Something Rich and Strange by Patricia A McKillip

Author:Patricia A McKillip
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2013-09-04T16:00:00+00:00

The Ancient Mariner was crowded when Jonah walked into it on Friday. The musicians were still setting up. Whoops and crackles and other underwater noises came out of the sound system. In the dim light, faces looked unfamiliar, oddly shadowed. No one had the long dark hair he remembered. He went to the bar, ordered beer. He didn’t recognize the bartender.

“Where’s Sharon?”

The bartender, a slender, bearded young man with a shell in his ear, gave him a cheerful smile, but seemed not to hear his question. Jonah swallowed beer, feeling light-headed, edgy. He looked around more carefully. Faces crowded into the shadows, talking, laughing. She would not be laughing, he thought. Her face would be calm, mysterious as the moon, until she sang. But he did not see her.

He finished the beer quickly; the bronze fixtures along the bar gleamed with a mellower light. The bartender passed him another. A familiar gravelly voice caught his ear; he ducked behind his bottle, upending it.

He found someone at his elbow; he thought he recognized her, and then didn’t. There were a number of strangers, friends of the band probably, from other little towns along the coast. Here and there, at the candlelit tables, was the well-dressed tourist, wearing a skirt, heels, a tie. The band had changed; instead of being Hellbent they were the Undertow. There seemed a lot of them, as they moved around the stage, and they all seemed to look alike. Jonah, finishing his second beer, decided that was a trick of the lighting.

Dory jostled along the bar, moored herself beside him. “So you’ve come,” she said.

“Where is she?”

“She’ll be here.” She sipped her briny drink and surveyed herself in the bar mirror. She touched her wild hair approvingly, widened a creepy gray eye, then settled into her normal expression of mingled crankiness and amusement. “She’s looking for Adam.”

“Last I saw,” he said sourly, “he was feeding my blood to the sharks.”

She chuckled. “He has his ways.” She touched her glass rim, licked salt off her finger. “He’ll be back.”

“I can’t wait.”

“He went looking for something, he said, along the tide line. Something he said you gave him.”

“I didn’t give him anything,” Jonah said shortly, raising his empty bottle at the bartender.

“You gave him something. You must have. You wouldn’t be here for free.”

“Oh.” He ran a hand over his face, felt the stubble on it with surprise. He caught a glimpse of his own face in the mirror. It seemed ghostly, unfamiliar, the hair too long and fiery, the face gaunt, chalky. Can’t be mine, he thought. Dory was gazing at the face, too, curiously.

“What did you give him?”

He shook his head. “I don’t know. Whatever he wanted.” He turned restively toward the stage. Lights flickered; something else flowed, glittered, just within the door beside the stage. He watched it, thoughtless, entranced. Dory’s voice jarred him again.

“Don’t you want to know?”

“What?”

“What you gave him?” He looked at her, wondering what she was talking about. She gave her rumbling, bitter chuckle.

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