Fear the Drowning Deep

by Sarah Glenn Marsh

  A rhythmic thumping accompanied the witch as she made her way from the hearth to the table holding a kettle. “Come pour our tea, lass.”

  I opened my mouth to ask whether she’d seen Nessa Daley recently, then closed it. Morag would probably just laugh creakily. Although her cottage smelled like death, with so much rubbish, there was little room left to conceal a body. Maybe Nessa really had run away to make a life for herself in Peel with a handsome tailor.

  Sighing, I lifted the kettle.

  “You’re strong,” Morag muttered, pinching my arm. I jerked away. “How’d you get muscles like that? Your sister didn’t look capable of lifting so much as a chair.”

  I arched my brows, rubbing my arm. “I chop a lot of firewood for my mam. Da’s almost always at sea, and my sister Mally’s never been up for the task.”

  “You’ll make a good apprentice, then.” Morag slouched in a seat and pushed two mugs toward me. I wondered if they held moths and spiders. “I doubt I’d find many other girls in town chopping wood.”

  “I don’t mind. It always helps clear my head.” I peered into the mugs, surprised to find them spotless. “Do you take sugar?” Remembering my surroundings, I amended, “Do you have sugar?”

  “I like my tea plain and piping hot, lass.”

  I served the witch’s brew and, after seeing her glance more than once at the second mug, filled it, too. Taking the only other chair at the table, I stared into my murky tea, remembering the sight of the drowned girl and the black fin under the harbor dock.

  Finally, the witch set her tea down and blinked. “Are you afraid of tea?”

  I wanted to ask how she thought I’d be comfortable having tea with her after seeing the state of her kitchen. Instead, I replied, “No ma’am. But I’m not here for tea. I’m here to work.”

  She acted as though she hadn’t heard. “This particular blend is birch bark and chamomile. It’ll make your pretty hair grow longer.”

  I looked from my mug to the witch. “How lovely. But—”

  “Tell me, were you born under a full moon?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “I’d wager you were. It’s the only explanation for hair as light as yours. Someone must have told you how unusual it is. I’ve seen it just once before, on your …” Morag blinked as though she’d surprised herself. “Well, never mind.”

  I pressed my lips together and tugged on a strand of hair tickling my cheek. No one commented on my white-blonde hair anymore. To me, it was dull and unremarkable unless the light struck it just the right way, and then my hair would glow with a tender pink sheen, like the inside of a seashell.

  “What will I be doing here?” I asked. “Weeding your garden? Dusting your—er—everything? Scrubbing your cauldron?”

  Morag smiled. “Scrubbing what?”

  “Your cauldron. Witches have cauldrons, don’t they?”

  “Oh, I don’t need a cauldron to work my magic.” Her thin lips twitched. “However, all spells require quality ingredients to work. That’s why I need you.”

  “Pardon?” Looking into her vivid eyes made my head spin.

  “Your mam told me you know the woods well. That’ll prove useful, but I’ll also need you to go to the beach on occasion. There’s treasure to be plucked from the flotsam.”

  My hands clenched around my mug. Mam hadn’t mentioned anything about the beach when she’d described the apprenticeship. “I won’t go to the beach. I’ll do everything else you ask—I’ll even scrub your outhouse, if you ask it of me—but I can’t go near the sea.”

  “You’re my apprentice,” Morag snapped. “You’ll go whether you like it or not.”

  I lifted my gaze from the table to glare at her. “What do you mean, whether I like it or not?”

  “It means exactly what you think it does, lass. Ye ken?” Her accent thickened as anger warmed her voice, and she matched my glare with a scowl that made the lines on her face deepen. “There’re things I need down there. Important things.”

  I gripped the table’s edge, silently cursing Mam for apprenticing me to a witch. “Why not go yourself, then?”

  Morag thrust her weak leg out from under the table. “I’d fall down the cliffs, never to be seen again.” Perhaps she sensed that I didn’t think this would be such a great tragedy. She narrowed her eyes. “Besides, I don’t like being near the water if I can help it.”

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t like the sea. I respect it, mind, but I don’t like it.”

  “Why not?” I repeated, watching anger and frustration at war on Morag’s face. And for a moment, as she mutely shook her head, I thought I saw a tremor rush through her.

  “Well, I’m sorry, but I won’t go to the beach. I don’t like it, either.” I crossed my arms. “I can clean or garden or fetch your bread and milk. I’ll find you herbs in the woods. I know at least fifty different kinds of flowers, and I can learn more. But it’s not safe to be near the water right now. A girl drowned just this week, and another’s disappeared.”

  A shadow crossed Morag’s face, reminding me of Mrs. Gill’s expression after seeing the dead girl.

  I leaned across the table, hoping she wouldn’t put a curse on me over a simple question. “Do you know how that girl drowned?”

  Morag gave me a look. “She must’ve gotten too much water in her lungs, mustn’t she? Now, if you want to see any of my coin, you’ll do as I ask. No trips to the beach, no pay.”

  I gritted my teeth and nodded, resigning myself to my fate. I imagined being found face-down in the sand like that stranger, and cold broke over me.

  “I won’t send you there without protection,” Morag added curtly, her gaze still sharp. “Now drink your tea.”

  I lifted the mug and feigned a sip. “Please tell me what you need me to do today, so I might begin.” I’d already wasted half the morning pretending to drink tea, when I could’ve been visiting Cat at the bakery or playing puppets with Grayse.

  Morag slid off her chair and moved toward a tall, narrow cupboard. “You know, it might not be so bad for you here, if you’ve an open mind.” She paused, turning to me. “Your mam liked working for me well enough.”

  I slammed my mug down. “Mam worked here? And she—liked it?”

  “Indeed. She used to help me, back when she was about your age. Still does, on occasion.” Morag returned to the table, holding a pole with straw sloppily fixed to one end.

  “What’s that?”

  “A broom. I trust you’ve seen one before. And somewhere in this death trap, there’s a dustpan to accompany it. Since you’re so eager to get to work …” She snapped her fingers, looking pleased with herself. “Hop to it!”

  I jumped off my chair and grabbed the broom. If Mam had done this, so could I. Liss worked. I just needed to decide where to start. The layer of crumbs around the table seemed as good a place as any.

  While I swept, Morag wandered off again, presumably in search of the elusive dustpan.

  “Shoh slaynt,” I said to the witch’s back in a mock salute. To your health.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  “Tell me about the witch.” Lugh sounded out of breath, weighed down by the produce our mams had charged us with fetching from the market. “I still can’t believe your mam sent you up there yesterday. And that you didn’t tell me you were going!”

  I frowned over the top of the egg custard Mrs. Kissack had given me in exchange for one of Mam’s recipes. The custard wobbled ominously with each step. “Is this how you thank me for keeping you out of harm’s way, Lugh Doughtery? I thought setting foot on her property might get me killed by one of her spells—no sense in both of us dying.”

  “I would’ve protected you.”

  “And, pray, how? Anyway, she’s just a tetchy old lady who lives in a filthy hovel. If she knows any magic, she’ll never share it with me.”

  I thought of the sneering faces of the older lads who’d first told us stories about Morag. “If you want to do me a favor, hit Jenken Cowell
about a bit for telling us she drinks children’s blood. And blacken Homlyn Murray’s eye for saying she flies over our houses at night to peer at us while we’re in bed. And—”

  Lugh laughed, which made his face look even more handsome. “You’ve made your point, Bry. Then she’s not a real witch?”

  “No more than you or I. Her house smells something dreadful, but she didn’t have a cauldron, and she doesn’t seem keen on hurting me.” I scrunched up my nose. My arms were sore from yesterday’s work. “Though cleaning her house might finish me off.”

  “Folk might not think such wild things about her if she would just pop into town now and then.”

  “She can’t. Her leg’s bad.” Lugh gave me a curious look. “She didn’t tell me why. And I don’t plan on asking.”

  “Sounds like you’re intending on going back, then.”

  “Tomorrow. Besides, if I put in enough hours, I might be able to save enough for a ticket someday.”

  Lugh bowed his head, but I didn’t miss his wince. “Do you know where you’d go? Where you’d sleep? What sort of work you’d do to feed yourself?”

  “I’d rent a room above a London shop. Maybe even a coffeehouse. Can you picture it? Me, a shopgirl?” I tried to keep the excitement from my voice for fear of offending Lugh. “Imagine—hot tea and biscuits whenever I wanted! And I’d find a library where I could read as many books as I pleased. It wouldn’t be an easy life, I’m certain, but it would be all my own. And far from the sea.”

  Lugh frowned harder. “You’ve really thought this through. Is it so miserable here?”

  I sighed.

  “Let’s see: it’s too salty, too damp, too cold, too—”

  “Full of people who care about you?” Lugh stopped without warning, nearly losing his grip on a basket of potatoes. He shifted it higher in his arms and signaled for us to continue on. “What about your family? Your friends? Everything you know is here.”

  “There are plenty of folk I’d miss. Some especially so.” I gave him a pointed look. “I hope they’d miss me just as much, and that they’d come to visit often. It’s not as if I plan to move to China. Or the moon.”

  The corners of Lugh’s mouth twitched, but he said nothing more.

  As we rounded a bend, I raised my eyes to avoid the sight of the rolling waves. One glance at the steely sky told me the ocean would be equally dark. Closely guarding its secrets. And though I hadn’t seen the black fin since that day in the harbor, I had a gnawing suspicion the creature was making itself at home here. A creature that size might be responsible for scaring away fish from our shores.

  “Bry? Are you all right? You’re staring at that custard like you want to hurl it into the trees.”

  I turned my head to hide my burning face. “I’m fine. I was just thinking about—” I paused, casting around for a topic other than mysterious water-dwellers. “—Da’s knife. I borrowed it to take to Morag’s and brought it home covered in sap. He said the blade’s ruined. But you know Da. He’s never harsh. He just told me we’d save up for a new one when there’re more fish in his nets again.”

  Lugh grinned. “Wish my da was more like yours.”

  “What’re you going on about? Your da’s always been kind. Quiet, I suppose. At least folk don’t whisper behind your back about how he’s too soft.”

  “I just meant he expects a lot of me—being his only son and all. And, anyway, no one wags their tongues about you. Not that I’ve heard. Your da gives you girls so much freedom, I think the others, they envy you, even if they don’t realize it.”

  “Really? They envy Mally’s trysts and my prowling the woods?”

  I doubted Da would mind if responsible Liss was more like Mally and me. Mam, on the other hand, would have minded our antics a great deal more if her headaches didn’t so often confine her to her room.

  By the time Lugh and I reached the row of proud stone homes that hid our older, shabbier cottages from view, the gray day was being replaced by a breezy, indigo night.

  “Thank you for accompanying me today.” I debated quickening my pace, longing to free my hands of the bothersome custard, while wanting to spend more time at Lugh’s side.

  “Anytime.” Lugh flashed a smile, then looked from the road to the grassy slope on our left. “I know it’s late, but how do you feel about taking a not-so-shortcut?”

  We ambled toward home by way of the slope, navigating a swath of wildflowers and reedy grasses. I kept my eyes trained on the ground as I trampled weeds, still aware of the sigh of the sea.

  I tried to distract myself with conversation. “Do you think someone will hear from Nessa Daley soon? Or the dead girl’s kin?”

  Lugh shrugged. “Mr. Gill and the others have been searching for Nessa for days now. If she didn’t run off—”

  I shivered and cut in, “If Mr. Gill has put together a search party, he doesn’t think she ran off. He thinks—and so do I, for that matter—that some terrible fate’s befallen her.”

  “Or he’s trying to remind everyone what a strong leader he is by solving a problem that doesn’t exist.” Lugh must have noticed me frowning. He hurried to add, “I’m sure she’ll turn up eventually. With a babe in her arms and a long apology for her husband. He—”

  A deafening crash erupted over the water, much louder than the usual meeting of wave and rock. Almost a thunderclap, or what two prows colliding must sound like.

  Lugh gave a shout of surprise, dropping baskets as he threw his arm out to create a barrier between me and the sea far below. The crash reverberated in my ears as we spun to face the water. I scanned the ocean for the source of the noise, my lips shaping a hurried prayer that Da wasn’t anywhere near this stretch of sea.

  “There,” Lugh said, pointing straight out from the cliff.

  It was difficult to see much in the gathering dusk, but a large area of water had clearly been disturbed. Whitecaps rippled out from the spot where a creature’s dark, scaly flesh sank beneath the waves. In a blink, it was gone.

  “Did you see that?” I demanded.

  “See what, Bry?” Lugh’s brow furrowed as he studied the sea. Whatever had made the noise had either disappeared or blended too well with the shadowed, murky water.

  “There’s nothing out there.” Lugh peered into my eyes, concerned. “Someone must have lost his catch.”

  “I don’t think a broken net or a boat running aground would make that much noise.” My hands shook as I clutched the custard.

  Perhaps Lugh was right. Perhaps I’d imagined the creature. All the recent talk of death and disappearance was stirring up memories of the phantom I thought I’d seen when Grandad had died. The glistening black scales diving back into the deep moments ago had been nothing more than the trick of the cruel sea, just like the misty phantom.

  I swallowed hard. “We should be going. Our families will be waiting.”

  “Thinking about your grandad?” Lugh made no move to pick up his baskets, slipping an arm around my shoulders instead.

  Though his chest blocked my view, I couldn’t help stealing glances at the sea. I half expected something to leap out of the water, soar up over the cliff, and grab me. “More about what made that sound.”

  Lugh pulled me closer. “It was just a storm going out to sea. The waves were probably made by dolphins. Everyone’s on edge, between the best fishing spots running dry and that poor girl’s death.”

  I set the custard down and leaned into his side. The scent of fresh-baked muffins wafted past. Lugh had visited the bakery with me earlier, and sweetness seemed to find him and cling like a second skin.

  “I promise we’re safe here, Bry.” His fingers brushed my cheek. “You’re still so pale.”

  “I’m fine,” I lied, forcing myself to stand taller. “I just … realized how much I’ll miss you when I move off this miserable rock.” The moment I said it, I was struck by how true it was.

  He dipped his head, drawing so close our lips almost touched. “Then don’t go. No one’s making
you leave. And maybe”—his breathing quickened, and his heart thudded in his chest so hard it was drumming against mine—“maybe there are things worth staying for.”

  Then his mouth was on mine, hot, damp, salty. His chapped lip grazed my soft one, making me shiver, and I clasped my shaking hands behind his neck to keep him where I wanted him. Tangled up with me.

  When we finally broke apart, Lugh was grinning. A moment later, when I caught my breath, so was I.

  Then my gaze traveled back to the black water stretching toward the horizon, and my happiness ebbed away like the waves.

  “We really should make sure everyone’s all right.”

  I repeated Lugh’s explanation about the crash to myself as we walked, but though his words should have reassured me, they only unsettled me further.

  “Come on, Bry. You made it this far. You can’t give up now!” Lugh called. He was standing on the beach under a cloudless sky, hands on his hips, feet buried in the white sand.

  Despite catching a glimpse of something odd in the water the night before, despite my vow to Morag that I wouldn’t set foot on the beach, Cat had persuaded me to accompany her and Lugh on their trip to the sands. They thought—and I reluctantly agreed—that it was the best place to search for whatever had made the crashing sound. Evidently, the strange noise had been so loud that many in town had heard it through their windows, and I wasn’t going to sleep again until I proved to myself that it wasn’t anything more than a wrecked ship.

  “Just a few more steps and you’re there,” Cat said through gritted teeth, tugging on my hands.

  I dug my heels into the soft dirt. “I’ll watch from here. Besides, if something walks out of the water and grabs you, someone will need to run for help.”

  “Bri-dey.” Cat puffed out her lower lip and exhaled. “Even if we don’t find anything …” She paused, turning to the ocean, and then back to me. “I know you’re curious. You want to find what that noise was as much as we do.”