“So she returned to her own time … and sent me back here to handle this intruder in her stead?”
“I don’t think that she—it—expected you to handle it,” I said. “I wish I could say otherwise. The Yith retreat when they think a situation is beyond what they can, or should, deal with. And they’re usually better equipped than whoever takes their place.”
Her lips quirked. “Very reassuring.”
“Could your family help?” Charlie asked me.
I’d been thinking about that. “I don’t know. But they’re probably our best option right now.” Snow pattered against the window, almost drowned out by the wind that rattled the glass. Snow would cover the sand, wind send the waves surging toward the dune and crashing over Union Reef. But the cold thing wouldn’t wait for the storm’s end. “We need to try and get Miss Ward first. She’s doing worse than any of us.”
“Who are your family?” asked Professor Trumbull. “Why do you think they can help?”
I yearned to go back to San Francisco, where I didn’t keep needing to explain myself. “Are you from around here?”
“I grew up in Kingsport—though I went to Pembroke. I don’t trust people who spend their whole lives in the county, especially professors who’ve never left except to hare off to Antarctica or some such for a few months.”
“What do you know about Innsmouth?”
“Aside from it being a ghost town? Rumors that I would have dismissed until a few minutes ago. Are you a hybrid fish monster, then?”
I sighed. “I’m from an amphibious branch of the human race. I’m not a hybrid anything. We prefer ‘Chyrlid Ajha’ or ‘People of the Water.’ Or ‘Deep Ones,’ though that’s a bit poetic for everyday use. We live a long time, after metamorphosis. Not as long as a Yith, but Archpriest Ngalthr or my grandfather are likely to have a lot more experience with this kind of thing than I do.”
“Can they help me remember?” There was an urgency in her voice that I hadn’t heard before.
“I don’t know. But they’ll certainly have worked with people who hosted Yith. They’ll know what can be done, if anything can.”
She leaned forward. “What do they look like?”
I blinked; my eyes felt like ice cubes. “My family?”
“The Yith.”
“Oh.” I had a picture in the children’s text downstairs. I’d show it to her later. “No one knows what their original bodies looked like. But the one you would have been in … wrinkled, conical forms, about ten feet tall, and moving on a sort of a rippling base. Four limbs coming out of the top, with pincers on two of them, funnels for eating on the third, and the head on another. Three eyes on the head, and tentacles for picking things up. I can show you illustrations.”
She closed her eyes. “I can almost picture it. But I don’t know if what I’m picturing is real.”
“Maybe the elders can tell you.” I stood and went to the window. The blizzard showed no sign of abating, and even the draft made me ache. Warmth, still flowing from the others, held it back a little. I closed my eyes and felt along the less comfortable connection. There was direction to the fragile threads. “We need to go by the library. And then drive to Innsmouth. I don’t think this can wait for better weather.”
“I don’t think so either,” said Audrey. She sounded steady, but through the confluence I felt the chill within her, and the darkness around it.
“Do you drive?” I asked Trumbull. “I don’t know how we’re going to fit everyone otherwise.”
“It’s been a while.” She frowned. “It was two days ago. Or feels like it. Except that it doesn’t at all. But yes, I drive. I hope my … guest … kept the gas tank full.” She looked around the room. “Miss Marsh, where is Emily?”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “Who’s Emily?”
“My maid. She should be here.”
“Trumb—your guest—didn’t keep any servants. She said something about letting a maid go who she worried might notice the change.”
“Damn it! How—” She opened the door and peered out into the hallway. The missing woman failed to materialize. “Never mind. I’ll find her again once the storm’s passed.”
“I’m sorry,” said Caleb. He shrugged. “The Yith don’t tend to maintain relationships. Among the people of the water, friends and family know to wait, but when people don’t understand what’s going on … it’s good you didn’t have a husband or children.”
“No,” she said. “I didn’t.”
Dawson elbowed Caleb, who muttered an abashed apology.
Trumbull shook her head. “Let’s go find your missing friend.”
I tried to hold Audrey back a moment before we went downstairs. “Your blood…”
She pulled away. “Let’s talk about it later. Little enough to be done, anyway.”
The other Trumbull could have told us whether the void-specked cells were normal—an ordinary immune function shared by all the people of the rock, kept in reserve against need and likely to retreat when done—or whether they were a product of whatever experiment had created her bloodline. Whether the darkness and anger could be cautiously encouraged, or whether they would consume her as easily as the outsider.
I found a spare coat, somewhat ragged, at the bottom of Trumbull’s winter chest. Even driving from faculty row to the library, we went slowly through icy streets. Frozen sandbars covered the sidewalks; if Trumbull had a late afternoon class, it would have been canceled.
The library’s front path was equally treacherous. Barely six inches had fallen, but the wind made it uneven: two-foot piles in some places, and others where our boots scraped bare stone. The gale blew droplets of cold against my stinging eyes and lined them with frozen tears.
We found a little shelter in the overhanging stone of the entryway. Spector knocked heavily, then tried the door. It was locked. Caleb fumbled in his pockets for the keys, but the door creaked open and one of Barlow’s guards examined us with displeasure. Behind him, three more put out cigarettes and frowned at our interruption. Dim light filtered through the foyer’s stained glass, marking them in strange colors.
“I’m sorry, sir,” said the guard. “Mr. Barlow left explicit instructions that he wasn’t to be disturbed.”
“We’ve discovered something that might help with his research,” said Spector.
The guard shook his head. “I’m not going to argue with him, and neither are you. Orders, sorry. It’s a mess out there; you’d better get back inside until the storm passes.” And he shut the door again.