Secrets of Carrick: Merrow

by Ananda Braxton-Smith

  Ma squatted by her altar in her corner. She lit the tapers and placed the bits of spat-out fish in a hollow in some driftwood, and mumbled a blessing over it. I didn’t know what she was doing, but Ma has her own ways and if you leave her to them you end up feeling soothed somehow. She poured fresh milk into two bowls and gave one to me. The other she offered to the set of fine cow horns that hang above everything else in Ma’s corner.

  ‘Poor Ushag,’ she said to the horns, sighing.

  ‘What?’ I spluttered.

  ‘Mind the water!’ she bawled and threw the steeped remains of a brew out the door. ‘Ushag wasn’t always so sour,’ Ma carried on. ‘She has a big heart — I know, I know. You can’t see it. And have I not said to you that people only see that which they have the eyes to see and only hear what they have ears to hear? She has a big heart, and good hands like her father who was a great one for the work. It was him who made the Marrey place a real home. He built the outbuildings and laid out the plots nice and even and so on. Before him it’d been a wild sort of place and the family a half-wild lot. She was always more practical than her sister, and quicker to anger and argue, but I don’t remember her being cold.’ Ma’s eyes glazed over as the Ven and Ushag of twenty years before rose in her mind.

  ‘If you don’t mind me saying, Ushag’s trouble is that she doesn’t believe in anything anymore. That’s no way for a body to live. After the thing with Ven she did take to Jesus a little, but it didn’t help; and then it didn’t take long for her to fall out with the Little Brothers over the failure, as she saw it. She kept waylaying them outside church and giving them three chances to tell her why Jesus hadn’t heard her prayers for Ven and made it right.’

  ‘I can just see that,’ I said. The picture in my mind of my aunt, arms crossed and lips clamped, giving the monks three chances to prove their god’s power tickled me.

  ‘Eventually, they banned her from church ground.’ Ma looked impressed. ‘Monastery, chapel and all. But she’s only got her own soul and mind and heart to live with in this world — and her mind and heart are dark since…since the thing with the sister. I don’t mean dark like evil, you know, or a home for the Old enemy. I only mean dark like empty, dark like unknown—’

  ‘Like a cave,’ I suggested.

  ‘That’ll do,’ she said.

  After the broth and the altar-business I felt altogether more peaceful. I settled in by the hearth and told Ma about the unnatural tow happening in our cove. ‘Ah, now,’ she breathed excitedly. ‘I could tell you something about that.’ She came closer to the flames and rocked on her heels. Her eyes sparkled.

  I’d never known anybody for a story like Ma. She was even worse than me in spite of her great age.

  ‘Go on, then,’ I said.

  ‘My brother, Bearnard,’ started Ma with her eyes closed, ‘was a great one for fishing, even as a boy, and when he reached twelve he was taken on by the best crew out of Shipton. He was older than me by ten years so I didn’t see him much, and during the Hungers he took to fishing the open ocean and was gone months at a time. He saw things out there and learnt to read the water for its rising fogs and other sudden humours, and from a boy who could talk the devil down he grew into a heavy, quiet man we saw only every few years. But he told me all about the tow in Marrey Cove.’

  I didn’t think I’d ever get used to hearing Ma and Scully call our place Marrey Cove.

  ‘There was a great swell on the north headland in those days, such as hadn’t been seen in memory. The waves beat right up the cliff and each one took a slab back to the sea with it. Monstrous tides filled the caves and crashed halfway up the gorge. At high tide, a longshore undertow ripped at the cliffs and beach and stormed out to sea. Most folk stayed away, as you might think was wise, but Bearnard was captain of his own vessel now and he took the Margaid and her crew around there, and all on purpose. Curiosity was always the main part of him.

  ‘On the day he went north a whirlpool opened in the mouth of the cove. Anchored just without, the crew could still feel the drag in the spinning waters. At first the men laughed and felt a pleasure in the sea’s power but when the anchor began to break free from its holdfast and the boat to tremble and move toward the whirlpool, it was a different story altogether. Now the men were silent, and greasy with fear.

  ‘It was one of those times when human skill and desire add up to nothing, and the sea shows its true face; neither mother nor lover is it but only heartless water and wind. The Margaid picked up speed and the closer the ship was sucked to the edge of the whirlpool, the louder the ship’s boards strained. The crew seemed all for drowning, and my brother always said that was the moment he made peace with his gods. In fact, he came forward to the bow and was prepared to ride it out as the line ran to its bitter end. So the creaking hull was drawn into the cove and into the spinning waters.

  ‘That ship crept right up to the edge of the whirlpool where constantly the waves fell over its terrible rim. Now, Bearnard and the rest could look right over the edge and into its depth and he did so, though he never thought he’d bring back what he saw to land and folk.

  ‘But with the luck of the brave and good on him, the anchor was even in this last moment gripped on the seabed by something fixed and strong enough to hold – and the creaking ship stopped and held its position. Hanging on the edge by their one thin line, all praying and some crying out for their mothers by now, every man-Jack of them looked straight down into a whorl of water that opened to the very sea-floor itself.’

  With Ma’s sing-song chanting and the fire dying, I lay back in the straw and sacking and closed my eyes. I could see in my mind’s eye the hole in the sea to its very floor, and the tiny ship perched on its edge.

  ‘Are you sleeping?’ Ma asked me accusingly. She poked at the flames, and then threw the stick on the fire. ‘Or perhaps it’s not your kind of story?’

  I opened my eyes. ‘I’m listening,’ I said.

  ‘Good, because my brother told me in his own words what he saw and I won’t be wasting them on ears belonging to them who don’t want to know. I learnt Bearnard’s words off by heart so I could say it just as he would. He said, “A monstrous beast was descending to the base of the unsoundable whirlpool, watching us with one huge bulging eye. He had so many long, flailing legs I could count no more of them after eighteen, and each one was studded with hooks and spikes and tentacles. Two beaks he clicked at us, the horrible double-mouthed monster, one on each side of his head, and as I studied further I saw four eyes. As many fish circled him in the whirling water as stars circle the night sky, and he fed from them as he felt, and still they circled. He was the kraken and a king in his own land. The fish gave themselves to him.” These were Bearnard’s very words.

  ‘Well, as is the way with these accounts, the second mate later recalled a head like a cat, and the sixth mate insisted that all the legs they’d seen had really been a constantly writhing body — the kraken being more like a python than anything else, and that its head was more cow-like than cattish. The one thing they all recalled likewise, though, and it’s not surprising as they were fisherman was the beast’s attendant court of fish.

  ‘As the kraken settled into his lair the whirlpool began to close. Starting at the sea-floor, the waters rushed and fell together once more. The poor Margaid rocked and leapt upon its rim and, as the last waves collided and sent a fountain up, water, weed, fish and the ship all danced in the air together before falling back to the sea with a slap. The great court of fish stayed in the Marrey Cove for a week after, and Bearnard and the others all filled their nets. It was the best catch in history.’

  I was tired now and wondered how many more stories I hadn’t heard. The weight of what I didn’t know was heavy upon me. ‘Are you telling me there’s a kraken living in our cove?’ It seemed to me to be the sort of thing my aunt should have told me.

  ‘I’m telling you to go fishing tomorrow,’ said Ma.

  Chapter Seven

  Moonfish


  I DIDN’T GET HOME UNTIL TWILIGHT the following day. Ushag met me on the path. She was hung all about with nets and pails, and carried the grappling hook we’d found washed up last spring. My aunt couldn’t meet my eyes and I found myself flushing and shuffling too, though I’d done nothing wrong. I noticed she was pale, with great dark rings around her eyes and her hands shook as she gripped the tackle. That’s what you get for climbing into the mead jar for two days, I thought. Maybe she takes after Doolish and the others whose answer to every question is a brew.

  I gave her the scornful eye.

  Ushag pointed at the cove with the hook. ‘They’re in,’ was all she said and as I looked into the cove I could see she was right. The shallows flashed silver with fish. She started down the cliff, and then paused and met my eyes for a moment. Moon-fishing had always been pleasurable work to us. Each month of summer we’d watch the moon wax and wait on the night when we could stand in the dark water, knee deep in mackerel and their light-wakes. My aunt raised an eyebrow at me and her eyes reminded me of Bo’s when I sent her back to the byre. I saw the dark shadows under them, and the scar by her mouth from that time she’d chewed the hide for our shoes. All winter she’d chewed until they were soft enough, and then all we’d done was fall over in them and laugh.

  Against my will, I was sorry for her.

  But she’s the one who’s wrong! I thought. She’s the holdback, the cold one. The liar.

  In spite of being right, though, I nodded and with that we had a sort of truce. We did need the fish.

  The night was warm, as they had been for so long now it felt like we’d never be cold again, and so still it was as if it was holding its breath. The sea shone silver and rolled heavily, the waves bulging but never breaking. Only ripples hissed up the sand and back, as though the Cove had never known such a thing as a storm. There was the stench of weed and suchlike rotting in the heat.

  Each taking one end of the gillnet, we waded into the silky water. These days it was warmer to swim at night than during the day. Everything was back-to-front. The sea mirrored the moon and stars, and showed us our own faces staring back at us, but there was no seeing below its surface. We could only feel the mackerel as they slipped around our ankles. Even standing right in it, it kept its secrets from us. We stood and rocked at the knees awhile and then Ushag rolled up her sleeves and nodded to me.

  I rolled the net into her hands and stood back as she hurled. It seemed to unpack itself into the air. My aunt always had a powerful throwing arm. In the likeness of a wing, it flew straight and perfect until it fell flat on the surface where it held itself for a moment. Then it sank, leaving only the floaters and the line.

  She was truly a great hurler. Against my will I couldn’t help admiring it. A good chuck doesn’t mean a good character, I thought. She keeps secrets that are none of hers to keep.

  She gave me the line and I tied it to my wrist. Taking the hand net then, she walked a little away and stood unmoving, watching the starlight and moon-wake on the water. Every now and then, she’d swoop the net and bring it up wriggling. Our pails began to fill. I waited for the gillnet to settle. It had floated on the longshore tow around the rocks, and into the still water beyond. I couldn’t see many of the floaters any longer, but all I had to do was wait for the line to twitch and struggle and then haul in a feast.

  I waited.

  My aunt was small and silent in the bright moonlight and her hair hung straight and black to her middle. She stood so long with her face to the sea I had the fancy she was a carving, and a bad-tempered one at that with her sharp nose and jaws either clenching or chewing on nothing.

  I watched her face for a long time and then I asked, ‘How am I like her?’

  Straightways her body sagged. ‘Neen, stop it,’ she said. Anybody would think I didn’t have a right to know about my own mother.

  I watched her as she swept another flashing net into the bucket. ‘Was she like you?’

  ‘No.’

  This answer was like some small victory and I was emboldened. ‘How was she different?’ I pushed my little bit of luck.

  Ushag looked out to the horizon. I could see her thinking.

  ‘She was never content. She was full of fancies,’ she sighed. ‘Her head was filled with stories…and she never learnt to work properly.’

  She heaved her full bucket onto the nearby rocks and had to come close by me to do so. ‘Is that why you didn’t like her?’ I asked.

  Ushag didn’t answer me but only pressed her lips together and studied the ripples as they slipped up the beach. ‘I never said I didn’t like her,’ she said. My mouth dried out and suddenly I was too hot.

  ‘Well, why did you even bother, then?’ I heard my voice start to shrill again.

  ‘Bother to what?’ my aunt asked and I could see she was in the dark.

  ‘Why did you bother staying?’

  Ushag looked me straight in the eye. ‘Do you see another aunt around here?’ She pulled at the net a little, hand over hand over hand. ‘It’s all very well for her…’ she muttered at the sea. ‘She and the merrows, and all that lot, have it all over me. I have to make do with being a regular person.’

  Honour Bright, even when she answers, who can tell what she means? I would have pushed her for more but the gillnet started to tug and nearly yanked me off my feet. Ushag dropped her hand net and waded to my side. We hauled side-by-side and gradually the net came back around the rocks and into sight. It was heavy, plainly full of a good catch. Straightway my heart rose and I couldn’t help whooping a bit.

  ‘Ma said to go fishing tonight,’ I told Ushag as we hauled. ‘I told her about the undertow, and she said it was the kraken calling his court together, and that we should go get our nets. She told me the whole thing.’ My aunt’s face, as she leant back against the weight of the net and listened to me, was shining with sweat but its expression didn’t change a jot. ‘And we did — and look!’ I added, leaning backwards to help drag it all in. ‘We must have caught his whole court…’ As the net came in we saw not only fish but red crabs, conches, feathers, claws and pinchers. ‘And some hangers-on!’ I laughed, picking out a sunfish and holding it up to the moon.

  ‘Oh, for crying out loud,’ shouted Ushag.

  Without warning I was laughing a little, and then laughing a lot. My aunt took no notice, for which I was grateful because I couldn’t stop. I tried holding it in but it bust out with a spit and a howl and the tears rolling down my cheeks. The howls at last turned to sobs but then the hiccoughs started. For a time I was laughing and crying at the same time, like some mad person. I felt my face crumple like a child and now, I couldn’t stop crying. My aunt glared at the sea. We kept hauling at the net.

  Fist-over-fist we dragged in and bucketed mackerel and wrasse, crab and eel, and hand-over-hand we threw back weed and moon-jellies, urchins and sea-squirt. We don’t like eating urchins; too salty, too slimy and too much work for not enough reward. I worked hard, and felt myself drain of the full-moon humour that had me behaving like a body could hold both tears and laughter at the same time. Picking over the net bit-by bit, and sorting what was there, my aunt finally spoke.

  ‘The kraken,’ she told me, ‘is a story the family told outsiders to keep them away from the cove. In the old days.’

  My aunt had some type of Unbelieving sickness. It was like she was determined not to believe me, or anybody, or anything, and no matter what. Ushag was older than me and that meant I should believe her, but Ma Slevin was older than her and so Ushag should believe Ma. I was about to put her straight about this deformity of hers, and tell her all about the cave of hands and the merrow-song when, somewhere out of sight, the last length of gillnet became snagged. We tugged at it but it wouldn’t budge, so Ushag swam around the rocks to disentangle it.

  A few moments later there was a sharp cry like a gull. I pulled again at the net and it came free with a jerk. The next set of ripples in the widening moon-wake showed Ushag inside the net itself, holding onto som
ething I couldn’t see but that was plainly precious. I pulled her and it into the shallows and ran to see what she had.

  We’d caught a plague of jellies and their stingers. These red and tangled stingers can float for a furlong behind the creature, and even ripped away from their bodies they leave a body welted and feverish. Ushag was using a stick to get rid of them from all about her, flicking them back into the sea. Then, she was just sitting there, all skirted with weed, floaters and net, and she was holding in her arms, a man.

  If he was a man, that is. He was long, almost impossibly long, and his hair was yellow and sticking to a blue body all the way to his waist. From the whiteness of his lips and this blue body, I thought that if he was a man he was a Dead-one, but then he moaned. Ushag slapped him softly on his cheeks and chest and asked him to speak, but he didn’t. He just rolled his eyes up into his head until all we saw were the whites. Then I saw he wasn’t blue; he was covered head-to-toe in skin-pictures. There were fish swarming across his shoulders, waves breaking up his arms, ships sailing his chest and on his belly, an anchor and line, a wolf’s head by his hip, and further down, secret marks of some kind.

  He was bare, entirely.

  He was too tall for Ushag to manage alone, so together we heaved him up the shoreline onto the sand and untangled him from the net and its wreckage. I ran up to the house and brought back a cover for him, and the jug. We poured a little mead into him and sat him up with the cover about his shoulders. By the bright moonlight we could see he’d been terribly stung, and had received a buffet to the head that had broken the skull somewhat. I felt sick at it but, also, he’d been nibbled about the toes and fingers by the fish.

  With all the mead in him, we half-dragged, half-carried him up to our place and most of the carrying part I did. I’m taller than Ushag now and he fit my shoulder better. It was strange to have this naked man leaning against me all the way up to the yard. I didn’t know where to look, but what could I do? I was proud to be able to hold his weight, and it would have been worse somehow for him to have to lean on Ushag.