Beyond Your Touch by Pat Esden Page A

“Come on. Let’s get a closer look.”
    He strode in the same direction as Lotli had, and Selena and I jogged after him.
    We’d just reached the tent when Lotli whisked back around the corner.
    She dipped her head. “He is eating and is sorry we did not prepare enough food for guests, but you are welcome to speak to us while he eats.”
    Though I hated it, I felt a pang of sympathy for her. I couldn’t imagine my grandfather ever expecting me to bow and ask permission for silly things, or him putting up with me speaking the way she did, for that matter.
    We followed Lotli to the other side of the tent. The smoke, as it turned out, was rising from a smoldering pit not much larger than a garbage can. Damp seaweed circled its edge and a canvas was stowed nearby, sure signs that someone had recently steamed clams or lobsters, or something similar.
    Lotli pulled aside a tent flap and tied it open, then motioned for us to follow her. It was dark inside, the only light coming from the open flap and a dozen white jar candles sitting in the middle of the tent on barnacle-crusted boards. The scent of incense weighed heavy in the air.
    â€œSit.” Lotli motioned to the ground near the candles.
    It was only after we’d done as she’d said that I spotted the old man sitting cross-legged on the ground, just beyond the candle flames. In front of him on a smaller board were several torn-apart lobsters. He was naked—or if he had anything on it was a loincloth. He also looked too old to be her grandfather, great-grandfather, maybe. He was that shriveled and wrinkled, more closely resembling a pile of twisted roots than a man. If he was sickly, like the storyteller had said, he wasn’t going to get well in this place or with that diet.
    Lotli sat down next to him and introduced him with a jut of her chin. “This is Zea.”
    Though he didn’t acknowledge our presence in any way, I politely introduced the three of us to him. I stuck to first names like she had. The less they knew about us the better, at least for now.
    â€œYou are curious about the flute music?” she said.
    I decided to get right to the point. “We wanted to know if it can do things other than make smoke move, like can it open the veil between realms.”
    For a moment, Lotli toyed with one of her cuff bracelets. The old man picked up a sloppy hunk of lobster body and yanked off one of its littlest legs. Clutching the body, he sucked on the leg as if it were a straw, juice dribbling down his chest over a couple of withered tattoos and onto his belly.
    Lotli snagged a lobster tail and cracked it open. She removed the meat and bit off a hunk.
    Selena leaned into me. “Maybe we’re supposed to wait for them to finish?”
    I shook my head and sat up taller, hoping to come off as more in control. “So—can the flute’s music open the veil or not?”
    Lotli set what remained of the tail on her lap. “On occasions we have used it to help people move on to the next world, to quicken and ease a difficult passing.”
    â€œYou mean death?” Chase shifted, deftly rising from where he sat on the ground into a vigilant crouch. Clearly, he was becoming more instead of less wary.
    â€œSo we do,” Lotli replied. She took another bite of tail, chewing slowly. “Is that why you are here? Do you have a loved one who is in pain and wishes for the peace of death?”
    My eyes went to the old man, now sucking on a lobster antenna. After a few long seconds, he noticed my staring. Without taking the antenna out from between his lips, he studied me, his eyes beetle-black and eerie. I looked away, an uncomfortable tingling running over my skin and Dad’s warning to be careful echoing in my head. I also found myself reminded of an old buddy of Dad’s. The guy was a document forger, one of the best. But to look at him, you’d think he was a burned-out homeless person with