The Fork-Tongue Charmers

by Paul Durham

  “Huh,” he grunted.

  Abby flashed him a smile.

  “Shoo-gay-yoo a Wick, den,” he mumbled finally. “S’be off.”

  “Did he say he’s going to whip us?” Rye asked in alarm.

  “No,” Abby said, and put a reassuring hand on her shoulder. “He said he should get us to Wick. It’s the local village.”

  Rye puzzled over the strange accent.

  “It’s called Mumbley-Speak,” Abby whispered. “Some of the old Belongers still talk that way. You’ll catch on soon enough.”

  The man turned and marched up the beach and the rolling hill, his nets dragging behind him. He gave a shrill whistle and the sheep stopped their grazing to meander after him. One of the sheep glanced back with its woolly head, as if waiting for them to follow. Rye, Folly, and Quinn looked at one another, then to Abby.

  “You heard him,” Abby said. “Let’s not dawdle.”

  The old man set a quick pace, pushing himself up steep hills and worn footpaths with a walking stick that reminded Rye of a longer version of her cudgel. Rye removed her own from its sling and tried to match his stride, but still found herself trailing behind. Quinn carried Lottie on his back when her short legs tired.

  Spring had indeed taken hold on the island. Cool sea breezes stirred the air, but the children found themselves loosening their collars as the sun warmed their backs. Rye was relieved when they reached the top of a tall bluff and the old man paused to take a breath. The Salt had lifted entirely and disappeared, and Rye could see the white-capped sea in all directions around them. Wind-scarred rocks and outcroppings stretched from the island, like the protective spines of the midnight sea urchins Harmless had collected at Grabstone. Nestled between them were small, sheltered coves and crescent beaches similar to the one they’d landed on. Littered among the outlying rocks, Rye saw the fractured remains of dozens of hulls and masts—the wrecks of ships that had never found those hidden harbors. She realized that luck had indeed been on their side that morning.

  The island itself was mostly treeless, covered by lush but hardy turf that clung stubbornly to the ground. The hills were dotted with isolated stone cottages, gentle plumes of smoke wafting from their chimneys. White tufts flecked the rolling green meadows like dandelions. Rye squinted. They were countless flocks of sheep.

  “Look over there,” Folly called. “What are those?”

  At a far end of the island, a half dozen twisted pillars of earth seemed to rise from an open clearing. From that distance, Rye guessed they must be at least thirty feet tall. Rye extended her spyglass and was stunned to find that they weren’t natural outcroppings at all. Rather, they were boulders, each one as large as a horse, stacked and impossibly balanced into tall, narrow piles like plates in a cupboard.

  Rye handed the spyglass to Folly, who took a long look and then passed it to Quinn. Lottie impatiently called for her turn, and Rye, Folly, and Quinn ignored her for as long as possible, as was their custom.

  “Who built those?” Quinn wondered out loud.

  “Jack-in-Irons, o’course,” the old man chimed in without looking up from lacing his boot.

  “What?” Quinn whispered to Rye.

  “A giant,” Abby translated, and flashed the children a knowing smile.

  “What?” Rye echoed in alarm.

  They were interrupted by Lottie’s yelling. Her calls were not a product of her impatience this time. She ran around in a circle, angrily swatting at the air around her head.

  “Bees! Bees!” she called.

  Several large insects buzzed in and out of Lottie’s hair.

  Abby chuckled and tried her best to corral her.

  “No, Lottie, not bees,” Abby said, kneeling down and carefully plucking one of the insects from its perch on Lottie’s ear.

  She extended her palm to show them the emerald green dragonfly. It gently opened and closed it wings. The air was filled with a colorful swarm of the harmless creatures.

  The old man decided they’d rested long enough and they soon set off again. This time the footpath meandered down more hills than up, and Rye stumbled in her boots as her body got ahead of her feet on some of the steeper slopes. Eventually, Rye caught sight of numerous buildings clustered on narrow roads overlooking a harbor. The small fishing boats moored at the harbor’s wharfs and piers were sheltered by a grand rock seawall that must have taken years to build. But instead of following the footpath down toward the village, the man veered to the left, where a crushed-shell path climbed back into the hills.

  “Excuse me,” Abby said, stopping at the fork. “Cutty House is that way. In the village.”

  The old man stopped and nodded. “Aye,” he mumbled. “Cutty House ’sin Wick. But Cutty’s house ’sup dar. He ain’t lived in town for years.”

  “Oh, I see,” Abby said, sounding confused, and not just by his speech.

  “Come, step lively,” the man said, waving them on.

  Traveling over a stone bridge and up another green slope, they came to a rather rundown-looking homestead balanced on top of a high bluff. A small collection of livestock wandered in and out of pens in various states of disrepair, coming and going as they pleased. The hull of a large fishing boat lay upside down at the cliff’s edge, although the jagged coastline was so far below, this seemed to be an impossible place to launch a ship. Several small outbuildings were clustered behind a rambling stone farmhouse with a turf roof that had deteriorated into a giant bird’s nest. But what really caught Rye’s attention was the farmhouse’s crooked wooden door. Although any paint had long since peeled away, there was, undeniably, a silhouette of a dragonfly carved into the wood. Just like the door of the O’Chanters’ own cottage an ocean away on Mud Puddle Lane.

  Rye was about to ask her mother about it, but Abby seemed to have fallen deep into thought at the sight of the place.

  The old man gestured for them to stay where they were and approached the door. Placing his ear against it, he listened carefully. He rapped with his knuckles. There was no reply. He rapped again.

  “Waldron,” he called. “Yer in?”

  There was still no reply. He banged louder with his fist.

  “Wall!” he yelled. “There’s some folk you need t’see.”

  Just when Rye assumed nobody was home, the door burst open and a towering man appeared in the doorway, his creased forehead flush with anger. His hair was an unkempt silver mess befitting his age, but his bristly beard was red as anchor rust and shot out in all directions.

  “’T’is it, Knockmany?” he barked. “Why must you call on me every day?”

  “Pardons, Waldron, but there’s sum’n you need see.”

  “I’ve told you, I want nothing to do with the Crofters or the Fishers or the Fiddlers, neither.”

  Knockmany nodded as if he’d heard this numerous times before. He simply stepped aside and pointed.

  “It’s Abigail,” he said quietly.

  It seemed to take a moment for the words to register with Waldron. He didn’t move at first, then took a step out of the door with the aid of a thick wooden staff. His chest and shoulders were massive under a tattered, unwashed shirt, his legs just twigs by comparison. The knotted blue veins in his forearms bulged, his grip tightening on his staff as he drew closer. His feet were bare and black with grime.

  Rye saw his eyes squint suspiciously. They seemed to soften as he examined them, despite his efforts to keep their hard edge. Rye had seen that look before. They were her mother’s eyes.

  He opened his mouth, but nothing came out.

  Abby took a step forward, and for the first time Rye could recall, her mother’s eyes were moist.

  “Hello, Papa,” she said.

  Waldron’s face drained to a stunned pallor.

  Abby took a breath and looked back at Rye and Lottie, who had frozen next to Folly and Quinn. She beckoned for them to join her. They stepped forward hesitantly.

  “These are my children,” she said.

  Waldron blinked s
lowly as he regarded each of them.

  “All of them?” he grunted.

  Abby stifled a giggle. “No, Papa. Just these two.” She put her hands on Rye’s and Lottie’s heads as they pressed close to her on either side. “Riley and Lottie.”

  Waldron started to smile, then his face fell, then he seemed caught in an expression between happiness and great remorse. With much effort, the towering man carefully lowered himself onto one knee to better see them. Rye wasn’t sure what to do herself, so she gave him a tight lipped smile.

  “I . . . ,” he started, then paused. “It’s . . .” His eyes jumped from the girls to Abby and back again.

  “Goomurnin-fi-seas,” he said, finally.

  “Hello,” Rye said.

  “Hello,” Lottie parroted, flashing a mouthful of crooked baby teeth.

  They all fell into an awkward silence. Rye shifted from foot to foot. She always lost the who-could-stay-quiet-the-longest game.

  “Should we call you Grandfather?” Rye asked, trying to keep the conversation going.

  He pushed himself back up to his feet and scratched at his head. “You can . . . I . . .”

  Waldron turned back toward the house. “I’ll go . . . inside . . . wet some tea.”

  He stumbled back inside the house as if thunderstruck, leaving the door open behind him. Folly and Quinn exchanged curious glances. Rye looked at her mother with alarm.

  “Maybe he would prefer Waldron?” she asked.

  Abby patted her shoulder.

  “Went well, all t’ings considered,” Knockmany said, sucking a tooth. “Least he didn’t chase you off with his stick.”

  16

  The Pull

  Abby thought it best that she speak with Waldron alone at first, and left the children to play outside. Folly enlisted Quinn and Lottie to help her gather some mushrooms she’d spotted growing in the fields. Rye preferred to explore the grounds around the little homestead. Although rundown and in need of serious repair, it seemed to Rye that it must have been a marvelous farm at one time. Even now, standing on the gently sloping hills of the grazing field, she was spellbound by its sweeping view of the vast, rolling sea. A blue dragonfly paused to examine her before fluttering away.

  A rustle of grass at her feet startled her. She looked down and found two angular yellow eyes returning her gaze from some overgrown bracken. They belonged to a large smoke-gray cat with long, unkempt fur matted into clumps. It reminded her of Shady, even though, despite his appearance, Shady was no cat at all. She bent over to call for it, but the cat turned its back to her and skulked away. Only its bushy tail was visible as it made its way toward Knockmany’s quarters—a glorified potting shed set back among the sheep pens.

  “Riley,” a voice called.

  It was her mother in the doorway of the stone farmhouse. Abby beckoned to her.

  “Waldron’s resting,” she said quietly when Rye arrived. Rye could hear his snores echoing down the snug hallways. Abby appeared weary herself.

  Rye stepped inside and cast her eyes around the rustic farmhouse. At first glance, it seemed to have the ordinary trappings of a normal home—albeit one suffering from years of neglect. However, upon closer inspection, she found a number of unexpected oddities. A window opened into an empty closet. A set of wooden stairs simply ended at the timbers of the ceiling—there was no second floor.

  “Mama, did Waldron build this place?” she asked.

  If so, Rye thought, he must have been drinking homebrewed bilge wash at the time. She eyed the pile of empty, earthen jugs stacked by the hearth.

  “No, my love,” Abby said, taking a broom. “This was my mother’s childhood home—your great-grandparents’ farm. They’re all long gone now.”

  In a corner, Rye found a small purple door, too small for even Lottie to fit through. She pulled its tiny handle but found nothing except solid wall on the other side.

  “They weren’t the finest architects,” Rye said, closing the little door and noticing a sideways cupboard tilted like a seedling bent in the wind.

  Abby smiled. “This was all by design.”

  “They wanted a crooked farmhouse?”

  “Yes,” Abby said, “as peculiar as that may seem. Belongers are superstitious folk, the older generations particularly so. The house is built like this for the Shellycoats.”

  “Shellycoats?”

  “You may hear them called the Trow . . . or imps. Spirits.”

  Back in Drowning, they called such things wirries. Those who still believed in them erected scarecrow-like stickmen to ward them off. Shellycoats had a nicer ring to it.

  “Belongers say Shellycoats dot the island like sheep,” Abby continued. “They live in walls and under bridges. They’re harmless enough—most of them, that is. But when they grow bored, even the most benign of Shellycoats can be mischievous—stir up trouble. The endless staircase, the doors to nowhere . . . they’re designed to keep the Shellies busy. You’ll find that all houses on Pest have one or more of these quirks.”

  Rye mulled over the strange custom. She doubted that her mother believed in wirries, or Shellycoats for that matter.

  “Did you grow up in this house?” she asked.

  Abby shook her head. “I was raised in Cutty House. Down in Wick. That’s where my family lived. Where Waldron lived when I left this island. I’m not sure what brought him here to the farm.” Abby looked over the unkempt house. “Whatever it was, he hasn’t been the finest housekeeper.”

  Rye couldn’t disagree. Even the Quartermasts were clean-sweeps by comparison.

  “I’ll give you a choice,” Abby said, extending the broom. “You can help me tidy . . .”

  Rye’s shoulders slumped.

  “. . . or go explore with Folly and Quinn for a bit while Waldron finishes his nap. I’ll mind Lottie.”

  Her eyes lit up.

  “Don’t stray far,” Abby added hastily. “And please try to stay out of the village for now. There’ll be time for that later.”

  But Rye was already out the door.

  Village Wick came into view as Rye, Folly, and Quinn crossed the small stone bridge and traipsed down the footpath.

  “Look at that,” Folly said in surprise.

  “We must have taken a wrong turn,” Rye said, and pursed her lips.

  “Will your mother be terribly upset?” Quinn asked, slowing.

  “She said try to stay out of the village,” Rye recalled with a sly smile. “That’s not the same as don’t go in the village.”

  Wick occupied the crescent-shaped harbor at the seat of the hills. Its stone buildings jutted out in irregular shapes and sizes like headstones in an ancient boneyard, their roofs topped with grassy turf. A tall waterwheel churned at the mouth of a narrow river that divided the small hamlet. The whole place could have fit into a corner of Village Drowning.

  The village streets were lined with crushed shells that chattered under their heels as they approached. Rye wondered if the shells’ gravelly voices were meant to serve as a warning of outsiders’ arrival. But, as they wandered through town, they found the streets remarkably deserted.

  A fleet of fishing boats sat at the docks, even though the water was calm and Rye would have expected the fishermen to be at sea. The shops were empty. A shaggy pony tethered to a post eyed them expectantly as they passed. Quinn tugged some grass from the ground and held it out for him to chew.

  “It’s as if the town’s been abandoned,” Folly muttered out loud.

  Mixed in among the shops were other buildings Rye took to be private homes. The doors were painted in colorful hues that mirrored the moods of the sea—aqua, deep blue, seafoam green. Over each door was a carved wooden placard: GILLY’S ROCKS. TARVISH DWELLS. DUNNER PLACE. In each case, nobody was home.

  Rye stopped at a house in the center of town whose paint was more faded than the others. It sat in shadows, as if the building itself was deep in sorrow. She looked up. The placard read CUTTY HOUSE.

  Rye hesitated, then gently p
laced her fingers on the door to see if it was unlocked.

  “Y’er late too?” a friendly voice called out.

  Rye pulled her hand away and turned at the sound.

  “I was stuck in the field,” the tall boy said as he hurried down the street. His hair was tawny and long enough to push behind his ears. He looked to be a year or two older than Rye and her friends.

  “Oh,” he said, stopping abruptly and looking them over with a suspicious eye. “Y’er not from here.”

  “I’m Rye O’Chanter,” she said cheerfully. “These are my friends—Folly and Quinn.”

  The boy crossed his arms.

  “We’re from Village Drowning,” Rye offered. “In the Shale.”

  “Aye,” he said coldly. “Uninvited.”

  “Well, technically, yes,” Rye said, furrowing her brow. “Although we weren’t entirely unexpected. My mother is from Pest. Abigail O’Chant—I mean, Cutty.”

  “Cutty, you say?”

  Rye nodded. “My grandfather lives here. On a farm up on that bluff.”

  The boy raised his eyebrows. “Waldron Cutty is your grandfather?”

  Rye looked at Folly and Quinn, unsure of how she should answer. She opted for truthfully. “Yes.”

  The boy had an astonished look on his face, as if he wanted to believe her but was unsure that he could. “In that case,” he said finally, “y’er a Belonger after all. How about you two? You have kin on the Isle?”

  Folly and Quinn shook their heads with some reservation.

  “Hmm,” the boy said, considering it. “Well, stick with Rye and me and you should be all right. I’m Hendry, by the way.”

  “Nice to meet you, Hendry,” Rye said. Folly and Quinn echoed the sentiment.

  A thundering sound rumbled from the far side of town. It was the roar of a crowd.

  “Come on, then,” Hendry said, waving them ahead. “Let’s get to the wall. The Pull’s already started.”

  He broke into a jog. Not knowing what else to do, Rye, Folly, and Quinn hurried after him.

  “The Pull?” Rye asked as they ran.

  “O’course,” Hendry said. “Where else do you think everyone is?”