September 1948

I shut the door of the old Victorian behind me, and the stuffy atmosphere closed in: overheated, dry, and redolent of mothballs. Remnants of cool mist clung to my skin, already transmuting to sweat. A whiff of old paper cut through the miasma. I focused on that familiar, beloved scent, and steadied myself.

Charlie, clearly untroubled by the warmth, took off his fedora and looked around the estate sale with a practiced eye. Choice artifacts adorned a table in the foyer — an antique globe and a few Egyptian-looking statues of uncertain vintage. The newly dead patriarch had been not only well off, but a professor emeritus of ancient history at the university. That combination was sufficient to draw us both away from the bookstore on a busy Saturday morning.

A woman approached us, frowning. She wore a floral dress and pearl necklace, but the black veil pinned over her curls marked her as part of the family hosting the sale. A daughter, perhaps? I was never good at estimating ages. Her eyebrows drew together as her gaze lingered on me. I smoothed my plain gray skirt — the color of storms and of mourning — then forced my hands still. She might not like the shape of my face or the pallor of my skin, but I wouldn't give her any reason to complain about my composure. In the privacy of my chest, my heart beat faster. I tried to reason with it: beyond my chosen family, almost no one in San Francisco could know how to interpret my bulging eyes, thick neck, and receding hairline. She'd see an ugly woman, nothing more — the disquieted frown would likely be her worst reaction.

Charlie frowned fiercely back at her. Silence lingered while she twisted her strand of pearls between ringed fingers. At last he said: "I'm Charlie Day, and this is my assistant, Miss Aphra Marsh. We're here to look at the books."

"Oh!" She startled back to some semblance of her script. "Yes. Father was quite a collector. It's mostly old academic junk. I don't know that you'll find anything interesting, but you're certainly welcome to look. All the books and magazines are downstairs." She jerked her head at the hall beyond the foyer.

Charlie led the way. The wooden stairs, hollow under our feet, shook with our steps. I held out an arm to help Charlie down, but he waved it off.

"Cheer up," I murmured. "If she's dismissing them as junk, she'll likely sell cheap."

"If she's kept them in a damp basement, they will be junk." He gripped the rail and descended, leaning a little to favor his right knee. I stared at his back, wondering how he could expect any part of this house to be damp.

The basement was not only dry, but hotter than the entry hall. A few books had been laid out on shelves; others remained piled in boxes and crates.

Charlie huffed. "Go ahead, Miss Marsh."

Embarrassed, I picked up the nearest book — a thirty-year-old encyclopedia, Cartography to Curie, Pierre — and inhaled deeply. My pulse slowed. Over two years now since I'd gained my freedom, and above all else it was the scent and touch of printed paper that assured me of safety.

He laughed. "Let's get to work. And hope she's too busy sucking lemons to bother us before we're ready to haggle."

I immersed myself happily in the crates, laying aside promising volumes for Charlie's approval while he started on the shelf. His store had no particular specialty, serving discerning antiquarians alongside anyone willing to pay three cents for a dime novel. The dead professor, I discovered, had maintained an unacademic taste for gothic bodice-rippers, and I amassed a stack of the most promising before moving on to the second box.

Here I found more predictable material. Most were histories and travelogues mere decades old. There were a few fraying works dating back to the 1600s — in languages I couldn't read, but I set them aside anyway. Then, beneath a reprinted colonial cookbook, I found something unexpected, but very much desired.

I probed the clothbound cover with long fingers, confirming that the volume would stand up to handling. I trailed them over the angular letters embossed on the spine, laid the book — perhaps two hundred years old, and clearly a copy of something much older — on the floor, and opened it. My Latin was far from fluent, but I could make out enough.

"Mr. Day, take a look at this." I set the book on the table where he could examine it without squatting.

"Something for the back room?" he asked hopefully.

"I think so. But your Latin is better than mine."

"De Anima Pluvia. The soul of the rain." He turned the pages slowly, touching only the edges. "It looks like the author, at least, thought it belonged in our back room. We've had no luck trying ..." He glanced at the stairs, confirmed them empty, lowered his voice anyway: "... to affect the weather, with everything we already have. Do you think this'll be any better?"

"I've seen it before. That was an older copy, and translated, but from what I can make out this is the real text, not a fake with the same title. It's supposed to be one of the best works on the subject."

He nodded, accepting my judgment. And didn't ask where I'd seen it.

For two years now, Charlie had granted me access to his private collection in exchange for my tutelage in its use. And for two years, he'd never asked where I got my first training in the occult, how it had ended, or why a pale, ugly woman with bulging eyes lived in Japantown with a family clearly not her own. I'd never offered to tell him.

After two years, I willingly called Charlie a friend. But I told him nothing of my life before I walked into his store, and he told me nothing of his. We shared the secrets we'd created together, and respected each other's privacy for the rest. I didn't even know whether he kept his own counsel out of pain or shame — or both, as I did.

But I did know that I couldn't keep my own secrets forever — not if he kept studying magic at my side.

De Anima Pluvia, if we were able to make use of it, would allow a ritual that I'd long missed — and that, done right, would surely require me to reveal my nature. I tried to imagine his reaction. I didn't think he would flee; he valued what I had to offer too much. But I feared his disgust. I would still trade my knowledge for his books, even without the camaraderie. I valued them too much to stop. But it would be a harder bargain, and I could taste the sting of it already.

The people of the water have always hidden, or tried — and suffered when we failed.

* * *

Spring 1942, or possibly 1943: My brother Caleb sits on the edge of Silas Bowen's cot, while I keep watch by the cabin door. The older man thrashes and moans, but stills as Caleb tilts a bowl of water between his thin, protuberant lips. The water is alkaline and without salt, but seems to help. It's been years since the camp guards allowed salt at our tables — with only the three of us left it's a wonder Caleb was able to sneak water out of the cafeteria at all. It's a wonder, in fact, that no one has checked Silas's cabin since he stopped coming to meals over a week ago. The guards are distracted. We speculate, knowing the reason can't be good.

Motors growl through the still desert air. Truck engines, unmuffled, and many of them — more than I've heard since they brought the last of Innsmouth's straggling refugees...