Chapter 1 #2
“Then he must love me dearly.”
“Are you bringing the cat?” Inga asked. She hadn’t thought about that, and she suddenly had concerns.
The household furniture and rugs would probably be fine—they’d survived three kids and a procession of childhood pets, after all—but she had seen what Bernie’s cat could do to an item that he took a particular dislike to.
“No,” Bernie said. “We tried, but he was having none of it. We’ll just go up there to feed and love on him once or twice, and he’ll be all right. He’s an independent cat.”
“Were you leaving right away?” Tor asked Inga.
“Yeah, as soon as I can cast off.”
“Be careful,” Tor said seriously. “There are some reports of heavy weather coming in. The forecasters aren’t sure it’ll hit us, but if you’re going out in that little dinghy, keep an eye open.”
Inga snorted. “Remember how we used to toodle around everywhere in that thing when we were kids? Including a lot of places we shouldn’t have gone in a boat that size.”
“Yeah, but we were kids and didn’t know any better.”
“And we were fine,” she pointed out. “Anyway, if I do get into trouble, I’ll just shift and swim ashore as a polar bear. No harm done.” She kissed his cheek. “Now stop being a worried big brother. I’m going to get on the road.”
“I’ll walk you out,” Bernie offered. “I need to grab my water bottle out of the car.”
Tor immediately looked anxious. “I’ll get it, hon.”
“No! I need the exercise. Unpack the groceries.”
Inga grabbed her bag and they went out, with Inga moving slowly in deference to Bernie’s condition and her unhinged hips.
“Is that all you’re taking with you?” Bernie asked, nodding to Inga’s backpack.
“There’s a cooler in the boat already with some food and sandwiches. That’s all I need.”
“I tend to forget that you shifters can just live off the land if you want to.” Bernie frowned at her. “Is this just a fun trip, or is there some other reason?”
“It’s just a fun trip,” Inga said. “And, well—I need to do some thinking about the future. Sometimes that can be easier to do away from home.”
She adjusted the bag on her shoulder and looked up at the dazzling array of colorful houses rising above them up the side of the hill. The air smelled fresh and crisp.
Home. This had been home for her whole life. She and Bernie walked to the base of the pier, where steps led down to the small skiff she and her brothers called the Dingboat, tied up on the beach.
“Oh, someone’s decorated the gargoyle all up for spring,” Bernie said suddenly.
Inga looked around. One of the town’s many gargoyle statues stood near the Westerly Inn, and Bernie was right.
The flowers around its base had been recently replanted and were just starting to bloom, adding a touch of vibrant color to the already colorful town.
And to the gargoyle itself, this person had added a festive lei—a garland of plastic flowers—around its neck.
Having lived in Westerly Cove all her life, Inga barely thought about the statues anymore. They were simply there, all over the town. There were more on the roof of the Westerly Inn, peering over the edge. From where she stood, she could see at least a dozen of them.
“When I first moved here,” Bernie said, “I remember people telling me there’s a local legend that the gargoyles will come to life to defend the town if it’s ever in danger.”
“I grew up hearing that,” Inga said. She smiled. “But I’ve certainly never seen it. I don’t even know what sort of danger would threaten the town, because the other thing I’ve heard is that no one who means harm to the people here can cross the town borders.”
“Do you believe in it?”
“I’m not sure,” Inga admitted. “I do know that I can’t think of a safer place to raise your baby.” She grinned. “Or your moose.”
Bernie moaned and placed a hand on her baby-swollen stomach. “Please, no. I was joking. It’s not possible for it to turn out to be anything other than a bear like Tor, is it?”
“I don’t know. A lot of it depends on your heritage, and Tor’s.
The Westerly family are all seals, and us Nilssons are all bears as far as I know.
But many shifter families intermarry, so you can have quite a mixed shifter heritage if you go back a few generations.
And new types of shifters might show up in a family now and then, too. ”
“What makes that happen?” Now Bernie looked very nervous. “It’s not something like, the more I think about moose, the more likely I am to have a baby moose?”
Inga tried to stifle a laugh. “It’s not going to be a moose at first, no matter what. It’ll be a regular baby. You’ll find out what he or she shifts into later on.”
With a whirring of wings, something fast and furry sped past them, slammed into a mooring post and clung to it, looking down at them.
“As long as it’s not one of those, I guess,” Bernie said.
The creature had long white seagull wings with black tips, attached to the furry body of an opossum. It peered down at them around its beak, with its hairless tail dangling down the lamppost and its small handlike feet clinging to the pole, and hissed.
A moment later, another one landed above the first. This one had the body of a raccoon and the wings of a slightly darker gull. The opossum griffin spread its wings and hissed. The other made a low cooing sound, darting its head back and forth as if to charm the first one.
The possum seemed unimpressed.
“I am going to also venture a guess,” Bernie said, looking up at them, “that spring is the time when trash griffins, uh, do the thing that all animals do in the spring.”
“Yeah, there’s a nest underneath the pier. I think they’re also nesting in the cliffs.”
“Are they from around here? I’ve never seen them anywhere else.”
“I don’t have any idea where they’re from,” Inga said. “They just showed up one day, following Eren and his mate, and now there’s a whole breeding population around.”
Bernie laughed. “This place is truly unique.”
“Tell me about it.”
Inga looked around at the town, its gargoyles, and its weird wildlife one last time. She couldn’t say why, but some part of her seemed to sense that things were about to change. When she came back, she would be coming back different. If she decided to come back at all ...
Then she shook off the sense of melancholy.
It was too beautiful a day for it. In spite of Tor’s warnings, the weather was lovely, with a blue sky and clouds scudding rapidly past. Maybe that fresh wind was bringing in a storm, but right now she felt wide awake with all the promise of spring.
It was the kind of day when anything felt possible.
“Take care of yourself,” she said, hugging Bernie carefully around her pregnant belly. “I’ll be back in a few days. If the baby moose decides to come early, reserve my godmother rights.”
Bernie hugged her back. “We wouldn’t want anyone else.”
Inga climbed down the old wooden steps to the beach. The Dingboat was moored to one of the pilings where it could rise and fall with the changing of the tide. Right now the tide was low, so she walked to it across the fishy-smelling rocky beach, strewn with seaweed and other beachwrack.
Out on the bay, a handful of seal heads bobbed.
Inga smiled and waved, although she didn’t think they saw her.
That would be the Westerly family. The entire town were used to seeing them there, although only the shifters of the town and those in on the shifter secret were aware that it was anything other than a family of seals who liked to play in the horseshoe-shaped bay and sun themselves on the rocks across from the town.
Inga climbed into the skiff. It was about as rudimentary as this kind of vessel got, a beat-up metal boat long enough for two crosswise bench seats and an outboard motor at the back.
She stowed her pack next to the cooler, which was lashed down in case of waves, and tucked the backpack under a strap.
There were life vests stowed next to it, along with other emergency supplies.
As she had told Tor, Inga felt no concern.
She had never feared the water. She had been swimming as both a polar bear cub and a human since she was old enough to dog paddle.
She untied the heavy, damp rope and tossed it into the bottom of the boat, then pushed off with a hand on the piling it had been tied to.
The boat floated free with the next rolling back of the waves.
Inga started the motor with a pull on the cord.
Someone must have tuned up the engine lately, probably Dad, because it started on the first try and ran like a dream.
With an expert hand on the tiller, she arrowed across the bay, past the shifter seals, who splashed their flippers and rolled on their backs to wave at her. Inga waved back, and then she was past them and out into the open water.
Now that she was clear of the bay, she could see the storm that Tor had mentioned, a dark blue line of clouds barely visible on the distant horizon.
It was always difficult to say for sure what such storms might do, so she decided not to worry about it yet; with these clear skies, she would have plenty of warning before it hit the coast.
The boat rocked on long, regular swells of the deep blue-gray water. Large chunks of ice bobbed past her, remnants of the great polar ice sheet to the north that was breaking up around its edges in the spring thaw and drifting south.
Inga deftly avoided them and turned the bow of the boat north.