Chapter 34 Tidings
Chapter thirty-four
Tidings
Rose
Beware the Sea-Skin Wife who walks on land,
for kindness is not her nature
and longing is not her flaw—
it is her tether to the deep,
and she will drag down any who grasp it.
— Northern Coast Ballad, origin disputed
Ihad imagined a witch’s house a hundred ways—smoke-black rafters, bones dangling like wind chimes, the scent of old curses simmering in the walls. But this… this was worse.
The door groaned open behind her, and a wave of warm, heavy air rolled out, thick with the smell of brine and crushed herbs.
I stepped in first, because if someone was going to die for this fool’s errand, it might as well be me.
The room swallowed us whole.
The ceilings were low enough that Bash had to stoop, shadows catching in the unruly black of his hair. Oscar hovered behind me, one hand drifting unconsciously to the hilt of his dagger. Dilly remained glued to his side, her freckles standing out starkly on a face that had gone sheet-white.
Inside, everything looked… crooked. Slanted shelves bowed under the weight of glass jars filled with floating things—things that had too many eyes, or not enough limbs, or colors that fish should never possess. The liquid they floated in pulsed faintly, like the heartbeat of a living creature.
A latticework of dried kelp strips hung from the rafters, swaying though no breeze touched them. Runes were carved into the beams—Nordic, if I wasn’t mistaken—each one darkened as though inked with blood. Or perhaps it simply wanted me to think that.
The witch—Edmonds’ mother, gods help us all—lit a taper with a flick of her fingers. Fire curled obediently around the wick. No flint. No spark. Just will.
“I see you admire my children,” she rasped, gesturing to the jars as if she were pointing out family portraits.
“I’d hate to see the ones you don’t display,” Bash muttered under his breath. His hand brushed mine, just barely, a silent warning to stay close.
I sank into the knowledge of how warm it made me feel.
The walls were crowded with maps of sea trenches and mythic coastlines, all inked in a crabbed hand. Some shorelines I recognized; others looked like no earthly place I’d ever seen.
Dilly was instantly drawn to it, forgetting her previous apprehension.
“Incredible,” she whispered, tracing her fingers over each depiction.
On a far table sat a bowl carved from whale bone, filled with black sand that hissed as though alive.
Next to it, a stack of dried seaweed pages was weighted with a rusty harpoon head.
A single candle burned beside them, its flame colored an unnatural green, casting sickly light over everything it touched.
Oscar leaned toward me. “This feels wrong.”
“It is wrong,” I whispered back. “She’s Edmonds’ mother.”
Dilly made a small strangled noise. “He’s a conniving prick. What does that make her?”
The witch’s withered lips curved, as if she’d heard. Of course, she had. Women like her always heard things you never meant to speak aloud.
“It makes me,” she said, turning toward us with bright blue eyes. “The only person in these islands who can tell you what he truly wants.”
“He wants a shell at the bottom of Atlantis,” I said.
She shook her head, a bitter laugh breaking from her.
“But what, daughter of the sea, does he want with it?” she asked.
An excellent question.
“And I suppose you will simply just tell us?” Bash said.
“Sit, and maybe I will,” she challenged.
She was a woman who knew who she was so much that even Captain Sebastian Flynn bent to her will. He took a seat at her table, and the rest of us followed suit, waiting as she grabbed five cups before pouring steaming water that I could have sworn hadn’t been there a moment ago.
With deft fingers, she placed a combination of tea leaves into the worn white cups and distributed them all before taking her seat and sipping her own tea.
“Well, how did he bind you?” she asked, staring at me expectantly.
I lifted my sleeve, showcasing the serpent eating its own tail that marked my skin. For unknown reasons, it was quiet now. No burning or pulsing like it’d been prone to lately.
She reached across the table and ran her fingers over the ink, a tear dripping down her face.
“To use my people’s magic to bind another–” her voice broke as she snatched her hand back and pressed her fingers to her lips. “What are the terms of the bargain?”
“I have to bring him the Abyssal Conch in about two weeks, and he leaves me and mine alone,” I said.
“Foolish girl,” she whispered. “You will die.”
Well, that was optimistic.
“I was kind of hoping you could help me not do that,” I said.
She pointed to my tea, a wild rage playing under the surface of her skin.
“Drink and let me tell you what you’ve agreed to,” she said.
No one said anything. Instead, I drank from the tea and waited.
“You are from the North Sea,” Dilly said.
The woman’s blue eyes met hers, and I didn’t envy the attention Dilly faced at that moment.
“I am the North Sea, girl,” she snapped.
Chills erupted over my skin as a pulse wrapped itself around the air like power incarnate.
Dilly, true to her character, did not flinch. Her need for answers and to simply know outweighed any survival instincts she might have. So she reached into her satchel and pulled out Edmond’s journal. The woman physically recoiled as if burned.
“Put it away,” she ordered.
Dilly did as she asked, and the woman physically relaxed, though she continued to eye Dilly’s satchel.
“I was born of the North Sea. I swam its waters and knew each and every one of her children well. From the smallest fish to the largest whale. But I was young, and as the young are prone to do, I believed myself wiser than my elders. They told me to stay away from the humans, but I was curious.”
Proving she truly had no concept of self-preservation, Dilly spoke, “You were a selkie.”
The woman tilted her head and leaned forward, but Dilly did not flinch. “You are just like the rest of them. You consume knowledge of the deep with the hunger of a starving serpent, but you are too busy gorging yourself to ask the cost.”
Dilly dipped her head, cheeks flaring red, “Forgive me.”
Maybe it was because no one ever had to wonder if Dilly was sincere, but the woman leaned back in her chair, tapping long, white tipped nails on the table.
“He was very pleasant to look at and like you,” she nodded to Dilly. “He simply wanted to know. At least that’s what I believed. It was not until I gave myself to him that I realized I knew nothing at all. He took my sea-skin and claimed me as his.”
I was willing to wager that she never got that skin back. She was wild and fierce, much like the North Sea. She was not made for land, but cursed to endure it.
“I had no choice. If I ever wanted to be whole once more, I would endure him. So I did. I endured him until I had a son and until madness claimed my captor, leaving my skin’s location forever lost to me. I feel it sometimes. It is why I cannot bring myself to leave this place.”
And just like that, she made perfect sense, as well as her reaction to the ink on my skin. Her son knew what it was to imprison another with the power of the North Sea, and yet he still chose it.
“My name is Rose,” I said quietly. “This is my husband, Bash, my brother, Oscar, and my very enthusiastic friend, Dilly.”
The woman huffed a breath at the last, but held out her hand. “I am Morwenna.”
Well, that seemed like we were off to a better start.
“I don’t want to die, Morwenna. Whether by vow or by leviathan, I do not wish it. Can you help escape that fate?”
Morwenna reached over for my now-empty cup and peered into it.
She hummed softly, considering whatever she saw.
“Your present future shows a whale.”
She lifted the cup, and sure enough, the tea leaves that adhered to the wall of the cup appeared as a whale.
“It means that you have become something others feel intimidated by. You are a giant to them, but admiration and jealousy are often two sides to the same coin.”
I turned to see my brother, who I expected to snort or say something smart about all of this, but his eyes were solemn, like he was bracing himself for a blow we could not see.
I’d never heard of whatever practice this was, but Dilly was scribbling furiously in her journal, hanging on every word.
Morwenna raised her eyes to Bash, and the corner of her lips pulled up a fraction.
“A tide crescent.” She showed a half-moon leaf resting at the handle of the cup. “A love rising. Not a gentle one—this is a tide that takes before it gives. He comes for you with the pull of the moon. You won’t outrun him.”
“I threw up a little bit.” Oscar groaned.
I laughed, but couldn’t help but look at my husband, who was in his most serious face. Not a hint of a smile. Like he, too, was waiting for the final blow.
“I see a loving family, a broken engagement. These shaped you and made you into what you are, but your future–” she said, twisting the cup and staring intently. “There is a serpent in your shadow. It watches. It waits. It already knows your name.”
She showed me a spiral of leaves tightening inward, unmistakably serpentine.
“Edmonds,” I said.
“Yes,” she agreed. “He has become what I knew he always would, but fought against like a minnow against the tide. No amount of love could erode his father’s blood in him. He craves ownership and power just as his father did.”
“Why does he want the shell?” I dared to ask.
Morwenna closed her eyes, whispering something under her breath in a language I couldn’t name. She ignored my question and instead pointed to two parallel swirls, moving in the same direction, never touching the leaves.
“Two currents claim you. You were chosen once the night you were born…and you will be chosen again before this ends.”
“What does that mean?” Bash said, leaning forward, his tone heavy and without hesitation.
Morwenna raised her sea blue eyes to his and shook her head. “I do not know, Captain. I merely read the leaves as the sea taught me. What comes next is carved into the deepest stone trenches.”
She took a long breath before pointing in the teacup to show me jagged leaf shapes forming a row of triangular peaks.
“You seek out grave danger, but I fear I did not need the leaves to know this. After that, there is nothing. As if Ra`n is waiting to decide your fate based on your choices. You may live, but just as likely you will die.”
Bash stood, but I quickly grabbed his arm and yanked him back down.
“Seas, Bash, she didn’t say she was going to kill me.” I snapped.
Tension coiled throughout his muscles, but he let me wrap my arm through his. I knew it wouldn’t hold him, but I was grateful for the contact.
Morwenna leaned back, heaving out a great sigh.
“Only one chosen by the sea stands even a chance of retrieving the Abyssal Conch,” she eyed Dilly, who was practically salivating.
“It is all that is left of the knowledge Atlantis once coveted. To hold it is to know. Its whispers will answer any question that the holder wishes to know, but should one listen too long, they will find madness in the wake of that knowledge.”
“Incredible,” Dilly whispered.
I was half certain Dilly would have listened until madness claimed her, and just like that, I understood why Morwenna was wary of those who wished to simply know.
“My kidnapper believed that knowledge was the greatest power, and he passed that belief down to our son. He will not know peace until he knows all, and I fear what he will do with that knowledge. He will bend this world to his will. He craves power just as much as knowledge.”
“Does he know where your sea-skin is?” I asked.
Morwenna pressed two fingers to her lips and closed her eyes.
“That cursed binding in your bag once held that knowledge. He wrote everything down just like you do. In his madness, he gave it to our son. I do not know if the pages were gone before or after, but by the time death claimed him, those pages were gone.”
“I’ll find it for you if Edmond’s knows. I’ll use the shell as leverage.” I said, without thinking.
“Rosamund,” Bash challenged.
I’d done more than I would like to admit in my life already, some of which haunted me when I closed my eyes. Yet I knew when something was right. I felt it in my bones and knew it with the way my blood flowed through my veins.
“You will have to survive much before that day,” Morwenna said.
I forced my boldest smile and met her eyes.
“I’m pretty hard to kill,” I said.
She had the decency not to call me a liar.