Chapter 56
After a quick breakfast where neither Nigel nor Lady Bell made an appearance, Harper made her way back to the library.
There were several house staff members cleaning up the space.
It didn’t look like there was any serious damage, but quite a few books were on the floor, and a lamp had fallen over and broken.
A handful of cats also wandered the library, the staff working around them.
A young woman who was sweeping up broken glass gave Harper a smile.
Harper waved and headed up the stairs to the archives. Nothing was out of place, the filing cabinets held their contents tight. Before she headed to her files, she checked her phone to find a text from Akiel:
Hope all is well out there, big quake on the NOAA, lab results will be ready later this morning, text then
Harper closed the message and put her phone away.
She didn’t want the news that Akiel would be sending.
The earthquakes along with the weather and all the other whatnot meant that it was most likely a case for shutting down the project and sending her back to Boston.
Harper took that reality and folded it into a corner of her mind.
She couldn’t worry about that right now, she had a story to finish.
On the night that the moon lay as a sliver so faint that it would hide entire, I had a waking dream the likes of which I thought were to be the figments of my most strained mind.
I would later find out they were flesh and blood, and not imaginings.
I was taken to the deck of the ship as Father Taine thought to pray over my sickly form.
To hear the Lord’s words come from that man’s vile mouth is a curse itself, and though he prays, it is only the Devil who listens.
I have not eaten for more than a day and as Father recited his cursèd Bible verses, my sisters knelt and rocked as though they were incubi and succubi to Abaddon himself.
My gut thrashed and twisted. The sound it emitted made Sister Huldah take to writhing and screaming that my spectral self was hovering over her and poking her with a needle.
I yearned to scream at her to stop her lies, that we were sisters in suffering if not blood.
I, however, held my tongue and in most respectful tones told Father Taine that it was the pains of my hunger and not a spectre.
I did not speak the words that hung in my heart that Huldah was enjoying a sort of waking fame as all our sisters fussed over her like she were a toddling bairn.
I met Sister Constance’s eyes and they were filled with pity for my weakened state.
Constance has been my only blessing in this cursèd place, she sneaks me what she can, hard crusts of bread, a bit of porridge.
If not for her goodness I would surely starve in this place before they can burn me for a witch and a lecheresse.
After this most unwelcome day I lay in my cell, my heart thanking Sister Constance for the gift of dried meats she had shoved under my prison door.
The rest of my sisters were asleep and I could hear Father Taine’s deep rot snores.
On this night I ken the moon was almost done to darkness and again, the sea creatures played beneath my Hell and whispered that I must survive one more night, I must live so that I could be saved.
Rory was singing a fairy song that I used to lull him to sleep.
His sweet little-boy voice rose like a balm, and my fear and pain were soothed.
I say this was a waking dream as while I feared to sleep for the rats and the dark, I was restful and calm, the likes of which are contrary to my condition.
Baloo, balilli, baloo balilli
Baloo, balilli, baloo ba
Dan come bonnie angels
Ta wir peerie bairn
Dan come bonnie angels
Ta wir bairn woo
Harper dropped the journal. The sweet little boy’s voice ringing in her ears.
She knew this song in her bones and heart.
It was older than her twenty-eight years, older than time itself, and it had always lived inside her, as it had for Meg.
In this moment, the sound of the sweet and strange words swirled around her as the voices of the sea creatures surrounded Meg.
Meg’s life had once been hers, and her life now was also Meg’s, they were connected through eternity.
Harper swallowed, feeling her throat closing as she felt the buzz of disassociation set in; her physical self sat in this chair in this library, at this desk, and her mind floated above her on a string, free and weightless.
She pulled her chair back to the desk and looked down at the journal.
The morning arrived with Sister Constance bringing a cup of cider and a bowl of parritch.
It was a most welcome blessing. Constance said there was trouble on deck of the ship, the sort of which she dinna ken, but Father Taine and the captain were having most stern words, and the young sailor, Liam, with the apple-green eyes and soft voice, was in the thick of it as well.
My stomach turned in waves to match the sea as I broke my fast. The sailor, Liam, had saved me from my most cursèd thoughts on that night that felt a thousand nights past. It was he who was accused of being the cause of my indecency, a most false and horrid accusation upon my person.
But there is a worm of truthe that I shame to hold, one that I have atoned to our Lord God for.
I did feel the heat rise in my cheeks as Liam Kelly took my hand, as we sat across from the other in the workroom above deck.
I am unaccustomed to the kindness and soft nature of his spirit, and my heart and mind felt at ease in his company.
I ken it is a sin, and perhaps it is wickednesse indeed that I feel entitled to this sin, if sin be a comfort in the darkness such as this was.
I could hear the voices overhead as tempers rose.
Sister Constance held my hand for a moment, a fleeting act of love, and defiance.
As the voices above rallied in strength and volume, I heard a great outcry, a chorus of men shouting and heavy footsteps above.
It was then that Constance locked the door of my cell and returned to her work so that she might not be found idle.
Harper squinted at the text, it was water stained and the ink faint. The handwriting had become erratic as this portion of the story was told. Harper set the journal back in its case and pulled the historian’s account forward.
The events of 7 September were recorded by Captain Caseling in the ship’s log and then recounted again for the authorities when The Mary Clarence reached Boston Harbour on 9 September 1690.
The voices that Meg heard above deck were that of Ewin Taine in a most fierce argument with Captain Caseling and the deckhand Liam Kelly.
Taine had attacked Kelly and attempted to throw the man overboard in a drunken fit.
He was restrained by the crew and put in bonds, which did little to settle his temper.
The Mary Clarence did not have a formal brig, as demonstrated by Meg’s confinement in a storage closet.
So Taine was bound and tied to the foremast. This was recorded at roughly 0600 hours, or 6 a.m.
The ship’s crew would return to their work, as they were in the proximity of Bell Island at this juncture.
There was no intent to stop at Bell noted in the ship’s course log.
At this point in Bell’s history, the island was a new settlement, the manor house having been completed to the point of habitation in 1685, and a small village growing on land below the cliffs.
It had limited contact with the mainland and operated very much in an autonomous manner, not unlike present day.
As the events of 7 September progress, there is the mention of increased sightings of sea creatures in the water surrounding Bell Island on the part of Captain Caseling.
He writes that a “kraken the size of a thousand men with flesh the color of the sea that holds in its blood the light of the sun and moon” was following The Mary Clarence.
“I fear that the creature may hold attack on the ship and we would be crushed entire by one strike of its tentacles. It follows behind and below our vessel, keeping course with us for the last three and twenty days. It is a trick of the mind perhaps, as the creature appears and then is gone in the whisper of a moment. What its intent is for The Mary Clarence, I cannot speculate, perhaps it is intrigued, or perhaps it feeds on the herring and haddock that populate these seas.”
Included in the Captain’s reports are rather adept drawings of the “kraken” that followed the ship.
On the morning of 7 September 1690, following the incident with Ewin Taine, Caseling made the following observation: “It follows The Mary Clarence with increased intent it seems as we approach the island of New Kinross, or Bell as it is more commonly known. Perhaps this is the mating ground of the creature or the waters are of a favorable temperature in this place.”
As The Mary Clarence approached Bell Island, Ewin Taine remained in bonds at the foremast. This would not remain so as the crew became engaged with their work and lost their watch on the man. This would prove to be a most disastrous oversight.
Harper looked up from the records. “… kraken the size of a thousand men with flesh the color of the sea that holds in its blood the light of the sun and moon.” Her kraken had not been the size of a thousand men, but it had indeed held the light of the sun and moon.
A wave of realization washed through Harper, a truth that she had known for a time now.
The Hafgufa of her childhood, Bell’s sacred Blódughadda, and the enigmatic Thalassa were one and the same.
The fairy stories of her childhood were real, and so was the spirit guardian of Bell.
The creature that Florence Manning had sought to capture and kill was not just Thalassa, but an eternal and ancient being, born in these cold, northern waters.
A wonder that existed here through time and just past the edge of the known world.