They never take us!
They wait, they’re meant to wait for what they’re given!
Then that voice says: But they’ve not been given their due in such a while! There have been no spare children, not since before Aoife was born. What do they care that I’m the last of a line? We’ve not paid our debts in far too long.
And I don’t know whose voice that is but I cannot fault it. The back of my head hurts and the water around my head begins to turn a reddish-purple where a cut bleeds. I tear at the clasps of my cloak and it lets go reluctantly, but now without it to add to my resistance, I’m moving faster downward. I begin to kick. Or I try. I’m strong from riding, walking, helping with the small harvests – though I avoid swimming when I can – but when I raise my knees and it’s like pulling them from sucking mud in the marshlands. I kick again and one of the hands lets go. Another kick, it connects with a head or shoulder perhaps. It can’t hurt too much with the water to cushion the blow, but it gets my other leg free.
If only I had the time to remove my boots, but I need to get away from these things. Up, up, up, and I’m being paced by them, I see faces flash in the gloom, mouths open – laughter? Are they laughing at this? – they swim like dolphins, leapfrogging each other, flashing close and away, their skins bright as the moon, their tails whipping around, so lengthy and thick! Above, I can see the hull of a boat, a small craft; I swim harder, curse my boots, my dress, keep going, break the water, hook my hands over the edge and kick and kick and kick myself into that little, little boat. Much to the surprise of the fisherman sitting in it.
As I struggle in, I’m certain I can feel those hands again, scaled and webbed and so, so strong. Were they really there? Did I imagine it? Or were they just playing?
The fisherman stares at me, and I at him. He opens his mouth but whatever he might say is lost as he points over my shoulder. I turn. Half a dozen feet away three heads break the waves. Dark-haired, dark-eyed, moon-skinned, teeth sharp in their laughing mouths, eyes hard; these creatures so seldom seen, so close. Then they duck-dive and are gone.
Yet I cannot get out of my head the mocking sounds I heard beneath the surface, other voices as clear as if they spoke in the air above, as if there was no fluid betwixt lips and ears.
When you are gone then we will be free. And it’s not lost on me that those words are quite similar to the ones I’ve thought about my grandparents.
But they could have had me, if they’d wished, could have dragged me down, all three of them. What was there to wait for?
8
‘What were you thinking?’ Aoife’s not stopped shouting at me since the fisherman delivered me to the doorstep half an hour ago. As I’ve only just finished coughing up brine, I’ve not been able to answer her. Sitting in a tub in the bathroom attached to my bedchamber, red as a lobster in ridiculously hot water, I can’t quite feel rid of the cold deep inside. As if my immersion in the harbour by the Weeping Gate lodged it in me, as if the mer’s hands transmitted it like a disease.
‘I wasn’t thinking at all,’ I lie – best not to tell her that I was thinking about how to thwart her and Aidan’s machinations, at least not until I’m safely back at the house on Hob’s Head, with the Hallow’s strong walls around me and familiar things to make me feel safe, even from Aoife. ‘I wasn’t thinking about anything, but...’
‘But what? You know the will is to be read this morning, you know we are expected there. Now we’ll be late!’ she snaps as the maidservant pours another jug of water over my hair and begins yet another scrubbing with orange-scented wash to rid me of the reek of the harbour. I fear it will never be enough, that I’ll be cold and dank-smelling forever, even though no one else might notice. The cut on the back of my head stings and the girl’s fingers make it worse every time they move over the lump.
‘Be careful!’ I snap. Then, more quietly, I say to Aoife, ‘I didn’t... fall.’
‘Slipped? Like an idiot child.’ She’s pacing now, is Aoife, a swift angry motion and I wonder if it’s care for me or fear that her plans could have gone so badly awry because of my clumsiness.
‘No,’ I say and look meaningfully at the maid.
Aoife raises a brow. ‘Girl, get you gone. I’m sure you’ve better things to do.’
And without a word, the girl drops my hair, rises, bobs a curtsey and departs, wiping her hands on her apron. Aoife takes her place, kneeling with a creaking of knees; her fingers in my hair are far more tender.
‘Now, what happened?’ She gives a gentle tug on my locks to say Be quick about it.
‘I was pulled in Grandmother.’
‘Pulled?’ Her fingers still, her tone drops.
‘By one of them.’
‘Them?’
‘If you repeat everything I say we’ll not get very far very fast,’ I point out and she pulls my hair to teach me the value of a civil tongue. I continue, ‘Three that I could see. One dragged me in, the others watched and laughed as it towed me a’down.’
‘Male or female? The one who…’
‘I—‘ For a moment I’m unsure, then I remember their laughing faces as I huddled in the rowboat. ‘All female.’
She clicks her tongue.
I’ve never witnessed them up close, never had them approach in that way. The mer can sometimes be seen from the beach or the promontory at home, heads bobbing, some days difficult to distinguish from seals. But near enough to touch? Never. The silver bells around our necks are meant to mark out us as the oldest, to keep us safe.
‘I heard them sing, beneath the waves: When you are gone, then we shall be free.’
Aoife rises. ‘No. No.’
And then she too departs, leaving me to untangle and wash my own very long tresses for which I’ve not nearly enough hands. I stay in the bath until it’s so cool it begins to remind me of the harbour and with that uncomfortable idea I climb out.
My old black dress has disappeared, no doubt disposed of on Aoife’s orders. My boots... ah, they’ll be gone too. On the bed in the other room is the green brocade from yesterday’s shopping trip; it looks too fine for around the house, but there’s the reading of the will to attend. And there are tiny embroidered house slippers in golden silk, barely fit for walking in but there’s no choice, is there?
Someone has reinstated the maiden’s quilt on the bed and I stare at its patterns: bells and flowers, rabbits and doves, bows and horseshoes. I wonder what’s been sewn into it? Swans feathers for fidelity? Tiny silver charms in each corner for hope of a good match, a magnificent wedding. I can’t imagine that Brigid would wish me well on that account. Does she know what Aidan’s planning?
I think again about throwing it on the fire, sending all those yearnings and wishes up the chimney in smoke. But what might that do? For me forever? For someone whose only hope has been a quiet life alone I find myself unwilling to lay a curse upon my remaining years, however few or many they might be. No marriage ever perhaps, and would that be such a terrible thing? No Aidan, no one else to please or obey?
Yet I leave the quilt alone for the second time, merely pull it back until it’s a scrunched mess at the foot of the bed. I’ll remove it entirely before I sleep tonight. I towel-dry my hair then brush out its tangles before twisting it into a simple braided bun. As ready as I’ll ever be, I go to leave my room.
The door is locked.
I turn the handle again and again, bend to peer through the keyhole: an empty corridor waits beyond. I swallow down the panic. What is Aoife doing that requires me to be trapped in here?
Breathing deeply, I go to the window and look down: too high to jump down from my third floor room to the muddy alley between this house and the next. There’s no rooftop for me to leap to. Just the long drop below, where I’d break a leg or my neck, which seems a high price to pay.
Nothing to do but wait it out.
I sit by the hearth and fold my hands in my lap; I cross my feet at the ankles. There are no books in this room. I think of that thin sheaf
of letters beneath my mattress at home. I wonder who wrote them to Óisín; I wonder why he hid them and if Aoife knows about them or not. I like the idea of having something secret from her. I wonder if I’ll ever return to Hob’s Hallow to read them. But there’s no answer to that and I’ll simply drive myself mad with what ifs, so I think instead about the O’Malley book of tales.
I have read them all; even before Aoife said I was too old to have them told to me, I would sneak into the library late at night and pore over them. There are so many, some merely margin notes commenting on another tale, some no more than a paragraph, some take pages and pages and might be a small book all on their own. No blank folios at the back for anyone to add new stories, nothing in there from Aoife or Óisín – or nothing they’ve admitted to – and whenever I’ve asked about the missing pages, Aoife always said it had been like that since she could recall. I love that book, those stories, because they made me feel… real… without siblings, without parents, I’ve always felt alone. Perhaps if my grandparents had been different, if Brigid hadn’t betrayed me, I’d not have needed those tales so desperately to ground me, to make me feel part of something.
Those tales, I remember them all and so I tell them to myself to pass the time.
A long time ago, the old people say, there were three mer-sisters, each with a dearest wish. But longing is dangerous and one heard tell of a fin-wife – not quite one of the merfolk, but the sort who sometimes walked the earth on two legs – and that fin-wife could grant wishes for a price. The sisters agreed that they would pay whatever cost might be demanded, and they sought out the one who could deliver their hearts’ desires.
The fin-wife was ancient and ugly, her life of wickedness laying heavily upon her soul – though it’s said sea-kind have no soul, this is a lie that makes it easier for humans to enslave them, to think them lesser as they make them into unwilling wives – yet she had no regrets and no wish to change her ways. She listened to the mer-girls, then gave them their task; the details do not matter, only that they agreed to a cruel thing, an unjust deed, and they carried it out with no compunction.
And upon their return, bearing the bloody trophies of their success, which they laid at the foot of the fin-wife’s throne, their wishes were granted.
The lover of the eldest, long-gone, was returned; but, no longer as he had been, no longer a kin creature, he took her life to sate his own hunger.
The middle one was granted legs and lungs so she might join her human beloved on the surface; but, given these things beneath the waves, she drowned.
The youngest, having requested only the return of their dead father’s famed weapon to do him honour, cut her finger on its poisoned blade and expired.
The door remains locked and no one has come. The back of my head aches where I hit the dock.
Far away and just as long ago there was a rock in a river where rusalky maidens sat and sang. Their songs seemed beautiful, if one did not listen to the words. If one did then it was likely one would follow the lovely tune off the cliff above to either break upon the rock below or drown beside it, much to the maidens’ delight. They look, in the daylight, like glorious girls with long locks in every shade, glowing skins and eyes, red lips and white teeth, figures to catch the eye. Luminescent toes dangle in the flowing waters, long fingers comb shining hair. By day, they are wondrous to behold.
But when the sun sets, or when they doze on the rock, they forget themselves and can be seen in their true form, for they did not begin as sprites, but rather as human girls. Murdered maids, those dead by their own hands in grief and despair, those whose own acts haunted them beyond their passing, lose the pleasing form they had when they lived. The rot of life and death can be seen, the skin has a greenish tint, the eyes sunken, the hair straw-like, the marks of fingers and fists visible on throat and face. In winter times, too, they are in a between state, for the light is never quite right to weave their illusions, so they hide then, but for the sunniest of days.
They’ll take revenge on those who wronged them if they can, or even just on those who tread too close to their places. But they’re business-like in death even if they weren’t in life, and they will make bargains. A rusalka’s tears are magical things, they can be used for good or ill, or any shade of magic in between (although mostly for ill). There’s a story told of a quilter who, crossed in love, badly betrayed, made a wedding quilt for her once true love and his new bride. She sprinkled it with the dust of nightmares and the tears of a river maiden, the bride was turned into a beast with the tail of a fish or perhaps a dragon. No one knows what happened to either.
It’s well past lunch.
In olden times when wishing still helped there was once a church built at Hob’s Head.
Sometimes the O’Malleys forgot to whom they owed their fortune. They’d take up with some god-hound or another, and for a while the bishop would hope he might bring the family back to the Holy Mother Church (as if they’d ever been in its bosom before). But then the women of the family would put their feet down, for they remembered (they always remembered) where their allegiance lay.
And as a result a father, a brother, an uncle, a grandsire, a son would go into the ground a little sooner than expected. It taught the others a valuable lesson.
There is no church on Hob’s Head, just the little chapel in the manor house. But that wasn’t always the case. An O’Malley patriarch decided to build one, fit for his family’s overt worship, and for all the tenants around and any strays who might decide to join them. Perhaps the bishop promised him a god-hound of his very own to say prayers on a Sunday and become a fixture outside of Breakwater.
It was built right on the promontory so the view would be spectacular, the sound of the waves inspiring, and the peel of the bells across the water unparalleled, for they had been specially made. At great expense, they’d been cast at some far-flung foundry and made entirely of O’Malley silver. And on the day that the church was to be consecrated, the Breakwater bishop himself was in attendance, bellringers brought from far and wide to ensure the very first sounding of them would be perfect.
But as the congregation waited outside, preparing to enter the new church, there was a great rumbling, then a crack and a creak and the structure and the cliff on which it stood, fell into the sea. No O’Malley was injured, the only deaths being those of the bishop and the bellringers. So, no O’Malley blood was spilt, not then, but an O’Malley lesson was learned.
The sea-folk hate the sound of holy bells above all things.
The sea-folk love silver above all things.
Some days, they say, you can hear the ringing from beneath the waves.
I fall asleep thinking I hear a dim chime rung at the bottom of the ocean; wondering what it would be like to have sisters; pondering maidens changed by death, bitterness and bile.
* * *
The sky’s a plum-bruise outside the window when I’m woken by the sound of the door being unlocked. Brigid appears in the doorframe, her expression is at first surprised as if she expected to find me otherwise, then annoyed. She’s got a large silver key attached to the silver chatelaine at her belt, a sure sign of housewifely power.
‘Come along,’ she says curtly as she folds her little hands at her waist. ‘They’re waiting for you.’
‘Why’d she lock me in?’ I ask as I follow. I rub at my neck, which is stiff from sleeping sitting up.
There’s a pause before she says, ‘To keep you safe, I suppose.’
I’m about to speak but then I figure she knows about the mer, that either Aoife’s told her or – more likely – the maidservant listened at the door after she was dismissed, then informed Brigid. Aoife’s unlikely to share anything with Brigid; she thinks the girl’s a sidenote, a by-blow. The only reason she gives Aidan the time of day is his money. I press my lips together and say no more.
Down the stairs with their green carpet, polished banister and intricately turned balusters. Past the paintings of landscapes and Fitzpatricks
with their receding chins and thin blond hair. Along the hallway to the dining room with its blue curtains, sideboards groaning with more dishes than four people can eat – but honestly, I’m starving after a day without food and could probably devour it all myself – shining silver candlesticks and salvers, vases of crystal and gold. And there at the small table – this is the informal dining room, after all – sit Aoife and Aidan, one at each end so that it might be argued that both are at the head. A single chair on either side for myself and Brigid, though ten could easily be seated for a meal.
The same girl who began washing my hair this morning is there, eyes downcast. Brigid and I take our seats. I do not look directly at Aidan.
‘Serve,’ says Aoife, and the maid slides a gaze at Aidan. He gives a slight nod, which Aoife notices. Her lips turn into a thin line and I wouldn’t want to be that girl for all the pearls in the sea. Soon, we’ve bowls of soup in front of us, it smells rich and hearty, with beef and potatoes, leeks and carrots, cracked barley. I try to be ladylike, try not to eat too quickly, but I can see from Aoife’s expression that I’m failing. I sit back, pause, let the liquid settle. I butter a slice of bread and take dainty bites of that when all I want to do is scoff it down then follow it with another and another.
When all the bowls are empty, the second course is served: rare roast beef, more potatoes (baked this time), a spiced kedgeree with eggs and haddock, roast pork with rice, pheasant pie, lark jelly, a selection of cheeses, and more bread, this time in the form of white rolls each made to look like roses in bloom. Aoife has a lemon-whiskey in front of her, Aidan red wine; Brigid and I have simple water with lemon (good for the complexion, but gods know I’d have preferred something stronger). When we are eating again, Aoife glowers at the servant.
All the Murmuring Bones Page 7