Mercy Thompson 06 - River Marked

who had been relocated to the Columbia.
    Fred frowned and glanced at Jim. “I told you those otters we saw looked odd. Their heads are the wrong shape.”
    “I have seen them,” said Gordon, his voice dismissing their importance. “Prophecy is a weak crutch to lean on.”
    “Have you met Edythe?” I asked in an interested voice. “Short. Usually looks about ten?”
    Gordon raised his eyebrows, and I thought that the answer might have been yes.
    I smiled cheerfully at him. “Fae are deceptive. The weaker and more harmless they appear, the more dangerous they are likely to be. Edythe is probably the scariest monster in a raft of scary monsters. I’m not inclined to discount anything she said. And I’m not sure relegating the otterkin to harmless—even though our contact with the fae seemed to be doing it—is very smart.”
    “They aren’t eating people,” observed Fred.
    “That you know of,” I said at the same time that Adam said, “Yet.”
    He smiled at me. “I’ll admit that they don’t appear to be part of this—but I don’t like that they are here. They were watching Mercy when she pulled Benny out of the water.”
    “I have a few more things to add,” I said. And just then the wind picked up a little, and Benny’s sister, Faith, sat down beside me on the edge of the ice chest. I looked at the others—at Fred, Hank, and Gordon, who were supposed to be like me—expecting . . . I don’t know. Some sort of recognition, I suppose. But no one jumped up and exclaimed the dead woman’s name—or even seemed to see her. Not even Gordon Seeker.
    “It wants him,” she said. She wasn’t looking at me; she was looking at Hank.
    “Him who?” I asked.
    “Benny.” She sighed. “Stupid. I know better than to lean out over the water like that. But he was stupid, too. I can swim. He should have stayed in the boat. But now . . . it’s like the crocodile in Peter Pan . It’s had a bite of him and wants the whole meal.”
    “We’ll keep him safe,” I told her.
    Everyone was watching us—or me at least. Adam had stood and was holding up his hand, keeping the others from interrupting. It might not be important—sometimes ghosts could be incredibly stubborn. But sometimes a loud noise or a sudden move, and they disappeared like rabbits.
    “I don’t know if you can keep him safe,” she said sadly. “You know, in the story, all the first people the river monster ate came back to life after it was dead.”
    “I thought Coyote left it alive?”
    She turned toward me, finally, and smiled. It didn’t look like a smile that should be on the face of a dead woman. She had a good smile. “There are several versions of that story. When he was a little boy, Calvin always did like the ones in which everyone lived.”
    She stood up and wandered over to the grill, her fingers passing through the grating, and pressed on the coals beyond.
    “Be careful,” she told me, her gaze on the coal. “When it marks someone, they belong to it.” She looked at Hank again.
    “It was always him for me, you know? Ever since high school. But he never had eyes for me.” She turned to me in sudden alarm. “Don’t tell him that. He doesn’t deserve to feel guilty.”
    “I won’t,” I assured her.
    “And don’t believe Jim’s mysterious-Indian schtick, either. He’s got a Ph.D. in psychology and taught over at UW in Seattle until he retired last year.”
    She put her hands back on the grill, but this time she didn’t go through the grating but kept them on top of the hot metal, tapping her fingers lightly on the grill as if it fascinated her that she could do that without burning herself. I wanted to go and pull them off, even though I knew it couldn’t hurt her anymore.
    She glanced at the Owens brothers. “And Fred trains cuttin’ horses. He’s starting to make a name for himself. Hank works with him on the business side, then does welding to help balance the books.”
    “Why are you telling me all this?” I asked.
    “So I remember,” she whispered. “Tell them not to call my name. I don’t want to stay here like this. Tell Benny I’m okay. Tell him to pick a flower for me and put it on Mama’s grave this year for me.”
    I had never dealt with a ghost quite this coherent before. Usually, they don’t even notice me. The few that do don’t really seem to be aware that they are dead.
    “I’ll tell them,” I promised, helpless to do anything to make this easier on anyone.
    She looked up and