All the Murmuring Bones

by A. G. Slatter

  The thing about avoiding other people is that you spend a lot of time with your own thoughts and mine are neither pleasant nor useful for I have no answers, merely speculations and more questions. At Hob’s Hallow, there was plenty of solitude if I wanted it, but there were also people to talk to when I sought company. I think back to all the times they annoyed me and offer a silent apology. Aoife and Óisín gone, Maura and Malachi equally lost to me – and I hope they’re safe.

  I hope Aidan hasn’t sought to punish them for my escape. I hope he thinks I achieved it all on my own; it’s not too far a stretch to believe, after all. He sees me as an untamed thing requiring a firm hand so I’m sure he’s utterly certain it was my own mad scheme. What will he do? He can’t inherit Hob’s Hallow without me, at least not yet – as I recall he must wait ten years before he can have me declared dead and put in a claim on the estate. But then, so might any of the other distant relatives with a mind to do so. Let them fight over that crumbling pile, let them waste their remaining years doing so.

  Perhaps he’ll bide his time then apply for the estate to be transferred to his own name, his own family... but to whom? There’re no longer any judges in Breakwater, no one to make such decisions. Perhaps the Queen of Thieves will be his judge; perhaps they’ll make some mutually beneficial new deal. Or perhaps she’ll take it away from him. Perhaps he’ll marry some prim miss from one of Breakwater’s last good families, if any of them choose to remain in a city of thieves. Perhaps a rich girl from elsewhere just to be sure there’s new blood in the mix – if he can’t have his cousin to wife, then let us thin the line once again, but strengthen the chins! Will he search for me? And if yes, for how long? Or will he not bother, reluctant to throw resources after an unwilling bride?

  I’ve passed perhaps ten small towns and large, but always keeping at a safe distance; no one can talk to me nor get close enough to see my face isn’t that of a boy, no matter that I tuck my hair away. Stopping at the remote farms for food is a means of trying to hide, to not be noticed – perhaps it’s not so clever, but I rather hope that they’re so remote that no one else will find them. Late one afternoon I come to a deserted-looking village – not quite twenty ruined cottages. I wonder what happened here? Then I notice that it’s beside a wide river where the bridge is gone – taken by a flood by the looks of it. I wonder what else the flood washed away.

  I urge the horse partway down the bank, but again not too close. The beastie isn’t happy and I’m learning to pay attention to him – gods know I should have ridden on no matter the storm back at the gallows house. Getting soaked would have been a small price to avoid the murderous brothers.

  The river appears shallow in parts, there are rocks and sandbanks one might use to ford, but only so far and there are also spots where the water has the darkness that only comes with terrible depth. I put my hand to my throat, feel the silver ship’s bell beneath the collar of my shirt, wonder if I dare risk the crossing here. I wonder if the mer would have, could have, come this far; how could they know which way to go, which tributary to follow? Who knows when the bridge might be rebuilt? Perhaps never by the look of the decayed village, and certainly it won’t be soon enough for my needs. Shall I let fear of the mer paralyse me? Sit here until Aidan or his agents find me and drag me back to Breakwater; recaptured because I feared to get my feet wet. Wouldn’t that make Aoife rage? Of course, she’d probably want me caught.

  Well, no, more than fear of wet feet: more serious. Dragged a’down by creatures who want me gone. There are plenty left with thinned O’Malley blood, but none with the name. Granddaughter of Aoife and Óisín who were siblings, and daughter of their daughter Isolde. I’m the last of my kind, when all is said and done. Once it was Aoife, now it’s me.

  I hobble the horse so he can’t go too far, remove his tack, then sit beneath a tree. Reposing here for a bit (at a safe remove from the river’s edge, of course) while I eat the apple I stole from an orchard on the way and ponder my options seems like a good choice. The horse can graze and we can both have a rest, he his legs, me my arse. I feel I’ll have calluses sooner rather than later.

  Soon I’m lying on the grass and staring at the sky through the branches and leaves above me. It’s so blue, not a cloud to be seen, and I try to make my mind as featureless, as blank. Too many thoughts, fears, uncertainties cartwheeling there. And that ever-simmering anger at my parents. As much as I’m fleeing Aidan, I’m also rushing towards Isolde to demand an explanation. Part of me… part of me is still a child hoping to find a home, parents who’ll tell me it was all a mistake, and they’ve been waiting for me for so very long to find them. That I had to find them, it was quest, my burden, my price. That, at the end of this road, all will be well.

  I don’t know when I stopped staring and my eyes closed, but at some point I must have for I wake with a start an hour or so later. I sit up and look around. The light has changed and my mount is gone.

  The saddle and bridle and blanket remain beside me, but of the grey horse there is no sign.

  I rise and wander the riverbank. There: the hoofprints stop and become drag marks where the horse dug his hooves in, tried to stop whatever he’d acquiesced to at the beginning. They become trenches the closer they get to the edge of the water, but it’s clear my poor old beastie lost his battle. And him, dying without a name because I was too parsimonious and untrusting to give him one, lest his loss cause me hurt. Well, it hurts no less, I can say that for sure. I look out onto the rapidly rushing river and there is no sign. Whatever happened, it happened whilst I slept and I did not wake.

  Anyone too lazy to follow the trail to the river might have simply believed the creature stolen by bandits and counted themselves lucky to escape with their own skin intact. I look back over my shoulder to where the saddle and so on lay. Swallowing, I make a decision.

  I yell at the river, ‘Come out!’

  At first nothing. I’m worried it will be the mer, I half-expect them, but ultimately: no. There’s a great bubbling and spurt of white foam out in the middle, in one of those deep dark patches, and abruptly something surfaces.

  Neither mer nor combative rusalky, but something different entirely.

  Its head is that of a horse.

  Black as night, with a broad chest, it presses forward and climbs from the river to stand before me on the bank, but maintains a good six feet between us. The creature clearly doesn’t feel entirely confident about coming any closer; or perhaps it’s politeness. Water cascades off it and steams and boils. Its mane flows almost to its hooves, of which there are two instead of four, and point backwards. The forelegs are muscular arms, ending in enormous hands tipped with dexterous fingers and thumbs – sometimes they shift into hooves as well, then back again to hands.

  A kelpie, a water horse, a nuggle, a tangie; so many names for the same thing. I recognise it only from Maura’s stories for you don’t see them in the sea or ocean, they don’t like salt water, but I’m far from that now. Lakes and rivers, ponds and streams… fresh water, fresh danger...

  The kelpie has eyes that look like whirlpools – Maura said they were always pits of fire but it’s probably hard to keep flames alight underwater. Impractical. They are the same deep shade as the river, not quite blue, not quite black, but a little of both with some green thrown in for good measure, with white swirling around the outer edges. He – for it’s definitely male – smiles and all his teeth show in a wide splitting of lips.

  The kelpie bows too, which is nice, but the dead men called me ‘Miss’ very nicely too and they meant me ill. This monster, if I’m not mistaken, has eaten my poor horse. Anyone can have good manners, but appalling appetites. Around his neck are the remains of a bridle, the leather and silver bits wound round with straggling river weed. The halter is ragged but clearly cannot be removed by the kelpie’s own hands.

  ‘Good morning,’ I say, wary. Maura said they ate children. Maura said they offered to carry travellers across rivers and drowned them for dinner.
Maura said they sometimes steal brides to live beneath the water in dank caves and give birth to horrors that are neither one thing nor the other, but all rage and damned by more than one god. Maura said a lot of things, things that scared me as a child, and which make me nervous now. But I’m also annoyed.

  ‘You are wishing to cross?’ he asks and the voice is a strange thing, like water rushing across my ears. It’s not unpleasant.

  ‘Yes,’ I reply. ‘Which you’ve made extremely difficult.’

  ‘My apologies. I was hungry.’ There’s that smile again, and the strangeness of the voice; it makes me feel a little faint and I think how easy it must be for him to convince people to ride with him.

  ‘But you didn’t eat me, even though I slept.’

  ‘You would not… agree with my digestion, salt daughter.’

  ‘Why do you call me that?’ My hand goes to the silver bell beneath the collar at my throat.

  He cannot see it, but the creature nods towards my fingers as if he knows what they seek. ‘Not entirely human, are you? I can sense it in your veins.’

  ‘Of course I’m human!’ It was foolish to speak so loudly, now he knows I’m suddenly uncertain. ‘What do you know of my blood?’

  ‘Only its composition, salt daughter.’ He bows again.

  ‘What... what am I? What’s in me?’

  ‘I only sense the salt. My apologies, I cannot say more.’

  I notice the careful phrasing he uses. Perhaps he knows more but will not say. Perhaps he knows nothing.

  ‘You’re wishing to cross?’ he asks again.

  I nod.

  ‘I’ll not offer to carry you—’

  ‘Then why did you come when called?’

  ‘—in my usual fashion, but rather I propose a bargain.’

  ‘Indeed.’

  ‘So non-committal.’ He laughs and it’s a splashing, booming thing. ‘I would beg your assistance and in return I will grant you a boon.’

  ‘What would you ask of me, sir?’

  He gestures to the bridle twisted around his face and neck. ‘Remove this vile thing.’

  ‘Who placed it there?’

  ‘A man, long dead.’

  ‘By your… hand?’

  He shakes his great head. ‘I wish. He tricked me into thrall. Had me build a castle for him’ – he gestures towards something I’d not noticed before, a broken tower peeking through the canopy of the forest on a mountain side – ‘then he forced me to plough fields like some common nag. He and his heirs are gone but this shackle remains and so must I. I would be free of this place.’

  ‘I thought your kind did not shift from your home?’

  He shrugs and droplets scatter from his skin. ‘Not in the usual way of things, but when we are caught… why stay where your shame has been displayed? Do you know how many folk would come and watch as I worked? The villagers brought picnics and sat with their children while I sweated in the sun and hauled stones, and could do nothing to retaliate.’

  ‘From that village? The ruin?’

  He nods, grins again.

  ‘Did you have something to do with its destruction?’

  He puts a hoof-hand against his chest. ‘I swear not. When the flood came – and I do not know from where or why or how – and washed out the bridge, it also covered the fields, swept away most of the villagers and those who survived the deluge did not stay here. There were bodies, too, come down from wherever the flood began, men and women, their throats cut, bloodless all.’ The creature shakes his head as if he, eater of men, had never thought to see such a thing. ‘I wonder if anyone looked for them.’

  ‘But if I release you, you’ll eat travellers wherever you make a new home.’

  ‘It is my nature,’ he says truthfully.

  ‘And if I don’t help?’

  ‘Then I shall remain trapped.’

  Yet I can’t quite bear the thought of him chained here.

  ‘Promise me you’ll only eat the wicked.’

  He pouts. ‘How can I tell such a thing?’

  ‘If you can sense salt in my veins, surely you can sense a darkness in someone’s soul.’

  He grins and laughs and bows again, all those teeth. He nods. ‘That does not diminish my food supply unduly, salt daughter. I agree to your terms.’

  I hold up a finger. ‘Yet here’s the thing: you’ve left me without the means to finish my journey.’

  He looks at me like a sulky child. ‘What do you propose?’

  ‘In addition to the boon you owe me from freeing you, you will pay off your debt to me by taking me where I wish to go.’

  ‘And how long might that last?’

  ‘How long have you waited here for someone to rescue you from your binding? Your time with me will be but the blink of an eye,’ I lie blithely for I don’t know when or if I shall ever find Blackwater. I pull the long knife from my belt, wait until the kelpie nods his assent.

  He stands still, trusting. He’s a full head taller even than me and must bend down so I can better reach. I slip the blade between his hide and the bridle and slice at the leather. It’s soaked and hard to cut, so I must saw with all my strength but be careful not to slip and cut his flesh.

  At last, it’s done and the kelpie stamps his hooves, pulls away sharply and begins to dance, tossing his head and moving sinuous as a seal in the water. I keep hold of the bridle, which feels disgusting and stinks.

  ‘None of that when I’m on your back,’ I say and the kelpie’s caper comes to an end.

  The wide, wide smile, the teeth, so bright and so numerous, catch the afternoon sun. He paces towards me, and suddenly the sound of his steps is terribly loud, or so it seems. He stops just in front of me; I will not run nor turn my back. He’s only promised not to eat me, not to not kill me. I change my grip on the knife, spread my feet so I’m standing solidly. He throws one hand out to the side, then the other, and sweeps into the most elaborate bow yet, with flourishes, and a dancing of his hooves.

  ‘My gratitude, salt daughter. I swore you no harm and my word is my bond.’ He rises. ‘I promised you a boon, also.’

  ‘Yes, you did.’

  ‘Would you have something now? Or later?’

  ‘How will I get it later?’

  He nods towards the bridle in my hand. ‘Keep that. Take it to a stream or river, wherever you are, and shake it beneath the surface. I will hear you and I will come.’

  ‘Do you know anything of a place called Blackwater?’

  He tilts his enormous head, considering. ‘I have not heard of it, I swear. Neither from my meals nor from any whisper in the water.’

  I feel unaccountably disappointed. ‘Then I will take this’ – I hold up the bridle and it jingles wetly – ‘and I shall call you when I have need.’

  ‘And I shall come, salt daughter. For the moment, let us get well away from this place, I’ve tarried here far too long. Follow the road. There is a town called Lelant’s Bridge where you will find – unsurprisingly – a bridge to cross this river.’

  ‘This? Now?’ I hold up my poor horse’s bridle for I know there’s often an order to such things, to how they work, whether they bind or make slaves.

  ‘One moment.’

  The kelpie steps back a little, shakes, shudders, and shivers. His outline goes soft as water, then he’s solid and four-legged, as empathically black as my nameless mount was nondescript grey. He paws the ground, rolls his eyes, prances foolishly and makes me laugh. He’s much larger and handsomer than Aidan’s stallion and I’m childishly pleased about this.

  I slip the bridle over his huge head; soon the blanket and saddle are in place. Resting my forehead against his and stroking his velvety nose I whisper, ‘I swear I shall release you as soon as I am able.’

  20

  We travel an hour past dusk – the kelpie seems to have boundless energy, but whether that’s a standard state of affairs or merely because of his enthusiasm for escaping I’m unsure. When it’s simply too dark to see, we make camp.
Or rather, I make camp while he grazes. I ask if he’ll retake his shape, but he shakes his head at me and continues to chew on the grass; presumably in his shifted form he’s quite happy with this sort of sustenance. I eat the last of my food, but am not too worried; Lelant’s Bridge is on my horizon. I’ll restock, perhaps ask questions. Perhaps I’m far enough from Aidan’s reach – if he’s even bothering to pursue me, perhaps I’m not as important as I think I am – and it doesn’t matter at all. No one will care what I ask or report it to anyone else.

  Perhaps I’m free and do not know it.

  How will I ever know?

  I can still smell the wet reek of the kelpie’s bridle on my hands, though the thing itself is in the bottom of my duffel and I washed my hands in the river (so cautiously that the kelpie eyed me curiously). What I wouldn’t give for a proper bath, hot water, a lot of soap and suds and glorious floral-scented oils for my skin. I fall asleep soon after my meal.

  When I wake it’s to the sensation of a rough wet tongue on my cheek and forehead, and breath that smells almost as bad as a corpsewight three days in the sun. I protest and push at a furry snout. I sit and focus: there’s a wolf with blue eyes and the broadest grin sitting across from me, behind the veil of the smouldering fire. It’s still dark. The beast looks young but there’s no sense of menace about it, tongue hanging out, panting, friendly as a dog and looking quite pleased with itself. Then it picks at its teeth with a paw that is now a hand, now a paw. The kelpie-horse is nearby, eyes the wolf with boredom then wanders a little further off. I’d like to think that if there was any danger he’d leap to my defence, but who really knows? I notice on the ground in front of me three wildflowers, pink and red and white.

  Though magic’s being repressed in most places, it doesn’t stop things like mer, kelpies, rusalky, trolls and nixies, corpsewights and ghosts from existing. They just hide deeper in the forests and mountains, in lakes and tarns, cellars and mirrors. It’s harder for witches, though, to cover what they are as the Church gets more and more militant about things that don’t conform. Hard to know, too, how many burn who are genuinely those who can hex, and how many are merely inconvenient women. Once, simple cunning women like Maura were taken for granted – they kept folk and livestock and plants healthy, but gradually it was decided they did not fit. They would not obey the whims and will of the Church and its princes. That they had no place in the world.