“Do you see all this in his heartfire?”

  “Not seeing, exactly. I know things from his heartfire. A few paths open to him. Nothing like what Margaret sees. I can see a drop of water; she can see the river that’s inside of everyone.”

  “And there’s your face, doing what it does when you talk of her.”

  Alvin smiled. “Glad to know that such a thing is true.”

  “If he’s going to find a way to kill the good man who used his knack to save us—”

  “I have a plan,” said Alvin.

  “A good plan?”

  “Good enough.”

  “Can I help?” asked Elisha.

  “Do you know what your knack is yet?”

  “Pretty sure it’s either handwriting or peeing standing up.”

  “Not a rare knack, that one.”

  “But when I think of the activities I do best,” said Elisha, “that comes up.”

  “High on the list, is it?”

  “Not really ‘high.’ It’s that everything else I try to do ends up pretty low on my list of talents. Below ‘pissing against the wall,’ to use the biblical phrasing.”

  “‘And there shall not be left one that pisseth against the wall.’ Isaiah, I think, but for all I know it’s Obadiah.”

  “Pretty convoluted way of saying, ‘There won’t be one man left alive.’”

  “But poetic, as long as the word for micturation doesn’t give offense.”

  Elijah stared at him. “Micturation? Did Margaret Larner teach you that?”

  “She did indeed,” said Alvin. “To give me a better word than ‘piss.’”

  “I barely learned that. From a foul-mouthed sophomore who was making fun of me for avoiding coarse language. ‘He can’t even say urinate. He says “micturate.”’ Nobody laughed because none of his friends knew the word either. And I remembered it and looked it up, and now, for the first time, I’ve heard someone say it in a sentence.”

  “I didn’t know how to sing it in a song,” said Alvin.

  “What’s your plan for this beknackèd person?”

  “You said you want to help?”

  “Yes,” said Elisha.

  “Can you carry yon jar of fine whisky with you on a little walk?”

  “Reckon so. I thought you’d want me to do something hard.”

  “It’ll get harder, the farther we go.”

  Elisha chuckled. “A body might think you plan to walk on the water.”

  “I don’t do it often, because I don’t mind getting wet and I’m a good swimmer, with these blacksmith arms. But my friend Lolla-Wossiky once took me out on a lake and wrapped us both inside a waterspout and showed me things I never imagined.”

  “Lolla-what?”

  “He goes by Tenskwa-Tawa now, and his power befogs the Mizzippy.”

  “The Red Prophet,” said Elisha. “You know him?”

  “Better than most, but not as well as I’d like to.”

  “And he taught you to walk on water.”

  “I saw what he did, though I use a White man’s knack, not the Red man’s harmony with nature.”

  With that, Alvin lowered himself over the side of the ship and dropped down into the—no, onto the water. He hung on to the ship so he stayed with it as it scooted through the mostly smooth water. “Jump,” he said softly to Elisha.

  “Not holding this,” said Elisha. He reached down and handed the jar of whiskey to Alvin. Now Elisha could use both his hands. But he still stood behind the gunwale, gripping it tightly.

  “You done harder jumps than this a dozen times since we met.”

  “Never on top of water that looks wet but is really solid.”

  “True, that doesn’t come up much.”

  Elisha rocked his head to one side. “I’m afraid.”

  “Very sensible. Glad to know you’re not such a fool as to pretend you’re never scared.” Alvin slapped on the side of the ship. “Lower yourself first, like I did, so you don’t have so far a drop.”

  Elisha took a breath and then did as Alvin instructed, clambering over the gunwale, hanging by his arms, then letting go. He, too, landed on the water and it held him like a marble floor. “How can I be doing this?”

  “You learned how to stand on a solid floor as a toddler,” said Alvin. “And that’s all you’re doing. Standing. Except it’s time for us both to be walking.” Alvin handed him the jar of whiskey. “I got other things to think about than trying to keep a jar of hooch from spilling.”

  Elisha took the jar, then looked around, not knowing where on the water it was safe to step. Alvin finally had to take Elisha’s arm and guide him along. But soon they were both striding with ease.

  “Could a shark eat us now?” said Elisha.

  “I don’t think we look delicious, seen from under our feet,” said Alvin, “but I guess if a shark was hungry enough.…”

  “This is a long walk,” said Elisha.

  “Their ship was closer before the wind started blowing.”

  “Why am I holding this jar of whisky?”

  “Many times you don’t know the use of something till you’re glad you happened to have it.”

  Walking steady caught them up with Thrower’s boat, even though Thrower and his friend had managed to turn it around so it could catch the wind that would take them back to Ireland.

  But suddenly their sail went slack, and the ship shuddered to a stop.

  “I thought you had no knack for wind,” said Elisha.

  “Not for a dependable wind you can sail with,’ said Alvin. “But in this case, what I used was my knack for making tiny invisible perforations in sailcloth.”

  With the ship stopped, Reverend Thrower was out on deck in a moment. He seemed unfazed by the sight of two men standing on the water.

  “I thought you didn’t like water,” said Thrower.

  “We’re on friendlier terms now,” said Alvin. “Would you mind giving my friend Elisha a hand up? Elisha studied at Yale.”

  “It doesn’t have a bad reputation,” said Thrower. “But it’s in New England, where your kind aren’t tolerated.”

  “My kind?” asked Elisha. “Oh, I see. You think I’m standing on water through some knack of my own. It’s all Alvin, as you should have guessed. So far as I know, I’ve got no knack at all.”

  “We get along fine with folk who aren’t just like us,” said Alvin, “unless they’re trying to kill us. May we come aboard? Will you give Elisha a hand?”

  Thrower reached down with his hand, and Elisha took it willingly. “I don’t know if I’m strong enough,” said Thrower.

  “I am,” said Elisha. He pulled on Thrower’s hand, cramming him hard against the gunwale, but it was all Elisha needed to leap high enough to grab the top of the gunwale and hoist himself in.

  “You had a one-man crew with you,” said Alvin. “I’m surprised he didn’t come out on deck to greet us.”

  “He’s ill,” said Thrower. “I’m sure you never get sick.”

  “You’ve seen me with a powerful sickness, Reverend Thrower. I was like to be somewhere between lame and one-legged, as things were going.”

  Thrower didn’t care for the reminder of his earlier failure. “Ordinary folk get ill from time to time.”

  “But I am afraid, sir, that your crew, a Mr. Grass, I believe, Sandy Grass, I’m afraid that he isn’t so much sick as unconscious, with a strong possibility of dying from a lot of loose blood in his brain. Would you mind if I took a look at him?”

  “Ridiculous,” said Thrower.

  “Since Mr. Grass can’t offer me a hand up into the boat, it’s only proper that you should do it.”

  Alvin reached up. Bracing himself for another pull like Elisha’s, Thrower reached down. Without pulling on Thrower’s hand at all, just holding it like a handshake, Alvin jumped up and with his other hand caught the gunwale and pulled himself up by one arm. It had been no strain on Thrower at all. Alvin thought, Thrower thinks he saw me using a knack, but I’m tall and I jumped and I pulled myself up with one blacksmith’s arm. No knacks at all.

  Alvin headed for the cabin.

  Grass was not lying on the bed or in a hammock. He was on the floor, bleeding from a serious head wound. Alvin glanced around for the weapon.

  “I threw it overboard,” said Thrower. “I wasn’t trying to kill him.”

  “I know,” said Alvin.

  “I was just so … angry and disgusted to know that I had been traveling with a witch. A windwitch, no less, who betrayed me by setting you in motion.”

  “And here I thought you had brought him just for that reason, to let us get going again.”

  “You’re such a liar,” said Thrower.

  “That wasn’t a lie,” said Elisha. “That was sarcasm. Don’t they teach irony in your seminary, Reverend?”

  “A lie’s a lie, even if you think it’s amusing,” said Thrower.

  Alvin was kneeling by Grass and resting a hand on his head.

  “How is he?” asked Elisha.

  “Better than I feared,” said Alvin. “I can’t do much if a man’s already dead.”

  “Oh,” said Thrower, “I thought that after walking on water, raising the dead would be your next deceptive miracle.”

  “I don’t do miracles. I just make use of the tools God put into my hands at my birth.”

  Thrower said nothing, because Grass’s eyelids were fluttering. Then he saw Thrower.

  Grass shied away, put up his arms to cover his head.

  “Don’t worry,” said Alvin. “Do you think I’d let a man like that harm our friend, who freed us with a kindly breeze?”

  “But I. Didn’t…”

  “Mr. Grass, you don’t need to hide your powerful knack around me. Elisha and I came here to invite you to join us on our voyage to America.”

  Clutching at Alvin’s knee, Grass sat up. Alvin and Elisha both helped him by pulling at his shoulders.

  “Thrower knows what I can do, what I have done. He can denounce me to the Bishop of Dublin—”

  “I promise I won’t,” said Thrower.

  “He’s already planning how to do it without your knowing it was him who did it,” said Alvin.

  “And I didn’t need a knack to tell me that,” said Elisha. “The slime of a betrayer is in your eyes and on your lips.”

  Thrower licked his lips as if to see if there was something on them. “I keep my word.”

  “Doesn’t matter, long as you come with us, Mr. Grass. Thrower will never come near you again, as long as I’m alive.”

  “Be sure of it,” said Thrower.

  “He tried to kill me,” said Grass.

  “He came within a couple of minutes of succeeding,” said Alvin. “But you’re good as new now.”

  “Because you’re—you’re the Maker himself, aren’t you.”

  “Some have called me that,” said Alvin. “But there’s strict rules about makering. The hardest one is, the Maker is the one who is part of what he makes.’”

  “I don’t know what that means,” said Grass. “I’m not part of the wind.”

  “Well, actually, you are, but it doesn’t matter whether you understand what you’re doing, as long as I do.” Alvin grinned.

  “You got a nice grin,” said Elisha.

  “I knew a man with a grin that could draw a bear down out of a tree. He ended up in Congress.”

  “The man with the grin?”

  “No, the bear won the election. The grinner went with him to Congress to interpret for him. They never missed a vote, not even during hibernation season.”

  “If you believe that,” said Thrower.

  “His name was Davy Crockett,” said Alvin. “One of the best rough men I’ve known. Congress was the wrong place for him, too many liars and lawyers and larcenizers. But the bear liked it there, so Davy stayed with him till he died of something he ate, probably. They offered Davy the bear’s seat in Congress, but Davy only laughed. ‘I’m not as patient as a bear,’ says he.”

  “You weren’t even there,” said Thrower.

  “I have a friend who writes down the stories he hears that he actually believes, and he told me that tale. Knowing Davy, I reckon it was true to his character.”

  Grass rose carefully to his feet. “I’m a little wobbly on my feet.”

  “Probably will be, for the next few days.”

  “How did you get to our ship?” asked Grass.

  Elisha laughed, and Alvin looked to Thrower. “They walked,” said Thrower, hating the words as he said them.

  “I reckon that would have been a sight,” said Grass.

  “You’re going to see it,” said Alvin, “and you’re going to do it.”

  Before long they were standing on the water beside Thrower’s ship. Thrower himself wasn’t on the deck to see them off, of course, but Alvin knew he could hear every word they said.

  “The water is surprisingly firm under my feet,” said Grass.

  “Don’t try stomping your feet, because once the water starts splashing, it gets the wrong idea about what it’s supposed to do.”

  Elisha now seemed to take on the role of a seasoned old adventurer. “Alvin’s firm water doesn’t weaken,” said Elisha, “but nor does it extend on forever. Stay close by me, and we’ll stride boldly to catch up with our own ship.”

  Grass turned to Alvin. “Would you like me to slow the speed at which the wind is carrying them away from us?”

  “That would make catching them up a bit easier,” said Alvin. “Or I could run on ahead and ask them to furl sails.”

  “I’d rather you … I’d rather you stay with us,” said Grass. “I trust in your knack, I truly do, but seeing is not necessarily believing.”

  “A wise man. Now, if Reverend Thrower were here on deck, I’d tell him that the jar of whisky is actually Scotch whisky, not Irish at all. I believe Mr. Thrower has a taste for that whisky and will find much consolation in that jar, while the wind carries him home.”

  “Whether the sea stays smooth or turns rough again,” said Grass, “I can promise that the wind will be always at his back.”

  “He may want to take the helm near the coast,” said Alvin, “because the wind doesn’t know about the difference between heading straight for a cliff and passing into a bay.”

  Alvin started walking away. Immediately Grass clutched at Elisha’s arm. “Don’t worry,” said Elisha. “I’ve got you. And … he’s got me.”

  When they were a few steps away from Thrower’s ship, Alvin healed the openings in the sail until it bellied once again with the steady breeze from the west. They heard the sound of breaking glass.

  “Do you think the jar fell, when the ship moved?” asked Elisha.

  “I think he threw it to the floor, not wanting to take any gift from you,” said Grass. “You should hear how he curses you and the vile things he—well, no, you shouldn’t hear any of that.”

  “He says it to my face, so I’ve heard it often in my life, from childhood on,” said Alvin. “Mr. Grass, is your injury healed enough that you can stride a little bolder?”

  Grass touched his hand to his forehead. “I don’t feel any pain at all,” he said.

  “Dizziness? A sense of falling?”

  “Mostly what I feel is hungry and thirsty.”

  “If our voyage succeeds, Mr. Grass, we will owe it to the good you did for us, unasked.”

  “I couldn’t let you stay and starve, like he planned.”

  “And you were running out of food, too.”

  “Ran out two days ago. Still had water, though. He was talking about catching a rat, but I figured we was neither of us quick enough.”

  “Would you have eaten rat, if you caught one?” asked Elisha.

  “Hunger adds a fine flavor to everything edible,” said Grass, “and if you would eat squirrel or beaver, then rat will be fine for you, since they’re all rodents together.”

  “You know your rodents,” said Alvin.

  “I know what I happen to have heard, and I have a good memory.”

  “Then do you remember which ship is mine? Because I’ve never seen it from the stern.”

  “I remember,” said Elisha, “even if his bruised brain can’t recall.”

  20

  Reverend Philadelphia Thrower stood before the large table that served as a replacement for the earlier one, which had dropped suddenly down into the cellar. “How are you, Your Grace,” said Thrower.

  “I’m not superannuated yet,” said the bishop, “but so many younger men are eagerly interested in how long I’m going to occupy this see.”

  “Not I,” said Thrower. “I’m Scottish Rite.”

  “They have bishops in Scotland,” said the bishop.

  “And they have parrots in Guatemala,” said Thrower. “But I can’t be a parrot, because I’m not in Guatemala.”

  “A stupid comparison,” said the bishop, “but at least you’re awake.”

  “The witch village had already been evacuated when we arrived.”

  “I heard it took you two weeks to get there.”

  “I didn’t want to push the horses—we would need their strength for the charge when we arrived.”

  “Might your slowness have given them plenty of time to get away?” asked the bishop.

  “I had hoped that the village might panic and disperse themselves.”

  “Which is what happened, except they dispersed aboard three former hulks in the prison fleet.”

  “They had many smaller craft as well,” said Thrower.

  “So now they belong either to the Atlantic or to America.”

  “Given what I saw of the Maker’s mastery over—”

  “He is not a Maker. There is only one Maker, and he dwells in heaven.”

  “Quite so, Your Grace. I spoke sarcastically, ironically, because his people call him a Maker.”

  “Irony is a double-edged sword. Use it too often, and you’ll cut yourself.”

  “I will remember that, Your Grace”

  “No you won’t,” said the bishop. “The men you took with you?”

  “I sent them to their homes, each with the horse he had ridden. The two horses Mr. Grass and I rode, we sent back by the local tavern keeper.”

  “He fulfilled his office perfectly. The horses arrived promptly and in perfect condition.”