Aislin thought she’d never seen anything stranger or more beautiful, but she stayed where she was, the silver bell of her necklace seeming to vibrate against her skin; Gráinne knew the girl was cautious. Connor – ah, who knew what the boy thought? – took the steps needed to bring him within the creature’s reach.
The mer didn’t seem to look at the boy, but kept her eyes on Aislin, and the girl saw there, or thought she did, something cold and clever, almost admiring, with a lick of contempt. Admiration, for the girl was smart enough to stay back; contempt, for the girl said nothing to keep her brother safely with her.
The creature’s arms were scaled, Aislin noticed that then, and their reach was long as it grasped Connor and drew him in. The nails were more than nails, they were claws and the thing had no care for keeping the boy calm; the talons dug in further and further, so fast Connor barely thought to scream for a moment. And then he did and when he did it seemed he’d never stop, and the walls that had rung so recently with a siren’s song, now echoed with Connor’s last noises.
Aislin, unfrozen so fast, dropped to her knees and scuttled to the tunnel, which was wetter as the tide began to come in, steeper than it had seemed going down. As she crawled, rivulets of water poured towards her as she left the strange light of the sea cave behind and wiggled in a panic towards the tiny speck of sunlight left above.
And that’s the finish of it. None of the tales in this book end with the words “happily ever after”.
‘Is it true, Grandmother?’
Aoife smiles and her face transforms, though I don’t know whether it’s for better or worse, but she’s more beautiful, younger, when she smiles, that I must say.
‘Is it true, Grandmother, the story? Are any of them?’
She shrugs, does Aoife. ‘You know there was an Aislin, once.’
I know where Aislin’s portrait is in the main gallery upstairs. Even in her middle years, she looks like me; the silver ship’s bell pendant hangs around her neck. Or we all look like her, I suppose. And she in turn looked like all those who went before, with their dark hair, darker eyes, and strangely luminous skin, as if the moon lives just a little within us. I know there’s no image of her brother Connor there and, though there’s a headstone for him set into the south wall of the chapel, I’m willing to bet there are no bones sleeping behind it. But Connor should have lived, and the baby…
There’s a painting of her, that younger sister, Róisín: she’s eighteen, wearing a nun’s habit. No one but an O’Malley knows that she should never have been named for she was meant to belong to the sea – it’s harder to lose something once you’ve called it, owned it – and her birth shouldn’t have been recorded because she had another purpose. I also know that there is no portrait of my own mother (I wonder if Aoife burned it) for Isolde had somehow offended her parents before her death; Maura and Malachi have both told me that I look like Isolde, but I wonder.
‘What of the maid, Grandmother? The scullion? She disappears from the tale.’
‘People disappear all the time; perhaps she went away with the fairies.’ Aoife grins more broadly, but her gaze is cold, her tone too. ‘Don’t be a child, Miren, you should be beyond such things, such stories.’
‘Then why do you keep the book, Grandmother?’ I ask and her hands, with their long fingers, the blue tracery of veins, convulse around the cover before she can stop herself.
‘Stories are history, whether they’re true or not,’ she says and there’s that beauty again, and I’m awed at how she once looked; no wonder neither Silas nor half the men in Breakwater could say no to her. There’s a hint there that beneath her skin she never was very kind. I know that; she raised me. I wonder, as I have always done, whether she was kinder to my mother when Isolde was small.
I do love my grandmother, not simply from duty, but Aoife O’Malley (proper O’Malley, the daughter of first cousins, married to a first cousin) has never been what you’d call kindly. Even as she’s grown older, there’s been no mellowing, and only the slightest slowing of her movements. She’s smart, is Aoife, but not very patient, so the times when she’s found me especially challenging, I’ve paid for it when her temper’s snapped.
‘What did you discuss with Aidan this afternoon?’ I ask at last.
She shrugs dismissively. ‘That we’ll go and visit him in a few days, when the will is read. Perhaps we’ll stay overnight rather than race against the dark to get back here. It will be nice, won’t it, to have a sojourn in town?’
Nice perhaps if you’ve any money to spend on amusements, on a fancy meal or a scandalous show. Perhaps she’s hoping Aidan will open the mouth of his purse out of pity. But Aoife’s never been a fool or one to believe in fairy promises.
‘Go to bed, Miren. It’s been a long day.’
In my bedroom with its almost-empty armoires, writing desk, duchess with an age-pocked mirror, canopied bed and tiny bathing corner, I undress. I take off the corset and examine the impressions the whalebone has made on my torso, I dip my fingers into the furrows in the flesh, then move them until they find the scar just above my right hip (there are other scars but I don’t touch them, don’t seek them out). Raised, still pinkish despite the years. A brand, really, though the finer details have been lost in the healing: a Janus-faced mermaid with two tails. The same figure that adorns the family crest, the same image left only as an embossed impression on the cover of our book of terrible tales since the silver foil is long gone.
And I dream, that night, about mothers who chose between their children, who decide which one is loved less, and send them into the void.
4
It’s three days before I can bring myself to go to Óisín’s study. I stand on the threshold, wicker basket in hand, surveying. I don’t want to be in there but Aoife wants some of the account books to take to Aidan Fitzpatrick for his inspection. Why, I’m not sure, for all they’ll do is confirm what everyone already knows: we’re impecunious. The room smells like my grandfather and that’s a kind of comfort – old paper that’s become foxed, and port-wine tobacco from the red-gold meerschaum pipe shaped like a giant squid on the windowsill where he used to tip the ash out. (I’ll give it to Malachi, I think, someone should get joy and use of it.) Yet it’s cold with no fire been lit, with the curtains pulled so no sun can get in. The air’s not crisp but stuffy.
The desk is black, ebony, but for the inlaid mother-of-pearl on the sides, woodland scenes rather than seascapes: centaurs and maidens, all finely made. As a child I’d sit on the floor and trace the patterns, tell myself stories. I was allowed to play at Óisín’s feet if I was quiet.
And quiet I was so I suppose he decided I was teachable. It began with ships: how to recognise them, which amongst our fleet were fastest (outrunning pirates was a concern, since our own days of brigandry were well behind us), which were best for what sort of cargo and how much might be carried, and what it might be sold for. How to time an arrival so that one of our brigantines or caravels might be anchored off Hob’s Head for the evening; how a lifeboat might be sent ashore in the dead of night bearing any particularly valuable items to be secreted in the tower’s cellar (because we weren’t too fine to stop smuggling). Then the next morning, the ship would moor at the Breakwater docks, close by the Weeping Gate where men and women waited and wept for their loved ones lost to the sea. Then the maritime tax agents would board to take their share of our hard-earned merchandise. My grandfather taught me how to value the exotic items we shipped, the fabrics and gems, the wines and brandies and whiskeys, the wood and metals sought by artisans, the toys and weapons, the animals wanted by the very rich as pets or morsels… and to calculate bribes, to assess what a man might sell his soul for, yet thus far I’ve found no chance to deploy this skill.
In a better world, I’d have put that knowledge to good use, but even then we were diminishing. So he taught me old things, past things, gave me knowledge for which I would have little service.
The study is a small room, the sm
allest I think, in this vast place. It’s in the central tower on the second floor. There’s just the enormous desk and its chair, also an overstuffed wingback on the rug by the fireplace, and the shelves built into the walls; it’s sparse, no doubt. There’s dust on all the surfaces, testament to Óisín’s dislike of anyone coming in here. I can’t imagine Maura changing habit now; this room will decay like the rest.
I wonder at how I’ve avoided where he’d idled most of his time at home: this room. I think about this too: Óisín spent his early years in the offices by the docks in Breakwater, but when those closed (because who needs such a place of business to manage two meagre ships?) and the townhouse was sold to Aidan (the funds used to eke out an existence at Hob’s Hallow little longer), he retreated to this tiny space. He passed his days here, hunched over account books and those that dealt with the law of the sea, which he’d pilfer from the library and keep until Aoife noticed the holes in the shelves and kicked up a fuss for their return – the library was her place. One of their battlefields, one of many.
Sometimes he’d walk the gardens (carefully avoiding the walled one Aoife had claimed as her own), growing more gnarled as the rose bushes and yew trees did, but I don’t think he’d taken the switchback path down to the shingle in years. Unlike his wife, he’d stopped swimming. It was too hard for him to come back again, with the arthritis mining through him. He’d take his meals, mostly, with Aoife and I in the small dining room, then retreat to his suite on third floor of the tower. They’d shared a room, once, and they must have had some sort of passion, I suppose, for they made a daughter. Or perhaps that bedchamber was simply another battle that Óisín lost or gave up.
I put the wicker basket on the desk, then pull the curtains aside to let in some light and it floods the den. Motes of dust spin through the air like snowflakes. Above the fireplace is a painting of a ship, the Heron’s Bow, Óisín’s first: built at his direction, captained by him for three years, lost to a storm the first year he stayed on land. He’d passed the helm to a cousin, Aidan’s father Fergus; upon hearing of his death, Fergus’ wife Oona died on the spot. Water’s dripping onto the canvas from somewhere above. A burst pipe; there’s a bathroom located on the next floor, I think. I must remember to tell Malachi.
It looks like the ship’s in a tempest, that it’s drowning. The bookshelves are to the left, and I can see the dark blue spines of the account books. I cross the room in six steps, and lay my hand on the first demanded volume. It sticks to its neighbour and I pull harder, hoping the damp from above hasn’t seeped elsewhere. At last it comes with that strange noise of one thing peeling itself from another. Sticky leather, not damp. It’s heavy – what book in this house isn’t? – and I lay it in the basket. The second is easier, and follows the first. The third is weightier and I almost drop it. The back cover flaps open and a thin sheaf falls to the threadbare rug in front of the hearth.
Carelessly, barely looking, I put the book with its fellows, then hunt up what was dropped. It’s actually a bundle of envelopes; I flip through and count. Three. Paper of varying quality. They’re tied together with a black velvet ribbon. How long has my grandfather kept them? The handwriting of the address is fluid and elegant, each letter perfectly formed and I don’t recognise it – so not billets-doux from Aoife in a better time. All to Óisín alone, and no sender details to be seen, but the red seals at the back have been broken, some fragments lost so I cannot make out what image might once have been imprinted when the wax was hot and malleable.
Not hidden, or not really. Not in a locked drawer. But then Óisín knew Aoife well enough to realise she’d have gone straight for a locked drawer in the desk. That she’d have had no interest in these books because she already knew how parlous our financial situation was – pure chance that she wanted them for Aidan! – so this was the best place to hide them.
I’m about to untie the ribbon, see how old these missives are, see who they’re from, when I hear a shuffling step in the hallway. I stuff the things into my pocket, pressing them down deep, hear the paper crunch and crinkle. I hide them because Óisín did. I hide them because I have no secrets in this house. I hide them because I’m not above stealing the ones he left behind. Not too good, me, for second-hand secrets.
Maura appears in the doorway, hazel eyes red-rimmed, long grey hair in a thick braid hanging over one shoulder down past her waist; white apron pristine with a lack of work over an ancient black gown that was, I think, one of Aoife’s. She wore it to the funeral and seems set to remain in it as long as possible. She was fond of Óisín, was Maura, and she’ll grieve a long while. Had it been Aoife going into the ground, perhaps there’d have been a spring in her step; they’re of an age, grew up together. Maura and Malachi were children of the estate, back when we had more tenants than we currently do. Their father owed a debt to Aoife’s father, one he couldn’t pay, so he sent his two oldest children to be servants in the house. They were free, my grandmother told me, to go and visit their parents – the O’Malleys weren’t entirely monsters after all – but when a few months had passed Maura and Malachi ceased to bother.
‘Herself is calling for you,’ says Maura in a voice that’s surprisingly sweet. She doesn’t sound like an old woman. ‘Shouting, in fact.’
Looks like butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth, but she’s been around Aoife too long to be coy about her.
‘I’m doing her bidding,’ I say and point to the basket. I keep my other hand away from the pocket, though it feels like the papers therein are slowly smouldering, and surely Maura will notice.
But she doesn’t. She just smiles and says, ‘Not fast enough. Hurry up. The Fitzpatrick carriage has arrived and she’s anxious to be away.’ She says it with a tone that tells me what she thinks of this grand gesture. We’ve got our own conveyance, but it’s a dreadful wreck of a thing. Aidan’s, however, is fancy, new and well-maintained, his with employees dressed in the Fitzpatrick livery of cream trews, sky-blue frockcoats with silver buttons and smart black stovepipe hats. It has the O’Malley coat-of-arms on its doors, which Aidan’s not actually entitled to, but who’s to gainsay him if he wants to display a silver Janus-faced, Janus-tailed mermaid? ‘You’ll be staying two nights in Breakwater. I’ve packed you a case, it’s at the front door.’
‘Enjoy your rest,’ I say and grin. I collect the basket and pass her by. She leans over and kisses my forehead and I catch a whiff of her: age and grief and a musty dress. I don’t pull away or try to breathe shallow. I just wish she didn’t hurt quite so much for a man who wasn’t very kind to her; I know Óisín sometimes shared her bed. There are small graves in one of the gardens, where servants’ children have been laid to rest over the years (not in the chapel with the O’Malleys, though more than one had a claim to the blood of the house). And Maura tends to more than one of those little graves, visits them every Sunday.
She pushes me away. ‘Hurry or Herself will be in a right frame of mind.’
I hurry.
5
The road to Breakwater from Hob’s Head is badly rutted yet Aoife, settled into a corner, manages to drop off within a minute of waving Maura and Malachi farewell, a sure sign she’s planning a long evening tonight and wants to be bright and alert. There are shadows beneath her eyes, though, and I think her skin looks a little looser as if it’s let its grip go. The corners of her mouth tilt down and she snores softly.
I envy her the ability to nap so easily, and stare out the window at the marshlands as we pass. The road is built up high but still washes away in the worst of the weather that comes sometimes. Not at the moment, though, no dreadful storms for a while yet. The sedges are tall and very green with flashes of purple where the sea lavender blooms, swaying in the breeze like dancers, the only thing to grow here so close to the ocean because of all the salt. It takes something strong and strange to thrive in such an environment. Once upon a time, local women would harvest them and beat them into fibre then fabric, make it into clothing. Once even O’Malleys wore
such things, before the money came and silks were easy to come by. Eventually, the family didn’t even like their retainers to wear sea-cloth, and gifted everyone on Hob’s Head, all the tenants, all the servants, with clothing of proper cloth; not even our poorest folk would look like peasants. Ah, it was good while it lasted.
Sometimes a bloated figure rises from the swaying grass, greying with dark green veins trailing just beneath the skin to carry dead blood. Not ghosts, no, heavier than that, still bodily things: corpsewights. Those who’ve found no rest. Normally they reside in graveyards and lay traps for the unwary, Maura’s said, but these… they drowned, they washed ashore and woke though they shouldn’t have. They don’t wander, they stay close to where they roused for their minds no longer work as they should – lucky, for what might they do if they could find their way home to terrify the ones who loved them in life? The god-hounds say they’ve no soul left but what else might animate them if not that?
I’m not afraid of them. They don’t pursue carriages or horses (they’ve got a dislike for the beasts, and Malachi told me he’d seen a cart horse kick a wight to pieces in his youth), and they’ll only attack if you approach them, or walk over them all unawares, if you get within reach. But attack they will, so I know enough not to wander in the marshes. I wonder, sometimes, if any of them were O’Malleys.
All the Murmuring Bones Page 4