Halfway Drowned (Halfway Witchy Book 4) Page 9

  “I get to sample. It’s in the rules,” I said, lifting my fork with a predatory flourish. The server smiled and departed, well versed in the rules of engagement for girlfriends and dessert.

  “A clarification. There was something on that ship. That’s the source of danger, not the ship itself,” Wulfric said around a mouthful of tiramisu. Sometimes he really is barbaric.

  “Good enough for me.” Eli slid his phone across to us, the screen pulsing lightly with an image that made Wulfric stop eating.

  It was the picture of Wulfric underwater, a pair of eyes glowing behind him in the dark.

  Without a sound, he picked the phone up. It looked like a toy in his palm, but may as well have been a venomous snake. After a long, searching look, he turned to me, his expression between curiosity and concern. “You’ve told Gran?”

  I nodded, putting a hand on his forearm. We’d need all hands on deck for whatever this thing might be, so I let him process the reality that he’d been unable to detect another creature close enough to reach out and touch his face. In a series of motions, he adjusted his features to reach a conclusion, then turned to regard Eli with narrowed eyes.

  “Who do you think I am?” Wulfric asked. There was no anger or judgement in his tone, just a basic need to know.

  “A Viking.” Eli’s response was instantaneous.

  After a slow nod, Wulfric looked at me from the corner of his eye. I gave a tiny nod and slid closer to him, although he already occupied most of the booth. It was a symbolic gesture for him and Eli.

  “Do you think the ship is mine?” Wulfric asked, mildly.

  “Not when I first got here, no. That would be impossible, and I only deal in reality,” Eli began. “Now? I’m not certain. The fact you were in a shipwreck at night without diving gear? I can explain that away with a bright moon and good lungs. The thing behind you is an entirely different issue, and that means that I have to open myself to possibilities beyond my previous experiences. So, since we’re still at the table, am I correct that you’re willing to share some things with me, despite your obvious reservations?”

  “I will, with some conditions,” Wulfric said, without a hint of negotiation in his tone.

  “Understandable,” Eli said with a nod. It was all terribly mannerly. I felt almost British, but without the burning desire to drink tea with pizza. Admittedly, my knowledge of British pizza culture is limited, but it seemed plausible.

  Wulfric leaned forward on the table, his arms bulging with quiet menace. He was making a point without saying a word, and I knew for whom the Viking flexed, so to speak. It was for me and Gran. Not for him. He wasn’t concerned with his own well-being because, at his heart, Wulfric was a man of the deep forest, and he could easily melt away back to the cool green of his former home. But my place is in Halfway, and Wulfric’s place is beside me, which changed the dynamic of how he chose to answer Eli’s questions.

  After a tense moment, Wulfric spoke. “If anything happens to Carlie, Gran, or Halfway, I consider you personally responsible.” There was no vanity in his statement, just a factual, cold delivery of what amounted to a promise he would see through. Eli was a man of science, and despite being quite different from witchcraft, I understood his burning need to understand the world around him. I shared his passion, although we pursued different means of discovery, and Wulfric’s warning was clearly based on a similar understanding of this mindset. There would be no quiet visits from curious experts seeking Eli, just as there would be no Eli if he brought harm to Wulfric’s world. Whatever he found would be used here, and only here in Halfway.

  Judging by the look on his face, Eli knew it, too. His only response was a small nod.

  “Good. Now, I’ll explain what I choose to share, and as to the rest, you’ll have to discover it for yourself--within limits--or live without the details. I can assure you, what you already think is most likely close to the truth. You may ask me a question, now.” Wulfric leaned back into the booth, his face neutral.

  Without saying anything, Eli reached into his laptop bag, slumped against the interior of his side of the booth. In a slow, reverent motion, he placed the carefully wrapped section of bark on the table between me and Wulfric. “Tell me what this means?”

  Wulfric didn’t touch the bark, but regarded it with an unreadable expression. “From the boat?”

  “Tucked up and away, like whoever left it was in a hurry,” Eli answered. “The preservation is remarkable.”

  Wulfric turned the object toward him with one finger, gently nudging the side without picking it up. After another one of those inscrutable Viking looks, he began to nod, like hearing a distant song. I could tell he was reading in a language he hadn’t spoken for centuries, and the effort made him move slightly to accommodate the pacing. When he looked at me, his eyes were narrowed by concern. “I’m glad you gave me this instead of some other question. This is important.”

  “What is it?” I asked, softly. He was thinking, but about what, I couldn’t begin to imagine. There were too many moving parts to the rising of this ancient ship, and none of it seemed good.

  By way of answer, Wulfric asked Eli for a pen, then turned his placemat over and began to sketch. I recognized the image instantly as he made bold lines in a roughly diamond shape. “This is the land I’m familiar with.” He marked a creek, then another. Then, he drew a circle and pointed to it with emphasis.

  “Halfway?” Eli guessed, earning him a grunt of confirmation as Wulfric continued to draw.

  Wulfric spoke as he sketched, a running litany of local geography. “This is the highway, and here’s the limit of my expertise regarding the land to the north. Halfway is a big lake, with many feeder streams, but you knew that. The river--this one, not the old oxbows--is older, but it isn’t the only way into the lake. That brings us here,” he finished, scratching a series of winding lines that terminated to the south.

  “Is that to Inlet?” I asked, referencing the next town over. Fourth Lake was closest to us, and had two communities, the other being Eagle Bay. Both were similar to Halfway, if a bit smaller, since their lake had less coastline and area. That made for fewer tourists, and a quieter existence. Right now, I was jealous of that sleepy reputation.

  “It is. Eli, what do you think this is?” Wulfric asked, tapping the table near the relic.

  “A warning,” he replied without hesitation.

  “You’re right. It’s a--think of it as a song, but written in runes, and intended for a very specific reader. The language is old, but easy to understand because it’s my own.” Eli twitched at the admission, but Wulfric’s face remained impassive. I trusted him, and whatever he revealed would be necessary, if not crucial. Neither of us scare easily, but my love had a tightening around his mouth that revealed his concerns about our current situation.

  “Why is your knowledge of Halfway limited to this region?” Eli asked, seeing through Wulfric’s careful wording. He was smart. Weirdly smart, and not afraid to ask questions.

  “Because I lived within the region of this map for most of my life and traveled very little. At least, until recently,” Wulfric said with a sly glance in my direction. “Some things are worth leaving one’s comfort zone, don’t you think?” Now he made Eli squirm by leaning forward yet again, waiting for an answer to a question that hadn’t been asked.

  “What’s going on here?” I asked, not liking the idea of a secret being kept from me, especially since I was probably going to pay for the pizza. I was about to pinch Wulfric, but he spoke without taking his eyes from Eli, who was studying his crumpled napkin. I’ve seen guilty looks before, and Eli may as well have been ringing a bell over his head while confessing anything and everything.

  “Eli can read ancient runes, or at least some of them. He’s an expert in Viking culture and architecture, and I think he knew the Skraelingsdottir was here, or at least in one of the lakes that straddles the s
pine of New York. Isn’t that right?”

  “You lied about--wait, what have you lied about, Eli? Think carefully. You’ve got a lot riding on this answer,” I told him. My cheeks grew hot, and I had to take a breath in order to let the wave of anger rush past. It doesn’t pay to be unreasonable when you have the ability to turn people into a frog. Okay, that’s a bit trite, but I’m sure I could work it out if you gave me enough time, and for sheer hilarity, it might be worth trying someday.

  “I haven’t lied about anything. I just neglected to mention some of my expertise, that’s all,” Eli said, but it sounded weak even as he protested my question.

  “Omission is lying, when the facts can be harmful,” Wulfric rumbled.

  “Well, okay, yeah. I know that. But I’ve been looking for her since 2006, and”--Eli began, but I silenced him with a wave.

  “Looking for her? Who is her, exactly?” I asked, the anger returning. So much for breathing exercises.

  Eli looked stunned. “The ship. What else--oh, right. Ships are given a female identity and so I naturally--you know what, skip it, it’s not important right now.”

  “I’ll say.” I folded my arms and tried to look taller and meaner, but I was fighting a burp from the pizza, so I settled for a modest stinkeye and hoped for the best.

  “Yeah, so,” Eli rubbed his hands together, thinking. “I can prove Vikings were here, because I have the evidence. No one else believes me, not really, but that means nothing because all that matters is the evidence. It’s here, and in the Hudson River, and it might even be as far as Wisconsin, but I know what I’ve seen. Just because I can’t publish is no reason to stop looking. I care about the truth.” His eyes were bright. The fever throes of a scholar who had found his grail made him both young and old, all in the same moment.

  “I believe you,” Wulfric allowed.

  “How long have you been looking?” I asked.

  Eli grinned. “Long enough to know that Wulfric isn’t some re-enactor living out his Viking fantasies here in the Adirondacks.”

  “My life is a fantasy, but that’s none of your business,” Wulfric replied gravely, but with a following smile. I blushed, tried to hide it, and gave up. A Viking, a nerd, and a witch, and I was the one who got embarrassed. I jingled my bangles at Wulfric, and he clammed up, but not before smirking. Magical threats didn’t work on someone who was older than most countries, but if he kept it up, I’d banish him to the couch. That would grab his attention.

  I thought about it, and realized that for all his activity, Eli hadn’t actually explained what he was doing, at least not to my liking. In a sense, he hadn’t lied, but it still felt rather sneaky. I was learning a lesson about appearances and presumptions, and I should have known better. When people--and beasties--see me, they look at a smallish, young woman who might not seem to be a threat. The majority of those creatures are dead and get no sympathy from me for their errors in judgement.

  I was guilty of the same thing regarding Eli. I saw a brilliant nerd, twitchy and prone to machine gun bursts of questions, but there was a lot more to him than that. Underneath his academic exterior was the core of an adventurer, so I adjusted my thinking on the fly and posed a question that would reveal his true intentions.

  If he was honest.

  “Dr. Delacourt, other than a burning need to know about the past, why are you here?” I asked. We’d see what he was about because I’m an expert in reading faces. I work in a diner, and nobody teaches you more about lying than the general public.

  Eli noticed the use of his honorific, and it gave him pause. He started arranging his face into a lie, so I held up a finger of warning. His face collapsed in the tiniest way as he realized I was watching him with the intensity of a cat. I know when to channel that weird stare that Gus uses on me, and it worked. Eli drew in a breath and looked me directly in the eyes. There was no guile in his face, and his voice was even.

  “This isn’t the first wreck.”

  “How many?” Wulfric blurted. I continued to watch Eli, pinning him with my stare. If it made him uncomfortable, he gave no sign of it.

  “Four, counting this one,” Eli admitted.

  “Wait, what? How have you managed to hide four shipwrecks from the world? There’s no way,” I added, thinking about the logistics. I suspected he was telling the truth, I just needed to figure out how it was possible. There were a hundred tourists at the wreck of the Skraelingsdottir within minutes, and seconds after that their phones were sending pictures all over the internet. Unless the wrecks were someplace completely uninhabited, which was unlikely, then Eli had magically developed control over space and time. I’ve seen the speed of rumors, and even they can’t compete with social media. Combine the two, and you’ve got something so fast it can warp space.

  “You can if you were expecting them,” Eli remarked. He seemed a bit too blasé for someone who was describing the kind of scientific discoveries we now had floating in our own lake.

  “Are these other ships on a particular pathway?” Wulfric asked.

  Eli pointed at him. “I think you understand, or at least you grasp part of it. I--we, my team that is, we knew where to look. We couldn’t anticipate that the Halfway wreck would pop out of the water like a message in a bottle.”

  “Which it has,” I added. I thought about his admission and cut a glance at Wulfric. He didn’t look smug; he looked worried. The effect was sobering, drawing me a bit closer to him in the booth. Looking at the bark message before us, I cringed, knowing I should have realized what I was looking at sooner.

  “You found other--maps? Or another map, rather, and it led you on a route where the Vikings traveled overland?” I asked. It seemed like the most plausible way to get ahead of a mythical exploratory route through the coast and mountains of New York. You couldn’t control information after it was out. You had to be on site first and hide the discovery from prying eyes. Obviously, Eli’s team had done this before.

  “You might call it a map. It was a runestone, but unlike anything I’ve ever seen. I think it was a ballast stone, carved over a winter by the crew while they were icebound in the St. Lawrence River,” Eli said with a touch of uncertainty.

  “Describe it.” Wulfric’s words were a command, but not unfriendly. He would grasp exactly what Eli had found based on a reasonable description.

  Eli was better prepared than that. He held out his phone after a comical moment of scrolling through pictures. “Here,” he said, turning the screen towards us with a flourish.

  Wulfric leaned in to study the image. It was an unremarkable gray rock, more square than not, but just rough enough that it could have been entirely natural. “Mmm. An anchor, but the wooden frame is gone,” he remarked. “You have a picture of the other side?”

  Eli touched the screen, and a second photo came into view. It was much clearer and from a closer vantage point.

  On the stone were runes, and not just a few. Hundreds.

  “You see?” Eli asked, and I thought I did despite not being able to read runes at all. They were different, somehow.

  “You can read these, or you have a scholar who can. Correct?” Wulfric asked, never taking his eyes away from the floating picture. He moved his lips slightly, recanting a story to himself, parsed together from the memory of a tongue so ancient it was old when he was a boy. “They were moving fast. Sickness took some of them, and war. The party started with six ships, but they didn’t survive. I wonder how they did it.”

  “Moved overland?” Eli asked.

  Wulfric shook his head, slowly. “No, hiding that many ships from the eyes of their King. Royalty are notoriously tight with money unless it benefits them directly, and it wasn’t a raid, that’s obvious from the runes. If they came to raid, they would have gone into the great rivers, and down the coast. They came inland, but not for the same reason I did.” He smiled at Eli as the enormity of his admission hit h
ome.

  “When you came. . . .here?” Eli was thunderstruck. His breath hissed out in a long, slow deflation of sheer disbelief, to be replaced by the light of wonder in his dark eyes.

  “When I came here, yes. You may ask me some of the questions that dance on your tongue at this instant, but only after you tell me why you’ve hidden the other wrecks. Is it because of that?” He pointed to Eli’s bark relic and inclined his head.

  “Stop right there. Why can he read those runes and not the ones from the Skraelingsdottir?” I interjected. They looked nearly identical to me, save some flourishes and issues of ordering. Witchcraft made me a linguist, but it didn’t prepare me for every single language under the sun. These runes were one such mystery, but only to me, not Wulfric, and whoever Eli had deciphering his finds.

  “Hallerna put some familial runes into this message. There would be no way anyone else could understand it, but as to the anchor? Easy enough for any scholar of that, ahh, time and place,” Wulfric said, a touch carefully.

  “Meaning it was carved by someone else,” I stated, and both men nodded in agreement. “So, why inland, if that’s away from the plunder? That’s why they were here, right? Wealth?”

  Eli grew quiet, and Wulfric worked the muscles in his jaw before replying. “They were led here.”

  “Here? To Halfway? There was nothing here. I know something about this, Eli, so you’re going to have to believe me when I say that there was nothing for the Vikings to take, let alone make them come overland with boats. It’s too much work for a glorified sightseeing trip, despite my feelings about Halfway.”

  Eli cleared his throat. “What led them?”

  Wulfric rubbed his chin, looking at the phone again. Eli tapped the image to refresh, and the runestone hove back in sight. “Two things, and very different. One was a person, I think, and one was--- something else.”

  “That’s what I thought. A classic tactic. Lead them to treasure that’s just over the next hill, and the next, and the next, and let the land and disease pick them off, make them weak enough to surmount. Am I right?” Eli asked. His eyes were bright with curiosity.