Chapter 24
Chapter Twenty-Four
Jellybean homes dotted an endless coastline as fishermen took the reds, pinks, greens, yellows, and blues from their boat and painted the rest of their lives to match.
Winnifred—Winnie, according to the three hundred or so in their cove—lived in a mustard home, with a mustard boathouse against their dock to match.
Hers was one of many isolated inlets that dotted the shores, most inaccessible by road, cut off from the world, save by ship.
Many outharbours kept to themselves, while others sent their sailors on months-long journeys—some through the Northwest Passage, cutting through ice, trapped for months as they harvested seal, whale, and cod.
Others went south, returning with rum, conches, and a tan.
She was tasked with skinning, curing, and otherwise preparing the cod when they were available.
She milked the goat. Hid the shame of lobster shells—cockroaches of the sea eaten only by the poorest of families—and had raw, pink fingers from her nearly impossible time with crops, save for the potatoes, turnips, and beets that could survive the weather.
Cruel winds kept trees from growing more than a few feet tall, as the bluster ripped their roots from the shallow earth if they stood above a man—with pockets of inland exceptions, of course—though if she wanted reprieve from the wind, she and the rest of her family hunkered down in the living room against a roaring stove, hoping the chopped wood would last through the storm.
She enjoyed the sailors’ tales but was not one for the sea.
The men, women, and children kept the world turning on rural beaches, their Celtic roots taking on a life of their own, Emerald-Isle tongue developing its own in-speak, and lore birthing new superstitions.
Gods, fae, and powers, were no strangers to people who experienced blessings and curses in their rawest forms among the unforgivable rock.
With the crack in the veil held by their belief, came the inevitable darkness.
If Izi wanted to hide, changing her motive of operations was a half-assed job. Sexuality was a preferred form of draining, but for the most part, only worked on men.
She had someone else to torment, a brother to evade, and a death sentence to dodge.
I didn’t dare take the form of a sea creature amongst a people who were sustained primarily on root vegetables and marine life.
A bird might do the trick, but given the circumstances, it didn’t quite fit.
The island, though too southerly for natural apex predators, faced an annual parade of icebergs as they broke free from Greenland and floated down the Atlantic current.
At least once a year, an iceberg would make landfall somewhere along Newfoundland’s rocky shores, delivering a starving polar bear, or any other creature that had the misfortune of living adrift for weeks or months without food.
Love left bowls of milk out for the fae. She avoided circles of mushrooms. She wove interlocked crosses made of grass. And at night, she kept her eyes peeled for signs that the hag might visit her family.
It was late spring when I finally stepped out from behind the veil.
It was high tide, and the rhythmic lapping of waves breaking against rocks covered the sounds of my approach.
Love was shuttering the goat well past sunset when I saw my chance.
She closed the doors to the barn and turned to see the only form I could think to take that was special enough to affirm her belief in the otherworldly, but small enough not to startle her.
I curled a white tail around my paws, sat tall, and waited with wide eyes to see if she would know me, accept me, love me, as an arctic fox.
Her back flattened against the barn, and for a horrifying heartbeat, I was certain I’d frightened her. Then, as she slowly sank to her bottom and set the lantern gently beside her, I realized that the move had been so she wouldn’t startle me.
“Are you a ghost?” she whispered.
It was a shame she couldn’t see me smile. I shook my head, and she nearly choked.
“You understand me?” Thin fingers flew to her chest. “You are no fox.”
Bowing felt too stiff. I laid down, legs stretched toward her, head tilted toward the side.
“Are you a good spirit, or a bad one?”
Hm. She hadn’t exactly set me up for success with such a complicated ask. I chewed on the answer as she readied herself for her next question when a scream sliced through the wind and waves.
Love knocked over the lantern in her haste to her feet. “Mother!”
She sprinted for the house. I cast a wasted look at the flame before remembering where I was. The soaked grass didn’t have a chance of catching fire. I twisted to follow her into the house, pushing through the door she’d left ajar, as she crashed into her parents’ bedroom.
Her father had been gone for months, and her mother, unable to move, was panting, frozen, while a twisted ghoul straddled her.
Maybe Love had the ability to see through the veil in this life, but I doubted it.
Mortals caught between sleep and consciousness, paralyzed by spirits, however, were cursed with the ability to see.
So much for my time as a fox.
I wasn’t sure if it was Winnie, or Love, whose hands flew noiselessly to her mouth as I burst from my fox shape and leapt for the hag.
The succubus ripped me from the mortal realm as we tumbled through time and space, through breath and suffocation, through poison and venom and hate and terror as she snared me in a nightmare.