Deep Betrayal

them.
    Always blunt, Calder cut to the chase. “We’re told you know something about her, the legend, I mean.”
    “Some might call me a bit of an expert,” said Dr. Coyote. “I come from a long line of devotees.”
    His gaze settled on my pendant. “Who sent you?”
    “My aunt suggested you might know where to find her.”
    Dr. Coyote looked me hard in the eyes, then got up and went to a bookcase behind his desk. Most of the books had the same ADA label on the spine, but up high, in the top right corner, were some smaller, older books, with cracked and broken bindings.
    “You’ll like this,” he said, pulling one down and opening it up to a page marked with a red satin ribbon. “It’s a children’s book. Easily overlooked, but still useful for the basics, and even more if you read a little deeper.” He opened the book and turned it around so we could see the pictures: charcoal drawings of a beautifully fearsome creature taming a storm.
    “See here, that’s Maighdean Mara,” said Dr. Coyote, pointing as if we could have missed her. “Her mother was Talamh, ‘The Earth,’ and her father was Gailleann, ‘The Tempest.’
    “She also had a brother named Dóiteán, which means ‘blaze.’ They were fire and water, and they hated each other. One day they got in a terrible fight and Maighdean Mara ran far away. She came west and found the cave behind Copper Falls.”
    Calder took my hand, fumbling with my fingers.
    “Back in the day, my grandfather always told me that Maighdean Mara was the ancestor of … the others.”
    “The others?” I asked.
    “The others. Those creatures who are part woman, part animal.” He discreetly stole another glance at my pendant and caught my eye for just a second before looking away. “Excuse me, but shouldn’t you know all this already?”
    “I heard these legends go back to the Great Flood,” I said, ignoring his question. “As in Noah’s ark.”
    “What I’ve told you is ancient legend. But she has been seen as recently as the late eighteen hundreds. After World War I, there was even a paper written, analyzing the scientific evidence and suggesting Maighdean Mara was still living, deep within the lake.” Dr. Coyote smiled and pulled another book off the shelf. “It’s all in here. You read it.”
    “Some boys from Cornucopia suggested she was a monster,” I said.
    “Oh, no, no, no, no, no. She’s a great benefactor.”
    “But that could change, right?” I asked. “If people stopped paying attention to her, she could, like, retaliate?”
    My question seemed to make Dr. Coyote uncomfortable. He frowned at his desk and closed the book without answering.
    “Dr. Coyote,” Calder said, “if someone were to look for her, where would you recommend he go?”
    Dr. Coyote flipped open the second book to a page with a nautical chart of the lake. “Here,” he said, marking a spot between Isle Royale and Thunder Bay with his finger. He wrote down the coordinates on a piece of scrap paper, slid them to Calder and said, “That would be my first stop.”
    Dr. Coyote narrowed his eyes. “If you do go looking …” He got up and opened a drawer, pulling out a linen bag thatbulged at its seams. He untied the string and dumped a pile of Indian Head pennies on the table, many tinged green with patina. They rang out as they knocked together. “My grandfather gave me this bag when I graduated from dental school. They were his father’s before that. He said to give some of them to Maighdean Mara every year to thank her for my good fortune.”
    “And did you?” I asked.
    “I was young. I was embarrassed by an old man’s foolishness.” He scooped the pennies back into the bag and handed it to me. “When you get there, give her these for me. They’re long overdue.”
    “We couldn’t take those. You should offer them yourself,” I said.
    “I’m sixty-three years old, and I’ve lived here my whole life.” He pressed the bag of copper coins into my palm and folded my fingers around it. “If I haven’t got myself up there by now, I never will. I leave this in your capable hands.”
    He lightly brushed one finger against my pendant, then looked me directly in the eye so I’d know it wasn’t an accident. He said, “I’m sure she has no interest in me now that I’m an old man, but if you think of it, say hi to Nadia for me.”

33
NEGLECT
    W hen we got back into the car, I pulled the map out of the glove compartment and started to plot our