Kessian said, “What is that?”
I didn’t know, but our boat was headed straight for the pontoon. We could either let it dock or jump into the river. Given the half-death it had put Kessian under, the latter wasn’t an option.
Our boat glided smoothly into the pontoon, bumping against the rubber tires on its flank. We shied away, crowding ourselves into the back of the boat. The spectral figure stepped aboard at the bow. It moved smoothly and silently. The boat didn’t rock an inch before peeling back from the pontoon and continuing its journey, the prow carving a path through the winding river.
The figure stared at us from its flickering, ever-changing face. We stared back, quietly terrified and wary.
Kessian said, “Hello?”
“Greetings to the Keeper and his companion,” answered the figure in a hundred voices all speaking at once.
“Creepy,” Kessian whispered.
“It addressed you as the Keeper, though. Maybe you should ask it about this place?”
Kessian cleared his throat. “Do you know where we are?”
“You sail the waters of Shearwater’s Bloodstream,” it answered. “These rivers are its veins, the water its blood. They chart a course through time.”
The Bloodstream. It had only been an ominous word found in the trace spell Emery placed on our dreams. He’d said that we needed to come here if we wanted to fix the poisoned strid.
Kessian said, “O … kay, but how did we get here? The wraith dragged us into the strid, and now we’re here.”
“You have slipped into the gap between life and death. If you do not find your way back to the former, then you will fall to the latter.”
Those words had the same effect as plunging into the icy waters. “How do we find our way back?”
“That is why I am here. To show you.”
“And who are you?”
“The Keepers.”
Kessian said, “The Keepers? Plural? So … all of them?”
“Yes. The Keepers.” It dragged in a long breath, rasping in its chorus of many voices. “We stood vigil over the wild magic of old, a vanguard against the destruction wrought by people with no love in their hearts for nature. Or no love in their hearts at all.”
“Not done a stellar job,” I muttered. “If you’ve been watching over it, why not drown someone like Warwick instead of my dad and Laurelie?”
“That is why you are here. To discover the source of the poison and the antidote.”
“Why us?” Kessian said.
“All the answers you’ll find here.”
“But you won’t tell us?”
“We do not know. We are memories from Keepers past, present, and future, but our memories are fallible, like dreams, and the future is not fixed. We will only know the whole truth behind Shearwater’s malady when you do.”
I searched the banks of the river, remembering the flicker of shadow I’d seen. “Can the wraith find us here?”
“Yes.”
“How do we stop it? What does it want?”
“To go home.”
“Isn’t the strid its home?”
