Fathom by Cherie Priest Page A

the deck and stared at the stars again, and he knew exactly where he was. The world had changed, but it had not changed so much that the sky would mislead him. There was the moon, half-full and casting pale slivers of wobbly light across the Gulf. There was the great bear, and the crow. Over there, the twins. A few degrees this way, and that way, and he knew where to find his old island.
    He was being watched. It occurred to him gradually, and without alarm.
    He nodded his head down at the water to greet the figure there.
    She rose up, all night-black skin and long hair, up to where her waist would be if she were the woman she appeared.
    Where is that coming from?
she asked.
    “What do you mean?”
    The music. Don’t you hear it?
    He did hear it, one stray note at a time wafting up from inside the ship like smoke. “It’s a music box. Bernice found it, and she seems to like it. I suppose she’ll keep it.”
    Arahab’s eyes glinted sharply.
Is that all?
    “As far as I know. Might it be otherwise?”
    It might be. I know the song, and I do not care for it.
    “Then
you
take it away from her. She won’t have it from me.” When she didn’t respond, the silence between the deck and the water was uncomfortable, so he broke it. “It’s only a tune, you know. A harmless thing, if unpleasant on the ears.”
    Is that what you think?
    “It’s what I must assume. An empty box on an empty boat. I promised her that we could trade it for a bigger box, full of proper treasure. I thought she was greedy enough to put it aside, but sometimes I don’t understand the way she thinks, not at all.”
    I know that tune,
she said again.
I know who wrote the words that accompany it
.
    “Does it upset you? I can force the issue if you like. I’ll take it away from her if you cannot bear to hear it.”
    Then the woman in the water said,
It means something.
    José smiled, confused. “What does it mean?” he asked, but then she was gone.
    He watched the water, knowing she wouldn’t return butwondering where she’d gone. Finally he walked to the anchor and turned the crank to lift it.
    The chain withdrew with a rhythmic series of soft clanks, and the noise was loud against the distant hum of a city in the midst of a carnival. The
Gasparilla
shook and rocked. The anchor came aboard and the boat began to drift.
    José reached for the ropes that would move the sails.

 
     
     
     
     
The Exposition of Evidence
     
     
    T he two men with clipboards entered the derelict courtyard. The no trespassing sign did not apply to business as official as theirs. And as far as Sam could see, the sign was so regularly ignored that it may as well have been an invitation. “Why do they even bother to leave that up?” he asked. “No one pays any attention to it.”
    Sam kicked one leg, trying to shake away the burrs and bugs that had collected in the folded cuff of his pants.
    Dave shrugged his big loose shoulders. “It’s private property. Or maybe it isn’t. I’m not sure.”
    “It’s going to be soon, if Langan buys it.” Sam’s glasses wereretreating down his nose on a slide of sweat. He used his middle finger to jam them back up his face. They slid down again almost immediately. “It’s a nice house,” he observed, removing his hat and using it to fan himself.
    “Nice and expensive.”
    The house was an architectural mix of art deco and Spanish colonial, stuccoed from lawn to roof in a pleasing shade of light coral. Black iron accents barred the windows and guarded the balcony that once overlooked the Gulf, though since the house’s abandonment, the view had become blocked by tangles of weeds and vines. The grass-covered dune that marked the end of the property and the beginning of the beach had grown up high and thick.
    Sam could hear the ocean, but he couldn’t see it. “How long has it been empty?” he asked the off-duty fireman who accompanied him.
    “Three or four years. Nobody’s ever lived in it. The woman who owned it