Eleven
“What the holy hell?”
“What?” Jolted awake, I sat upright, looking frantically for my phone, or dauda-dagr, or . . . I don’t know what. “What?”
“This . . . thing!” Sinclair was lying flat on his back beside me with Mogwai perched high on his chest, paws neatly tucked, purring contentedly as he gazed down at Sinclair with slitted eyes.
I laughed out loud. “I told you I had a cat!”
“That’s a cat?” He took a sharp breath, Mogwai rising obliviously with his chest. “More like a duppy.”
“A what?”
“Nothing.” He let out his breath in a sigh. “S’okay. Is he your familiar or something?”
I lifted Mogwai off Sinclair’s chest and set him on the bed between us. It was true that he was a pretty big cat, eighteen pounds and none of it fat, and according to the vet, male calicoes were a genetic rarity. Other than that, he seemed pretty normal. “Something, I guess. He likes you.”
“Good thing.” He eyed Mogwai, then reached out to give him a tentative scratch under the chin. “You startled me, bwai! Give me a chance to get to know you, eh?”
Glancing toward my bedroom window, I saw sunlight. All right, I had a sexy naked guy in my bed, but it was Labor Day in Pemkowet and I had an agenda. “Okay, here’s the plan. I’m going to make coffee, then run down to Mrs. Browne’s for a couple of cinnamon rolls. If you want to shower before we do the Bridge Walk, now’s your chance.”
Sinclair stretched, slow and leisurely, giving me a significant look. “Bet I’ve got a couple of hours before my first tour. You sure about this Bridge Walk?”
Um . . . no?
“Yes,” I said sternly. “You said you wanted the full-on experience, and this is a proud local tradition.” I poked him. “You’re not backing out on me, are you?”
He gave a good-natured laugh. “Nah.”
“Good.”
Forty minutes later, we were on our way, clean and fed and caffeinated. I’d offered to drive, but Sinclair wanted to bike home to pick up the tour bus, so after some debate I wound up riding perched on his bike seat while he stood on the pedals—which, I have to say, afforded me a nice view of his butt.
Okay, so the annual Labor Day Pemkowet Bridge Walk is sort of an elaborate joke. It was inspired by the annual Labor Day Mackinac Bridge Walk, which has been going on for, like, more than fifty years, and isn’t a joke. A little background for non-Michiganders: The Mackinac Bridge spans the straits between the upper and lower peninsulas—peninsulae? Mr. Leary would know—and at about five miles long, it’s one of the longest suspension bridges in the world. Thousands of people do the Bridge Walk every year. It takes a couple of hours to make it across, after which you receive a certificate.
The bridge between Pemkowet and East Pemkowet is exactly zero point one nine miles long, and it takes about five minutes to walk it . . . after which you receive a certificate and an invitation to a pancake breakfast at the Masonic Lodge.
See, the thing is, it’s not just the eldritch community that makes Pemkowet a place where weird shit happens. It’s the people, the mundane people, too.
For example, we have a town crier. You know, the guy who shows up in a long wig and a frock coat, ringing a bell and doing the whole “Hear ye, hear ye!” thing. It’s not a paid or elected position or anything. There’s just a guy who does it.
And yep, there was the town crier, surrounded by a bunch of other people in period attire. Except for some prominent tattoos, they looked like they’d walked out of the nearest Renaissance faire. There were ladies from the Red Hat Society, people walking dogs, people pushing kids in strollers, people towing kids in little red wagons.
Sinclair was laughing. “This is crazy!”
I smiled. “Yeah, I know.”
Oh, and there was Stacey Brooks taking publicity photos for the PVB. I smiled even wider and gave her an obnoxious little finger wave, watching her scowl in reply and fight the urge to flash devil horns at me in public.
We lined up behind the wooden barricade, milling and chatting. Glancing over at the squad car that blocked the west end of the bridge, I saw Bart Mallick was on duty. Since I hadn’t been one of his favorite people before the whole Rainbow’s End incident, I didn’t bother to greet him, but I ran into my mom’s friend Sandra Sweddon, there with her daughter Terri, who was now Terri Dalton, and made a point of introducing Sinclair to them.
At nine o’clock, the town crier issued a proclamation announcing the start of the annual Pemkowet Bridge Walk. Everyone streamed around or over the barricade. About twenty yards in there was a guy holding a sign reading THE FAINT OF HEART SHOULD TURN BACK NOW!
“You know this is absurd, right?” Sinclair asked, walking his bike beside me.
“Uh-huh. Aren’t you glad you didn’t miss it?”
“Yeah,” he admitted.
At the halfway point, just under one tenth of a mile, the Pemkowet Historical Society had set up a refreshment station with Dixie cups of Gatorade. I took one for tradition’s sake, even though I think the stuff’s vile.
“Hey.” Sinclair downed his Gatorade and tossed the cup in the trash. He patted the handlebars of his bike. “Hop up. I’ll ride you the rest of the way.”
I gave him a dubious look. “You sure about that?”
Straddling his bike, he balanced on the pedals, making it stand upright and motionless, then went a few inches forward and backward before returning to perfect stillness. “Sure. C’mon, hop up.”
“Oh, fine.”
Yes, it was totally showing off, but you know what? It was fun. Sinclair rode as slowly as possible to keep pace with the walkers, weaving only a little with the added weight of me on the handlebars. The sun was shining and a slight breeze ruffled the surface of the river. It was a holiday and it felt like it.
“Did you really like that Etta James song I played for you?” I asked Sinclair over my shoulder.
“Yeah, I did.”
“We should go to the Bide-a-Wee Tavern tonight,” I said. “They have live jazz and blues, and there’s always a big bash for the end of the season. It’s mostly locals, too, since a lot of summer people and tourists leave this afternoon.”
“Sounds great.” The bike wobbled slightly. “Oops.”
“You’re sure?” I glanced back at him again. “I mean, we didn’t have plans or anything.”
“Hey, I made you sit through the Mamma Jammers. It’s only fair,” he said, then laughed at the expression on my face. “I’m kidding! It sounds like fun.”
“Okay. Call me when you get home, and I’ll pick you up.”
“Deal.”
We made it across the bridge. I hopped down from the handlebars, and Sinclair and I received our official certificates, Xeroxed copies of a form signed by the mayors of both Pemkowet and East Pemkowet.
“I’ll cherish it forever,” Sinclair teased me, stuffing his in the saddlebags of his bike. “Maybe I’ll start a scrapbook.”
“You do that.” I was distracted by the sight of Cody Fairfax standing beside a squad car at the east end of the bridge, where a line of vehicles was waiting for the barricade to be lifted. The sunlight brought out goldish glints in his bronze hair. My stomach tightened a bit. Cody didn’t usually work day shifts, but Chief Bryant liked to schedule an additional officer on duty during the holidays and Cody tried to pick up an extra shift around the full moon to compensate for lost time.
He was talking to a young woman in an impeccably tailored off-white linen business-casual suit, a short jacket nipped in at the waist, a hint of flair to the pant legs. Hey, as my mother’s daughter, I notice these things. Under the jacket she wore a silk camisole in a vivid hue of yellow that contrasted perfectly with her rich cocoa-brown skin—it was one of those colors I could never wear without looking jaundiced.