Phillip's Harbour
October 15, 1868
In the days since he took Marseilles out and back to her house, Yotee's seen her a few more times. As far as he knows, she hasn't been solid again, the way she was on the day he left. Instead, she remains white and ethereal.
On one occassion, he brought Mother to see her, but couldn't find the ghost girl that day. While this was somewhat worrisome, Mother's presence was oddly reassuring; she didn't seem at all troubled. Instead, she asked the coyote to leave her at the house for a while. So Yotee left the stone there and went to find and stalk the caretaker.
There is something wrong with the caretaker, or at least unusual about him. Most humans have some connection with the spirit world: not a good or a strong one, but some connection, a quality that shows in their scent and the way they look. (Randall actually has a pretty good one, despite or perhaps because of his peculiar behavior). The caretaker doesn't have this connection: he's utterly mundane. Still, if Marseilles hadn't described him "having no soul", Yotee might not have thought anything of it, though, because he's seen plenty of such mundane humans in his travels. Plus, it's a much more common condition among animals: some animals have a sense of the spiritual to them, but most don't.
Apart from his overwhelming mundaneness, the caretaker is pretty dull. A middle-aged man with a fixed hostile look on his face, he spends most of his days doing menial jobs around the town and sitting alone in his one-room house, drinking weak tea. No one pays much attention to him or seems to like him, and he responds with a similar indifference. The caretaker makes Randall look like a friendly, sociable, outgoing man by comparison.
Stalking the man-with-no-soul for a while leaves Yotee feeling mundane and neglected himself, and it feels good to get back to the abandoned mansion and Mother. Marseilles has returned, or reappeared, by the time he gets back, and she and Mother are talking. Mother goes back to sleep shortly afterwards, and Yotee says his goodbyes and takes her home.
For a few days, talk about Marseilles's appearance on the street ("a strange dirty girl with a face that glowed like the moon!") displaces some of the other rumors floating around town, but there's too much strangeness in Phillips Harbour these days for that to form the bulk of conversation for long. Even the novelty of the Englishman's giant monkey is starting to wear off. The latest oddity turns out to be a grave robbing: someone dug up an entire corpse from the graveyard outside of town, and did no-one-knows-what with it. At least as disturbing was the appearance of a fresher corpse, discovered washed ashore a week or two ago. The rumor mill speculates that corpse to be of a murdered man, and Sheriff Ponds is all out of sorts trying to make heads or tails of what's going on.
The evening of October 15th is clear and dark, a night with no moon. Yotee prowls the streets of Phillips Harbour restlessly, not sure what he's looking for, when he senses something beckoning to him from the direction of the docks. It's not a person or a human voice: more of a presence, the way Mother has a presence. It makes his fur stand on end and his ears prick, whispering of excitement and adventure, urging him to come and see for himself.
Never one to give a thing a second thought, or resist acting on impulse, the coyote immediately skulks towards the docks. Mystery and the unknown a sure bait. He follows the tingles that lick across his pelt, keeping to the shadows, and keeping his ears up.
The beckoning voice-that's-not-with-words leads him down Love Street and along Harbour Road, where he can sense its source: it's coming from inside one of the boathouses on the second-longest pier. It's not quite like anything he's ever felt before, as if it's calling out to his soul. As he sneaks towards the pier, he notices another form drifting in the same direction, the ghostly white shape of a girl.
His delight at seeing his friend is shot through with sudden wariness, what draws her? Is this the explanation of her strange absence earlier in the week? With that thought comes a concern, after all the strange things that have been happening someone might need to trap a ghost. His impulse to join her is stayed, turned into a desire to find this unusual beacon first. He's had more experience with traps.
Abandonning concealment, he trots quickly, acting like a dog following a delictable scent, trying to beat Marseilles to the boathouse and also give her the opportunity to spot him.
Marseilles has a strange look on her face, even stranger than her glowing blue eyes normally are. She's smiling and barely moving her legs as she approaches, her drift drawing her closer faster than her strides would indicate. As she reaches the dock's edge, she simply strides off it, walking on air at a diagonal towards the boathouse. Even so, her pace won't beat Yotee's trot; he has a headstart.
Yotee isn't happy with her appearance, she's entranced. It reminds him to keep his wits about him. The futility of trying to detect the signs of a trap, namely evidence of man or snares, on a working fishing dock is obvious, so he doesn't even try. The coyote wants to get to the boathouse with enough time to peek in and hopefully have a thought before the ghost girl arrives.His pace increases, he's a very hungry dog, and he's scented fish.
Yotee reaches the boathouse in advance of the girl, although it won't take her long to catch up. It's late in the evening, and it doesn't look like any people are around to observe either of them. There are crates piled against the walls of the boat house, and windows covered with worn thin oilskin, semi-translucent and grimy. The windows are higher than Yotee stands, even on his hindlegs, but one of them has a crate underneath it that he could stand on to look inside. A light shines from inside. The presence is louder now, calling to Yotee. Come see, come see, you've never ever seen this before.
He whines quietly, he wants to get in and not just look in, but doesn't immediately spot a door. The crate seems unusually convenient, but he's close to ignoring his suspicions and using it regardless. He whispers, How do I get in?
The boathouse looks old and worn. There's a big bay-sized overhead door facing the water, which could be used to admit a small boat. That door is closed currently. A very large ship, without masts or rigging, is tethered to the pier nearby, too big to fit inside the boathouse. On the opposite side from the pier door, there's a person-sized door. The crates look pretty innocuous and don't smell funny. There is one odd scent in the air, other than the strong salt and seaweed smell of the ocean. After a moment, Yotee places it as the scent of the Englishman's chimp.
The reek makes him cautious, the hands and intelligence of man with the impulses of an animal, the chimp could be very dangerous and unlikely to hesitate in situations a person might. Yotee will have to be especially tricky, in a minute. Right now he uses the most expedient method to see what is going on inside. He hops up on the crate and puts his paws on the windowsill, trying to peek in.
The crate supports his weight with no trouble. Inside, Yotee can see the Englishman and his ape. The chimp is wearing a funny kind of hat, more like the frame of a hat than a whole hat, with wires leading from it to a big boxy machine. The machine is connected to a board with letters written on it, and an arrow-shaped pointer on the board is slowly rotating from one letter to the next, hesitating at certain spots.
But far more interesting than the man or the ape or their contraptions is a thing hanging from the ceiling. It's a funny-shaped object, with more wires dangling down to it. And it's calling to Yotee, the way Mother might call to him. He's certain that inside of it is something really good and interesting, something new and amazing, and he so longs to get to it.
Marseilles drifts up behind him, her mouth open in a silent 'O'. "Isn't it beautiful?" she whispers to Yotee.
Yotee wags his tail, Yes, it's like the moon. I want to eat it! Did you see it from your house? It shines so bright, I bet it will bring everything for miles around. Maybe even the unicorn, he smiles. Maybe the darkness from the hill. He stops smiling.
"Oh!" Marseilles's eyes widen at this thought. "Then I have to get to it first!" She puts her hands against the window. For a moment, they rest there -- then they start to pass through it, seamlessly.
No! I want it first. I think it's a trap. Yotee tries to hold Marseilles back by nipping at her wrists, forgetting entirely about the windowpane and thumping his nose against it. He tries distraction, Look down at those men, they're doing something.
"Then you're too slow!" Marseilles says, laughing. Yotee's teeth pass right through her; she's less solid than ever. Her hands drift through the window up to the elbow, then she notices the man and the chimp Yotee pointed out, and that stops her. She hesitates, her eyes flicking between them and the strange object hanging from the ceiling.
When Yotee's nose bumps the windowpane and brings his eyes closer to the window, he notices something else odd that he's missed earlier: a kind of cross lying on the floor, made of six square sections, each square inset with a clear crystal. The cross, like the chimp's hat and the alluring device, has cables leading back to the big machine.
Inside, the chimpanzee makes quiet ooking noises. Hello? Is there someone out there? His words are almost lost beside the overwhelming lure of the device hanging from a ceiling beam. Its appeal seems stronger the longer Yotee just sits outside, near but not touching. It's hard to pay attention to anything else when he could be INVESTIGATING THAT NOW NOW NOW.
The Englishman starts walking towards the window.
What are those crystals? That cross, is that good or bad? He tries to distract her again. What would a beartrap for something that could pass through a window look like. Speaking of which, he wants to enter through the window but it won't open nicely with so many people around. He's going to have to use his head.