Summermoon Fire

Chapter two-1

Chapter two

TessaThe disappearance of the Irrayan has been a contentious subject amongst anthropologists. We guess far more than we know for certain.

Dr. Theodore Black, A Study of the Irrayan Belief in Yannfar

“Would you like some sangria?” Tessa Kivelson pushed aside poster board and markers, and passed a plastic jug filled with sliced citrus fruit and wine across the picnic table as Jane sat down on the bench.

Jane shook her head and pointed to the bottle by her side. “No thanks. I’ll stick to water.”

Tessa shook her golden curls and gave her best friend a wry smile. “My goodness, Dr. Piper. You are taking your responsibilities very seriously these days. Just because Lut can’t have any...”

Jane adroitly changed the subject. “Love the new deck. Jakob has done a magnificent job on it. And don’t forget, I’m Dr. Armstrong-Piper now, swabbie.” She laughed as she looked at the wide gold band on the third finger of her left hand. “I still can’t get used to it being there.”

“Me either.” Tessa sighed and took a sip of sangria, then went back to work with the markers.

Jane bent her head to see what Tessa was making. Her dark hair fell down into her eyes, so she tucked it behind her ears. “What are those signs for?”

“I need to rent out a few more of the cottages.” Tessa had cut fish-shaped pieces of poster board, and now added her contact details with a wide black marker.

“Very cute,” Jane observed. “But why are you so keen to rent them all of a sudden? Don’t they usually fill up by the end of the summer anyway?”

Tessa looked vague. “Oh, you know. I’m trying to fix the place up, and that takes money. But I didn’t ask you here to rattle on about me. I want to hear all about your honeymoon.” She looked a little enviously at Jane’s trim legs, exposed by a pair of white shorts. “You got a great tan on the boat.”

Jane stared over the railing of Tessa’s deck, to the rocky shores of Cloudy Bay, where a tall man stood next to a pair of fishing rods. The wind stirred his long blond hair as Lut turned and waved, somehow sensing her eyes upon him. Jane gave him a dreamy smile. “It was... fantastic. We flew straight down to Aruba after the wedding. Lut had already organized a twenty-six foot yacht for us to cruise around the islands. All we had to do was sign a few papers and we were off.”

“That’s a pretty big boat. Weren’t you worried about crewing it with only the two of you?”

Jane shook her head, her brown eyes warm with pride. “Lut knows everything about sailing. He is an amazing teacher too. So patient. By the time the two weeks were up he had me trimming the sails just like a pro!”

Tessa’s voice was curiously flat. “Sounds like absolute heaven. You must have been sorry to go back to work last week.”

“Not really... I enjoyed the break, but we have so many things we want to do here, I was looking forward to getting back too. The closing on our farm is coming up in less than a week and then we have to visit the sale yards in Franklin to see about some stock. I can’t believe we’ll soon be living on a hundred and twenty acres with our own flock of sheep and lambs. Did I tell you the farm is called Nant y Dafad? That means valley of sheep in Welsh. How cool is that?”

Tessa gave Jane a sidelong glance. “So Lut will be running the farm, while you keep your pathology practice? Do you think that will work?”

“Why wouldn’t it? Lut has been studying animal husbandry for the last three years at Tech. And his mother kept stock on the island he grew up on.”

“It just seems like such a huge venture...”

Jane gazed fondly at her husband’s broad shoulders. “He’s a big boy. I think he can handle it.”

Tessa gave a delicate sigh. “I just worry that he is pushing you into something you might not be ready for.”

“Pushing me?” Jane broke into laughter.

“What’s so funny?”

“Don’t you know how many times I had to ask him to marry me before he finally agreed?”

Tessa shook her head in surprise.

“Three times. Once for each year we have known each other. He kept saying he had to get himself straight and find a job. I told him it didn’t matter, I’d be perfectly happy to pay the bills while he did what he needed to do, but Lut insisted we needed to wait for the right tide before we launched our boat together. I was totally shocked when he finally got down on one knee to ask for my hand.”

“Oh really? How... quaint.”

Jane frowned, and gazed at Tessa’s face intently. “What gives?”

“Nothing... I... What do you mean, Jane?” Tessa’s eyes visited the depths of her wine glass.

“You just seem kind of depressed or something. Worried about the beginning of term? You are full Professor Kivelson now, assistant head of Anthropology. That’s a pretty big promotion. Are you having opening night jitters?”

Tessa shrugged. “I’ll be teaching all the same classes, except for a new one on the Irrayan culture.”

“Well, what’s eating you then?”

She forced a smile. “Nothing much. I’m fine, and so is...”

Jakob pushed open the kitchen door and stuck his head out. “Tessa? Where are you?”

“Here, at the picnic table. With Jane.” Tessa jumped as the screen door slammed behind him. A pair of great egret, that had been expectantly watching Lut fish, took to the sky with a rush of snow-white wings.

Jakob strode across the deck and around the house, to the sunny side facing the bay. “Must be nice,” he growled to himself when he saw Tessa’s wine glass. “I thought you were going to help me?”

Jane stared at him, thinking, as always, how alike Jakob and Lut were. But whereas Lut looked relaxed and happy after the honeymoon, Jakob’s face was tense, his eyes clouded, as he hovered impatiently, waiting for Tessa’s answer.

She slid over so he could join her on the bench. “I will, I promise. After Jane goes. I haven’t seen her in ages. Come and sit down with us and have some sangria. You look like you could use a break.”

He turned away, shaking his head. “No, thanks. Someone has to take responsibility for the important stuff. I guess it will have to be me.”

Jane called to his retreating back, “Hello, Jakob. I missed you too.” Her frown redoubled as the screen door slammed again. “Okay, Tessa. Out with it. What’s up with Mr. Shorts-in-a-twist?”

Tessa didn’t answer her right away. What was wrong with Jakob? She wondered if his brother’s success in adjusting to their new home bothered him more than he let on. Lut had gotten a driver’s license, finished a couple of years of school, and made more than enough money to split the down-payment on the farm with Jane.

Jakob, on the other hand...

“He just doesn’t seem to fit in here, Jane. I’ve tried and tried to get him to learn to drive, but he’s happy with that crappy ten-speed he found on someone’s trash pile. And he won’t get a proper job.” She sighed in frustration. “Don’t get me wrong. He isn’t lazy or anything. Captain Romine says he is great on the Damsel, and he gets paid plenty for helping with the charter fishing tours, but...”

Jane waited, sipping her water. “But?”

“I just wonder if he is deliberately trying not to put down roots...”

“In case he is only passing through?” Jane finished for her. “Come on, Tessa. Jakob adores you. It’s obvious, even when he is being a grumpy jerk, like now. What are you supposed to be helping with, anyway?”

“He is looking for Suvi’s mirror.” Tessa smiled sheepishly. “I stashed it away somewhere, to keep it safe, and now I can’t remember what I did with it.”

“Why? I thought we were through with all that mess.” She looked suddenly fearful. “Maybe he has seen a Poly...”

Tessa shrugged. “I think he would have told me if he had. But something is bothering him. About a week ago, he started asking me about the mirror. We looked around all the places I might have put it, with no luck. Now he’s clearing out Suvi’s storeroom, in case it got in there by mistake.”

“Has he found anything interesting yet?”

“A big dusty pile of old books. Oh, and a weird box with carving all over it. Remind me to show it to you when we go back inside.”

“But no mirror?”

“No,” said Tessa, softly. “No mirror.” She watched as Lut’s rod dipped, and he snatched it from its holder in the rocks. With practiced ease, he began to reel in the line, playing the fish on the other end.

Jane jumped up. “I’d better give him a hand. Back in a second.” She vaulted the deck railing and landed gracefully on the sand.

Faint sounds of banging and cursing drifted out of the open kitchen window of Sea Drift. Tessa looked behind her and grimaced, then reached for the wine again.

Jane and Lut made a perfect tableau with the setting sun behind them. She held the net as he hauled in the spotted sea trout that had struck at the bait. Lut said something to Jane, and she threw back her head in a shout of laughter. He disentangled the fish from the net, gently removed the hook from its mouth and returned it to the Bay. Then Lut curled a massive arm about Jane’s waist and lifted her off the ground, into a long kiss. Tessa exhaled noisily and looked away.

She was deep into her third glass of sangria by the time Jane rejoined her on the deck. “Sorry about that.” She grinned. “Funny, I always thought fishing was so boring. But with Lut...”

Tessa interrupted, a little huffily. “What was wrong with the fish?”

Jane had subsided into dreaminess again. “What? Oh. That one wasn’t big enough to keep. Doesn’t matter though. He’s already caught three for supper. Want to help me clean them?”

* * * *

Later, around midnight, as Tessa lay in bed beside Jakob, she asked him, “Are you going to keep on looking for the mirror tomorrow? We’ve just about torn apart the whole house.”

Jakob rolled over and looked to the ceiling. “We haven’t even started on the attic yet. You might have put it there when you packed away all the Christmas decorations in January.”

He kept his voice light, but Tessa saw unspoken tension in the line of his jaw; the flicker of his eyelids. “I really don’t think I did. But... Why do you want the mirror so badly, all of a sudden? I mean, if we can’t find it, then no one else can either. Why not let it rest?”

She could feel his body stiffen, though he wasn’t touching her. “Something like that shouldn’t be left unguarded, Tessa. Even though we believe that Tristan is no longer a threat, there might be others who want the mirror. I just can’t forget about it.”

“Others?” Tessa did not try to disguise the nervousness in her voice.

“Maybe. If that looking glass is the last shard of Geya’s mirror then it would be worth a great deal — to some people.”

“Who in the world is Geya?”

He turned again, and faced the wall — addressing his answer to it rather than Tessa. “One of the Amaranthine.”

“The beings who made Tom’s knife?”

“Yes.”

Tessa felt his interest in the conversation winding down, like a nearly spent hourglass. She tried to restart it. “Was your father one of them? An Amaranthine?”

Jakob took so long over his answer that she gently touched his back to see if he had dropped off. He hadn’t. “Dad’s grandmother, Eydis, raised him and his elder sister Gytha after their parents drowned. Eydis also ruled the Amaranthine for many turns of the Gyre. So I think he grew up surrounded by their influence. But later, when he found his own strength, and became the Mariner, he refused to have anything to do with them. Even after they asked him to be their new Stavebearer.”

She hadn’t expected such a flood of information, and she found it a little disturbing. In the three years they had been together, Jakob had spoken only rarely of his past. Now she wondered what had changed and what else he would be willing to tell her. “Why not? If they were his family, I mean?”