by the side of the halter.
“Where did you find that steer, anyway?” Cait asked. She gave it a look, up and down, the kind of look that suggested that cow might be more useful as the star of a backyard barbeque.
“Um. Well. Uh, well, go ahead. I’ll see if it can go faster.”






“Sensors indicate no viable lifeforms, Captain.” The Science Officer holds up his Sharkscanner, squints at it. From the bridge Sharkman sees his eyes go wide in disbelief, “Wait Captain, there’s something...”
“Aaaaaaaaaggghhh!”
The transmission is cut off and there is only silence.


Jason held up a plastic jar of silty marsh water, like thin soup, teeming with life. Shaughnessy cupped a massive hand around it and peered at it, first with his bare eyes, then with something Sharkman would have liked to have in his gear box.
Jason wished he knew more Sign. He reached out a tentative hand and tapped the jar.
Shaughnessy held out the scanner, or whatever it was. A small screen showed the kind of picture you might see looking through a microscope; alien lifeforms squiggled across it and vanished off camera.
“Whoa, cool. Like the stuff we saw in bio lab last month. Joey brought in some water from his mom’s water garden pond, and Heather grew some stuff on her windowsill from week-old soup, and the best one was Logan’s. His toilet was backed up for a week...” Jason dribbled to a halt as Bran, Ian and Morgan stared at him.
Bri made a sign to Bran, her face a question mark.
“What?” Shaughnessy signed.
Ian signed back, “You don’t want to know.”






Cait nodded, lined up the little spotted mare, thumped the helmet tight down on her head and crouched over the mare’s neck, waiting, rope at the ready.
Zan crouched beside the steer. Opened his hand.
The steer shot off at approximately the speed of light.
Beside Zan, Wolf took off with a thunder of hooves and a spray of sand.
Cait lurched once, caught herself and swung the rope once.
Twice. It snaked out and fell into the sand about fifty feet behind the steer.
Wolf tucked her hindquarters under her and slid to a halt.
Not expecting so sudden a stop, Cait bounced, grabbed the saddle horn and came down on the seat with a thud.
The steer stood at the far end of the fence, staring at them.
Cait looked at the steer, and back at Zan. Her face showed total amazement. “That steer! You should enter him in the Kentucky Derby!”
“Yeah, I guess he’s awake now.” Zan whistled, and the steer ambled over. He pointed and the brown striped bovine took up its position at the beginning end of the arena.
“You got him trained pretty good.” Cait looked bemused, “I never saw a trained steer before.”
“It’s easy.” Zan shrugged. He could have trained a real one, but an illusion was even easier.
“Maybe you can tell him to run a little slower, so the horse can keep up.” Cait suggested.
Beneath her, Wolf snorted, laid her ears back. Pay attention, your illusion’s starting to act like Lassie the Wonder Dog. Keep it real!
“Ok, ok!” Zan said, more to Wolf than to Cait.
They lined up again. Wolf half crouching with her haunches tucked under her, ready to spring forth like an arrow from the bow.
Zan’s hand dropped, the steer galloped off in a spray of sand.
The bowstring sang, and Wolf ran, arrow straight.
Cait spun out her rope.
Once.
Twice.
It settled over the steer’s horns, easy as a rat snake catching a mouse.
Cait leaned back, dallied the rope around the saddle’s horn. Wolf tucked her haunches under her and slid to a halt.
The steer reached the end of its rope and swung around facing Wolf and Cait.
Wolf backed up a step. Two, keeping the rope taut.
The steer stood, staring uncertainly at cowgirl and horse.
“Whooo!” Cait whooped.
Zan trotted up and loosed the rope from the steer’s horns.
“How fast was that?”
“Huh?”
“You’re supposed to be timing us.”
“I am?”
“You got a watch?”
“No.”
Cait frowned at him, and undid her own from her wrist. “Here. Here’s how you do stopwatch mode.”
Zan nodded and they lined up again.
Horse and rider and steer shot off with muffled thunder.
The rope sang out and settled over the steer’s short horns.
Zan held up the watch as Cait trotted back.
“Wow!” she said, “This horse is fast!”
Beneath her Wolf snorted in agreement.
Cait swung off the saddle, “You try now.” she said to Zan.
“Uh.” he said uncertainly.
“Oh, you never did this before. Just do like I just did. You know how to ride?”
“Yeah. Yeah, I know how to ride.” Zan reached for the horn with one hand and swung up light as a cat, without ever touching a stirrup. He took Cait’s rope uncertainly though, fiddling with it until she snagged it back from him.
“Like this.” she showed him how to coil it properly, carry it, and throw it.
“Ok.” Zan dropped the thick rope reins on Wolf’s neck and looped the rope in his left hand. It snarled and twisted like an annoyed snake.
Cait reached for it and unsnarled it. She moved her hands away, leaving Zan with a coil of stiff rope, like a snake waiting to strike.
Strike him maybe. He eyed it as if it might suddenly leap up and snare his own neck.
The cow...steer, whatever...stood waiting patiently by the fence. In fact, it wasn’t moving at all.
“Ok,” Cait said, “you are good to go!” She frowned at the immobile steer.
Zan followed her eyes and wiggled a finger. The steer’s tail twitched at a couple of flies. Zan nodded at Cait.
“You want me to release the steer?”
“No, I think he’ll be ok.” He waved at his steer, and it shot forth toward the other end of the arena. Wolf followed at a thunderous gallop, Zan in perfect rhythm with her, though his feet had never found the stirrups. He swung the rope.






“How is it?” Ian said, signing the question too.
Shaughnessy poured the jar of water back into the marsh, as if he were saying goodbye to old friends. He looked up, signed something.
“No worse than before.” Ian translated. “For now.”
“What do you mean, worse?” Jason said. The boats rocked in sunny chop, to starboard a small band of six ponies grazed at the edge of the marsh. A stroke of white; a great egret, lifted off from the water’s edge. It all looked to Jason like a nature special on TV.
“Picture New York.” Ian said.
“New York? What’s New York got to do with this?”
Ian’s hands made a map in the air, “Here’s New York. Here’s the beginnings of the Susquehanna River. Flows down through the New York hills into PA, collects streams and creeks and smaller rivers along the way until it flows from PA’s feet into the Bay. It draws more water from DC and Delmarva and finally reaches the sea. The continent’s most endangered river flowing into the biggest estuary in North America. Farms, cities, parking lots, industry; all their runoff. Everything ends up here, in the sea.”
“Oh, yeah. Like in science class. We all live downstream.”
“We all live upstream, too.” Ian said. “Everything you do affects everyone else.”
Jason glanced at Bri and Aaron, who didn't know the part Morgan played in all this.. “So, we can fix it, right?”
Ian laid his paddle across his sprayskirt and signed to Shaughnessy. Jason turned to meet Shaughnessy’s sea-grey gaze; calm as the surface of mile deep water.
Calm. With something underneath that looked like a challenge.






Zan’s rope snaked out.
Once.
Twice. Just like Cait.
The rope snarled, snapped and fell in front of Wolf’s reaching feet.
“Whoa!” Zan shouted as the end of the rope whipped out of his hands.
Wolf did not whoa, or even slow. Her front feet found the loop meant for the steer, caught in it. Her shoulder dropped, and she rolled onto it at a gallop.
Zan flew, twisted in midair and landed like a cat.
Wolf rolled and popped back up again, full of sand, saddle askew, ears pinned back.
The steer reached the end of the arena, still going full tilt.
Wolf snorted, an explosive warning through the length of her nose.
Zan looked up, “Crap!” he whispered and the steer turned, scraping along the end of the arena fence.
Wolf flattened her ears again, shook off the sand and walked back to stand beside Cait. She nosed her in the back.
Cait grinned, “I think she said you are no cowboy.”
“Yeah,” Zan said, dusting himself off, “really.”
“You’re supposed to rope the steer, not your own horse!”
“Eh.” His steer trotted back to the starting line and stood, waiting. “Maybe we just better let you do this.”
Wolf snorted and nodded her head in agreement.
By the fifth run Cait had broken her record for the year. Wolf and Cait were both dripping with sweat in the hot June sun. “I guess we should go. Wolf needs a drink and so do I. And a swim. Maybe we should take this horse down to the beach, huh?”
“Yeah.”
Wolf gave him a warning shove in the back. Somebody’s parents have things their kids must do this afternoon, and you have ELF work to do online.
“We’ll have to do that later.” Zan handed Cait’s watch back.
Cait frowned at it. “Hey, what you do to my watch?” She sniffed. “It smells fried!”
“Sorry.” Zan said, “Maybe Earla can fix it.”
Cait handed it back to him. He tucked it into a pocket of his shorts and they walked back to the run-in shed, the brindle steer following like a dog. Cait glugged down a bottled water from her pack, but not before she’d led Wolf to the water tub by the shed.
Zan left both horse and steer there, and he and Cait headed back to the Wren’s Nest. He shot a glance back at the small whirlwind that had sprung up out of nowhere. He let out a breath of relief. Cait had never noticed that the steer didn’t breathe.






Crapzilla’s offspring multiply and grow. Grow to immense proportions. Their evil stench rolls out over the imperiled city. Zillions flee the rampage. The great signal light is lit. The Hero is Summoned. The roar of the Sharkcycle ricochets off the slimed walls. Sharkman slews to a halt, leaps off, katana drawn.
“Hah hah haaaaah! Do you think your miniscule pointy thorn will harm me?” Crapzilla II roars.
Sharkman looks up, and up, and up at the shambling monstrous mass. “Maybe not,” he says, sheathing the sword, “But this will.” he raises his hand and a green glow lights it from within.
He throws the Sharkstick...


At the moment, Sharkman was drifting in the dark, the Great Signal Light going blink-blink...blink-blink....blink-blink in five second intervals a few hundred yards off his starboard stern. That was the Assateague Lighthouse, a tall red and white striped tower built on the highest point of the island, a mound of sand surrounded by trees. Once, Shaughnessy had told him, the light had stood at the end of the island, but in less than two centuries, wind and wave moved the sand, and the island grew around and beyond the light, till it sat here, miles from the Hook at the south end.
No other lights shone on the kayaks as they slid through the night sea. The thin bow of the waning moon would not rise until after three am, the lights of Chincoteague town were amber candle glows in the distance. The stars looked like sugar spilled on black velvet, and the velvet water below them flashed with its own occasional faint stars. The only sounds were the splash of Jason’s paddle in the bow of the black kayak, the distant cry of night birds, and soft wind in the trees lining the channel. The feel of the big black boat under Jason changed, it slowed, turned. Jason hadn’t even heard the splash of a paddle in the water. He never did. They all paddled like magic.
“Man,” Jason said, “wish I was an Elf.”
“What?” came Bran’s voice from the rear of the big yellow kayak, Finrod.
“You obviously never played D&D.”
“Did too.” Bran said.”
“Did what?” Morgan said.
“Dungeons and Dragons.” Ian said. “Before video games, Morgan, there was imagination.”
“What have dungeons got to do with dragons?” Morgan said. “They wouldn’t fit in there.”
Jason said, “If I was an Elf, I’d have infravision. I could see in the dark.”
“That’s Dwarves.” Bran said.
“Man, what gaming system are you using?” Jason said.
“What?” Morgan said.
“Dwarves are the night people, the underground folk.” Bran began. “Elves are solar-powered.”
“They have to see in the dark,” Jason proclaimed, “otherwise it’d be pretty useless to have an Elf for a D&D character. Going underground blind, I mean, what happens when his torch goes out? The orcs have him for a midnight snack.”
“No no no, we see long distances, like Hawk, not like Owl. And we take lots of torches. Hardly anybody gets the stories right anymore.”
Ian said. “Mercedes Lackey’s elves got drunk on caffeine or chocolate."
"Ridiculous." Bran said.
"Tolkien’s could see farther than eagles, but not any better than humans in the dark. In Irish myth, a king of the Tuatha DeDannan had a silver hand that worked as well as a real one."
"He did too." Bran said.
"In the Victorian Age Elves degenerated to Flower Faeries of the Wayside that could fit under petunias.” Ian said.
Bran snorted.
"Ugh." Jason agreed. "Aunt Gracie has a whole 'fairy garden" in her living room, with little wingie girls and those gnomey things with the big hats." He paused, peering at Bran, "They're not, like...real, are they?"
Bran made a disgusted noise. "The smaller spirits that ARE in the forest are a lot weirder...and more powerful."
"Let me NOT mention the 'elves' in that one animated Hobbit..." Ian said.
Bran made a face that suggested he'd just eaten roadkill.
“How about Spock.” Jason suggested, “Same sort of idea, only science fiction.”
“Too logical. Ever see a logical Elf?” Ian said.






A line snaked out into the dark, the weight on its end went down with a sploop. Others followed from the other boats. A small green light bloomed on Bran’s boat, then on the others: light sticks. Jason cracked his, shook it, and it glowed like a huge green firefly. Jason donned mask and fins and snorkel: here the water was not deep enough for scuba. The others would use scuba, farther out in the deep channel. Shaughnessy waded up and tied Jason’s light to the back of his mask.
“So I can find you before the sharks do,” he signed with a grin.
Jason had figured out a good many of the signs by now, he knew find, and shark, You was easy. He laughed, “There’s no sharks here.” He made the sign for no and shark. The lighthouse was nearly a mile astern now, the Assateague Channel hugged the shores of Chincoteague here, Jane’s Creek Marsh lay east, like a scoop of watermelon spooned off the bigger island of Assateague. Between the marsh and the channel lay a stretch of shallow water, only chest deep now.
Shaughnessy smiled, whale broad, slowly spelled out a few names; “Lemon, dusky, sandbar, dogfish.”
“Whoa!” Jason said, “Really?”
“Sometimes.” Ian said from the dark.
“Cool! Think we’ll see any?” Jason said.
Shaughnessy handed Jason a cylindrical object, half the size of a scuba tank. He signed something, and Ian’s voice came out of the dark, translating. “If you do, your job will be to follow it, and record it with this.”
“Huh?” Jason held it up and studied it. “Looks like a video recorder.”
“...in an underwater housing.” Ian said. He appeared out of the dark, framed in green light. Shaughnessy turned on the recorder’s lights and pointed to one control, then another while Ian explained their use.
“You’re going to let me film stuff?” Jason said in amazement.
“Well, technically it’s digital.” Ian explained.
Shaughnessy shouldered a much larger piece of gear. Much larger.
“His hands are going to be kind of full.” Ian added.
“Wow! Is this going to be on, like, National Geographic, or Animal Planet or something?” Jason said.
Jason could see Ian’s shrug, “You never know.”
Ian vanished back into the dark, a black shape against iron-grey sea, with his lightstick glowing like a comb jelly. Jason heard a muffled conversation between him and Bran. A loud splash. Then Morgan laughing. Then, “Too bad you don’t have infravision.” Then the three voices drifted off toward the channel and deeper water.






Zan stood in front of the door of Cait’s family’s rented cottage, his hand hesitated over the doorbell, then moved to the doorknob. The door was unlocked, he could hear sounds of people in other rooms. He slid it open and reached for the light switch. Flick, flick flick. Sneakered footsteps on wood floor, then across a rug, Aaron rounded the corner of the kitchen and stared at Zan. He smiled shyly, signed, “Come in, sit down.” then vanished back into the house. A few seconds later Cait appeared.
“Hey, hi.” she said out loud, “it’s almost dark. What you up to?”
“Want to go riding?” Zan signed.
“In the dark?” Cait signed back.
“Beach doesn’t close till ten. We got at least an hour of real dark.”
“Beach?”
“Beach.”
“Just a minute.” Cait vanished into the house, returned a minute later with her bike helmet and boots.
Zan eyed the boots. “Just the helmet maybe, sandals or sneakers would be better.”
Cait gave him a look that said what kind of daft cowboy are you anyway?
“Well, not much of one.”
Cait gave him an even stranger look, mixed with some astonishment, and Zan realized she hadn’t said that out loud, or even signed it. “Oh, uh, bring your swimsuit too. I mean, wear it. Oh, come on, it’s getting late!”
“Ok.” Cait signed, and ran for her stuff.
Zan retreated to the front yard where two horses stood waiting.
Cait pounded down the steps a minute later in swimsuit and shorts and sandals. Zan stood in the yard with Wolf and a slightly smaller dun pinto mare, both wearing nothing but bridles. “Cool,” Cait signed, “we ride Indian style.”
“Something like that,” Zan said, mostly to himself. Elven style, actually, except I’ll have to use a bridle, it would look too weird otherwise...
“Huh?” Cait said out loud.
“Nothing. Nothing!” Zan swung up light as a windblown leaf onto the pinto mare.
“She is the one from the farm we visited.” Cait nodded at the dun pinto.
“Yeah, Holly got her people to let me borrow her. The girl that owns her isn’t getting much of a chance to ride her this summer. Classes and all.”
“Oh. You got Wolf too! Cool!” Cait caught hold of Wolf’s mane near the withers and swung up. She stuck, halfway there, one foot across Wolf’s rump, the other dangling.
Zan laughed.
Cait glared at him and slid down again.
“You want a hand?” he signed.
“No.” she said out loud. She caught a bunch of mane in her hand again and leapt. This time she overshot and slid off the far side, landing in a lump on the sandy ground.
Wolf stood still as a rock, but swung her head around to look. She lifted a lip, showing white teeth.
“You stop laughing too.” Cait told her.
“You can ride bareback, can’t you?” Zan signed.
“Yeah, sure.” Cait said.
Zan could read the thoughts that ran below that like fish, just under the surface. She’d learned to ride cowboy style, in the big broad western saddle with its horn and swells in front and its high cantle in the back, wedging a rider in like a medieval knight’s saddle. It was good for working cattle, for roping and staying on the trail all day, for carrying tons of gear. It was like a pickup truck. But you could not feel the horse through it, not the way you could sitting on a bare back, feeling each shift of muscle, where each foot fell, feeling how the horse breathed. Some humans in the world had ridden that way: the people of the Great American Plains, others. Zan’s folk had always ridden that way, unless they needed a saddle to carry gear, or stirrups to raise an archer up off the moving back of a galloping horse. The rest of the time they rode light, without saddle or bridle, for they could speak to the horse without reins and whips and spurs. “Try again.” Zan said.
Cait walked around to the left side again, Wolf nosed her gently. Cait took a deep breath. She looked up at Zan, sitting comfortably as if he was in a beach chair. “How you do that?” she said out loud.
Zan bit his lip, trying to think how to explain it. You just do it. “Think light.” he said at last.
“What?” Cait said out loud.
Zan made the sign for light; hands in front of his chest, like the wings of two birds nearly touching, the wings swept up. “Think light.”
“How does that help me get on the horse?”
Zan’s eyebrows twitched in frustration, “It starts with how you think. You see it here,” he tapped his head, his heart, “then you do it.”
“You are weird.”
Zan looked at the ground, feeling as if a horse had just tossed him there. By now, he should be used to being called weird, but he wasn’t. And he liked Cait, she and Jason were the only things standing between him and a summer with nothing but adults as buddies. A bug walked by his horse’s feet and he fixed his eyes on it, afraid to look up again at Cait.
Cait walked over, put a hand on his knee, “Hey, I didn’t mean that. It’s good weird. Come on, try to show me how you get on the horse.”
Zan slid off the Dune. He stood beside her shoulder, trying to think of what he did to get on her back, and how to put that in human words.
Or signs.
Sign. Most human tongues ran in lines, like a river. One sound followed another, like letters on a page. Sign was like an ocean, three dimensional, hands flew like birds, like fish in space; the face, the body said things at the same time. The Elves had learned this long ago, for their language was one of sound and sight and motion. “Standing on the ground, you are like a tree, rooted,” Zan began. “To leap up like this,” and he was on the mare’s back in a flash, “you must lose your roots. Be light, like a bird. Like a leaf on the wind.” He slid down and showed Cait again, his hands showed how the body stopped being tied to the earth, and reached for the sky.
“Yeah, ok.” she signed, uncertainly. She leapt and the bird crashed back to the ground.
“Yeah, well, I did that too a few times.” Zan said, and it was mostly true.
Cait tried again.
Again.
Again.
She stood back, studying Wolf.
You could just kneel. Zan suggested to Wolf.
No. Let her do it.
Cait took the handful of mane again and swung up. This time the bird flew. She landed on Wolf’s back with a grin. “Hey! I get it!”
“Cool!” Zan signed. He swung back up on Dune, with the reins loose on her neck, she turned toward the street and headed down Main Street toward Maddox. They plopped along at an easy walk for a few minutes, admiring the warming evening sky to the west over the bay. A few cars, moving slow, passed them. A couple of tourists paused and snapped their picture. Gulls swooped over the bay to their right, diving for dinner. A hairy little white dog on a leash yapped at them as they passed, remembering that his ancestors had been wolves.
Down Main Street, turn at Maddox, across the flat island to the darkening east. Past realties and restaurants, motels and motor inns, past two bait and tackle shops (Tom’s and Captain Steve’s) around the traffic circle, past the t-shirt and souvenir shops, their bright boogie boards and beach towels announcing the arrival of the tourist season. Zan edged Dune into a slow jog, glancing back at Cait to see if she could sit a faster gait. She nodded, cowboy to cowboy, and eased Wolf into a jog. Zan grinned back at her, made the “ok?” sign.
“Cool.” Cait signed.
They jogged past the bright red and yellow kayaks standing on end at Tidewater Expeditions. Down the street toward the McDonald’s at the edge of the continent. They picked up the pace a little, trotting over the causeway and bridge with the evening wind singing in their hair, into the Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge. A few bicycles passed them, on the way back out of the park, and one pedal buggy: a four-wheeled vehicle pedaled like a bike. They strolled past tall loblollies lining the road, past the trail up to the lighthouse, not yet turning in its slow blink-blink...blink-blink this early in the evening. Past the brackish lagoons along the park road where herons, egrets, terns and gulls were beginning their evening feast on the small fish that collected there. Their haunting cries filled the air till even Cait had no trouble hearing them through her hearing aids. The woods and shrub opened up, and they could see out across the marsh to islands of trees on ground slightly higher than the surrounding marsh grass. In the distance, Zan could see a herd of the wild ponies grazing, he pointed, but Cait couldn’t see them.
“I think you are imagining them.” she said.
Zan sighed, turned from the distant herd, wishing he’d brought binoculars to prove it. And he could feel her disappointment, she wanted to see the wild horses she’d heard so much about, that she had not yet seen since her family came to the island.
The road led between vast stretches of shallow water to the beach. To the left, north, lay the freshwater pools built by men a long time ago to give added habitat to waterfowl. To the right, south, lay the wide shallow circle of Tom’s Cove.
The riders jogged along the grassy edge, then along the road connecting the parking lots. “There’s a boardwalk there.” Cait said, pointing to the wooden walk that led through a space in the dunes to the beach beyond.
‘We have to use the oversand trail. The one they put in for four-wheel drives.” Zan pointed south. “Where the road ends, we can hit the beach.”
“Four wheel drive?” Cait patted Wolf’s neck, “We got fur-wheel drive I guess.”
Zan laughed.
They rode past tourists hosing sand off small children, past a couple drying wetsuits on a rail fence as they packed up their surf kayaking gear. Past a truck with a platform on the front bumper filled with an array of surf fishing poles like catfish whiskers.
Finally the pavement ended in a sand circle, a sign announced the necessity for an oversand permit and special survival gear. An air hose and compressor stood waiting for off-roaders returning with half-deflated tires.
“What’s that for?” Cait asked.
“Off-roaders. They let half the air out of their tires to run on the sand. Works kind of like a camel’s foot. Squishes out, doesn’t sink into the sand. They can fill their tires back up there.”
“You think the horses will sink into the sand?”
Zan laughed. “There’s wild horses all over the island. I think they’re ok. But the tide’s about halfway to low, and there should be some harder sand down near the water.” He followed the offroad trail to where they could cross the low dunes onto the beach. Cait turned Wolf’s head toward one of the dunes, thumped her sides with sandaled heels.
Wolf came to a dead stop.
“What?” Cait said to her.
Wolf turned and resolutely started walking back toward the path through the dunes.
“What’s wrong with this horse?” Cait shouted at Zan.
“You can’t run over the dunes, if everybody did that, there wouldn’t be any dunes. They protect the island.” He made the sign for guard/protect; his fists crossed in front of his chest, ready for action.
“Protect it, from what?”
“Assateague’s just a big sandbar, with its head barely above the sea. Wind and water move it around all the time. Storms wash right over it. The dunes protect the shrubs and trees and marsh from the waves and sea wind. Those plants hold the dunes together.”
“Those little scraggly things?”
“Those little tough scraggly things.” Zan said. He rode through the pass between the dunes and onto the beach, the roar of the surf washed over him, the falling sun tinted the white foam with orange and mauve, the sea beyond was dense dark blue. He headed for the swash zone at the water’s edge, and the hard, wet sand just above it. He eased Dune into a canter, glancing back at Cait.
She slid her right leg back, like Mark had taught her, signaled for a left lead. Wolf coiled and stretched into an easy canter: one-two-three, one-two-three, one-two-three, left fore-leg striking the sand last. Cait bobbled, grabbed mane, dropping the reins. She frowned, rummaged for the reins, still holding on with the other hand. Zan slowed, letting her come alongside.
“You should...” he began.
Wolf’s warning came into his head; Quiet, give her a chance to figure it out for herself.
Cait gathered up her reins again, one-handed, cowboy style, the other still latched onto Wolf’s ample mane. She bounced, her butt hopping off Wolf’s back with each stride: one-two-three-BOP, one-two-three-BOP!. Zan could see her legs gripping extra hard. “Stay loose!” he said over the wind. He left his reins lying on Dune’s neck and signed, “You know what happens when you squeeze a watermelon seed with your lips?”
Cait looked at him as if his brain was full of gerbils. “What does that have to do with staying on a horse!”
Zan’s finger traced the trajectory of a well-aimed spit seed. “Squeeze with your knees too hard and you’ll spit yourself off the horse.”
“You are so weird.”
Wolf splashed through an incoming wave, and gave a little hop to avoid a bit of debris in the swash.
“Waaaah!” Cait said and spat herself right off Wolf’s back. She landed with a sploosh-thud in the crash of the next wave. The one behind it dumped on top of her. Wolf pattered to a halt, turned and looked back at her.
Zan wheeled Dune around and stopped next to Cait, rising dripping from the waves like the Creature From The Black Lagoon. “Ok?” he signed.
She pulled off her helmet and shook out a bunch of wet sand and three mole crabs. “Yeah, sure.” She slogged over to where Wolf stood, waiting, and swung up. “I guess,” she signed to Zan, “the swimsuit was a good idea.”






“No no NO, bonehead. How many times do I got to show you this before you get it through your thick skull!” Ten year old Jason was bobbing around on top of a lumbering mass of roan Quarter Horse named Tank. The saddle was about the size of an oil tanker, and the rope had all the user-friendly capabilities of a guest reptile on Crocodile Hunter. Jason had been trying for a half hour to rope a steer. At least it wasn’t going anywhere fast; it was a plastic head on a short stack of haybales. Jason had missed for the zillionth time, his dad’s decibel level had risen to the level where it might crack the very earth and send Delaware into the sea. A few of the other hands were leaning on the fence, snickering, or trying not to. Others had wandered by, shaken their heads and wandered off again.
No matter what Jason did, the stupid stationary steer seemed to duck out from under the rope. He was trying hard not to cry, cowboys don’t cry.
But when his dad shouted, “You’re about as useful as one of those scrub mustangs!” Jason did.


Jason floated in a sphere of dark. Somewhere beyond, the lights of Chincoteague warmed the western horizon, and the sweep of stars that was the Milky Way sugared the sky overhead. Here was only a circle, a sphere, of dark water, salty around the edges of his snorkel’s mouthpiece. There was no Up, no Down, only this dark, silent world.
Space, the final frontier.
Inner space, maybe.
Out of the dark came faint stars. Jason blinked, had he imagined them? No, there they were again, faint green explosions against his mask, like miniature fireflies. Plink, plink, plink.
Like fairy lights or something.
He floated in this familiar alien world, the shallow bay he’d seen under the sun, and waited. Plink, plink. More green flashes, barely there. Then a big one, glowing softly, floated by in slow motion. Jason held out a hand and corralled it. He flicked his recorder’s light on and saw a pulsating gelatinous blob drifting away from his hand, pale against the dark sea, little rainbow lines dancing along its sides. He watched it drift off then stood up grinning. “Whooo!” he shouted.
Shaughnessy stood up next to him, pulled his mask down around his neck, signed, “You see it?”
“Yeah yeah yeah!” Jason paused trying to remember signs, carefully he spelled out b-i-o-l-u-m-i-n-e-s-c-e-n-c-e. Shaughnessy shoved a dive slate under his excited hands. “...big thing- comb jelly... ??? little flashes against my mask???” he wrote.
“Dinoflagellates.” Shaughnessy wrote back.
Funny word for something way smaller than dinosaurs. “Cool.” Jason signed. He held up the video camera in its waterproof housing with a question in his eyes, trying to remember if Shaughnessy had shown him the sign for film, or tape, or start.
“Remember how to work that?” Shaughnessy signed.
Jason caught the sign for remember and that. “Yeah.” Jason said, not entirely sure he remembered everything he needed to about the camera. He frowned, “mostly.”
“Ok. Problem? Just ask.” Shaughnessy pointed north, along the coast of Jane’s Creek Marsh.
Jason nodded. Sharkman and his team embark on a secret mission, silence and stealth is the key to its success. Sharkman is one with the water.
Shaughnessy submerged without a ripple.
Jason followed, with somewhat more disturbance of the water. The light on his video recorder glowed golden across sand and silt. Patches of weeds broke up the pale bottom with a miniature dark forest. Mysterious things moved among the tangled branches, hidden things, flicking out of sight before he could see them. Flashes of orange or red or white announced the presence of Dead Man’s Fingers, Sea Pork and other squooshy blobby things he didn’t remember from the field guide Shaughnessy had shown him in the daylight. The light from Shaughnessy’s camera vanished astern. The sea was a pool of night full of strange things with teeth and glowing eyes that lurked just beyond the firelight glow of Jason’s camera light.
Something flicked out of sight at the edge of the dark; something sinuous, snaky, quick. Jason gasped through his snorkel and floundered up to stand in the familiar world of stars and distant town lights.
A disembodied voice called from the Assateague woods, not far away; hoo hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo hoo HOO! It sounded like the ghost of Halloween future.
“Gah!” Jason said, then realized what the sound had been, just a Great Horned Owl .
A dark form rose from the swamp twenty feet from Jason. He jumped, as far as he could wearing fins; that is, not very far. He stepped on one fin, floundered mightily and fell over backwards into the dark.
“Ok?” Shaughnessy signed, when Jason had regained his feet.
“Yeah, yeah.” Jason said, feeling stupid.
“See something?”
Jason shrugged, “maybe.” His hands made snaky quick shapes in the air.
“Eels.” Shaughnessy spelled out with his hands.
Jason spread his hands apart like a fisherman showing the size of his catch, how big?
Straight faced, Shaughnessy spread his hands out as far as he could reach, about six feet.
Jason’s eyes widened. Only then did he see the hint of a smile at the corners of Shaughnessy’s eyes.
The big man shook his head, moved his hands closer together. “Anyway,” he said out loud, signing at the same time, “you wouldn’t taste very good.”






Zan stretched Dune’s gait into an easy canter, reins looped loosely through one finger just to keep them from falling over the mare’s head. Beside him, Cait eased Wolf into a canter too, then frowned as her butt bounced on Wolf’s back like a beach ball.
Zan twisted toward her from his secure seat on Dune’s back, raised both hands and signed to Cait, “Melt into her back.”
Cait made the sign for ‘weird’ at Zan.
“No, no no, really! Pretend you’re sinking into her, like a wave into sand.” Zan struggled to find words that made sense. Cait needed to ground herself. To be part of the horse, not just sitting on top of it. To root her energy in the ground, even though she was moving. “A ship, dropping an anchor through her into the ground.”
“Weird!” Cait signed emphatically, then grabbed mane as she bobbled.
“Sand.” Zan signed in the growing dark, “Feel as if your bones are sand, as if it’s running through the horse into the sand below you. As if you and the horse and the earth are one thing.”
Cait shook her head, but in a minute she had stopped looking like a beachball and was beginning to look like part of the horse.
There was a good stretch of hard packed sand between the wrack line of high tide and the underwater shell line that marked the lowest point the waves would reach. The sun sailed away on its journey over North America and beyond, leaving the sky ablaze with sunfire and cloudshadow. The sea darkened to the east. Stars glowed faintly, then stronger. The world darkened to a stretch of pale sand, the sound of crashing waves, and the snowsprinkle of stars overhead.
Dune could see even better than humans in the dark, she would not put a foot wrong. Wolf, too, had the eyes of a mustang, even on a moonless night like this. Zan stretched the pace into a gallop. He felt the footfalls of his horse; right rear... left rear and right fore together...left fore, then a moment of flight when all four feet were airborn. Then stretch again into the next stride. Stride, stride, stride, like the rhythm of the waves on the shore. Like breathing, like a heartbeat. The stride lengthened, the pair of legs that struck the sand together broke up now so the beat was one-two-three-four....flight. One-two-three-four... flight. Behind him he heard Cait let out a cowboy whoop, it sounded joyous, but Zan slowed Dune, falling back beside Wolf to be sure.
Wolf was pounding through the edge of the swash, surf turned purple by the sunken sun, against the dark sky and sea beyond. Cait had loosened her hand from Wolf’s mane and was sitting straight, arms out like a bird in flight. “How’s this?” she shouted.
Zan nodded, grinning.
“Like flying!”
They pounded down the beach for a mile, then Zan straightened, Dune slowed, stopped.
“Why you stop?” Cait said.
Zan pointed to the curve of sand vanishing around the bend of The Hook. “That’s closed till after Labor Day.”
“Why?”
He started to point to the signs on the high part of the beach, ones Cait could not read from here. “Piping plovers nest here. They’re an endangered species. Hikers and dogs and four-wheel drives could damage their nests or young.”
“Oh. What they look like?”
“Kind of like a killdeer.”
“Yeah, we see killdeer all the time at home. One made a nest in the middle of our gravel driveway last year.” Cait laughed. “We had to drive on the lawn all summer.”
“A piping plover is a little sandpiper about this big.” His hands flew, describing the size and shape of the tiny bird with its long legs, sand coloring and trace of dark necklace. He wanted more than words, more than Sign Language. More than the detailed sound and sign of the Elven tongues. He wanted to show Cait the bird, make a picture in the air with his illusions.
The air between his hands wavered, for a moment a pale form flickered there.
Cait squinted in the dark as if she’d seen...
Zan snapped his hands shut and dropped them on his horse’s neck. “There’s a display in the visitor’s center.” he said.
“I want to see real ones.”
I could do that, he thought.
Zan! Came the warning from the spotted mare beside him.






Jason drifted on the surface of a dark watery world. Three feet below him the faerie forest of eelgrass and widgeon grass, Sea Pork and Golden Star Tunicates waved in the wind of the outgoing tide. The video light danced across the bottom like a stage spotlight. The actors appeared. A blue crab waved threatening claws and vanished into the grass. A two-foot long eel wriggled out of the dark and rippled away again. A couple of fist sized pufferfish stared dazedly at the light.
The surface chop rocked Jason, and the camera. He frowned and tried to steady it. It bobbled and rocked. The camera was underwater, but Jason was on the choppy surface.
There has to be a way. Shaughnessy is filming in the same water and I bet his films don’t look like bronco-cam!
Jason could see Shaughnessy’s light twenty feet or so away, it was steady as headlights on a flat road. It was closer to the bottom too, Shaughnessy was really really good at holding his breath, and staying down near the bottom.
Jason was not as good at holding his breath, and he knew if he went up and down all the time, his video would look like a roller coaster ride. People would get seasick enough watching it the way it was now, rocked by the chop.
Sharkman would not be having this stupid problem, he’d just breathe water. He’d have a Sharkcam with shock absorbers.
I am going to look like such a geek.
Wait, bronco cam.
That was it. The only horse thing Jason had ever been really good at: Egg and Spoon.






Zan left the horses standing just beyond the surf and headed for higher ground.
Cait looked back, “Won’t they run off? It’s a long walk back.”
“Don’t worry.”
“Cowboys don’t walk. If we were meant to walk, we’d have four legs. that’s what Mark said.”
“They won’t go anywhere, I told them to stay.”
“Yeah, sure.” Cait looked doubtful. “Maybe we should tie them up.”
“To what?”
Cait looked around, Zan was right, there was nothing but sand. “Anchor, maybe. My dad uses buried plastic bags full of sand instead of tent stakes when we camp on sand. We got no bags, no rope.” She pulled Wolf’s reins over her head and dropped them on the ground. “I try this instead, ground tying.” She explained to Zan, “Cowboy thing. You think she knows that?”
“Probably.” He left Dune’s reins over her neck and climbed up the gentle slope of deep sand. Zan stopped where the beach leveled off and listened to the night wind. The stars and the distant human lights lit the pale sand enough to see shapes against it. But he didn’t really need to look with his eyes right now. He stretched out other senses across the barren beach.
Barren only to those who didn’t know how to see. Behind him, under the sand a whole world of tiny life swarmed among the grains of sand, moving back and forth with the rhythm of the waves. Higher up the beach, small things tunneled in the sand: ghost crabs, others. Night birds called, found the small things in the sand, in the spent waves reaching up the beach and feasted. And out there in the sand another small life was starting.
Zan went a little farther, to where only the highest spring tides or storm tides reached.
Cait jogged after him, “What?” her hands said.
Zan stopped, leg poised like a cat. Cait lurched to a halt beside him.
“Quiet.” he signed.
“I’m always...” she began out loud, very loud.
Zan clapped a hand over her mouth. Crept forward like a fox stalking prey.
Cait shook her head, but followed him, copying him.
Zan stopped, knelt close to the sand. It’s ok little brother, little sister, I won’t bother you. No one can see you but us.
Cait crouched beside him, “A cage?” she questioned with her hands.
A round circle of wire, closed at the top, sat on the sand.
“Inside.” Zan signed.
“I can’t see anything.”
“Camouflage.” Zan signed.
Cait stared, then grinned, “Little bird, against the sand.” she signed silently, “Hard to see. Why the cage? To keep them in?”
“To keep predators out. The plovers can go in and out all they want.”
“Cool!” Cait signed.
They lay against the cool sand, watching as if they were invisible. The stars wheeled overhead, the waves retreated on the tide. At last Zan rose and they walked back to where the horses stood by the wet sand that had been underwater a half hour ago.






Bronco-cam, that was it.
Jason’s dad thought Egg and Spoon was ridiculous, not at all the kind of thing for Manly Men to do. it was a horse show game for little kids, even though adults did it too. Sometimes it was a race, sometimes just a contest to see how long you could keep your raw and potentially disastrously gooey egg on the spoon as you walked, trotted, cantered and galloped your horse around the arena. Sometimes you had to get on and off, or stop hard and fast. Or stretch out your trot till you were bouncing like a bicycle on a railroad. Or you had to drop your stirrups so you couldn’t stand up off the bounce bounce bounce of a moving horse.
It required an obedient horse, and a steady hand. A loose hand. A hand that wasn’t quite connected to your body.
Jason’s body was bouncing up and down in the chop, but his hands could be somewhere else, part of the camera, not part of the bounce. He grinned behind his snorkel mouthpiece and experimented.
It worked. His light traced a steady circle across the bottom.
Sharkcam, yeah! An eel wriggled deeper into the weedbed, and the moment was caught on video. A turtle lay half hidden, blinking in the sudden light. Jason stopped, lowered the camera till it was lens to eye with the turtle. The turtle stuck out a snaky neck and stared at it, then, its cover blown, paddled off. Jason paddled ferociously after it, to no avail; the turtle’s webby feet, flashing in alternate pairs, vanished into the dark.
Cool, Sharkman loses race with turtle. News at eleven.
Jason drifted on, occasionally turning to see if Shaughnessy’s light still glowed nearby. It was a candle sized glow, maybe thirty feet away, maybe more. It was hard to tell in the dark. the water was pretty clear, so maybe it was even farther.
No problem, Sharkman has it all under control. He’s ready for anything in the Great Marsh of Mysteries.
A shadow moved at the edge of night. Flicked out of sight. Jason turned to look and nothing was there. Must have imagined that. He went back to poking the camera into the weeds. Maybe he’d catch one of the little seahorses that were supposed to hide there.
Flick, fade. The motion registered at the edge of Jason’s awareness. He held his fins still and stared into the dark.
Nah. The water’s three feet deep. Nothing big could be in here.
It drifted out of the night sea, fluid as the water itself, its kind ancient when dinosaurs were born. Its belly shone pale in the camera’s light, its back and sides the color of steel. It floated by with barely a fin flick, filling the space between sand and surface. It slid by Jason, close enough to touch.
Slid by..and by...and by.
Jason hung motionless in the water, his breath frozen in his snorkel.
On by...and by...and by. The shark must have been longer than the big black kayak. The long blade shape of its tail sliced the surface, the wake from the shorter bottom half bent the weeds below like a passing wind.
Jason hung in the dark sea, afraid to move, afraid to stay.
And utterly fascinated.
The steely jibsail shape of the tail vanished into the dark.
Something touched Jason’s shoulder. He leapt straight up, like a submarine doing an emergency blow. “Gaaaah!” he turned to find Shaughnessy regarding him calmly.
“You get that?” he said out loud.
Jason stared at him, trying to make his brain work again. He finally forced his eyes down to the video camera, still running. “Uh, yeah.” He made an emphatic sign, “Yes!”
Shaughnessy smiled, “Good. I missed most of her.”
“Ah, ah, ah, her?” Jason tried to remember the sign for girl, he touched the top of his mask with thumb and forefinger.
Shaughnessy shook his head, ran a thumb alongside his face.
“Oh, yeah.” Jason said. “Should we be standing here like this? What if she comes back?”
Shaughnessy made a face that said, what?
Jason reached down, turned off the camera. Pulled out his dive slate, wrote on it what he’d said.
“She’s not hunting us. Just bottom dwelling fish, maybe some smaller sharks.”
“Oh, cool.” Jason said, relieved.
“Of course, she could eat you if she was hungry enough.”
“Wonderful.” Still, somehow it seemed unlikely with Shaughnessy there. “What was that?” Jason signed what and that. He frowned, trying to remember the sign for shark.
Shaughnessy’s hand made a fin shape on his head. “Dusky shark,” he said. “they come up into the bay sometimes to feed, reproduce.”
Jason spread his hands out like a fisherman showing the size of his catch, cocked a questioning eyebrow.
“Her? Twelve feet. A big one.”
Gaaaah. Bigger than both me and Shaughnessy put together. “Cool.” Jason signed. Then, half hopefully, half in terror he wrote, “Think she’ll be back?”






They cantered back along the edge of the waves, hoofprints flashing faint green for a moment. Cait pointed down and signed “What’s that?”
“Bioluminescence.” Zan spelled out. “Microscopic things in the seawater, finds its way into the sand. Flashes when you step on it. Dino...dino...what the heck...I’ll have to ask Shaughnessy again.”
“Oh. Looks like magic.”
The waves even seemed to glow with a faint green light as they crashed, pale against the dark sea beyond.
Magic. Zan edged Dune ahead so Cait couldn’t see his face. Magic. If only he could share his magic; his talents, his thoughts, his dreams.
It would terrify her. They will run from your magic. Or chase you into the dark wild corners of the world. Or try to steal it...like Morgan’s cap. Or kill you out of fear.
He let Dune stretch out into a gallop, the breeze from the cooling land washed over him, spray from Dune’s running feet misted into his face. He didn’t need magic for this. He dropped the reins across her neck. One hand casually tangled in her mane, twisting it into an elf-braid. One leg hooked over her back as he swung off her side, his elbow through the braided loop of mane. If he’d had his bow, he could have made an easy shot under her neck. He swung back up, letting her motion move him back into place on her back. He swung a leg over her withers, spun in place on her back till he was sitting backwards, then he swung back again. One hand in the mare’s mane and he could swing off, touch the ground, swing back up. Finally he stood, perfectly balanced on her back, then dropped back into his seat just behind her withers, dropped as light as a feather falling.
He slowed to a walk, and Cait fell in beside him. He hid behind his mane of red hair, half afraid of what she’d say. He hadn’t meant to show off. It had just happened; a dance with the wind and the spray and the night, running like a wolf, flying like a bird, leaping like a whale.
“Where you learn that?” Cait said out loud, her voice full of amazement.
Zan shrugged. He couldn’t begin to tell her the truth. He wasn’t entirely sure he should have even shown her that much. Wolf, at least, was silent.
“Pretty awesome. I see trick riders do stuff like that once at a rodeo, but they had saddles.”
Zan could feel her wonder, curiosity. And something else; hunger to do it herself.
“Plains Indians: Lakota, Cheyenne,” Cait said. “They did stuff like that hunting buffalo. Swinging off the side, shooting under the horse’s neck. Dad showed us in a book. Hey, maybe you show me how to do that, and it’ll be extra credit for my history class!”
Zan laughed, “Yeah, well, you are doing pretty good without a saddle.”
“Yeah? Really?” her voice was hopeful.
“You really want to learn stuff like this?” He stood, bent his knees slightly and flipped, landing on Dune’s broad rump.
“Whooo!” Cait whooped.
Zan didn’t really need to ask that. He could feel it pouring out of her like a breaking wave.
“You show me.” Cait said.
“Ok.” Zan broke into a big grin, “Ok!”
Shark-fu
(Crouching Raven, Hidden Doofus)






The short amphibian, wrinkled and green, squints up at Sharkman. “Too old he is, the training to begin.”
“But, but Master Toada,” the young Sharkman begins, “I know I can learn...” He spins his new katana, made by the master Mako Moray, and promptly impales his foot. He grimaces through six rows of shredding ivories.
“And overly clumsy, he is.” Master Toada adds. He turns and hops off.
Gobi-Wan Anchovy strokes his chin barbells, watching the Great Master go.
Sharkman unsticks his Mako Moray special, “Please, Master Gobi-Wan. I do not wish to be one of those uncivilized heroes who blows up everything in sight with a blaster!” And I really need to learn more supersecret moves to defeat Flamini, Dark Lord of the Silt. “Help me Gobi-Wan Anchovy, you’re my only hope!”
The PADI Master turns, studies Sharkman with eyes deep as the sea, his face unmoving as the rocks at Shipbreaker Shoals.
“I know,” Sharkman begins, “where I can get a lifetime supply of Ben and Jerry’s Chunky Monkey...”
Gobi-Wan’s eyebrows lift, “Very well then. Follow me.”






As Jason heaved the last wheelbarrow onto Crapzilla, a shadow filled the gate. He looked up; Zan with a skateboard tucked under one arm, Cait on her mountain bike, a backpack slung over her shoulders. “Hey.”
“Hey.” Jason shoved the wheelbarrow off to the side, and tossed it over with a kung-fu kick he’d seen in one of his video games.
“You want to go out to Assateague?” Zan said hopefully.
Jason retrieved his pack, “Uh, yeah, sure.” He eyed the skateboard, painted in the kinds of eyeball blasting colors Zan seemed to prefer (weird, some of the designs on it looked like stuff from Ian’s sketchbook).
Sharkman raises his Sharkscanner: beeep-beep-beep-beep-beep. Skateboard: coolness factor of twenty-four on a one to twenty scale.
Jason considered Cait’s beat-up mountain bike with its butt-kicking tires, and fifteen rock-climbing speeds.
Beep-beep-beep-beep. Mountain bike, veteran of many death-defying adventures: coolness factor of eighteen, at least.
Sharkman considers the Triceratops the weenies in Supplies for Superheroes Inc. have inflicted him with.
Bleep blitzzzt. The Sharkscanner self-destructs. ARRRRRGGGGHHHHHH!!!
“Don’t worry,” Zan reached a hand toward Cait’s pack, she passed it off to him. “You won’t have to take the Trike.” He heaved another skateboard out of Cait’s pack, this one bore more mundane Wal-Mart designs, though it was still pretty cool. Zan plunked it on the pavement by the barn gate. With one foot on the second skateboard, Cait shoved the handlebars of her bike toward Jason. “Take my bike.”
He stared at it as if she had just handed him the keys to Bran’s Jeep. I am gonna look like such a dork.
“You ride, we skate.” Cait said.
“Yeah, ok.” Jason said. Nobody said, you can ride something with two wheels right? Of course he could... he just generally looked about as cool as a toad on a twig.
Cait slung the pack over her back, stepped onto her board. Looked back over her shoulder at Jason. Just like Heather, daring him to zap her with the Supersoaker 5000.
The one they’d filled with liquid raspberry Jello.
Jason blundered onto the bike, found the pedals; placed like stirrups a little too short, the seat a bit narrower than his home built Sharkcycle or the Triceratops.
Nobody laughed. Nobody yelled at him to hurry up. At last they rode down Maddox, around the traffic circle, past the McDonald’s at the Edge of the Continent, out across the bridge and into the park on Assateague. The bike trail wove from the Visitor’s Center through the trees and into the marsh. The trail mutated from sand to boardwalk to gravel to asphalt.
A half hour later they were racing along the empty Wildlife Loop, where cars were allowed to drive sometimes. Jason was just barely in the lead, he was fairly sure they’d let him win, but he didn’t mention it, and neither did they.






“You think Misty Acres needs another cowboy girl?” Cait tucked, wove her skateboard around the turn onto Willow Street. Zan flew ahead as if he had anti-gravity thrusters on his board.
“Yeah,” Jason said, “actually. One of the Barbie Girls left.”
“Barbie Girls?”
“She was afraid she’d break her nails, I think.” Jason made a face. “She wanted air conditioning in the barn so the sweat wouldn’t make her makeup run.”
Cait grinned, “I can picture her now, thanks.”
“You could go with me tomorrow, talk to Margerite.”
“Good. I tell her I never worry about breaking nails. Or makeup.”
“I think she’ll like you.” Jason said.
Cait skewed to a halt in front of Holly’s dogyard gate, flipped the skateboard up into her hands. Zan was already there, frowning at the gate. Jason wobbled to a halt, lumping off the bike with none of Cait’s grace. Behind the trees the sky was glowing boogie board colors as the sun swam into the west.
From inside the fenced yard came laughter, muffled voices, and a sound like...
...swords clashing?
Jason shoved past Zan, yanked the gate open far enough to squeeze through.
“Wait,” Zan grabbed at Jason and was hauled through the gate.
“What?” Cait said, squeezing in after them and chaining it carefully against escaping Siberians. Two dogs looked up from where they were digging, wondering if the new humans had brought them anything interesting. Holly’s tiki torches already burned, making the yard look like a lost island camp.
At the far end of the yard Bran executed a flying flip that made wire-fu look tame. Ian blocked a swordblow, rolled and came up laughing. “Not fair!” he said.
Jason stared, they did stuff like that in kung-fu movies.
With wires.
“Hey!” Zan shouted.
Bran stopped in mid-swing, stopped as if someone had put the DVD player on pause. Stopped like a cat stalking, sword poised to fend off a horde of ravaging orcs. Ian froze in a pose mirroring him. The dogs’ noses moved like camera lenses from Bran to Jason to Bran again.
“Rooooooo.” Strider suggested.
“Duuuuude!” Jason said in awe, “Do that again!”
“Do what?” Bran said.
“Rrrrrror.” Strider muttered, ice blue eyes met Bran’s dark blue ones.
“Hey, cool.” Cait said, “You practicing for that next big pirate movie?”
“Yeah,” Bran said, his swashbuckler smile returning.
The words fell out of Jason’s mouth before he could think too hard about it. “Hey, show me how to do that!”
“Why?” Bran said.
So I can defeat Flamini, Dark Lord of the Silt. What Jason managed to say out loud was, “Uh. Umm.”
“Your biggest enemy is not the Dark Lord of the week, but someone much closer.” Bran said.
What? What’s this? The Zen of Master Toada?”
“You.” Ian said.
“Huh?”
“Ah,” Bran spun the sword lengthwise, caught the hilt as easily as if it were a frisbee, flipped the sword point first into a clump of sandy grass. Three of the dogs let out aroos of approval. “You think this will give you some kind of coolness factor.”
“Uh.” Jason said brilliantly.
“Come on, Gobi-Wan, he might be all that stands between us and galactic devastation.” The voice was Zan’s. Beside him, B’loo barked in agreement.
Jason frowned, he couldn’t remember when he’d mentioned Gobi-Wan to either of them.
They stared at each other for a micro-eternity; the short redhead and the tall pewter haired man. B’loo wandered off to look for mice in the shrubbery. Strider looked up at Bran again and warbled something in Siberian.
Bran’s eyes went from Strider to Zan to Strider again. He let out the kind of sigh parents let out when they decide to let you buy the extra comic book. “Get the bos, then.” he said to Zan. He turned to Jason. “The operative word in the phrase self-defense is defense.”
“Yeah,” Jason interrupted, “like when we had karate in school, we ...”
Cait clapped a hand on his shoulder, hard, shutting him up, “Then you know to listen to the sensei. Not to start fight. Walk away. Run away. Stay away. Only for defense, right?”
Bran studied Jason, silent as if waiting for Jason to say something.
“Yeah. Yeah! Yes! I get it!” Jason said.
“The first step then, is this.” Bran bowed, hands clasped like closed talons. He straightened. “Respect.”
Cait bowed, elegantly as a fishercat stretching.
Jason bobbled, hands lumped together in what he hoped was an approximation of Bran’s closed talons.
“”If you forget that R word,” Bran said, “remember; I’ve been doing this a lot longer than you have.” His eyes glinted, raptorish.
And you’ll kick our butts into next century. Jason thought.
Bran smiled, it made Jason think of hyenas.
Jason nodded emphatically and bowed again, just to be sure.
Zan reappeared, carrying two six foot sticks. Bo staffs, Jason recognized them from video games, martial arts movies. Asian version of the quarterstaffs used by all those guys in Robin Hood movies. Zan handed them to Bran, who handed one to Cait.
“I will teach you a form I learned long ago.” Bran’s voice had shifted, as if it were coming from another time and place. A place where clashing swords and ships with sails were not uncommon. He moved; like a cat, like a striking heron, like rain. It was a swift blur of motion; hummingbird wings, rattlesnake tail, lightning strike.
Jason stared in awe. No way. No way I can do that.
Bran drew to a halt, a wave on sand. He held the bo, still and ready, and studied Cait and Jason. Then he moved again. The whole dance all over, in slow motion. And again, so slow it looked like superslow mode on the DVD player.
“Whoa!” Jason said softly.
Zan shot him a swift glance, one that said quiet! Something about him no longer looked like the ninth grader on a skateboard. It looked...Jason wasn’t sure. Older, fiercer, focused,
like..like. Like the fox he’d seen stalking a rabbit once. Or the swift little Cooper’s hawk the wildlife rehabber had brought to their science class.
“Now,” Bran handed his bo to Cait, “you try the first move.”
Step back, raise the stick above your head as if fending off an overhead strike, which you are. Simple. Another move; drop the bo and block low. Another move, to the side, to the other side...plant it, stand on one foot, swing it like an immense sword, step and poke as if it were a spear...
Simple.
Bran made it look simple. Cait made it look simple. Zan made it look stupid simple.
Jason just made it look stupid.
“Straighter here.” Bran poked at Jason’s protruding midsection, then his chin. Moved a hand. A foot. “Sink more.”
If I sink anymore I’ll grow roots...
“That’s the idea, root yourself, then you’ll be like a tree, immovable.”
“What about the orc with the big axe?”
“This is serious.” Cait said. “Not game.”
Bran just gave Jason another raptor glare, not a bit like the swashbuckling pirate in the marsh.
Jason tried to grow roots and mostly failed. The tree wavered in the wind, bobbled, toppled. Jason sat on the ground, glaring at the stupid stick. Feeling like he did when his dad’s second best barrel horse dumped him. Waiting for the storm that was his dad’s reaction.
“Try again.” The words were quiet, like the air before a storm.
Jason looked up, tensed for the onslaught of that storm. In the twilight of the yard, Bran’s eyes were the color of night sky.
“Come on,” he said quietly.
Jason lurched to his feet, graceful as an overturned turtle. “I don’t think...” he began.
“Don’t think.” Bran said. “Feel. See. See the way I stand. The way Zan moves. The way Cait swings the bo. Feel it. Do the same.”
“But....” But I’ll look stupid. I do look stupid. I’ll never get this. I’m a permanent member of Geekazoids Anonymous.
Everyone was quiet, staring at him. Just like when he had to read his stupid report in front of the whole stupid class. Just like when he couldn’t rope a stupid haybale.
Maybe it was time to go back to Aunt Gracie’s. It was getting pretty late.
Bran planted the end of his staff in the sandy soil, he leaned on it, like a bird on a perch. Yeah, I could go home now. Tell them I have to be back by ten or something.
Bran’s voice returned to the world of computers and video games. “You ever watch a bird learn to fly?”
“What?” What that had to do with bo staff was beyond Jason.
“They jump around and flap pretty uselessly,” Bran was saying, “and generally look really stupid. They don’t get off the ground, or the branch, for days. But all the flapping strengthens their wings, and they eventually fly.”
“I think he’s saying it’s ok to look stupid. I do sometimes.” Cait said.
“Yeah.” Zan said, and laughed at some memory Jason was pretty sure he wasn’t going to share.
Go home. You’ll never get it.
Bran waited, raptor-eyed.
If I go home now I’ll never be able to come back. Jason stood, planted his feet again, trying to imagine roots. He raised the staff one more time. Block up, block down, block sideways...
Bran nodded sharply, and stayed silent.
Jason faltered to a halt, the rest of it had vanished from his memory. He made a face; this was where his father usually shouted at him that he should be paying closer attention. He stood there, face going the color of an all-week Assateague sunburn.
“Sensei, I think he doesn’t remember yet.” Cait said.
“It’s ok. Some people take longer to remember. Shadow Zan.” Bran said quietly. “Don’t try so hard to remember. Just do what he does. If you fall, get back up in a fighting stance.”
Jason faltered into place beside Zan.
“Step back three steps, so you can see him better.”
Jason did, and one foot fell into the latest Siberian pit mine. “Aghck!”
Bran stood, waiting, silent. A dozen dogs stared from the sidelines.
Jason rose, found something like level ground, fixed the position of the Siberian hole in his mental GPS. “Ok.” He raised the bo.
Step, swing, block, poke. He tripped over the hole once. Didn’t crouch quite low enough to block important body parts. Planted the bo in a way that would allow an opponent to take out his knee.
Bran did not offer advice this time, he stayed silent, watching, raptor like .
After half a dozen times the form began to make sense. Then it began to flow like a river with only a few rocks in it. Big rocks, but less than earlier on that river.
“Ok.” Bran said. “Good.”
Good? Good? Jason wobbled to a halt, dripping in the warm June dark. A few mosquitoes buzzed around his ears, he hadn’t noticed them until now. He stood still, bo in hand. In a fighting stance. Good?
“Yes.” Bran’s voice, again, had that weird echo of sails and swords. “I would not yet ask you to face a boarding party of pirates, but you have learned much.”
Jason bowed, hands closed like locked talons.
Bran bowed in return. Then he smiled and his voice shifted again; creaky and old and amphibious, like Master Toada’s voice might be. “Defeated your worst enemy you have. For now.”






Raven Commandeers a Ship






The blue Jeep bounced down Chincoteague’s backstreets at the summer pace of a strolling turtle. Its corners were filling with shells and driftwood, an entire horseshoe crab shell sprawled in the cargo hold, its swampy aroma noticeable despite the missing Jeep roof.
Cottages drifted by in surf whites and flip-flop flavored summer colors, lit by a brilliant early morning sun. The Willow Street grocery expedition turned another corner, swerved hard aport to avoid a wandering bicycle.
“Starboard!” Bran said suddenly, one hand reaching for the wheel already occupied by both of Ian’s hands.
“HEY!” Ian said, swatting him off like an annoying brother. “It’s not like a ship, you can’t have more than one helmsman.”
Bran gestured emphatically at the street they’d just passed.
Ian stopped, “Grocery store’s thataway.” He gestured the opposite direction.
From the back seat Holly saw them stare at each other for a moment, the way her dogs did sometimes, as if there was a conversation going on she couldn’t hear. Ian sighed and spun the Jeep around. Two zigs and three zags later the Jeep hove to at the edge of a yard full of stuff. Stuff on tables, stuff on tarps on the ground, stuff hung from a twenty foot aluminum ladder slung between two shorter ones.
“Awesome.” Tas grabbed the rollbar over her head and swung overboard.
“Coooool.” Bran said and headed full sail into the midst of it.
“Since when are Elves addicted to yard sales?” Holly said.
Ian climbed out, trailing after Bran. Holly followed them, eying the tables for anything useful; books, clothes, tools.
Bran drifted along the tables, picking up dinnerware, glasses, vases, watching the dance of light through the glass. His fingers trailed through a pile of old beach souvenirs, holding up each and inspecting it as if it were pirate treasure. He stopped at a box of toys, most the kind of thing one found in kid’s meals at fast food places, poked through the bright colored plastic. He soon had a small army of colorful action figures.
“Don’t you have that one?” Ian complained. “And what are you going to do, build an addition to the house when you get home?”
Bran shot him a loaded glance, picked up three more.
“Was there some purpose to stopping here, “ Ian said, “besides adding to your collection?”
“Oh, yeah.” Bran wandered to the table under the porch, unloaded his armful of shells and souvenirs and action figures. A young girl put them carefully in a plastic bag, giving Bran the kind of look that she might give a teacher wearing a colander on his head. Bran gave her a big grin and returned to the yard, Ian trailing after him, holding the bag.
“Groceries?” Ian suggested.
“Wait a minute. Ah, there.” Bran dropped anchor at an object sprawled on the grass in front of the porch. His face spread into a grin, then that shapeshifted into something more pensive, as if he was catching a glimpse of a distant ship through fog.
The object in question was a small kayak, its plastic hull shaded from a neon green to an oceanic blue. It was a sleek spearhead shape, well-made, narrower and smaller of cockpit than the little bathtub shaped recreational kayaks. It was utterly seaworthy, a proper privateering vessel. Lumped on top of it was a PFD, a sprayskirt and a pretty good paddle. Bran turned it over, studied the bottom; a few scratches, a few scrapes. Not bad.
A forty-something woman in tasteful beach attire stood before him, she smiled a perfect smile that didn’t go much past her lips. “That’s a really nice boat. We got it for Jonathan last year.” She nodded toward a bored looking teenaged boy lounging under the shade of the porch. “He decided he wanted a ...” she frowned, as if looking for the words...”one of those surf play boats. This one cost us four hundred dollars. We’ll part with it for two.”
“Dollars?” Bran queried.
She gave him the sort of patient look Higher Beings give those lower on the food chain. She smiled. “Two hundred.”
Bran smiled, a wide pirate smile. His eyes took in the Humvee in the driveway, Tasteful Woman’s expensive clothes, the latest name brand fashion on the boy on the porch. These people sure didn’t need two hundred dollars for a used kayak. In fact, they could afford to give it away. “Nice summer house.” he said, eying the tastefully painted cottage, the tasteful and expensive lawn decor: a few excellent examples of local decoy art.
“Yes, it is. We come down nearly every weekend. In the off season too.”
“Well,” Bran ran a sandaled toe across the edge of the little green kayak, “I’m with the Earth Life Foundation...”
“Never heard of it.” Tasteful Woman said, still smiling like a shark.
“Nobody has. We’re an ecological research and education group. Non-profit.” he emphasized the last words. He produced an ELF card from a pocket and thrust it at her.
She took it, looked down the length of her nose at it.
“We’d have a use for that boat.” Bran continued.
“Two hundred,” she said.
Bran turned up the charm. “Tax deductible contribution.”
Tasteful Woman’s shark smile grew a bit toothier.
Bran could see his natural charm was getting him exactly nowhere. His smile sweetened, “You don’t really need that much for it.” He nodded at the Hummer. Eyes the color of the sky over the Himalayas met Tasteful Woman’s hazel eyes.
Ian exchanged glances with Holly.
“What is he doing?” she whispered.
Ian let out a breath, held up the bag of yard sale pirate treasure. “Being...”
“...a pirate.” Tas said under her breath.
“... Raven.” Ian finished.
Tasteful Woman stared into Bran’s eyes like a deer into oncoming headlights. Her smile faltered.
“Tax deductible.” Bran said again.
The lady’s lips wobbled, started to form words.
Bran dipped into a pocket in his baggy shorts and produced a ten. He thrust it under her nose. “This will be...”
“...sufficient.” she said.
He grinned, and handed her the ten. Picked up the boat one-handed, the PFD, sprayskirt and paddle in the other hand, and carried it all back to the Jeep. He turned and waved at her, still grinning his pirate grin.
She waved back, looking a bit dazed.
Ian and Holly retreated and helped him lash it to the rollbars. “You don’t need to see my credit card, these aren’t the Elves you’re looking for.” Holly quipped.
“Yeah,” Ian said, “Maybe we should flee before she changes her mind.”
Tas gave a tie-down a quick tug and swung over the gunnels into the Jeep.
The pirate crew of four fled.
“In legend,” Holly said from behind Tas’s pile of yard sale loot, “Raven stole the sun. I guess a very small ship is easy after that.”
“Commandeered.” Bran said, “Commandeered a ship. It’s a nautical term.”
“Raven didn’t steal the sun,” Ian said, “He put it back in the sky where everybody could enjoy it.”
“Ah yes. You’re right.” Holly said. “You need another kayak?”
“No.” Bran said, “Jason does.”






Sharkman types in the secret code to open HQ’s gate. The robotic sentinel emerges; veeeeep, viiiip. Reads his unique retinal pattern. The sentinel retracts. Vrrrrrp. The gate opens like the lens of a giant camera admitting Sharkman to HQ, he enters, ready for his next mission.


The offspring of Crapzilla were definitely taking over the world, Sharkman fought them with ferocity but the sun was well over the yardarm when he had beat them back.
For today.
Jason knocked on the Wren’s Nest door and found himself staring up the steps at Earla. She definitely looked like Heather’s Dwarf fighter in their D&D games, one that had just been rousted from her bed after a long night of partying. She filled the doorway, an immovable barricade that not even an army of orcs could have budged. She was wearing a headband from which dangled a large magnifying lens, a small light, and some other things Jason couldn’t begin to identify. The lens dangled in front of her eye giving the eerie impression of a one-eyed mad scientist.
“Well?” she demanded.
“Um,” he managed to say. He studied the step under his feet, a bug walking along it, a sandy footprint from the last one who had tried to storm the Castle of the Wren’s Nest. What he wanted to say was, well, he wasn’t sure at all what he wanted to say. Cait and her family had gone off on some sort of Family Mission, and Jason didn’t feel much like riding around the island on the Trike of Doom by himself. Or going to the beach by himself. Or pedaling around the Wildlife Loop looking at marsh birds by himself. He wanted to go back out in the Marsh of Mysteries and see sharks. He wanted to wield Sharkcam. “Is, uh...I mean...”
“They went to OC.” Earla stated. “Morgan and Shaughnessy, anyway.”
“OC? Oh, Ocean City.” Sharkman felt like an octopus out of water, limp, soggy and flat. “I, uh...” he mumbled.
Earla stepped back, the smell of something freshly baked wafted from the kitchen. “Why don’t you test drive a few of my brownies while you’re figuring out what to do with the rest of your sentence.”
Jason looked up again and Earla looked less like a Dwarf guarding a castle gate, and more like somebody’s aunt. He wandered in, noticed Ian by the window, focusing intently on something on his laptop; tcka tcka tcka, tap...tcka tcka tcka. He followed Earla to the kitchen, she thrust a pan of brownies at him, reached in the fridge, handed him a gallon of milk, opened a cupboard and found a mug all in one motion. There were still tools and bits of computers all over the galley-sized kitchen and the screened porch beyond. Some of it looked like computer stuff anyway, some of it looked like props from a science fiction movie, some of it looked like the action figure aisle of the toy department had exploded. “What’s all that?” Jason asked, finding a spot at the table unoccupied by pieces of deceased computer.
“Projects.” Earla said. “This isn’t some enchanted forest full of fairies living with no visible means of support.”
Jason laughed.
A gigantic mug of milk chunked down on the table before Jason. “Some of that video footage you shot is really good.” Earla said matter of factly.
Jason looked up from his mug, startled, “Really?”
“Yeah. Especially after you figured out how to stop letting the waves bounce you around.”
“They noticed that?”
“Shaughnessy said to tell you he’ll have another job for you soon.” Earla said.
“Oh. Wow. Cool.” Jason drained his mug, no small feat. The tool Earla had provided to cut the brownies was about he size of a large garden trowel, Jason dug in with it and pried loose a piece of brownie his aunt would have considered impolite.
Earla sat at the other side of the table and began fiddling with part of her pile of science fiction parts.
“What’s that?” Jason asked.
She didn’t answer for a minute, adjusting her lens and light and poking at something with a tool that looked like pliers had collided with a surgeon’s toolbox.
Jason leaned over the table for a closer look. “Hey, that looks like a Lego!”
Earla glanced up but said nothing.
“And that’s from some action figure. I forget his name, but he’s in that new Japanese animation thing on Cartoon Network.” Jason leaned closer.
“You’re in my light.” Earla said.
“Your light’s on your head.”
“My other light.” Earla pointed an elbow toward the window.
Jason sat down again.
“Have another brownie.” Earla said.
Jason did. “Whash ish thatsh, anyway?” he mumbled through the brownie.
“It’s a special computer for one of our students.”
“Oh. With legos in it?”
“He’s seven. He has cerebral palsy and wants to save the world when he grows up.”
“Oh.” Jason didn’t know what to say to that.
“I think Ian’s doing something you might find interesting.” Earla suggested. It sounded like a bit more than a suggestion. “Take that with you.” She nodded toward the pan of brownies. “And the milk. He hasn’t come up for air in the last four hours.”
Jason took them and the trowel and went into the living room. He stopped behind Ian’s left shoulder, “Cool, what’s that?”
“Gaah!” Ian frantically juggled the laptop to keep from launching it onto the floor. He turned and came nose to rim with the pan of brownies.
“Want some?” Jason said.
“Where did you come from?” Ian looked as if he would like to send Jason back to wherever it was he had come from. Outer Mongolia perhaps.
“Uh, down the street?” Jason thrust the brownies at Ian, the way he might thrust a steak at an annoyed dog.
Ian shook his head, “I keep telling her, if I eat those things I’ll be the size of an elephant seal. Hey, can you see if there’s any soy milk in the fridge?”
“Sure, yeah.” Jason vanished back into the kitchen, leaving the brownies on the table.
Earla looked up.
“He said...” Jason began.
“Yeah, yeah, I know. In the fridge. There’s some sort of rabbit food in there too. That’s his. Might want to take him some. Don’t think he’s eaten anything since breakfast.”
Jason rummaged in the fridge and found the soy and a mug and a bag of baby carrots. He went back to the living room and held them out to Ian.
“Thanks.” Ian took them, and handed the bag of carrots to Jason. “Have some.” He said through a mouthful, his eyes still fixed on his laptop’s screen.
Jason made a face.
Ian grinned. Held out a carrot.
Jason studied Ian’s muscular shoulders, “You really eat this stuff?”
“Yep.” Tcka tcka tcka tap. “Seafood, fruit, veggies, whole grains.”
Jason made a face.
Ian didn’t look up, “Yeah, I used to make the same faces. I think everybody’s favorite nickname for me in ninth grade was Lardbutt.”
“You were the fat kid?”
It was Ian’s turn to make a face. It would have beaten Jason’s in any contest. “Been there, done that.”
Jason took the carrot and chewed thoughtfully. He peered over Ian’s broad shoulder at the screen. “Projects?”
“Online art class for Hawk Circle Farm.” Tcka tcka tap, click.
“Oh. This isn’t some enchanted forest full of fairies living with no visible means of support.” Jason said, sounding more or less like Earla.
Tcka tcka tckktht. Ian looked up, startled.
“Earla said that.” Jason explained.
“Oh. Yeah. Right. Her dad says it all the time.” Ian’s voice dropped an octave or two, “Gotta pay the bills! We’re burnin’ daylight here!” Tcka tcka tcka tcka. The email page was replaced by a file from one of the emails; a superhero Jason couldn’t identify leapt across the screen.
“Hey, cool! I thought you’d be doing like, I don’t know, white-tailed deer or something.”
“We do that too. This is a comics class I’m running.”
"As in teaching?" Jason eyed the semi organized clutter in the room, "is that your sketchbook?
“Yeah." Ian gestured to open it.
“Whooooa.” Jason said softly. “Cool orcs. Really evil looking.”
Tcka tcka tap beep. Pictures came up on the screen. “Here’s some of the reference I used, a couple of old horror movies, some real life mummies...”
“Gross!” Jason said in enthusiastic approval. “Hey, this Dwarf warrior chick looks like Earla. Dragon’s cool.” It looked as if Ian had drawn it from life, not made it up out of his imagination. “Sorta’ like a parasaurolophus with a little bit of utahraptor thrown in.”
“An element of Chinese traditional medicine is ground up dino fossils...’dragon bones’.”
“Whoa, gross.”
“And the Lakotas have dragon legends...they would sometimes find dino bones in their backyard.”
“Yeah, out west, that’s still where the best digs are!”
“Yep.” Ian turned, studied Jason, “You have a sketchbook.”
"Yeah...sorta'..."
“Well, bring your sketchbook sometime, huh?”
“You really want to see it?” Jason’s voice sounded doubtful.
“Yes.”
“It’s not very good.” Not anywhere near as good as Ian’s.
“Doesn’t matter how good it is. You have to start somewhere. Oh, hey! I almost forgot. Bran wanted me to...ah, follow me.” Ian stood up, stretched in a way that suggested he might be able to scratch his ear with his big toe. He headed toward the kitchen.
“How’d you do that?” Jason said, amazed.
“Yoga.”
“Carrots and yoga?” Sharkman sneers at the lunch lady, “Carrots? Carrots! Where’s my steak? And my pan of brownies, the special deep chocolate ones baked by little dwarves in a hollow tree! And yoga? Sharkman wouldn’t be caught dead in a yoga class. That’s for wimps! “
Ian opened the door to the back porch and moved a dive tank out of the way with one finger hooked under the valve; the effort he used made it look like a helium filled balloon rather than a steel tank with 120 cubic feet of compressed air in it. Jason had lifted that tank once, and knew how heavy it was.
Whoa. Sharkman is first in line for the next yoga class.
“Hey, you gonna show him the boat?” The voice came from directly behind them and wasn’t Earla’s.
Ian spun like a startled wolf.
Zan perched on the edge of a cluttered lawn chair. He made a sound Jason recognized from Animal Planet; a zebra barking.
“Thanks for remembering,” Ian said. “but you’re supposed to make noise before you give me a heart attack.”
"Stealth ninja elves." Jason said.
Zan slid off the chair without a sound, slipped between Ian, Jason and random clutter. He stopped by a kayak leaning against the wall of the house. It was nearly as neon green as Zan’s shirt, shading to a cool surf blue at the stern. “What do you think?” Zan asked Jason.
“Really cool.” Jason said, “Yours?”
Zan smiled a knowing smile.
"Bran procured it.” Ian began.
“Commandeered it.” Zan said.
“...from a yard sale. It's a bit too small,” Ian said, “to suit our purposes..."
"Porpoises?" Zan said. He gestured and a tiny dolphin leaped from hand to hand.
"Wow! That's way cooler than a raft!" Jason said. Way more expensive, that is.
"Yeah," Zan said, "a good used boat like that oughta' go for..." Now there was a small model of a sailing ship balanced on one finger. A fast little two-masted brig, square sailed except for the one big fore and aft sail at the stern. It looked exactly like the one in the pirate movie Jason had seen about twenty times.
"About five bucks." Ian said.
"Really?" Jason couldn't believe it.
"Ten with the paddle, the sprayskirt and the PFD." Ian said.
"That's it?" Jason said.
"Yep."
Zan waggled his fingers, humming something. It sounded like part of the soundtrack to that pirate movie.
"Zan!" Ian said.
"What?" Zan stood still and stopped humming.
"Wow.” Jason said, "Ten bucks!” He frowned. He’d spent the last of last week’s paycheck on a boogie board that had broken in a breaking wave.
“It’s ok.” Ian said, “Bring it when you get your next check. Zan'll take you out for more practice. Now. In your own boat." Ian gave him a meaningful look, "No shipwrecks, no shark attacks, no pirates. Just how to handle the boat, stay out of trouble, and navigate the backwaters of Chincoteague."
“Yeah, ok.” Zan said, and grinned a pirate grin.
“And be careful in the channel off the west side of town, the current’s pretty fast there.”
“No problem, “ Zan said.
"Wow.” Jason said, “Cool." Nothing more intelligent than that would come out of Jason's mouth. And he couldn't imagine why these guys would replace the awful pink raft with something this cool. What was up with that?
"We figured," Zan said, "you're gonna need it."






Sharkman trudges on, despite the severe lack of technology in this backwater village.


Jason waggled the pen for his graphics tablet and Sharkman’s costume changed to a rather pukey shade of blue; the kind they only dared put on baby blankets. He frowned, clicked on another paint swatch.
“Yeah, more like it.” He had thought up several new chapters in the Sharkman saga, a few had made it into the Sharkman files on his computer, which he could then upload to Heather at the Wren's Nest.
He finally showed Ian his sketchbook, with some trepidation. Trepidation formed by a relationship with the school art teacher that was rather like the relationship between hyenas and lions...


“What’s this?” Mrs. Lehman peered down at what should have been a red barn with cows and geese and other bucolic stuff. She glared at Jason with the malevolence of a lioness finding one lone hyena cub. “We are doing Landscapes today!” Landscapes, with a capital L, she said it that way as if it were as Important as Apollo Eleven or Martin Luther King.
The barn Jason had started out doing had somehow, he wasn’t sure how, he’d really really meant to do...yaaaawn...a barn... but it had somehow morphed into Sharkman’s Supersecret Headquarters. It still looked mostly like a barn, except for the SUV (Shark Undercover Vehicle) parked outside. That kind of didn’t look much like anything Mrs. Lehman would drive. And the door had these random security devices, mostly disguised, so the mundane world would just think it really was a barn. Ok, the radar dish on the weathervane might have been a bit much. And the extra lightning rods that were really supersecret Sharkcommunication devices.
And then there was the giant pteranodon...




Ian coiled on a beach chair in Holly’s backyard, peering at Jason’s book. His green eyes moved across pages full of Sharkstuff, of X-Men and Batman and Avengers and other favorite comics, of designs for vehicles and weapons, of copies of anime stuff from TV and movies and action poses from mangas from the comic store.
Jason fidgeted, wondering when Ian was going to tell him he should have done a barn.
“Wow.” Ian said, coming up for air at last. “No lack of imagination.”
“Is that good or bad?”
Ian smiled, “Why would it be bad?”
“My dad thinks it’s bad. My teachers think its bad. Everybody seems to think it’s just a waste of time.”
“Sometimes.” Ian said, “People need stories more than food.”
“What do you mean?”
“Storytellers, artists, bards, actors, musicians...”
“Wait, what, bard?”
“Old word. Bard. They carried news, stories, music, from one village to another. Some claimed they had magic, that they could even sing kings to power, or out of it. Bards talk about what’s important.” Ian reached out and tapped Jason’s chest, “What’s deep in here.” He flipped another page in Jason’s book, “There’s good stuff here. You’re already looking at how other artists do their work; the comics you copied...”
Jason’s made a face, embarrassed.
“...no, no, that’s how all the good artists learned, by copying the Masters. Yours are the guys who do comics, animation, anime, mangas. Your tech is good, and most of your animals, but you need to study anatomy more. And learn to do backgrounds.”
“Backgrounds?”
“Grass, trees, Swamp of Doom. It has to look believable.”
“Oh.”
Ian swept his hand around the horizon, “Here’s a good place to start, take your book out into the marsh, the woods, the beach and draw.”
“It’s kind of soggy out there for the sketchbook.” Jason began.
Ian uncoiled from his beachchair. “Wait a minute.” He vanished through the gate back to the Wren’s Nest. A minute later he returned. He handed three white rectangles to Jason, hard plastic, with pencils attached by bungees.
“Dive slates, ” Jason said. "You can draw and write underwater."
“These are for you.”
“Uh, wow! When do you need them back?”
“I don’t.”






Click, sent.
The latest Sharkman pages appeared in Heather's email box.
Click, open.
Jason stared at Heather's latest notes, story and dialog, the notes in bright colors.
I like these new characters; and your style is getting more realistic! The wild ponies are awesome. Those are really good wolves!
If Jason could get the dogs to sit still long enough, they made very good wolf stand-ins.
Did you find some models down there on that little island or what? The orca guy’s cool, but where the heck did you come up with Mak-eh-nuk?
Jason grinned, reading it. It’s Kwakiutl for orca he typed. He looks like our marine biologist friend. And yeah, he really looks like that!
Heather wrote; The hero in the wheelchair’s been done, of course, Professor X comes to mind, but at least he wasn’t a merman. And your Mer-guy is cuter.
Cute? Baaaah! Sharkman dons the Hunk Evasion Helmet. Maybe I’ll have to give him horns or finny ears or something. I wasn’t thinking of Professor X at all. Jason wrote back, it’s just, we know this guy, Morgan, who’s in a wheelchair, but he swims real well, so I thought it was a cool idea if he was really a mer-guy.
Heather wrote; I don’t know if a werewolf fits into the fish theme, but maybe we should have some land-based heroes. I always thought werewolves would be cool as good guys. I think that’s what Pinto Woman will have to be too. Some kind of land-based character. Hey, you’re on the island of pinto ponies down there, why not make her a pooka?
Pooka? Jason squinted at the screen, what the heck was that?
That’s from Irish myth. They’re shapeshifters who usually appear as big black hairy dogs (which might be what you could do with your friend’s dog, Surf) or sometimes pookas look like horses. Yeah, a pinto horse.
Yeaaaaaah. Somehow that seemed right. Very very right, Jason thought.
We’ll have to think of something to do with your new friends, Aaron and Bri and Cait and Zan. His last name is Fox. Maybe he could be something land-based too. I’ll have to think about it.
This other guy is cool! I like the raven logo you did on his costume. Now, what are we going to do with that?






Sea Hunt






Leaning into his makeshift harness, Sharkman trudges through the endless sand dunes, they are deep, and deadly. There are hidden traps, set by the Sand Raiders. There are the giant trapdoor spiders. There is the sudden sandslide, sandstorms, sandquakes, quicksand. There is no water for hundreds of miles in any direction. But he cannot leave the boat, it is critical that it arrives at the palace of the Sultan intact...


“Hard aport!” came Zan’s voice from astern. “And walk soft, or the giant antlions will leap out of their sand burrows and devour you!”
“Huh?” Jason said, startled that anyone else would think of giant antlions, or trapdoor spiders, or Sand Raiders.
“There’s the trail. Looks like... the Sand Raiders have passed... hours ago... we’re clear!” Zan said.
Jason tried to remember if he’d mentioned Sand Raiders to Zan. Jason wobbled left onto something that might have been a trail, lined with layers of flip-flop tracks. He trudged through the drifted sand, bent sideways under the weight of a fully loaded Finrod. The big yellow kayak banged against his knees, threatening to sink him before he ever got to the water.
Surf bounced past him, gleefully headed for the cool water of Tom’s Cove.
“He’s...trained for...(pant)...water rescue...(gasp)..and stuff...right? Couldn’t...(gasp)...we just...(ow!)...hook him to the bloody boat?” Jason said.
“This is... faster.” Zan said, and missed a step, banging the boat into Jason’s knees again.
“Oh sure it is.” Jason eyed the stretch of mud between the sand and the retreating water. “Wasn’t there some place where the water was a little closer?” Holly had just spat all of them out of the van onto the Tom’s Cove side of Assateague. Here, the thin dragon tail of The Hook curled around a few square miles of shallow, protected water. Jason could hear the roar of the beach just behind him. He could have thrown a stone and hit the surf.
Surf, and rips and longshore currents; not the best place for a maiden voyage in his new boat.
“Actually...” Zan said, with something that sounded like another pause to catch his breath...”it’s starting to rise again.”
“Huh?”
“The...tide. It’s...coming in.”
Funny, it sounded to Jason like Zan might be having a little trouble heaving this monster too. He hoisted his end, certainly the heaviest one, and trudged on. They glorped through marsh mud exposed by the tide...at least Jason glorped, Zan seemed to find the only spots of solid ground in miles, barely sinking at all.
Sharkman’s sidekick kicks in his antigravity boosters...
They reached the edge of the water, a few inches deep, and set Finrod down, bow aground so he wouldn’t drift off. Surf stood there, on guard.
“Now for the...uh, what do you want to call it?” Zan said.
“Call it?”
“Your boat. Every boat’s got to have a name.”
“Oh. Yeah.” Of course. “I don’t know...” Jason eyed the magic marker letters trailing across Finrod’s bow. “Fishy name for a boat.”
Zan made a face as if Jason had just told him his purple and green t-shirt belonged on a Barbie doll, “Finrod is a character from The Silmarillion, by J.R.R. Tolkien. An Elven King who helps the hero out of a mess.”
“Oh yeah, Tolkien, the Hobbit guy. We read that in school this year. Really cool.”
Zan’s face lit up, “You read LOTR.” He pronounced it like ‘boater’.
“Uh. What?”
“Lord of the Rings.”
“Oh. Not yet. Saw the movies.”
Zan looked disappointed. “They’re good. But not the same. Books are always better.”
“Oh. Yeah.”
“You read much? I mean, besides comics.” Zan asked.
“Yeah, um...” The guys at school, the guys on the ranch, didn’t see much point in books. It wasn’t something you could talk about with them. “...actually, uh, I do, yeah.” Jason mumbled.
“Cool.” By the time they had gone back up the beach for Jason’s boat and gear, and carried it back through sand and mud to the water, Zan had reeled off a list of about a zillion books he’d read since last year; Titles, authors, plots. By the time Jason had figured out how to snap the sprayskirt on without having it pop back off, he was beginning to feel like he was back in Englishbore.






Maybe it would have been faster to use human technology. To rent a boat with an engine.
“It would only have fouled the water, spoiled your ability to taste, to see if your captor’s ship is among these.” Shaughnessy said out loud.
Morgan turned from his place at the bow of the long black kayak; a two-person sit-on, “I did not mean to think that so loudly.”
Shaughnessy smiled. “This will be fast enough.” The boats and marinas of the inlet at Ocean City shrank behind them.
The marina itself was crowded, oily, full of silt from the boat traffic, and dangerous to dive in. They had toured its docks, and seen, smelled and felt nothing familiar to Morgan. Perhaps the trail of Morgan’s ship could be found farther out; in a faint taste in the water, in the distant sound of engines. Probably not, but it would not hurt to look.
To listen.






At last Sharkman reaches the sea. He slides the boat into the water, it is a long crossing to the Sultan’s palace, he casts a weather eye skyward; not good. Dark clouds brew, some twisting down like cotton candy gone horribly wrong. His talkative companion falls silent in dread.
Zan did not fall silent. With Surf: the Official Ship’s Dog, in Finrod’s bow seat, he paddled out into the Cove, singing, then pointing out the cloud formations, then the wind direction, the tide tables, the parts of the beach they could and could not land on (Piping Plover zone; off limits, off-road zone; full of 4x4s with surf rods and coolers), and parts of the history of Assateague, including Blackbeard and random pirate treasure.
Jason yawned and wondered if Zan had an off switch.
Paddling his own boat was different from paddling in one of the sit-ons with the other guys. This boat was narrower, tippier. It tossed under Jason like a three-year old colt on its first ride.
And then it dumped him into the sunwarmed water.
“Roof!” the Ship’s Dog said, mighty jaws hanging open in canine laughter.
Jason bobbed back up, standing in three feet of water.
“See, you fall right out, even with the sprayskirt on. Told you you wouldn’t get stuck.” Zan said encouragingly.
“Yeah, wonderful.” Jason grabbed the floating paddle and pulled the swamped boat back toward him on the paddle leash, while Zan offered advice on how to salvage it. Surf paddled around them in circles, offering his own kind of advice, and retrieving things that had floated out from under the deck bungees. Jason heaved the kayak over, got the bilge pump and began pumping. When it looked mostly dry, he frowned at it, then began to hike it toward the mudflats ashore.
Zan spun Finrod across Jason’s bow, stopping him. “You gotta learn to get in it in deep water. You won’t always have a shore to go to.”
“I can’t even sit in it much less climb into it.” Jason protested.
“Come on, try it. Here. Like this.” Zan bailed out of Finrod with barely a splash. He shoved the bow toggle into Jason’s hand and took Jason’s boat. He flung himself up on the stern “Like getting on a bareback horse,” then he slid into the cockpit. “Easy.”
Yeah, easy for the little skinny guy with antigravity boosters as a superpower. “Yeah, easy for you,” Jason said out loud.
“You don’t have to have superpowers...” Zan began.
"Is that like Elf ESP or something?"
Zan shut up, looking a shade more sunburned than before. He bailed out of Jason’s boat without even rocking it and climbed back into Finrod, behind Surf.
“Ok,” Jason said and hauled his boat around. “I never was very good at getting on a horse bareback.” He flung himself over the stern, the little kayak bucked like a colt in a snit and he slid off. He waited for the sounds of hysterical laughter from Zan. The kind of reaction he always got in gym class when they had to try something like sprinting like a cheetah or broad jumping like a kangaroo or making baskets from the other side of the galactic destroyer-sized gym floor or doing superhero flips on the trampoline.
There was no laughter, only the distant sounds of gulls and surf, and the lap of waves against hulls. “Ruuf!” Surf suggested.
“Go ahead. Try again,” Zan said.






Morgan struggled into the dive gear, only a little easier now to do. “Land folk need so much...STUFF!” he snorted.
“Yes.” Shaughnessy signed.
“They keep so much stuff too; roofs and walls and shelves full of things, and they build fences around their things, and put imaginary fences on their maps and they must burn their food to eat it and...” His voice trailed off.
Shaughnessy remained silent. Reached forward to make an adjustment to Morgan’s gear.
Morgan let out a sigh, “I am land folk now too.”






Twenty minutes later Jason heaved the boat back into a foot of water and plopped into the cockpit. It turned over and spat him out into the mud.
Zan laughed as Jason rose, dripping goo. Zan stood, perfectly balanced on Finrod’s deck, did a rock star wriggle, playing an imaginary air guitar, “Swamp thing, you make my heart sing!” He strummed it again and a guitar materialized in his hands.
"So can you dematerialize the mud filling my cockpit?" Jason said.
"Nope. That's what your bilge sponge is for." Zan slid up alongside in Finrod, “Hey! What’s that?” He pointed into the cockpit.
Something long and boneless writhed frantically against the inside of the hull. Jason dumped the boat over and freed it. “It’s a...some kind of marine worm. I remember it from one of Shaughnessy’s field guides.” Jason watched it wriggle off into the murky shallows.
“Cool! It’s a foot and a half long!” Zan shoved Finrod forward a few paddle strokes, peering down into the water, but the critter was gone.
“Yeah. Hey, you’re the one who hangs out with the science guys, I thought you would know what it was.” Jason lifted the boat and dumped the rest of the water and mud out, then sponged the cockpit and seat. He stared at the kayak, wondering how to get back in without dumping himself back into the bay. Surf splooshed up alongside, grinning up at Jason. He grabbed hold of the Newf’s heavy fur and steadied himself against the dog’s broad side. Finally, plugged back into his boat, he worked the bungee of the sprayskirt around the coaming again. “How’d you get to do that anyway? Hang out with the science guys all summer,” he said to Zan, “I mean, that's kind of cool, no parents, no chores, no curfews, no 'get off the computer your time's up'."
"No parents? It's like having five of them. Gaaah!" Zan studied Jason, trying to find his balance in the narrow kayak.
"It's still cool." Jason wiggled his hips experimentally, like a hula dancer. Like he’d seen Ian do in his longboat days ago. Like Zan had just done, standing on Finrod’s deck. The motion felt somehow familiar. The kayak rocked, but didn’t go over this time.
"Yeah, cool, kind of.” Zan continued. “I get to go a lot of interesting places; rain forests, the Barrier Reef. Play with the odd Siberian tiger, twenty foot python, manta ray, tasmanian wolf."
"Thylacines are extinct." Jason dug his paddle into the water and pointed his bow out into the vastness of the Cove.
"Oh yeah?" Zan said, spinning Finrod around. “Wait, you know what thylacines are?”
“Tasmanian wolves because they look like dogs, or Tasmanian tigers because they have stripes. Had. They look like big dun colored dogs with long tails, but really, a whale would be more closely related to your dog than a thylacine is. Was. ‘Cause they’re really marsupials, like possums or kangaroos, or tasmanian devils.” Jason looked almost embarrassed, “I learned that from Animal Planet. And books, and stuff. You know there’s over three thousand websites on thylacines? Last time I looked. There’s people who claim they’ve seen them. That they’re still out there. Somewhere.”
“I know.” Zan said, looking away.
“You’ve seen one?” Jason asked.
“Ah.” Zan said, finding something interesting on the horizon. He sat, silent, a wave rocked the boats, then another, a third. “There’s no proof,” he said. “Scientists want proof; feathers and fur and tracks and scat and something they can weigh and measure and put on a nice neat chart somewhere.”
“Well, I think they’re still out there.” Jason said. “I hope so, anyway.”
“Yeah,” Zan said softly.
“Five parents,” Jason said, “so where’s your real ones?”
“Some other world.”
“What?”
Zan made a face, joke, get it? “I’m adopted.”
“Oh.”
“The address on the Earth Life Foundation card? I live there. I'm home schooled like Cait, I kick butt at video games, I have an extensive collection of X-Men and Avengers, I hate plain vanilla ice cream, love chocolate, I love critters, especially cats and horses. Anything else you want to know?”
"X-Men? I have...” A shadow passed over Jason’s face.
Zan saw it, tried to read what was behind it and found pain.
“Who's your favorite?" Jason said quickly.
"Nightcrawler." Zan said.
"Fuzzy Elf, yeah, cool. I always liked his buddy Wolverine.” Jason said. “Heather and I used to play them, running around in the woods behind our house, fighting the bad guys...she painted her face blue, did all kinds of weird gymnastic stuff like he does. Rigged up some ropes so she could climb trees and hang upside down and stuff. She helped me make Wolverine’s claws too."
"Awesome. Too bad she’s not here."
"Yeah. But Cait’s cool."
“Yeah.” Zan said.
"Heather and me...” Jason hesitated, “ we, uh... came up with our own comic.” His face suggested anyone who saw it would think it was dumb.
“Cool.” Zan said.
“She helped write stories, make costumes, shoot video footage. My aunt’s cottage is..."
“Cheesy?”
Jason gave him a blank look.
”Cheesy, cottage, cheese...” Zan prompted.
“Ehhhhhhh.” Jason groaned. “I was gonna say it was from the Dark Ages. Maybe even the Pleistocene. There’s no phone, no internet.”
“Oh.” Zan shrugged.
“No instant messenger. No e-mail. But Ian lets me email stuff from his computer. At least I have my computer. I’ve got a couple of pretty good graphics programs on it.”
"Hey, maybe...” Zan said uncertainly, “If you, like, you know, need action poses and stuff. I could wrangle the guys into posing, take pictures. We have some digital cameras.”
"Yeah, cool!" Jason frowned, thinking, and afraid to ask the next question, "You think Tas would pose too? She'd be a cool superhero...ine."
"Maybe." Zan looked less than sure about that.






Morgan backrolled off the gunnels of the big kayak. The cold sea was welcome after the heat of the sun.
Cold. Colder than he remembered. Cold; not something that had ever bothered him before. Now he welcomed the tight, restrictive wetsuit top, trapping a layer of warm water against his skin. The bubbles of his entry cleared, he bobbed to the surface. A tiny self-inflating raft with gear in it bobbed in the water by him, a Dwarf-made anchor line reeled out from it, the kayak anchor at the end struck the bottom ninety feet below. Shaughnessy signed at him from the canoe, “Wait there.”
The kayak slid off a few lengths. Rolled. Vanished beneath the rolling surface. Water boiled like a dozen divers breathing out at once. A few small fish fled. A black fin cut the surface, the orca rolled across the ceiling of his world and breathed.
Ready?
“Yes.” Morgan signed, raised his hand, hit the deflator button on his BC and sank.






Just like riding a horse. Your hips moved with the motion, your upper body floated along like it wasn’t attached. The boat floated beneath you, rocking in the waves like a horse’s back. Sometimes it would leap when an extra large wave hit it; like a horse hopping a gully. Watching Zan, Jason began to figure out how to slap the water with his paddle, bracing. How to scull the paddle on the surface for a different sort of brace.
“So, how'd you get to be on a ranch in Delaware?” Zan asked. “I didn't even know there were ranches in Delaware."
"My dad grew up in Montana, went on the rodeo circuit. Met my mom at a rodeo in Pennsylvania. Stayed in Delaware ‘cause most of her family is here on the east coast. He’s some kind of big cowboy ranch foreman type thing now, so I guess we’re stuck there.”
“You’d rather be in Montana?”
Jason made a face as if Montana were a particularly stinky sort of cheese. “I think he’d rather be in Montana. I think Mom’d rather be in a condominium. I’d rather be anywhere there weren’t cows.”
“Like here.” It almost wasn’t a question.
“Yeah. This is really cool.”
“Yeah.” Zan agreed. His paddle spun through the waves like bird wings. “Your stroke’s better.” He said to Jason. “Lots better.”
“Really?”
Zan nodded. “Water likes you.”
Weird, shouldn’t that be ‘you like water’? Jason thought. He studied Zan, riding up over the cove waves like a cowboy on a galloping horse. He was singing something, mostly to himself, and it wasn’t anything Jason recognized from the radio. More like something old. No, ancient...like there should be sails or guys with swords or unicorns cavorting in the background or something. Zan didn't fit any of the categories the kids at school stuck each other in: like breeds of cattle in different pens at a show. No jock haircut and big muscles. No baseball hat or football jerseys. No fashion of the week clothes. No black t-shirts with skulls on them. No jewelry stuck through holes in random body parts; just a couple of handwoven anklets and one armband that looked like horsehair with glass beads and tiny shells stuck in it. His hair was a color that wasn’t even in any of the bottles Mom used, and Dad would be chasing him with horse clippers if he saw that mane.
And he didn’t seem to think Jason was the biggest geek on earth.
Cool.






It was his ocean, the vast waterworld humans called Atlantic. Green and cool and clear. Morgan sank to thirty feet, adjusted his BC so he neither rose nor fell. He breathed.
Strange, breathing air here. The regulator hissed then burbled as the bubbles stormed toward the surface.
Damn! Can’t hear....Morgan held his breath. It was easier to do that now.
Careful, came Shaughnessy’s thought in Morgan’s mind. Do not rise or fall.
I know. Embolism. The whale floated, just touching Morgan’s tailfin. Nothing stirred in the vast greenness, nothing the eyes could see, even the eyes of the Seafolk. This was a world of the ear, of sound. Morgan held his breath for fifty heartbeats and listened.
Distant whalesong. Chatter of dolphins. The slip of a sharkfin through the water. Little things burrowing fifty feet beneath his fins. The hum of a faraway freighter. the muted roar of a sport fishing or dive boat, closer.
Nothing familiar.






“Catch.” Zan said, and held up a plastic bagged something from the cooler on Finrod’s deck.
“Whoa!” Jason held up a warding hand, “I failed Baseball 101.”
“Oh.” Zan shrugged, made a few strokes with his paddle, drew up alongside. He handed the baggie over, “Earla’s secret recipe peanut butter fudge.”
Jason grinned, “Baked by little Dwarves in a hollow tree.”
Zan bobbled, nearly dropping his paddle.
“There’s no way those little Keebler guys are Elves,” Jason explained, “too short. Must be Dwarves or hobbits or something.” Jason took two pieces of fudge and devoured them...slowly. They drifted in the middle of Tom’s Cove, the slender dragon tail of the Hook wrapping around the eastern and northern horizons. West rose the faint treeline of mainland Virginia, and nearer; of Chincoteague. To the south lay Wallops, and in between ran the narrow channel, out to sea. The seawind blew the chop up, rocking the kayaks. Gulls called, a line of pelicans rowed overhead like airborn paddlers. “Let’s go over there.” Jason pointed to where he could see faint satellite dishes in the afternoon haze.
“Farther than you think.” Zan said. “That’s Wallops.”
“Oh yeah. Aunt Gracie took me there the first week. NASA visitor’s center.”
Zan looked disconsolate. “Haven’t been there yet.”
“It’s cool. Rockets and spacesuits and the whole history of space exploration. Maybe we could ride the bikes over there sometime.”
Zan stared off into the Wallops haze, turning away so Jason couldn’t read his face. “Yeah, maybe.” Yeah, that would be cool, if I could go without Bran, or Shaughnessy or Tas. If I could keep from frying humanity’s shot at the stars. Someday your folk...probably your grandchildren, will be out there, among the stars. We’ll still be here, guarding this world, or the few we can reach through the Gates. Like the one I was born on. Wish I could tell you...
“What about the end of the Hook, there?” Jason said.
“Closed, remember?”
“Oh yeah, plovers. We could paddle there, not land.”
“Channel. Well, tide’s coming in, till 6:30. We probably won’t get washed out to sea.”
“Race you.” Jason said, then his face shifted to embarrassment.
“Yeah, your boat’s skinnier than this one, smaller. And I got Surf the Wonder Dog for added drag, so you might have a chance.”
Jason grinned back, digging in his paddle and plowing forth into the waves.
Neither of them noticed the white van pulling up on the beach behind them.






They swam toward Ocean City, Morgan holding onto the orca’s tall dorsal fin. He plastered himself as close as he could to the whale’s side, streamlining as much as he could. He knew it felt like towing a panicked sailor from a sinking ship. They halted, listened. More noise, more boats. None of them the one he needed to find.






Jason and Zan ploughed across the mouth of Tom’s Cove toward the Hook. Sure enough, the added weight of Surf the Wonder Dog slowed Zan just enough for Jason to pass him. He plunged ahead with a high, hard stroke, gaining with every breath.
Halfway there, his stroke faltered, he whacked the top off a wave, then smacked into a trough. Jason wobbled, yawed. The little boat rolled till the sprayskirt was awash. Jason desperately shoved on the paddle and righted himself. He sat, bobbing in the waves, exhausted.
Zan drew up alongside.
And stopped.
“Looks like you won.”
“We’re not... there... yet.” Jason gasped.
Zan shrugged. “I can go farther, but you’re pretty fast. You’ll get the rest eventually.”
“Like...when..I’m forty-two.”
“Nah. Sooner.” Zan reached in the cooler and tossed a blue quart bottle at Jason. It landed with a plash on his starboard side. He scooped it in with his paddle and picked it up, opened it and drank half.
“Hydrate early, hydrate often.” Zan said.
“You learn all those big words hanging out with the science guys?”
“Yeah.”
To Jason, Zan looked a little embarrassed. “No, it’s cool. “ Jason said.
“What are you going to name your boat?”
“Uh. I don’t know.”
“Wait, your comic, what’s it about?”
“Um, this guy. It’s um. It’s ah...a superhero thing. Sort of. With some other stuff.”
“Who’s your hero?”
“Um. Sharkman.”
“And...”
It rolled out like a tidal wave. “There’s this whole squad of superheroes, it’s all based on fish and stuff there’s Mola and Manta and Hammerhead and the Sharkcycle, and...” Jason told him the whole thing, the whole first issue in all its glorious geeky detail. He finally trickled to a halt, suddenly feeling like a total geek. Silence reigned for half a dozen wave slaps against Jason’s hull.
"That’s awesome.” Zan said.
“Yeah?” Jason said, astounded.
“Yeah. You should name your boat after a shark.”
“Huh?”
“I think it’s your Guide.”
“What?”
“Like, um,” Zan looked as if he had just answered a grammar question with the capital of Rhode Island. “Like...Indians.” He said suddenly. “Native Americans; totem animals, clan animals; Wolf Clan, Bear Clan, Turtle. And lots of other peoples had the same idea.”
“Oh, we studied that stuff in Deadhistory.”
“Deadhistory?” Zan said, and laughed.
“Englishbore.” Jason said.
Zan laughed more. “Mathpuke. Geoapathy. That one was Bran’s. I’m really glad I’m home schooled.”






Wherever Morgan’s ship was, it was not within range of Ocean City, not today. Shaughnessy reached out a hand and drew him up into the kayak. He deflated the small raft, storing the empty tanks amidships. Morgan sat in the bow, dejected.
“It is a big sea.” Shaughnessy said, “And a small ship.”
“It should be nearby, if we are guessing right. If they still are looking for me.” He frowned at the waters to the south, “And they are not in Chincoteague.”
“Well, it’s Norfolk then.” Shaughnessy said.
“Or Annapolis. Or the whole Bay.”
“We will find them, or they will find us.”
Morgan said nothing, the bow swung around, on a heading back to land.
Away from his world.






Jason and Zan turned, following the tide back north, up the channel into Chincoteague. It would be an easy skateboard ride back to Holly’s, to tell her where to pick up Jason and the boats; Zan had packed the board in The Sandtiger’s hold. Jason’s paddle hit the water with the rhythm of a jogging horse. It was easy now, even though he was beyond tired. Zan started singing one of his weird songs out of some other place.
“What is that, anyway?” Jason said, interrupting the song.
“A sea chanty.” He pronounced it ‘shanty’.”It was sung on big ships, so people could coordinate work like raising sails or weighing anchor.”
“Oh.” Jason listened for a few more minutes. It was kind of easy to learn, like listening to something on the radio. After a few rounds he had the tune, and started humming along. Then the words came.
Oh now we’re off the Hook me boys, the land all covered with snow
the towboat is ahead and to New York we soon will go
we’ll scrub her deck we’ll scrub her down with holystones and sand
so we’ll bid adieu to the Virgin Rocks on the Banks of Newfoundland
The big Newfoundland dog on the bow gave a deep roof, as if in approval, and they sailed up the channel into the lowering sun.
Far away on the beach at Tom’s Cove, two men sat in lawn chairs on a sliver of coveside beach.
Waiting.
Behind them a big white van remained empty.
Mermaid City






A raven, (or a whale, or a ship with its wings of canvas) flying south from Chincoteague, might have swept around the last bit of land at the end of Delmarva and sailed into the Bay. In the south of the Bay’s mouth lay a city, a gate to the great inland sea. Bri and Aaron perched on a low wall along the walk that led along the water. Twenty feet away, Cait was tying the zillionth sailor knot in the long piece of rope Dad had given her this morning. Behind them a row of white tents stretched along the grass; tents selling t-shirts and suncatchers, lemonade and snow cones. Before them lay the water, and a forest of tree-tall masts. Around them hustled a crowd; moms and dads with baby strollers and kids in red pirate bandanas, ship’s crews and historical re-enactors in clothing from seventeenth century colonists to eighteenth century pirates. There had even been a crew of Vikings, complete with swords and axes.
The best thing though, was the mermaids.
“Look.” Aaron signed, and shoved his sketchbook under Bri’s nose. At the top of the page he had drawn, in big, glorious letters, the name of the city: Norfolk, Virginia. He drew it again, grinning a pirate grin. He added a stroke to the N, making an M. He erased a bit of the O, added a line.
Merfolk, it read now. The city was full of mermaids. They danced across the banners fluttering along the dockside, banners proclaiming Harborfest and Sail Virginia. They swam across the big support pillars in the mall, across T-shirts and hats. They peered coyly from store windows. They could be found in every corner. There was one in the pool at the Nauticus Center, her tail covered in flowers as bright blue and gold koi swam under her. There was the one dressed like Pocahontas, the one with wavy brass hair, the one in the hotel lobby, all blue and green like the sea. The one with fish painted all over her, the one (like a carousel horse) wearing an English saddle.
Bri laughed, held up her little camera, “I’ve caught fifteen mermaids so far, how many did you find?”
Aaron’s grin faded a little, “A lot.” He signed, and spread his hands like a fisherman telling a big fish story. He pointed back to the waterfront. "What kind of boat is that?" He signed it like a teacher asking a quiz question.
Bri frowned, studied the seventy feet of hull before her, and the two tall masts, part of a forest of masts and rigging that stretched down the waterfront; yards and spars and booms and furled sails and lines and baggywrinkles and deadeyes and hearts. The baggywrinkles were her favorite; big fuzzy things made of frayed rope, they hung on the lines to keep the sails from chafing against the spiderweb of lines around them. The tall ships had come from all over the Bay; Pride of Baltimore II and Kalmar Nyckel and Gazella. From the east coast, from Canada, Picton Castle and Bluenose II. From Germany and Uruguay and Brazil and even Tarangini from India had come as part of this special festival.
Bri squinted up at the masts, spars and rigging making an aerial maze, like a circus trapeze, or Tarzan's jungle trees. Two masts, not a sloop. "Schooner." she signed, spelling it carefully; like school and sooner colliding.
Aaron grinned a huge superior Big Brother grin, and made the sign for "catch."
"It's k-e-t-c-h!" Bri spelled emphatically. "And how do you know, anyway! It looks like a schooner."
He pointed to the rear of the little ship, "The aft mast is smaller than the foremast."
Bri frowned at it, "Could be a brig, they have two masts."
"They have yardarms for the big square sails, on the foremast anyway. And the foremast is still bigger, which makes it the mainmast, so the aft mast is the mizzen!" He made a face.
She returned it. My brother is such a geek. Thinks he knows everything. Phhhbbbth! She wished Morgan was here, or Shaughnessy, or Bran. They knew a lot about ships, but Morgan and Shaughnessy were still at sea, searching. Bran and Ian had gone crabbing and fishing, to fill Holly’s freezer.
Bri got up, saw Cait aboard the ship on the other side of the ketch. Aaron poked her, “That’s a schooner.” He smiled with satisfaction. “Square topsail schooner.”
Bri made another face at him, then trotted up the gangplank to Cait.
Cait was talking to a young man in a blue polo shirt, marked with the name of the ship; Pride of Baltimore II. He was pointing to things, and probably telling her all about how the ship worked, though Cait would rather be home figuring out how to rope a cow faster. Big sisters were weird. Bri wandered up behind Cait, hoping she would translate some of what she was hearing, but Cait seemed intent on the maze of rope above her, and paid no attention to her little sister. Aaron wandered up behind Bri, balancing his sketchbook in one hand, doodling with the other. He stopped behind a small boat stowed on deck, and began drawing its graceful lines. He carefully drew the name too, Chasseur. Bri frowned at it and wished she could ask someone what it meant. Cait wandered by Aaron then, looked over his shoulder. She turned and caught the attention of one of the crew, asked her something.
Whatever she’d learned, she didn’t tell Bri.
Dad and Mom were on the next ship, a little pungy schooner with raked masts and a lean hull that hugged the water; the Lady Maryland. She was painted forest green along the top edge, but most of her hull was a pretty sunset pink. Bri could see Dad writing something and passing the note to a crew member; a young woman who smiled and wrote something back. Bri sighed, she wished she wrote well enough to talk to people that way. Now she felt small and unimportant, and alone.
Bri wandered around on the deck, pale as sand and soft as suede. Ran a hand over the varnished wood of the gunnels and skylights, wood the color of the palomino ponies back on the island. Stared at what she thought of as rope sculpture; lines snaking down from aloft wrapped around belaying pins on the pinrail (at the ship’s edges) and fiferail (at the masts’ bases). At the stern, she poked at the great wheel of warm chestnut colored wood, tied up so tourists couldn't damage the rudder it was attached to. She stood there, staring at the binnacle that housed the compass and imagined what it would be like to be underway, with all the sails flying like bird's wings on the wind.
A movement onshore caught Bri's eyes, something familiar, almost. She turned and saw two men laden with plastic shopping bags. She squinted, not because of the bright sun. They weren’t dressed quite like the crowd of tourists. More like the people who worked and lived on the ships. And the stuff in their bags wasn’t tourist stuff; more like the kinds of groceries and supplies she’d seen other crew carrying onto ships. One had tattoos on his arms, the other, bare chested, had tattoos sprawled across his shoulders.
"You see below the surface," Bran had told her. There was something about those two that bugged her. She trotted back down the gangplank, grabbing Aaron on her way by. "Come on!" she signed fiercely.
One of the tattoos looked a lot like a squid.
They tried to stop me. Morgan had said. There had been the man whose legs had broken under the sweep of Morgan’s tail. No one had ever found him. There had been others Morgan remembered; a man with the tattoo of the Nautilus being attacked by a giant squid.
Bri ran, weaving her way through the crowd, ducking under the elbows of dads carrying toddlers, hopping frantically in front of strollers, colliding with an armful of shopping bags. "Sorry," she signed, to a lady collecting the contents of a spilled bag. The lady frowned at her and said something, it mingled and mangled with the crowd noise in Bri's hearing aids, and sounded severe. Bri turned her head just enough to see Aaron dodging through the crowd behind her, eyes wide, waving at her to slow down.
She could be wrong. Maybe a lot of sailors liked Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. A lot of them, certainly, had tattoos. Bri shoved her way through the crowd, ducking, dodging, trying to get a closer look.
The two men vanished around a turn.
Bri skidded to a stop and looked.
They were gone. She turned, Aaron slid to a stop beside her, "What are you doing?" he yelled with his hands.
Bri looked back, a maze of masts towered behind her, like a great forest. One she was now lost in.
Didn't matter, she looked around, trying to figure out where the two would have gone. Beside her masts rose tall into the sky, and ratlines wove a ladder up into the rigging of a brig, its square sails furled on its yards. Bri stared, her eyes traveled up. She grinned and pulled loose from her brother's grip. She ran, trotting up the gangplank, dodging past a startled young man in a crew shirt. She leaped, caught the first of the ratlines and climbed up, faster than she climbed the big tree at home. Twenty feet up she stopped and looked out over the heads of the crowd. Below her, on deck, a small panic was spreading.
There! There they were! Headed away from the waterfront, toward the Nauticus Center and the big grey battleship in the cove. Bri whooped in triumph.
Below her one of the crew swung into the ratlines. She could see him saying something to her. No no, I don't want to be rescued now! "No!" she yelled at him, and saw him hesitate in astonishment. She fixed her eyes one last time on the direction tattoo Man was heading, then she climbed down, fast as a squirrel. She dodged past the reaching crew member and leaped for the deck. Ducked under the arms of half a dozen ship's crew, and ran as hard as she could.
Somewhere behind her Aaron scrambled to keep up.
The crowd closed behind them, the ship's crew got as far as the end of the gangplank and looked around and at each other in confusion.
Weaving through the tight crowds of tourists, ducking around a knot of pirates with big hats and high boots and swords and one huge wooden mallet, past the blacksmiths, the colonials making chairs. Past the pretzel stand and the fresh-squeezed lemonade. Past the grass concert stage with its amplifiers booming low frequency sound that Bri could feel in her bones. Past the big tent with the Clydesdales.
She could see him now, wheeling ahead. The crowd thinned. Bri could see the bow of the big grey battleship Wisconsin towering above a vine covered wall. She could see the flower mermaid in the pool by the Nauticus Center.
Tattoo man veered hard a-starboard and headed for battleship cove.
Odd, where would he be going? There weren’t many boats there, not like on the waterfront. There was the battleship, like a big steel mountain, an antique dive boat, the Vikings, a Grand Banks fishing schooner called Roseway, and one or two private boats that had come and gone. There were the eighteenth century Periauger, and the seventeenth century shallop Silver Chalice, and two Viking boats, no bigger than canoes. Dad had explained the whats and whens and whys of the boats, but Bri hadn’t paid much attention. She’d been more interested in the Vikings. The Chalice, Periauger, and the Viking boats were small, open like a canoe. No one would be bringing bags of supplies to live aboard them.
But there was a new boat in battleship cove. And Tattoo Man was headed straight for it.
Bri and Aaron pattered to a halt in front of a wall of black. The ship floated motionless, like a great dark cloud. Tattoo Man was already on board, headed down the starboard side of the deck past a polished wooden box, like a little house with a glass roof; (skylights, that’s what they were called). The gangplank was still down, of course, all the ships had gangplanks to the dock. Some had ropes or chains across the ends, if they weren't open for tours. This one was chained off.
Closed.
Someone grabbed Bri from behind.
"What are you doing?" Aaron demanded.
She shook him off, glaring. Tried to figure out what to tell him. Not the real story of course, he would never believe it. Not unless Morgan showed him who he really was, and that was unlikely. She looked back at her brother, thinking furiously. "It's important to Morgan." she said at last. "That man looks like someone who took something from him."
"What?"
Bri just shook her head, looked up at the ship. Now what? Go up there and try to find it? Maybe nobody would notice a little girl in the middle of a bunch of tourists. If there were any tourists on the ship, which there weren't. There weren’t even many tourists in the walkway; just a few passing through toward the Victorian fair, or the other way, toward Ship Row, and the main event. Bri looked for the big sign, the kind all the other ships had, telling when they would be open for tours. She didn't see one. She swung her pack down and rummaged in it, looking for her camera. There, she pulled it out, frowned at it; no pictures left.
"Aaron, draw this ship." she said.
"What?"
"Just sit there and draw it! Everything you can think of, and you saw that guy, draw him too!"
"Why?"
"You're a pain, just do it!"
Aaron glared at her. "Why?" he demanded.
"It's really really really important. Anyway, Dad'll give you extra credit for it."
"Dad! Holy cow! They'll wonder where we are! We're far far far away!" Aaron signed, moving his hands farther from each other with each word, until he looked like he would fly away, using his arms as wings. He looked around, as if he wished he’d brought a compass.
"We'll go back, it's that way." Bri pointed, not at all sure if it was that way at all. She could see the tips of someone’s masts towering over the trees. The flags on top looked like Kalmar’s.
Aaron looked at her, fingering the edge of his sketchbook. She knew the look. He was thinking about it. But he needed a good reason.
"They're pirates." she said. It was true, they had a ship, and they'd stolen something from Morgan, so they were pirates.
Aaron's eyes widened. then narrowed, "that doesn't look like a pirate ship.”
Bri pointed at the black ship, "You think they should have a big black flag or something?"
“The only pirates here are pretend. And it doesn’t look like a pirate ship. Kalmar looks like a pirate ship." Kalmar Nyckel was huge and blue and had three masts and fighting tops (even on the bowsprit) and and a lion on the bow and merrows on the stern.
It was Bri’s favorite ship (because of the merrows) so she felt like she knew all there was to know about it. “That’s not a pirate ship, it brought colonists to Wilmington, Delaware.”
“It has cannons. Big ones.” Therefore it was a pirate ship.
“They all have cannons.” Bri said. She flumped down on the dock, thinking furiously. If only she hadn’t taken so many pictures of the pretend mermaids, she’d have a picture left to help the real one. If only she could draw as well as Aaron. If only...
She stood up, shook Aaron’s shoulder, pointed at the low, lean sides of the black ship; "What kind of ship is that?"
Aaron stared at her, his face made a huh?
“It kind of looks like that one.” Bri suggested, pointing down the dock to the Roseway.
Aaron’s face went into Superior Older Know-it-all Brother Mode “It doesn’t look anything like the Roseway. She looks like Bluenose. Straight masts, not raked like this one. Rounder bow. This one is sharper, with a long bowsprit.” His hands made the arrowhead shape of the bow. His eyes traveled upward to the yards slung on the foremast. A slow grin spread across his face as if he Knew Something Bri didn’t. “What do you think it is?”
Bri frowned up at the tall wooden masts. Two masts. Long boom at the base of the rearmost mast which was the mainmast. Unless it was a ketch, then the rear mast was the ...what was it... mizzenmast, and the foremast was the mainmast. On a schooner the front mast was the foremast and the rear mast was the mainmast... if it had three masts like Kalmar, then the middle mast was the main and there was a foremast and a mizzen... Bri shook her head, trying to clear it, wondering if kids in regular schools had to memorize this stuff. She looked up and up and found the yards slung from the front mast.
Maybe it was a brig or something. Or was that where you threw pirates? Into the brig. No, it was a kind of ship too. She stared at the yards with their furled sails, dark red sails. Stared at the big boom, with its sail furled like a venetian blind. Roseway and Bluenose were schooners and had booms on every mast. But this one had only one big boom on the rear mast. The front sail was furled against the mast, like a seagull’s wing. “It’s not a ketch. The rear mast is bigger.”
“Aft mast.” Aaron corrected. His hands waved, come on, tell me more.
Bri frowned at Roseway, at the yards on the foremast. “It’s not a schooner.” She said at last.
"Wrong wrong wrong." Aaron signed, laughing, "It is a schooner."
Bri pointed up at the yards, “Then what are those for? Square sails! See? It’s...” she thought furiously, “Brig!”
“Wrong wrong wrong wrong!”
Bri glared at Aaron, “Ok, you win, Mr. Popeye the Sailorman. What is it really?"
“It looks sort of like Pride.” His fingers traced the sharp shape of the bow, the immense bowsprit, and the raked masts. “It’s a square topsail schooner.”
“Fine. Can you draw it?”
"Ok," Aaron said, and sat down, opening his sketchbook.
Bri waited till he was engrossed in the details of the foremast, then she ducked under the chain and ran up the gangplank.






When your ears don't give you very much information, you pay more attention to what your eyes are telling you. Bri knew other people paid attention to their ears; the ship's crew might hear her feet on the wooden deck, so she tried to go light, the way her Hearing friend back home had taught her. Her sneakered feet were quiet, she knew, and she was small, small enough to duck behind masts and skylights and lifeboats and winches and windlasses and binnacles. If she stood still, she could feel the vibrations of people walking nearby. If she touched a wall, she could feel someone coming up the ladders that led below. Her hearing aids helped her with what people were saying, sometimes, but she trusted her eyes and hands more. She ran now, and ducked and hid, and no one noticed a small blond girl making her way to a forward hatch.
Bri leaned over the edge and peered into the darkness belowdecks. Not totally dark of course, they had lights, and there were flat glass things embedded in the deck to let light in; from below they would look like fancy prisms or crystals; that’s what they were called; deck prisms. No movement, no shadows on the walls, no vibration of someone walking nearby. She slipped down the ladder into the gloom.
An open space; the belly of the ship, a tiny kitchen (galley, that’s what they called it) at one end; all of it shiny and clean. A dark wooden table with benches, like a booth in a restaurant. A rack to hold dishes and kitchen gear. Along the dark wood walls were doors leading to small cabins. Bri peered into one and saw a bunk, tiny as a coffin, cluttered with gear; socks, a hat (not red), a small bag, a flashlight. She and closed the door, climbed into the bunk, poked into the bag, feeling for something knitted.
Nothing. Only t-shirts that needed laundered and yucky underwear.
She cracked the door, peeked out, the ship was quiet, if anyone else was on board, they were above, or in some other cabin. She slipped out, hooking the door open, the way the other doors were (so they wouldn’t bang around on high seas).
To starboard were two separate small cabins, bunks, stuff scattered on them, some books. One was Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. But there was nothing like a red hat. That wouldn't be the kind of place they'd put it, would it?
But where would they put it?
In a safe? Bri was not a burglar. Not one that could pick a lock, anyway. She trotted soft footed back through the main cabin. Noticed one of the doors lead to a “head”, a tiny bathroom. Beyond it was the base of one of the masts, and a steel door that didn’t match the rest of the ship; it looked more like something you’d find in a submarine, but Dad had said something about watertight doors, to keep the whole ship from flooding and sinking. Beyond that was the engine room, about as big as her bathroom at home. Two huge schoolbus yellow engines squatted, one in each half of the room. Cables and pipes, electrical equipment, charts on a clipboard.
Standing guard over one of the engines was a pink stuffed seal the size of a cat.
Bri stared, then giggled. Then clapped a hand over her mouth. She shot quick glances back through the watertight door forward, and the one aft.
No one.
Then movement, aft. A flutter of paper, laid back on a desktop she couldn’t see. The faint vibration of feet on the wooden deck.
To her left, a low grey wall, part of the engine room gear. She ducked behind it, holding her breath.
A woman came into the engine room, peered at a dark grey box on the wall, poked some buttons, scribbled numbers on a clipboard. She strode to the other end of the room, about two strides, pried up a deckplate, peered below with a flashlight. Wrote something else on the clipboard.
Then she vanished forward.
Bri let out a breath. Cautiously peered around the portside engine. No one aft. She scurried in that direction.
Another head to her left, to the right, a cubbyhole with storage compartments and a flat surface full of books on clouds, weather and navigational stuff. Some high tech instruments Bri figured must be for navigation too. She pulled at the doors to the storage compartments. One came open, revealing a bank of awesome looking computer stuff.
No red caps.
Something in the feel of the floor under her feet shifted, she reached out a hand and touched the wall; felt the regular rhythm of footfalls. She scurried back through the engine room and ducked into the head. She locked the door and waited. Something thumped against the door, once, twice, then she felt the faint thump thump thump of footfalls vanishing, she hoped, to the other end of the ship.
She cracked the door, peered out into empty shadowy space. Ran forward, to the galley.
Movement, shadows. Bri ducked behind the counter separating the galley from the main salon with its big wooden table. Two men, not the ones she'd seen before, came out of the other submarine door, and headed toward the engine room. One paused in front of her, sweeping an orange out of the basket of fruit on a small table against the wall.
He moved on.
Gone. Bri stood up, headed the way the men had come from. She squeezed against the wall, peered around the submarine door into a room full of bunks as messy as her brother’s. Looked like the crew quarters. Another mast base filled the center of the corridor between the bunks, this one painted white, not the polished wood of the other. Pictures and notes and calendars were stuck randomly on the vertical surfaces: the mast, the edges of the bunks. All the bunks had curtains strung on rope. Some were closed. Some weren’t. In some, gear was stowed in small rope hammocks, in others, thrown about like Aaron’s stuff before Mom made him clean it up.
Bri saw no movement. Felt no vibrations. She poked in the first bunk, the second.
No red caps.
Bunk after bunk. Nothing. She pulled open one of the curtains.
Froze. Tattoo Man was sprawled in it, mouth hanging open in the kind of pose people have when they’re snoring. He made a snorking motion with his mouth, turned a little.
Very...very...slowly...Bri closed the curtain.
The crew quarters ended in a ladder leading up to light and air and sunshine. Bri poked her head out, and saw someone heading toward her, his eyes on something above.
She ducked back and catfooted back through Crew Quarters, past the sleeping Tattoo Man.
No one in the main salon. No red caps either.
There must be more aft than the navigation room. Yes, aft was where the officers and captain had their berths. Maybe that's who would have Morgan's cap. The captain. Made sense. Bri tiptoed aft, past the nav room. A cabin door hung slightly ajar on its hook. Bri lifted the hook, carefully swung the door open.
Empty. Neat, tidy, shipshape.
She looked around. Opened a drawer, another. Found the usual clothes and notebooks and one really big weird rock, like a quartz crystal. She squinted at it, not a red cap.
Bri closed the drawer, let out a frustrated breath.
One more small cabin opposite this one. Maybe one of the other ships’ officers. This door, too, hanging on its hook. She slowly creaked it open, peered inside.
Hanging on a peg by the door was a set of foul weather gear, peeping out from under the raincoat was a hint of red.
Bri's heart leapt, she ran to it and yanked on the bright yellow slicker. It fell in a heap and under it was a bright red knit cap.
It smelled funny, like it hadn't been washed in months, not clean, like the sea, like Morgan, but it had to be it! Bri stuffed it into her pack and ran.
Back through the belly of the ship, light from above flashing like leaves through trees in a dark forest. Ahead glinted the silver light of a ladder. Bri felt something bump the floor under her feet and looked back. A very surprised woman stood in the watertight door leading from the nav room. She had dark hair and a loose white shirt and big boots, pulled up over khaki breeches, like you'd ride a horse in. The rest of what she was wearing made Bri think of one of Dad’s old silent films. Her mouth made a word, two, loud enough for Bri's hearing aids to pick up the noise. Bri didn't wait to see what the next words were, or what they meant, she ran for the ladder.
Scrambled up it, faster than the climbing wall in her favorite playground, faster than the monkey bars. Above her, shadows loomed, and when she turned her head, she could see the woman not far behind her, in the shadows of the ship, running hard.
Bri scrambled out of the hatch, between the legs of two very surprised crewmen, and ran. There was the golden shining wheel and the Mainmast behind her, so the gangplank, on the port side, must be nearby. Another crewman appeared from starboard, hesitated, eyes wide. He looked at Bri, then past her as if hearing a command. He reached for Bri.
She kicked him hard, right in the knee, and he went down with a pained look on his face. She ran, and the gangplank railing loomed, and she galloped down it, whooping like a pirate. She felt the thunder of feet after her, then she reached the end of the steel plank, leapt ashore and ran.






Aaron saw his sister galumph down the gangplank with half the crew scrambling after her. He had no idea what she'd done to get that much attention, but it couldn't be good. Of course they didn't know she was his sister, so they weren't paying any attention to him.
His drawing was not entirely done. He scribbled furiously, adding the round circle of the wheel near the stern. He could just see it, glinting like a big golden sun, the spokes like sunrays. He counted them carefully, and drew each one.






Bri’s plan had a slight problem; there wasn’t a plan. There wasn’t enough of a crowd to vanish into either, so she kept running.
Problem was, the crewman still on her heels was really on her heels; close enough now to nearly touch her. A few tourists turned and stared, but what they saw was a wayward kid and an irate parent.
Cops, Mermaid City was crawling with cops, anywhere you stopped, you could spot a half dozen of them; cops on foot, cops on bikes, cops on Segways, cops in cars.
There were no cops in Battleship Cove. Not right now.
Bri dodged a family, two elderly ladies, someone in colonial garb. Then someone stepped out into her path.
She slid to a halt, looking up at a stern Viking with a seven foot spear. His grey eyes went from her face to something behind her, his feet shifted and the butt of the spear thumped on the wooden walkway so Bri could feel it through her feet.
She looked back, the crewman was stopped, mouth ajar. His eyes travel ed the length of the spear to Bri to the Viking. He said something.
Bri’s eyes went from one to the other; crewman, Viking, crewman, Viking. The Viking said something to Bri. She shrugged, signed “Deaf.”
The Viking nodded, though he didn’t Sign back.
The crewman made an apologetic face, turned and stalked back to the ship.
But not before he’d taken a long hard look at Bri.






Bri grinned up at the Viking, signed, “Thanks.” Most Sign-impaired people seemed to know that one. He smiled, and looked like he wanted to ask a question.
Bri didn’t want to answer any questions. She had her pirate plunder, and the farther she got from the real pirates, the better. She ducked around the Viking and went looking for Aaron. It didn’t take long, three strides and Bri found him climbing up from the floating dock where the Viking ships were onto the walkway, his sketchbook gone back into his pack.
"Did you get it?" The picture, Bri meant.
Aaron opened his pack, pulled out his sketchbook, grinned. The ship lay in all its glorious detail, sprawled across several pages.
"Cool!" Bri signed.
"Did you get it?" Aaron asked. Whatever it was.
Bri grinned back and dropped her pack on the ground. She unzipped it and made a show of rummaging in it, making Aaron wait, building up the suspense. At last she pulled out the hat, with a grand flourish.
Aaron's expression would have been much the same if she had produced a bag of french fries. "That's a hat."
Bri's face fell, "It's Morgan's hat."
"So, what's so great about that, you can get those at any store." Aaron poked at it, wrinkled his nose, "It smells funny."
Well it did, but it didn't matter. Maybe one of the ship's crew had been wearing it and hadn't washed it.
"All that for a hat?"
"It's a special hat." Bri said.
"Right." Aaron said, clearly not believing it. He looked up the walkway; two Navy guys in white were walking down toward them, a cop whizzed by on a bike. "We should go back now, before you do something even weirder, and get us in more trouble." He tucked his book into his pack and started off.
Bri caught up to him, yanked on his arm, "It's that way."
"No, it's that way." He pointed the opposite way.
"Wrong wrong wrong." she signed emphatically, and started walking. Ahead of her, she could see the tips of the masts she thought were Kalmar’s.
Aaron trotted around her, caught her shoulders and spun her around, "That way. It’s shorter."
They glared at each other for a minute. A woman stopped, stared at both of them, she said something, Bri caught the word "...lost?"
What was that ship Mom and Dad were looking at? Bri frowned, "Maryland." she said, signing it at the same time, hoping she was spelling it right, and thinking even if she did, the nice lady wouldn't be able to understand anyway. She'd probably think they wanted to go to Maryland.
The lady stared, startled, gave Bri a nervous smile, frowned, thinking.
A teenaged girl stopped, looked at the lady, looked at Bri and Aaron, "Maryland?" she said loudly, then made the sign for "boat" and "lady".
Bri nodded, Lady Maryland, that was the ship. Aaron held up his page with the picture he'd drawn of her on it. The girl smiled, "There." she said loudly and pointed, then lifted Bri up so she could see over the heads of the crowd. "Follow me," she signed.
Bri and Aaron followed her, winding through the crowd, until Bri saw the familiar masts of the little pungy schooner rising before them.
Cait came out of the crowd, leaping on them like a pouncing panther, "Where have you been! Lucky Mom and Dad thought you were still with me. What's wrong with you! You know you could have been kidnapped or something!" Her hands flew.
Aaron and Bri exchanged glances.
"I was chased by pirates. Almost kidnapped." Bri signed. “The Vikings saved me.”
Cait stopped signing, gave Bri the kind of look that meant, you are a goofy little kid with an imagination that needs to be put on a very short lead, and there's no way you are related to me! She didn't bother signing anything in reply.
"We weren't far." Aaron said. "I was just drawing. Bri was right with me."
Cait snorted. "Well, you should tell me where you are going."






The whole way back to Chincoteague Bri hugged her pack, not letting Dad put it in the trunk, not even setting it on the seat between her and Aaron. For awhile, she fell asleep, using it as a pillow, and dreamed of the mermaid again.
Merman. And now he would be okay again, now he could go home.


The Merrow’s Cap






Bri wanted to run right over to the Wren’s Nest to show Morgan what she’d found, but it was late, and no amount of pleading would convince Mom or Dad or Cait to take her there. She thought of climbing out the window after everyone was asleep, after all, she would only wake them up if she turned on a light, and she could ride her small bike through the quiet streets without danger.
Unless the pirates were looking for her now.
She wished she had a big dog like Surf to protect her. But she didn’t, so she lay in bed and tried to sleep and imagined pirates creeping under her window.
The night was dark, with only a sliver of moon above the streetlights. Chincoteague, with its cottages painted in surf whites and tropical pastels, shut down after ten. A stray tourist or two might be driving down Main Street, a few house lights were on with late night parties. A boat or two might be out on the bay or in the channel. The beach at Assateague was closed. Only the mosquitoes were still up, hungry after the late evening thunderstorm.
Bri didn’t bother climbing out the window, it was easier to walk out the door. Grab her bike from the backyard, and pedal down to Willow Street.
The dogyard gate was unlocked, just secured by a snap the dogs couldn’t undo. Bri dumped her bike outside and slipped through the gate, carefully snapping it shut behind her. She trotted toward the pool, warbling softly, the way she imagined dolphins spoke.
Morgan’s blond head surfaced over the rubbery edge of the pool, he stared at her in surprise. “What are you doing here by yourself, so late, Little Fishgirl?” he signed.
Bri leaned on the pool edge, thinking how she should tell him. “We went to see some tall ships today.” she said. “In Norfolk.”
Morgan smiled, his tail stirring the water, “That’s great, but many people have seen ships and not felt the need to come in the middle of the night to tell me.”
Bri fidgeted, and Morgan’s smile faded. “What?”
“We saw your ship.” she thrust her backpack at him. “I found this inside.”
Morgan’s tail flicked under him, holding him perfectly still. He took the pack slowly, as if it contained a cobra. He turned it over, frowning at the straps, the closed zipper. “I think I have seen you wearing this...” he signed in confusion.
“Yes, that’s my pack. Inside my pack!” She motioned for him to open it.
He stared at the pack, at the long curved zipper, like the one on his wetsuit.
He zipped it open.
For a moment his face showed surprise, the way Bri had felt at her best birthday ever. Then his face sank, it looked the way Bri had felt on her worst Christmas ever.
No, worse. Morgan held the cap for a long moment, then handed it and the pack back to Bri. “Not mine.” he signed.
“What?” Bri thought maybe she hadn’t understood something, or he hadn’t understood something or...
“It is not my cap, the one I told you about.”
“You said it was red.”
Morgan’s face looked like he was trying not to cry, and Bri’s throat was trying very hard to cry instead.
“It is. Red. Like this.” Morgan signed, “It looks like this. But it is not this one.”
Bri’s face crumpled and she sat down hard on the ground. She had dared to board a pirate ship, she had outthought, outmaneuvered and outrun all of them, and she had still failed. She coiled in a little knot of misery at the base of Morgan’s pool and cried.
A moment later she felt a hand on her head, then Morgan was sitting beside her on the bristly grass, dripping arms drawing her into a gentle, protective hug. She snorfeled to a halt. “I’m sorry.” she signed.
“No, no, nothing to be sorry about. I am amazed that you did this, little one. How...? How did you find this? You have a story to tell me, I think you should tell me now.”
So Bri sat on the grass and told Morgan how she had dared to board a pirate ship to bring back Morgan’s treasure. A smile grew on his face, and soon he was laughing. “Bri the Pirate Queen! Scourge of the Seven Seas! You are amazing!”
“Even if it was the wrong ship?”
“Even if it was.” Morgan paused, frowned as if he was thinking of something, “You say Aaron has a good drawing of this ship?”
“Yes, I made him draw it.”
“Funny.” His face went all thoughtful. “Tattoo Man. How many of your folk would have a tattoo like that?”
“Not many. That’s what made me think it was your ship.’
Morgan put a gentle hand on Bri’s face, “I think we will take a look at Aaron’s pictures.”
Her face brightened.
He was silent for a moment, thinking, then, “Maybe I should keep your cap for awhile.”






Morgan sent out a soft call to Surf, across the street. He woke Shaughnessy with a cold wet nose backed up by a lot of slobber. Shaughnessy burst through the gate, sure Morgan was in danger. The yardfull of Siberians responded with a 3 am concert in ten part harmony.
“SHHHHH! Quiet little brothers!” Morgan told them. “There’s nothing to sing about, not even the moon.” One by one they fell silent again, though a few lights did come on up and down the street. The screen porch door opened and Holly wandered out blearily into the yard. Her eyes took in Morgan, back in his pool, Shaughnessy and Surf, and one small blond pirate lass. “Bri?” she signed it too.
So Bri told her story all over again.
Shaughnessy and Surf saw her home. The house was dark and still, no one had noticed her absence. He stood in the shadows at the bottom of the steps as Bri opened the door, his black and white t-shirt and shorts breaking up his manshape and making him hard to see. He gave her a warm dolphin smile, and a big protective hug, “That was a brave thing you did, Little Fishgirl.”
“It didn’t help.” she signed back.
“We’ll see.” he said, “We’ll see tomorrow.”






It looked like a party. An oddball collection of mismatched lawn chairs, Siberians sprawled in the shade, pale snowdrifts in the grey-green grass. Pirate Jenny perched on the round table under the umbrella. Whole grain chips and salsa dip and some melting Ben and Jerry on the table. And a half dozen people peering over Aaron’s shoulder at his ship sketches.
“Why do they want to see them so bad?” he signed to Bri. He did it small, secret, like a whisper.
“I told you. Pirates. They took something from Morgan, and maybe this is their ship.”
“Uh huh.” Aaron looked as if Bri had just told him Martians had landed at the Town Dock. He showed off his sketchbook anyway, people seemed to like what he drew, even if they couldn’t speak Sign. Drawing was a language everyone understood.
Cait and Jason and Zan were not peering over Aaron’s shoulder. At Shaughnessy’s prompting, they had taken three of the dogs for a walk over to the Misty Memorial.
Bran peered at the last page in Aaron’s book, “Was she really wearing this?”
“Yes.” Aaron signed.
“Interesting fashion sense.”
“Looks like somebody who’s seen that pirate flick one too many times.” Ian suggested.
“Well?” Bran said to Morgan. “Anything look familiar?”
“I remember this.” Morgan pointed to some lines that ran from the masts to the ship’s rail. “I grabbed them as I hauled myself over the side of the ship.”
“Shrouds. You didn’t tell us it had shrouds.” Bran said.
Morgan shrugged, “Maybe all boats have those?”
“Only the ones with masts that need to be braced.”
“You didn’t tell us it was a sailing ship.” Tas said.
“I didn’t know. I couldn’t see sails. I didn’t see if there was a mast. Anyway, it had an engine. I heard it.”
“Sailing ships have engines, for backup. For when there’s no wind. For getting to a port on time, when they’re on a schedule, which most of them are.” Ian said.
“Why would they use sails when they have engines?” Morgan said.
“Sail training,” Bran said, “Historical recreation. Ecological education.”
“Anyway, most of them are faster under sail.” Ian said.
Aaron turned a page, Morgan adjusted his glasses, peered closer. Any of it might be the stuff he had passed in his flight from the ship; the odd human clutter that crowded their small floating worlds.
Bran’s finger landed on a page. “Were the masts really raked like that?”
Aaron nodded. He held up his pencil, dangling loosely from his fingers; it fell in a vertical line. He put it down and signed, “Dad showed me how to draw something that isn’t straight.”
“They’re raked pretty hard.” Ian said. A finger traced the sharp lines of the bow, the long bowsprit and its heavy underpinnings.
“Kinda’ looks like the Pride of Baltimore II.” Bran said. “Or the Californian or Lynx.”
“A Baltimore Clipper?” Ian said.
“What’s a clipper?” Morgan said.
“Before your time.” Bran said. “The Second War of Independence. Napoleon was trying to take over the world, the British were trying to stop him, America was a backwater nobody in Europe took seriously. She ended up having her shipping blockaded, ships stolen and crews shanghaied. The president handed out letters of marque and reprisal to any captain with a fast ship.”
“Legal piracy.” Holly said.
“Privateering.” Bran said. “Baltimore churned out a mess of fast little ‘sharp-built schooners’ that sailed rings around the big warships. Cut broad-beamed merchant ships out of convoys, like falcons picking off fat pigeons. Thomas Boyle sailed Chasseur to England and staged a one-ship blockade of the entire nation.”
“Well this probably narrows our possibilities down to a few dozen or so.” Ian said. He looked to Morgan. “Still might not be your ship.”
They all stared at the sketches.
“Mrow.” Pirate Jenny suggested. She stretched, first bowing in front, then stretching her hind legs out as far as they would go. She padded over Aaron’s book and sat square in the middle of it. Annoyed, Aaron shoved her off. Her multicolored tail twitched across part of the page, tapping against a large round object.
Something itched at the back of Morgan’s memory. He leaned closer, stuck out a finger. The twitching tail flicked against it.
“What’s this?” he asked, pointing.
“The ship’s wheel.” Bran said, “It’s how you steer it.”
“Ah, yes. I remember it. The big round thing.”
“They all have big round things.” Tas said.
“Except for the ones that have big straight things.” Bran said deadpan.
Tas gave him a skeptical glance.
“Tiller.” Bran said, “Some of them have tillers.”
Morgan frowned harder. Sighed. “I don‘t know then. It seems as if it looks like all the other ones.” Morgan ran a finger around the circle of the wheel on the page.
“Raaaw.” Pirate Jenny said.
Bran met her eyes for a moment, straightened, “What did your wheel look like, Morgan?”
He looked up, “Round. Like this one.”
“Yeah, yeah, they’re all round. That’s why it’s called a wheel.”
“Oh.”
“What was it made of? What color was it? How many spokes? How wide?”
Morgan’s eyebrows twitched in concentration.
“Think.”
“I caught it, it spun. Hit one of my pursuers in the chin.”
Bran leaned closer, anticipating.
“It was like...” Morgan’s eyes fell on Pirate Jenny; white and black and gold. His eyebrows lifted like a bird taking flight. He touched one of the golden patches. “Like sun on the sand.”
“Blond wood?” Holly said. “Like oak or something?”
“No, no, not wood. Not warm. Cool, like water. Shiny. Metal.”
“Gold?” Tas was puzzled.
“Landlubber, they don’t put gold on ship’s wheels,” Bran said.
“Brass. They use brass a lot.” Ian suggested.
“Yeah, brass trim. A big wooden wheel with brass trim. Was that it?”
“Yes. No! Not wood. Not any of it. All brass.” Morgan said.
“All brass?”
“Yes! The whole thing. Like a big sun!” Morgan said.
Bran exchanged looks with Shaughnessy, signed something. He turned back to Morgan, “Are you sure? Something like that would be pretty unusual.”
Morgan nodded fiercely, “Yes!”
Bran knelt by Aaron, pointed at the wheel in the drawing and signed, “What was this made of, do you remember?”
Aaron’s eyes lit up, he grinned a big grin, of course he remembered. He paid close attention to details like that. ‘Brass.’ he signed, ‘solid brass.’






“Morgan,” Tas said, “what happened to the wrong cap?”
“On the screen porch,” he nodded toward Holly’s house, “in the duffel bag Ian gave me.”
Tas strode to the porch, retrieved the cap. In the sea, noses and a sense of smell were of little use. Shaughnessy and Morgan had a sense of smell somewhat worse than the average human’s, though their taste buds were keen. And Bran’s nose was not much use either, his close association with Raven...who had no sense of smell worth mentioning...left him as scent-impaired as the Seafolk. Tas buried her nose in the red cap.
Big mistake.
She came up with a snort. “Bleargh!”
Ian gave her a questioning look.
“Wondered if this was one of the guys I’ve been tracking.”
“Well?”
Tas shrugged. “There’s a thousand scents on it.”
“Roooo-rrrrr.” A Siberian warbled from somewhere under the table.
Tas knelt and held out the cap to Strider of the Incredible Nose.
He sniffed it, and ice-blue eyes looked into Tas’ sky and earth ones. She broke into a grin. “Strider says we’ve met this guy before.”






Shaughnessy ran a finger across Aaron’s sketch; specifically the place on the sketch where the ship’s name should be.
It was empty.
Aaron frowned, feeling like he did when Mom told him he’d written his words wrong; putting them in the order they would be in Sign, not in written English. “I forgot to put down her name.” he signed to Shaughnessy. Bad bad bad, they would need the ship’s name to find her again. “Bri was running down the gangplank, and everybody was after her, even though they all stopped at the bottom, when they got to the crowd, and everybody was looking at them, and I was trying to finish the wheel, counting all the spokes and everything.”
Shaughnessy gave him a gentle dolphin smile, “Slow down. Picture the ship in your mind. I think you will remember.”
Aaron looked into those sea-eyes, then took a deep breath, like a diving dolphin, and thought about the ship, the way the bow curved like the point of a pirate’s cutlass, the name written across that bow in letters like swordstrikes. He could see the letters, all five of them. He surfaced from his reverie grinning and drew the letters across the bow of his sketch.
Bri’s shadow blocked his light. “That can’t be right.”
Aaron glared up at her. “Yes it is.”
“You remembered wrong.”
“Did not.”
Bri’s stance took on a superior air, “That’s a horse color, not a name for a ship!” The letters across the bow spelled r-o-a-n-e. “Only you spelled it wrong too. It’s r-o-a-n!”
“That’s not a horse color!” Horse colors had weird names; water names like bay, tree names like chestnut, Spanish names like palomino or pinto, and a bunch of others he couldn’t remember. Well, he wasn’t going to let on that he couldn’t remember, Bri thought she knew everything about horses.
“It is so a horse color!” Bri shouted with her hands, “It’s any color with white hairs in it. Like someone sprinkled sugar on them, or snow. ”
“That’s grey.”
“Greys change as they get older. Roans stay the same color.”
A large hand fell lightly on each of their shoulders, drawing them apart. They looked up into Shaughnessy’s sea-eyes. “You are both right. R-o-a-n is a horse color, like Bri said. But R-o-a-n-e isn’t. It is the old Irish name for the seal folk.” His eyes grew darker, like the sea where the bottom drops down to a hundred feet. “The seal folk who take off their skins to walk on land in human form.”






“You’re going to Norfolk, to find the Roane.” Zan said. It was a statement, not a question, and the unspoken half of that statement was without me.
Ian passed a gear bag to Bran, who tossed it in the stern of the blue Jeep. They looked at each other, as if having a silent conversation even Zan couldn’t hear. Beyond them, in the sandy grass of the Wren’s Nest, Shaughnessy and Morgan were loading the red Jeep.
“Come on, I could kick as much pirate butt as you guys.” Zan said. He swashed some buckles in the air with an imaginary rapier. The air shimmered and the sword solidified, flashing sunlight off the blade.
Ian blocked it with a hand, “I can see the headlines now; Giant Moonjelly Terrorizes Norfolk harbor. The military base there sends out everything its got, all defeated by the giant blob of doom.” Bran gave Ian a hard thump on the shoulder, flat handed, the rest of Ian’s headline sank into oblivion. Bran’s swashbuckler smile faded, “Morgan’s illusions are crumbling,” he said quietly, “and you’re the only one of us who can do anything beyond misdirecting.”
Zan’s face broke into a joyous grin.
Ian waved at the sword, as if dispersing mosquitoes. It wavered and vanished.
Bran held up a warning hand, “But one moonjelly, of any size...”






There was no chance of moonjellies taking over Norfolk. The tall ships had mostly sailed on to their next destinations, the Roane was among them. Zan hunched like a forlorn crab on the end of a dock, Morgan sat beside him, illusory legs clad in river sandals and shorts in another outrageous set of colors. He stared out across the expanse of the Bay’s wide mouth, toward the sea. A sea terribly far away.
Somewhere above them, Bran sailed among the seabirds. Shaughnessy and Ian talked to the last tall ship crews still docked. They spoke of the Roane as a fine ship, one they had known for years under a different name.
But she had new owners, new paint, and a new name. The other tall ship folk did not know the new crew well at all, for they kept to themselves; most unusual among the community of tall ship sailors, usually tightly knit as a dolphin pod.
And none knew where her next port of call would be.






A pinto pony splashed through the shallows into Horse Marsh, turned inland and cantered into the bush. The dark moon gave no light, only the spray of stars that made the Milky Way, arcing above the big island. The little mare made her way through the woods; loblolly pines twisted by sea winds, a brown carpet of their long needles under foot. She plunged into the brush on the seaward side of the woods, mosquitoes whined around her ears and fell back as if they’d hit an invisible barrier. The brush thinned, opened up into dunes and beach. The spotted mare stopped at the edge of the surf, and stood, staring out to sea.
Not an odd thing to see on this island of wild ponies, most of whom were spotted too. Usually though, they didn’t have red watch caps dangling from their teeth.
The mare looked up and down the beach. Empty, except for night birds and ghost crabs. The tourists had gone home for the night, the Park Service was elsewhere, the beach closed. No one had noticed one stray pony.
Sand and wind swirled, fell to the beach. The pony blurred, shifted and a wet-suited Tas walked into the sea.
She stopped when the breakers were behind her, floated there, bobbing up and down in the night sea, clutching the red cap.
Somewhere out there was a ship this belonged to. The connection was tenuous at best, and the ship was probably far too far away to teleport to.
Earth was Tas’ element, not the sea. But the ship was somewhere in the sea; and the water Tas floated in and the water the ship floated in were the same. With the cap which had come from the ship, Tas might be able to see where the ship was. She floated there, small things drifting into her wetsuit-clad legs; flounder, dogfish, crabs, a moonjelly. A hundred yards away a flurry of small fish broke the surface, fleeing from larger predators below. The sky was dark iron against a black sea. Then that horizon blurred, faded as Tas saw a dark ship in a dark sea; masts tall as trees, burgundy sails furled.
It was the same. Same stars, same straggle of clouds low in the east. Tas turned, saw a more distant shoreline than the one she was adrift of. The same but not. Low marshy land, intercut with channels and guts, like the backwaters of Assateague.
Something bumped Tas, something big. Her spirit came back to her own beach with a start, she gave the nosy shark a shove, I’m no fish, Grandmother. Go find other prey tonight.
The shark turned. No little dogfish or nurse shark. Twenty feet of sandpaper skin brushed by. Her kind were old, old when dinosaurs walked the earth, and one two-legged floating in the sea was the same as another. Except this two-legged could speak to her, nearly as well as the Seafolk.
Tas felt her surprise. I think there’s a shoal of fish over there. Really big ones. Tas told her, picturing the place in her mind.
You are hunting too.
Yes. Hunting a ship. Tas held the cap out and Grandmother Shark bumped it once, twice, testing it with her keen nose. This came from that ship. Tas told her.
Many ships here. Noisy. Smelly. Kill sharks.
I know.
Yours; alone. Islands. That way. Not far. She brushed by again, heading south, and vanished into the dark.
Tas turned and swam back to shore, still clutching the cap. Thanks Grandmother. The schooner was somewhere in a barrier island chain like this one. But where?
She stood in the foaming swash, her night wolf eyes scanning the vast alien world of the sea. Shaughnessy and Morgan were out there somewhere, maybe following a faint trail from Norfolk. Or maybe they had never found it.
A pinto pony wheeled and galloped inland, the only real sign for that trail in her teeth.


Middle Watch, Morning Watch






Bran sat up with a start in the near dark of the tent in the Wren’s Nest backyard. He saw a patch of night where the door should be, night lit with the warm glow of a streetlight, enough to make out the dark shape crouched in front of him. “What?” he demanded of Tas.
“I know where she is.”
He threw off the light sheet, caught her shoulder in one hand, “Where?”
“Sort of.” she said.
“Sort of? What do you mean, sort of?” He groped in the clutter beside his bed for the flashlight he’d left there.
Somewhere. Shells, a chunk of driftwood from the bay, stuff from the yard sale.
Tas reached out behind her and poked the loglike form in the other sleeping bag: a bag surrounded by tidy and ordered camping gear.
It moved, mumbled, “Burrfish in my shorts...”
“You saw it?” Bran said, failing to find the flashlight.
“Yeah.” Tas poked the log again.
“Sea pork and jellyfish sandwich...” it mumbled.
Tas thumped it hard. “Most humans sleep like rocks but he’s like the whole continental crust!”
“Lo! The crust of the Earth moves.” Bran said, giving Ian another poke.
“Whuh?” Ian sat up blinking. He hit the light on his watch, a tiny green glow lit up his face in the dark tent, “It’s freakin’ three am.”
“I...”
“She...”
“...found it.” the Elves said in unison.
“Sort of.” Tas said. Her eyebrow twitched in thought, she shifted her position and handed Bran his flashlight, the one she’d been crouching on.
“Huh...wha? Found what?” Ian’s brain clearly wasn’t past sea pork and burrfish yet.
“The ship.” Bran said, and a hard halogen glow lit up the tent with its icy light.
Ian looked as if he’d been hit in the head with a wayward boom. “Whoa!” then he frowned, “Wait, what do you mean, sort of?”
“I saw the sea around it. The land beyond. It’s somewhere in a place like this; open sea to the east, barrier chain to the west.” Tas said.
“That could be anywhere from Cape Cod to South Carolina!” Ian said.
Bran’s words piled on top of Ian’s, “Let’s just assume they don’t have warp drive yet on that thing, and they could only sail just so far from Norfolk in a day. And that they might be still interested in our Merrow.”
“Well, the shark thought it was to the south.” Tas said.
Raven and Wolf shut up and stared at her, “What?” Bran said, “Since when have you started talking to sharks?”
Tas shrugged, “She showed up, I did something you guys never do, I stopped and asked for directions.”
Ian scrambled to his knees, thrashing out of the tangle of his bedding, he dove into
a plastic bin at the end of his bedroll. “Here.” He pulled out a big plastic bag from the box and held it under their noses. A map of the rest of the Delmarva Peninsula, south of Assateague. The Peninsula sat on the edge of America, like a bushy fox’s tail, attached at the north to Philadelphia. The Susquehanna flowed on its west side, down into the Chesapeake Bay. North was the Delaware River, and east the Atlantic Ocean. Assateague was most of the way down the fox’s tail, and south of that lay wilderness; a scattering of smaller barrier islands cut with channels and shallow bays.
A mad maze of land and sea and marsh. And south of that, the great bridge across the mouth of the Bay, and Kitty Hawk and the barrier chain called the Outer Banks beyond.
“Shaughnessy and Morgan were...” he frowned, calculating where they had been at their last communication, “about here. Heading this way.” Ian’s finger traced a trail north up the bay, in the opposite direction from the barrier islands. And they were under fin power, not engine power. “Even if we tell them now, it’ll take till...”
“...maybe mid-afternoon...” Bran said.
“...for them to get here.” Ian’s finger landed in the middle of the barrier chain.
“And maybe my trail’s the wrong one after all.” Tas said.
“Maybe.” Bran said. “Maybe not. Maybe theirs is.”
“You...” Ian looked up at Bran.
“...have a feeling about this one.” Bran said, his finger trailing through the maze of the Virginia barrier islands. He frowned at the Outer Banks in the Carolinas. His finger moved back to Virginia: Metomkin, Assawoman, Spidercrab Bay, Ship Shoal, Hog Island, Wreck and Bone. He looked up at Tas, questioning.
“Grandmother said not far.” Tas told him.
“What’s not far to a shark? A mile, twenty? A hundred?” Ian said.
“What do you think, Pirate?” Tas said to Bran.
“Privateer.” Bran said. “I was a privateer.”
Tas snorted, “Whatever. You’ve talked to more sharks than I have.”
Bran made a wry face, “Birds, my thing is birds. I talked to a lot of seabirds. Not sharks.” He stood up and reached for the tent zipper.
“You don’t see in the dark like an owl.” Ian warned, “And owls like to catch things like ravens for midnight snacks.”
Bran frowned at him.
“Won’t do much good to search from land. Better to wait a couple hours and use your wings.” Tas agreed.
“Yeah, yeah, ok. I’ll wait for dawn.” Bran sat back down on his bedroll.
Ian glanced at his watch, “About two hours.” he said. “I’ll take the Jeep, and Artemis. And the frisbees.”
“It’s just a scouting mission.” Bran said.
Ian smiled tightly, “I know you. I’ll take the ‘yak. Etc. etc. etc.”
Bran pulled the sheet back over himself and was asleep in a minute.
Ian was not so lucky.






Bran stood in the backyard of the Wren’s Nest, listening. The eastern sky was silver with light. The last hoo hoo-hoo-hoo hoo-HOO of a Great Horned Owl had sounded a half hour ago. The sky warmed with rose light, the wind shifted. He had finished a hasty breakfast, flying without fuel would have been pointless. The tall lean form of a man with stormsilver hair blurred, wind and mist swirled, blew away.
A stormsilver raven lifted its wings, flew to Ian’s arm.
Ian clipped a small object around one dark scaled leg. “”Earla said this one’s probably Elf-proof. But try not to fry it, like the other ones.”
Bran flew to the top of one of the big loblollies in Holly’s yard. Ian held up a small device, the size of a cell phone.
“Can you hear me now?” Bran whispered, voice mutated slightly by its origin in a bird’s syrinx instead of a humanoid larynx.
“Coming in loud and clear.” Ian said. “So are your coordinates. I should be able to track you to scenic Antarctica with this.”
The raven lifted his wings and vanished into the dawn.






Ian piloted the blue Jeep down the long emptiness of Route 13 south, Artemis perched on the rollbars. On the Jeep’s doors a dark silver raven spread its wings against a pale moon.
Wolf’s moon, the one he sang to, ran beneath. Drew his power from.
To the east, a dark silver raven beat south against the wind. The sun came up out of the sea. Raven’s sun, the one legend said he’d carried into the sky. Maybe it was just a legend, but Raven and the Sun had strong, ancient ties.
Raven the Guide. Wolf the Hunter. Earth and sky, sun and moon. Together they were stronger than either one alone.
Ian glanced east at the warming sky. Bran’s Elven eyes could see even farther than the most sharp-eyed raven. If the ship was hiding amongst these islands, he would find it. Ian would follow Earla’s tracking device to Bran, and the team of Raven and Wolf would be on the hunt.
Bran was the Seer; not just things hidden to human eyes by miles of air, but things hidden to human hearts by time. It was Ian, though, whose gut felt like a few moray eels had decided to have a party there. He breathed deep and slow and tried to calm it.
“Hey Birdbrain,” he said into the morning emptiness, “don’t do anything stupid.”


Sharkman and the Incredible Swamp Monster of Doom






The 800 horsepower twin Mercury engines roar like a leashed dragon. The boat rears like a stallion, and ricochets over the waves. Sharkman sets out with his fearless sidekick who is piloting the Battlecruiser Finrod, his faithful wookiee companion at the helm. Wait, can’t use wookiee, that’s copyrighted or something...
Their quest is...uh...screeeeeeet pht pht pht, the soundtrack grinds to a halt.


The late morning sun danced bright off the choppy waves. The wind blew up from the south, bringing with it a pterodactyly line of brown pelicans. Below them, flying north on the waves were a broad splash of yellow and a narrow, fishform slash of blue and neon green.
Zan paddled Finrod from astern, a drybag lashed to the deck bungees behind him contained gear for a daylong mission into the wilds of Chincoteague Bay: first aid kit, flares, a couple of windbreakers, and emergency blanket. Water bottles rattled in the bilge, along with a mesh bag of snorkeling gear. Jason’s kayak, Sandtiger, was stuffed to the gunnels too; hundred proof sunscreen, snorkeling gear, anchor lines, Earla’s secret recipe peanut butter fudge, veggies and dip, peanut butter and apple sandwiches, Ian’s special recipe Expedition GORP, and enough Gatorade to float Battlecruiser Finrod. Lashed under the deck bungees were a bilge pump, a compass, charts in waterproof bags, and a good pair of waterproof binoculars Aunt Gracie had given him. Surf sprawled in the big yellow ‘yak’s bow seat. Jason darted through the chop off Zan’s starboard bow, surfing on the remnants of a speedboat wake.
“Yee-hah!” Sharkman in his natural element. He heeled over, carving on a wave, wobbled for a moment then caught himself with a timely paddle brace.
“Cool!” the Fearless Sidekick yelled, and wheeled all twelve feet of Battlecruiser Finrod (and the Official Ship’s Dog) around on the next wave. He threw his head back and howled like a wolf.
Sharkman answered with a somewhat less accurate howl.
Zan stood, peering ahead to the far end of Chincoteague Island. “Hey Sharkman, I think I see something.” He squinted, then his face showed astonishment. “Dragons!”
“What?”
Zan turned as easily as if he was standing on dry land, instead of a two foot wide kayak in waves with Dogzilla in the bow, “Dragons. On all the old maps, when you got to the ends of the earth, where no-one had gone before, the maps all said ‘here there be dragons’.”
Sharkman frowned, “The official charts clearly stated there are no dragons in sector 19.”
“Well, clearly no-one has had an investigative team up here in a long time!” Zan gestured toward the northern horizon.
“Then we shall investigate!” Sharkman hauled the Sharkscanner... the binoculars... out from beneath his deck bungees, peered through them. For a moment something wavered on the hazy horizon of Chincoteague Bay. Something big. “Whoa. What’s that?” Jason said.
“What?” Zan sat down in the helm seat again, looking mysterious.
Jason stuffed the binoculars back under the bungees. “It’s all shallow up here, I looked at the map...chart. It’s a chart if it’s a map of water...”
“I know.”
“So nothing big could be up here...”
“...except maybe a twelve foot shark or some big rays.”
“Yeah.”
“Maybe you saw pelicans.”
“I know what pelicans look like.”
“Dragons then. Definitely dragons.” Zan grinned and shoved Finrod past the Sandtiger.


Pht pht pht screeeeeeet zee-eeeee-eeeeee, the soundtrack resumes, the dark music suggests the uncertainty of what lies beneath Sharkman's Stealth 9000, code-named The Sandtiger. The lightning green and blue kayak, with a touch of a button, shimmers and transforms, camouflaged with the sky and water colors of the Bay of Mysteries. Somewhere below is the biggest mystery of all, a quest that will take them to the edge of the Earth and beyond!


“Hey,” Zan said, “You think I could...well...be a character in your comic?”
“You want to be? Really?”
“Yeah.” Zan’s face looked like the littlest kid on the playground, the one who gets picked last for all the teams.
“Hey, cool!” Jason said. “You could be...uh...Fluke Whalewatcher?”
“Shadowfox.” Zan made a face, embarrassed, “I know that doesn’t exactly fit into the fish theme, but..”
“Ok.” Jason shrugged, “So you’re different.” He studied Zan, clad at the moment in a full length superhero suit of purple and black spandex. It was really a diveskin, the kind of thing divers wore under neoprene wetsuits, to make the wetsuits go on easier, or in warm water to prevent jellyfish stings, or sunburn if they were snorkeling on the surface. Zan’s red hair and pale skin made him as safe in the sun as the average vampire. “So what would your superpowers be?”
Zan gave him a startled look, then studied Finrod’s bow.
“Well?”
“I don’t know, what do you think?”
“Superspeed. Definitely. Super agility too. If you were a D&D character, you’d have an agility of twenty-five. You have played D&D right?”
“Of course. You?”
"Yeah, the comic shop ran a game every Friday night. Then Dad decided I needed to spend more time doing ranch work."
"That reeks.”
“Yeah, cows plotting to take over the world, Crapzilla, killer broncs.”
Zan laughed, threw back his head and sang at the top of his lungs, “Ooooh no, there goes To-ky-oooo, oh no, Crapzilla! Whoa whoa whoa whoa!”
Jason recognized it from the radio...well, not exactly with those words. He laughed and shouted out the next verse with Zan.
Zan’s mangle of the top forty dribbled to a halt, “Twenty-five huh?” he said to Jason, “On the three six-siders, or the twenty-sided dice?”
“Three to eighteen scale. You’d be a twenty-five, at least. Maybe thirty.”
Zan grinned, “Really, you think?”
“Yeah, definitely. I can’t get in my boat and you can stand on it. And Cait told me about your ride on the beach, when I was filming stuff in the bay. You’re a pretty awesome trick rider.”
Zan looked away, embarrassed, but still smiling.
“So what other superpowers would you have?” Jason said. He paused. "DO you have?"
"Farsight. And you've seen the illusions. I can talk to trees and animals and stuff.”
“Cool.” Jason said. “What weapons would you use, besides bo?”
“Bow.”
“No, besides bo staff.”
“BOW!” Zan stood in the boat and drew an imaginary longbow...which rapidly materialized into a very solid looking one.
"Cool, does that work? I mean, can you fire it?"
"Depends."
"On what?"
"How much energy I got left and how much raw material... sticks and stuff like that... that I started out with."
“So what’s Sharkman’s superpowers?”
“Strength. He’s superstrong. Lot’s of teeth. Nobody messes with him, but he’s cool. He only uses his powers to defend the helpless. He has lots of awesome technology too.” Jason frowned in thought, “Like Earla. I need a character like Earla to make all the Sharktech.”
“Yeah. She can make anything out of stuff everybody else throws away.” Zan said. “So what would your superpowers be?”
“I told you.”
“No, not Sharkman, Jason.”
“Oh.” He squirmed, looking a bit like the marine worm that had got trapped in his cockpit.
Zan saw it. “Probably,” he said, “Sharkman is a lot like you.”
“Me? I got a lifetime membership in Geekazoids Anonymous!”
Zan studied him with eyes that suddenly seemed a lot older than ninth grade, “Lifetime memberships can be revoked.”






Chincoteague inched by to starboard, and beyond that low rise of sand and trees and houses lay a few shallow pools they called bays, a couple of channels, and Assateague. And beyond that, the Atlantic Ocean rolled over the horizon to England and France and Spain.
To port lay the deep channel, and the shallow expanse of the Chincoteague Bay dotted with reed-covered duck blinds on sturdy pilings, like the huts of an ancient sea-going culture. Chincoteague Bay rolled off to a fuzzy shoreline in the blue distance: the mainland, Virginia, and beyond that, the whole North American continent.
Fading astern were the west side docks with their big deep-sea fishing boats, the smaller sport fishing boats, pontoon boats and speedboats the tourists used for fun. Jason could hear the faint buzz of distant engines even now. Astern as well were the swift currents of Chincoteague Channel, and Black Narrows, difficult for a newbie paddler to navigate, though today, Sharkman had survived that test.
Under their hulls now the water spread out into the miles-wide bay, the current was still strong, but not as strong as in the narrow channels. The Sandtiger wove and twisted on the waves like a well-trained cowpony.
“Whoooo-ooo!” Jason let out a whoop of pure excitement. “Whoa!” he shouted as something exploded from under his boat, blasting through the water, leaving a trail of silt and disturbed water.
It looked like it might have been half the size of Miami.
Surf’s nose homed in on it, his floppy ears lifted a notch.
"What was that?" Jason hauled the Sandtiger around, trying to follow the disturbance in the water. His gut twitched like a hooked fish. Fear? Or anticipation? He shoved the Sandtiger after the burble on the water’s surface, half hoping it was another humongous shark. His eyes searched the finnish shapes of the choppy wind waves and saw nothing but wave shadow.
Surf yawned and flumped down on his half of Finrod.
"Dragons." Zan turned his boat hard starboard, hauled it around, and came back alongside Jason. He poked at the water with his paddle. The water roiled, burbled and a winged shadow flew across the surface, vanishing again in the murk.
Sharkman’s disappointed expression shifted to excitement. "Stingray!"
"Yeah, that was just one of the little ones," Zan said, eyes glinting with amusement. "Wait, there's more in the clearer water off Wildcat Marsh.”
"Cool.” Jason said. “The divers at the Baltimore Aquarium fed the rays by hand. They sit on the bottom with skates and rays fluttering all over them like big crazy butterflies. They don't bite or anything, unless you stick your fingers in their mouths. One of the divers gave me a tooth once..." Jason heaved on his paddle, as Zan pulled away.
Fifty yards to the east, Zan stopped, bobbing in the chop, dropped his paddle over the side where it floated on its leash.
Zan stood up, balancing effortlessly on the 'yak's seat. Surf rose too, balancing easily on all fours, watching Zan eagerly. Zan looked back at Jason. No, not at Jason at something...
...big rolled up beside Jason's 'yak, a sharp fin sliced the water, a shiny grey back rolled across the surface and vanished with a faint burble of displaced water.
Jason stared in disbelief as a mooncurve of tail vanished beneath the low waves. He stared for about five seconds, then picked up his paddle and stroked hard after it. He yelled back at Zan, "did you see that?"
Zan was beside him in a few strokes, "Hey, maybe you're chasing a great white or something."
"No way! Sharks don't roll across the surface, and they have vertical tails, not horizontal."
Zan fell back, and Jason turned his attention to the chop ahead. The water danced with moving triangular fin shapes; wave shadows. Jason squinted and paddled, dolphins could hold their breaths a long time, but when traveling this one, or his buddies, should surface soon.
There, a fin rolled across the surface again followed by a smooth sea-grey curve of back.
Here one surfaced and Jason heard the sharp PCHOO! of breath, as if over a soda bottle. He glanced at Zan, "Are these yours?"
"Nope. They're real. I can't do sound that well!"






Bright morning sun danced across long waves rolling in from the east. Wind: south-southeast, ten to fifteen knots. Bran pointed his long cutlass shaped beak into that wind and stroked his wings like a kayaker bucking the waves. Behind him a few fishing boats chugged out the channel, into the open sea. Two boys and a dog paddled north toward Wildcat Marsh. Tourists poured across the causeway into Chincoteague.
The curve of sand called The Hook had vanished under his broad silver wings, and the towers and satellite dishes of Wallops. Ahead, the tail of the Delmarva Peninsula bent over the edge of the round world. He flexed his wings, rose to a thousand feet. Two thousand. Below Bran, water and land wove in and out of each other till it was nearly impossible to tell where one began and the other ended. Marsh grass and low shrubs, a few loblollies and hardwoods on the higher ground, and the wildlife that liked the wild, lonely edges of the sea. Shallow guts and deeper channels, the faint shadows of moving fish, and gulls and terns dancing over them, diving for breakfast. No sign of human intrusion except the straight unnatural lines of a few quiet boat docks on the edge of the marsh.
Not even a fishing boat in sight, much less a schooner.






Fool of a shark, you can’t catch dolphins. You can’t even outpaddle a turtle! The dolphins wheeled across the surface, Jason paddling ferociously to keep up anyway.
And somehow, he did. They were there, arcing across the silver surface ten feet from his paddle. Five feet. He glanced back once, and saw Zan paddling hard in the bulky sit-on, to keep up. One dolphin rolled, regarding Jason with a great dark eye, then it vanished beneath the waves. One by one the others vanished too, and the bay was empty and silent, except for the cry of gulls and the splash of water against Jason’s paddle, and the distant whine of boat engines.
“Wow!” He said to Zan as the yellow boat pulled alongside.
“Cool, huh?”
They sat for a moment, staring into the empty water.
“Well, Sharkman, want to see if we can find any more twelve foot sharks?”
Jason laughed, then stared into the water, “You think we can?” He studied Finrod’s bright hull, “Isn’t that the color the Navy or somebody used to call yum yum yellow?”
“Huh?”
“Seemed to attract sharks.”
Zan’s face showed consternation. “Oh yeah?”
The distant boatwhine was louder now, like an annoying mosquito.






The sun rose higher, hotter, and Bran was glad that the raven he’d chosen to learn the shape of, to follow for its whole life, had been silver, not black. The June sun glanced off his wings, the wind whistled through his primaries, and the waves danced three thousand feet below. He let out a graaaack! of sheer joy and tumbled on the southeast wind, spinning, flipping, spiraling, then leveling off at fifteen hundred feet and flying straight and fast as he could. He actually liked human technology, he actually liked the chopper, Ravin’ Maniac, and its sister ship, the light plane they called the Ravin’ Wolf. But they did not come close to the feel of wind pouring over feathers. Feathers he could twitch, shift the tiniest bit to swoop or tumble or soar. This was flying. This was the art the descendants of dinosaurs had discovered before the Firstborn walked the earth. The gift Raven had given Bran’s corvid kin; raven and crow, jay and magpie and rook. This was the gift his stormsilver raven had given him. He remembered that bird, long gone as many others he had loved were, and sang a song of thanks to him.
Far below, gulls sang out in response, and Bran’s attention snapped back to the water below and his mission.
Blast! What have I missed! He wheeled and flew back north, speeding downwind, rose back to three thousand feet. Light glanced off the strip of pale sand bordering the water, making a hazy glow. The moist air was thick with light. And dark hull and deck and masts against dark water would be difficult to see.
Nothing.
He might have called the birds, a feathered airforce to comb the length of the peninsula. Some might have answered the call of one of the Firstborn, but it never occurred to Bran to
interrupt the lives of the birds that way. They had their own families to feed, their own problems of survival to attend to. They were not always his eyes and ears.
Still, he could ask now and again if anyone had seen a certain ship. Most had paid little attention to it, it was not a threat, and it offered no food. So if they had seen it, they had forgotten it.
A few remembered something odd and vertical in the horizontal islandscape; Oh yes. It was there. No there. No, south. No, north.
No help at all.
Bran wheeled on the wind and began a meandering series of long S-curves heading south. Back and forth, back and forth across the couple mile wide swath of marsh and bay and barrier island. Metomkin and Cedar Islands vanished astern, then the Coast Guard station at Parramore Beach. Here the maze of marsh and bay widened out to six miles wide or more, and Bran’s search pattern broadened to match. Ahead lay Hogg and Cobb and Rogue and Wreck Islands, and a maze of channels and guts and bays.
Plenty of places to lose a ship.
How far is not far to a shark?






Tas stalked across the street to the dogyard gate, opened it silently and clicked it shut behind her. The late morning sun was already hot. Dogs were sprawled in shady places all over the yard, Holly was at work on the porch, packing books to mail out. Aaron and Bri were in the middle of a pile of Siberians, Bri with a book, Aaron doodling in his sketchbook. Cait was absently tossing her rope at a lawn chair, the porch rail, a ball she kicked across the yard.
The ball escaped. Cait frowned.
“Needs horns I guess.” Tas said.
“Where’s everybody?” Cait asked, “I was hoping for some real practice.”
“Jason and Zan went paddling. I left them and Surf at the high school parking lot. They have enough gear for an expedition to the Outer Banks. Probably be back tonight.”
“Oh.” Cait looked disappointed.
“Thought you were all going to Annapolis with your dad and mom.”
“Aaron and Bri would be bored. University business.” Cait signed a huge yawn. “So Holly let us stay here for a few days.”
“Oh. Good. Wish I would have known. You would have fit in Zan’s boat, we could have left Surf here.”
“Nah. Don’t really want to spend all day on the water.”
“Ah. Well, go around back of the Wren’s Nest. There’s something there for you.”








Zan stopped paddling, dropped a length of yellow line over the side. On the end of it was a five pound chunk of lead; a weight that normally was woven into a diver's weight belt. The yellow 'yak floated to the end of the line and came around, bow pointing into the slight current. Zan dropped a second object over the side; a bright red flag, slashed with white, on a float. To the west, the bottom dropped down into the deeps of the channel. To the east, shallow water rolled right up against Wildcat Marsh. Zan fixed his mask on his face and backrolled over the side with as much noise as an otter sliding into a stream. He vanished below for a moment and came up grinning, "About twenty feet of vis here! "We should be able to see stuff now."
Surf leapt off the yellow ‘yak with a great splash, paddling joyfully around Zan with just the top of his fuzzy head visible, his broad webbed paws churning not much more than a foot above the sandy bottom.
“If Surf doesn’t give us a great big fat siltout!” Zan added.
Jason dropped his own anchor, in shallower water and heaved himself out of the cockpit. He swam out to Zan, floating above waving eelgrass, streaks of sunlight dancing through the water and across the bottom. A silver storm of small fish glittered by: the silversides again. A blue crab scuttled across the bottom. Bright orange and red fingers of some nameless spongy thing peeked out of the dark grass. A whelk crawled in slow ponderous motion across the patch of open sand under Jason's fins. A squiggle of stripes announced the presence of a pipefish. Then a few yards further, another one. A pair of eyeballs peered up from a sandy patch between the weedbeds; it seemed to be attached to a long lizardy body. Jason poked at it and it vanished in a puff of sand. He blobbed up to the surface laughing, “What the heck was that?” he asked Zan.
“Some kind of lizardfish. They’re really fast.”
“It looked like it teleported! I didn’t even see where it went!”






Cait trotted across the road to the Wren’s Nest, rope slung across one shoulder. Halfway across the road the wind picked up out of nowhere. It lifted loose pine needles and debris, stung with tiny grains of sand. It whirled around the Wren’s Nest and vanished into the trees. Cait followed the wind behind the house and found...
“Wolf! Hey, who left you here?” Cait said out loud.
The little pinto mare stood in the middle of a low, sandy swath of yard, wearing a bosal, but no saddle.
Cait studied the sandy bowl. She didn’t remember it being there before. It looked like someone had been trying to build a sandbox. “Where’s Tas?”
The back door chunked open and Earla stuck her head out, “Tas has something to do, but she said ‘take Wolf, go for a long ride’.”
“Alone?”
“She’ll take care of you.”
“Cool.” Cait was already in swimsuit and shorts, all she needed was her helmet. She ran back to Holly’s for that and a daypack with some granola bars and dried fruit and beef jerky and a water bottle. Cowboy food, trail food. She slung the rope over her shoulder, just in case something ropeable presented itself. This time she swung up on Wolf’s back with one try.
They went down the shady street at an easy jog. All the way down Willow to where it bent west toward Main. Down Main to the end of the island, past Captain Bob’s Marina, north again past Tom’s Cove campground, Memorial Park. They wandered around Chincoteague, stopping at a decoy shop, an art gallery. The whole island was only seven miles long and less than two miles wide at its widest point. Still, the roads wound around, twisted back on themselves, and there were interesting things to see, maybe more interesting from the back of a horse. Tourists paused, heads turned, kids pointed at what they were sure was one of the famous island ponies. Cait didn’t bother telling them any different.








The terns fishing the edge of the gut wheeled away, startled as the great darksilver shape drifted down out of the sky.
Sorry little brothers. Didn’t mean to interrupt your lunch, but this search and rescue stuff is hungry work. He met their eyes for a moment, searching for sightings of tall silver masts in the flatness of the islandscape.
Nothing.
Bran landed on a sliver of mudflat beach at the edge of the marsh and poked his beak into the sunwarmed, life-rich mud.
A crab emerged in his beak, then another. A couple of small killifish rounded out the feast, he tossed the last one to a waiting tern.
It would be enough to fuel his wings for a few more hours. He spread his wings and lifted off into the hot June sky.
Back and forth, back and forth in wide winding S-curves, scanning the marsh maze with his keen eyes.
A glitch in the rhythm of the water below caught the corner of Bran’s eye. He turned, his head and eyes, steady despite the wind that rocked his body. He tucked his wings up, shortening them like a stooping falcon and dropped down to a thousand feet. If ravens could smile, he would have broken into a great huge grin. He circled down, a set of burgundy sails on a pair of dark masts at the center of his circle like the pin holding the needle of a compass. Sun flashed off something near the stern.
A big round thing, golden, like the sun.


Raven and Wolf






It was Aaron and Bri’s ship all right. Aaron didn’t have the technical skill of an adult artist yet, but he had remembered every detail, and put them in the right places. The great brass wheel shone from the stern, gulls circled the dark masts, with their deep red sails half furled. The wood of the cabin trunks and gunnels shone like a polished bay horse.
And there on the bow was the name; Roane, in swordstroke letters.
Bran wheeled down and alighted on one of the foremast shrouds.
A few miles away Ian heard a low voice, with a strong raven accent, come over the communicator. “I’ve got her.” Bran said.
“I’m on my way.” Ian said. He pulled over, eyed the coordinates being fed from Bran’s tracker, the coordinates of the Jeep, and the map. “That puts you in....one of the channels off Rogue Island...” he frowned at the map.
“We’re pretty far back in.” the raven voice came vaguely over the communicator.
“The Deeps.” Ian said. “Some narrow, shallow places there. Not easy to get a ship that size in and out.”
“If the info on the old website is right, she has a fairly shallow draft. And she has engines, so she won’t have to wait on the wind.”
“Wish The Lady was here.” Ian said half to himself. “I’m calling our crew now. Get back here.” Our Crew, yeah. That would be Tas. Just Tas. Earla doesn’t do water, and somebody has to stay at HQ. Zan’s with Jason. Shaughnessy and Morgan are on the way, but still hours out. Of course Tas would be all the crew we’d need...a one-Elf army.
“I think we can handle this. ” Came Bran’s voice over the com.
“Come back here, now.” Ian repeated.
“In a minute...” Bran said.
Then all Ian could hear was wind.






Bran cocked his head, listening to the sounds of an anchored ship on Afternoon Watch. A few people were on deck, eating, staring at the horizon. Someone scribbling in a log. The Roane was a fair recreation of the Baltimore Clippers Bran had known when they were the latest, hottest new tech on the market, though she didn’t appear as lean and twitchy as many of those had been. She’d been built of wood, the old way, but with none of the hempen rope that required constant maintenance. Her trim: gunnels and skylights and hatch covers, was dark with modern marine varnish, but her pale wooden deck appeared to require, as in the old days, the caress of holystones. Her black hull with its deep burgundy stripe below the cannon muzzles, was fresh with paint, her dark oxblood sails well-maintained. At least some of the crew must know what they were doing. Bran studied the quiet activity below him, then reached out with other senses. Darkness, anger.
And something else: something bright and fresh as a sea breeze.
Morgan! It’s here! Bran hopped lower. No one noticed a bird in the shrouds, one that wasn’t a gull. He spread his wings and floated to the top of one of the polished boxes, like a fancy doghouse, that covered the hatch and the ladder leading below.
Bran cocked his head; something else flickered at the edge of his senses, like a nearly invisible color. Not the aura of ship or crew, not Morgan’s cap, something else...
On his leg, something fratzed and sent up a thin line of acrid smoke.






Ian stood on the boat ramp at Castle Ridge Creek, staring through a telescope Earla had made. In the other hand was one of his homemade energy bars, half eaten. Hog Island lay before him, nearly eight miles away across shallow Hog Island Bay. Bran’s last coordinates, before his communicator had gone dead, put him only four miles away, in the channel called The Deeps, a branch off the Great Machipongo Channel, which lead out to sea. Four miles as the raven flies. Maybe ten as a kayaker paddles. Against an incoming tide. He could see faint lines of the schooner’s masts, the only thing between him and it was marsh and mudflat, and the open water of the shallow bay. What was Bran up to?
Ian knew too well: Ravenkin, whether crow or magpie, jay or rook or raven had a reputation for being tricksters. “Fool of a rook.” he said under his breath. It would be just like Bran to do some crazy stunt, like try to grab the cap all by himself.
Now what? Go to him? By the time I get there he’ll be back. Call Tas? Shaughnessy and Morgan? None of them can do any more than we can. Besides, if Raven and Wolf can’t handle a little reconnaissance...
Yeah, maybe Bran’d just do like the plan and find the Roane and come back for Ian.
Yeah, right. Ian laid a hand on the kayak. A minute later he pulled it off the rollbars and readied it at the water’s edge.






Raven knew where the sun and moon and stars were being kept. He knew they could not stay there, hoarded away in the lodge of that chief, a prize, a treasure kept selfishly to himself. They needed to come into the world, they were needed by all the folk of the cold, dark world. So, disguised as a child, Raven asked to play with the sun, and the moon, and the stars. He screamed and yelled, like all small children, till he got his way. And when the sun and moon and stars were in his hands, he changed back to Raven and flew up the smokehole and into the sky.


The ships of wood and cloth and hemp rope had always been dark belowdecks. Bran had always disliked those close, dark places, away from the sun and wind, and had spent most of his time on deck, or in the rigging, even in foul weather. Even though her hull was wood, the Roane had more light: electric lights, glass skylights, and the old-fashioned prisms in the deck that let sunlight through.
Bran hopped to the floor, pattered across the main cabin. He was small, and hard to see in the shadows. And piracy, or privateering, did not always involve a lot of gunpowder. It should be easy to infiltrate the ship, find the cap, and fly off with it. Yeah, easy.
Footsteps, heavy on the wooden flooring. A man coming through the watertight door forward, filling it with his bulk. A quick lift of wings, a breath of displaced air and Bran was peering at the man from the top of a cabin door, hanging ajar on its hook.
Gone. Safe.
Quietly, tiptoeing aft, a quick duck behind one of the bright yellow engines. Bran watched a crew woman pass, vanish up the ladder beyond the nav room. He cocked his head, taking in the odd sight of the bright pink seal guarding Engine 2. And the size and shape of the engines; Holycrap, what do they have, warp drive in this thing?
Aft again, following the faint pull of something bright and fresh as sea wind. Aha! There! In there.
In there was behind a closed door, one not even the cleverest raven could open. One of the officer’s cabins. Maybe the captain’s.
“Crap.” Bran hissed at the door. He stared at it, head cocked to the sounds on deck above him. “Oh well.”






Above decks, the wind picked up. The bosun stood up, startled, frowned at the distant horizon. The wind increased, bringing with it now some sea-spray. It swirled around the deck and away. From belowdecks came a startled “...whatthe...?” as wind and spray whistled through the hatches, the galley and main cabin, like a sudden miniature hurricane. The ship rocked. Then all was quiet again.






Bran put out a hand and opened the door. Easy. Just like that. He stalked in, opened the top drawer of a small chest against a bulkhead. His hand hesitated a moment. It would be the same as someone touching the feather he wore in his hair. The one from his stormsilver raven of long ago.
There would be plenty of time later to cleanse Morgan’s cap properly. For now he had to steal it back. He caught up the cap and studied it with hands and other senses.
It was Morgan’s all right.


That other...something itched at the edge of his senses, like a faint smell, like a firefly glimpsed at the edge of sight. What...? Above him footsteps sounded on deck, voices raised in confusion.
No time. He reached for the communicator that had fallen off when he shifted. Fried, definitely fried. Oh boy, Earla’s gonna never let me live this one down.
More footsteps, closer. Time to leave.
Bran turned, put the cap in his teeth, reached for the door.
It blew open, backed by a hundred and thirty pounds of extremely annoyed female. She was not wearing the clothes in Aaron’s drawing, but what she had on still seemed to be a collision of centuries.
And those had to be the same boots; a kind that had largely gone out of style nearly two centuries ago.
“Nice boots.” Bran said admiringly. Then he reacted as he had in a thousand similar situations, he slipped aside as easily as a raven banking in flight. One hand helped her on by, and she flew into the lower bunk like a bird going to nest.
Like a fledgling with really bad flight skills. Sprawled in bunk, she stared up at him, at the cap still in his teeth, and shouted. Not to him, but to someone behind him.
“Stop him!”
Bran gave her a quick bow, “Sorry milady, wish I could stay, but...gotta fly!” He ducked out the door, glanced aft, toward the ladder leading up from the officers’ quarters and nav room.
Blocked by two crew scrambling down; a tall woman and a short man nearly as broad and powerful looking as Earla.
Bran caught the shoulder of the tall woman and let her tumble into the room with the lady. The broad one grinned and ducked like a charging bull.
Bran fled forward. Through the engine room, slamming the steel watertight door on the broad one’s nose.
He leapt into the main salon, reached for the ladder leading up.
Bran’s hands were knocked back by a crewman sliding down the ladder, a foot aimed at the Ravenkin’s head. He ducked, danced out of the way, “Watch that first step.”
Behind him, someone else came through the door by the galley.
He grinned his swashbuckler grin. “Come on then, I need the practice.” He ducked, rolled and let the next one trip over him.
Crash!
Bran came up with the cap still in his teeth. “You dance like a one-legged chicken.” Another crewman, the size of a moose, barreled for him, Bran stepped back, using the head door as a shield. “Hey, Mooseboy.” Boom! Mooseboy ricocheted off the door and fell with a thud. “No, no, go through the door when it’s open!” Bran leapt over him and ran.


There was the galley, hard starboard. Bran grabbed the first things that came to hand.
Sploorch! A bottle of cooking oil blasted onto the deck. One crewman hit the puddle, and hit the deck, after executing a fine flip with Bran’s help.
Floop! A bag of flour exploded into the second man’s face. The third and fourth found familiar looking frisbees flying at them at uncanny speeds. Dark blue plates, from the storage racks above the sink.
Bran grabbed a spoon, and a handful of the M&Ms in the snack bowl. Using the spoon like an atlatl, he fired the small hard candies into the faces of the charging crew. He fled forward, firing. Behind him the lady was shrieking commands. “He’s coming up the crew hatch.”
There were apparently a fair number of crew forward. They filled the narrow space of crew quarters, blocking Raven’s exit.
He fled aft, back into the main salon.
Bran swung momentarily from an overhead support, his booted feet banging off the chin of a surprised crewman. He dropped, dived under the table. Behind him a crewman reached and slid hard into the edge of the table, doubling over it, bug-eyed. Bran popped up on the other side, ran across the table, over the crewman’s back and to the ladder leading up.
His way was barred by a large crewman wielding a belaying pin. The man swung, Bran feinted, countered with the huge spoon he’d carried from the galley. The man grinned pushing Bran back, wielding the wooden pin like a sword. Bran parried, ducked and feinted, backing toward the chaos behind him.
“What are you doing!” came the woman’s shout, “This is not a Douglas Fairbanks movie!”
Raven would have preferred a bit more room for such a fight. A lot more room. The man before Bran filled the cramped cabin with his bulk, bearing him back toward the rest of the crew.
Running out of space. Running out of time.
Ping! One last well aimed M&M.
“Aaarrghhhh!”
Bran slid under him, and leaped for the ladder leading up.
Daylight shone above him, then was clouded by a dark shape.
Two, and above him. They had the advantage.
Damn! And all out of M&Ms! Bran paused and out of nowhere sprang a fierce wet wind. It roared through the main cabin, slammed the watertight door back against the wall, the dark clouds in the daylit hatch fell back.
Raven flew up the smokehole; sun, moon and stars in his beak.
He saw one startled crewman duck, heard scrambling behind him. Wind whooshed through his wings, bright sun and open sky beckoned.
A dark cloud snapped out from behind Bran, enveloped him, and the sun went out.






In the middle of Great Machipongo Channel, Ian’s fluid stroke faltered. For a second his vision blurred, darkened, and sea and sky scrambled for each others’ places. His paddle fell up, into the sea.
“Bran!” Ian shook his head to clear it, and the sea was back under his feet where it belonged. He straightened, hauled on the paddle leash and picked it up again, dripping. He dug the paddle in, not the low easy stroke that could last all day, a high hard stroke that would move him through the water like lightning.








The world was different from the back of a horse. Most of the time no one paid much attention to Cait. She was small for her age, with hair the color of wet sand. If they did notice, it was to stare when she signed something to one of her family. Or they would talk slowly and too loud, using baby words as if she was stupid. On a horse she was above the crowd. On a horse she was heroic; strong, fast, capable. She was a cowboy, a knight, a daring buffalo hunter, an explorer. People waved at her from their cars. A little girl following her parents on bikes stared in open-mouthed awe. Kids at the ice cream place asked a million questions about the “Chincoteague Pony”. Cait and Wolf went to the theater, The Island Roxy, and stood in front, with Wolf’s hooves straddling Misty’s concrete footprints. A guy with two kids and three cameras took their picture. Then took more with his own kids on Wolf’s comfortable back; in front of the theater and the Misty statue across the street.
Cait soaked it up, smiling a cowboy smile. She started humming a country song, then another. They wandered up to the north end of the island, where the roads ended and Wildcat Marsh began. Then back again, a lazy moseying journey in the midday sun. They stopped for water, went across the causeway to Assateague, down the parking lots to the oversand trail, through the dunes and out to the roar of surf and the wail of gulls.
The low tide had left a stretch of wet sand down by the swash zone, it gave good footing for a gallop. Clouds had come up out of the south, dark silver wings obscuring the sun. It was cooler that way, and the wind from the sea was stiff, blowing up wave crests like horses’ manes. Cait started with a slow canter, found herself bouncing again, like a beach ball. She frowned, trying to remember what Zan had said.
Melt into the horse.
She pictured it like her bones were sand. Sand pouring down into the beach sand. Making her part of it, part of the horse.
The canter flowed into a gallop, and Cait raised her arms again, flying on the wind.
“Whoooo!” she shouted, but there were only a few fishermen to hear her.
It had been a whole lot more fun with Zan.
She slowed Wolf to a walk. “Stupid boys.” she said to the mare. “I wonder if they’re having any fun.” She glanced back toward the flat grey expanse of the bay; it looked like a herd of wild horses, white manes tossing. Cait snorted, “Probably bored.”






Jason and Zan drifted through water like sunlit tea, sunlit tea in a blender.
Wind had kicked up out of the south, tossing up whitecaps in the middle of the bay. Here in the shallows near shore, the waves were lower, but waves and the light glittering across Jason’s dive slate, made it hard to draw. He drew anyway; the lizardfish, the baby burrfish, boxy and thorny, but big-eyed and round-edged, cute as a cartoon character. A pair of grey triggerfish the size of a Hummer’s steering wheel. An oyster toadfish, a baby sea bass...a penstroke of black...hiding in a hollow of sand, ambushing amphipods. A striped fish that even Zan couldn’t identify.
Surf paddled around them in cheerful circles. Zan showed Jason how Newfoundlands could rescue swimmers by towing them. Jason held onto Surf’s thick rump fur, chuckling through his snorkel as Surf paddled back to the boats. When he was assured Jason needed no more rescuing, he hauled himself back up on the ‘yak.
A turtle appeared, half hidden in the grass bed. Jason hovered over it, scribbling furiously, noting the grey neck, spotted on both sides and plain in the middle. The pointy nose with two distinct nostrils, like a built-in snorkel. The dinosaur-like ridge down the center of the shell. The turtle peered up at him and blinked, then, its cover blown, paddled off, webbed feet flashing in diagonal pairs, like a trotting horse. It looked like the same kind of turtle he’d seen on his night dive, the one that had outswum him easily.
It outswam him again.
Zan appeared to starboard, and with barely a fin flick passed Jason. He reached out and cradled the turtle, and swept to a stop.
They both surfaced, bobbing in the windy chop.
“How’d you do that?”
Zan shrugged, as if it were nothing.
“Superspeed.” Jason said, “Definitely superspeed as a power.” Jason poked at the ridgey shell, the turtle snapped once, a warning. “Snapper?” He’d seen them before in the farm pond; this one looked a little like a snapper, or maybe one of those painted turtles he saw all the time at the lake, or like something in between.
“Diamondback terrapin.” Zan said.
Jason held up his slate and scribbled a few more details on his turtle sketch.
“Pretty awesome.” Zan said, eying the slate.
Jason put the last stroke on his sketch and wrote a few notes about the color.
Zan set the turtle gently back in the water, it stared at him for a few seconds then paddled off, in no great hurry.
Jason watched it vanish back into the grass bed, turned and followed Zan.
Zan dove, sliding through the water with barely a fin flick, stopped and hovered over a patch of grass, he looked up at Jason and pointed down into the grass.
Jason breathed a few times through his snorkel, then exhaled and sank. He came to a stop by Zan, waving his hands a little to stay in one place. He followed Zan's hand into the grass. A tiny seahorse floated there, tail wrapped around a piece of grass, waving with the current. He stared in surprise and awe. He knew how rare they were some places, he'd seen them in the visitor's center aquarium, and at the big aquarium in Baltimore. But here, in the wild, wow!
Zan grinned at him from behind his snorkel. Jason ran out of air and surfaced. Took another great big gulp of air and dived.
A distinct whine filled his ears, like an annoying mosquito.






Ian’s kayak cut through the waves like a fine elvish blade. He was within hailing distance of the Roane, it lay at anchor, sails furled, engines stilled. The tide was still coming in, The sky had gone the color of Bran’s wings, but there were no thunderheads, no lightning, yet. The wind was strong, but the kayak was low and knife-hulled, the wind rolled off it, and it tracked straight and true.
Good conditions. No problem.
Ian just couldn’t figure out how he was going to get on that ship. Or rather, getting on it was easy enough: pull alongside, reach up to the channels, where the shrouds came over the sides of the ship. Grab wood, grab line, and climb up.
Doing it unseen was the problem.
Ian drifted uncertainly in the channel, staring at the ship through Earla’s scope. He snapped it shut.
It occurred to him that Morgan and Zan could do illusions. “Damn!” he said out loud, wishing for one of them, even the impulsive Elf kid. “Man, we really blew this one!” he said to the wind.
He could wait for nightfall, but would the ship still be there? Would Bran be ok till then? Ian looked at the sky; it had shifted its mood when the world had turned inside out for Ian.
When he knew something was wrong with Bran.
They had taken Morgan’s cap and something in the world had gone out of balance. Now Bran...
Ian looked at the sky again. Raven was thunderbird, rain bringer.
And the islands lay only a few feet above an increasingly agitated sea.
No, he could not wait for the cover of darkness. He reached in the pocket of his sprayskirt and produced something that looked like a small cell phone. Bleep beep beep boop...
Earla’s voice came through from the other end, loud and clear. “What’s up, Wolf-boy?”
“We found Morgan’s ship.”
“You sure?”
“Real sure. Brass wheel, like Aaron’s sketch. The name on the bow is Roane.” silence for a heartbeat. Two. “Ah, they’ve caught themselves a Ravenkin.”
He heard her grumble something about the impulsiveness of airheaded Elves, and what she’d personally do to the entire crew if they damaged him.
“Earla...EARLA!” he shouted. A startled tern flew up from the water ten yards away.
She muttered more in the Dwarvish tongue, a language with gutteral sounds and rock hard edges. It made Klingon sound friendly.
“Earla,” Ian said, “Earla... I don’t speak Dwarvish!”
“Ahhhg.” the voice came over the communicator, “Bloody Elves.” Silence.
“Earla?”
“I’m fixing your coordinates.” she told him.
“Where’s Shaughnessy and Morgan?”
“Too far to be of any use.”
“Tas?”
“Went off with Cait earlier.”
“Well, get her!” Ian snapped. Then, “Please.”
“That’s gonna require a search party and a lotta driving.”
“What?”
“Went off with Cait...in horse form. No com.”






Zan turned, easy as an otter, and swam off, Jason floated back to the surface, buoyed by his lungful of air, breathed out, breathed in, followed. A few fin kicks and a shadow drifted under the divers, Jason looked down on the back of a stingray longer than his own legs. He turned, easily as a sea turtle, and followed it. The ray drifted over the eelgrass, settled in a sandy patch, flipped a little sand over its back and waited. The two boys hung over it and watched in wonder.
The annoying mosquito whine had become a horsefly, several of them. Underwater, Jason couldn't tell where the sound was coming from, or how far away it was, but he knew what it was.
Jason raised his head, careful to keep his feet off the ray below and looked. A boat was ba-dump ba-dumping up the channel, out of the cloud-darkened south. He thought of the boat that had nearly run over Shaughnessy’s dive crew the day he met them.
"Oh man, not again, don't those dorks ever learn."
Zan surfaced beside him, followed Jason's eyes, and his smile faded. He glanced toward the shore, a hundred yards away. "Get the boats." He said.






The black cloud enveloping Bran was stiff and scratchy. Probably smelly too, though his raven nose couldn’t tell. Up and down, north and south and starboard and port changed places in mad succession, tossing him one way then another. Then the whole bundle was deposited with a thud onto a hard surface.
Voices, indistinct, muffled through the heavy wool blanket. Then more shaking. And Bran fell into daylight.
Subdued daylight, belowdecks in the ship. The silver raven blinked and stood shakily.
And peered through a plastic cage at the woman he’d tossed into the bunk a few minutes ago. She was holding the cap, Morgan’s cap, and twirling it on one finger.
She grinned at him, and it had all the warmth of a polar bear contemplating a seal. “Go ahead,” she said, “let’s see that little trick of yours again.”
“What?” quothe the raven, “The one with the cap? Or the one with Mooseboy there?”
Mooseboy leaned closer to the milk crate; upside down, with something suitably heavy piled on top of it. Something a raven couldn’t budge.
Mooseboy looked way bigger from the perspective of a bird that weighed less than three pounds. He grinned, showing a set of teeth that would have made his dentist cringe. If he’d ever had one.
“It talks!” another voice said. It belonged to a small wiry man, barely out of his teens.
“Of course it talks!” the woman snapped, “Ravens can talk.”
“Mimic.” came a third voice belonging to a tall man with glasses, “Technically they can’t...”
“Oh shut up!” Mooseboy growled, “You think too much...”
“You don’t think enough.”
“If he did, he’d be dangerous,” the Kid agreed.
The woman raised her hand, a single sharp gesture, and they all fell silent. Mooseboy ducked slightly, like a scolded dog.
“Of course, he isn’t really a raven.” Spectacles said. “So I guess he can tal...”
The woman thumped him hard, in the ribs. He shut up.
“I think I’d like to snap his little drumsticks.” Mooseboy said, leaning closer. “Maybe his little wingies. That’d keep him from makin’ off with our stuff.”
“Chicken.” the Kid snickered, “It all tastes like chicken.”
Spectacles looked appalled.
“Do it and you’re sharkbait,” the woman said flatly.
Mooseboy backed up a step. Two. The Kid ducked behind him.
Spectacles stayed near the cage, staring, eyes and mouth wide in amazement, like a kid with a new chemistry set.
“Go!” the woman said, “Make sure he didn’t bring along some friends!”
The scurvy crew fled, Mooseboy and the Kid scrambling to be first through the small door, Spectacles banging his head on the low door jamb. They left the woman staring through the milk crate with an expression like someone who’d just ordered the all-you-can-eat buffet at Steamers.
“Nice try.” she said to Bran. “I’m guessing you can’t shapeshift out of any sort of container.”
Bran remained silent. Let her keep guessing.
“I’m guessing you’d end up with a big plastic box around your heart.”
Bran said nothing, and hoped she didn’t notice the instinctive flinch.
She did. “You know the one this belongs to.” Her fingers tightened on the cap.
“Nah.” Bran said, “I just like red.”
“There’s been a run on red caps on this ship lately. A little blond girl took a red cap from this ship a few days ago in Norfolk. Too bad that one belonged to ‘Mooseboy’ there.”
Bran half lifted his wings, a sort of raven shrug.
The woman crouched, shaded eyes level with Bran’s. She poked a finger into the crate, touching the edge of one of Bran’s stormsilver wings. He stepped aside and nabbed her finger with his swordblade beak.
She snarled a few words that would have made her sailors blush, then leaned closer to the cage, fingers out of reach. The seal-eating grin returned. “Don’t worry, I won’t keep you in there forever. I know where I can get a nice big roomy birdcage in Annapolis.”






Ian could see some activity on deck, one or two hands doing whatever sailors did on ships. He might take the time to paddle to the nearest marsh and, like a duck hunter, disguise his boat with grasses and shrubbery.
Somehow, he didn’t think they’d buy it.
Well then, pretend he was a random tourist. Come up alongside and ask for directions. Yeah. That would work. They didn’t know he was with Bran.
One sandal clad foot poked against a bag in the kayak’s hold, Ian could feel the reassuringly hard rounded edges of its contents: the only magic, beyond his healing capabilities, that he had; a gift from the Grandmothers. He had not made this magic, but only he could use it.
Maybe it was enough. It had to be. He inched the bag forward with his foot, unzipped the small backpack, and withdrew four objects. Two were CDs, one other circle had once been the lid of an aluminum cooking pot, now minus its center knob. The other round object had a couple of letters: a V and a W intertwined within a circle. Ian tucked the smaller circles into his sprayskirt pocket, and chucked the other under a deck bungee. Others, still in the pack, he slung across his back.
He picked up his paddle and crept closer, a low easy stroke, like someone who’d been paddling all day. He could see someone stop on deck, come to the rail, stare out at him.
He paddled closer, gulls wailed to the south. A couple of cormorants pattered across the water in the marsh behind him. To seaward, Ian could see the fins of a pod of dolphins surfacing as they commuted south to their evening fishing grounds.
A dark figure climbed the rigging, paused a few yards up and stared out at Ian.
Closer. Closer.
“Ahoy there, the ship!” Ian called.
The dark figure on the ship raised something.
Helluva big telescope, Ian thought.
"Avast!” He yelled, not quite remembering what avast really meant. Zing! Zap thump! A quarter sized circle of Ian’s bow vanished, the ‘yak lurched, followed a few seconds later by a sound like striking lightning. “What the...?”
The bow of Ian’s kayak began settling into the water. He shot a glance up at the ship and saw the man in the rigging raise the rifle again.
Without thinking, Ian’s hand flew to the ex-pot lid strapped under the deck bungee. A flick of the wrist like the flick of a falcon’s wing, and a battered grey aluminum circle winged toward the ship.
Ian shifted his paddle and backpaddled madly. A thwip! off his starboard bow left a thin deadly trail in the water. The swordblade shape of the ‘yak slid backward as easily as forward, but the bow was sinking, slowing him down. Ian leaned back, throwing his weight as far back as possible, and paddled.
Three breaths later the man with the rifle let out a squawk, his hand dancing with tiny green lightnings. The rifle dropped to the deck. He began to climb down after it, one handed. The other figure on deck scrambled for it. Ian could hear faint shouts exchanged between the two. The second guy picked up the rifle, climbed up where he had a good line of sight...and fire...on Ian.
A grey circle winged toward Ian’s head, his hand flicked out and caught it. He eyed the distance to the ship and the rapidly sinking bow of his own boat. He considered how accurate the other rifleman might be.
His mouth closed in a straight hard line and he paddled backward again. Too far to pit the Grandmothers’ magic against a guy with a rifle and a scope, and more pirate crew armed with who-knew-what, all of them alerted now to Ian’s presence. Especially with a sinking boat.
A minute later he could hear faint laughter from the ship. Ian bailed out of the boat, ran his hands over the bow, topside and below and assessed the damage. A small neat hole on the top of the hull, just forward of the bulkhead, and a really big exit wound on the bottom. Water sloshed in the forward compartment as he steadied the boat upside down.
“Bloody hell.” he said to no one in particular. “You know how long it took me to build this thing!” he shouted at the ship. The bow settled another few inches into the water. Artemis had two waterproof bulkheads, one in front of, and one behind the cockpit. That made two waterproof compartments, one fore and one aft.
Waterproof, unless they had holes in them, as the forward compartment did now.
A hole in a kayak in this deep water would create an effect called Cleopatra’s Needle, named after the tall, vertical monument to that Egyptian queen. The bow was filling with water, and soon all eighteen feet of kayak would be vertical in the water, a monument to Ian’s lack of ability to dodge bullets.
Unless he did something, fast.
He set to work, bobbing in the chop. A corner of the deck chamois, kept under a bungee to wipe up unwanted drippage and puddles plugged the top hole, nearly underwater. The drybag in the cockpit, unrolled, filled with more air, and re-sealed, made a good float. Ian bailed out of Artemis, floating in his PFD. He stuffed the drybag under the bow, to keep it from sinking farther. The ssscccrrrrriiiiit of duct tape unpeeling from a roll came next; a piece slapped across the entry wound on the top deck would seal that.
He rolled the boat over on its back. A handkerchief, from the drybag, held in his teeth, dried the bottom of the hull, around the bigger hole. Ordinary duct tape had saved many a paddler’s expedition from ruin, but this was no ordinary duct tape. It was Dwarf-made duct tape. Earla’s special recipe. The kayak’s ultralite wooden shell would disintegrate before the tape would. Ian layered it into place, rolled the boat over. He balanced the inflated drybag under the bow, and did one more thing, a particularly dangerous thing.
He opened the forward hatch. In waves, in deep water, a wayward bit of chop could flood his forward compartment as easily as a bullet hole. Faster. The chop wasn’t bad though, and the drybag float raised the bow enough from the chop that Ian figured he had time for the next step: pumping the water out of the compartment. He pulled his bilge pump from under the deck bungees and pumped.
With most of the water back in the channel where it belonged, he sealed the hatch, stuffed his gear back into place and climbed back in, his face deadly calm.
Like the eye of a hurricane.






"What?" Jason said.
“Get the boats!” Zan was already swimming for his.
Jason splashed after him.
Surf stood in the yellow boat, barking in deep warning tones, like a foghorn. Zan was already up on the boat, reeling in the anchor when Jason got there. "What?" he demanded again.
Zan plunked the dive flag into his boat, pulled alongside Jason's, held the edge of the cockpit while Jason heaved himself into it. Zan plunked the anchor into the Sandtiger as Jason picked up the paddle. Surf crouched in Finrod’s bow, silent now, muzzle zeroed in on the approaching boat.
"Just paddle." Zan said, and there was something urgent in his voice.
Jason followed his gaze back to the boat coming up the channel, "What..." It was not the usual kind of fishing boat you saw here, it was, Jason could see now, one of those rubber inflatables; a Zodiac. The kind of thing those Cousteau explorers were always using.
The kind he and Morgan had fought off that first day.
"Move!" Zan said, and shoved Jason's boat ahead of him.
Jason paddled, and saw where they were heading, away from the channel, toward the shallows by Wildcat Marsh.
The Zodiac veered, heading on a new course; toward Jason and Zan.
"It looks like the one that tried to get Morgan..."
It was Zan's turn to yell "what?"
"...the day I met him! Coupla guys in a red Zodiac!" Jason paddled. It was slack tide, just after low tide, but even without a strong tidal current to fight, a boat with an engine was faster than one powered by paddle. And the wind had kicked up, and the chop with it. Jason hauled on the paddle, the Sandtiger yawed. He heaved harder.
The Zodiac roared up behind them, one of the men on board stood and raised something, Jason saw the move at the edge of his vision, but his eyes were focused mainly on the way too distant shore. He had no idea what they'd do when they got there. It was nothing but sand and marsh grass. No way to outrun anybody.
Something whistled through the air.
"Gaaaah!" Zan said.
Jason turned to find Zan and Surf fighting their way out from under a net. The other end of the net was in the hands of a guy on the Zodiac. The dive knife Zan was wearing on his leg was now in his hand, slashing through the net. Surf was barking, thrashing like a netted shark.
A net? Jason stared in disbelief at the Zodiac, now a few yards away.
Round wood in his hands.... the feel of the swings, blocks and thrusts Bran had shown them with the bo staffs...
Jason swung the paddle and nailed Net Man square in the head with the sharp edge of the blade.
Smack!
Net Man fell hard back into the boat, his grip on the net loosened. Jason grabbed the edge of the net and heaved.
Surf’s teeth had found the end of the net that was connected to someone on the Zodiac, he crouched under the snarl of net, pulling ferociously.
"Go!" Zan yelled at Jason.
"Shut up and help me." Jason yelled back.
The guy at the tiller leaned forward to help Net Man, floundering up from his place in the bilge.
Jason thrust the paddle hard at his solar plexus and knocked him back.
Net Man grabbed the net again and began a frantic tug-of-war with Surf.
Jason swung again and the edge of the paddle nailed Net Man’s neck like a well-placed karate chop. He went down in the bilge like a sack of soggy flour.
Tiller Man braced his feet and grabbed the net again, feet braced as if he were pulling in a Great White Shark, the chop banged the boat up and down and made him stagger.
Zan thrashed around till he was facing the Zodiac, raised his hands, muttered something under his breath that Jason didn't quite hear.
A thirty foot great white shark leapt across the Zodiac, engulfed Tiller Man in its jaws and vanished into water deep enough for a guppy.






Ian’s probably trying something stupid, like storming the ship all by himself. Bran had heard the shouts and shots. He’d felt the nearness of Ian’s magic, the winged circle that had flown across the deck and broken the wrist of the man with the rifle. Rifleman had missed. If he hadn’t, Bran would have known. Back off Maddog, I’m ok, for now anyway. Wait for the others. Then we can take these guys out for good.
Ian was in hunting wolf mode, and only the fact that his boat had ceased to be of any use had made him back off. And even that wouldn’t last for long. Bran knew he had Earla’s duct tape. Still, there was no way he could get close to the ship without being seen again. Ian had a communicator, and would call Tas. She could drive close enough to ‘port to the ship and get Bran and the cap. Yeah. Easy. Case solved.
Bran heard a new noise among the clutter of sound that was a ship at mid-afternoon...a couple of really big engines firing up; bigger than the usual sorts of engines sailing ships used for backup, for bucking the tide, for getting into port on time.
“Rats.” he hissed to himself, “big hairy sea rats!”






“They’re moving!” Ian said into the communicator.
“It’s a sailing ship.” came Earla’s voice, in the background was the sound of her truck’s engine, “How big could those backup engines be?”
For an answer, Ian held the communicator up in the direction of the ship. He knew Earla could hear the distant roar, loud and clear. She could probably see the wake on the com’s video feature.
“Holy great piles of buffalo...”
“Find Tas?”
“Nowhere to be seen!”
“How could you lose a pooka, on an island?”
“You wanna know how many horses there are with spots on this island?”
Ian lowered the com and the waterproof scope and stuffed it under a deck bungee. On the ship, a white wake kicked up astern, the sails remained furled on the masts. She was moving due east, straight out of the Deeps into Machipongo Channel. From there she could go a lot of places: north up Machipongo (which became a narrow channel through marsh and shallow bay until it fizzled out into a shallow river), south, down the channel, between Hog and Wreck Islands and out into the sea, or back into the maze of channels around the other Virginia barrier islands.
Why were they moving at all? Because they had to pick someone up? Because he had seen them? Because they figured he’d radio their location to the rest of the ELF?
Yeah, that sounds right, but I’m not a Navy Seal or a detective. I’m an artist, and sometimes eco-lecturer, when I’m not selling kayaks and backpacks.
He kicked his paddle into the water and started, impossibly, after the ship.








Jason stared at the rings rippling up from where a thirty foot shark had just vanished into water deep enough for a guppy, "Holy..."
"Get this off us!" Zan yelled, giving the net another mighty slash.
Net Man staggered up from the bilge, staring in disbelief at the spot where the shark, and his buddy had vanished.
Jason flipped the last bit of net into the water.
Tiller Man appeared, stood up in the shallow water, muddied but mostly unscathed.
Surf leapt from the ‘yak. A hundred and fifty pounds of annoyed Newfoundland smashed Tiller Man back into the muck.
Zan stood on Finrod, and threw the knife. It embedded itself in the rubber side of the Zodiac, followed by the satisfying sound of escaping air.
Surf bounded back onto the yellow ‘yak, dripping with marsh mud.
Tiller man floundered back into the Zodiac, shoved a still woozy Net Man out of the way and reached for the tiller.
"Paddle!" Zan yelled at Jason.
They did.
They made straight for the line of marsh grass, dead ahead. In his head, Jason saw the map of Wildcat Marsh; a maze of land and water interweaving till you couldn’t tell where one ended and the other began.
“Port!” Zan hissed.
And Jason heaved the ‘yak hard aport.
Straight for the grass.
“Paddle harder!” Zan said.
And run aground?...wait, no...an opening in the grass. Water. A narrow gut snaking through the grass. Jason paddled into the gut. It twisted around, narrowed, barely wider than the kayaks. The kayaks needed only a hands length of water to float them, and sitting in one a paddler was low, and hard to see. Now the tall marsh grass hid them from the Zodiac. They wove through the maze of grass and water until Jason’s head was spinning faster than his compass.
Zan raised a hand and they halted, immersed in the midst of a dead-quiet sea of grass, listening. He stood, shimmered slightly and a whitetail deer walked out into the marsh. The deer glanced back once, and tiptoed through the grass in the direction of the Zodiac.
A minute later it returned, shimmered and Zan slid back into his boat. “They’re limping back down the channel.”
"The look on that guy’s face was soooo cool! Man, you blew their minds!"
Zan grinned.
"How DO you do that?
"It's light, energy, E=MC squared or something. I dunno, I just do it."
“Cool." Jason said. "Did I or did I not see a dragon in Chincoteague Bay earlier?"
“Um. Yeah.” Zan looked almost embarrassed, “I was just, you know, goofing around. It’s like...” he frowned as if he couldn’t put it into words. “I want to show people stuff. I want them to see...to imagine...and most of the time I can't. They wouldn't understand it.”
“Yeah.” I get it.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.” Jason peered out through the tall marsh grass, somewhere far away he could hear the faint whine of a boat engine, fading. "Same with the comic book thing. My dad just doesn't get it."
Zan stood and peered over the marsh grass. "I guess they had enough of us. They’re gone, back down the channel."
"Zodiacs have a couple of different air chambers, and the bottom's aluminum or something, so some of it's still afloat." Jason said.
"They couldn’t follow us in here anyway, too shallow, too narrow."
"Nice shot with that knife."
Zan grinned, "Thanks. Nice shot with the paddle." He stared south, listening, turned back to Jason, "And thanks for sticking around."
"What was I supposed to do, bail?"
"Paddle like..."
"Nope. Nopity nope nope nope. Not without you and Surf."
Zan eyed the rising tide and the wind roaring up from the south. The sky had gone silver, then pewter. It felt like a storm was brewing. "Wonder how long it'll take them to get back down the channel."
"We should follow them."
Zan gave Jason a sharp, surprised look.
"I mean, they're the guys who tried to get Morgan that day, the guys you're all looking for."
"Yeah and Aunt Gracie will have something to say if I let you get kidnapped by pirates."
"We follow them at a distance and stay out of sight, use one of your illusions, and send a message to the rest of the ELF."
"I got no com. Earla won't let me have one. I fry them all the time."
"Can't Earla shield them from you?"
"Not me."
"Send Surf with like a message on his collar or something."
"Might need him here."
"Uhhhh... send a carrier pigeon, an illusory one."
"Better, I'll send a real one..." Zan looked into the sky and sent out a piercing cry. A minute later a tern circled out of the pewter haze, swept over their heads, tilted on sharp wings and landed on the bow of the boat, bright dark eyes fixed on Zan.
The message was not in words, for birds did not have the same words as Men or Elves. Not smells either, for most birds had no real sense of smell. The message was pictures, sounds. There would only be one at the Wren’s Nest who would understand that message; Tas. The others were on their own missions, and Earla spoke the language of rock and earth and mineral, not of tree and fin and fur and feather. The tern let out a sharp cry and took wing, sweeping down the channel, the way the Zodiac had gone. Zan picked up his paddle and began to paddle again, swiftly and silently. Jason followed.








Wolf, Hunting






Belowdecks, sealed away from sky and sun, Bran could only feel the direction of the North Star like the faint glimmer of a distant firefly.
He had also felt a disturbance, like a hard reflecting wave off a mudwall in an already choppy marsh. It had nothing to do with the shape of water; it rocked through the raven feathers in his hair, tied to the one on Jason's necklace. For a moment Bran felt the panic, then fierce determination as the two boys escaped ...escaped what? More of the Roane's crew no doubt. At least they seem to have remembered their training. They were OK for now, and there was no way Bran could help anyway. His protection spell had done its work, and would continue to.
He went back to trying to sense where he was. He had sailed through ice and fire and storm enough to know. He had traveled with navigators who used only stars and the shape of water and the flight of birds to find their way. They could feel exactly where the ship lay in relation to the star compass. He closed his eyes, pictured the map of the Virginia Barrier Islands, felt the motion of the ship, her shifts in direction. She was familiarly wooden, with all the woodspeak, the creaks and groans and sploshing of wave on hull, of the ships he had known in the past.
But now she was roaring like a mad dragon under engine power, like his Ravin’ chopper.
Even in Ravin’, he could sometimes fly with his eyes closed.
Bran felt the speed the Roane picked up as she hit the currents at the end of the channel. He felt the waves ricocheting off Cobb Island and Hog, as the ship passed between them into the sea. He felt her turn... south, yes, south... in shallow water, not much deeper than her draft; fifteen feet max. He felt new currents rock her as she crossed into the tide flowing out of Sand Shoal Channel between Cobb and Wreck Island.
She turned westward again, landward, and chugged up the channel away from the sea.
Bran focused his thought in a new direction; Ian...IAN! Pay attention. I’m here. Not far. Not at sea. Not lost. Not yet. Hear me? Hear me!






Ian paddled as if his life depended on it. Maybe his friend’s life did. He did not know what these people had wanted with Morgan, what they would do with Bran. Only that the morays in his gut were back. He knew he couldn’t keep up this insane hard stroke or this mad pace for long, but he wasn’t listening to what he knew right now. He focused on his stroke, on the paddle hitting the water, no cleaving the water like a fine Elvish blade, without a ripple. All the energy of his muscles poured into thrusting the kayak forward.
The ship dwindled down the channel, leaving rough angry water in her wake. Ian leapt the waves, charged through the swirling chop like a wolf leaping logs, twisting through underbrush.
Wolf was on the hunt. Wolf running down Moose. And Moose was not easy to run down. Sometimes he could turn on you, pound you into the snow. And sometimes he’d just leave you gasping in his wake.
It didn’t matter. This moose was going down. Even if there were only the jaws of one lone wolf. It was impossible, chasing a sharp built schooner in a kayak. Ian half remembered a story from long ago, how some sailors in a ship had taken some women from an arctic tribe and the men had chased the ship for days in their kayaks...
Something interrupted the flow of Wolf’s running. Something whispered into his heart. He shook his head to clear it and focused harder; stroke, stroke, stroke.
Iandammit bloody thickheaded human payattention!
Ian blinked and bobbled to a halt. Was he imagining that?
No! Maddog I’m here!
Something itched at the back of Ian’s head, like a song line that wouldn’t go away; a picture, a channel, on the other side of Cobb Island.
Bran?
Who were you expecting? Blackbeard’s Ghost?
That would be farther south, at Ocracoke.
Hah hah, I know, I was there. Just turn your sorry landlubber butt around and follow Raven, Wolf.
Ian heeled his kayak around on a wave from the ship’s wake and began paddling the other way.














Morgan sat in the shallow water, tail bent under him, the end twitching up mud from the bottom. A light but buoyant wetsuit covered his chest and arms, on top of that was a paddler’s PFD. Morgan’s tail, as always, wore nothing but its blue and purple skin. Now it did not even wear an illusion. It hadn’t since the moon had set the evening before. Morgan’s powers were fading, and Zan’s illusions were only temporary. Morgan had swum among ice floes, but now he needed this wetsuit. He had leapt for days in the wake of sailing ships, the one they chased now might as well be a ghost, and he was bone tired. The sea had held him like a mother all his life, now he needed a PFD to keep him from drowning in its embrace. The world above water was a circle of hazy grey again; he’d had to leave the glasses behind. They got splotched with sea spray and splashed water, came off when he dove, and were generally a nuisance at sea.
Now he belonged to neither sea nor land.
They had been swimming since yesterday, following a trail that at first had a familiar taste to it. A trail that had turned out to be false. They had come due east at Earla’s call, and portaged across the few miles of the peninsula to this inlet. Shaughnessy had rolled up out of the water with a kayak just big enough to hide a Merrow inside. It had been easy for him to sling the edge of the cockpit over a broad shoulder and carry it across the lightly traveled peninsula to the sea.
Shaughnessy shoved the black kayak out into the shallow water, wading after it for some distance. Morgan followed, hands pattering across the bottom, tail flowing out behind him till they were out of the mudflats and into deeper water. Shaughnessy caught the edge of the boat and rolled.
Water swirled from the mudflats behind them, poured into the beginnings of the channel where Morgan floated alone. Crabs scuttled to safety, fish swerved on a new course. The water in the channel boiled, churned and a six foot fin cut the surface.
The thirty foot orca bull blew a great spout of mist and air into the marsh air.
Morgan swam up and hooked a hand around the base of the fin.
Let me see the com again.
Morgan held the com up to the whale’s eye. He shook his head, “I do not understand why humans divide their world into all these numbers.”
It is only one of many languages that describe the world; like our songs, the taste of different places in the sea, the way the water rolls.
“Well,” Morgan said squinting at the coordinates on the tiny screen, “I don’t get it.” He punched out a tune on the com‘s keypad. Ian’s voice came through, along with a picture; tired, sunburned and, if Morgan was reading the human face right, relieved.
“Man! Am I glad to see you guys! I can see their masts.”
Morgan saw the video shift to a shot of channel and distant marsh, same as where he and Shaughnessy were.
“I’m in the middle of Ramshorn Channel, and I can just see the masts across Elkins Marsh to the south. They’re moving. I think they’re in Sand Shoal Channel now.” Ian said, “Going inland, as if they’re still hiding, or waiting for someone else.”
“Good.” Morgan said, “they’re headed straight for us.”
“Watch out for the guy with the rifle.” Ian said, “He’s either a really bad shot, because he missed me, or a really good one because he meant to hit my boat.” The video shifted to a duct taped patch on Ian’s bow.
“Yeah.” Morgan said. “I hear you.”








Ian was right about the guy with the rifle. Maybe he was surprised to see an orca in the barrier island channels, maybe he believed the old wives’ tales about killer whales, or maybe he just liked to shoot at living things.
Or maybe someone on the ship knew something was up. Knew that orcas were not sighted in these channels. One bullet zinged through the tip of Shaughnessy’s six-foot fin, piercing it as neatly as a pirate’s ear. Another raked along the white eyespot, and the grey saddle patch behind the fin. Scratches, not even penetrating the protective blubber layer.
Morgan however, didn’t have a protective blubber layer. Shaughnessy dived, forty feet of channel water below him, Morgan clinging to his fin, the buoyant wetsuit and PFD barely slowing the orca at all.
Shaughnessy told Morgan, let go. Hide. I will come at them from below, alone.
No. Together!
Go! Now!
There was no arguing with the Elders. Morgan let go the fin, bobbing back to the surface, trying vainly to spin an illusion. He could not, not even one as small as a floating tern, and he could not see what was going on aboard the ship. He ducked under, thrashing along a few yards before the buoyant neoprene and PFD hauled him back to the surface..
He held his breath, listening. There was no zing of bullets through the water by him.
The whale did what the Merrow could not; held his breath and ran silent and fast, straight at the ship’s hull.
Morgan heard their voices across the water;
“Where’d it go?”
“I know I hit it.”
“Had to be one of them.”
“Move out!” came the strong command of a female voice. "Do you not know the tale of the Essex?"






The great engines fired up, filling the channel with sound and silt, scrambling Shaughnessy’s sonic picture of the ship’s hull like a badly tuned TV channel.
Shaughnessy closed, flukes the size of a truck bed shoved against the water like a bird’s wing on air. The torpedo shape of his body slid through the water, flexible skin adjusting, calming the turbulence around it the way a ship’s hull could not. The water was part of him, he was part of it, he used its energy and flew toward the ship. He had meant to disable the ship; destroy the rudder, bend a propeller. Hold her long enough to shift and climb aboard. Then the crew would face the wrath of more than one small merrow.
The Roane’s engines roared, the familiar water of the channel boiled, screamed like a hurricane, he tasted silt and debris ripped from the bottom, the sonic picture of the hull roiled and broke apart like a ship in a gale.
A last few desperate fluke-beats, but the ship had slipped beyond his reach.






Bran heard the orca’s call, lost in the roar of the engines. Well, took you guys long enough, didn’t it? We’re a flock now. A wolfpack, if a very small one. Good. His raven beak fell open in what passed for a pirate...privateer...grin.
Then he felt a new motion in the ship. He felt the shift of the waves beneath the hull as they hit open water. Even an orca could not keep up with those engines here. Bran conversed like a mariner in six of the many languages he’d learned over the centuries.
“May you be reincarnated as toadlings in a shrinking desert pool!” he finished, aiming that last imprecation at the captain and all her scurvy crew.
Then he focused on what direction they were headed. North again, it seemed, and not in deep water after all. Bran could hear the sounds of wave on shore, of the kinds of songs seabirds sing on the borders of the land. Where was Ian? With Shaughnessy? No. Didn’t feel that way. Maybe they could trap the ship between them.
Ian, north, north, we’re headed north along the shore.
Despite their long partnership, Ian was as thickheaded as any human when it came to mindtalk. He heard some of it. He understood less.
Bran could feel his frustration across the miles.






Shaughnessy swam back to Morgan, echolocating his way through the murk. The underwater visibility varied from ‘inside the mask’ as human divers said, to twenty feet or more, where the currents or the ship itself had not kicked up the silt. But the channels twisted like branches in a forest, the shallow bays stretched out like a canopy of leaves. And with water as clear as air, even a Merrow could not see far.
Land eyes would be good. Morgan told the whale, It is all flat here. We could see the ship, as Ian can.
Shaughnessy could hear the Roane’s engines echoing through the water. In the open sea, he would be able to tell where a sound was coming from, and he could follow a sound as easily as a hound on a scent. Here, in a maze of land and sea, the sound reflected oddly off the shallow bottom, off mud and silt and sand, off the low mud walls that bordered much of the marsh. He could hear the big engines, frustratingly close, but by the time he swam to where he thought they were...
...they weren’t.
Earla was right about the engines; biggest bloody engines either of the seafolk had ever heard on a ship that size. Fast engines, engines which churned up the silt in the shallows till orca could not see, and fish fled choking, engines which rumbled from all of the Four Directions at once, confusing his search. The ship apparently had other technology too, Morgan understood none of it, Shaughnessy had used a great deal of it himself; sonar, radar, fish finders, GPS, telescopes and rifle scopes, electronic gadgetry that made the ship like a spider in the middle of a giant web. The least disturbance, and she was aware of it. Morgan and Shaughnessy closed on her, and the engines kicked up and she roared down the channel and into the sea.






Ian’s kayak had been designed for expeditions. For long, fast, efficient travel. Its V-bottom needed more water to float in than the broad sit-ons, and flat-bottomed boats that needed only a handsbreadth of sea under the hull. Still, he could cut across the shallow bays marked on his map, go straight in the direction his heart and the faint whisper in his head pulled him.
Scccrrrraaaaaape. The boat slowed like skis hitting mud.
Ian looked down. It was mud. The shimmer of water stretched out before him, the chart he yanked out from under the bungees showed a vast stretch of pale green; a shallow bay.
He stuck a hand overboard and it sank into muck.
Mudflats, with four inches of water over them. And the tide was not yet high enough to make them navigable. He could go back, down one of the channels, go around.
Or he could drag his boat across the flats. He poked a hand into the mud. Not too bad, not quite quicksand. He climbed out, loosed his tow rope and began trudging across the flats, towing the boat.






Bran couldn’t see the sky; no portholes on this fairly authentic early ninteenth century ship. There was one deck prism above him, refracting a shimmer of daylight down into the small cabin. He wasn’t sure if that made him feel better, or worse. Sky was his element, his home. Where the roots of his power lay.
It was as far away as the moon.
The sounds of the ship went on around him. He listened, trying to learn what he could about these folk. It was a motley crew to say the least; diverse in origin, appearance and aura. Some of them seemed to walk in a cloud of dark light. Others seemed like the ordinary seamen Bran had known long ago. Margo seemed to be the captain, and her orders were the words of one who knew the sea, one who was familiar with the art of command.
There was something in her voice that was as odd as her fashion sense. An echo of some other time.
Nah, impossible. She’s human, after all. She probably watched too many pirate movies, or spent too much time at Rennaissance Faires.
Funny, Bran thought, Margo, Margaret, and a bunch of other names he couldn’t think of right now were linguistically related. There was a poem about a Margaret who married a merman and left him for her old life on land.
And this one seemed bent on acquiring one.
Why?
And why did that name, Margo, seem somehow familiar?
And there was that other thing, that glimmer of something in the ship’s aura, like a flash of bright color in a winter landscape.
Now though, the thing that most occupied his thoughts was how he could undo the milk crate trap and get himself out of here. The others would come eventually; his flock, his wolfpack, his dolphin pod: Shaughnessy, Ian, Tas, even Morgan. Meanwhile, Raven would keep trying to solve this puzzle himself.






Cait wandered on Wolf along the edge of the surf, ducking around fishing lines, plowing through the deeper sand up beach, galloping again through the incoming swash. Back across the causeway road, past the lighthouse trail and the visitor’s center, past the Last McDonald’s at the Edge of the Continent, back to civilization. She felt like a cowboygirl riding out of the wild into town. She began singing another country song to herself, thumping Wolf on the neck in a companionable way.
Life was good. She just wished Zan, and maybe Jason too, were here.
“What you think, Wolf? Think they’re bored yet? Think they got eaten by sharks? Maybe they got kidnapped by pirates.” She laughed at the thought as she passed one of the beach shops with its boogie boards and bright summer t-shirts flapping on their lines on the store’s deck.
Wolf’s feet had no steel horseshoes, so her feet made a light plop plop plop on the pavement. Plop plop plop down Maddox, plop plop plop down Main Street, just a lazy hazy summer day, a cowboygirl wandering into town, with nothing in particular to do.
Wolf stopped, all four feet planted, rooted in the earth like a tree. She snorted. Not a little snort like a nose-clearing snort. A big one. An explosion through the whole length of her nose, like the sound the deer made when you came on them suddenly in the woods.
Only louder. Much louder, like a cannon on a pirate ship.
“What?” Cait said, “What is it?” She followed Wolf’s ears, they were like radar usually, pointing the direction to whatever a horse was interested in, or afraid of. Ears spoke their own kind of Sign. Wolf’s ears were flat against her neck.
“What?” There was nothing Cait could see that would worry a horse.
Wolf dropped her head to the ground, nose snaking along the street like a dog on a scent. She snorted again. This time it sounded angry.






Shaughnessy floated off Ship Shoal Island, sunken so just the tip of his fin showed above the water, his whole body listening to the sounds of the sea.
Morgan floated, singing to the birds overhead.
Shaughnessy surfaced, blew an annoyed blast of mist and stale air. The sea is silent.
The ship had come back into the channels, Morgan and Shaughnessy had heard the distant roar of her engines. But now she had stilled her engines, and she lay hidden somewhere; in a channel, or offshore beyond the sight of merrow or whale. Ian could not find her in his telescope either.
“Ian, Ian come in.” Morgan said into the com.
“Here.”
“Can you see it?”
“No.”
“You are Wolf. Wolf and Raven can hear each other over the miles. That is what Bran has said. Can you...?” Morgan heard the sound of frustration from the other side of the marsh.
“No...no, I can’t tell where he is. I mean, I can sort of tell where he isn’t...aaaagh!”
The orca whistled a string of notes like a melody.
“Calm.” Morgan said. “You are kicking up a storm in your heart. Calm it. Then you can hear.
“Orca and Wolf are the same spirit, wearing different shapes for land and sea.” Ian said, his face on the video screen showed frustration.
“I know that. It is what the arctic people say.” Morgan told him.
“Can’t he tell where Bran is?” Ian said.
The whale whistled.
“You must find him, you are his swordbrother.” Morgan translated.
Silence. Long silence. The screen shifted to show more endless marsh and shallow bay. Then a sigh; “He’s not far.”
“What’s ‘not far’ to a human in a boat with a paddle?”
“A few miles.”
“What?”
“Miles! You know, those little marks on a map?”
“Mop?”
“Map!”
Shaughnessy whistled something.
“What? What was that?” Ian said.
“Sorry,” Morgan said, “I don’t think in miles very well.”
“To swim to him in a straight line would take no more time than for the sun to move a finger’s breadth across the sky.” Ian said “How’s that?”
“Better. I get it. Which way?” Morgan said.
The video screen swung around and showed more marsh. “That way.”
“What?”
“South. From where I am.” There was a pause.
Morgan heard the sound of wind and wave from Ian’s com, saw a gull fly across the tiny sky on the screen, then Morgan heard; “You’re at Ship Shoal Island, come north along the coast, I think they’re somewhere in...” silence. Wind. A view of the grey sky and a huge black log shaped object as the com was stuck under a bungee. The crackle of a nautical chart. The distant cry of a gull. “Toward Ramshorn Channel. Try Ramshorn. Yeah.”






The spotted mare unrooted herself and moved; paced forward at a purposeful walk, head snaking along the ground. She ignored the frantic pull of the small girl on the other end of her bosal reins. Wolf had scented something familiar. Something that went with the wrong cap. It was faint, and a few hours old, and mixed with the trails of passing tourists and cars, but she was sure about it. One of her pirates was on the island.






“She’s underway again!”
“Underwear?” Morgan said, “Why does the ship have underwear?”
“Under WAY! Gone! Vanished. Evaporated. She got past me, I saw her masts, then I lost them,” came Ian’s voice.
“You still in that mudflat?” Morgan asked.
Silence. A view of the sky.
Morgan almost smiled.
“Yeah yeah,” came Ian’s voice, “thought either the water would get deeper, or the mud would get more solid.” the video showed Ian’s ankles vanishing into muck. “Murphy’s Law of the Saltmarsh; the water will get harder and the mud will get deeper. Hey, have either one of you thought about what we’re going to do if we catch her?”
“Shaughnessy tried to break the rudder. She got away.”
“We could use a teleporter.” Ian said.
“And Tas’s nowhere to be found.” Morgan said.
“Hey, there’s waves ahead, deeper water.” Ian said swinging the com’s screen around to show it.
“Where you think she went?” Morgan said.
Silence, wind, gulls. The squelchy sound of something being extracted from mud. “Thataway.”
“Thataway looks exactly like thisaway on a viewscreen.” Morgan said.
“South, toward Cobb. Somewhere.” Ian said. “Maybe they went out the channel into the sea. “
“I’ll try to get a better fix on her.” Morgan replied.
“How?”
Morgan lifted his head and sang. He could no longer do illusions. The embrace of the sea made him cold as any Child of Men now, but he still knew the languages of the creatures
that shared his world. A herring gull circled, landed in the waves. Morgan handed her a fish. Little sister, I need your help.
She downed the fish, lifted her wings and sailed up from the sea.
The big grey-backed herring gull finally spotted the straight lines of the masts, an unnatural shape in the flat landscape of the marsh and inlets. She returned and landed in the water before Morgan, showing him the picture she had seen. Morgan bowed his head to her in thanks.






The trail ended at the town dock. It was mixed with the scents of rubber and engine oil...a Zodiac, Wolf was sure. The ELF had used them enough times for the scent to be familiar to her. She waded into the water, tide and wind had moved the last traces of scent here, and engine oil from the boats confused her nose.
Which way had they gone? Why? Wolf’s eyes drifted north...
On the trail of Jason and Zan.






Shaughnessy rolled in the channel, and came up sitting in a swift two-person kayak. He reached a hand over the side and hauled Morgan on board, handing him the spare paddle.
“Why this shape?” Morgan asked.
“Needs less water to float in than a whale.” Shaughnessy signed.
He could cut across the shallows now, trap the ship between his boat and Ian’s.
“Ask him if he can see them now.” he told Morgan.
Ian’s voice, and the sound of a paddle finally hitting water came over the com, “I can see their masts again. Near the place marked ‘The Poles’ on the map.”
Morgan signed that to Shaughnessy, lifted a questioning eyebrow.
“I know where.” Shaughnessy said, and the bow of the big kayak shifted, like a compass needle, to a new course.
Why was the schooner not simply headed straight out to sea? There they could easily outrun even orca.
The answer came in the purr of a small boat engine, splitting off from the rumble of the ship’s engines.
They were sending a landing crew somewhere. Or picking one up.






Cait had stopped trying to haul on the reins, Wolf wasn’t listening, but she wasn’t running away either. She had just walked down to the Town Dock and waded into the water.
Weird.
Beyond weird.
“You are the weirdest horse I ever saw.” Cait said.
Wolf snorted, it sounded like an agreement.
“Now where you want to go?” Cait asked.
For an answer the mare turned and headed north again, along Main Street. Her pace was brisk, a long reachy walk that stretched into a trot. That lasted until they hit Maddox, the road to the sea...
Cait grabbed mane as Wolf stopped hard in her tracks, head up, ears radared in on something Cait could not see or hear. Her nose and ears were pointed south, back toward Willow Street.
“What now?”
Wolf wheeled and thundered down the street, Cait clinging to her mane.






A pooka could, if necessary, keep a rider on her back, whether they wanted to be there or no. Wolf held Cait in a grip like gravity. She would not lose two kids! She should have taken Cait home first. She should never have taken her out in the first place. She should have been tracking day and night, looking for that scent to show up again. Now it had, and fresh, and crossed with another scent.
Bri’s.
And that sound had not been the shriek of a gull.
Wolf pounded around a corner onto Davis, taking a shortcut through pink and purple petunias, over a low fence made of rope and fake pilings, through the flock of plastic yard geese and one pink flamingo.
“Whoa!” Cait shouted, to no effect.
Down the short length of Davis Street at a pace that would have set Cait a new roping record, ducking between bushes, over the roses, skidding onto Willow Street.
Lying along the road, as if it had been casually dropped while the rider went inside for lemonade was a bike.
Bri’s bike.
“What?” Cait said.
Wolf could feel the tension in her legs, the sudden straightening of her posture, the way her breath shortened, the way her heartbeat changed.
Wolf stalked up to the bike. She smelled the exhaust of an eight cylinder engine: a van or truck, scented the residue of tires on pavement. She raised her head, ears radared north, and heard the revving of a large engine. She could catch them. After all, where were they going to go, on an island.
Wolf turned, haunches bunched under her and she leaped with a sound like a distant door closing.
Phoomph.
For Cait, the world suddenly turned inside out.






It was like hitting the first really big hill on the roller coaster; the one that drops you screaming into the bottom of the world with every atom in your body trying to fly off in a different direction.
Phoomph.
Cait gasped and came up for air out of Wolf’s mane.
Bad move; the air was full of water. A huge spray, as if they’d just dropped off the world’s biggest water slide. Cait blinked, freed a hand and wiped her eyes.
They were swimming.
How did we get here? Where’s here? Water to either side, something overhead, blocking the sky; the bridge! The drawbridge from the island to the causeway road! We’re under the bridge!
The steady stroke of Wolf’s swimming legs shifted, her back arched and she heaved up on the thin strip of land under the far end of the bridge. She shook, and Cait slid off, grabbing at the reins.
The reins melted, blew away on a sudden wind. Wolf wavered like a vanishing dream, and Tas stood under the bridge, blond and white hair dripping down over one blue eye, around her lay several hundred pounds of fresh sand that hadn’t been there a moment ago.
Cait stood, mouth open, wondering when she would wake up.
Tas reached for her hand and Cait felt the roller coaster drop again.






Phoomph.
They appeared on the edge of the bridge, though the misdirected eyes and memories of the tourists would not record it. Traffic crawled down Main Street toward the bridge; a dark green pickup truck with a cap, its windows dark, a hatchback, a white van, a big black truck bristling with surf poles, a beat-up camper making it look like a turtle with an oversized shell, a sand colored sedan with a family inside.
At least three of those engines sounded like the one Tas was looking for. The green truck made the turn onto the bridge...
Which one? There’s only one chance here, which one?
Zan’s words, from Maya the Book Lady, came back to her; the good guys don’t always ride the white horse, nor the bad guys the black one.
She stepped back and let the green truck and the hatchback and the black surf fishing truck go on by.
It turned the corner and crawled onto the bridge; an ordinary white van, the kind that made up company fleets, the kind moms drove to soccer games, the kind Holly drove to dog shows to sell books. It wasn’t going past the speed limit, the driver didn’t want to attract attention. Tas strolled out into the middle of the empty bridge.
The van in front of her slowed, she could just make out the driver’s face, a look of perplexity on it.
Tas smiled, both driver and passenger stared back, wide-eyed, slack-jawed.






Cait saw Tas...what? She had no word for it. It looked like a horse that spooked from blowing paper. A sudden jump, so fast you didn’t see it happen. First Tas was in the middle of the bridge and the van was slowing, then she was at the driver’s door, hauling on it.
The van’s engine gunned, and the door handle came off in Tas’ hand. She swayed back, as if she was going to fall, then she didn’t. She just vanished.
The van roared by and Tas was on the ladder at the back of the van, hauling on the rear door. There was the sound of smashing glass, then a great metallic rip.
The entire ladder bounced across the middle of the bridge’s span, skewing to a halt against the rail.
Tas had vanished.
Below Cait there was a great splash as the van roared off on the causeway.
Cait ran to the edge of the bridge, looked down. Tas thrashed in the middle of the channel, sputtering something Cait could not hear.
Maybe it was good she couldn’t.
Phoomph.
And Tas stood on the bridge, dripping channel water. She saw the van’s ladder lying by the rail, picked it up and threw it overboard. “Damn!” She said clearly, staring down the causeway.
Cait found her voice. “Why you want to catch a van anyway.” There were a thousand other questions boiling under the surface, but she was going to deal with the simple ones first.






“They’ve got Bri.” Tas stared at the retreating license plate, one belonging to a rental company, she could still read the sticker on the back doors.
“Bri?” Cait said out loud, “What?”
Tas turned and met Cait’s hazel eyes. So often when she did that, the Children of Men looked away, as if they’d seen too much.
Cait looked back, like Clint Eastwood riding into big trouble in an old western. “How you got us here....you can do that again?” she pointed after the vanishing van.
Tas grinned like a hunting wolf, grabbed her hand.






Phoomph.
They ported out of thin air into the backyard of the Wren’s Nest, pounded into the house, “I need the Orca.” Tas said to an empty kitchen.
Cait slid to a stop behind her, “Where’s Earla?”
“Her truck’s gone.” Tas grabbed a set of keys off the mug rack. “Damn!”
“Maybe she had to go for more parts.” Cait said, poking at the pile of stuff on the table.
“I need a com.” Tas looked up at Cait, “Look for something that looks like a little cell phone.” She grabbed a small pack from its place on a kitchen hook.
“Yeah, ok.” Cait began a circumnavigation of the kitchen, poking in the clutter.
“Go over to Holly’s...” Tas scribbled furiously on a stray bit of paper, “I need a lock of...” she glanced up at Cait’s hair, short as a horse’s summer coat, “...your brother’s hair.”
“What? Why?”
“I need something from a relative to track your sister.”
Cait held up a small silver thing, like a cell phone.
“Yeah, that’s a com.” Tas took it. “Go! Hurry!” Cait was gone, out the door.
When Tas got to the door of the red Jeep, Cait was in the passenger seat, rope still coiled over one shoulder.
“Just take the whole relative,” she said.
“You stay, it’s too...” Their eyes met; Tas’ steel and iron, and Cait’s determined hazel eyes, all the colors of sea and sky and earth.
Cait would be as easy to lose as a well fitting saddle on a bronc. Tas nodded, gunned the engine and they roared across the bridge onto the causeway.
Cait glanced over at Tas, focused steely-eyed on the road...and on something unseen. “Maybe you should tell me the whole story now.” she said.






Pookas and pirates and Bri kidnapped. Good thing I don’t have to explain this to Mom and Dad. Not yet, at least. “You don’t look like any kind of fairy I ever saw.” Cait observed. More like somebody who ought to have black belts in half a dozen deadly martial arts. “Where’s your wings?”
Tas snorted like an annoyed horse. “Buncha’ stupid fairy tales. I don’t fit under toadstools or flit around in the gloaming wearing gauzy gowns either.” The Jeep roared up on the tail of a slow-moving truck. Tas leaned out the window and gestured at the driver, she muttered something under her breath in another language. Cait couldn’t hear it, but she could see Tas’ lips move. “Get outta the way!” Tas shouted at the truck. It crawled on at its turtle pace ignoring her. She saw clear road ahead, floored the gas pedal and roared around it.
“No magic wand or anything either, huh?” Cait said.
Tas snorted.
“Wow, Bri should know about this.”
“She does.”
“Oh. Hey, you know any mermaids? That’s Bri’s favorite.”
Tas almost smiled. “No mer-maids.”
“How we going to stop them?” Cait said, staring down the road like John Wayne on a mission. “Can you do that...what you did on the bridge?”
“Teleport.”
“Yeah, teleport.”
“It’s tricky to teleport onto moving objects, even if they’re in sight.”
“Kind of like jumping off a galloping horse?”
“More like jumping onto one. I have to be moving at about the same speed, it was pretty easy when the van was going slow, over the bridge.” She glowered, “Guess they don’t make Fords like they used to.”
“Marc says, FORD means Found On Road Dead. And Fix Or Repair Daily.”
Tas smiled.
“You would have had them if the van didn’t fall apart. Maybe you should have teleported inside...” grabbed Bri, ‘ported back out again. But Cait closed her mouth on the words.
Cait saw Tas flinch, as if stung. “I have to see where I’m going.”
“You didn’t see where you were going when we went back to Wren’s Nest, or when we went under the bridge in the first place.”
“I know where those things are. They don’t move.”
“What if somebody changes the furniture?”
Tas drove, steely eyed, silent as a cowboy, finally she said, “I can sense where stuff is, where open space is, the way...ahhhh, you know about steer wrestling?”
“Yeah. You jump off a galloping horse and grab a steer by the horns and flip it to the ground.”
“You can jump off a horse and land on a steer without landing on its horns...if it’s daylight and you know your horse is going to run in a straight line. You don’t jump onto a galloping buffalo from a bronc in the dark in a woods full of rocks and brambles.”
“Oh.” Cait said, “Going in the van is like a buffalo in the dark.”






They drove south on 679, faster than Cait’s parents or the highway patrol would have liked. The van had vanished.
Cait rummaged in the Jeep’s organized debris, like a beachcomber combing the wrack line for rare shells.
“What?” Tas said.
“Map.” Cait said, and finally produced several from under the seat. She unfolded one after another, then her face lit with a grin. “Here’s where we are.” Her finger trailed down the tail of Delmarva, and her grin faded. “They’d have to get to the sea right? Because pretty soon they’re going to run out of land.”
“Yeah.”
“There’s about four dozen little roads leading off the main road, 13 south.” Cait peered at the map, “About a dozen of them have boat ramps. We’re on 679, it hugs the shore closer than 13.”
Tas nodded.
Cait frowned again, “We’ll have to go to each boat ramp! It’ll take forever!”
“No. We won’t.” Tas hauled hard aport on the wheel and swooped into the end of the first road off 679. She walked away from the Jeep, and stared off toward the sea.
“You’re looking for Bri.” Cait said matter-of-factly when she returned.
“Yeah.” Tas gunned the engine and rumbled down 679.
“Like a cowboy tracking rustlers. Or maybe a bloodhound. Like you did when you were a horse...with your nose to the ground.”
“Sort of. I don’t need real tracks. Or a real scent. Just...” Tas trailed off, glancing east. 702 and 695, 803 and 692, the little roads passed them to the east, trailing off to the sea.
"A feeling." Cait said. The van and Bri were still somewhere ahead. “You said you needed something from a relative to track her.” Cait prompted.
“With you nearby, I can feel where she is.” Tas said, “Kind of. Not exactly, but I know they didn’t go down any of the roads we passed.” 679 spit itself back onto Route 13. 666 went by to the east, and 662, and half a dozen others. She ruffled Cait’s horse-hide-short curls, “It’d be easier with a lock of hair. When you’re too close, it’s like trying to find fireflies with a floodlight.”
“Why they want her?” Cait spoke out loud. She could sign to her dad while he was driving, in fact, he could hold an entire conversation, with both hands, while driving, but Tas was not quite as good with Sign as Dad, and they were going awfully fast. And she had to look for Bri.
“They don’t want her. They want Morgan. I guess they figure they can make a trade.”
“Why Morgan?”
“I can’t tell you, it’s the way. He has to tell his own tale.”
“Is he some kind of Elf too?”
Tas said nothing.
“Yeah, ok. I ask him when I see him again.”
“Yeah, ok.”
“Maybe we need a boat.”
“I hope not. I hope we catch them before we need a boat. Hey where’s that com?”
“This?” Cait handed Tas the silver cell phone.
“Yeah. The others should know about this.” Tas took it, punched keys with one thumb, eyes on the road screaming by under the Jeep’s tires. Beep beep boop.
Silence.
“Answer the bloody phone, fishboy.” Beep beep boop bip bip. Tas shook it, hard. “Man, I hate technology!”
“Fishboy?” Cait asked. She grinned, “No mer-maids, huh?”
Frrrrazzzzzttt! The com sizzled and the acrid smell of frying electronics filled the air.
“Maybe you should have let me try that.” Cait suggested.
“Crap.” Tas hissed.
“What’s that number?” Cait said.
“What?”
Cait held up a twin to the bit of fried electronics in Tas’ hand. “I thought we might need more than one.”
Tas’ face showed surprise, disbelief. Then it broke into a grin. “Brilliant, cowgirl.” she said. “Ok, punch in these numbers...”
The numbers were for Earla, back on Chincoteague, for the com held by Morgan and Shaughnessy, and for Ian. With her hearing aids Cait could use a phone, but TTY or text messaging was quicker, and clearer. She typed with one thumb, without looking at the keys, telling what had happened.
Earla sent back that Jason and Zan had not come back yet. She would send Holly out after them. Cait relayed that to Shaughnessy, and the others.
From Shaughnessy came this text message, less than panicked; “dnt wory; jas & zan. ridng own currents now. may yet join ours.”






Over Ian’s com came a screeching wail that made him, miles away from Morgan, hold the com away from his ear and cringe. The screen bobbled and showed sky where Morgan’s face should have been.
“What?” Ian shouted back over the airwaves, “Morgan, you there?” It sounded like the com had self-destructed, or someone was trying to jam it.
Or someone had attacked Morgan.
“Morgan? Morgan!”
Silence.
The screen showed only a distant horizon where water met sky.
“What was that?” Ian repeated. ”Come in Morgan! Was that Shaughnessy?” Shaughnessy could speak whale in human form too, had he had some reason to?
“Sorry, sorry Ian. Was me.” came Morgan’s voice. “Merrow curse.” Morgan said more quietly. his face came onscreen and it looked stricken. “Have you seen text message?”
“What text, I’ve been talking to you! Anyway, since when did you learn to read?”
“Shaughnessy! Shaughnessy read it! They have...”
&ldqu