Downtown Port Sitka is a pretty, windswept little place.

Everything is situated as close to the sea as possible. All the fancier restaurants overlook the ocean, but up and down the main streets are shops and restaurants and cafes of all sizes.

The marina is visible further down the beach, and we can see from here that all the boats are docked for the day. No one wants to go out on the ocean when the water is so cold and choppy. This means that everyone is in town, and while it’s far from the height of tourist season, there’s enough of a crowd that Aiden and I can drift around mostly unnoticed.

We stop for some food at a hot pot restaurant, then step out onto the blustery street, warmed from within.

Together, we start to explore.

We wander in and out of shops, find some cool places. An old bookstore, and a stand selling vintage postcards. Some of them have writing on the back. My archivist sorts through these for a while with interested blue eyes, exceptionally careful hands.

We also check out a specialty food store, where I notice Aiden eyeing a few things. Sensing that he’d like to try cooking with some of this stuff, I snag a shopping basket and fill it up with what I caught his eyes lingering on. Crunchy garlic chili oil, lavender flower buds, herb-infused sea salt. I also pick out some nice versions of things that he already likes to use, like saffron threads and foraged fennel.

When Aiden realizes what I’m doing, he tries to get me to put everything back. I talk him out of it by insisting that he’d be cooking for me with it, so really it’s for me, and that I’m curious to see what he’ll come up with, anyways.

It’s a much tougher battle to convince him to let me pay for it, but ultimately I win that fight, too. I lead the way on a victory lap back to the car to drop it all off, Aiden smile-grumbling the whole way.

I find a copper plant mister that I like at a vintage shop, and this time there’s no argument over it. I don’t even realize that Aiden bought it until he leads me back to the car again to make a second drop-off.

“That was so sneaky!” I tell him, flustered and blushing. “I should’ve kept a better eye on you! I didn’t think that I had to, since you’re always funneling your cash directly into your savings account. You’re like, the most frugal guy I know.”

“Just because I don’t spend it all on cinnamon swirl bread-”

“I don’t spend all my money on cinnamon swirl bread, okay?”

"Yeah, yeah." Aiden closes the door of my car, then bends to pop a kiss onto my nose. “Whatever you say, Sugar Shoes.”

“Oh, my god. You’re so not allowed to call me that.”

“Alright, fine.” Aiden smiles brightly at me, ruffles my hair. “Guess I’ll just have to revert back to Ginger Spice.”

I smack his arm, trying not to laugh. “Aiden!”

He huffs out a soft chuckle, then pauses, his eyes roaming over the street.

“I think we’ve kinda walked everywhere. I’m getting a feel for this place. But - do you feel like we’re only getting the tourist experience, or…?”

I know what he means. We haven’t learned anything more about Port Sitka than what your average visitor might learn in a day trip. We’re here to uncover what’s beneath the surface, not what's polished up for display and set on top.

“What do we do?” I ask.

Aiden considers, nibbling his lip.

“Talk to some locals, maybe?” He winces, clearly not stoked about the idea. “I don’t know where to start with that, though. Don’t want to go up to total strangers, unprepared, and like, start asking a bunch of weird questions...”

I think that over for a minute, then remember something I spotted when we were looking out at the sea.

“There was a tourist information booth on the beach. Must be worked by a local, right? Maybe that's who we should talk to. See if we can get the inside scoop.”

Aiden adjusts his snapback, looking uncomfortable. “Yeah, okay.”

I scope out the look on his face, then tug on his fingers.

“Hey, it’s alright. I’ll do most of the talking. I know that sometimes it’s hard work for you.”

My Companion Plant smiles at me, relieved. He toys with the collar of my flannel, looking down at it with warm eyes. It’s the one he gave me for Christmas, which is officially one of my favorites.

The fabric is so soft, and I love the deep blue color.

~~~~

The information booth is a small wooden hut on the sand, set near the row of rental beach cottages lining the waterfront. The entire thing is painted a pale shade of peach. It has a short little counter, also made of wood.

The shutters above the counter are closed, but there’s a sign on them that says OPEN.

Aiden and I exchange a puzzled glance.

“Hello?” I call, leaning up to knock on the shutters. “Anyone there?”

There’s a silence, and then a scuffling crash from inside, like someone getting hastily to their feet and knocking things over in the process.

The shuttered windows swing open, releasing a cloud of smoke as thick and dense as whipped cream. Aiden and I both take a startled step back as two bony hands appear in the haze, flapping wildly to disperse it.

“Yo, hello,” says the person we still can’t see. “What’s good, um - welcome to the...” A long, silent pause, and then - “Port Sitka! Yeah, the Port Sitka visitor information desk! What can I help you with today?”

By now, enough of the smoke has cleared for us to make out who’s in the booth. He's a skinny guy with long blonde hair beneath a wool beanie, and short blonde scruff on his chin. His eyes are startlingly red, blinking slowly down at me and Aiden.

Beneath his unbuttoned uniform, he’s wearing a Nektar t-shirt with the album cover for Remember the Future printed on it. A lopsided nametag hangs from the front, stamped with the name Joni.

I haven’t answered his question yet, and neither has Aiden. I’m still recovering from the blast of weed smoke I just took to the face, and one glance at Aiden tells me that all of his effort is currently bound up in trying not to laugh.

“Um,” I stammer, “Hey, Joni! We-”

“Hey,” he drawls, fixing me with a lazy, friendly smile. “How’d you know my name, guy? Someone send you here?” He leans out of the booth, wiggles his eyebrows at me and Aiden. “Maybe you’re not here for information? I do have... other stuff available.”

I bite my lip, struggling to not burst out laughing. This botched attempt to be coy is more than a little misguided, given that we already caught him hotboxing the information booth.

“No, thank you,” I manage. “We’re not here for that.”

“Oh.” Joni blinks at me, suddenly wary. “Well, I was just kidding, and - this isn’t what it looks like, either, the smoke is because we’re, um - fumigating, so-”

“Hey, it’s fine, man,” I quickly jump in. “Do you, we don’t care. We just can't partake, because we're working.”

Joni arches an eyebrow. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

He considers for a second, then shrugs and bends over, briefly disappearing into the booth. When he straightens up again, there’s a gigantic, three-sheeter joint between his fingers. The thing is nearly the size of a cigar.

Joni sparks it, takes a long pull on it, and folds his elbows on the counter. No exhale before he starts speaking.

“So, what can I do for you? You guys trying to rent a boat, go out on the water? Cause, like - no way, bitch. It’s choppy as hell out there.”

I take a second before I answer, realizing that we should have strategized before we dove into this conversation.

“Okay, first of all, I’m Jamie, and this is Aiden.”

“Joni-Jamie.” Joni lets out a stoned little chuckle. “Fun to say. And nice to meet you.”

“You, too! Are you from here, man? Port Sitka?”

“Born and raised, yep. Now I float around, but it’s good to venture back in the winter. They know that not a lot of tourists come, they’ll hire you without even bothering to do the background check. If you’re down to be bored all day.”

“Oh, then maybe you can help us, we’re-” I break off, watching with wide eyes as he finally breathes out the hit he took so long ago that I forgot about it. “Um, we - um-”

“Joni,” Aiden says, rescuing me from the sentence I was floundering around in, “We might be able to help you out with that boredom problem.”

Joni lifts his eyebrows. “Talk to me.”

“We’re…” Aiden hesitates, glances over at me, and turns back to the booth. “We’re ghost hunters. And we could use your help.”

Apparently Aiden has decided that we don’t need a cover story for Joni. I was thinking along the same lines, but I watch him nervously, waiting for the reaction.

“Oh, word?” Joni leans forward on his elbows, his eyes scanning the beach. “We got ghosts around here?”

“Not here,” I quickly explain. “But we’re investigating something that happened here a long time ago. A cold case, the murder of a guy named John Botswick.”

Joni’s mouth drops open, and he leans so far out of the booth that I’m genuinely concerned for a moment that he might fall. The massive joint between his fingers dispenses almost an inch of ash onto the beach.

“No way,” he sputters, his eyes perfectly round. “You’re telling me that John Botswick is actually haunting this town? Like - for real? Legit shit?”

“No,” Aiden says firmly. “It’s - more complicated than that. But why the reaction, man? You know something about this?”

“Ah, it’s like a creepy story that kids tell at campfires around here.” Joni stubs out the joint, then folds his elbows on the countertop again, clearly disappointed. “You know, small town, local mystery, a dude with no face. Never solved, that’s some extra spook. Lil’ spook spice on a super spooky sitch. You get it.”

Again, I find myself trying to suppress a laugh. “You have any theories about what happened, man?”

“Yeah, I do! Now, this is just me, but...” Joni leans forward again, drops his voice to a confidential whisper. “I’m pretty sure that John Botswick was a cyborg. Right? It would explain everything.”

I stare at Joni, trying to keep my expression under control. “Um - how do you figure?”

“Cause you don’t need to put a face on a cyborg, dude,” he answers, with the air of someone who just absolutely demolished their debate opponent. “A cyborg doesn’t need a face.”

I look over at Aiden, who shrugs at me, biting back a grin.

“I mean - he’s right, Keane. They don’t.”

I put my hands over my mouth, close my eyes for a second. Aiden can clearly tell that I’m going to lose the battle against my laughter if this line of conversation goes on any longer, because he tries to get us back on track.

“Joni, do you know anything that could help us investigate this further? We’ve read newspaper accounts, stuff like that, but - something only a local would know?”

Joni tips his head to the side. “Like what, tall friend?”

“Like… was there anything about that night that was kept off the books? Not run in any newspapers?”

Joni thinks hard for a second - I can almost see the wheels turning - and then blinks, landing on a thought.

“Well, there was like, a cryptid sighting right around the same time that Botswick was murdered.”

I freeze, my eyes widening. “What?”

“Yeah, some people say it was probably connected, cause the cryptid was a sea monster, and Botswick was found dead on the beach with no footprints around him.”

Aiden and I stare at Joni in blank silence for a minute, and then a huge, slow smile unfurls across my face.

Aiden sees it happen. “No. Jamie, no.”

I start bouncing on my feet, clasping my hands beneath my chin.

“Jamie.” Aiden takes my face in both hands, stares down into my eyes. “Listen to me. There is not a cryptid involved in this thing, so don’t get exci-”

“Oh my god, Aiden, we’re gonna find a cryptid! Holy shit, I've gotta call Devin - an aquatic cryptid, too, like the Loch Ness Monster, or a ningen, or-”

Aiden wraps his arms around me from behind, covers my mouth with his hand, and then uses that hand to pull me back against his chest. I tug at his forearms and try to push his fingers away, but it’s like he doesn’t even feel it.

“Okay, Joni,” Aiden says calmly, “What the fuck are you talking about?”

Joni puts his chin on his palm, watching with obvious amusement as I fruitlessly struggle to free myself.

“Couple of nights before ol' Johnny Bots was murdered, some people out on the beach saw something big swimming by the caves. But like, on top of the water. Said it had skin that looked sort of shiny. Papers didn’t run it, but the whole town was talking about it. Local legend, now.”

“Why didn’t the papers run it?” Aiden asks.

Joni shrugs.

“The people who saw it couldn’t get their story straight. One of the chicks with the group said it didn’t look like a monster to her, more like a rubber dinghy. But nobody would take a boat out there in the middle of the night, and who the hell has a dinghy made completely of black rubber, with no lights?”

I freeze in Aiden’s arms, then twist to look up at him, right as he looks down at me.

I think that our minds went right to the same thing. The black rubber that was wrapped around the go-bag we found in the well.

It was sort of like a bag, but it looked extremely homemade. Ragged edges, no zipper, no clips or buttons. I put that down to it being super old, but…

“Could it have been cut from something?” Aiden murmurs. “Something bigger?”

“A boat?” I say softly.

If people were looking out over the ocean, in the dark, and distantly saw something moving on the surface of the water, something really big for a harbor sea creature…

Maybe what they really saw was someone making a very quiet, stealthy entrance into Port Sitka. Just a few days before John Botswick was killed. Someone who then cut up their method of transportation, reused it to safely store a go-bag.

There’s a silence, and then Aiden says: “Well, sounds like we should go check out the caves.”

“Oh, god,” I groan. “That doesn’t sound terrifying at all.”

“Good luck with that, boys.” Joni points out across the water. “You’d need some way to get out there.”

Aiden and I follow his finger to the rocky bluffs that surround the bay. In the distance, I can just make out a black gap in the rocks. A cave entrance.

The ocean laps right up on it, and the cliff above it is way too steep to climb down from.

“Can’t get a boat up close,” Joni tells us. “Water’s too shallow, and there’s a reef. I wouldn’t take anything bigger than a dinghy. Even that’s pushing it. No one even tries, believe me.”

Aiden and I look at each other, having a conversation in silence, then turn back to the booth.

“Joni,” Aiden says, “You’re a rockstar.”

“Yeah, thank you so much, man,” I add. “I’m so glad we stopped at your booth! You’ve been really helpful.”

Joni blinks in surprise, then breaks into a huge smile.

“You know you guys are like, the first ones to ever say anything like that to me?”

This - doesn’t exactly surprise me, but I keep that thought to myself. Joni is still beaming at us when we set off down the beach, and I’d rather leave him that way.

As Aiden and I leave him behind, we look at each other, thinking the same thing.

Joni is right. The caves are impossible to access from above, and too dangerous to approach in a boat.

But Aiden is a Heliomancer. We don’t need a boat.

We can walk on water.