by Paul Durham
Slinister paused, savoring the information he’d sought for so long as if it were a fine meal.
“And I hope you twist an ankle on your way there,” Rye added, throwing the black stone as hard as she could. It bounced off Slinister’s cheek with a sickly thud and he clutched his hands to his face.
She turned and rushed past Spidercreep into the tunnel before the Bog Noblin could catch her.
Rye tore through the darkened cavern. She followed her own best advice whenever being chased—don’t look back. If Slinister and Spidercreep were in pursuit, she couldn’t hear them over the splash of her own boots. If she could just make it to the mouth of the Wailing Cave, she might be able to call for help. Maybe Folly and Quinn had woken, found the black stones, and figured out where she’d gone.
But as the towering wall of light from the cave entrance emerged ahead of her, a blow from behind sent her hurtling. She fell forward, bounced off her chest, and landed on her back, sliding across the slick cavern floor like a turtle on its shell. She wheezed to catch her breath. A shape tumbled over her and also hit the ground several yards away. Spidercreep had been unchained and now struggled to regain his feet. He snarled in her direction.
Rye pushed up on an elbow, reached over her shoulder, and slid her cudgel from its sling.
But this time, as she moved to raise it, the cudgel didn’t budge. A thick boot stepped on it, pinning it to the ground.
Rye thrust her hand into her own boot for Fair Warning.
“Tut, tut,” Slinister said, hovering over her, his fingertips tapping the red whip at his belt. “I assure you that will not end well.”
27
Grit
Slinister tossed an anchor and moored the dinghy on a tiny sliver of beach. He’d donned his helmet but not his hat. It didn’t matter. Now that Rye had looked behind his ruse, she could never think of him as the Constable again.
“Go on,” he said. “I’d rather not have to pitch you over the side too.”
He offered a hand to steady her. Rye ignored it, stepped out of the boat, and splashed on to the shore by herself.
The isle was little more than a knobby hill of rocks streaked with bird droppings. Rye could see from one end to the other. The desolate place was devoid of vegetation except for some thatch at the peak of the hilltop and a dead, barkless tree that had been bleached white by the salt and sun. Its petrified limbs clutched at the air like the hand of a drowning man. Tied from one branch, a frayed ship’s rope dangled and swayed in the breeze.
In the distance, numerous small islands and sea stacks dotted the waves like a giant’s stepping stones across the ocean. Slinister’s personal sloop—one he’d apparently used to secretly shuttle himself back and forth from the warships to High Isle—bobbed in the waves offshore. Rye was relieved he’d left Spidercreep back on it.
“What is this place?” she yelled.
“It’s called the Isle of Grit,” Slinister said, balancing himself in the dinghy. “I’ve charted all the Lower Isles and only recently rediscovered it myself. Be warned, it gets even smaller at high tide. You’ll want to spend the night at the base of that tree.” He pointed to the top of the hill. “And should a storm roll in, well, you might consider climbing it.”
Gray-green clouds rolled across the sky like bruises, bringing with them the nip of the wind. Rye pulled her coat tight around her. She was so livid, there was no curse she could hurl foul enough to make her feel any better.
“You’re leaving me to starve on a pile of barnacles? You should have just fed me to your monster.”
She jumped as something landed at her feet. She ducked as Slinister threw two more objects toward her. She was surprised to see her spyglass, cudgel, and Fair Warning lying in the sand. She looked up at Slinister in confusion. With both hands, he heaved a heavy pack from the boat and hurled it past the reach of the waves. It landed with a thud.
“What’s this?” Rye asked, kicking it with her boot.
“A week’s worth of provisions. Maybe longer if you use them wisely. There’s dried fish and water, flint for fire, some blankets.”
Rye was dumbfounded. “You wish to drag out my suffering?”
Slinister seemed genuinely surprised. “I don’t wish to see you suffer, Rye O’Chanter. In fact, I’d prefer to not see you harmed at all. You’re an unusual girl. Overly excitable and unbearably nettlesome—that’s for certain.” Rye just frowned back at him. “And yet one with traits I admire, as hard as that may be to believe.”
She narrowed a skeptical eye.
“But I need you out of the way, on this forsaken spit, to be sure I get what I do want.”
“I told you about Grabstone,” Rye called. “What more is there?”
“Indeed you did—and I remain thankful. Rest assured that, as promised, your mother and sister shall meet no harm. But I need just one more thing from you. That is your influence.”
“Look at me,” Rye screamed, throwing her arms in the air. “I have no influence.”
“Oh, but you do. In fact, I suspect you have the greatest influence of all. Your father is a formidable man. He and I play a dangerous game, and there can be only one winner. You, Rye O’Chanter, are my trump—my security, if you will. I’ll arrange to meet him in Drowning, and if all else goes sour, it will be you who saves my skin.”
“Why would I do that?”
“Why implies some say in the matter. The question you mean to ask is how? And that is by putting him in an impossible position. I am the only living soul who knows your whereabouts. I’ll make that clear to your father. Should the High Chieftain seek to give me an inglorious demise . . .” Slinister just shrugged and cast his gaze to the sea stacks around them. “The ocean is vast and unmerciful. How long do you think it would take him to find you?”
Rye looked down at the supplies. How many days could she possibly last? She remained silent, her fury building.
Slinister pulled in his anchor. Rye rushed to the edge of beach.
“I hope he laughs at your game and cuts you down where you stand!” Rye yelled.
Slinister took up the oars and squinted through the low-hanging sun. “Then I will suffer the consequences of a bad wager.” He paused and placed his elbows on his knees as he met her angry gaze. “But you and I both know that won’t happen.”
He offered Rye a smile that was neither cold nor sinister, and for that reason it unnerved her even more. “If I had a daughter of my own, even a monster such as I would admit that there’s really no choice at all.”
Rye unclenched her fists and her shoulders fell. She knew what Slinister said was true.
“You’ll see me again, Slinister Varlet,” Rye said as he rowed out into the surf, although her voice was more flat than menacing. At that moment, she wanted desperately to believe it.
“Careful what you wish for,” he called back. “Ugly luck seems to follow wherever I tread.”
The tide rose quickly as darkness descended, and Rye struggled with the flint, some dry thatch, and a few branches she’d broken loose from the lifeless tree. She finally managed to light a pathetic, smoky fire. Huddling over it, she was at least able to warm her hands. Rye sifted through her provisions, nibbling a few bites of salted fish and allowing herself a mouthful of water. They did little to quiet the rumble in her gut. With few tasks left to occupy her thoughts, hopelessness crept forth to fill the void. Rye’s nose tingled, then the rest of her face, and try as she might to compose herself she feared that tears were only a moment away. But she was startled by the rustle of wings, and a large, dusky brown gull landed at the base of the tree. It cocked its head and eyed Rye’s pack.
“These are mine, Bonxie,” Rye said, remembering the name she’d heard a Fisher call a similar bird that had pilfered his nets. “Go catch a fish.”
The gull waddled and strutted around the island as if he were lord of a tiny manor, but didn’t fly away.
Rye wrapped herself in blankets, leaving only a slit for her eyes, and stared up at
the starry, cloudless sky. The moon was a waning crescent overhead. She doubted she would make it to see another Black Moon. She asked Bonxie if he had any suggestions. He was too busy preening his feathers to offer any useful advice.
Rye spoke with the bird well into the night. She told him of Drowning and her little cottage on Mud Puddle Lane. She described the sweet smells of her mother’s Silvermas porridge and the sticky-sweet scent of Lottie’s hair as they dozed in their shared bed. She recalled the warmth of Shady’s coat as he napped in her lap. Bonxie listened from a branch but had few stories of his own to share.
She wondered why he lingered but found his presence strangely comforting. Still, she knew better than to blindly trust a friendly face. She carefully folded up her pack of supplies and tucked it under her head as a pillow, where she was sure to be woken by any opportunistic beak that tried to sample her rations.
“I’m going to sleep now,” she said. “Don’t peck my eyes out.”
That night her dreams were foggy and turbulent. Rye woke up with a start. It was dark on Grit, her fire smoldering out. The ocean roared all around her. She closed her eyes tightly.
When she next awoke, light met her eyes. Blinking, she glanced around for Bonxie. With the tide out to sea, Grit was as large now as she had seen it, but it still took only a moment to walk its edges. She was sorry to find that the gull had left the island. At least he’d listened to her about the eye pecking. Rye looked out at the rocks and sea stacks that dotted the water, larger now and black with seaweed. It reminded her of Grabstone, of the hidden path she and Harmless had taken to and from the tide pools.
Then she saw him. Bonxie was perched on a rock not far from the shore. He peered into the lapping waves beneath him, then jabbed his head underwater. His beak came up empty. The bird hopped across several smaller stones on his webbed feet until he found a new perch where he could try again. This time he emerged triumphantly with a tiny crab in his beak. Rye let out a cheer of encouragement. He unfurled his wings and flew low across the water to another rock far in the distance, where he sat and enjoyed his breakfast.
Rye considered the deserted isle around her. She imagined another day of waiting, trying to light a fire, and hoping that a storm wouldn’t blow in and leave her clinging to the tree. She surveyed the chain of rocks stretching out into the ocean. Far off on the horizon was a much larger island. She had no idea if it was High Isle or just another of the lower settlements, but it was undoubtedly more substantial than Grit. Maybe, if she could just get a bit closer . . .
Rye remembered what Harmless had told her once: There’s always a path, Riley. You just need the courage to take the first step.
She thought hard over a decision she knew she might have only one chance to make. Then she quickly lightened the pack, leaving inside only as many supplies as she could easily carry, and threw it over her shoulders. She rolled up her leggings, pulled off her boots, and held them under one arm. In her other hand she clutched her cudgel, and set out for the nearest stone.
Rye was not the strongest swimmer and told herself she would only wade where the water was no higher than her waist. Using her cudgel as a measuring stick, she made for a remote rock before discovering that the churning waves were too deep. She backtracked and tried a different course. Despite her best measurements, swells sometimes rolled through and soaked her up to her chest. She held her boots high above her head and pressed forward. Where the chains of sea stones dead-ended into open ocean, she doubled back, all the while taking herself farther and farther away from her starting point.
After what must have been several hours, Rye realized that she could now barely see the fingers of the Isle of Grit’s tree. But the larger island had hardly moved on the horizon. Perhaps she could travel back to Grit to wait out the rising tide and retrace her steps come morning.
Rye looked down as swirling waves bathed her pink feet and legs. Her toes were now so numb she could barely feel them at all. The tide was advancing fast. Several of the rocks along her path had already disappeared beneath the surface. Rye’s heart pounded at the thought of being stranded in open water. Not far from where she stood, a taller crag jutted out from the sea. If she could reach it, it would afford her a better view and she just might be able to plot a new course for her return to Grit.
She plunged forward up to her knees, then her hips, mindful only of the short distance between herself and the crag. But just as she was nearly there, a hard swell struck her face and her feet left the bottom. Rye spun in a churn of foam, her pack tearing free from her shoulders. She was aware that she should cast away her boots and cudgel, but she held on to them stubbornly, kicking her legs and stroking her cudgel through the water like an oar. Her feet touched stone and she clambered out of the surf.
Rye dumped her sopping boots onto a rocky shelf barely wide enough to sit on. She examined her anklet, an iron lattice against her frigid, red skin. Harmless had called it the Anklet of the Shadowbender, and said it would help her bend the laws of darkness and light. She’d suspected it was just puffery at the time, and now she was convinced. While Folly and Quinn seemed inspired by their gifts, she’d only managed to run recklessly from one trouble to the next. She pressed her back against the crown of the slippery crag. A dusky brown gull flew overhead. It could have been Bonxie. This served her right—taking suggestions from a bird.
“Pigshanks!” Rye cursed.
She angrily thrust her head back, the way she sometimes banged it against her bedroom wall in frustration. The thud on the back of her skull did not hurt nearly as much as the deafening clang in her ears. Rye spun around and almost slipped back into the water.
Bolted to the crag was a large, tarnished ship’s bell and frame, so green with grime that she thought it was part of the rock itself. She couldn’t believe her eyes.
Whispers of fog blew in as Rye pulled her knees tight and watched the white caps snapping around her. Then she did the only thing she could—she rang the bell. Endlessly. Until her head ached and her shoulder burned to the point where she could lift it no more.
Rye scanned the horizon but saw no boat or ship that might hear her. She pulled her damp coat up over her ears to dull the din, changed position, and rang with her other arm. When it, too, cramped, she lay on her back and rocked the bell with her feet.
She finally gave up when the water rose so high that she had to wrap her arms around the bell to keep the tide from dragging her away. The fog was so dense it obscured everything around her. She had rung for so long that she still heard the clang of the ship’s bell in her ears. But instead of fading, the volume grew.
Somewhere nearby, a ship was returning her call.
Rye peered through the fog. Could it be? She rang the tarnished bell one last time, and the glowing light of a lantern cut through the fog like a beacon.
“Goomurnin-fi-seas?” a familiar voice called from the boat rails.
“I-fairwins-t’ya,” Rye said in a whisper—the loudest sound her dry throat could muster.
Rye had never been so happy to find herself belly-up on damp, worm-riddled timbers. The deck of the small vessel shifted beneath her with the waves, and three and a half pairs of eyes looked down on her in anticipation and relief. The half pair belonged to Captain Dent—the old smuggler’s good eye blinked with surprise.
Folly helped Rye sit up and Quinn threw a dry blanket over her shoulders. Knockmany put a leathery palm on her back. It was the most affection Rye had ever seen him display. She noticed the freebooters’ green flag atop a single mast, but the boat was much smaller than the Slumgullion. There was no other crew.
“How did you find me?” Rye asked between chattering teeth.
“We saw the stones on the fishing boat,” Quinn said. “When you and Harmless were nowhere to be found, we figured you must have seen them too—and followed them back to the Wailing Cave.”
“We found your message on the wall,” Folly said.
In desperation, Rye had used the black stone to has
tily scrawl R-Y-E while leaning against the grotto. She feared that no one would ever see it.
“And this,” Folly added, showing her Slinister’s battered crimson hat. “We weren’t sure what had happened, but we knew it couldn’t be good.”
“Slinister and Constable Valant are one and the same,” Rye explained hurriedly, then turned back to her question. “But how did you know I was on Grit?”
“I’d like to say it was m’ keen instincts,” Knockmany said. “But the truth is a strange li’l girl insisted you’d be found on a rock in the middle o’ the sea.”
“Padge,” Folly clarified.
“When you’ve lived on Pest long as I have,” Knockmany said, “you learn to heed the hunches of strange li’l girls.”
Rye was stunned. “She knew to send you here?” Padge’s intuition must be stronger than she could have ever imagined.
“Not exactly. All she said was that you were on a Lower Isle,” Quinn replied.
“Dent and I were packing for a voyage anyway,” Knockmany interrupted. “So we set out for the Lower Isles right away. Abigail, Waldron, and the Belongers are searching High Isle. Your stubborn friends here insisted on joining us.” He grunted, glancing at Folly and Quinn. “We were nearby and heard your signal. It seems luck was with us all today.”
Rye took note of Knockmany’s stoic expression. She didn’t care if you wore horseshoes on your feet and ate nothing but clovers for a month—nobody was that lucky.
“Dent and I can’t delay our trip any longer,” Knockmany said hastily, before Rye could question him further. “We’ll see you three to Wick then be on our way.”
“You’re sailing to Village Drowning?” Rye asked suspiciously.
Quinn and Folly exchanged glances. Knockmany hadn’t said anything about Drowning.
He seemed to be taken off guard by Rye’s query. “Perhaps . . . if the wind takes us there.”
“You’re bringing Gristle with you?” Rye asked.
