I dared to peek at the cottage again, just as Morag returned with a sachet in hand.
“What is it?” Mam asked, accepting the little bag.
“Varvine, dandelion root, and precious mugwort.” Morag’s voice grew softer. “To be taken twice a day, understand? That should keep the worst of your dreams at bay, and without them, your head should feel much clearer.”
Mam nodded. “Thank you, moir. For everything. Having a lass Bridey’s age about the cottage this summer can’t be easy—”
“Nonsense! Though I admit, I haven’t seen much of her lately. And it’s my own fault. I needed some quiet.”
Mam clutched the sachet to her chest. “Just send word when you’d like her. And I’ll come again soon.” As Mam turned to leave, I pressed myself flat against the tree and held my breath, hoping she wouldn’t look beyond the path.
The swish of her skirt and the soft padding of her bare feet grew closer, then faded as she made her way down the hill.
Morag shuffled back to her cottage. I rushed to the door, but she had already shut it, so I pounded on the wood. “Morag, we need to speak!” I banged again, this time for the sheer satisfaction of rattling her wall. “It’s about Fynn, and …” I hesitated, but there wasn’t time to waste with the fossegrim still on the loose and perhaps more monsters near our shore. “I know what really happened to your foot!”
The door whined as it swung inward, and Morag reappeared, blinking at me. “All right then. No need to bust down the door. You’ve come to ask me more questions about monsters, then?” She shook her head. “There’s no stopping you, I see that now.”
I opened my mouth, searching for a way to put all my troubles into words. Fynn. The fossegrim. The serpent. The tale of Morag’s foot being caught in a hunter’s trap was rubbish, and I wanted to hear the true story from her lips. I’d had my fill of being lied to.
Morag’s gaze slid past me, searching the trees. “You look like you’ve seen one of the Little Fellas. Have you …?”
My lip trembled, and within seconds, Morag’s face became a blur. “Fynn—our house guest—he’s a glashtyn. He showed me.” I mopped my wet cheeks with my sleeve. “We had a terrible fight.”
Rubbing her temples, Morag studied me for a long moment before speaking again. “And he didn’t try to drown you?”
I shook my head.
Morag swayed, and I wrinkled my nose. Mam was right. The old woman did smell of whiskey. “Hmm. It’s in a glashtyn’s nature to drown girls. But I’ve heard of stranger things than a creature being put off its supper.”
“He cares for me. He wouldn’t hurt me.” The words left my lips with the swiftness of conviction, though I wasn’t sure I believed them. I wanted Morag to tell me I was right, that it was possible for glashtyns to love human girls instead of drowning them.
But she merely arched her brows. On someone else’s face, the expression would have been comical, but her eyes were too unnerving to make me laugh. “Seems to me he already has. Hurting is what true loves do best.”
I thought of the things I’d shouted at Fynn, and tears again filled my eyes.
“Inside with you!” Morag snapped, drawing me from my muddled thoughts. “If you carry on watering the ground like that, I’ll have weeds cropping up all over the yard. And then you’ll have to pull them.”
Caught between another sob and a bubble of laughter, I hiccupped. “No, thank you. But I know your foot wasn’t stuck in a hunter’s trap, and we have much to discuss about monsters. As you said, there’s no stopping me.” I attempted a grin.
“If you want to hear about my foot, come inside. I have a tea to calm your nerves.” Morag stepped aside, gesturing to the dim interior of the cottage. “You don’t want to confront the boy while you’ve got a face like a boiled lobster.”
“Excuse me?” I rubbed my cheeks.
“You heard me, lobster-girl. Come in. If he cares a whit about you, he won’t have gone anywhere.”
I didn’t want to admit she had a point, so I followed her inside.
She puttered around, clinking dirty dishes as she searched for mugs. I looked about, hoping to see what Morag had done with Mam’s painting. Either stacks of tattered cloth and old furniture had swallowed it, or it was gone. “Where’s the gift I brought you? The awful painting from Mam.”
“I burned it.”
“Oh. I can’t say I blame you.” It seemed a shame to have burned Mam’s work, but I knew Morag’s reasons.
She frowned as she poured our tea, splashing something deep amber into hers. After a moment’s hesitation, she added a generous splash of the amber liquid to mine as well. “There you are.” She pushed a mug toward me, then took a deep drink from hers. “I never thought I’d have to tell this story again.”
There was a hollow ring to her voice, and for the first time I noticed the purple smudges under her eyes. “Take your time,” I said softly.
Morag frowned but launched into her story. “When I was a girl, perhaps a year or two older than you are now, I went to catch fish for supper. The sky had been dark all day, so I thought the storm would continue to hold off, but I was wrong.” She paused, biting her lower lip. “The rain started. I made for shore, but a giant serpent reared out of the sea. It sank its teeth into my leg and tried to drag me from my boat, but I had a spear—”
“And you jabbed the serpent in the eye,” I finished.
It was exactly as Mam had painted it.
Morag’s face paled. “Tell me how you know that.” Her voice came out a whisper. “Oh, of course. Your mother. She didn’t mention that particular dream to me.”
“It was her newest painting.” I gazed into my steaming mug, picturing the fear in the younger Morag’s light eyes. They looked much the same now.
Morag met my gaze and took a deep breath before continuing. “It would seem you know the truth of her dreams, then.”
My hands clenched around my mug, but I ignored the sting of the hot porcelain against my palms.
I thought of the selkies and mermaids wrapped in garlands of pearls. Gooseflesh rose on my arms and legs. “Why haven’t you warned the town? Think of the lives you could’ve saved!”
Morag’s reply was almost too soft to hear. “Don’t you think I’ve tried? Why do you think they mock me so?”
I bit my lip, knowing all too well how that felt. “One of us has to tell Mam about her dreams, at least!”
“No, girl. It’s much kinder not to.”
“What do you mean?”
“Mureal isn’t strong like us.” Morag smiled sadly. “Strong like you, rather.” She bowed her head and sighed. “She has an ability few possess, a bond with the sea not unlike the connection some have with the spirit world. But it makes her delicate. To learn that her visions are more than dreams would surely undo her. You, on the other hand, won’t fall to pieces just because there’s a grindylow in the harbor or a fossegrim on the beach. You have a great ability to acknowledge the hidden and carry on living.”
I shook my head. Morag made it sound as though I were the type who could see the boy she’d kissed turn into a sea monster, shrug, and go fix supper. Silence settled over the cottage, thick and stale as the air around us.
Finally, I cleared my throat. “Why did the serpent attack you? Is there more than one? Does it eat people, or just kill for pleasure?”
A muscle jumped in Morag’s cheek, but she continued staring into her tea. “This is why I didn’t wish to talk about the monsters with you. I gave you the book. That should be enough to satisfy your curiosity.” She drained the rest of her mug before settling her unfocused gaze on me. “I don’t have the answers you seek and I can’t help you. All I know about the serpent is that its bite will make you plead for a swift death.”
“Then, can you tell me how to find and kill a fossegrim?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never gone looking for one.” Morag’s foot knocked rhythmically against the table leg.
I gritted my teeth. I was wasting time
here, time I could have spent searching for Fynn. If Morag couldn’t answer my next question, I would leave. “Tell me about glashtyns, then. Are they dangerous? What do they do, besides drowning lasses?”
“Glashtyns are rare creatures native to the waters around the Isle,” Morag said flatly. It sounded as though she was quoting her monster book. “They aren’t related to horses, despite their looks. When they come on land, they take the form of dark-haired boys with blue eyes. They like to hunt fish when they aren’t smuggling girls into the sea, but drowning lasses is their favorite sport.”
Morag continued to level her probing gaze at me, and I stared back. “What interests me about your glashtyn is why he hasn’t tried to drown you.”
“I’d like to know that, too. Could it be … because he cares for—?”
“No. A predator doesn’t love its victims. Your friend didn’t just abandon his desire to hunt women, no more than a stoat can stop hunting rabbits. Not without help, anyway.”
“What do you mean?”
Morag reached for her mug again, and blinked upon finding it empty. “If he feels anything for you, it’s because something changed him, took away his compulsion to kill. Was there anything unusual about him on the day you met, aside from his injuries?”
Heat crept up my neck as I recalled that first meeting with Fynn. “He was naked. Not a scrap on him.”
“There’s nothing abnormal about that. I eat my breakfast in the nude. Think, girl!”
I looked down at my hands in my lap, trying to focus on the details of Fynn’s rescue instead of dwelling on the image Morag’s words had conjured. That day, I had kneeled beside Fynn’s motionless form, so petrified I hadn’t even thought to check his breathing. I ran my fingers between his wounds, probing for the heat of infection, and—
“When I touched his cuts, it felt like I’d stuck my hand in a beehive.”
Morag cracked a rare smile. “Now we’re getting somewhere. Was there anything on your hand when this happened?”
I shook my head. “Nothing. My fingers just tingled for a minute.”
Morag pursed her lips, tracing a groove in the table with her index finger.
Dropping my gaze to my hands, I examined a bright pink welt on the right one. A thorn from the raspberry bramble must have nicked me when I was foraging earlier. I hadn’t injured that hand since the day I met Fynn, when the shard of glass had sliced my thumb. The wound had still been fresh when I touched him.
I thrust my right hand across the table, and Morag frowned as though I’d offered her a piece of rotten fish. “This is the hand that felt strange when I touched Fynn. I slashed my thumb on a broken bottle.”
Morag’s eyes went from whiskey dreaming to alert in a flash. “And were you still bleeding when you found him?”
“Probably a little.”
“That might explain it.” Morag rose and paced around the table. “Somehow, your blood gave him a bit of humanity. Allowed him to control his urges.”
My cheeks grew warm.
“Oh, don’t look at me like that, girl! I mean his predatory urges. What makes a bird catch a fish, and so on.” She resumed her pacing, her bad foot dragging behind her. “He’s been freed from the instinct to kill. I’m certain he would thank you for such a gift, but he’s probably just as ignorant about what happened as you are.”
I cradled my hand against my chest. “You’re saying a drop of my blood allowed him to choose whether or not to drown me? That it’s still allowing him to choose?”
“Aye. All it took was a touch. The mingling of your blood.” Her eyes shone. “That’s magic, a kind few ever possess.”
“Nonsense.”
“Not nonsense. Magic.” Morag continued to circle the table, making my head spin.
“But …” My stomach twisted as I considered a terrible possibility. “Does that mean Fynn’s feelings for me are some sort of magic, too?”
“Of course not. Matters of the heart can’t be affected by enchantments.” With a sigh, Morag finally resumed her seat. “Young people. The only magic they know is the sort they find in each other’s eyes.”
There was a definite note of bitterness in her tone, but I’d pried into her life enough for one day.
I pictured Fynn’s cobalt eyes, always narrowed when we walked through town, but bright and inquisitive when we were alone. No matter what he was, my fingers ached to touch him again, to memorize every ripple of muscle, every bump and imperfection.
“Drink your tea now.” Morag motioned to my untouched cup. “And rest assured, the boy won’t hurt you. You’ve tamed the beast. But there are plenty of other sinister creatures in the water, as we both know.”
I pushed my chair in and folded my arms over my chest, making it clear I didn’t intend to linger over tea today. “I’m sorry, I can’t stay. I’ve got to find Fynn before the fossegrim does.”
Lifting my cup, I took a huge gulp and coughed. I’d never tried whiskey before, and Mam would’ve had a fit if she knew, but it was surprisingly good. The liquor burned through my blood in a dizzying, heady way that felt like courage.
As I took a step toward the door, Morag muttered, “Wait.” She tapped her fingers against her cheek and fell silent. I was about to take another step when she said, “To put out the serpent’s eye, I used the tip of a spear. Steel. Perhaps if someone could get close enough to pierce the fossegrim’s heart with steel, it would finish him, or at least wound him.”
“And to kill the serpent, if it should rear its ugly head?”
“I don’t think that monster has a heart.” She laid a hand against her chest. “It’d have to be poison. The question is, which one would do the trick?”
“Why don’t you try, then? It attacked you. If it’s near the Isle, assuming it’s still alive after it tangled with Fynn, it’s a threat to our fishermen.”
“Fishermen? Blazes, girl, it can swallow boats whole when it’s hungry. But I can’t be the one to poison it.” Morag shook her head violently. “It’s still here, mark my words. Slithering around the Isle, waiting for me.” The lines in her face looked deeper, etched in shadow, like she’d somehow aged twenty years since I’d seen her last. “It’s come back here to take my life as payment for its eye, and it won’t leave until it gets what it wants.” She raised her chin a fraction. “I don’t intend to let it finish the job.”
“Right. Well, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go find Fynn before the fossegrim takes another victim.” As I strode to the door, my gaze fell on a tangle of string and bone. I stopped and brushed my fingers over the pile. “You’ve made more Bollan Crosses.”
“Some. I have enough twine, but I’ve only a handful of wrasse bones. I need more.” Morag’s eyes dimmed for a moment, like a wisp of cloud passing over the sun. “Take those and give them to your mam and sisters.”
I stuffed the crosses in my skirt pockets, ten in all. I paused, then pulled one out and slipped it over my head. I didn’t feel any different with it on, but Morag was so insistent that they worked, it couldn’t hurt.
She leaned across the table to grab my almost-full mug. Liquid sloshed over the sides as she drew it toward her mouth. “And I’ll make a poison for the serpent in case there’s a soul alive who’s brave enough to kill it. I’d never forgive myself if anything happened to you or your mam.” She eyed the fishbone charm now dangling from my neck with approval. “Be careful, and watch the water always. I don’t want to lose my best apprentice.”
Despite the leaden feeling in my stomach, I nodded. “I’m your only apprentice.”
“True, true.”
“Mally’s wedding is tomorrow, but I’ll be back to work after. You should come if your foot isn’t bothering you.” I waited for her reply, but none came. “If you’re not doing anything important, like making serpent poison or …” I hoped she might glance up, at least for a second, but she had returned to studying the dregs of my tea. “I’ll save you a place at the family table.”
Hoping Fynn hadn’t taken
me at my word and dived where I could not follow, I opened the door to the golden afternoon.
Morag’s trembling, whispered thank you followed me.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
There was a chill to the wind as I started down the hill. I rubbed my arms and peered at the horizon. Great columns of clouds, fluffy as churned butter, yellow-white as cream, glided toward town. The clouds’ black bottoms warned of a spectacular storm to come in the evening. As I rushed homeward, I said a silent prayer for Da to hurry back from the day’s fishing.
I crossed a strawberry field that had long since gone wild, green and gold grasses swishing against my skirt. From a distance, the town looked deserted, but I narrowed my eyes and scanned the shadows for dark hair and the faded blue of Da’s old shirt.
Where could Fynn be? Still on the beach, wrestling with whether to leave? Sitting up in a tree again, where it would take hours to find him?
I darted through the dwindling afternoon market. Aside from two women stuffing skeins of colorful yarn into baskets, the square appeared to be empty. Most of the pie-sellers and fishmongers had gone home early, no doubt to guard their families as dusk fell.
I waved to the two women, though neither returned my gesture, then hurried toward Ms. Katleen’s tavern. It had been Ms. Elena’s until three years prior, when Ms. Katleen inherited the place from her mam.
With the sun slipping from the sky, fishermen would already be filling the tables, their voices loud, their cups overflowing. A fisherman seemed the most likely to have seen Fynn, either sitting on the beach or slicing through the waves.
I was steps from the tavern doors when fingers closed over my wrist.
“Let go of me!” As I attempted to twist free, I met Lugh’s dark green eyes and gasped. The hand gripping my wrist released me.
“I’m sorry.” His voice softened, and he held up his hands—surrendering to what, I wasn’t sure. Like Morag, he seemed older than when I’d last seen him, though there were no lines creasing his face. It was in the set of his shoulders and an unfamiliar hardness in his eyes. “I didn’t mean to startle you, Bridey. I just wanted to see you, and you’re a tough lass to find lately. If you aren’t running errands for the witch, you’re off somewhere with the comeover. You never stand still anymore.”
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