Seanan McGuire - One Salt Sea

“Not really,” said Danny. “Rocks aren’t so good with time, and everything else they had to say was about how much they don’t like the shape stuff’s been in since the big shake.”

“The big shake?” I asked blankly. “What the hell are they talking about?”

“The earthquake in nineteen-oh-six,” said the Luidaeg. She leaned forward, close enough to the phone for Danny to hear her when she asked, “Did the rocks say they cried when the towers fell?”

“What—” I began.

Danny’s answer cut me off: “Yeah, they did. You know what that means? Who is this, anyway?”

“It’s a pleasure to finally get the chance to speak with you, Mr. McReady. You can call me the Luidaeg.”

Silence fell on Danny’s end of the line. Looking amused, the Luidaeg sank back into her seat. Finally, Danny asked, “Toby? Was that really the sea witch just there? On the phone? Talking to me?”

“Yeah, Danny, it was. She’s not wearing a seat belt, either.” I shot a sharp look at her reflection in the rearview mirror. She looked quietly amused. “Call if you get anything else out of those rocks, okay? We’re almost to Muir Woods. I’m going to need both hands if we don’t want to drive off the edge of a cliff.”

“Open roads, and I’ll call.”

“Good. Hug the Barghests for me.” I couldn’t thank him, and so I just hung up, handing the phone to Connor as I turned my focus back to the road. The closer we got to Muir Woods, the less developed the land around us became. Housing developments and strip malls had already given way to half-hidden private driveways and tiny general stores with rickety wooden porches. The smell of the redwoods was seeping in through the vents, filling the entire car with the living green memory of something older and cleaner than the modern human world.

The lack of human development also meant a lack of concern among the local wildlife. Wild turkeys casually strutted along beside the road, their scrawny brown chests fluffed out like little avian gangsters. We startled a pair of deer as we came around a blind curve in the road, and I hit the brakes just in time to keep from getting Bambi pâté all over the windshield.

“Whoa,” said Quentin.

“My thoughts exactly.” I glanced over my shoulder. “Everyone all right back there?”

The Luidaeg, who was still not wearing a seat belt, didn’t look like our sudden stop had perturbed her in the least. “Fine,” she said. “Keep driving.”

I kept driving, more slowly now that we were on the treacherous roads marking the final approach to Muir Woods.

The Muir Woods National Monument was established to protect one of the last old-growth redwood forests in the state of California. It’s kept open to the public, as much to remind them why the forest is important as for any other reason. “These used to be everywhere in California,” said Connor suddenly. “Just about this whole part of the state was redwoods.”

“So why’d they cut them down?” asked Quentin.

“I don’t know.”

“Because they could,” said the Luidaeg. “Parking lot’s just ahead, Toby.”

“Good.”

I pulled around the last corner between us and the designated parking area and hit the brakes, swearing as I saw the gate blocking the entrance. Heavy chains held it shut. According to the posted sign, the park closed at sunset.

“Wait here,” said the Luidaeg, and climbed out of the car.

“What’s she doing?” asked Quentin.

“At this point? I have no idea.”

The Luidaeg walked to the locked gate and lifted the padlock that held the chains in place. She tapped it twice with her index finger, and it popped open, letting the chains fall loose. The Luidaeg unhooked them and swung the gate open.

She smiled into my window as I drove slowly past her, commenting, “Once you’ve pried open the gates of Tirn Aill with nothing but a headache and a stick, padlocks are surprisingly uncomplicated.”

“Uh, sure,” I said. She waved me to the nearest parking space, following the car as I pulled in and killed the engine.

I stretched as I got out of the car, taking a deep breath of the clean, redwood-scented air. I still wasn’t wearing a human disguise. In a place like this, where humans have done their best to step lightly and leave few traces behind, that felt appropriate. Connor and Quentin did much the same, even as they started scanning the woods around us.

Too bad we weren’t there to sightsee. “Quentin, I have a baseball bat you can use,” I said, brushing past the Luidaeg as I moved to open the trunk. “Connor, I don’t actually have any weapons for you—”

“That’s quite all right,” said Tybalt, from a point immediately behind my right shoulder. “I assumed that would be the case, and brought extra.”

I jumped, but managed not to embarrass myself by shrieking like a girl. Instead, I turned, finding myself eye-to-eye with Tybalt. He smiled with his usual easy arrogance, but I could see the concern in his eyes.

“Raj found you,” I said. My voice was lower than it had been when I was shouting to be heard by the people still getting out of the car. It felt like louder words had never escaped my lips.

“He did,” Tybalt agreed. “I was with my subjects, searching for our missing mice, and the rats that stole them.”

“Did you find anything?” I asked.

His expression darkened. “More, and less, than I wanted to,” he said. He dipped a hand into his pocket and produced what looked at first like a children’s toy—a bunch of dried sticks tied together with ribbon and string. I frowned at it, not sure what I was seeing.

Then the Luidaeg gasped. Her eyes went black from one side to the other as she pushed her way between us, grabbing the bundle and clutching it against her chest. Her sudden fury would almost have been amusing, if the air around us hadn’t been getting steadily colder. “Where. Did. You. Get. This?” she demanded, biting each word off into its own separate sentence.

“From the hand of a slain Goblin soldier,” replied Tybalt. He held his ground, somehow managing to meet the Luidaeg’s eyes without flinching. “He told me it had been given as a sign of faith by those who hired him.”

“Does somebody want to tell me what it is , since we’re all getting upset about it?” I asked.

The answer came from a surprising quarter: Quentin, who was standing off to one side, staring at the artifact with a look of nauseated awe on his face. “It’s a hand of bones,” he said. “Someone gave the Goblins a hand of bones?”

“What in Oberon’s name is a hand of bones?” I wasn’t asking now; I was demanding.

My tone caught the Luidaeg’s attention. She turned to face me, still clutching the bundle against her chest. The things I’d taken for sticks before rattled against each other, and something in the sound sang to me, telling me that yes, these things had once known blood. “A hand of bones is a promise to the land,” she said, voice tight. “Each piece comes from the hand of a former reigning monarch—one who no longer reigns, for whatever reason. The night-haunts leave the bones of the hand behind for us, to mark the fall of a regent. This,” she touched a bone that looked like all the others around it, “came from the hand of King Gilad, who ruled the Mists before your current Queen stepped up to claim his empty throne.”

“Okay, that’s charming, but what does it have to do with anything?” I stalked to the back of the car and unlocked the trunk. My baseball bat was on the top. I grabbed it, tossing it to Quentin. “What does a hand of bones do ?”

“They mark a promise made on a Kingdom’s throne,” said Quentin. He hugged the baseball bat against his chest, shaking his head. “If the Goblins had that, it’s because someone made them a promise on the Mists. What were they promised?”