by J M Sanford
Then, one day while Selkie’s husband was out fishing, and their children playing in the herb garden behind the cottage, she heard a crash and a scream. She ran out to where the children had been playing, to find her daughter distraught at the edge of a hole in the ground. At the back of the cottage was the hatch to the old coal cellar, and where the boards had rotted, her poor son had fallen through. Luckily, the boy was unhurt aside from a bruise or two, but Selkie had to climb down to fetch him out of the hole. Down beneath the cottage it was pitch black in the coal dust, and as Selkie felt her way carefully across the floor of the coal cellar, her hand fell upon something quite familiar. She held her breath as her fist tightened on the soft, sleek fur of her pelt.
Knowing she had little time before her husband returned home for his dinner, Selkie climbed swift as she could back up from the coal cellar. She set her son on solid ground, and stood with her pelt over her shoulder, scanning the waves for any sight of the fishing boat.
“I must go now, but I’ll never be far from you,” Selkie told her children before she left. “Take good care of each other, and of your Da.” For you see, she did have a certain fondness for her husband, for all that he’d tricked her terribly. She ran down to the beach, heart pounding loud as drums with the fear that his fishing boat would come into view at any moment. Donning her sealskin, she leapt into the waves, and the cool, welcoming embrace of the sea she loved and had missed for so long.
True to her word, Selkie never ventured very far from the island where she had left her two children. She often returned to the beach, but never shed her skin to dance on the sand again. Safer by far to play in the waves with her son and daughter, who grew up strong and true, fearless of the water.
“Then, she never went back to her husband?” Amelia asked.
Meg shook her head, smiling triumphantly. “Never. Some women just weren’t made to be trapped and tamed. If you have any sense, you’ll be one of those women yourself, Amelia.”
Amelia, although she said nothing, didn’t think she liked the sound of being ‘one of those women’. This was a new and somewhat puzzling idea to her: a story with a damsel in distress who didn’t get rescued in the end. Rather, she almost rescued herself, as it were! Very strange… Still, she hadn’t read or heard any new stories for such a long time, and she enjoyed the novelty of it, at least.
Percival took his turn next, but Amelia barely listened. It was another boy’s story about some knight or other tramping about in unexplored lands, fighting monsters for the glory of it. At the end, Harold paused cycling long enough to applaud loudly, then had to rush to catch up again. Meanwhile, Amelia was only glad that the epic poem had finally finished, and that she could politely excuse herself to bed. There, she lay awake in the flickering yellow green light from her fire sprite companion, still puzzling over a world where damsels in distress didn’t need knights in shining armour, only a chance to make their own escape.
The snailcastletank drew to a halt, and she listened to the sound of Percival clanking about in the night, attending to the business of looking after the two giant snails, speaking to them softly and kindly. In the top bunk, Meg’s breathing had settled to a deep and slow rhythm. The witch slept deeply. Any night since they began their journey, Amelia probably could have climbed stealthily down from the tower and slipped away into the night. But what then? Where would she have gone? Home must be so very far away by now… She crept to the window and looked down. Harold crouched beside the tracks of the snailcastletank, out of the way of the wind.
“Hello,” Amelia whispered.
The boy looked up, wide-eyed and anxious. “Amelia? Can I rescue you yet?”
“Umm…” Amelia realised that he didn’t have any more idea of where they would go than she did, and she hadn’t forgotten Meg’s unkind comment about riding on the handlebars. “Not just yet.”
He couldn’t hide his disappointment, but nodded. “Maybe when we come to another town?” he suggested. They would certainly have more options in a town. As it was, the snailcastletank had stopped for the night miles from anywhere, its lanterns the only lights to be seen on the road. The weather had taken a turn for the worse, the wind howling and grumbling through the trees, threatening rain. Harold shivered visibly.
“Maybe. Wait there a minute,” she told him, and tiptoed back across the floorboards. She returned a few minutes later and threw down a blanket.
Harold smiled shyly up at her. “Thank you, my lady.” He got up and bowed clumsily, before wrapping himself up tight in the blanket.
Amelia stood on the balcony, fiddling with her braids. Without a doubt, this was the most romantic moment of her life. “Sleep well, my brave knight,” she whispered. Then, blushing scarlet, she turned and fled back into the bedroom.
9: THE SNAILCASTLETANK AND THE SEA
Morning found poor Harold sniffling well, despite the blanket.
“Oh, let him ride with us, please?” Amelia begged Percival, while Meg was occupied with breakfast. He stopped setting up the tack on the snails long enough to look at her. Not for the first time, she wished she could read some expression behind that gleaming visor.
“I’m afraid it’s really not my place to decide, Amelia. We need the lad with us, but you could see what Meg thought of that business with the fire sprite.”
Amelia hung her head. She’d suspected Meg would make Harold pay for frightening her beloved snails. Before she could say anything more, Meg came out with a tall mug of tea in each hand. She handed one to Amelia, and offered the other to Percival, who declined, as he always seemed to.
Meg shrugged and stood warming her hands on the second mug, watching the steam rise from it in the unseasonably chilly morning air. “How you manage to sustain yourself in that get up, I’ll never know,” she said, shaking her head, and Amelia supposed that if even Meg didn’t know, there was precious little chance that she ever would. She sniffed her own mug of tea – hot, sweet and fragrantly spiced – and handed it over to Harold. Poor thing, he clearly needed it more. Meg raised an eyebrow, but said nothing.
In the awkward absence of conversation, Amelia took in their surroundings. They seemed to have come a long way in the night, but the slow meandering path of the snails kept them away from civilisation. A few white-walled buildings, probably farmhouses, dotted the green of a gently sloping valley. She could see seagulls wheeling in the distance, hear their mewing cries. Just as she was about to ask where they were (although without much hope of having heard of the place) she saw something that put all thought of geography out of her head.
“What on earth is that?” There, high above their heads, ethereal amongst the scant grey cloud, drifted something that looked for all the world like a ship.
Meg smiled broadly up at the ship amongst the clouds. “Now, will you look at that…” she murmured, and turned to Amelia. “That’s an Argean skyship, dear. Isn’t she a beauty?”
Shocked as she was, Amelia could nevertheless only agree. The lines of the skyship were as fine or finer than any she’d ever seen on any sea-going vessel, and its sails as bright and vibrant a yellow as sunshine.
“An Argean skyship?” Amelia parroted, reluctantly. “What’s one of those?”
“The Argeans are a clever lot,” said Meg. “They build all the best skyships. You don’t see so many of them nowadays, but surely you’ve heard of them?”
Amelia had read of skyships in her fairy stories, but dismissed them as no more real than unicorns, or dragons, or any number of things she began to realise she’d have to reconsider… Something hit the earth close to her with a thud, and Amelia stared down at the long arrow still shivering, its bright coloured feathers close enough for her to reach out and touch them. She might have stood and stared at the first arrow long enough for a second or a third to find its mark, but luckily Meg reacted faster.
“Get indoors!” she shouted, grabbing Amelia by the shoulders and roughly manoeuvring her to shelter. Amelia climbed quickly up inside the snailcastletan
k, still not sure what was going on. When she looked over her shoulder, she was surprised to find that the person stumbling up behind her was not Meg, but Harold. Another arrow struck the metal wall of the snailcastletank with a bang, setting the whole thing ringing. Amelia yelped, covering her head, and Stupid dived into the saucepan. There he cowered, fizzing blue, until he disappeared from sight altogether.
“My bicycle…” Harold tried to climb out the door, but Meg shoved him back in.
“Don’t be stupid, boy! They’ll shoot you so full of holes they could use you as a colander! You’ll just have to ride with us from now on.” Then Meg vanished, and Amelia rushed to the porthole window to see where she’d gone. She looked out just in time to see a long thin whip of fire strike up at the skyship. It didn’t make contact – just a warning shot. The skyship loomed lower, and the snailcastletank lurched to slow life with the armoured Percival at the reins. A burst of fire flashed against the sky, missing the skyship, illuminating the dark wood of its flanks. Clinging to the back of the bench as the snailcastletank rocked wildly, Amelia pressed the side of her face close against the glass of the porthole window in an effort to better see what was going on. She gasped, regretting her curiosity as the skyship came drifting implacably down after them, until she could have read the name on its side, had it not been in some foreign script. The yellow sails filled the sky, and she could make out two figures on the deck of the skyship: a bowman in dark clothing, and a young girl holding one fist aloft, the bright glow of fire gathering about it. There was nothing Amelia could do as the girl hurled the fire down, narrowly missing the snailcastletank. To their credit, Mimi and Tallulah barely faltered, even when the dark bowman’s arrows clattered against their shells.
“Where’s Meg?” Amelia shouted up to Percival, but got no reply. “Where’s Meg?” she screamed. “You can’t leave her behind! You can’t –”
“Calm yourself, child,” came Meg’s voice from somewhere above, taut with concentration. “Give it some welly, Perce! The girls can take it!” Amelia felt sick as she realised that Meg must be clinging to the side of the tower, as she had the day they captured the clockwork dragonette, and had visions of Meg being thrown to the ground by the sway and lurch of the tower. Amelia herself nearly lost her grip as they hit a hill and sped onwards, ever faster. Harold stared at her in wide-eyed wordless fear, and Amelia managed to force a wobbly smile. “Don’t worry,” she whispered, clutching his white-knuckled hand. “We’ll be safe with Meg.” Another burst of fire outside lit the interior of the snailcastletank hot orange with its glow, and they heard a bang and a snap so loud it made them both flinch violently. Amelia closed her eyes, strangely assured by the sound of Meg swearing and cursing, quite literally. The volley of arrows stopped, and the incongruously pleasant smell of wood smoke reached Amelia’s nostrils. When she dared to open her eyes and look out the porthole again, she saw the skyship drifting away from them, grey smoke billowing from its side.
Meg ducked down the hatch, swiping her unruly fair curls back from her eyes.
“The other side?” Amelia blurted out, breathlessly. “The Black Queen?”
She thought for a moment that Meg hadn’t heard her, as the witch frantically searched the drawers and cupboards of the snailcastletank’s cramped interior. “Maybe. Or just pirates. Or… Not Argeans, at any rate. Sharvesh, Sharvesh… the name doesn’t ring a bell. Oh, here, this’ll do the trick.” She held up a dim and battered-looking orb that she’d pulled out from the back of a cupboard, the brief flash of a triumphant and impish grin lighting her face. Then she clambered up onto the driver’s seat alongside the stoic Sir Percival, the orb floating out behind her apparently of its own accord. At the sound of Meg’s voice muttering to it in the ancient language of magic, it began to drone back at her, a low thrumming that raised the hair on the back of Amelia’s neck.
Percival, glancing across at the thing, spurred the snails on with a shout, but they were already at their limit, glistening grey flanks heaving and undulating in rapid waves. “Meg, don’t!” Percival implored. “We’re too close – you’ll catch us in it too!”
Another arrow hissed past them – the bowman had apparently recovered, and Amelia feared the fire of the magic-user would soon join his assault on the helplessly slow snailcastletank. So frightened she could no longer stand to look at the skyship still doggedly tracking them, she looked to the road ahead. This was no better. “The sea!” she shouted, to Meg, Percival, or indeed even the snails if they would listen and halt their blind headlong rush to the water. “We’re heading straight for the sea!” A grey pebble beach under a grey sky, frothing waves breaking over the round stones, blocked their path.
Meg grinned manically at her. “Of course! They can’t follow us there, my girl.”
Amelia held her tongue, the world whirling too fast for her to make sense of what Meg had said. The damned thing was a ship! By its perfectly sculpted lines, she could imagine it sailing the waves as effortlessly as it flew. Certainly it looked more seaworthy than the snailcastletank…
Something barrelled past the porthole window and back down the road: the battered orb had left Meg’s side and was heading straight for the skyship. Amelia, not knowing where to look or what on earth might happen, glanced rapidly from the skyship to the sea rushing to meet them.
“Oh!” Amelia very nearly fainted for the first time when the thought of snails and saltwater struck her with dreadful force, just as the first sea-foam rushed up against the unprotected feet of the snails, but Mimi and Tallulah charged in fearlessly.
“They’ll be all right,” Meg reassured Amelia, patting her on the shoulder as she dropped back down into the snailcastletank’s cabin with a splash. “Oops! Which is more than can be said for us if I don’t do something about this mess…”
Amelia looked down at the seawater swirling in around her boots, but was instantly distracted again by a distant bang. She could just about see a second drift of smoke coming from the skyship’s direction, obscuring the dark shape of the ship and the bright yellow of its sails. Meg’s bangles jangled a noisy accompaniment to a flurry of gesture magic as Meg circled the room, high and low. “Percival!” she shouted. “Come inside before you drown.” Percival needed no further persuasion, clanking down into the crowded living room with the other three, and locking the hatch to the driver’s seat. As Meg worked her enchantments, the flow of water inside the cabin slowed to a trickle down the floral wallpaper, then a dribble, and then nothing. The water reached the top of Amelia’s boots, sloshing into her stockings, but rose no further. Outside, the water rose to the level of the porthole window, soon covering it, and soon they heard the muffled sound of the water closing over the roof with a loud blollop. Warily, Amelia pressed her nose to the porthole window again, looking out into dark, murky greenish water. Sunlight filtered weakly through the waves, and she thought she saw the shadow of the skyship, high above. Squinting along the side of the castle to the front, she could see the bulk of the massive shells, the ripple of the snail’s giant feet squelching along the seabed and raising a cloud of silt. They had slowed to something less than their usual pace, weighed by the drag of water.
Not trusting her wobbly legs, Amelia sank down onto the bench, looking up at the ceiling. The walls of the snailcastletank creaked mournfully, but Meg stood with her hands on her hips, looking pleased with herself.
“Fat lot of good you were,” she said to Amelia. “Sat in here holding hands with your beau, you great soft puddin’. I can understand the boy being useless, but with your parentage you should be more than a mush-brained village maid, hiding away trembling from the world.”
“Meg,” Percival rebuked her softly, “she has no training in combat, and little enough in magic. She can scarcely help the necessity of being hidden until she was old enough to face the foe.”
“Well she’s certainly old enough now,” Meg grumbled, and looked away. She rapped her knuckles on the walls as if to test her handiwork, listening intently to th
e dull echoes through the weight of water. “Did you see her? The Black Queen? Can’t have been more than twelve years old, but she’s still got more magic than you.”
Amelia said nothing. She’d suspected the girl on the deck might be the Black Queen herself, despite the slight and childish figure she cut in that drab grey dress.
Percival leaned down to say quietly to Amelia, “You did fair enough. You didn’t scream too much, and you didn’t faint at least.”
Amelia managed to smile weakly despite tears prickling her eyelids. She’d come close enough to fainting, more than once in those scant minutes of terror. She sat at the games table, cowed and quiet, hands folded in front of her to keep them from shaking. Despite Percival’s kind words, she knew well enough she had been less than useless.
Meg, calmer now, busied her own hands with making a pot of tea. She must still have been a little rattled, though, for by mistake she poured a cup for Harold as well.
“You’ve really never seen a skyship before?” she asked.
Amelia shook her head.
“I never seen a skyship neither,” said Harold.
“I don’t recollect asking your opinion, butcher’s boy,” said Meg, mildly enough. “Amelia, dear: haven’t you ever been to a Market Day? Some of the bigger towns around your way must have Market Days, for sure.”
Amelia shook her head again. There had been something of a rebuke in the innocent question, and she had an inkling of the reason for it. “Father and I don’t often leave the tower.” A trip into Springhaven had been a rare outing for either one of them. Her stepmother went on longer jaunts, often into nearby towns to buy fabrics and spices too fancy or exotic for the little fishing village, but she’d never deigned to take Amelia along. Truth be told, Amelia had never been all that curious about what lay beyond the narrow confines of her own little world with her father and stepmother. The charming, courtly world of her beloved fairy tale books had held more allure, ever since her childhood.