Dark Arts (11 page)

“Was it always this cold here? It’s August,
I mean-“ she didn’t have a chance to finish before Maxwell surged
towards her. He caught one of her hands in his and held it
lightly.

“It was always this cold, luv,” he said,
slowly teasing her deeper into the water. “You were just too young
to care for long the last time you were here.”

“Lemmie go,” she said cringing as she was
guided at arms-length to mid thigh depth.

“I’m not holdin’ you, luv,” Max said,
letting her hand go for a moment, then touching only her fingers.
He took two steps into deeper water, letting her hand go entirely.
“Here goes,” she said, dipping under completely.

She came up with a gasp. “Wow! That’s not
what I remember.” She bent forward, then whipped her hair back
overhead so it fell behind her, flicking water into the blue sky.
She closed the distance between them, and drifted into his arms so
her back leaned against his chest. She gasped again as Maxwell
brought her into neck deep waters. He let his hands rest across her
belly and didn’t say a word. There wasn’t a single thought in his
head to share anyway.

Miranda rested against him, her hands on
his. They had started something. More sons and daughters of the
sixties were coming to the beach, and Max counted six who were
chasing each other into the water. As much as holding Miranda in
his arms was thrilling, it felt as though they’d fallen back into
an innocent time, when people could simply play.

“Do you want me to let you go?” he asked
quietly, his chin nearly resting on her shoulder. It was his way of
checking on her happiness, her comfort, and making sure he wasn’t
misreading her ease with him.

Miranda entwined her fingers between his and
turned her head, meeting his lips. Maxwell held her close as their
kiss continued on from the first electric touch of their lips into
an intimate and eager exploration that felt like it was only
minutes long. They drifted lazily in the cool water, the kiss an
extension of their close embrace. Being with Miranda was exciting
and easy at the same time. His arms remained around her, gently
holding her and she fit against him comfortably. Miranda and
Maxwell’s kiss was serious at first, a statement of want that felt
like it had been building for much longer than a day. It was as
though he’d missed the woman she’d become for years, and finally
found her.

Time, their closeness, and their kiss
continued on, but it was at times needy, then slow, and finally a
little playful, celebratory. Neither of them knew how long they
were together, left alone in the calm water.

They were finally interrupted when Maxwell
and Miranda heard Scott’s voice drifting over the water. “Max!
We’re going to barbeque here, we’ve got some coolers! We’ll be by
the fire pit.”

Miranda groaned her disappointment and
slowly turned her face away from the kiss, Max letting her lips
leave, and shouted. “Thanks!” before whispering; “he always had bad
timing.”

Max kissed her behind the ear and gave her a
squeeze. “They’re going to expect us to get out sometime.”

“Listen, um,” Miranda said. “I’ve fallen in
with someone for a night before, but I didn’t know him well, and it
was sort of a free love thing.” She took a breath and sighed. “I
don’t want that, you know, right? I want us to be a thing, a good
thing. I’m not easy that way.”

“Never thought you were,” Maxwell said. He’d
had one-night stands before, there was a feeling of something
fleeting whenever one was happening. An unspoken contract that
stated simply: expect nothing past the morning. He did not have
that feeling with Miranda. “This goes on and on, luv.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Miranda
asked with a soft chuckle.

“Just saying I’ve never wanted just the one,
forsaking all others kind of thing. Never wanted an old lady,”
Maxwell said.

“Don’t strain yourself trying to talk about
your feelings,” Miranda said. “Good thing I speak caveman.” She
turned around and shook her head at him. “One day and I’m naked in
a lake with you.”

“Not what your aunts would want?” Maxwell
asked.

“Not a good time to bring my aunts up,”
Miranda replied. “But if they did catch us like this, they’d try to
have us married by the end of the week. They’re a bit weird, very
woman’s liberation, believe it’s all right for us to have fun too,
but they still want me married off to you as fast as they can
arrange it. I’d wonder if we were under a spell, but I’ve got a
ward tattooed. Can’t happen.”

“I don’t remember seeing a tattoo,” he
said.

“It’s very small, you’ll have to look for it
later,” Miranda replied with a wink.

“So, you haven’t cast a spell on me?”
Maxwell asked, his hands moving lower.

“Didn’t say that,” Miranda said, kissing him
on the nose then pulling away. “We should go in.”

“I’ll be out in a minute,” he said as he
watched her walk away, emerging from the water. “Need to simmer
down.”

“I’m sure no one would care. Nothing to be
ashamed of down there either,” she added with a smirk.

“If it’s just the same,” Maxwell said.

“I could wait with you,” she replied.

“May as well wait for dinner while you’re
outside having a smoke with him,” he whispered.

“I’m the cook in this analogy,” Miranda
said, amused.

“Well, I suppose I could walk out with you,
grinnin’ and boasting,” Maxwell replied.

Miranda laughed. “Now that’s something I
wouldn’t want my aunts to see. All right, I’ll leave if you agree
never to call me your Old Lady again,” Miranda said. “I get what it
means, but I don’t have the years.”

“Done, promised.”

Miranda turned in time to see Bernie and
Scott taking the last of their clothes off. “Oh, wow, Bernie’s like
a blonde sasquatch.”

He looked at what prompted her comment, and
a moment later, his problem was gone. “That did it, ready to come
out,” Maxwell said.

A curvy blonde woman ran up between them,
untying her two-piece. “And there’s the trouble I saw for Bernie or
Scott.”

“What? April? She’s barely ever here,”
Bernie said.

“You don’t think she’s pretty? She’s a
knockout.” Miranda said, taking Maxwell’s hand as they started
making their way out of the water. “Like Marilyn Monroe.”

“Too fair haired and demanding,” Maxwell
said. “She’s one of the rich daughters in town.”

When she was more than half way out, he
looked at Miranda’s bottom caught sight of a small, circular
tattoo. “There it is!”

“There’s what?” Scott asked as he took slow
strides into the cold water.

“Oh, Exponentia Silentium seal on her bum,”
Maxwell said, patting her cheek with just enough vigor for three
light slaps to echo across the water.

“Hey!” Miranda said, laughing and covering.
“Let’s not start that.”

They moved their towels closer to the main
fire pit, settling in beside the coolers Scott and Bernie brought
with them. The sun and heat dried them as they laid out enjoying
the beer Two Beards had brought. It was just cold enough, having
been out of his cooler less than an hour.

“I forget you know about that stuff,”
Miranda said as she lay beside him.

“More than I’d like to,” Maxwell said. He
couldn’t help but think about the boy who asked that his family be
brought to the water. He followed an urge to look towards the shore
and saw them standing there. They were filthy, their clothing was
old and weather worn. Maxwell looked at them calmly. “I know I’m
the only one who can see an immigrant family on the edge of the
water.” He whispered. “If you take my hand right now, and look
where I’m staring, you’ll see them too.”

Their pleading eyes
reminded him of one of his father’s lessons.
The living only have a duty to the dead if they are chosen to
speak for them.
Miranda took his hand and
gasped. “It’s as though the sunlight can’t touch them, they’re in a
shadow.”

“How many?” Maxwell asked.

“Six. Four children, two parents. They look
like they’ve been bound,” she replied.

“Fuck, I’m not crazy,” Maxwell said.
“They’re standing over my shorts with the shard.” He stood up and
walked over, not worried that the family disappeared the moment he
was on his feet.

Miranda hurried behind him. “Are you okay?
What are you going to do?”

“I’m fine, I need you though. You can take
the place of a Summoner in a circle?” he asked.

“I was trained since I was little,” Miranda
replied. “How did you know?”

“I remember you and Bernie talking about
it.” He pointed to Bernie, whose head was just coming out of the
water. April was sneaking up on him, about to push him back down
but was interrupted by Max’s pointing finger. “Need your help,
mate.”

Without a moment’s hesitation, Bernie
started sloshing out of the water. “What’s up?”

“Have to release an immigrant family who was
murdered here about a hundred twenty or hundred forty years ago by
a corrupt priest,” Maxwell said as he picked up his shorts and
started fishing for the shard. He tried not to think on how he was
picking up more details about them as seconds passed.

“I know this story,” Bernie said. “There was
a con-man who came into the town pretending to be a priest. He hung
a family as thieves after tricking the constable into believing
they stole the Sunday offerings.”

“Well, I’ve got the family in hand,” Maxwell
said. “Need a Guardian to finish the circle so I can release them
over the water here.”

Bernie stopped and stared at him for a
moment, unbelieving. “What? What’s going on, Max? When did you
decide to believe what people have been trying to tell you?”

“Since I just saw them, the little ones eyes
begging like, well, beggars, for help.”

“What are you going to do?” Bernie
asked.

“I’m going to conduct them on, just the
simple way, just the direct way. This water is the most pure and
often blessed body in the whole province,” Maxwell said as he
looked at the shard. There was nothing special about the thick
sliver of petrified wood. “I’ll do my turn as weaver.”

“Are you sure?” Bernie asked. “You don’t
need to read anything or prepare?”

“Or get initiated?” Scott called out as he
approached. April’s wary blue eyes searched the scene as she
emerged from the water with him, her arm linked with his.

“The Sun Callers weren’t initiated,” Maxwell
said. “First hunters who could speak and hold a spear weren’t
initiated, but they were praying and casting spells, what? When we
first started stringing syllables together ten thousand years ago,
probably even further back?.”

“Are you sure you want to weave this?”
Miranda asked gently.

“A weaver needs three things: knowledge,
conviction, and clarity of purpose. I’m going to use an old
translated British ditty to send these spirits away from their
worldly prison by using the surface of the water as the sacred
space where they can get out and move on.” He took Miranda’s hand
and kissed the back of it. “Hundreds of hours of lectures and
training from my father and a sudden belief in the other side are
enough.” He looked to Bernie, who nodded.

Scott got behind them, guiding April along
at his side. “Do you have enough room, or do you want me to get
everyone else out of the water?”

Maxwell looked to the left, where there were
four people in the water fifty feet or more away. “We’re all right
here. Guardian, protect us.”

Taking his cue from Maxwell, Bernie stepped
to the edge of the water so Miranda and Maxwell were behind him. “I
call the Guardians, our Ancestors and the Ancient Spirits who would
protect the circle we cast from interference and those within it
from harm. Honor our purpose as we honor you, and guide us through
our rite.”

Maxwell could immediately feel as though he,
Miranda and Bernie had been separated from the rest of the world.
When Bernie turned back towards the water and nodded, he took a
deep breath and let it out slowly. “You’d better know what you’re
doing, Max, there’s power here.”

Miranda didn’t wait for her cue. “I am the
Summoner, and call the ones our weaver has brought us here to
protect into the circle. Let him guide you in, and trust that he
means you no harm.”

Maxwell felt the dark pastor before he saw
him. His form, more shadow than man, stood on the water behind
Bernie. “I recognize you, malicious spirit, and have no fear.”

Bernie turned around and, judging by his
sudden head jerk, Maxwell guessed he was surprised to see the
glowering shade three feet away. “I ask that our defenders conduct
this intruder away from our sacred space.”

“Holy shit,” Scott said from outside the
circle, several feet behind Maxwell.

The tall shade dissipated suddenly, as
though he were smoke caught in a gust of wind. Bernie remained
facing the outside of the circle, looking across the water. “Go
ahead, Max,” he said.

“I have called my Guardian and Summoner into
this circle to open a passage across the turbulent waters between
the living and the dead. He could hear a young girl’s voice
whisper; “Ablesmith,” into his right ear. A lesson his father
drilled into him over and over again reminded him to examine the
voice that uttered the word, not take for granted that it was the
one he was looking for.

“Max,” Miranda whispered. “They’re here
again.”

He opened his eyes and saw the family,
appearing as though they were in better days. They stood in the
middle of the circle, clean, healthy and in brighter moods. The
little girl who tried to be heard looked up at him with bright blue
eyes, smiling, nodding. “Ablesmith, that’s us,” she said with a
British accent. “Who are you?”

The beach was silent, people were carefully,
slowly approaching the circle, and stopping to watch no less than
ten feet away from the edge. “I’m Maxwell,” he replied. “Are you
and your family free?”