Free Fathomless by Anne M. Pillsworth

just doubles your crap allowance, and everybody ends up buried . “You’re right about that,” he told Daniel. “The Order’s only trying to give you a fighting chance.”
    â€œNot that it’s a contest,” Eddy said.
    But Daniel was smiling again. “No, the contest’s who’s going to eat the most tacos. If you guys are ready.”
    *   *   *
    Daniel borrowed Helen’s bike, and they pedaled to the harbor, a tree-shaded ride along the old residential streets to the east. They passed the Third Congregational Church, where Orne had preached, and Daniel said he’d like to check it out sometime. Sean made a mental note to skip that outing, but in Arkham it was hard to escape Orne. On the way back, they stopped at a cemetery on Lich Street, and next to the spiky iron fence was a lichen-coated mausoleum on which the Historical Society had stuck a shiny new plaque:
    THE REVEREND NICHOLAS BRATTLE, 1655–1731,
    FIRST PASTOR OF THE THIRD CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH
    Good old Brattle, who’d faked Constance Orne’s death so she could become Constance Cooke, no questions asked. Sean looked for her fake infant-sized grave, but unless it was beneath one of the many stones worn illegible, he didn’t find it.
    Back at the Arkwright House, Sean went to the library and Skyped Dad. He was in his workshop, shoulder deep in glass samples, with cartoons of the St. Anselm windows pinned to the corkboard behind him, and so he was in an excellent mood. Sean filled him in on the new guy, Daniel. Then he said, “Helen and Professor Marvell told me.”
    Dad pulled his laptop closer. “About Orne.”
    â€œAbout how he’s my grandfather. Times ten. Mom’s times nine.”
    â€œWere you thrown as hard as I was?”
    Sean skipped over his panic attack. “A little, but we already knew Mom had some magic. I wonder if she could have become a magician. You know, with training.”
    â€œHelen thinks her magic wasn’t as strong as yours, or else Orne would have contacted her first.”
    Sean had a scary new idea: “What if Orne did contact her?”
    â€œSomething like that, she’d have told me.”
    â€œEven if it happened before she knew you, and she figured Orne was just a nutcase?”
    The breeze from an unseen window stirred Dad’s cartoons, making their stiff medieval saints shimmy. “You could be right, but does it make any difference?”
    â€œGuess not. Except maybe I’d feel better if he had gone after Mom.”
    â€œWhy, Sean?”
    â€œBecause if Orne went after her, and she turned him down, that means I can turn him down, too. Like, I don’t have evil overlord genes or bad blood or something.”
    Dad shook his head. “There’s two things I know for certain: Your mother wasn’t crazy or evil. You’re not crazy or evil. If the Professor or Helen suggested—”
    â€œNo, Dad. No way they’d say anything like that.” Though since the meeting, Sean had been worrying about how down Marvell was on Orne—didn’t he have to at least wonder about Orne’s great-et cetera-grandson? “It’s only, what if they don’t trust me, now that they know I’m related to the Reverend? Before today, Professor Marvell said I’d have a magician mentor this summer. Now he says no mentor until next year. He says I started too fast. I have to backtrack.”
    â€œThat sounds reasonable to me.”
    It would. “But the Order’s assigned Daniel a mentor. And you know who it is? Mr. Geldman!”
    â€œWell, you said Daniel’s eighteen. Doesn’t that put him a year ahead of you?”
    â€œNot in magic. He told me he hasn’t done any yet.”
    If Sean was being held back in any other subject, Dad would be ticked off. With magic, relief glowed off his face. “I can see why you’re frustrated,” he