The closest place I thought I might find anyone was the Storm King ranger station where the ferret and I had taken our break the day before. Technically it was closed until May, but there’d been signs of life around and there was a pay phone. The mountains cut off cell service, so the old landline was the best bet I had. If that failed, I’d have to drive to Fairholm or Piedmont. At least it wasn’t raining at the moment; that would have made getting the waterlogged car out of the lake nearly impossible.
By the time I reached Storm King’s ranger station, Jin’s howling had died away. Once I parked in the lot, I got the ferret out of her cage again and wrestled her into her harness for a walk around the station in search of a ranger or any other help, hoping Jin hadn’t followed us or wasn’t interested in taking a piece out of me if he had. Chaos was nonplussed about the recent encounter with whatever he was, but she settled down to some intense exploring once I got her leashed and on the ground.
Chaos headed straight for the water, hopping and scampering across the chilly clearing in front of the ranger station. She diverged twice to check something on the ground, each time pausing only long enough to dig at a bright knot of Grey-stuff that had buried itself in the dirt. She lost interest in the hot spots after a few paws full of gravel and skipped back to her original path, but I noticed that the lake and the ground that sloped down into it had an unusual gleam, similar to the intrusive Greyness I’d seen near Lake Sutherland in the morning. I’d have expected so much effort to have drained, rather than added to, the freakish energy around the lake. The area near the car had seemed quieter and more normal. But here, near the ranger station, there were actually more bright lines shooting southwest than I’d seen the day before. The phenomenon seemed to ebb and flow to some rhythm I didn’t know. The power lines in the lake were apparently the source of massive energy, but . . . where did it come from in the first place?
A white pickup truck bearing a green stripe and the U.S. National Park Service emblem on the side was standing to the left of the boat ramp and dock that pointed at the northeastern shore, just a few degrees west of where Jin had raised Leung’s car from the depths. I couldn’t make out the spot from the dock as Chaos humped and skipped her way along the planks, but I found myself straining to see if there was an angry white monster on the other side. I didn’t see anything. The ferret looked over the side of the dock at the water and I did the same.
Below us, scattered branches and stones rested on pale green sand and gravel a dozen or more feet below the surface. Looking straight down into the incredibly clear water, I could see every bump and knot as well as if the branches still grew in air. As I stared down, Chaos—the ferret version of Kipling’s ’satiable Elephant’s Child—made a barking noise and jumped into the water.
“Damn it!” I spat, hauling her back up by her harness and leash as she attempted to paddle across the lake. She squirmed and wriggled as I picked her up and tried to brush the worst of the water off her, but she was soaked and shivering and stopped fighting me as soon as the cold really penetrated her skin. Then she wanted only to burrow into my clothes as quickly as possible.
“Moron tube rat,” I muttered, turning back and heading for land, just in case she tried another fool’s leap. I yanked off my scarf and started wrapping her up in it. “What are you trying to do—turn into an otter and swim out to sea?” I glanced up, gauging the distance back to the Rover, and saw a man in a dark green park service uniform and heavy jacket walking toward the white pickup. “Hey,” I called out. I wished I could wave to get his attention, but I had my hands full of wet ferret-in-velvet. I started running toward him, cradling Chaos against my chest and calling out again.
The ranger shot a glance over his shoulder, then stopped and turned to face me, waiting patiently for me to catch up. He was a middle-aged man, wings of gray spreading from his temples into his brown hair, though judging from the way his uniform hung, the park service kept him pretty fit. His nose was a little crooked, and constant cold had made the veins spiderweb across it, but there wasn’t much else about him that stood out. His aura was small and neutral yellow; he seemed totally normal—dull, even.
“Hey,” he said as I drew near. “What happened? Your dog fall in the lake?”
“My crazy ferret wants to join the Polar Bear Club, I guess,” I said, unwrapping the miscreant’s face so she could wave her whiskers at the man. She didn’t react to him at all except to sniffle piteously, so I wasn’t missing anything Grey about him, and that was reassuring: I’d begun to wonder if I’d lost more ability than I’d realized. “She jumped right into the water.”
He chuckled. “That water’s so clear, it’s like glass. Maybe she didn’t think it was there.”
“I have no idea. I’d think she could smell it, but maybe it’s too cold for her nose to work well.”
“It’s been colder. It’s above freezing today.” He glanced at a long, low building beside the water, nearly hidden by shore grass and winterdead water iris. “Why don’t you come in here and I’ll find you a towel for her.”
I thanked him and followed him into the building. It was only a little warmer inside than out and the long open room held two long water-filled troughs. “What is this place?” I asked.
“Fish hatchery. We keep the lakes stocked with trout and a couple of other sport species so they don’t get overfished. We almost killed off the native trout with introduced species and overfishing in the past. We try to learn from our mistakes.” He took a small towel out of a cabinet near the door and handed it to me. “I was just up checking on the tanks, making sure they hadn’t frozen over. Lucky for you we had a spate of subzero temps last week or I might not have come out here today.”
“I do seem to have really good luck,” I agreed, taking the towel and unwinding the ferret from my now-wet scarf. Actually, I don’t have luck, according to another Greywalker I’d met in London; I have a gift of persuasion, and that includes persuading circumstances to favor me. I think that’s probably bull, but I’ve learned not to let my natural cynicism ruin perfectly good magic: I’ll take all the luck I can get.
I wrapped Chaos in the dry towel and rubbed the water out of her fur while the ranger held on to my wet scarf. “So, do you just do fish or do you take care of the whole lake?” I asked.
“No, I do pretty much the whole lake. Name’s Ridenour,” he added, starting to offer me a hand to shake, then realizing I didn’t have one of my own free and stuffing it back into his jacket pocket. “Brett Ridenour. I’m the senior ranger for this district of the park.”
“Well, then you’re probably the man I need to see.”
“About what, Miss . . . ?”
Chaos was shivering in my hands and I paused to stuff the mostly dry ferret inside my coat to warm up. “Harper Blaine.” Now I shook his hand and went on. “I’m a private investigator and I was up here doing some pretrial work for a lawyer in Seattle when I noticed a car in the lake.”