Page 19 of Crown of Tides and Fury

Wickham waved away the apology.

“Well? Did ye find her?”

“Aye. We believe so. But we need to find the others as well.” He reached into his jacket pocket, produced a square of paper, and unfolded it. “We combined what we learned from Sarah with some of our own research, and we’ve come up with this.” He handed over the copy of our master list of Naming Powers, then briefly explained who else was hunting for them, and why.

“Bah! Fairies!”Jez turned her head and spit on the floor. Her eyes roved over the paper, searching, scanning. “Gilliam, Gilliam…so familiar…”

Wickham sucked in a breath. Hope danced in his eyes.

The bird called from the entry, “Don’t ye love it?”

“Auch, I see now. Gilliam looks like William, aye?” She laughed lightly.

Wickham’s hope dimmed, but he pressed on. “Sarah had eight dolls by these names, given to her and other little girls by the Grandfather,” he said. “That third row is the attributes that go along with the dolls. Maybe one of those stirs a memory? Another moral yer granny might have taught ye?”

Jez pointed to the paper. “Number seven, Youth. To keep me young. I’d look for some Muir myth that sounds like the fountain of youth. Someone who can make you young again?” She suddenly choked and her eyes rounded. “Some might think that was ye, Wickham. What ye’ve done to keep yer sisters young is no secret…”

Wickham waved away the comment. “A by-product of my power over Time. I can function much like the tunnel functioned, though I wouldnae wish that to become common knowledge.”

Kitch knew about the tunnel. Wickham had explained that morning on their drive to the Black Isle. He was still shaken by the prospect of an ancient, bewitched tunnel that took ten years from its victims, along with the memories of those years, unless you had Muir blood. That an enemy would become like lambs to the slaughter, exiting the tunnel oblivious to the reason they’d entered at the other end. Some would be mere boys…

Jez laid her hand on Wickham’s arm and looked into his face. “I have never told tales of Wickham Muir, and I willnae start now.”

He nodded his thanks. And for the next hour, the pair poured over the list, reading it aloud, hoping to trigger a memory or produce a theory of where they might look next. Kitch piped up a time or two, but his comments didn’t prove helpful. They finally turned to the last column and wondered if they’d be better off searching for famine, war, destruction, darkness, or decay.

Kitch noticed that Wickham always veered away from the subject of the last power, that of life and death. Jez noticed too and asked him why.

“Rowena’s power belonged to my niece,” he said. “She was forced to hand it over to…my twin, Walter…and he died. The power is lost. And if it’s lost to us, it’s lost to the enemy. We needn’t worry about finding it unless we fail with all the others.”

Jez scowled. “But if ye ken where it was lost, might it not be easier to find than these others? After all, the Fountain of Youth has been hunted since time began—”

“But it’s not a fountain we seek. Just a witch. And much easier to find than a bit of mist lost in the past.”

Jez looked to Kitch for help, but he could only shrug. He was never good at arguing with witches—any of them.

She sighed and shook her head. “Then I see nothing else for it. Ye’ll have to go back and ask the Grandfather in person. Trying to suss out ancient answers from modern memory seems futile. There are just not enough old ones alive anymore. A pity Muirsglen never needed extra-care housing for the elderly. Ye might have found some luck there. But now, anyone who has fled the village will be impossible to find. They’re all out there in the world, cowering, hiding even from each other.”

She scowled for a long minute, an idea forming, and the men waited in silence, hoping.

“I wonder…” She bit her lips together, searched Wickham’s face. “As Grandfather, have ye nae some sort of…senseof them? If ye close yer eyes and concentrate—”

“Like some water witch? With a dowsing rod?”

She smiled. “Exactly!”

He hung his head. “Let me think. Eight billion people in the world. About a million Muirs. One out of a thousand might have some sort of power. Maybe double or triple that. Now, tell me, why would I want to have a mental connection with a couple thousand strangers? Strewn all over the world now? Wanting my help with their problems? Tell me, shouldn’t they have to work out their own problems like the rest of us?

“I have two sisters who pop in and out of my head whenever the mood strikes them. And that’s two too many. And before ye ask--nay, I cannae broadcast some sort of message to every Muir witch and ask the old ones to raise a hand if they have our answers. If that were possible, I could have asked theThirdsto gather with me at some pub, for a pint and a proposition.”

Jez bit the side of her lip and nodded. “Pity, though, innit?”

* * *

Back in the truck,Wickham turned the engine but made no move to leave. Kitch bit his tongue and waited. After a minute, the man put the old blue truck into gear and backed out of the drive. But instead of heading out of town, he turned in the opposite direction. Kitch kept his gob shut, even when they turned down a long curved drive lined with giant rhododendron. At the end stood a wee cottage with a low thatched roof.

“Ye’ll want to wait here,” Wickham said. “Sarah doesnae like visitors.”

“Sarah? The one with the dolls?”

---