Fear the Drowning Deep

by Sarah Glenn Marsh

  I tapped Grayse’s shoulder. “We’ll wake up early and greet him at the harbor,” I suggested in a falsely cheery voice. “How’s that sound?” I’d rather eat a whole pot of fish than set foot in the harbor where Da and the others moored their boats, but more than anything, I wanted to make Grayse happy.

  She gave a smile that stretched across her whole face, showing off her missing tooth again.

  “I’ll take that as a yes.”

  After helping to clear the table, I stood by the sink before the open window to take my turn washing the dishes. Bowing my head, I tried to ignore the cold breeze mussing the top of my hair. I added the wind to the growing list of things I longed to put behind me.

  I was about to dip my rag in the water when Mam appeared at my side. She closed the window and latched it. Not for the first time, I wondered why that window had a latch at all. It wasn’t as though anyone would want to climb through it in the middle of the night. There was no crime in Port Coire. Not until today, anyway.

  The shutters rattled as the wind forced its way through the cracks. “I want you to latch your bedroom window, too, bird.” Mam’s voice sounded higher and thinner than usual. But when she saw my frown, she smiled and swatted my arm with a rag. “Now get to work!”

  I lay awake long after Grayse and Liss had drifted off on either side of me. Their warmth made me drowsy, but my eyes wouldn’t stay shut. I shifted until I could see moonbeams streaming through the latched window.

  A knot formed deep in my stomach as my thoughts returned to the drowned girl. She hadn’t looked like a murder victim. There had been no bruises or grisly wounds visible. Yet remembering the sight of her drenched limp figure made my skin damp with cold sweat.

  How did she end up in the water? Had her boat capsized in a storm? Had someone pushed her in? Or had she—like Grandad—dived for the water with a look of ecstasy on her face, as though summoned by some invisible force?

  The sea did strange things to people. It played tricks on the mind. Its vastness hid things … Bodies. Secrets. The deadly bulk of icebergs.

  A month ago, people on both sides of the Atlantic had mourned the one-year anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic. People had called the giant ship unsinkable, but the sea had proven them wrong. Maybe she didn’t like being challenged. Maybe that’s why she took the ship and most of its passengers to a place no one living could follow, in a tragedy that continued to haunt me from the pages of the newspapers Da brought home.

  I turned away from the moonlight and closed my eyes. Even with the window shut and Liss’s familiar breathing in my ear, I was sure I could hear someone wailing away on his fiddle, playing a mournful tribute to all those lost to the sea. And along with the melody came the unmistakable sound of water slapping against the rocks far below us, slowly eroding the foundation of Port Coire and everything I loved.

  CHAPTER TWO

  I’ve had this dream so many times. Often enough to know I’m dreaming, but helpless to wake myself, even knowing what’s about to happen.

  Knowing, and dreading.

  I’m nine years old again, walking along the cliffs at Grandad’s side, hand in hand. Mine is small and sticky, his huge and leathery. Together we navigate the sweltering summer dusk, eavesdropping on seabirds’ conversations. We have to strain to hear them over the hiss and roar of the ocean below.

  The persistent breeze has already dried my tears and cooled my burning face, but Grandad and I keep walking away from town. He seems to know that I’m not ready to go home and face Liss just yet. She thinks I cut her favorite doll’s hair—the expensive, irreplaceable one Gran gave her for her birthday—but it was really Mally. She’d wanted to give the doll the latest style.

  The fight that ensued had everyone, even Mam, in tears.

  It’s a good thing Grandad had come for supper. He scooped me up, letting me bury my damp face in his shirt, and brought me out here to clear my head.

  “I’m never talking to Liss again,” I announce as we pause beyond a rise that hides town from view.

  The first stars are just appearing, sprinkling Grandad’s worn face with pale light and making his once-gold hair look even whiter as he smiles and says, “Ach, that’s going to make life rather difficult don’t you think, my Bridey-bird? I remember when I was a lad, my older brother …”

  His words trail away as he glances toward the sea, his head tilted, listening.

  “Grandad?” I tug his hand, wanting to hear the rest of his story.

  “Hmm?” He blinks, like I’ve startled him. Like he’s seen a ghost. “I’m sorry. What was I saying, my little love?”

  “About your brother,” I reply helpfully.

  But he’s looking to the sea again. Still clutching my hand, he walks slowly toward the nearest cliff, leading me forward until we’re teetering on the very last bit of rock before a long drop into the open water.

  Fresh tears well in my eyes. Normally, the sigh of the sea calms me, like the voice of an old friend, but now its hissing sounds like a threat. With both my hands gripping one of Grandad’s, I use all my strength to try to pull him back from the edge.

  “Don’t you hear it?” Grandad asks, shaking away my grasping hands. His voice sounds distant, and as his misty eyes stare into the far-below waves, I have a sinking feeling he has gone somewhere I can’t follow.

  “Hear what?” I whimper. There’s no answer. “Hear what?” I beg, louder.

  “The music.” He makes the slightest motion forward, kicking pebbles from the cliff into the crashing surf.

  “You’re scaring me!” I sob, grabbing fistfuls of his shirt. “Grandad!”

  “It’s so beautiful,” he murmurs. “Sweeter than fairy song, even.” He smiles, a broad grin that sheds years from his face, his gaze never wavering from the restless sea. It’s as if he can’t hear my pleas. As if I don’t exist in whatever world he’s drifted to.

  “I have to go now.” Still smiling, he raises his arms and arcs his body into a diver’s pose.

  The motion knocks me to the ground. I cough and hiccup and grasp at air.

  Grandad leaps from the cliff with a swan’s grace, looking happier than I’ve ever seen him.

  Somehow I manage to push myself up onto my knees. My hands claw at the dirt to keep me anchored as I lean over the edge, my frantic heart hoping for a sign of Grandad. The moon aids my search as I scan the blurry expanse of dark water before me.

  He surfaces for the briefest moment, not near the rocks as I’d feared, but already farther out than I’d thought him capable of swimming. He closes his eyes, that strange broad smile still plastered on his face, and lets the waves swallow him one last time.

  And then, soft as a whisper, the whine of a fiddle reaches my ears.

  Or perhaps it’s my own keening cry, tossed back to me by the wind. There aren’t any fiddlers out here on the cliffs. No one who hears my cries and screams for help.

  A flash of white draws my gaze back to the water. At first, it appears to be the transparent figure of a tall man—Grandad’s spirit?—watching me from above the waves. But when I blink, there’s only a whitecap, rolling through the empty space where Grandad disappeared.

  A flock of white birds darted around Grayse’s head as she stood at the end of the harbor dock, tossing crumbs of cheese in the air.

  I sat cross-legged a few feet away, shivering at the water’s nearness, my gaze flicking between the unchanging horizon and my sister. I kept hoping for a glimpse of movement, a speck growing larger as Da approached, but the sea maintained its morning calm. Flecks of light played across the harbor’s tranquil waters and a breeze made tiny ripples around the dock. Under a clear sky, with my sister humming a lively song, the sea appeared innocent. Almost.

  Grayse’s humming was broken by a sudden cry, and I leaped up. “Stop it, birdies!” she yelped, dropping the cheese to cover her face with her hands.

  The sun glinted on sharp beaks and talons. I ran toward Grayse, making shooing motions at the birds. “You�
��ve given them enough, little fish! We aren’t running a charity for the guillemots.”

  The spark of an idea flashed in her eyes as she retrieved the cheese.

  “Grayse,” I groaned, inspecting her face and hands for cuts. “Promise me you won’t start collecting scraps for them. When you tried to start a charity for the porpoises last year, all the donations amounted to were a couple of fish heads and an old boot, remember?”

  Grayse mumbled something that sounded like “I remember.”

  We lapsed into silence, listening to the rustle of birds’ wings as they flapped across the water to seek their fortunes elsewhere. To our right, a rusted dinghy bobbed alone in the harbor, rocked by the breeze.

  “Bry, do you think there’s a monster hiding under the dock right now?” Grayse asked, peering through gaps in the battered wooden planks.

  “I don’t know. But if something tries to grab us, I’ll tell it to eat me first.” I plopped down on the boards again, trying not to think about what foul things might be curled in the shadows below.

  Grayse gave a halfhearted smile. “D’you think Mally will get married soon?” She broke the cheese in two and offered me a piece. “I hope she chooses Thomase.”

  “What? Why him?”

  “He gave me the fish heads for the porpoises. And he’s handsome.”

  I laughed and bit into the sharp cheese. “You shouldn’t know about ‘handsome’ yet. Besides, Mally has her heart set on Artur. He’s promised to take her to England someday.”

  “Not him!” Grayse shook her head as though trying to clear away the image of the lad who wore drab colors and calculated numbers in his head for fun. “Why don’t you marry Thomase then?”

  I choked, spraying my skirt with bits of cheese. How could I explain to her that marriage would be another tie to a place I dreamed of leaving behind? Not to mention what a git Thomase was.

  “Mam says it’s time you found good work or a good husband.”

  “I know what Mam says.”

  I didn’t like hearing her lectures repeated by my sweetest sister. After all, Mam’s idea of good work was selling her paintings during Tourist Season, which was finally upon us, to supplement the living Da made for us with his fishing. Mermaids. Selkies. Pearly pink octopi swirling through the deep. Each day Mam trapped her strange dreams on canvas, yet she expected me to do mindless work while she indulged her whims. I intended to find a job soon, but it would take years to save up enough money for a one-way ride on a sturdy boat.

  I tipped my head back, letting the sun warm my face. My eyes fluttered closed and my breathing slowed as I imagined being miles from the sea.

  “Look!” Grayse poked me in the ribs with her bony elbow and scrambled to her feet. “Da! Over here!” She bounced on the spot as though she were attached to springs.

  I looked out over the water. A shape separated itself from the horizon and coasted toward us. Da’s boat. From such a distance, he wouldn’t be able to hear our shouts, but Grayse continued to call to him.

  By the time Da was close enough for us to see the stubble on his chin, Grayse had worn out her voice. She smiled and stood with her arms outstretched, signaling she was ready to catch the line.

  “My girls!” Da beamed as his boat approached. His cap had fallen off, and the wind was ruffling his dark hair, giving him a wild appearance. “Ready, Grayse?” he called as he tossed her the heavy rope.

  I tried to assist as little as possible, but Grayse didn’t protest when I shouldered some of the weight of the line.

  “How’s everything at home?” Da asked. He sat in the boat with his arms folded, giving Grayse time to tie the rope to the dock’s metal cleat. “Your mam? Liss and Mally?”

  “Everything’s fine. Not much changes here in three days.” We exchanged a smile, and my arms itched to embrace him. “Only …” I took a deep breath and tried to quell the squirming in the pit of my stomach. “Mr. Gill and a few other men found a girl’s body on the beach yesterday. No one we know. Were there bad storms? Her boat might’ve hit the rocks.”

  Da sucked in a breath and pressed his lips together. “You can tell me.”

  I glanced at Grayse, whose head was bent over the cleat, then back to him.

  As Da swung himself up onto the dock, I was all too aware of the murky water waiting to swallow him up if he took a wrong step. My shoulders only relaxed once he landed on the worn dock with a dull thud.

  Da wasted no time wrapping me in a tight hug, and I buried my face in his shirt. The scent of fish guts and sweat overwhelmed me, crawling in through my nose and trailing down my throat. I sneezed so hard the boards beneath us groaned in protest.

  “Steady there, Bridey-bird!” Da made a show of wiping off his already filthy shirt before beginning to haul his catch out of the boat.

  Studying the mess of buckets, nets, and rods as he pulled them up, I realized everything looked grimier than usual. “There was a storm, wasn’t there?”

  He nodded, showing me a couple of empty buckets. “Aye. It started the morning of my second day out. A nasty squall blew up, and I lost nearly half my catch.”

  I peered in the bucket he plunked down closest to me. A meager handful of prawns sat within, glistening under the sun. I turned my head away before the stench could make me gag and focused on Da’s many nets. I couldn’t spot a single lobster in any of them.

  “I didn’t see a girl, though,” Da added before I could ask. “Just a few of the fellas heading for deeper water.” He bowed his head. “Poor lass. I wonder if she was trying to sail out too far on her own.”

  “That’s a lecture you’ll never have to give me,” I said, but the sight of an empty bucket, then another, wiped away my smile. “Is this really all you caught?”

  A frown spread across Da’s weathered face. “The sea’s a fickle mistress, bird, and sometimes the places where I’ve fished in the past … well, they dry up. The fish stop coming, and I have to try elsewhere. But, I’ll not deny that everything seems scarcer lately. For everyone.” His shoulders sagged. “I’m afraid this town is headed for hard times.”

  I looked away, my stomach sinking.

  Grayse gave a triumphant—and rather hoarse—shout as she finished her knot, distracting Da and sparing me from attempting to say something falsely cheery.

  “Let me check what you’ve done there, little fish …” Da hurried toward Grayse, but rather than inspecting the joining of the line and cleat, he swept her into his arms and spun her around.

  I turned, ready to abandon the dock for the safety of firm ground, when a glimmer of something pinkish-white in Da’s fishing gear caught my eye. I crouched for a closer look. A round object about half the size of a chicken egg rested in a tangle of coarse netting. I tugged at the pile, hoping to jar it loose.

  The thing rolled across the dock boards, its surface splashed with the many hues of a rainbow as sunlight caught its angles.

  Once the marble-like object came to rest against a bucket, I reached out, straining my arm until my fingers closed over its slick sides. I gazed down at what looked like a giant pearl. It felt like a pearl, too, cool and smooth against my palm. But pearls were never this large. Why hadn’t Da noticed this bright beauty, with so little else in his nets?

  I stuffed the pearl in my pocket, deciding to surprise Mam and Da with it later. That way, I could see both my parents’ delighted expressions at once. Maybe Da could find more like it when he went back out to sea tomorrow.

  “Bridey,” Da called from the opposite side of the dock. “Care to join us?” He was helping Grayse feed the birds the rest of our cheese.

  “I’m fine right here, thanks.”

  I glanced down through a wide gap in the boards just in time to see something stirring in the shadows below. A large black fin sliced through the water, making ripples as it swam away. My heart gave a nasty jolt, and I suppressed a shriek. The creature made a splash as it dived under.

  “Da!” I finally managed.

  His careworn face t
urned toward me, along with Grayse’s, and a flush crept into my cheeks. “Let’s head home, shall we? Bet you’re ready for a nap, Da.” My pulse fluttered as I tried to form a clear picture in my mind of the creature under the dock.

  Da shook his head, oblivious to my discomfort. “I can’t leave my catch sitting here. The guillemots would have a feast before I had a chance to haul it to the market. Why don’t you take your sister for lunch at Ms. Katleen’s?”

  He searched his pockets and produced a pair of moldy-looking coins.

  Grayse’s lip trembled. “I want to stay and help!” She gazed imploringly at Da. “And I had enough cheese to last me till supper.”

  Da smiled. “Can’t argue with that. What about you, Bridey? Are you in the mood to sort prawns for me?”

  “Not today, I’m afraid.” I glanced from my bare feet to Grayse’s. I couldn’t stay here with something lurking in the water. Da would insist I’d seen a dolphin or a seal. And if Grayse heard mention of her finned friends in the harbor, she’d want to take a closer look.

  “Go eat.” Da handed me the coins. “Then help your mam with the housework.”

  “Gura mie ayd.” Distracted, the Manx thank you slipped from my lips.

  As Da and Grayse returned to the boat, I assured myself they’d be safe. The morning was giving rise to a rare cloudless day, allowing light to reach deep into the water, which meant Da would be able to spot any dangerous creatures lurking around the dock.

  I trudged uphill alone, watching the ground closely—one stray fish hook in my path would keep me out of my beloved woods for weeks—but my thoughts remained with the black fin under the dock.

  What fish had fins like that? Could it have been a seal with a deformed tail?

  “Morning, Bry!” a lad called.

  I glanced up, startled, and found myself gazing into the faces of my two best friends.

  “Have you heard the news? Isn’t it awful?” Catreena gushed, latching onto my right arm. Ever since I’d known her—since the day she tripped a beautiful English tourist who’d made me feel as inferior as day-old fish and become my best friend in an instant—Cat had possessed an insatiable appetite for gossip.