The Fork-Tongue Charmers

by Paul Durham

  Rye looked at her mother. There was another burp.

  Lottie smiled. “Tu, tu,” she said, which meant “thank you” in Lottie-speak.

  Waldron’s chuckle turned to a belly laugh. The children laughed too.

  Folly let out a burp. Then Quinn.

  “Thank you for the dinner!” they called in unison.

  Waldron’s great barrel chest heaved. Abby crossed her arms and stiffened in her seat, but Rye could see the hint of a smirk on her face. Finally, after the children had forced out as many belches as they could, Waldron’s laughter drifted off and he paused in his chair as if catching his breath. He refilled his goblet, drained it with a vigorous gulp, and buried his chin in his chest. Within seconds his eyelids drifted shut and his red beard was rising and falling in deep breaths.

  Rye and her friends exchanged curious glances.

  Rye leaned across the table toward Abby. “Is he asleep?” she whispered.

  Waldron’s eyes snapped open and he abruptly pushed himself up from the table with great effort.

  “Yes, to bed, then,” he said, and lumbered off to his bedroom, closing the door behind him.

  That night the island was lashed by a storm the likes of which Rye had never before seen. She huddled with Folly and Quinn in a spare room of the farmhouse as the wind howled and shook the roof. Lottie had taken refuge with Abby in a second bedroom. Waldron seemed to sleep right through it, but Rye feared Knockmany would be blown out of his rickety shed.

  Despite her exhaustion, Rye barely slept. Her first night back on dry ground, the floors of the cottage seemed to shift under her back like the decks of a ship. She had finally drifted off when the sound of moaning flooded her ears.

  Rye awoke breathing heavily, her forehead damp with sweat. She leaped up, afraid it was Folly or Quinn, but both friends were still dozing on their straw pallets. She turned to the windows. The shutters were thrust open and she could hear the rage of the gale outside. A shadowy, four-legged mass sat on the sill with its back to her, watching the storm. It seemed to sense Rye’s surprised gaze, and two yellow eyes looked back over its shoulder.

  It was the gray cat she’d seen earlier that day. It must be seeking shelter.

  Rye called to it softly and moved to coax it inside, but the cat leaped out into the darkness just before she could reach it. Rain splattered Rye’s face as she peered outside.

  The cat might have disappeared, but the low, guttural moaning hadn’t. It came as if carried by the wind, and was full of a sadness more chilling than the damp coastal air. Rye quickly closed the shutters and returned to bed, her eyes pinched tight, wishing for the sound to go away. It seemed to ebb as the night wore on and, finally, as the tiniest sliver of pre-morning light peeked through the cracks in the window, she climbed from her covers.

  She saw that one shutter was slightly ajar, as if forced open again by the storm. But there, on the sill, was an object that had become all too familiar.

  A cold, black rock, polished smooth by the tides.

  18

  The Curse of Black Annis

  Rye snatched up the stone and held it tight in her hand. It couldn’t possibly be the same one she’d dropped in the Shambles, nor the one she’d discovered in her boot. What were the chances that the storm could have blown an identical stone up onto the sill? And if not, who would have put it there? Quinn and Folly would know better than to play such a prank. This time she tucked it into the pocket of her coat. She slipped outside without waking anyone.

  From the cliff at the edge of the pasture, she found the seas calm and glassy. The coves below were covered in piles of driftwood and kelp. Although there was some new damage to the fences and animal pens, hardly a breeze rustled her hair. She climbed onto the hull of the old, overturned fishing boat and took a seat.

  “Goomurnin-fi-seas,” Knockmany’s voice grumbled. Rye looked over her shoulder and watched him shuffle from his potting shed.

  “I-fairwins-t’ya,” Rye called back, in the best accent she could muster.

  Knockmany set a small tin plate on the ground. The gray cat appeared from the bracken and hurried to the plate, its yellow eyes flicking warily as it lapped a shallow layer of milk. Rye was glad to see it had made it through the storm.

  “Is that your pet?” Rye asked.

  “Gristle wouldn’t like to be called that,” Knockmany said. “She comes and goes as she pleases, though she sometimes keeps me feet warm on a cold night.” He shambled back inside the shed and returned with some tools.

  Endless flocks of white sheep were already grazing on the hills. Rye wondered which ones were Hendry’s. She extended her spyglass and turned the lens toward the sea, where two large ships bobbed on the horizon, too far away for her to make out any colors. Merchant galleons, she guessed, probably sailing east to O’There.

  “Y’er awake early,” a different voice said behind her. It was Waldron.

  “So are you,” Rye said, lowering her spyglass and offering a smile. It was the first time he’d truly greeted her.

  “Looks like I’ve got a busy day mending fences,” he said, although his eyes were on the farmhouse, not the broken pens. “But y’er too young to have those dark bags under y’er eyes. I’ve already got plenty.”

  “The storm kept me up most of the night. It was the worst I’ve ever heard.”

  “It was a bit of a blow,” he said. Gripping his staff, Waldron propped himself against the hull and returned her smile.

  Rye ran her fingers over the weather-beaten wood. “Do you ever take this out for a sail?”

  “Oh, this isn’t my boat,” Waldron said with a chuckle. “Knockmany found it out here one morning after a real storm.”

  Rye glanced at the surf lapping the base of the cliff far below. She’d hate to see a storm like that.

  “There was a noise last night,” she said. “A moaning . . . like something was in pain. Did you hear it?”

  Waldron crinkled his thick brow, but his face seemed blank.

  “I’ve heard noises like that before, back in Drowning—well, not exactly the same,” she explained. “That time, it was a Bog Noblin.”

  Waldron grunted and shrugged. “Closest thing we’ve got to one of them is bony old Knockmany. Knockmany!” he called. “You ever seen any Bog Noblins on Pest?”

  Knockmany had set down his tools and now studied a broken fence with crossed arms.

  “I walked ever’ inch o’ this isle and I can tell ya we got none of those,” he called back. “Them knobblies ain’t good swimmers. They like the muck and mire . . . shallow canals . . . but anyt’ing over they heads and they sink like stones.”

  Rye had never heard that about Bog Noblins before. Knockmany started work on the fallen post and didn’t offer more.

  A thought seemed to dawn on Waldron. “You might have heard the Wailing Cave,” he said, raising an eyebrow at Rye. “I forget it takes some getting used to.”

  “The Wailing Cave?”

  “Have a look.”

  Waldron nodded to her spyglass. When she lifted it to her eye, he guided it so that it pointed to the shoreline some distance to the north. The mouth of a towering black cave rose from the side of the cliffs, its arched peak as tall as a cathedral’s. The entrance to the cave was lined with natural basalt pillars. The waves swelled into its maw and disappeared, as if the cavern was swallowing the ocean itself.

  “A bit closer and you can hear the current echo inside her,” Waldron said. “It’s a beautiful sound, but haunting. When the winds pick up, it carries her song across High Isle.”

  Rye lowered the spyglass. “What’s in there?”

  “Nothing,” Waldron said quickly. “At least nothing anyone should go looking for.” He seemed to hesitate. “Many a young man has entered the mouth of that cave. But none have ever returned.” His face grew heavy. “The last one was your uncle Bramble.”

  Rye looked to Waldron in surprise. “But Bramble is fine,” she said. “Well, he does keep strange company—his best
friend is a monkey. But he’s back in Drowning right now.”

  “You don’t understand what I mean.” Waldron measured his words for a long while before speaking again. “There have been dark times when the Uninvited would come to Pest in such numbers that we couldn’t withstand them on our own. The Belongers are resilient people, but sometimes we’ve been forced to turn elsewhere for help.” His eyes hardened. “There are men of shadows willing to render their services to the highest bidder. They named their price to join our fight against the Uninvited. And it was a steep one.”

  Rye knew he was talking about the Luck Uglies.

  “A son of Pest,” she said, remembering the words Abby had shared with her.

  “Your mother’s told you,” Waldron said, nodding gravely. “Once these shadow brokers fulfilled their bargain, they would choose a Belonger and summon him to the Wailing Cave. There the young man would bid farewell to his family and enter the cave alone. And no one on High Isle would ever see him again.

  “It was a cruel bargain,” Waldron continued, “but one the Belongers grew to accept over time. Bramble was the last one—he was the toll paid when Pest last suffered under the rule of the Uninvited. I offered my own son so that no other family would have to.” Waldron stared at the sea. “Bramble would have left High Isle on his own sooner or later, but not a day goes by that I don’t regret my decision.”

  “But the Luck Uglies are not so awful,” Rye said.

  “Riley,” Waldron said, his cheeks turning as red as his beard. “I know it is difficult for you to hear such things about your father’s kind. But the Luck Uglies blacken all they touch. There’s no honor among them.”

  “Harmless always keeps his bargains!” Rye said, her ears growing hot.

  “We have an expression here,” Waldron said. “What the wind brings, the tide takes away. It is the same with the Luck Uglies. What your father promises with one hand, he takes twofold with the other.”

  “That’s not true!”

  Waldron pushed himself up to his full height, so tall that he could look Rye in the eye even as she sat on top of the boat’s hull.

  “Pest will never lose another child to the Luck Uglies,” he said, his voice rising. “I told your father long ago that any Luck Ugly foolish enough to return to this Isle will be greeted by my staff and my hammer.” He shook his staff, then his fist. “Look around. There are no forests to cast shadows on Pest. No sewers to lurk in. Do you know what happens to a serpent when you pull it from its hole and clutch it by the throat? It squirms, and snaps its jaws, and wraps its tail around your wrist.” He clenched his fist around the staff so hard his knuckles turned white. “Then it stops breathing.”

  Despite his age, Rye didn’t doubt for a moment that he could wring the neck of a serpent, or a man, with his huge, basketlike hands.

  They locked eyes, both of their tempers flaring. Rye struggled to not be the first to break their gaze. To her surprise, it was Waldron’s eyes that softened, and welled with great sadness.

  “I’m sorry, Riley,” he said, shaking his head. “I am a combustible old man. Those words weren’t meant for you.”

  “I understand,” Rye said, although she really didn’t.

  “I was more patient once,” he said. “But after your mother and uncle left I had little tolerance for the petty squabbles that arise in a place as small as this. My own family was gone—what did I have left to quarrel over? So I moved out of Wick, leaving the clans of High Isle to resolve their own differences.”

  “You came here because you’re lonely,” Rye thought, but actually found herself whispering the words out loud. She stiffened, hoping Waldron wouldn’t be angry with her observation.

  But her grandfather just extended a hand to help her down from the boat.

  “Join me on a little walk,” he said. “I want to show you something. And tell you a story.”

  Rye hopped down from the hull. She was relieved to see Waldron was wearing shoes today.

  “Take it easy on me,” he added. “My legs are long but old. They can’t possibly match your young, spry ones.”

  Rye followed Waldron up the crushed-shell path where it wended north of his homestead. A thick, gray-maned bundle of fur skulked through the heather as they went. Gristle kept her distance, but seemed content to shadow them on their walk. Waldron pushed himself along with his staff.

  “When I was much younger, a woman named Annis lived in Wick,” he began. “It was said her soul was as dark as her face was beautiful. She was suspected of witchcraft and sentenced to banishment on the most remote of the Lower Isles.”

  “So it’s true the Lower Isles are home to witches and hags?” Rye asked, remembering Captain Dent’s far-fetched story on the Slumgullion.

  “Intuitives, they call themselves,” Waldron said, returning a tight smile. “And the wisest woman I’ve ever met was a Low Islander,” he added, as if that explained it all. He pushed along in his own thoughts for several strides before resuming the story.

  “But Annis was with child, and it was agreed that she would be allowed to give birth before she was sent to her fate. She bore a son, and with no father to be found, the new baby became the source of much debate. Most thought the infant should be shipped off with its treacherous mother, for what good could come of a child bred from such terrible stock? But gentler tempers prevailed, and it was agreed that the baby could stay. Of course, Annis disagreed. She cursed and railed against the villagers so furiously that her eyes rolled back in her head, and she had to be dragged aboard the waiting boat.”

  “They thought that was better?” Rye asked in disbelief.

  “I wasn’t an elder at the time,” Waldron said with a shrug, “but so it was decided.” He labored up a steep stretch of path.

  “Everyone felt it was best that the child never know his real origins,” Waldron continued. “So a kind family—the Varlets—agreed to take the boy in. They named him Slynn, after an honored ancestor, and raised the boy alongside their only son.”

  Rye took pause at the unusual, yet strangely familiar name.

  “Riley,” Waldron said, stopping several steps ahead of her. “Are you coming?”

  Rye realized that she’d stopped walking. She hurried to catch up and Waldron went on.

  “The other parents on High Isle kept their own children away from Slynn, certain that the rotten apple would someday reveal its core. As he grew older, he spent most of his time with his older brother, who was known to be the best climbing boy in all the Isles.”

  Rye had heard of climbing boys. They scaled the cliffs to harvest eggs from the seabirds’ nests.

  “One day the Varlet boys were alone collecting eggs when Slynn’s brother slipped and . . . well . . . if you’ve ever seen an egg fall from a nest, you can imagine the result. Slynn hurried home, hysterical, crying for help along the way to anyone who would listen. But rather than comfort him, the villagers lashed out in anger. Surely, Slynn’s brother didn’t slip—after all, wasn’t he the finest climbing boy in all the Isles? No, the young monster must have shoved him off the cliff out of jealousy.” Waldron’s face grew tight. “Harsh and hasty words were cast, and the truth of Slynn’s parentage was revealed.”

  “What a terrible way to find out such a secret,” Rye said. She knew what it was like to discover unexpected surprises about your parents. “And what an awful thing to accuse someone of,” she added.

  Waldron nodded in agreement. “The Varlets did believe him, and refused their neighbors’ pleas that he be cast off to sea. To keep him safe, they confined him to their stables, where he tended the sheepdogs and livestock from dawn until dusk. But that didn’t protect him from the taunts and jabs. From that day forward, the children of Wick called him ‘Slinister.’ Their parents whispered warnings about Black Annis’s malevolent son hidden away on the Varlet homestead.”

  Rye felt the blood drain from her face. Her heart raced with the realization that Slinister was from the Isle of Pest.

  “An outcas
t on his own island, a change came over Slynn,” Waldron continued. “He began sneaking out after dark, sometimes disappearing for days. Once, when he’d been gone for over a week, the Varlets set out in search of him. They finally found him soaked and half-starved at the mouth of the Wailing Cave.” Waldron’s jaw tightened. “Slynn wasn’t chosen by the Luck Uglies—he’d gone there on his own.”

  Waldron came to a stop when they’d reached the top of a ridge. He leaned on his staff.

  “They brought him home, and the very next day, we discovered this.”

  He pointed down the slope, where the blackened skeleton of a stone house sat in overgrown grass. There was no roof, and its floors and foundation had long since been reclaimed by the isle. Rye shivered. The wind was brisk here as clouds hurried across the sky.

  “The Varlets’ cottage was left smoldering,” Waldron said. “Burned to the ground . . . with the Varlets still inside.”

  Rye’s was stunned. “Where was Slinister—I mean, Slynn?”

  Waldron shook his head. “The boy was never seen again.”

  She stared at the grim remains.

  “There was one more thing,” Waldron said. “When a Belonger hurried through the ashes to search for him, he found something on the wall. A symbol scrawled in ash. I remember it clearly—because I was that Belonger.”

  “What was it?” Rye asked breathlessly.

  “A black four-leaf clover. The mark of the Luck Uglies.”

  The Ragged Clover, Rye thought.

  The story chilled her into silence. Although she knew the Luck Uglies came from dark pasts, she’d never heard such details.

  “It was only then that we recalled the curse that Annis had hurled on them the day they banished her,” Waldron continued. “She’d promised that one day her son would grow up and find her. And together they would make all the Belongers pay for their wrongs.”

  Rye wanted to mention her encounters with Slinister. She wanted to confide in her grandfather about the troubles in Drowning and the growing rift between the Luck Uglies and Fork-Tongue Charmers. But that would mean talking about Harmless, and she pictured Waldron’s clenched fist as he spoke of wringing the necks of serpents—and Luck Uglies.