The Fires Beneath the Sea (A Novel)

Chapter 10

10.

“There isn’t any incantation,” whispered Jax. “Nothing for us to say but Mom’s name. There is something I have to think—that is, hold in my mind, is what the selkie said—at a certain point while we’re casting the herbs on the ground. Part of a rune poem in an ancient language. Something about the North Star. I think it means, more or less, ‘The star keeps faith with us, never failing, always on its course through the mists of the night.’ ”

“Uh, right,” said Max.

“Say it how it really sounds,” said Cara, curious.

“Tir biþ tacna sum, healdeð trywa wel wiþ æþelingas; a biþ on færylde ofer nihta genipu, næfre swiceþ,” recited Jax.

It sounded very strange—as though Jax was speaking in tongues, which Cara had seen once in a horror movie Max forced them to watch that involved snake-handling.

“So nothing to, like, chant?” asked Max. “No toil and trouble….”

“You’re off the hook,” said Jax.

The three of them were huddled just inside the back door that led outside from the kitchen, down a narrow gravel path through their small backyard and beneath the pitch pines to the water. Their dad had gone to sleep in his own bed, instead of on the couch in his office, for once, so he was two floors up, and—they hoped—wouldn’t be able to hear them.

“Once we make the salt lines and cast the charm, each of us stands in position. You have the positions, right? Everyone’s clear on that?”

As soon as it was midnight they had to draw three lines in salt, one from the back door and two from the back corners of the house, all the way down to the water. Then they had to walk along those lines and sprinkle herbs they carried in china bowls—part of an herbal charm, Jax called it, that included dried seasonings from their mother’s spice cabinet, things like thyme and fennel. It was part of a “tenth-century Anglo-Saxon charm,” according to Jax, passed along to the selkie by someone else, and that was all Cara had taken in.

The selkie was a messenger, Jax said.

Cara felt nervous. Her palms were sweating.

“Jax,” she whispered, when Max stepped back into the kitchen for a second to glug down some water. “You can ping me, during this, OK? But only till the minute it’s over. If you need to.”

“OK,” whispered Jax solemnly. “Thanks.”

“Each of us holds their talisman,” said Max, back again. “In the right hand and tied with a white string around the right wrist. Check?”

“Check,” whispered Cara.

She had one of her mother’s lipsticks, Max had a small jeweled comb, and Jax had a bracelet with their mother’s name spelled out on it, from when she was younger.

“Check,” said Max.

“So after we draw the lines and sprinkle the herbs, we take up our positions. At the door and corners. And we wait there for nine minutes with our eyes closed, then open them and wait for another three. Closed for nine, open for three, got it? Nine and three are significant numbers in the charm, for some reason. And no talking during any of this. Silence is as important to the ritual as any words would be. Got that? A single word could wreck it.”

“We got it, J,” said Max.

“Watches all say 11:57:24?”

“Yes,” said Cara.