Chapter Six Idris #3
It makes me think of the one time I got really drunk.
It was an accident—I hadn’t had a lot of experience, and I was with my student fellows and their fishermen fathers at a small pub in the city.
They kept buying me drinks, or passing me drinks, and I was eager to match the rough men pint for pint.
I woke up at home with a splitting headache, sick on my floor, and only the faintest impression of what had happened.
I dreaded what I’d done while I was out of my senses—and I had, indeed, made a fool of myself.
But luckily for me, the fishermen were kind, and once they realized I’d had too much, they got me home safe and didn’t tease me too badly afterward for my renditions of popular ballads.
But I still remember waking up, my skin crawling with the feeling that I’d been somewhere I didn’t intend to be, someone I didn’t know.
I haven’t drunk nearly that much since. Even at the ball I did not black out.
Now I’m out of my mind again, but I’m not surrounded by kind people. I know I’ve been dancing—or I guess I have—but I doubt I have friends there. I doubt they’ll gently escort me home if I get in over my head.
If? I am in over my head.
I look across at Abram where he’s pulling some rope from the rubble. He scrutinizes it before putting it into his bag. He leaves nothing to waste and always finds scraps that are miraculously useful.
Abram was there the morning after my drunken escapade.
He helped peel me off the floor. When I finished washing, he showed up with several concoctions for hangovers recommended by our cook.
And when I was tempted to sulk in my mortification, he was the one who distracted me with his latest doodles.
He was the one who got me laughing again.
I may not have friends at the dance. But maybe I don’t have to be entirely alone at home?
The bone-weary, breath-stealing tiredness washes over me again. I close my eyes against it. How much longer will I be up for an excursion like today? Perhaps Abram deserves to know that our time together is limited. Perhaps it is kinder to let him prepare.
Or perhaps it is selfish to want him to carry this with me, when he can do nothing about it. He could help with a hangover, but even he can’t save me from a curse. When I am gone, he’ll be hurt—but he doesn’t have to hurt anticipating it.
I’m still warring with my thoughts when I hear the sound of someone coming over the rocky causeway. Abram straightens, staring into the haar a moment before he calls, “Good morning, Mrs. Westness!”
“Good morn, Abram!” The old woman becomes a shadow and then a solid person.
She has her arms outstretched for balance.
Abram hurries to help her over the last of the rocks and onto solid ground.
I get to my feet and go to join them, True staying close to my heels.
Mrs. Westness is exchanging pleasantries with Abram, but when she sees me, her bushy eyebrows lift.
She speaks with the heavy lilting of the old folk here.
“Well, well, Idris! I wouldn’t have thought you’d be out so early! ”
My ears warm. “I hope I’m not known for keeping late mornings.”
“Not at all!” She winks. “But I wouldn’t expect you out and about after your busy night.”
My heart stutters in my chest. “What?”
Mrs. Westness has turned to Abram. “And who’s the fancy lass, I ask myself? Who’s got our prince out on the waters after midnight?” She pats my arm and prepares to walk past. “Just be careful of the seal folk, will you? It’s an enchanted hour.”
Abram looks at me, confused.
“You—you saw me out last night?” I ask. True leans against my leg, and I put my hand on his head. The ground doesn’t feel solid anymore.
She nods. “Was waiting on my Tom’s return, and you sailed right up the coast. Called out to you, but you must not have heard. Wind was something awful.”
“You’re sure it was me?”
“The moon was out bright as anything. Sure seemed like you and that hound there.” Seeing my earnestness, she hesitates. “Well—maybe I was mistaken.”
“I think you must be,” Abram says. “Idris was home all night.”
I don’t contradict him. My mind is racing. Mrs. Westness lives on the southeast side of the island. For her to see me, I must have been headed toward Twinehallow Sound, one of the worst stretches of water around all the islands. It’s nothing but riptides and whirlpools.
Abram is still talking with Mrs. Westness—I catch something about Tom and the mainland and fouler weather ahead—but I can’t pay attention.
Twinehallow Sound could lead me to many different places.
It doesn’t give me any more of a sense of where I’ve been, except that, apparently, I’ve sailed through waters that claim men even on the calmest days.
And I’ve been doing it at night without my own mind.
The conversation trails off, and Mrs. Westness wanders away. Abram is staring at me, frowning.
“She’s wrong, isn’t she?” he asks. “You haven’t been going out like that alone?”
I look at him silently. I don’t know what to say.
His eyes widen. “Where are you going, Idris?”
I can’t keep it from him anymore. Softly, I admit, “I don’t know.”