Songs from the Deep

by Kelly Powell

  The knocking starts up again. I hesitate, eyes on Jude, before getting up and hurrying downstairs. Unlatching the door, I step back.

  “Mother?”

  Her dark eyes meet mine. “Mr. Flint let me know you were staying here.” She adjusts the basket she carries in one hand. “He told me what happened—to Jude.”

  The way she says his first name, like he’s a child again, twists my insides. I think of how many people will know what transpired at the harbor yesterday, how swiftly words travel on Twillengyle. My jaw tightens. “I’m looking after him.”

  “How is he?”

  I pause, considering. “I—I don’t quite know,” I say honestly. “He’s asleep.”

  Something like pity crosses my mother’s face. I thought, at first, she’d come here to lecture me again, but I see now that’s not the case. I open the door wider, and she steps over the threshold. She sets down her basket, hanging her coat in the entryway. We head up to Jude’s room, and I watch her take a seat at the edge of his bed, put a hand against his forehead. His restlessness from last night has drained away; now he lies unmoving, his breathing slow and too quiet in the surrounding silence.

  I swallow hard, clasping my hands together.

  When my father nursed survivors, he made them drink tonics, encircled their wrists with charms, pressed bars of iron against their skin. It worked; it always worked. Yet here I am—tossing fool wishes into the sea instead.

  My mother says, “I’m going to fetch Dr. Grant,” in a way that leaves no room for argument. She stands, turning to me. “Moira—”

  “He’ll be all right.”

  I mean to say more, but my throat closes, cutting off the rest of my words.

  I’m scared he won’t wake up.

  I’m scared of what will happen when he does.

  Touching my shoulder, she says, “I suppose I can’t convince you to come home?”

  I shake my head. “I want to stay here until he’s better.”

  And it isn’t like Jude has anyone else to care for him. He hates his uncle, wouldn’t feel comfortable stuck in the hospital. Most of his life has been a lesson in self-sufficiency.

  My mother nods, conceding. I walk with her back down to the entrance. Donning her coat once more, she says, “If you’re staying, expect Mr. Irving’s arrival later. He’ll be keeping the light in the meanwhile.”

  “Mr. Irving?” I pause. “Not Mr. Osric?”

  “That’s what I heard.”

  I gather her basket, hand it to her, and unlatch the front door. “Will you be returning with Dr. Grant?”

  She smiles back at me. “Of course.”

  A pang of guilt pulls at my heartstrings. I remember running out on her, telling her to let me alone, please. Now she’s allowing me to care for Jude, island gossip notwithstanding. Standing on the doorstep, she places a hand on my arm. “You do well by your father, Moira.”

  I don’t know what to say to that, so I just smile, wondering if I really have. Not yet, I think. The Council is planning to undo the hunting ban—something my father worked so hard to establish—and I can’t allow his efforts to amount to nothing.

  Perhaps once I solve this murder, and convince the Council, and heal Jude Osric. Perhaps, then, this hollowness in my heart will ease.

  After my mother sets off, I go into the kitchen. Sunlight shines through the lace-curtained window, making the cottage seem an equable space. Not at all like its keeper is dying in one of the upstairs bedrooms. I bite my bottom lip, cutting that thought off quick.

  Without knowing what else to do, I make a cup of tea.

  Steam rises toward the ceiling, disappearing in the light. My father’s books are still piled on the table, one of them still open to the petition. I trace over the faded print. I haven’t had a chance to study the names, but Jude might have done so. He must’ve had a reason to head down to the beach.

  I drag my fingers through my hair before wrapping them around my teacup. I start up the stairs to check back on him. Walking into the room, I’m met with the unexpected.

  Jude Osric is awake.

  He’s sitting up in bed, leaning against the wall, his temple pressed to the cracked plaster. He doesn’t look at me as I enter; aside from the steady rise and fall of his chest, he’s completely still. Instead, he gazes out the window, his hand on the glass.

  My father used to say that siren victims are predictable in one way: Once taken from the shore, they will do anything to get back to the sea.

  I set my teacup on Jude’s nightstand.

  This feels like precarious ground.

  Softly, I say, “You’re awake.”

  At the sound of my voice, his eyes slide toward me. They look bleary in the morning light, not quite focused. “Moira?”

  “Yes.” I sit on the bed in the hopes of drawing his attention away from the window.

  “How long have I been asleep?”

  I smooth a hand over the blue-and-white quilt. “Since yesterday afternoon.” Recalling the struggle of keeping him from the siren’s grasp, I worry how I’ll manage on my own. “How are you feeling?”

  He smiles, his eyes at half-mast. “You’ve been staying here,” he says.

  “I wanted to make sure you were all right.”

  “So kind.” He takes his hand off the window to cup my cheek. His skin feels damp from condensation, hot from fever. “I’m quite all right.”

  “You don’t look it, Jude.”

  His smile widens. I put my hand over his, bringing it to rest on the quilt instead. Our fingers lace together. Jude closes his eyes, leaning his head against the wall. “I shall miss you,” he says, “when I go.”

  My heart lurches. “You’re not going anywhere.”

  He raises his free hand, tapping his temple, wincing as he pulls at his stitches. “I can still hear them, you know. Singing. They want me back—I need to go back.”

  “If you do,” I say, “the sirens will kill you. Is that what you want?” It’s foolish, really, to think I can reason with him. Their enchantment is coursing through his veins, and he’s the same as any other siren victim. A familiar boy made unfamiliar by siren song.

  When he doesn’t reply, I think he may have fallen back asleep. I shake him a little. “Jude—Jude, what were you doing on the beach?”

  He opens one eye. “That’s where Nell died.”

  “Yes—but what were you doing there?”

  He blinks at me, sluggish. “I wanted… I just wanted to see…” He pauses, scratching his head. “I was looking for evidence.”

  “Evidence? Of what?”

  His eyes slip shut again. “I need to go,” he says quietly. “They’re waiting for me.”

  With gentle hands, I urge him back under the quilt. It’s no good questioning him like this. I shouldn’t be questioning him at all, the state he’s in. I run my fingers through his curls and tell him, “Just try to sleep for now.” I wait until his breathing slows, then take up the teacup on his nightstand. I have to grip it tight to keep my hands from trembling.

  Outside, clouds gather on the horizon, and I wonder if it will rain. I suppose it’d be pleasing for the weather to suit my mood. Not much else I can be pleased about—what with Jude being delirious, the forthcoming Council meeting, our investigation left on the fringes.

  Most of Dunmore has probably heard of Jude’s condition by now, if not all of Twillengyle. I sense their eyes like a presence I can’t shake off.

  It means the murderer will know also.

  “What are we going to do?” I mutter, looking back at Jude. He sleeps soundlessly, nothing to indicate whether or not he’ll sink into nightmares. I exhale slowly, trying to calm my nerves. “When did you become rash and I cautious?” My voice wavers, chaotic and uneven. “Why didn’t you wait for me?”

  That’s the question I really want answered.

  He must’ve known how dangerous it was, and he wouldn’t do something so impulsive without cause. But if he went off in search of evidence…

/>   A knock at the door announces my mother’s return with the doctor. Grant looks decidedly grim, his face weathered like the crag. He doffs his hat, but he doesn’t bother to remove his coat before we start upstairs. He holds a black leather bag in one knobby hand, setting it down on Jude’s bed as he leans over to examine him.

  “He was awake and talking not a half hour ago,” I say, glancing in my mother’s direction. “After you left, Mother.”

  Grant raises an eyebrow as though he’s not sure whether to believe me. He unwraps the bandages from Jude’s arm, checking over my stitch work.

  “His wounds don’t appear infected,” he says gruffly.

  I sit on the chair at the bedside. “He was quite feverish in the night.”

  “Hmm.” Grant lifts one of Jude’s eyelids, frowning. “I’d be surprised if he wasn’t, Miss Alexander. Siren song is quite like an infection itself. Fever will set in with the delirium—his body is trying to burn the magic out.” He covers Jude’s stitches with a salve from his medical bag, wrapping them in fresh bandages. “It will take time.”

  “He’ll get better, then?” I ask before I can stop myself. Leaning forward, I shift my gaze from Jude to Grant. “That is, he’ll recover?”

  Grant straightens up. “That depends entirely on him, Miss Alexander. Recovering from a siren’s enchantment is no small feat, but neither is it impossible.”

  I nod, mouth tight, and look back at Jude. The color is still high in his cheeks, his fingers curling against the blankets.

  I see Grant and my mother out and trail my hand along the cracked and peeling plaster in the hallway. Each crack said to hold a secret.

  In my mind’s eye I watch my slip of paper flutter into the sea.

  And with all my heart, I want Jude to be well.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  IT’S LATE IN THE AFTERNOON when Malcolm Irving reaches the lighthouse. I open the door to find him standing on the front step, hatless, his black hair tousled from the ferry crossing. He wears overalls beneath his threadbare wool coat, and though he’s not yet thirty, deep creases mark the skin around his eyes when he smiles.

  “Hallo, Miss Alexander,” he says cheerfully. A wicker creel is slung over his shoulder. Opening the flap, he shows me the herrings inside. “Got these for tea.”

  “Thank you.” I take it from him as he steps into the hall. “I’ll put them in the pan.”

  “Aye.” He shucks off his coat. Hanging it up, he swallows, his expression turned grave. “How is he? Our Jude?”

  I clutch the strap of the creel. “Sleeping the day away,” I say, trying for lightness. “You can go up and see him, if you like. Dr. Grant checked in on him earlier.”

  “Oh, good.” Irving runs the back of his hand across his forehead before tugging at his hair. He looks down the hall to the staircase, to the door leading into the tower. “Though I reckon he’d be wanting me to see to the light first. I’ll head up to the lantern room for but a moment, if you’ll excuse me.”

  While Irving tends to the light, I bring his creel of fish into the kitchen. Unbuttoning my cuffs, I push up the sleeves of my dress, setting out a pan and fillet knife. My eyes drift to the books on the table.

  Gabriel Flint is too young to be on the petition. Russell Hendry is locked in a jail cell. Nell Bracken’s death provides an alibi for those at the dance. She was waiting for a suitor only to end up in a pool of her own blood—and the police thought it sirens without any witnesses. But why kill her after Connor? What secret had Connor discovered that was worth slitting his throat?

  A door opens down the hall. Irving enters the kitchen, cleaning his hands with a handkerchief. He looks at me and says, rather hesitantly, “Might I see him now?”

  We go upstairs, and I show him into Jude’s room. He kneels at his bedside, taking one of Jude’s hands in his. Jude mutters something unintelligible, and Irving turns his hand palm up, the blue veins standing out along the inside of his wrist.

  “Has he been…? Has he not woken?”

  “This morning he did. Not for long.”

  The shadows lengthen across the room. Irving places Jude’s hand back on the quilt. Sitting against the wall, he looks over at him. “My great-grandfather,” he says, “God rest his soul, was in a similar state before he passed. I wasn’t even a thought in my mother’s mind at the time, but I was told he would take neither food nor water. He wanted only to go back to the sirens.” He drags his eyes away from Jude to meet my gaze. “We ought to wake him—make sure he eats something.”

  I lower myself onto the edge of Jude’s bed. “Mr. Irving, if I might ask, why are you here rather than Mr. Osric?”

  “He’s at the offshore light with Mr. Drummond. The tender won’t be able to reach them for another day or two—there’s a storm out that way.” He rakes a hand through his hair and glances out the window. “I reckon it’ll set upon us in the night. I only just managed to catch the last ferry from Lochlan.” When he looks to me, his dark eyes are somber. “There’s also the matter of my owing him this. Jude. He came to relieve me at that light when he was not yet keeper here. I couldn’t get back on the tender—I was too ill—so it was Jude and Drummond taking care of me as well as the light.” He smiles a little, rueful. “Drummond’s about as comforting as a wet sock, but Jude… ah, well, you know how he is.” He sets a hand across his heart, fingers spread. His hands are much like Jude’s: red knuckles, dry, cracked skin. “He watched over me as if I were his own blood.”

  I cast my eyes down, staring at a warp in the dark floorboards. Now that Irving has mentioned it, I can almost feel the oncoming storm in the air. I take a glimpse out the window, and the clouds hang low, a uniform gray over the choppy sea. Jude sleeps on, and I stand up from the bed. “I’ll get dinner ready,” I say, “if you’d like to sit with him until then.”

  Irving nods. “Thank you kindly, Miss Alexander. I’ll do just that.”

  Downstairs, I clear my father’s books from the kitchen table, light the stove, and set about filleting the herrings, coating them in butter, salt, oats, frying them in the pan with another lump of butter. It makes the kitchen smell like wood smoke, like fried fish, so the air is no longer so stale and cold. Before I can call for Irving, I hear his tread on the stairs, alongside another—one I know as well as my own.

  Irving comes into the kitchen with his hand around Jude’s uninjured arm. Jude is pale-faced, swaying slightly on his feet. Blood trails from his nose, and he wipes at it with the back of one hand, considering the blood across his knuckles with glassy eyes.

  He doesn’t look at me.

  Irving directs him to the water closet to wash up. Once Jude closes the door, I turn to Irving. “I’m not sure he ought to be up and about,” I say. “I could’ve brought him something.”

  “It might do him good,” says Irving. “He seemed agreeable enough.”

  Indeed, when we sit down to eat, Jude does so without protest. He holds his fork in his right hand, his left arm—stitched and bandaged—cradled against his stomach. He doesn’t speak a word, and Irving and I take his cue, so it’s a quiet affair altogether. After we finish, Irving asks him, “Would you like anything else, Jude? Cup of tea?”

  Jude stares down at his plate. He shakes his head minutely.

  “Then let’s get you up to bed,” says Irving, taking him by the arm.

  I rise from my chair as well and follow them into the hall. At the foot of the stairs, Jude pauses, reaching out to touch the wall. He says, voice rasping, “I would like to go to the shore.”

  “No, Jude.” Irving’s grip on his arm tightens almost imperceptibly. “Storm’s coming. We’ll stay here tonight.”

  Jude looks over his shoulder, finding my gaze and holding it. “Moira…”

  “Mr. Irving is right,” I say. “You’re not well, Jude. You need to go back to bed, get some rest.”

  He shudders, hand pressed flat against the wall. His nose starts bleeding again, but this time he makes no move to wipe the blood from his fa
ce. It drips onto his shirtfront as he ducks his head, breathing ragged.

  “Easy, now,” says Irving. He gives a tug on Jude’s arm, pulling him up onto the first step. “Come, you must be tired.”

  He manages to get Jude upstairs. I wait, and listen, my hand curled around the banister. I hear Irving say something, low enough to be inaudible, and Jude mumble in answer. They walk into his room, the wood creaking beneath their feet.

  When Irving comes back down, he smiles at me reassuringly. “He’s asleep,” he says. “I’ll just head up to the light—wind the clockwork.”

  The rain starts not long after, sudden and pouring down in sheets. Irving lights a lamp and builds a fire in the drawing room. I sit on the rug before it, like I did as a child. We drink black tea and eat bread with butter, watching the logs shift in the grate, the wind outside rattling the windows in their frames.

  “Good God,” Irving says, “I’ll be hammering shingles back onto the roof come morning.” He sits in an armchair, gazing up at the ceiling. In the corner of my eye, I see him look my way. “Your violin is here, I noticed. Over in the kitchen.”

  I nod. Irving takes up the knitting he brought along—a half-finished sock—and I set down my teacup, staring into the fire. After a few minutes, he clears his throat and says, “You know, I don’t mind if you play a tune or two.”

  I lift my own eyes to the ceiling. “I don’t wish to wake him.”

  “You’ll settle him, Miss Alexander. I’m sure he’ll prefer it over this gale.”

  His words make me smile. I pick myself up and head into the kitchen. Placing my violin case on the table, I flip the clasps, opening it. Yet it’s not only my violin, bow, and rosin I find inside. A slip of paper, crumpled and a little ripped, lies atop the cloth covering my violin. I take it in hand, frowning.

  It’s the flyer I’d pinned in the schoolhouse, an advertisement of my tutoring. Near the bottom of the page, however, are words I hadn’t written. A shiver runs over me as I read them.