Chapter Eight Idris #3
“The Berds send word that they expected Mr. Jay Berd to remain here for the night,” she says. “He has not returned home.”
Abram closes his eyes. I can’t bear the pained expression on his face.
I push back from the table. “We’ll look for him.”
“Not you,” Father snaps. “Ruth, go and get Johnie and Flynn. We’ll assemble a search party.”
“It should be me,” I protest. “This is my fault.”
“Yes, it is!” Father rises from his chair.
Mortification and anger flash through me, but I lift my chin and try to ignore Ruth’s stare.
“It is your fault this is happening,” Father continues. “But there are others better equipped to fix your mistake. So, for once, listen to me and stay here.”
I can’t form words around my frustration.
I want to point out that he was the one who insisted someone keep watch over me.
But didn’t I allow it? Didn’t I let Jay get roped in, even though I’ve already given myself to the Hidden Folk?
I agreed to Speir’s offer because I wanted this curse to end with me, not to pull others into its whirlpool of disaster.
I leave the room. True follows in my shadow, and Abram is after me a minute later.
“We’ll go to the holms,” he says, taking my arm and steering me toward the back door. “We know you sailed past there because Mrs. Westness saw you. If we head out now, we’ll have an hour on the others while they get organized.”
I glance at my brother, silently grateful for his secret streak of rebellion.
We return to the rocky shore near the holms, where we haul my yole up onto dry ground. On the horizon, a black storm is gathering in the south. Hopefully it will stay down there. I turn my attention to the shoreline. It juts in and out, like torn paper, so I can’t see far in either direction.
“We should split up,” I suggest. “You go west. I’ll go east.”
Abram nods, his face set in grim determination. “I’ll check the outer holms. You stay on the mainland.”
I set off to the left. True runs ahead, sniffing for crabs. Rocks roll and knock together under my feet, and I concentrate on keeping my balance until we’re around the first bend.
The tight knot in my chest hasn’t loosened.
I dread what I might see at every turn of the shore, in that moment when the next stretch of view opens up before me.
The waters are rough out on the sound where Jay and I must have sailed last night, assuming I always go to the same place.
Stories abound of selkies pulling sailors overboard, but even without magic it’s deadly enough.
A single mistake could kill a man. Especially in the dark.
The low tide has exposed rocks farther out in the cove, and lumpy seals lie stretched out on the flat stones.
They lift their heads with bored curiosity when True and I pass, then flop down once we’re safely away.
Sometimes, when there’s enough distance between me and them, their keening song wails into the air.
Sailors say it sounds like a drowning child.
A cry that calls men to change course, to lean over the sides of their boats and be pulled under.
I come to another bend. Before me, the rocks blend into pale sand. Seaweed and kelp left by the tide glisten in the dim light. I can see all the way to where the coast curves back out to a point.
About midway between me and that point, a lump covered in seaweed lies sprawled on the beach.
My breath stops. It’s nearly man-sized. Man-shaped.
Unsteady, I cross onto the sand and make my way toward the shape. I want to run, to know immediately what the kelp covers, but my legs have gone weak. I force myself to inhale. The air smells of rot and sea.
True goes ahead, curious. He sniffs at the shape with interest, then lies beside it to better investigate. I can’t read whether he recognizes whatever is beneath. Whoever is beneath.
My stomach turns.
In a time both everlasting and far too fast, I’m standing by the thing. The still-wet fronds drape over it like the wrapping of the dead. I swallow. Then I flex my fingers and make myself bend forward. Make myself peel back one of the stalks of weed.
Before I can look at what’s beneath, a cloud of gnats flies out of an exposed wound. I jerk away, trip over a rock, and fall onto my back. True leaves the corpse to jump around me, trying to lick my face.
I push him aside. Make myself look.
It isn’t a man. Isn’t Jay.
By the rubbery texture of the gray skin, I think it must be a porpoise. Washed up at least a day ago. Something has helped itself to a chunk of meat out of its side, now crawling with gnats again.
Relief and disgust war in me. I turn to my side, almost gagging. My limbs are cold and weak. My vision spins.
A faint shadow crosses my hands on the ground. Someone crouches beside me, and a female voice I recognize asks, “Are you all right?”
The overused question cuts through my nausea and pricks awake my frustration—at this curse, this situation, my helplessness, all of it! I push myself up to snap that I’m fine.
But then I see her.
Kneeling beside me is a girl with white skin, dark hair, and silver eyes.