Sea Witch

by Sarah Henning

  Hours after lights out, I crept down to the beach, but well beyond Havnestad Cove. As the shoreline thins, becoming one with the rocky mountain, sharp boulders jut out from the sea. The water is deeper there and the waves choppy, but in between the shadow of two large rocks is a swath of sand. Overhead, stone from the edge of Havnestad has formed into a perfect arch, the result of Urda coaxing the sea into this crevice for thousands of years.

  This place doesn’t have a name, as far as I know. I’ve never seen anyone come here, and it’s hidden from view on the beach and by the boulders from the sea. I’ve taken to calling it Greta’s Lagoon, after my mother. She would have liked a place like this. Deep in the shadows of the lagoon is a small cave barely large enough to fit two, but it’s plenty big to store the few tinctures and inks Tante Hansa has entrusted to me.

  I moved away the few small boulders I use to hide the entrance and lit a candle. With the amethyst stone cradled in one hand, I slid the book under the meager light. The words were ancient and yet familiar, recalling our great goddess, Urda, and the power she bestows on the land and sea. As the waves splashed against the rocks outside, I read the scrawl over and over, swirling the spells across my tongue. It took until nearly daylight, but finally I could feel the magic tingle in my blood.

  After nearly three months of practice, I spelled Father’s boat for the first time.

  Three days after that, he came home with his first whale in more than two years. It was thin, but fat enough for all the joy that came with it.

  Now the spell is a must.

  The need to keep Father safe and prosperous is thick in my veins each morning when I wake, jamming my heart with anxiety until I can do my job. My part.

  Even when I’ve done my duty and he’s away for days, I come to the harbor and spell any ship docked and still. The fishermen are used to seeing me daily now. They don’t seem to find it strange that I’m always there, letting my closed palm trail along the salt-worn bodies of ships, old and trusty.

  And today is the day I begin to do more. Along with what I cannot claim, I have been working away on something I can. Something all of Havnestad will recognize as helpful and not some fate of Urda.

  “Evie, my girl!” Father is hauling a crate up to the deck of his whaler—Little Greta, also named for my mother. There isn’t a single crate of supplies left on the dock beside the ship. I’ve only just caught him. “I wasn’t sure you’d come.”

  I laugh lightly, fingers tight over the gem in my palm. “Just because I want you to stay doesn’t mean I’ll miss you going.”

  Father’s mouth settles into a tart line, the sun spots marring his forehead crinkling up to his black hair—he’s Italian by birth, though he’s Danish through and through.

  We walk up the gangplank together. He drops the crate two feet from the innovation I know will make these desolate seas that much easier to fish—a permanent cure my magic cannot provide. Mounted proudly to the mainmast, half-harpoon, half-rifle, my darting gun looks as shiny and perfect as I’d hoped.

  Father hugs me close. “My Evelyn, the inventor.”

  “It was nothing,” I say, though we both know that’s not true. It took me the whole winter to create one from an old rifle and modified harpoon, but if my calculations are correct, the contraption will send out both a bomb lance and a tether harpoon, narrowing the chances of a whale escaping. If all goes well with Father’s maiden voyage, we might be able to transform the way Havnestad snags its whales.

  “It’s not nothing. It’ll be a revolution.”

  I tilt my face up to his, brow raised. “It’ll still be a revolution if you wait a week.”

  Father bristles at the sore spot between us. He’s not the only fisherman headed out during the festival, though far more are staying than leaving, bolstered by their recent luck—my recent help. But he’s the only one I care about. And, as the royal fisherman, he’s the only one King Asger cares about as well.

  “There will be other Lithasblot festivals, Evelyn. If you’ve been pelted with bread once, you’ve been pelted with bread a thousandfold.”

  “But—”

  He cuts me off with rough fingers on the point of my chin.

  “But nothing. I have to seize my luck while it’s there.” Father’s grizzled old thumb settles on my bottom lip. “I’ll return for the close of the festival—the ball.”

  Despite my disappointment at yet another good-bye, I form a tight smile after his words. “If you’ve seen me once in my only nice dress, you’ve seen me a thousandfold.”

  He leans in and gives me a quick kiss on the cheek, his beard both soft and rough against my skin.

  “Take care of Hansa, my dear.”

  I hug him to my chest, the cloying scent of pipe tobacco catching in my lungs.

  “If only she’d allow such a thing, I would.”

  He releases me with a single squeeze of my forearm. I turn for the gangplank, one last look at both him and my first stab at whaling innovation. When I’m back on the sun-ruined wood of the dock, Father yells for his men to hoist up the gangplank and anchor.

  Before he’s gone, and with the sailors distracted by departure duties, I take my chance and press my little stone to the ship, right under my mother’s name, painted in block letters across the stern. My eyes flutter to a close, and I whisper my spell into the breeze coming in off the Øresund Strait.

  6

  IT’S A PERFECT NIGHT FOR BURNING WITCHES.

  That’s what Sankt Hans Aften is, after all. A celebration in the name of ridding people like me from this earth through flames, drowning, banishment—whatever seemed right at the time.

  Today, thankfully, witches are only burned in effigy. It’s the traditional opening of Havnestad’s version of Lithasblot. Ours is the earliest in the Øresund Strait, but we’re also the longest festival, five whole days, drawing people from all around to watch the games, sing songs in celebration of Urda, and taste plates of tvøst og spik: black whale meat, pink blubber, and sunny potatoes. Even through the Tørhed, the people of Havnestad have always been willing to sacrifice their limited food supply to honor the goddess.

  As the bonfire grows hot, shooting tendrils of flames high into the salmon-toned sky, the festival is ready to begin. First is King Asger’s speech of love and gamesmanship.

  Now Nik’s speech of love and gamesmanship.

  For on the night of that treacherous storm, Nik, thankfully, still came of age. And as tradition demands, he must take the reins of the festival—near-drowning is not an excuse.

  Thus, since regaining most of his strength, he’s been shut away, pacing the halls of the palace with his father’s words on his lips. I’ve heard him run through it twice—before his birthday and after, and both times he was excellent, if not a hair too fast. Still, that’s just because this is new to him. I know he’ll be amazing.

  But Crown Prince Asger Niklas Bryniulf Øldenburg III, first in line to the throne of the sovereign kingdom of Havnestad, does not share my assessment.

  Nik is nearly white with nerves. His long fingers shake as he tugs his hair flat. This day is already hard for the both of us—the fourth anniversary of Anna’s drowning—and with the pressure of the speech added atop that, Nik looks as if he might keel over.

  I don’t hesitate to snag a hand and press my fingers around his. Somehow, seeing him so nervous calms my own reservations—about my innovation’s trial run with Father, about the fact Iker has yet to arrive. I squeeze Nik’s fingers. “You’ve done nothing but practice for the past week. You’ll be just fine.”

  “But I’m not cut out for this, Evie.”

  “Of course you are! You’re cut from the Øldenburg cloth. Kings for a thousand years.” I lean in, my face consuming his vision. “This speech is in your blood.”

  Nik turns red and averts his gaze. “I think that particular blood spilled out of me when I bashed my leg on that rock at ten.”

  I nearly laugh, thinking of Nik passing out at the sight of his own blood.
Right in the middle of a trail leading up Lille Bjerg Pass. Anna and I stripped off our stockings and tied them tightly above the gash across his shin before bracing him between us and hobbling down the mountain.

  “Think of your birthday. You didn’t seem at all nervous while you sang on a bench with lemons in your hair.”

  “That wasn’t the whole kingdom. This is.”

  “So? What’s a few more faces?”

  He lets out a very royal snort. “Since when does a ‘few’ mean a hundred times more? And maybe my disastrous birthday is not the best image to calm my nerves.”

  “Oh, don’t be dramatic.”

  Nik cocks a brow. “Oh, but you’re not plenty dramatic when you make moon eyes at the harbor, scouting for a certain sailor from Rigeby Bay?”

  I say nothing, my wit tied to a stone in the pit of my stomach. Despite myself, I squint out at the water, my heart willing Iker’s boat to appear. But the sea beyond the harbor is clear, all the visiting ships and off-duty whalers already in port.

  Nik sighs, and I know he’s beating himself up for such a quip—and again I’m thankful he knows nothing of the kisses Iker and I shared. He squeezes me close again, the nervous tremble subdued. “He’ll be here. Iker makes his own rules, but he never breaks his word.”

  That was the last thing he said to me before Queen Charlotte pulled him away for his final speech preparations. I sink to the sand and sit, a little doll in my lap dressed in black and white. Ready for the ashes. I can barely force myself to play along. And without Nik by my side, this year I play along alone.

  I suppose I could join the castle workers—I’ve known them since I was a small child. But I’m not truly one of them. And the other girls my age? Well, they’re never really an option—they’ve made that much clear over the years.

  Maybe banishment wouldn’t be such a bad thing—I could just break out my magic as we burn our little witch dolls and leave this place for good. But then I’d leave Nik for good too. And implicate my entire family.

  So, I sit alone—the secret witch, the prince’s friend who doesn’t know her place.

  I am well within eyeshot of Nik as he readies to speak—in the event that his courage has retreated up Lille Bjerg Pass—but far enough to the side that I have a clear view of the sea in my periphery.

  He will come.

  He said he would.

  You shouldn’t care anyway.

  I turn my attention back to the royal family. And to the flames I must face before Nik’s big moment.

  There’s a traditional speech honoring this “celebration” too. And though the king may have ceded his duties to Nik, Queen Charlotte would never give up her chance to speak out against the horrors of witchcraft.

  The queen is a beauty by any measure, all fine bone structure and swanlike grace. Her hair is curled and coiled atop her head, a deep blond halo around a crown of sapphires and diamonds. When she steps forward in the sand, she looks every bit a painting in the firelight.

  In her hands is her ceremonial first doll—clothed in blood red.

  As if the death of every Dane in the past six hundred years was the fault of a witch.

  As if the Øldenburgs hadn’t burned hundreds of women with flimsy proof.

  As if “the witch hunter king,” King Christian IV, hadn’t been proud of the name he earned and of the lives he ruined.

  “Good evening, dear ones.” Queen Charlotte smiles to the crowd, and it’s like ice cracking under pressure. “On this night, we not only celebrate the beginning of Havnestad’s Lithasblot, but we remember the hardships endured by our ancestors.”

  In the shadows, my knuckles turn white as I clench the doll in my lap. This part is almost worse than tossing a replica of myself into the fire.

  “We live in safety and harmony in the Øresund Kingdoms because of the courage of King Christian IV. We live in safety and harmony because of the laws he put in place. Witchcraft has no place except in the depths of hell.”

  The queen hoists the red doll above her head so hard its little witch’s hat falls, the fire sucking it into the flames. “Shall there be any devils on our shores, know you do not belong here nor in this world.” I swear her eyes find me in this moment. “The light will win, and you shall be swallowed deep into the flames and returned to your horned maker.”

  The crowd erupts, and Queen Charlotte spins on the spot, tossing the witch into the bonfire—royally ousting us because our power is a threat to her own.

  We are to form an orderly line circling the fire, but I can’t do that. I won’t do that. Instead, I stand and toss my doll over the heads of those charging forward, eager to murder little wooden models of me. My mother. My aunt. My father’s family.

  I look for Nik then, who follows suit with a smile on his face. Somewhere Tante Hansa is laughing, her distinctive cackle hitting my ear. I know it’s a ruse to protect us, but I don’t know how she can pretend to enjoy it so much. She even goes so far as to have the most colorful doll, meddling with pastes and dyes until she can ensure its little outfit will be the brightest on the beach. This year, hers is a stunning orange, thanks to a customer who unknowingly added to her fun by paying her in turmeric.

  It’s ironic: the same townspeople who come to her when they burn their skin, grateful for her ancient medicinal treatments, turn little wooden replicas of our ancestors to ash each year on this date. And she just laughs in their faces like it’s nothing. As hundreds rush the fire, I sink back down to the sand and wipe my hands on my skirts. It’s just sweat, but it almost feels like blood.

  When every last witch has been tossed, the crowd retreats. Nik has stepped a measure in front of his parents to the most prominent spot on the sand, the bonfire at his back. Even in the ochre light, his skin is unnaturally pale. I make my gaze as heavy and focused as possible, not even so much as blinking until he catches my eye. I give him a smile and a nod.

  You’ll be splendid.

  His lips curl up, and he clears his throat with a deep breath.

  “Good people of Havnestad, welcome to the opening night of Lithasblot, when we honor Urda and give thanks for her blessings and bounty, be it from the sea or from land.”

  The fire crackles happily behind him, the tallest flames licking at the stars. Despite the crush of people, only that crackle and the lapping of the sea fills in the practiced pause in the traditional speech. We all know it by heart—and could join Nik in its recital, if it were appropriate. Most days, he’s one of us. Just Nik. But tonight he’s our crown prince, and our duty as subjects outweighs our familiarity.

  So we are quiet.

  Nik glances up at his pause and meets my eye again. I nod him forward even though his color has suddenly returned.

  “These next four days are a celebration. Games, races, songs, and feasts in our goddess’s name. Let us not forget that it is all for her. It is fun. It is merry. But it has a utility—a reason. Urda.”

  There is an audible gasp in the crowd—Nik has gone off script. He’s speaking from the heart, and I couldn’t be prouder.

  “Last year, we did the same as we will do this week,” Nik goes on, his voice gathering strength. “We pelted our thinnest with bread. We sang to Urda. We watched as I carried the heaviest rock down the beach.”

  At this, he flexes a bicep and flashes a smile—all his nerves replaced with bravado. A few chuckles carry through the crowd, but there is only one heavy guffaw—issued by Tante Hansa, from her corner at the table reserved for the ancients.

  Nik rounds on her with a pronounced grin and then pulls his brows together. His tone swings back to serious. “Yes, I am aware my scrawny feats of strength are quite hysterical. But those are on display daily”—he grins again—“and they are not why we do this year after year. We do this for Urda. And some years she teaches us a lesson and reminds us of her power.”

  Nik pauses, the air heavy and silent. Not even the bonfire dares to crackle.

  “My father stood on this exact spot a year ago and recited
the very same speech he has said for thirty years. Which his father before him recited for thirty years before that. Yet we were in the thick of the Tørhed—the third year running. And did it improve when we came together to sing songs about Urda until our voices were rough and fingers bleeding on our guitarens? No. Did it improve when I defeated all you weaklings in the rock carry? No.”

  Only Tante Hansa is brave enough to cackle this time. But no one turns her way. All eyes are on our crown prince. Even the king and queen are hanging on his every word.

  “Let us remember that though we celebrate her, Urda owes us not a morsel. Just like the tide that laps our shores—her tide, her shores—she can take as swiftly as she can give.”

  Nik pauses, his coal-dark eyes on the harbor over our heads. I realize he’s referencing Anna too. Honoring her as something Urda claimed for her own, the sea doing the goddess’s bidding.

  “So, let us honor Urda this week, not just celebrate her name, but truly honor her. She is our queen—forgive me, Mother. The land that gives us bounty. The sea that brings us our supper as much as coins in our pocket. She is more than a goddess—she is us. Havnestad. And all the people within it. Without her, we are nothing. No magic can trick her. No words can ply her. No will can sway her. She is queen, and we are simply her subjects.”

  He comes to a full stop, eyes on the waves beyond the crowd, posture firm and tall—regal.

  Perhaps stunned by his originality and honesty, it takes the whole of Havnestad a few moments to process that he’s finished. I stand and begin to cheer and clap. Nik’s eyes find me, and there’s a wink of relief that brushes across his features before my view of him is blocked—every last person leaping to their feet, hoots at their lips and applause gone wild. And somehow it feels as if he’s leagues away.

  7

  IT’S IMPOSSIBLE TO SEE HIM AFTER THAT.

  All the people want to shake his hand. Tell him how awed they are by his thoughtfulness. About how poised he was. How kingly he sounded. How impressed they were and are.