He Said, Sidhe Said

"Don't be rude, Sam, it's their beach."

"She started it," Sam muttered.

About half way to the lighthouse, with the teenagers out of sight behind them, Diana headed for the water.

"Is it here?"

"No, it's farther west, but these shoals go out over half a mile in places, and I'd rather not be visible from shore for that long. I don't want to have to maintain a misdirection when we're wading waist deep."

"When we're wading?" Sam sniffed disdainfully at the mussel shells. "Lift me over this, would you."

"Actually," she bent and picked him up, settling his weight against her chest, "why don't I just carry you until we're in the water."

"Yeah, yeah." He sighed and adjusted his position slightly. "It's going to be cold."

"It's Lake Ontario, I don't think it ever gets warm. But don't worry, you won't feel it." As the water lapped against the beach gravel a centimetre from the toes of her shoes, Diana reached into the Possibilities and wrapped power around them. Then she stepped forward. "There's a nice, wide channel here," she said, moving carefully over the flat rock. Sam would be completely unbearable if she missed her footing and a wave knocked them down. "We can follow the rift out to deep water and..."

The bottom dropped out from under her feet.

She stopped their descent before the channel grew uncomfortably narrow. The last thing she wanted was to get her foot stuck between two rocks while under three metres of Lake Ontario with a cranky cat. Well, maybe not the last thing she wanted – being forced to sit through a marathon viewing of Question Period ranked higher on the list, but not by much.

Thanks to the zebra mussels, the water was remarkably clear – the one benefit of an invasive species that blocked intake pipes up and down the Great Lakes. Enough light made it down from the surface that they could easily see their way.

"Of course, I could see anyway," Sam reminded her as she let him go. He swam slowly around her, hair puffing out from his body. "Cats see much better than humans in low light levels." A little experimentation proved he could use his tail as a rudder. "You know, when you don't have to get wet, swimming is kind of fun. Hey! Is that a fish?"

Since the fish was moving in the right direction, and Sam didn't have a hope of catching it, Diana merely followed along behind, half her attention on the Summons, and the other half on the cat.

"Sam, come on! This way! We've got to go deeper."

"How deep?" he demanded, scattering a small school of herring.

"Right to the bottom." She slipped one arm out of her backpack and swung it around so she could pull out her flashlight. "Come on, and stop bothering the fish."

"Something has them freaked."

"They probably don't get a lot of cats down here."

"I don't think it's me. Mostly, I seem to be confusing them."

"Welcome to the club."

"What?"

"Never mind." The water was definitely getting darker. Jade green now and, finally, a little murky. "If it's not you, then what?"

"Something big."

"The sea serpent?"

He was back at her side so quickly that the impact sent her spinning slowly counter-clockwise. "Maybe."

Diana stopped the spin before her third revolution. A Keeper spinning three times counter-clockwise near an open accident site could have unpleasant – or, at the very least unlikely – consequences.

"How can you have a sea serpent in a lake?" Sam snorted in a tone that said very clearly, I wasn't scared, so don't think for a moment I was.

Diana shrugged. "I don't know. I guess because lake serpent sounds dumb."

"What's that?"

She turned the beam of the flashlight. A small piece of metal glinted on a narrow shelf of rock. "We should check it out."

"Is it part of the Summons?"

"Yes... No..." She started to swim. "Maybe." Feeling the faint tug of a current nearer the rocks, she half turned. "Stay close. I don't want you swept away."

He paddled a little faster and tucked up against her side. "Good. I don't want to be swept away."

"We're lucky it's so calm today. On a rough day with high waves, there's probably a powerful undertow through here."

"Don't want to be eaten by an under-toad," Sam muttered.

"Not under-toad. Undertow."

"You sure of that?"

Glancing down into the dark depths of the lake, Diana wasn't, so, to be on the safe side, she stopped thinking about it. The older Keepers got unnecessarily shirty about the accidental creation of creatures from folklore. As a general rule, the creatures weren't too happy about it either.

"It's the clasp off a change purse." The leather purse itself had long rotted away. "Hang on..." Slipping two fingers down into a crack in the rock, she pulled out a copper coin, too corroded to be identified further.

"You should put that back."

A second coin. She tucked them both into the front pocket of her jeans.

"Okay, fine. Don't listen to the cat."

"I need them."

"What for?"

Good question. "I don't know yet. Come on."

"Come on?" Sam repeated, paddling with all four feet to keep up. "You say that like I was the one who paused to do a little grave robbing."

"First of all, that wasn't a grave, and second," she continued before Sam could argue, "I haven't actually robbed anything since the coins are still here. In the water."

"In your pocket."

"That only counts if I take them away with me."

"So you've borrowed them?"

"More or less."

"Less," the cat snorted.

Diana let him have the last word. It was pretty much the only way to shut him up.

By the time they reached the bottom, the only illumination came from the flashlight. The water was a greenish-yellow, small particulates drifting through the path of the beam.

"Are we there yet?"

"A little further west."

The bottom was still mostly rock, but there were patches of dirt supporting a few small weeds in spite of the depth. They followed a low ridge for close to half a kilometre, stopping when it rose suddenly to within a few metres of the surface.

"This is the place," Diana said, sweeping the light over the rock. "Somewhere close and... Sam, what are you doing?"

He was floating motionless, nose-to-nose with a good-sized herring. "Staring contest."

"You can't win."

"Cats always win."

"I don't think fish have eyelids."

Sam's tail started to lash, propelling him forward. "You cheater!"

Diana couldn't be sure, but she thought the fish looked slightly sheepish as it turned and darted away. "Never mind that!" she yelled, as Sam took off in pursuit. "We're right on top of the Summons, so I'm thinking – given where we are – that we've got to find a wreck."

"In a minute!" Sam disappeared around the edge of the shoal. "I'm just gonna teach that cheating fish a..."

"Sam?"

"Found it."

"Found what?" Diana demanded as she swam after the cat. "Oh."

Much like Main Duck Island itself, the shoal rose to become a nearly-vertical underwater cliff on the north side, but fell off in layers to the south. On one layer, about a meter and a half up from the bottom, the skeletal prow of an old, wooden ship jutted out from the ridge, huge timbers held in place in the narrow angle between two slabs of canted rock and preserved by the cold of the water.

"Well, this is..."

"Obvious," snorted Sam. "Big hunk of rock rising toward the surface. Exposed wreck. Probably been a hundred divers down here every summer."

"Probably," Diana agreed, swimming closer. "But this is where the hole is, I'm sure of it. Somebody did something sometime recently."

"Oh, that's definitive," Sam sighed, following her in.

The hole she'd been Summoned to close was not part of the wreck, but in the rock beside it, where a narrow crevice cut down into the lake bed.

"Isn't the word hole usually more of a metaphorical description," Sam wondered as Diana floated head down and feet up, peering into the crevice.

"Usually. Still is, mostly." The actual opening between this world and the nastier end of the Possibilities stretched out on both sides of the crevice, but it was centred over the dark, triangular crack in the rock. "There's something down here."

"I'm guessing fish poo."

"And you'd be right."

"Eww."

"But something else, too." Tucking the flashlight under her chin, Diana grabbed onto a rock with her left hand and snaked her right down into the crack. "Almost..."

"If you lose that hand, are you still going to be able to use a can opener?"

"I'm not going to lose the hand!"

"I'm just asking."

Sharp edges of rock dug into her arm as she forced her hand deeper, her jacket riding up away from her wrist. One fingertip touched... something. Even such a gentle pressure moved whatever it was away. A little further. Another touch. She managed to finally hook it between her first two fingers.

"Uh, Diana, about that sea serpent..."

"What about it?" She'd have to move her arm slowly and carefully out of the crack, or she'd lose whatever she was holding.

"It's either heading this way from the other side of the wreck, or the Navy's running a submarine in the Great Lakes."

"I pick option B."

"And you'd be wrong."

Time to yank; she could always pick the thing up again. Unfortunately, a sharp tug didn't free her arm. Bright side, she managed to hang onto the thing. Not-so-bright side, approaching sea serpent.

Wait! If her arm was stuck, then she didn't need to hold the rock, and if she didn't need to hold the rock...

She grabbed the flashlight and aimed the beam toward the wreck, hoping it would be enough. Pulling power from the Possibilities over a hole would not be smart. There were worse things than lake monsters out beyond the edges of reality.

Framed between two rotting timbers, green eyes flashed gold in the light. Mouth gaping, the sea serpent folded back on itself and fled, the final flick of its triangular tail knocking a bit of board off the wreck.

"Looks bigger up close," Diana noted, trying to remember how to breathe.

"You think!" Sam snarled, paws and tail thrashing as he bobbed about in currents stirred up by the creature's passage.

"Maybe it was just curious."

"Sure it was. Because you get that big eating plankton!"

"Whales do."

"Some whales do, and that was not a whale! That was a predator. I know a predator when I see one!"

Diana tucked the flashlight back under her chin and reached out to stroke the line of raised hair along Sam's spine – the Possibility that allowed them to move and breathe underwater granting the touch. "You're shouting."

He speared her with an amber gaze. "I don't want to be eaten by a sea serpent."

"Who does?"

"Who cares?" he snapped. "The point is, I don’t. Let's get that hole closed and get back on dry land before I'm a canapé."

Diana had to admit he had a point, although she admitted it silently rather than give him more ammunition for complaints. The serpent was about ten metres long and almost a meter in diameter. A five-kilo cat would be barely a mouthful. The sooner she got the hole closed, the better.

Carefully, but as quickly as she could, she worked her right hand out of the crack and, when it was finally free, dropped a fragment of bone into the palm of her left.

"The graveyard of Lake Ontario," Sam noted solemnly, his cinnamon nose nearly touching her hand. "There's more than just ships at rest down here."

"Not every body washed ashore," Diana agreed, with a sigh. "I'm betting there's more of this body down in that crevice."

"You think it got smashed and that's what made the hole?"

"I think someone – probably someone diving around the wreck – smashed it deliberately, and that's what made the hole."

"You need to get the rest of the bone out."

It wasn't a question, but she answered it anyway. "I do."

"Great. Considering how long the first piece took, we're going to be down here forever, and that serpent's going to come back, and it's going to be kitties and bits. You're the bits," he added.

"Thanks, I got that. You're not usually this fatalistic."

"Hello? Lake monster. Cat at the bottom of Lake Ontario."

"You worry too much. Now that I've got one piece out, I can call the rest to it. It'll be fast." She held the hand holding the bone out over the crack and Called. Other fragments floated up, danced in the water, and, after a moment or two, formed most of a human jaw.

Suddenly conscious of being watched, Diana whirled around to see a herring hanging in the water. "What?"

Silver sides flashing, it swam about two metres away then stopped, turned, and continued staring.

"Is that your friend from before?"

"We're not friends," Sam snorted. "Get on with it."

Diana studied the jaw. "There's a tooth missing."

Sam looked from the curved bone to the Keeper. "A tooth?"

"Okay, a bunch of teeth and the rest of the skeleton, but right here... see where the reformed jaw is a different shade?" She touched it lightly with the tip of one finger. "There was a tooth in there until recently. Whoever did this cracked the jaw and took the tooth."

"Why?"

"People'll notice if you come up from a dive with most of a jaw, but you can hide a tooth."

Sam licked his shoulder thoughtfully, frowned when his tongue made no impression on his fur because of the Possibilities keeping him dry, and finally said, "Cats don't care about the things we leave behind."

"People do. Disturbing a body – even one this old – in order to get a souvenir is illegal, immoral, and kind of gross. So, now we have a problem."

"The lake monster."

"No."

Before she could continue, Sam shifted so he was almost vertical in the water and pointed upwards with one front paw. "Yes!"

A long line of undulating darkness passed between them and the surface, turned, and passed again a little closer.

"Okay, problems. Plural. I need the tooth to close the hole."

"Great." Sam kept his eyes on the serpent, now one pass closer. "So call it."

Diana reached out and grabbed him as the lashing of his tail propelled him upwards. "Two problems with that. One, it might be locked away and not able to move freely, and, two, we don't know how far away it is. Staying down here indefinitely is really not an option. We need to go to it."

"And?"

"And that's not a problem: given that we've got the rest of the jaw, we'll just follow it. The problem is, I can't pull from the Possibilities this close to the hole."

"So we leave and come back another day. And when I say we come back," Sam amended, as he wriggled free and started swimming toward shore, "I mean you."

Diana grabbed him again. "Did I mention that the serpent has to go back through the hole before I close it? If we leave and come back, the serpent could be anywhere, not to mention that another serpent – or worse – could come through."

"You're just full of good news."

"But, I have a plan."

"Oh, joy."

"You won't like it."

He sighed. "Why am I not surprised?"

"I'm going to use the Possibilities that are keeping us dry and breathing."

"There's a problem with that." He squirmed around until he looked her in the face. "They're keeping us dry and breathing."

"We take a deep breath, and the next instant we'll be standing by the missing tooth."

"That doesn't sound so bad."

"We'll just be a little wet."

"When you say a little, you mean..."

"Completely."

He locked his claws in her jacket. "No."

"Would you rather be eaten by the lake monster?"

Sam glanced toward the surface. The serpent was close enough that Diana could see the broad band of lighter-brown scales around its neck. It seemed to be picking up speed with each pass, confidence growing as nothing opposed it.

"Sam?"

"I'm thinking."

There were teeth visible just inside the broad mouth. Rather too many teeth, in Diana's opinion. Rather too many teeth suddenly facing them. And closing fast. Really, really fast. "Take a deep breath, Sam."

"I don't..."

"Now!"

And they were standing, dripping, in a basement workshop, the room barely lit by two low windows.

"I'm wet!" Claws breaking through denim to skin, Sam leapt out of Diana's arms and raced around the room, spraying water from his sodden fur. "Wet! Wet! Ahhhhh! Wet!" Tail clamped tight to his body, he disappeared under the lower shelf of the workbench.

"Oh for..." Far enough from the hole that all Possibilities were open to her, Diana reached. "There. Now, you're dry."

"I'm still sitting in a puddle," came a disgruntled voice from under the bench.

"So move." Taking her own advice, Diana stepped out of a puddle of her own and held out the jaw. "Can you hear that?"

"I have water in my ears."

"Sam!"

"Fine." He crawled out from under the bench, shook, and sat, head cocked. "I hear tapping."

"Can you find it?"

The look he shot her promised dire consequences.

"I'm sorry. Would you find it? Please." Not a compulsion, just a polite request. Compelling cats had much the same success rate as Senate reform, which was to say, none at all.

The tooth was in a small plastic box, tucked inside a red, metal tool box, shoved to the back of an upper shelf.

"What's the point of having a souvenir no one can see?" Sam wondered as the tooth settled back into the jaw with an audible click.

"I guess the point's having it. Let's go."

"In a minute." He walked over to where a full wet suit hung on the wall, neoprene booties lined up neatly under it. Tail held high, he turned around.

"What are you doing?"

He looked up at her like she was an idiot. In fairness, it was a stupid question.

"Good aim," she acknowledged when he finished. "I just hope they don't have a cat that can be blamed when he puts that boot on next."

"They don't."

"You really got upset about him taking that tooth," she murmured, bending and scooping him up.

"Please," he snorted, settling into the crook of her arm. "I got wet!"

"Who are you?"

She stared at Sam, who shrugged in an unhelpful manner, then turned toward the piping voice.

A little girl, no more than five, stood in the open doorway, half hanging off the door knob. Behind her, a rec room; empty but for a scattering of brightly-coloured toys.

Diana glanced down at the jaw and smiled. "I'm the tooth fairy," she said, reached into the Possibilities, and allowed the bone to pull them back to the wreck.

The serpent was nowhere in sight, but since they hadn't been gone long, she figured it hadn't gone far. The trick would be getting it to come back.

"Sam! What are you doing?"

He paused, up on his hind legs, front claws embedded in a squared piece of timber. "Is that a trick question?"

"Just stop it."

"Fine." Sighing, he swam back over beside her. "Now what?"

"We need to lure the serpent back through the hole before I can close it."

"I refuse to be bait."

"I wasn't going to ask."

"Good."

She nodded at the lone herring watching from the shelter of the wreck. "I need you to talk to your friend."

"It's a fish."

"So?"