“I’m glad Sasha didn’t see that,” Bobby mumbled as they spilled back into the sun lit street.”

Katrina wasn’t listening. She pulled the flute she’d brought with her from her pocket and looked at it sadly. The day had been one big disappointment so far. She glanced at the book in her other hand then put the flute away. Well, maybe it wasn’t all lost. She flicked open the contents page.

“Speaking of,” Gemma remarked.

They all turned to see Sasha walking up the street toward them. She was dressed for cold weather in jeans and her ice blue jersey. The one she loved so dearly because it’s hood and sleeves were rimmed with soft white rabbit fur. She loved that jersey so much that she wore it even at the slightest chill.

“Do you guys know where the farrier is?” Sasha asked.

Gemma frowned, unsure if she had heard right. “What?”

“What are you looking for a farrier for?” Bobby asked.

“You’re not likely to find any horses at the farrier’s,” Salem replied, knowing that for shoeing, the farrier usually went to the farm, instead of the horse going to the farriers.

“I know,” she replied. “It’s just... it’s doesn’t matter.” She looked at Bobby. “Benny said your girlfriend didn’t come by?”

“Yeah, we’re trying to find her,” Bobby replied.

“Oh,” she paused, then after a moment she looked up bright-eyed. “Do you want to come see what I found yesterday?”

Bobby shook his head. “I think we need to keep looking for Seraphina. She might be hurt or something.”

“Or she went with her father,” Gemma suggested with a shrug.

But Bobby shook his head again. “But she wouldn't have left her cats alone without being fed, and the sor-, that guy said he found them without food."

“Anything useful in that book?” Gemma asked Katrina.

Katrina frowned. “I only just opened it. Let me read a bit first.”

“You know how sorce- some people need their peace and quiet,” Bobby teased with a shared look at Gemma, who snorted at his remark.

Katrina frowned but she ignored them.

Sasha narrowed her eyes.

“Okay, so she’s not at her dad’s work. What about her home? That must be somewhere?” Gemma asked. “I saw some cottages to the east, maybe we should just go wander that way?”

Bobby nodded and the two started moving.

The other three followed.

“You think we should have asked the sorcerer if he had a ship lifting spell?” Gemma asked Bobby, quietly and with a glance back at the book shop.

“Why? Don’t mum and dad have a bunch of telekinetics to lift the ship ?” he replied.

“Well sure, but think about how much the ship weighs compared to how much the average telekinetic can lift.”

Bobby frowned. “They’ve done it before though haven’t they?”

“Yeah but they had Torr then, and Torr’s the telekinetic equivalent of mum. He could probably lift the ship almost by himself.”

“No one can lift that much.”

“Torr can. But anyway, the ship weight would be what?”

“Mmm, I dunno, it’s hard to guess things that big.”

“Say 10,000 tons.” She waved her hands. “And the average telekinetic can lift like what?”

Bobby shrugged again. “I dunno. A car? Or two? Maybe three.”

“A car’s probably more than average. I mean half the telekinetics on our ship can barely carry a small crate across the boat for any length of time, let alone the big ones which are only a couple ton each. The strongarms always do it.”

“That’s just for accuracy. They do the bigger ones sometimes in groups. And Shiv can lift the whole main sail, easily.”

“Shiv’s the best telekinetic on the ship!”

“Yeah, but that thing weighs like at least 20 tons.”

“And the ship weighs what again Bobby? But okay fine, let’s be generous and assume that the average telekinetic can lift 10 tons. Given the weight of the ship, you’d still need a thousand men. Do you think there are a thousand telekinetics in this town? Without splitting the telekinetics out, the crew alone doesn’t even make 50 people.”

Indeed, back at on the beach, the ship creaked and groaned, but it failed to move.

“Maybe if we had a song?” Cal called out toward where Amanda was watching them from. Both Shiv and Sirius were under the ship contributing to the effort to get it moving. The crew that couldn’t contribute waited further up the beach. But nothing seemed to be working. The just didn’t have enough people or anyone whose magic was strong enough, at least not in a useful way.

Amanda ignored him. The man behind Cal kicked him in the shin and the two briefly fell to fighting in the salty surf until they were pulled apart by two others.

The tide was fully in and all of them stood in water along the front half of the ship. For some it was up to their necks. One of the shapeshifters had gone for a swim checked the depth further out and it did indeed drop off quite quickly. All they needed to do was shift the ship a little way out.

Alas, moving that much weight, even a little way, was no small feat.

“Alright! We’re gonna try again on three,” Sirius shouted. “Three, two, one, lift.”

He ducked under the water, where he could get the best purchase on the ship. Unlike the telekinetics, he needed to actually be touching the ship and at a good angle.

Amanda watched with apprehension.

Shiv had sorted the telekinetics around the ship so they had roughly evenly balanced power sets on each side. Between each telekinetic others with different powers did what they could.

Neko and a couple of other water elementals pushed water up the beach but any water they shifted quickly got in the way of the telekinetics and strongarms, both of whom needed close proximity for maximum effectiveness.

An earth elemental attempted to physically lower the beach itself, but all he could manage was an area at the front of the ship and getting right under the middle of the ship was difficult. That, and the softening of the sand made it more difficult and dangerous for those around the ship. They finally told him to call it quits after he nearly sucked one guy down under the boat.

Amanda found some summoners to summon piles of sand from a more centered place under the boat but at this rate it was going to take them a few days to shift the required amounts of sand and the poor guys already looked like they wanted a nap. That and she was worried if they got sand too close to the boat they might accidentally summon out a piece of the ship. She told them to stop after barely 15 minutes of trying.

An air elemental attempted to put some wind in the sails to blow them back out but he was so bad at it that even the heat from Amanda’s flames put more of a burst in the sails. But none of it was enough to shift the ship.

And so they settled on a mix of strongarms, telekinesis, and shapeshifters, the latter of which had selected various forms of larger animals. One chose an elephant and pushed from the front of the ship. Several others, who could not manage an elephant, had morphed into a mix of bear, oxen, and other strong beasts. Two particularly skilled shapeshifters had turned into whales and pulled with ropes from the rear of the ship.

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After several false starts, and one or two off-balance quickly-cut short lifts, finally the ship got up in the air. It lifted enough that Amanda saw Sirius pop back up out of the water, bearing a portion of the weight of the ship on his shoulders. He’d taken his dark coat off for this and the muscles on his bare arms rippled. It always worried her when he ducked under the ship, given how long it took for them just to get the ship up, but the man could hold his breath like a turtle.

All around him, men and the occasional woman, grunted and strained. But Amanda’s focus was purely on him. He shook his hair from his face and caught her eye with a dazzling smile.

She smiled back. And then everything went wrong.

She didn’t see the first man faint. But that was all it took. One man who pushed himself just over the edge. As the ship had finally seemed like it was moving and well-balanced, more of the group had dug in a little deeper, pushed their magic a little harder. They gave it their all, but as one fell the weight of that ship on everyone got a little heavier. A second man fainted. Then a woman, just a few ahead from Sirius.

They managed to move the ship a few inches before this happened, but once Sirius saw it and then felt the weight of the ship above him start to increase he yelled, “Lower! Slowly!”

But it was too late. As others started to realise the ship was coming down, and it was coming down fast, they gave up all together and ran, exacerbating the problem.

“Hold your places,” Sirius barked at them.

His own men did as he requested but the townsfolk did not know him so well. They had no reason for loyalty in the face of a falling 10,000 ton ship coming straight at them.

The ship landed with a crash, pushing out water from the sides.

Sirius thrust up his hands to stop it shifting, and others did the same, but the balance of people was uneven. The ship began to tip.

Men and women scampered for their lives. One young lad, barely 20 years old, placed his foot too close to the rotating ship as he turned to run. It caught him and pulled him down. Sirius watched as the man crashed beneath the water, unseen by the panicking people around him.

Sirius swore and he abandoned his position to head for the man. The ship rolled closer, looming in from above. Sirius didn’t think, he just ran. He reached the man and a part of him knew there was no time to get away.

He reached into the water and wrapped his hands around the man’s shoulders with a solid grip. The next thing he knew, both of them were flying through the air and back away from the ship.

They landed with a splash in the sea right before getting sideswiped by a wave. Spluttering out water, his eyes stinging from the salt, Sirius didn’t wait around to figure out what had happened. He clambered to his feet and dragged the man in the direction of dry land.

He was met by a worried Amanda who took the other man from him then called for help from others along the beach.

While she was organising help for the injured man, Sirius blinked the water from his eyes. He needed to know how the rest of the situation was unfolding.

The ship was tilted but she hadn’t tipped over completely yet. And her roll was now slowing. Further along the beach, Shiv had taken charge of the remaining telekinetics. The ship was still beached but she was upright. They had just enough of them for it. Some who had initially run had, turned back to help, once they’d gotten a safe enough distance away. Others, Shiv had yanked off their fleeing feet and ordered back to work.

Elsewhere things were chaos. People pulled people out of the water. Some of the injured had been caught by the ship. Some had been knocked over by others in their attempts to flee. A few were unconscious from magic overuse.

Several individuals stood aimlessly on the beach at a loss for what to do. Sirius targeted them first. Happy that Shiv had the ship sorted, Sirius would deal with the mess on the beach.

Sirius whistled at one aimless group. “Are any of you healers?”

They shook their heads.

“You,” Sirius pointed at one of the men. “I want you to round up anyone who’s not helping with the ship or the injured and sort them into easily countable lines, stationed over there, okay?” He pointed to an empty area of the beach.

The man nodded and took off to round up other stragglers.

“You two,” Sirius pointed at another two. “Take one side of the ship each, do a thorough search for anyone trapped along the edge. Get others around you to help search the water. Bring any injured over to this area. Any healers you find, send them this way too.”

They too, nodded, and took off.

He gave instructions to the those remaining on how to triage the injured and who to move where. He was about to help with the searching in the water when he felt hands grab his arm. He turned to find Amanda at his side, looking pale-faced.

“Are you alright?” she asked.

He nodded. “I’m not even sure what happened.”

“A couple of people passed out, probably overdid it. Shiv yanked you back and a couple others too. I thought you were gonna be stuck under the ship for sure.” Her hands gripped his arm tightly, nails digging in. She probably didn’t realise how hard she was gripping.

He nodded. “I couldn’t leave him.”

“I know.”

“Is he alright?” Sirius’s eyes search for the man. He found him and it looked like he was moving. A couple of people surrounded him and he recognised the ship’s healer Patchie, as one of them.

Amanda nodded. “He’s being looked after.”

He took her hands in his. “Are you-”

“I’m fine.” She took a deep breath and surveyed the surrounding scene. She still gripped his hands tight. “We should...”

“Yup.” He squeezed her hands gently, then they both spread out to help with the chaos.

The ship was sound and right, albeit still stuck, it was slightly less so than before but no one dared try shift her again yet. Luckily no one was permanently injured, and what bone breakages there had been, these were quickly healed. Those who had overused their magic would be fine after a long rest. All of the villagers and the crew were accounted for.

The villagers were paid their share and then some. Sirius felt guilty for the danger he had put them all in. To his crew he also promised a bonus. The villagers returned to the village. The crew returned to the ship.

As the last few wandered off in whichever direction they were going, Shiv approached Amanda and Sirius.

“Well, that was a bloody disaster,” he remarked.

“More like a bloody miracle,” Sirius replied.

“We’re still stuck hard.” Shiv sighed and eyed the ship, which now sat silently as the waves slowly retreated from her sides with the lowering tide.

“But everyone’s alive. Thank you by the way.”

Amanda nodded in agreement. “Thanks Shiv.”

Shiv turned back to look at him. “Well, I don’t want to be left in charge of that lot just cause you got your stupid self sucked under the ship.”

Sirius smiled. Then he looked at the still beached ship and his smile faded.

Shiv did the same. He sighed. “Well, I don’t think we’re trying anything else today. No one’s got the energy for it. In fact, we might need a whole new plan. Maybe hope for a storm to lift her back out.”

They each thought in silence.

Eventually Shiv remarked, “Well, maybe some food will help me think of something. You two going back into the town?”

Sirius nodded. “For lunch yeah, but we’ll be back on the ship tonight.”

“Mmm, good plan,” Shiv replied with a nod of his own. “I’ll see you guys later.” With that, he headed for the ship.

“No drinking!” Sirius called after him.

Shiv spun in the sand, held out his hands, and with a wicked grin he shot back, “But it’s how I get the best of my ideas.”

Sirius sighed but he couldn’t hide the small smile that rose from beneath his beard.

Amanda turned to Sirius. “Shiv’s right, we should go back to town and get some food. Think on it for a bit, come up with some new ideas.”

He nodded and gave a small grunt. Then he shook his head and with a sigh replied, “I’m all out of ideas.”

She linked arms with his in silence and they began the long walk back to town.

Back in town, and a little before the whole ship debacle, Katrina walked silently, eyes downcast, shoes kicking small rocks. She’d given up browsing the book while walking, it was too hard to do both.

Up ahead Bobby and Gemma argued over something. Behind her, Sasha hummed a quiet tune. Her voice was so soft and sweet that it took awhile before anyone noticed she was singing words and not just humming.

“Ten dark ships, sailed across a sea so fine.

A fierce wind blew in, and then there were nine.

Nine fine ships, sailed over the ocean great.

A white wave rose up, and then there were eight.

Eight great ships, a sight befit for heaven.

But then came the siren, that left only seven.

Only seven ships, now what sort of tricks,

Oh did Poseidon play, that left only six?

Six quick ships, hoping to survive,

But alas, a storm, so now only five.

Five little ships, the captain, he’s a bore.

Ahoy! A mutiny, so now only four.

Four tired ships. Flee! Flee! Flee!

An unfriendly kracken reduces them to three.

Three little ships. They’ll be home soon.

Alas, there’s a plague, that leaves only two.

Two little ships, travelling all alone,

Cause when they looked away,

The other one was gone!”

She finished on a loud and enthusiastic cry that drew the eyes of the others.

"We're not supposed to be singing, Sash," Salem grumbled.

"It's too sunny not to be," she replied as she skipped along beside Salem, who walked more somberly.

As he glanced back, Bobby caught sight of Katrina’s sad face.

"Are you alright?" he asked her.

She nodded.

Having overheard, Salem remarked in dramatic biting form, "Of course she’s not. She just had her dreams dashed. Finally figured out that sorcerers are not to be idealised."

"They do say never meet your heroes." Gemma remarked, more to Bobby than any of the others. She felt sorry for Katrina but she couldn’t resist a good quip.

Katrina shook her head and turned back to Salem. "That was an ex sorcerer, he got kicked out. He's hardly representative."

Sasha frowned. "What did I miss?"

“Uhh, nothing,” Gemma and Bobby stammered at the same time.

The others went quiet and Sasha pouted. No one ever told her anything. Well, she decided, with some satisfaction, she had a secret of her own, and there was no way she was telling them now.

Gemma stopped suddenly in the middle of the street.

“What?” Bobby asked as he nearly ran into her.

She was frowning and looking at a row of shops.

“Oh look, there’s squirrels wearing little coats and hats!” Sasha ran to the window of the shop.

“The taxidermist!” Bobby remarked. “Sasha! Wait!” he called out.

But it was too late. Sasha had already disappeared into the shop.

Bobby glanced to Gemma as he started moving toward the shop. “It’s probably a silly rumour.”

“Yup,” she agreed, looking equally concerned and already moving toward the shop beside him.

“Still, we should check-”

“Yup.”

Katrina rolled her eyes and followed after them.

“Uh, guys...” Salem glanced up and down the street. The street was eerily empty. With a sigh and a deep breath, Salem entered the store after his siblings.

As the door swung shut behind him, the chime of a bell echoed throughout the room.