Chapter 2
Nine years ago
Papa wakes us up, Lydia and me, when the moon outside our bedroom window is high in the sky.
The carriage that carries the three of us into town isn’t the usual one, polished black with gold trimmings.
It’s plain wood, with no cushions on the bench.
The cold winter wind reaches fingers through the cracks in the wall and makes us shiver.
The coats over our nightgowns, the scarves and hats Papa wrapped us in, don’t keep out the chill.
Lydia and I are quiet, Papa having hushed our questions.
“Wait, darlings, until we get where we’re going. ”
He’s uncharacteristically grave, in an old coat with a cap pulled over his head. He toys with his walking stick, tap-tap-tapping against the carriage floor, and mutters, seemingly half to himself: “You two are old enough now to understand.”
So this is some sort of lesson. I frown, wishing Papa had brought me alone.
Lydia is three whole years younger than me, still little, kicking her heels against the bench because they don’t reach the floor.
Nor do mine, but at least I know not to fidget.
The curtains are drawn, lanterns unlit; we sit in the dark.
But from the downward slope and the roughness of the road beneath us, from the smells that creep in with the wind—fish, oil, burning—I can tell we’re headed toward the wharf, and my heart picks up with excitement.
I love to look at the ships, big as castles with their billowing sails and snapping flags.
Papa’s said that in a few years, when I’m bigger, I can come with him on a voyage.
Lydia, though, is scared. She clutches my hand so tight it hurts, and presses her face into Papa’s coat. But I’m not scared. Or I try not to be. I’m the oldest. I’m to inherit the Fairfax Whaling Company someday, and Papa always tells me I must be brave and bold.
I am not afraid of the dark. I am not afraid of sharks or whales or any other toothed thing that lives in the sea. The only thing I’m a little afraid of is the finfolk, but that’s what my iron cross necklace is for.
When we stop, it’s in front of a small, squat brick building, close enough to the water that I can hear the waves.
It’s too dark to see much except the packed dirt beneath our feet even as Papa hoists a lantern with one hand, holding Lydia’s hand with the other.
He trusts me to follow, and I do as we go inside, past two men in dark uniforms who open the door for us and follow in behind.
More lanterns cast everything in greasy yellow light. There’s nothing in here but a wooden bench facing a wall made up of iron bars that go all the way to the ceiling. Darkness behind them—but then something moves. Straightens up from the floor and totters toward the light.
I look up at Papa in confusion. But Lydia is the first to speak, hushed.
“Cousin Mary?”
The face that presses behind the bars is familiar, round and tearstained, with a cloud of curly blonde hair that puffs out like a halo. But the hands. The hands that wrap around the bars, the torn, ragged sleeves of her dress falling away.
Her wrists are blanketed with shiny greenish-gray scales, like the fish that Mrs. Milhouse brings home from the market and keeps in the icebox. And her fingers—they end in long, curved, mottled claws that scrape together and make a terrible noise against the bars.
And she is weeping, her words hardly audible through the sobs that rack her soft frame. I can make out only scattered words, breathless explanations. Something about it not being her fault, her husband, another woman, but she can control it, she’ll stay in hiding, don’t send her away.
Fear curls through me as I realize what’s become of her. A curse.
Mama’s told us that the finfolk don’t like that we hunt whales, even though we need them, we need whale magic.
So the finfolk punish sailors with curses, and the sailors come back broken and frightened and frightening, to beg for spare coin in Kirkrell’s streets or gather outside the churchyard every Seventh Day, forbidden to touch holy ground.
Some curses are harmless, silly even—making you always smell like cabbage, or making you unable to say your own name out loud.
Or they can make it so sunlight chars your skin, or so every seven years you forget everyone you know, or so food turns to dirt in your mouth and you starve.
They cannot be cured—or, at least, no one knows how to cure them—and that’s why when you go to sea, you must keep something sharp and iron in one hand and silver coins in the other.
Sometimes, the finfolk will make a bargain, and sometimes there’s no choice but to fight.
Best, if you see glittering fog on the horizon, to turn around and run the other way.
But Cousin Mary’s no sailor. How could she be cursed?
“Don’t get close to her,” Papa says, quiet but firm. He stands with one arm extended across both our shoulders, holding us against his legs. “Stay back.”
When Mary calls out our names, my sister bursts into tears, breaking from Papa’s hold and running to press herself against the opposite wall, as far away as possible from the bars. Papa follows and crouches down to comfort her, leaving me cold where his arm had curved protectively around me.
“She’ll be taken somewhere safe,” I can hear him murmuring to Lydia. “Somewhere she can’t hurt anyone.”
But I’m only half listening. I can’t take my eyes from Cousin Mary. Just a few months ago we attended her wedding. She wore a dress of brown silk with puffed sleeves and little white flowers woven through her hair.
Now she sees me looking. She beckons me closer.
“Please, Susannah,” she whispers, sliding to her knees so we’re eye level as I drift nearer to the bars. “Please help me.”
She looks so different, her face drawn and bloodless, and the claws glint in the lamplight. But more than that, what holds my gaze is the emptiness in her eyes. She’s family. Aren’t we always supposed to help family?
I shan’t be afraid. I am bold and brave. I walk toward her, wanting to give some comfort. Mary cries and cries as I reach my hand through the bars. I’ll wipe the tears off her cheeks, where the scales still haven’t crept up.
Then—pain. I shriek as one of the scaled hands wraps around my arm, her claws breaking through the fabric of my dress sleeve and the skin underneath. I try to pull back, but she holds on. Blood spreads on the gray wool.
A hissing, grinding noise comes out of Mary’s throat as her gaze falls to the blood, and all of a sudden her eyes are not empty. Very much not empty.
Hungry, is all I can think, dazed, before the silver head of Papa’s cane hisses through the air over my head. Hungry.
He strikes Cousin Mary’s shoulder with a crack that makes me flinch, and she recoils with a spat curse, dropping my arm.
Papa has hold of me, and he pulls me back from the bars as she glares, snarling animal sounds.
Once we’re too far for Mary to reach—even as her snarls subside into sobs, even as she falls back into the shadows with a dazed look on her face—he drops to his knees and wraps his arms around me, holding me as I shake.
“It’s not her anymore,” he says, his voice thick with feeling. “I told you not to get close. Soon she won’t be able to think or speak at all. She’ll hunger only for blood.”
Hot tears streak down my face; my teeth clack together as I shiver, clutching my arm to my chest. I can’t tear my eyes away from Mary, crumpled and weeping on the ground, until Papa moves me behind him, out of her line of sight.
The pain in my arm jumbles my thoughts, sadness and confusion and fear.
Mary loves me. She always says so. Why did she hurt me?
What else would she have done if Papa hadn’t stopped her?
After checking my arm, Papa stands, looking grim. “Back to the carriage now.”
“But what about Mary?” My voice comes out small. “Aren’t we going to help her?”
“She’s past help now, my love.”
As he ushers us out, Papa turns back toward Mary for a moment, taking a step closer to her. In the doorway, I freeze, clutching Lydia’s hand with my good one, to look back. Papa bends to speak to Mary. Soft, so it’s hard to make out the words, but I think he says, I’m sorry, dear.
As we trundle toward home in the same uncomfortable carriage, Papa cleans the cuts on my arm with a wetted handkerchief while I take small sips of whaleblood from the flask he always carries.
It tastes horrible, sludgy and salty and rusty, but I can feel the healing warmth sinking down to my arm, until the gouges Mary left are just little pink scars.
My dress, though, is ruined, and Mama won’t be pleased. For some reason that’s all I can think about. Not the shimmer of the scales and claws. Not the way Mary’s eyes darkened when she saw my blood, how for a moment I was sure she was going to pull my hand to her and bite it clean off.
“Why do you think I’ve brought you here, Annie?
” Papa asks gently as he runs his handkerchief one more time across my now-healed arm, making sure the tender pink skin is free of blood before tugging my jacket sleeve back down and fastening the buttons on my cuff.
“This is a lesson, a very important one. The most important lesson of all.”
Blinking away the tears, I look up at him in the dimness of the carriage as Lydia sniffles quietly on my other side.
Someday after he’s gone, Papa often reminds me, I will be in charge of the Fairfax Whaling Company and the leader of everyone in this city who makes their livelihood from hunting Livyati.
That’s why he takes me with him to shareholder meetings and visits to the warehouse and the wharf to see the ships.
And even when I’m frightened or confused—when I see the dead whales cut up at the warehouse, or when the sailors come back with tales of strange storms and shadow figures in rowboats—I must keep a clear head and think things through.