Chapter 8 #2
Along the front, strings of coloured Christmas lights sway madly in the wind. The sea pounds against harbour walls and the streets glisten with rain. Boats bob in the harbour, straining against their ropes like dogs on the end of a lead.
We pass a bundle of clothes by the harbour, but I startle when the bundle suddenly moves.
I blink as it stands upright and walks towards us, a figure forming as it moves.
It’s an old lady, her hair long and grey and blowing in the wind, and green smoke drifts around her feet.
As she gets closer, I see that her eyes are as green as grass.
They’re cunning eyes, gleaming with slyness.
“Dragon,” she hails Sigurd in a raspy voice.
Sigurd stops, pulling me close. “Mistress Agnes, how are you?” His voice is as warm as ever, but I detect a measure of caution.
She sketches a bow that manages to be polite yet mocking. “Scratching a living as usual. Time is not as it once was.” She looks to me. “And who do we have here?”
Somehow, I think she already knows. Sigurd’s hand tightens on mine. “’Tis a friend of mine. Cary, meet Mistress Agnes.”
“It’s very nice to meet you,” I say politely.
“Ah, one with manners, I see. How unusual.” She edges closer to me, her eyes flaring with amusement as Sigurd moves slightly in front of me.
Usually, I’d be offended by that sort of posture, because I can take care of myself, but there’s something about her that makes me wary.
“You have no idea how rude humans are now,” she continues chattily.
She raises her hand, and I see she’s holding a big, knitted bag.
The fabric is rough and weathered like coils of old sailing line.
“This was once such a place,” she says absently, her attention on the contents of the bag as she rummages through it.
“Ships coming in and sailors everywhere. So much business for me and my sisters.”
“Sisters?” I ask.
She nods and gives a shrill whistle that echoes around the harbour. Instantly, two other bundles move and rise, forming into the shapes of old women with the same sharp features as Agnes. One has yellow smoke around her feet, while the other has blue smoke.
Agnes calls out to them. “Come and meet the dragon’s—”
“Friend,” Sigurd says quickly. “Cary.”
Agnes’s eyes gleam like a cat’s. “Ah, yes. I had heard.”
The women crowd around their sister, staring at me for so long that I shift awkwardly.
“Hello,” I finally say. “Nice to meet you.”
“Ooh, he’s a pretty one and so polite too.” It’s the sister with the yellow smoke. She’s short, and her eyes are a strange, yellow-brown. “I am Nan.”
Agnes chuckles. The last sister has a thin, hungry look about her and eyes of a blue so dark they look black. She displays no interest in me but turns to Sigurd. “I hear there is trouble under the sea, dragon.”
I turn to look at Sigurd, and he squeezes my hand. “I know not what, Mistress Margaret. Doubtless, I will find out.”
“Ah, there is the peacemaker,” Margaret says mockingly. “I remember different days.”
Sigurd just shrugs, not rising to the jab. “As do we all. As do we all.”
Agnes suddenly exclaims in triumph and removes an object from her bag. “There it is,” she says. She catches my eye, sly mischief written all over her face. “Come see this, Cary,” she orders.
“What is it?” There’s a tug on my senses and then I gasp as I take a step forward against my will, my limbs moving like a puppet’s. Sigurd’s grip on my hand tightens and stops me from moving further. The air shimmers with a heat haze.
“Agnes,” he growls.
“Sister,” Nan chides, her yellow eyes gleaming. “Don’t poke the dragon.”
Agnes grins, and I see that her teeth are jagged and filed to points. She turns to me and proffers the object she’s retrieved from her bag. I look cautiously down at it.
It’s a long strand of white rope with three knots set at intervals. The knots are intricate and look almost like roses.
“Oh, that’s so pretty,” I breathe. She inhales sharply, and when I look up, she’s watching me with none of the previous malice. Instead, there’s something curiously shy about her, as if she’s unused to praise. “What is it, please?”
“’Tis a wind spell,” she says. “Pull the first knot.”
Sigurd’s hold tightens, but I do Agnes’s bidding and tug the knot. I gasp in delight as the rose separates, its petals falling to the ground and disappearing.
“Mistress Agnes,” Sigurd breathes. “Have a care.”
“Pooh. It's just a breeze,” she says.
The second after she speaks, a breeze starts up. At first, it's playful, tugging at my hair and clothes. Then it gets stronger, and I stagger a little.
“Enough,” Sigurd growls.
The witch sighs and clicks her fingers. I notice the nails are black. The breeze drops.
“Did the rope do that?” I ask.
She nods, her eyes sharp and watchful. “’Tis a wind spell.”
“Agnes, Nan, and Margaret are sea witches,” Sigurd tells me. “They loiter near harbours.”
“Loiter?” Margaret snaps. “Have a care, dragon.”
Sigurd sighs. “My apologies. I do not like such tricks being played on my… On Cary. The ladies are usually here bartering for ingredients for their spells and selling charms to sailors. The wind spell is an example.”
“Ah.”
“It is a three-knotted witch cord,” Agnes says.
“It gives the power of the wind to sailors, and each knot provides a different kind of wind. The first—the one you just released—is a breeze to fill the sails, the second is a stronger one at your back as you sail the waves. The third—” She chuckles, and her sisters join her.
“Ah, that is a wind powerful enough to drive ships onto the rocks.”
“Why would a sailor want that?” I ask.
“They don’t,” she says simply. “But when you trade in magic, there is always a sting in the tail.”
Silence drops and after a moment, I say, “That’s very clever. Thank you so much for showing me it. I’ve never seen such fantastical things as I have since I met Sigurd.”
He stirs and pulls me closer, and Agnes watches us, her eyes warm, yet also cautious. “Such times we live in when myths come to life,” she says gently.
Sigurd puts a hand to his forehead in a leisurely salute. “We bid you good day, sisters. May your day be full of useful trade and happiness.”
Margaret spits on the ground. “What trade is there these days, dragon? Silly tourists and fishermen who pay no attention to what their elder kin told them. Who do we sell to, then?”
“Maybe you should set up a shop,” I say casually, blinking as they all turn to me.
“A shop?”
I nod. “It’s cold out here. It can’t be nice to stand around all day.
Set up a shop and pay to have someone to run it.
You can gather your ingredients while they work and then sit in the warmth instead and make your spells.
Maybe you could put up a sandwich board here to direct customers to the shop,” I say, warming to my idea.
“And selling online would be even better.”
“Sandwich board? Is that not bread that humans eat?” Nan, the other sister, says.
“Yes. Do you eat bread?”
“No,” she says, her eyes full of sly amusement. “That is not what we eat.”
Sigurd stirs. “Well, we must be off. Good day to you, ladies.”
We’ve started away when Agnes says my name suddenly. I turn and jump as I find her directly behind me. “Yes?”
She rummages in her bag again. “Take this,” she says, removing a small burlap bag and shoving it into my hand.
“For me?” I ask.
She nods, that odd warmth in her eyes again.
“A present for you. Good manners and a kind heart are rare in these times and should always be rewarded.”
“Thank you,” I say and open the bag. An object falls into my palm. It’s a pendant made of green sea glass with a cord threaded through it. “A necklace?” I ask, looking at her. Sigurd draws in a startled breath, and I look curiously at him before turning back to Agnes.
She nods. “’Tis a hagstone.”
I touch the glass. It’s the colour of jade—the shade of the sea when the sun shines through the depths—and it has a gold thread running through it that’s the exact shade of Sigurd’s eyes. “It’s absolutely beautiful,” I say. “Thank you so much.”
She takes it from me and fastens it quickly around my neck. The stone falls against my chest, and for a second, I smell salt, and the stone warms against my skin.
She taps it. “A hagstone protects you at sea. You will need that very soon, Cary.”
“I will?”
Sigurd’s arm tightens on my shoulders. “Thank you, Mistress Agnes,” he says formally. “I am in your debt.”
The witch and the dragon stare at each other.
“How do you know I need it?” I ask.
She gives her wicked chuckle and steps back, the softness gone as if it was never there. “Ah, mayhap I see the future.”
“Well, thank you again.”
She nods. “Thank you for the shop idea. Maybe we will do that.”
“I wish you luck,” I say formally and blink as they vanish in front of my eyes. All that remains are three trails of coloured smoke, and even as I watch, a breeze sets up, and they disappear. I hear a wicked cackle in the air, and then nothing.
Sigurd steers me away, his efforts slightly hampered by my constantly looking back. The harbour is empty once more, the rain lashing down and the wind howling.
“Well, that was interesting,” I say chattily.
His mouth twitches. “I believe you have made a friend.”
“Can they really tell the future?”
He nods. “They look into old glass fishing floats to see the future, and they are very accurate in their weather predictions. They commune with the wind on the cliffs around Boscastle.”
“And I wouldn’t have seen them without you?”
He shakes his head. “Be thankful we didn’t come upon them in Boscastle. They do their communing naked.”
“Wow. I can’t believe all this was going on around me. It’s so thrilling.”
“Thrilling?”
I gasp as he pulls me to a stop, wrapping his arms around me and dropping a hard kiss on my lips. He pulls away.
“What was that for?” I ask, breathless.
He cups my face in his big hand. “Because you are perfect,” he says steadily.