“She hasn’t talked about anything else all morning,” Lugh grumbled, moving to my other side and taking my hand. My skin tingled as he laced his fingers with mine. Lately his closeness made me flustered. I tried to focus on Cat’s voice.
“Can you imagine? Drifting through the water, fish nibbling at your toes …” Cat’s dark curls tickled my cheek as she whispered the last few words in my ear. “Her funeral’s in two days. On the cliffs, above the spot where they found her. I heard my mam talking about it last night.”
“Really? What else did she say?” I tried to keep my voice steady, but judging by the slight crease between Lugh’s brows, I hadn’t succeeded. “Did they find any trace of a boat, or … or anything?”
Cat shook her head, her curls bouncing around her shoulders. “Not that I’ve heard. But Nessa Daley didn’t show up to work this morning. She’s never missed a day.”
I stared at Cat as a chill crept up my arms. “Is she ill? I saw her only yesterday, and she looked fine.”
“That’s the thing,” Cat dropped her voice to a whisper and widened her eyes. “No one’s seen her since supper yesterday, not even her new husband. She seems to have vanished in the night.”
The chill in my arms seeped into my chest. I didn’t know Nessa well—not beyond exchanging the occasional hello—but she didn’t strike me as the type to leave town without a word. No one in Port Coire ever just vanished.
“Maybe the sea-witch took her.” Cat shuddered, turning several shades paler. “Maybe old Morag needed her hair or her bones for a spell.”
“Or Nessa finally ran off with that tailor from Peel who’s always visiting. She’s fancied him for ages.” Lugh directed a glare at Cat from over my head. He was easily a foot taller than either of us. “Let it go now. It’s a terrible subject. And no more talk of witches.”
I gripped Lugh’s hand tighter, and he squeezed mine back. Warmth enveloped me, banishing the cold. I hoped that wherever Nessa was, she sent a letter to her poor husband soon. For his peace of mind, and everyone else’s.
“What’re you two doing out here, anyway?” My voice came out breathier than usual. “Looking for Nessa?”
Lugh ran his free hand through his shaggy red hair and grinned. “Looking for you, actually. Mrs. Kissack gave Cat the afternoon off. Want to grab a bite with us?”
“I’d love to.” I reached in my pocket to retrieve the money from Da and my sweaty fingers brushed against the pearl. “My treat.” I showed Cat and Lugh the coins, but the pearl remained my secret for now.
We continued up the path, my friends on either side of me. “What do you fancy today?” Cat asked as we crested the hill.
I considered our options, which were quite few, but Lugh said, “We’ll share a bucket of oysters. Sound tasty, Bry?”
I stuck out my tongue at him.
After supper, a glimpse of one of Mam’s paintings hanging in the hall—a mermaid wearing nothing but tiny silver pearls—reminded me of the treasure still in my pocket. Nessa Daley’s sudden disappearance and the afternoon spent with my friends had driven it far from my mind.
I had changed into clean clothes before supper, so I slipped away from the table to find the pearl.
The dress I’d worn earlier was hanging in my wardrobe beside a few similar ones, but I recognized it by the years-old stain on the bottom. I put my hand in the pocket and grasped the round, smooth object, then hurried to surprise my parents.
They sat on the lumpy sofa in the main room, their heads bent together as they spoke in low voices.
I moved toward them, clutching the pearl and thinking of how I’d share my good news. But the words died on my tongue as I overheard snatches of their conversation.
“… savings are gone. And Grayse will need new clothes soon. We can’t ask Mally to spend more hours at the market,” Mam said.
“Or Liss to wash more dishes at Katleen’s. Her hands look too much like mine already,” Da grunted. “But I tell you, something’s scaring all the damned fish away. I’m not catching half what I used to, nor are the other lads.”
I lingered in the shadows, hardly daring to breathe.
“What about Bridey?” Mam said suddenly.
“What about her? She’s only fifteen, Mureal. It wouldn’t be—”
“Bridey’s almost seventeen. Liss is fifteen. And Liss has been working since the summer.”
I stared at the floor, ashamed for the second time today. Was I so useless? At least I had the pearl. I uncurled my fingers, eager to be reassured by the pearl’s swirl of colors, and gasped.
An unremarkable stone rested in my hand, bumpy, dark, and dirty.
I rushed back to our room to search the pockets of my other dresses.
Nothing. The pearl must have fallen out during my adventure with Cat and Lugh. But wouldn’t one of us have noticed such a beautiful thing rolling away?
When I returned to the main room, Mam and Da were still talking. This time, I cleared my throat to announce my presence. They flinched and scooted apart. Sighing, I perched on the edge of the armchair.
“I overheard you.” I let them feel the full weight of my stare before I continued. “I’d be glad to find work.”
“Really?” Mam smiled, but shadows rimmed her eyes. Perhaps she’d had one of her headaches today. They always accompanied the dreams that inspired her paintings, and sure enough, a new canvas lay glistening on her easel. It was one of her most unusual paintings yet, of what looked like a black horse with deep blue eyes and a dolphin’s tail, swimming beneath an unsuspecting boat. It wasn’t the shape of the creature that made it seem so unusual, though. What struck me as odd was that its eyes seemed somehow human, full of an intelligence I’d never seen a horse or dolphin possess.
Recalling the eerie image, I shuddered.
“If you’re sure about this, Bridey”—Mam’s voice drew me back to the present as she rubbed her temple and exchanged a glance with Da—“I know just the thing.”
“I’m sure.” I tried to return her smile, but my lips only twitched. “It’s past time for me to start contributing to the family.”
Unlike the pearl from Da’s net, that wasn’t an empty, glittering promise.
CHAPTER THREE
Bathed in the early morning gloom of the front hallway, Liss and I shivered as we donned our thickest cloaks. The howling wind that had woken me around sunup showed no sign of relenting. Sighing, I turned up the high collar of my cloak, grateful that whoever had sewn it knew the island’s fickle weather well.
“Here, bird. Take this.” Mam offered me a scarf, but I merely glared.
“Isn’t there somewhere else I could work? I could chop wood for Ms. Katleen at the tavern, or …” I shrugged, at a loss for ideas.
Jobs were as scarce as fish lately. At least for a girl who wouldn’t go near the sea.
Mam rubbed her temples. “This is the only position I could arrange for you on such short notice. And Morag Maddrell is a sweet, harmless old dear. You’ll be a great help to her, assisting with errands and tidying her cottage.” Mam frowned when I pressed my lips together. “You’ll want to walk quickly in this weather, as she lives above—”
“I know where she lives!” My throat stung. I hadn’t meant to shout, but every child in Port Coire grew up hearing of Morag’s strangeness. And everyone feared the witch’s house. It sat on a big hill at the far end of town, crouched deep in the woods like a barnacle clinging to driftwood. Liss and I used to dare each other to see who would venture closest without shrieking and running away. Even now, with my most practical sister by my side, I dreaded the thought of going there.
Mam pressed the scarf into my hands and, for a moment, I wanted to shout again.
Instead, I took a deep breath and let it out through my nose. The promise I’d made to my parents just two nights before echoed in my thoughts. Work meant more food on our table, and with the sea’s bounty evading the nets of Da and the other fishermen, my family needed me.
“Let’s go.
” I exchanged a grim smile with Liss, then put a hand on the doorknob and glanced at Mam. “You’ll be rotten with guilt when we never come home because Morag decided to use our bones in a spell like she did with Nessa Daley.”
“You watch your tongue!” Mam’s face was ashen. “I can’t imagine a killer among us, least of all Morag. Now, off with you!”
I stepped outside, Liss at my heels. Since the mysterious girl had washed ashore, my life bore a strong resemblance to Da’s fishing—it had taken a turn for the worse.
Liss was silent as we climbed the steep path to the witch’s cottage. The trees lining the way had grown so that their branches had intertwined, creating a shady canopy that blocked the cold sea breeze.
This chill weather always reminded me of Grandad. He said it made him feel more alive. He was always trying to convince us to take walks with him on mornings like this one, sometimes to look for seashells, other times just to talk.
I shook my head to clear it. Every once in a while, something still made me miss him.
A few more steps brought us within sight of a rotting cottage huddled in the woods. It reminded me of a scab I’d had once, a giant black blemish on my knee that I had taken great pains to peel off.
I glanced at Liss, and hesitated. “I’m not sure I can go through with this.” I didn’t know how Liss could, either. But the moment she’d learned where I was to work, she had insisted on seeing me safely inside.
She smiled thinly now. “We’re not children anymore, Bry. We can’t let some mean old witch frighten us.” With that, she marched up to the cottage and rapped on the door.
“Jus’ a moment!” barked a woman’s scratchy voice.
Liss stumbled over a fallen branch in her haste to back away but quickly regained her balance. The leaf-filtered light made her face appear greener than usual. Or perhaps she was more nervous than she cared to let on. She joined me by a copse of ashes, eyeing the small knife I had pulled from my pocket. The blade’s edge dripped with sap from the nearest tree.
“Want some?” I licked my sticky thumb. Grandad had told me more than once that eating ash sap was the best protection against witchcraft.
Liss swiped her index finger along Da’s knife and sniffed the clear liquid. “It smells stale.”
“Just try it.”
She touched her tongue to her sap-covered fingertip. “Strange!” She grinned. The unexpected blend of earth and sugar was enough to put a smile on anyone’s face.
“And what spell is it you two need protecting from? Perhaps I can help.”
We froze at the sound of the rough voice. Through lowered eyes, I glimpsed a foot dragging along the ground as Morag shuffled closer.
“Nothing.” My hands trembled as I clutched the knife, unsure whether I should try to hide the blade. “We can look after ourselves, thank you very much.”
“I see.”
Liss edged toward the trees, but my fear evaporated, replaced by a hot, prickling annoyance. I drew myself up and looked into the face of Port Coire’s resident witch for the first time.
I’d expected her leathery, age-spotted skin; her hunched posture causing her to stand only as high as my shoulder; her baggy dress, sewn from old flour sacks, and feet filthier than mine. But her intense blue-green eyes startled me, and I staggered back.
Morag advanced on me and I finally noticed her scent—a mixture of salt and seaweed. She continued to scrutinize me with her sea-foam eyes.
Perhaps this was what Pastor Quillin meant when he said in his sermons that we should “search our souls” more often. Perhaps the witch could see mine, and she was trying to form an opinion on it.
Her eyes narrowed. I stared back, wishing I could sink into the ground and disappear. Morag came so close, she had to tilt her chin up to keep looking at my face. Only the basket she carried created any space between us.
She shifted her eyes to the right where Liss was cowering behind a tree, before settling her gaze on me. “You must be Mureal’s girls. You frown like her—with your head tilted slightly to the left.” Her breath reeked of whiskey, like Da’s did on the rare night once or twice a year when he got to visit the tavern with his friends.
The smell made my stomach flip. “Aye, we’re her daughters.”
“Well then, welcome to my home.” Morag’s lips cracked open to reveal a mouth full of crooked, grayish teeth. She lifted her basket higher and twitched back the cloth covering.
I retreated farther. I didn’t want to see whatever was inside.
“Biscuit?” Morag chirped. She reached into the basket and pulled out a lumpy, black-bottomed piece of bread that didn’t look remotely like my favorite dessert.
“I …” My mind raced for a way to decline her offer without causing offense. “Thank you, but I have a dreadful stomachache.” It wasn’t a lie.
The witch’s smile widened. “There’s ginger jam in the house. That should settle your stomach. Now come in, come in.” She hobbled partway to her cottage, pausing to look over her shoulder at the trees. “You too, shy one.”
A noise between a sigh and a whimper issued from behind a nearby tree and Liss reappeared. “Why did she bother carrying the biscuits out of her house?” she whispered.
“I don’t know. Better not to dwell on it. And I’d not ask her, if I were you.” I studied the two long braids trailing down Morag’s back, so like Liss’s, though the witch’s were the color of tarnished silver and not done up nearly as neatly.
Morag opened her door, which squealed like its hinges had never been oiled, and soon the cottage’s dim interior cloaked her in shadows. She dropped her basket behind her to keep the door ajar.
“You’d think if she’s lived here for a few hundred years, she’d have hired someone to spruce up the place before now,” Liss muttered, squinting at a rotten spot in the floorboards. Saplings and vines sprouted from the eaves. “The inside is bound to be worse, but I suppose we’d best go in.”
With a lump in my throat, I entered the cottage, silently repeating my promise to Mam and Da. Liss followed on my heels, shutting the door once she had crossed the threshold.
I wished she hadn’t. A dwindling fire provided the only light in the one-room dwelling. Thick curtains covered the cottage’s only windows.
I leaned against the door at my back and groped with one hand until my fingers brushed the knob, which I held for extra security. If things turned too unpleasant, Liss and I could flee anytime we wanted.
Morag puttered in a corner to my left. Plates clinked as she took them down from a shelf.
“Oooh, what is that?” Liss dug her fingers into my arm as a musty, sour smell assaulted our noses.
I was amazed I hadn’t noticed it sooner. Perhaps the offending scent belonged to the witch, though she hadn’t smelled this awful outside. Maybe it was just the reek of decades of clutter.
Whatever the stench’s source, I would rather have dunked my head in a bucket of week-old fish than stand there for another moment breathing it in. “May we open the windows?” I asked in the dulcet tone that usually earned me an extra scone at Mrs. Kissack’s.
Morag sniggered as she flung plates carelessly onto her hulking monstrosity of a table. “You’re my new caretaker, aren’t you? Or is it the shy one?”
Liss huffed.
I gripped the doorknob tighter and tried to make out Morag’s features in spite of the deep shadows. By the time my eyes adjusted to the low light, the witch had turned away.
“I am. I’m Bridey. But you didn’t—”
“If you think the windows need to be opened, then open them, Apprentice Bridey.” Morag limped toward the hearth where a kettle hung over glowing embers.
I glanced at Liss, who nodded encouragingly, then I moved slowly through the room. The ruddy firelight made the witch’s furniture seem more menacing than ordinary objects should. I passed a large table on my left, a cabinet on my right, and banged my shin on a stool. Bits of dried herbs and straw stuck to my feet, marking one of the rare occasion
s on which I wished everyone on the Isle—myself included—wore shoes every day.
“I thought she’d have more dead things hanging about,” Liss whispered.
I yelped, shoving her away without thinking, and she staggered back and bumped the table with her hip.
“What was that for?” Liss narrowed her eyes, rubbing her side.
“You scared me.” I glanced at Morag. She was focused on coaxing the fire to burn brighter and hadn’t appeared to hear the noise. “You know, now that we’ve seen her, I don’t think she’s a day over eighty. And if she has any spell books in here, they’re lost under all this other junk.”
Liss chuckled, but kept her wide-eyed stare.
“Will you help me with the windows?” My eyes watered as the house’s putrid smell grew stronger.
“As long as you don’t push me again.” Liss frowned. “But then I’ll have to be on my way. Ms. Katleen is expecting me before the lunch crowd.”
Those were the words I’d been dreading, though I couldn’t blame Liss for wanting to escape.
The flimsy shutters opened at my slight touch, but the motion sent a cloud of debris into my face. I leaned out the window, coughing, and gulped clean forest air until the tightness in my chest eased.
“Splendid!” Liss smiled as she admired her work on the other window. Somehow, she’d found the means to tie back the curtains on her side. The curtains nearest me hung in tatters, raising puffs of dust as they shifted in a breeze.
“Maybe we should swap jobs.”
“Not a chance, dear sister.” Liss pecked my cheek. “See you tonight.” She walked calmly to the door.
“Leaving already?” Morag asked without looking up.
Liss paused in the doorway, silhouetted by daylight. “I’m afraid so. I have duties to attend in town. Good day.” I wished she’d added: and I’ll cut out your tongue if you attempt a single spell on my sister.
My stomach sank as I watched Liss go. So far, the old woman didn’t seem as forbidding as the rumors claimed, but what if her demeanor changed now that we were alone? I stood stiffly, hands at my sides, wondering what Morag wished me to do first. I didn’t have long to wait.
Fear the Drowning Deep Page 3