Free Night Songs by Charles L. Grant Page A

protests had been lies. He was startled, ashamed, stared over her shoulder into the dark of the shack. Gran was in there.
        He could sense the corpse and the shroud. And there was something else-perhaps the scent of her grieving-but whatever it was it wrinkled his nose and would have gagged him had she not pulled away and kissed him lightly on the cheek.
        He gave her a weak grin. "Easy, lady, people will talk."
        "They do anyway."
        She was right. And only a handful understood the affinity binding the two, not as lovers but as friends, both of them outcasts in their own way and recognizing each other instantly.
        "You'll ride with me, Colin?"
        "Of course I will."
        She looked to the beach, the boats. "Colin?" She clasped her hands at her waist, scrubbed them dryly. "Colin, Gran wasn't the man people think he was."
        "I know."
        She frowned briefly. "No. I don't think so. He-"
        The indefinable stench from the shack increased, and he imagined it almost as visible as smoke. He held his breath, amazed it didn't bother Lilla. Incense, he decided then, some crap Gran had brought with him from the Caribbean.
        "He what?" he prompted gently.
        The stench on the wind now.
        She shook her head slowly. "It doesn't matter now," she whispered. Then she turned around.
        Stronger.
        "Lilla, wait. I'll get some of the others-"
        "No!" she said, the child-woman gone in the snap of the command. "He is mine, Colin. If this thing has to be done, I will take him myself.
        He opened his mouth to protest, but it was too late, and something about the darkness that seemed to shift just over the threshold kept him from following. He felt embarrassed. He wanted to look back at the others and lift his hands to say  I tried. Lilla spared him the moment; she returned with the body cradled easily in her arms, and he fell in beside her, holding her elbow to prevent her from slipping. The stench was gone.
        
***
        
        Silently, swiftly, the boats were filled and pushed into the surf. They moved directly east toward the fog's boundary, stopping when they reached a point a mile beyond the jetties' tips.
        Colin's arms arched as he rowed the heavy craft, Lilla sitting at the stern, Gran lying between them. But he felt no compulsion to be first at the spot; after all, he thought with a barely stifled laugh, they sure as hell couldn't start without him. The levity shamed him, and he refused to meet Lilla's gaze. He ducked his head and pulled around the already circled boats until he could slip stern first into his place at the top.
        The oarlocks were silent, though the oars had been left half submerged in the water. No anchors were thrown, no lines were connected, yet each of the craft maintained the same spacing without needing adjustment. And the dark water in the center was calm, low, as if the ocean were a lake, windless at dusk.
        Reverend Graham Otter, standing at the circle's base with his back to the shore, glanced around him once before slipping off his jacket, his black cassock and white collar in startling contrast. He folded his hands at his waist in an attitude of waiting. A moment later he nodded. Lilla rose, turned to face him. Colin followed, watching as the rest of the congregation moved to its feet. There was no struggling for balance, no ripples, no splashes; the boats were still, as were the people in them.
        Colin was nervous. Though he assumed he had performed his part well thus far, he suddenly decided this wasn't fair at all. It was his first island funeral, and he should be in one of the other boats, observing, learning, trying to feel the solace that obviously affected the others. But somehow, without his knowing it, he'd been chosen pallbearer, Charon, and God only knew what else. It wasn't fair; he didn't like it; suddenly he turned his head away, blinking aside the