Page 41 of Which Witch is Willing?
Aiming the pearlescent and sapphire jeweled tip at the water directly ahead of the yacht’s bow, she whispered a quick incantation. The yacht stopped abruptly as the water molecules fused together, a solid somewhere between concrete and ice.
Uncle Sal nearly toppled over the side at the sudden stop, catching himself on the railing with a sheepish smile. “Stay where you are,” he shouted down to her. “I’ll be there directly.”
“How are you going to get down?” she asked, eyeing the gap between the boat and the dock.
“Just you wait and see!” With no small measure of mischief and glee smoothing the wrinkles on his sun-weathered face, Sal raced to the bridge on the yacht’s main deck.
Moira watched in wonder as a gangplank emerged from the side of the boat and extended out and down toward the dock.
As soon as it was within distance, she leaped onto it, running, running and not stopping until she’d barreled into Uncle Sal’s embrace.
His wiry arms folded her into his chest, his chin coming down to the top of her head as it had so often when she was a girl. He held her this way while she gave into a gail of tears, stroking her hair and making the same reassuring noises she remembered so well.
“Now Moira Jo, you quit that snubbin’. Tears ain’t gonna fix what’s gone wrong with the world.”
Wiping her tear-stained face on the sleeve of her t-shirt, Moira stepped back, taking him in. Noting the things that hadn’t changed: his smile, his scent—tobacco and leather and salt and the sun—and the things that had: his dwindling frame, the dimming shine of his coal black eyes and inky hair, shot through with more silver than she remembered.
“How did you get here?” she asked. “Where in the hell did you get that boat?”
“Well, I’ll tell you, he said, steering her toward the center of the deck, where a ring of aluminum lawn chairs was set up around an oil drum from which flames leapt and danced.
That, not ten feet away, there was a ring of padded seats around what looked to be a propane powered faux fire pit, Sal hadn’t seemed to noticed.
“This is quite a set-up,” she said, pointing to the drum. “But is it safe? I mean, the deck is made of wood and all, and it looks like they already built a—”
“None of that fake fire for me, please and thank you.” Sal’s chest puffed as he rose to the fullest extent of his lanky height. “I’ll take the real stuff and the danger that comes along with it.” He indicated one of the lawn chairs for Moira to sit in and slouched down in the one opposite. From a battered red cooler wedged between the chairs, he plucked a long silver beer can and offered it to Moira.
Why the hell not, she figured. For old time’s sake.
She popped the top and took a swig, tasting the roasty grain as Sal popped open two for himself. Were they back on the bayou, Sal would have doctored it with salt and lime until it tasted something like citrus sea water.
“So how’d you come by this boat?” she asked. “And what are you doing all the way in Port Townsend?”
Uncle Sal’s Adam’s apple bobbed as he drained the last of his beer and belched through his nose. He crushed the can and threw it in the drum before turning to Moira. “It’s one hell of a story.”
“I’m listening.”
Uncle Sal was in his element now, a country raconteur of the first order. He sat forward in his seat, his face becoming animated as he prepared to relay the details in all the vivid color he could paint.
“So there I was, sittin’ behind the counter of the bait shack, when in walks this big city feller in a fancy suit.”
Moira’s stomach death-rolled like a gator.
“What did he look like?” she asked.
“Kindly like he thought his shit would smell like potpourri and he’d never been told no in his entire life.”
“Whisky colored eyes? Sandy brown hair?”
Uncle Sal looked genuinely piqued. “How’d you know?”
“Just a guess. Go on. Tell me the rest.”
“Well, of course I asked him if he was lost, cause he sure as hell didn’t look like he belonged there.” Sal reached for another can and slurped, his protuberant Adam’s apple bobbing up and down within his skinny neck.
“What did he say?” Moira asked.
Uncle Sal leaned in, the barrel fire playing orange in his black eyes. “It’s a good thing you’re settin’ down, cause this is where it gets real strange.”
