Fear the Drowning Deep

by Sarah Glenn Marsh

Holding my nose to avoid the musty smell, I sank to the floor and cracked the cover. The tome had probably made a dent in her savings.

  Fynn sat down across from me, frowning. “Morag said that book’s an index of every sea creature?”

  I nodded, skimming the words on the first page. Beasts of the Deep. This wasn’t so different from my beloved Non-Native Birds of the British Isles.

  Each page concerned a specific sea creature. Information was printed in blocky writing. Multiple sketches of each beast adorned the margins of the text.

  I flipped past the Bishop-Fish—a fish with the face of a wizened man and a head shaped like a bishop’s cap “last seen in Germany, in the year 1531.” I briefly glanced at Giglioli’s Whale, which looked like an ordinary whale except for its double dorsal fin and sickle-shaped flippers.

  “Don’t you want to have a look?”

  Fynn was gazing around the room at Mam’s paintings. “I can’t read.” He shrugged. “Either I never learned, or it’s the—”

  “Memory loss,” I finished for him, as I continued to turn the book’s tattered pages. Its entries didn’t appear to be in any clear order. Zaratans—sea turtles so enormous they were often mistaken for small islands—preceded grindylows, creatures that drowned people, though they looked nothing like the monsters I’d seen. The drawings of skeletal women with stringy black hair and razor-sharp teeth made me shudder.

  Next was the entry for the lusca, supposedly the world’s largest octopus. I remembered this one well from my talk with Morag.

  The next beast resembled a horse, except for its dolphin tail and the fins along its spine. The word above the horse-creature’s head caught my eye: glashtyn.

  I studied the drawing again. This was one of the creatures Ms. Elena had described to Cat’s mam, though it looked nothing like the phantom made of sea foam I’d now glimpsed twice. It was a closer match to the water-horse in Mam’s recent painting.

  Shivering, I hoped none of Mam’s other outlandish creatures would appear in this book. I turned more pages, black-and-white sketches blurring together, but the Bully, her most recent painting, mercifully never appeared.

  Fynn drummed his fingers against the floor as I worked, and the rhythm reminded me of a sea chanty Da often sang.

  At last, after passing over an illustration of a hairy whale and an entry devoted to evil green water spirits called the fuath, my misty phantom appeared: a wispy man in elegant but outdated clothing, hovering on the page beside his name as he played a fiddle. Fossegrim.

  “Foe-say-grim,” I said aloud. “This is it! This is what I saw!”

  Fynn leaned forward, running his fingers over the images and words with a longing I recalled from when I was small. Maybe I could teach him to read.

  “‘Fossegrim, male water spirits native to Scandinavia, are known for their love of music,’” I read aloud. “‘Their fiddle tunes call men, women, and children alike to the nearest body of water, where the souls drown as they try to reach the source of his haunting song.’”

  A chill ran through me. And then a memory stirred. “I thought—” I paused, licking my dry lips. “I thought I heard music when Grandad jumped off that cliff. Everyone told me I’d imagined it, but …”

  “It seems you’ve found his killer.” Fynn narrowed his eyes at the drawing of the fossegrim. “We won’t let him escape justice a second time.”

  I nodded, lost in the thought that there could be more than one creature stalking our shores. After all, the fossegrim didn’t have a curious fin like the one I’d seen in the harbor—the glashtyn did. And then there was the scaly thing I’d glimpsed the night Lugh and I heard a crash over the water, a river of dark flesh that disappeared in a blink.

  Gooseflesh covered me from head to toe the longer I stared at the fossegrim. “All right,” I said slowly. “The fossegrim took Grandad. Does that mean everything else in this book is a”—I gulped—“a vicious killer?”

  “Just because you’ve never seen these creatures doesn’t mean they’re all monsters.” Fynn’s eyes never left my face. “Maybe they’re like people. Some are wicked, some are fair. Some look out for their neighbors, and others only care for themselves.”

  I thought back to the sketch of the grindylow women with their gaunt faces and pointed teeth, and something tightened in my chest. “If they’re really anything like people, they all have the potential to do harm.”

  “Perhaps you’re right.” Fynn dropped his gaze to the book.

  “‘Fossegrim prefer colder waters, but as scavengers drawn to places where other beasts are feeding, they have been found throughout the northern hemisphere. Legend has it they sometimes play to attract a human bride. An instance of this was first documented in Oslo, in the year 1297 …’”

  I winced. “Do you think that thing wanted Alis, or one of the others, as a bride?”

  Fynn blanched. “It’s possible.”

  “But Alis was so young!”

  Perhaps my missing friends had refused to be this monster’s wife, so it dragged them to a watery grave. My stomach lurched.

  I shut the book with a snap. “How can we keep everyone safe?” I’d collected enough material from its pages to plague me with nightmares well into my sixties. “I’ve tried warning this town before. They won’t listen.”

  Fynn shrugged. “Short of telling them to stuff cotton in their ears, I don’t know. But as soon as I’m able, I’m going to find the fossegrim and I’ll kill it.”

  “You can’t!” I grabbed Fynn’s hands. “You need to heal. I’ll not lose you over your ridiculous urge to act the hero.”

  “Don’t worry. I won’t go tonight.” Laying a hand against his stomach, he confessed, “My wounds are aching again. And besides, I promised to prove to you that you still know how to swim. Tomorrow.”

  Somehow, his words and his smile only made me more nervous.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  A sunny day greeted me, complete with swooping gulls and the familiar whoosh of a breeze gusting past the house. Shrugging off a hazy nightmare that had something to do with black water, I walked into the main room to find Mam at her easel.

  “Where’s everyone else?” I’d remembered my vow to go to the beach today just moments after waking, and it filled me with unease. “Fynn?”

  Mam didn’t look up from her canvas. “He’s down at the harbor with your da, working on the boat.”

  “How long will they be at sea?” The thought filled me with an even more intense dread than I usually felt every time Da went off to his job.

  “Oh, they couldn’t go out today. They have to patch a hole in the old bucket.” In my almost seventeen years, Mam’s way of referring to Da’s boat never changed.

  My heart resumed its regular rhythm. “Right.”

  Mam stopped swiping her brush across the canvas to study me. “Fynn asked that you meet him by the cliffs after lunch.” Resuming her work, she said casually, “I used to meet your da out there.”

  A knot formed in my stomach as I steeled myself for the impending lecture. Several minutes passed as Mam worked in silence.

  I was curious to see the new painting that had her so occupied, and moved behind her.

  I took in a creature with the head and body of a horse, powerful fins, and a dolphin-like tail. Its deep blue eyes held the wisdom of the ancients, yet there was a wicked gleam there, too. Its powerful forelegs were poised to strike another familiar creature, the serpent, with its terrible fanged mouth open in a snarl. The dark water around them suggested that they were leagues below the ocean’s surface fighting over something that looked suspiciously like a girl in a working dress. A girl I’d seen before. Her hair and the shape of her face stirred a fuzzy memory that slowly became clearer the longer I looked.

  She had washed up on the beach by the cliffs. Her eyes had been milky then, not the lively blue-gray Mam had captured. But the waist-length dark hair and heart-shaped face were the same.

  Mam hadn’t been present when they found the girl’s
body.

  “What made you paint that girl? And the Bully again?”

  Mam lowered her brush. “A dream, bird. It was about two very hungry creatures that dragged a girl into the water, and neither wanted to share their meal.” She sighed and for a moment her face showed the strain of lost sleep. “Sounds horrible when I try to explain, doesn’t it? Though …”

  She hesitated, glancing between me and the painting. I leaned closer, nodding in encouragement. “My dreams have been stranger than usual lately. Darker, more vivid.” She rubbed her temples. “Perhaps I need to stop eating pie before bed, but I’ve been so worried lately.”

  “You and everyone else.” I pointed to the canvas with a trembling finger. “That’s the girl I saw on the beach. The one who drowned weeks ago. What if … what if some of the things you see in your dreams are real?”

  Mam laughed, dropping her paintbrush. “Oh, Bridey. If she looks like that poor girl, it’s only a coincidence. As you said, I never saw her.” Mam retrieved her paintbrush, then bustled toward the kitchen. “Come. I’ll make eggs and toast before you meet Fynn. This should go without saying, but I expect you to conduct yourself properly, young lady …”

  I nodded absently, staring at the painting. I’d never thought of Mam’s dreams as anything more than fanciful imaginings until I’d opened Morag’s book.

  But if sea monsters existed, perhaps the beings in Mam’s paintings did, too.

  The sight of Fynn standing at the top of the beach path chased away all thoughts of Mam’s painting. He waved as I approached, and a strong gust of wind swept back the unkempt dark hair from his face.

  “There’s a barber who lives three houses down from us. I could introduce you. Right now, if you wished. And Mrs. Kissack probably has some fresh scones waiting at the bakery for us …”

  He frowned. “Don’t tell me you’ve changed your mind. After we shook hands the proper way, and all.”

  Something in his gaze made me eager not to disappoint him. I pulled open my cloak, offering a glimpse of Mally’s blue bathing dress underneath.

  Fynn ran a hand over his hair, making it stand on end, and grinned wolfishly. “You’re certainly dressed for a day at sea. Shall we, then?”

  I followed him down the narrow path, each step costing extra effort, as though there were weights bound to my legs. “I dreamed of the ocean last night.” The words tumbled from my lips before our feet touched the sand.

  “Dream, or nightmare?”

  “Nightmare. As always.” It had been the usual dream about Grandad, only this time, I was the one who dived off the cliff at the end.

  I hesitated at the edge of the beach, trying to focus on each breath, the rhythm of inhaling and exhaling, instead of the soft grains beneath my feet. Yet I couldn’t entirely ignore the tide creeping in, devouring more of the shore with each passing minute. Or the kittiwakes floating on the sun-drenched surface of the water, some with their bottoms in the air, bobbing for tiny silver fish.

  Even the sight of waves fizzling out made my knees weak. It was difficult not to think of the Bully, Mam’s oily serpent, and of the fossegrim. Of Nessa, Eveleen, and Alis gasping for air as the misty phantom held them underwater.

  Halfway to the waves, I discarded my cloak. Fynn did the same, revealing his bare chest—and his scars. The marks had dulled to jagged pink lines for the most part, though they still needed time to fully heal. I sucked in a breath as his trousers dropped to the sand. He wore Da’s oldest—and smallest—pair of striped swim trunks, which by some miracle clung to his narrow waist.

  My cheeks and neck warmed.

  I grabbed Fynn’s hand in preparation for the salty plunge. We walked to the waterline, my pace slowing as we drew ever closer, and I flinched as chill sea foam finally tickled my toes. “I wish the water wasn’t so cold,” I gritted out with the little air left in my chest.

  “It won’t feel so bad once you’ve been in a while.”

  “If I don’t bash my head against a rock first and die.” I couldn’t help gazing toward the horizon, looking for a filmy figure hovering above the water.

  Fynn’s fingers closed over my shoulder. “You won’t be anywhere near the rocks. We’re going straight out, so you can get used to the feeling of being in the water. Then we’ll come back to the shallows so you can practice swimming.” He pointed past the cliffs, to the distant spot where the sea turned from blue-green to deepest navy.

  “We’re going out of the cove?” I gasped.

  “I’ll be holding you the entire time. No monster could ever steal you from my grasp and live to tell the tale.” Fynn winked, and though he sounded sure of himself, as usual, I didn’t understand how he could make such a rash promise. Or how, after seeing the same images in Morag’s book as I had, he could look upon the sea with such eager eyes.

  Turning, he strode swiftly into the churning surf, leaving me standing amidst popping foam and broken seashells.

  “Be careful!” I yelled after him. I paced the wet sand, kicking sharp pieces of shell out of my path. One minute, Fynn was up to his waist in the dazzling water, and the next, he’d disappeared.

  “Fynn!” I shouted, my throat burning. “Fynn!”

  “Over here!” He resurfaced, with water rolling off his chest and a piece of kelp adorning his hair like a crown, like a young Neptune rising from the waves. In that moment, he was like nothing I’d seen before, filling me with wonder despite the blood rushing in my ears.

  Then he waved, breaking the spell. I put my hands on my hips, but it was a minute before I could scold him. “That wasn’t funny!”

  He swam with ease around the rocks in the cove, his arms darting in and out of the blue while his legs created white fountains where they struck the water. I’d never seen a body slide and twist through the sea with such grace. Perhaps Fynn had been a fish in another life.

  A wave carried him back to shore. He rolled across the sand laughing, the healing skin on his stomach straining with each breath. He narrowed his eyes against the sun. “Now it’s your turn.”

  Taking my hand, he led me slowly but deliberately into the surf. To my fate.

  The wet sand sucked at my feet with each step like the beach wished to anchor me there forever. I clutched Fynn’s arm for support as the crashing waves reached my ankles, making my skin crawl. The tickle of sea foam was gentle, but the nearby slap of water on the rocks seemed to say, Don’t trust me. I can be as soft or harsh as I please.

  My knees shook, and soon the shaking spread throughout my whole body. I tried to focus on my breathing, but I couldn’t count the seconds I was drawing in a breath when the water pooling around my feet seemed to be coaxing me forward, gently tugging my ankles each time a wave retreated. Trying to pick me up and take me with it, as though to the sea, I was nothing more than a piece of flotsam to be easily swallowed.

  His brow furrowed. “Tell me if you need to turn back.”

  As the water crept up my calves, all I could do was nod. I needed to turn back. I should never have attempted this. Fynn’s fingers curled around mine, but not even that was enough to help me take another step into salty, murky water where I might tread on the squishy tentacles of a lusca or the rubbery fins of a glashtyn.

  As I turned toward shore, a ribbon of slime caressed my foot and wrapped itself around my ankle. The grindylows’ long hair and bony, grasping fingers flashed to mind, and I gasped for breath.

  Jerking my foot back, I fled the shallows with Fynn shouting after me. I ran until I reached dry sand, then finally let my legs collapse from under me. I lay there, trembling, as Fynn dashed to my side.

  “I’ve slain the monster for you.” He tossed a ball of kelp onto the sand.

  When my shaking subsided enough for me to sit up, I jabbed the tangle with my index finger. “T’eh myr tromlhie dou.”

  “I don’t speak Manx, Bridey,” Fynn said gently.

  I buried my face in my hands. “All this—the water, the things that grab at me with no warning—it’s as thoug
h I’m trapped in a nightmare.” I took a shaky breath. “I wouldn’t have to learn how to swim or try to fight a sea monster if everyone in town would just listen for once. But I know what they’d say if I told them about the fossegrim. They’d call me mad. Just like you will now, thanks to my display out there.”

  Fynn leaned close. “I’d never call you that.”

  “No? I’m shaking because of a wet plant!” I turned to him, not quite meeting his eyes. “Did you feel the least bit afraid when you swam out there earlier? I mean, something out there sliced you open.”

  He shook his head. “No. But fear can be a good thing. You can’t have courage without it. And it makes you alert. You notice things others don’t—like the fossegrim. You stand a better chance of helping this town than either Mr. Gill or the authorities.”

  I tried to smile, but we were still on the beach, and much too close to the sea. “Are you afraid of anything?” I asked. Fynn nodded, but kept his silence. “What, then?”

  “You.” As I blinked at him, he hastily added, “The way I feel about you. It … confuses me sometimes. That’s why I’m glad we’re out here.” He took my hand and squeezed it. “Doing this together. I think it’ll help me clear my head.”

  “Does your confusion have anything to do with Lugh? Because we’re—”

  “No. But we can talk about it later. Right now, it’s time you made peace with the sea.” Fynn scooped me into his arms and stood, holding me dizzyingly close. I put my arms around his back and felt his heart beating as hard as mine.

  Brave, calm, self-assured Fynn was nervous.

  A wave thumped me on the back as we moved forward, and droplets sprayed my face. I took a calming breath and inhaled his familiar scent—brine and lavender water and damp earth. The smell of the air after a rainstorm. Fynn.

  As we passed the breaking waves and glided into deeper water, a feeling of weightlessness overtook me: my body remembering childhood explorations of the sea. A small voice whispered that if I let go of Fynn, I could float here forever, no different than a feather or a leaf.