Being Ace by Linsey Miller

Author:Linsey Miller [Dyer, Madeline]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Page Street Publishing
Published: 2023-08-26T00:00:00+00:00

My boat thunks against the dock, and I grab my mooring rope, making sure it’s secure before bending down and carefully picking up my jar of sea magic, wrapped safely in a netting bag. I take a deep breath. It’s just a pole.

Just a storm.

“Annelise!”

Meera waves as she comes down the dock toward me, and my heart lifts. I’ve never had someone greet me when I come to town.

Meera is in a bright sundress, yellow with big flowers, the soft layers of fabric swishing about her knees. A straw hat with a wide brim is settled over her hair. I feel shabby beside her in my usual shirt and slacks, practical but a bit on the old side. Only Meera doesn’t seem to notice. She just loops her arm through mine and pulls me forward.

Despite living so near the town my whole life, I haven’t seen that much of it. I’m well acquainted with the docks of course, the bobbing boats with their white sails, a small fleet that grows smaller every year as townsfolk turn from fishing to the newest innovative pursuits. The docks underfoot smell, as always, of the sea and brine, and the gulls cry out as they wheel in lazy circles above us. Father also used to take me to the seaside market in the central square. When I was young, we would go to the shops and restaurants. But the last few years … we were so busy. And somehow the town became a place not to visit, but to watch from a distance. There’s a disconnect now. Even though I’ve seen so many of these places before, they’re not familiar anymore.

Meera takes me up a cobblestone street I’ve never been on. Cheery lines of pale-brick houses border the road. Balconies hang overhead with flowers growing in pots, and brightly painted wooden doors stand along the streets.

This must be the section where artisans live, because there’s a woman working at a potter’s wheel, a store with delicate scarfs in the window, and another with polished wooden toys. The next shop is open to the street, and as we go to pass it, I stop. There’s a kiln at the back, made of some beautiful white stone, with green flames licking from the hole in its stomach. Ornate metal shelves along the walls of the shop hold the land magic bricks. The colors range from the bright umber of freshly turned-up earth to the deep black of coal, and there’s a hum to each brick as it sits on its shelf. I wonder how the bricks would feel if I touched them. Would they burn me? Would they feel at all like sea magic?

“Hurry, Annelise,” Meera says. “We’re almost there.”

We continue up the street, which by now has grown so steep that my calves burn as we travel higher into the hills. A group of three girls, all fashionably attired in bright sundresses, come toward us down the street. They glance at the bottle of sea magic in my hands, not quite hidden by the net bag.

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