Illusions II: The Adventures of a Reluctant Student (Illusions 2)

“You didn’t know, coming from the hospital,” she said. “Permission granted.”

I watched the salt-colored wake, fanned wide and high astern. “This is a practice run?”

“No. A couple squirrels a half-mile off shore. They’re adrift in their sailboat, halyard’s parted aloft. They called for help. We’ll tow them to the shore, near the forest.”

“A lot of squirrels at sea?”

She smiled. “Not many.”

“Mice and rats,” I said, “when a human’s ship goes down.” I knew this, as I had written about it.

She nodded. “Plenty of those, and a few ferrets. The adventurous ones. Kits, mostly. We’ve never… we’ve rarely had to rescue an adult animal.”

A voice from the interphone loudspeaker on her bridge. “Starboard High has the squirrel’s boat in sight, Captain, bearing zero one four.”

She acknowledged Kimiko’s voice. “Zero one four.” She eased the helm a few degrees to the right. “Excuse me,” Bethany said, spoke to the interphone. “Boa, a quarter ahead.”

“One quarter aye.”

The engines slowed, Resolute eased off the step, her diagonal colors waving gently at low speed.

“Forward lookout, stand by the starboard boarding ladder.”

“Starboard ladder aye.”

There was the little sailboat, the mainsail furled as best the two squirrels could tie it. The two were vastly relieved that a Ferret Rescue Boat had found them.

“Port High, secure the boat for towing.”

“Port High, aye.”

A slim ferret ran down the ladder from his post, stood by as Bethany turned her boat alongside.

“Engines idle, Boa.”

”All idle, aye.” The pulse of the twin screws ceased.

Bethany steered to ghost alongside the sailboat. Vincent gave the squirrels a paw to the ladder, Harley caught a line from the sailboat’s forward cleat, walked it as she floated down the starboard side, belayed the line to the towing cleat.

“Line’s clear the screws,” Harley called.

“Boa, all ahead a quarter.”

“Quarter ahead, aye.” The engines dropped a few revolutions as the screws engaged, increased up a quarter.

“That’s it,” I said. “You go on with this long after the book about you was published.”

“The book wasn’t about me,” she said. “It was about the Ferret Rescue Service. There was no history of them before, but you wrote, and there it was, years of service, our whole history imagined and done, when you wrote.”

“Years, came true when I wrote? The book changed your past?”

“It did. Your words, your imagination, made it so. Our time, the time of invented stories, came true. May I say thank you?”

“I didn’t know.”

“The book is around the world, now. People who read it, now, they know the story, too. Not just us, but all the Ferret Chronicles, they have a quiet little history which can change many of us, the fiction ferrets, the mortals, too. You didn’t know, did you?”

“I love the stories. I love you, all of you.”