One of them, Keziah Eddy, lifts a hand to summon me. I kneel beside her chair and greet her, her sister-in-law Keren-happuch, and their cousins Zara Stark and Elena Yarrow. Widows all, they live in the same cottage – if they’d stayed living with their families they’d have spent all their time looking after grandchildren. This arrangement pleases them best. I asked them, quietly when they’d first invited me for tea soon after my arrival at Blackwater, why they’d not tried the small magics I did to revive the land. They answered that they were reluctant to interfere with whatever my mother had done; that one woman’s spell might not work on top of another’s, or it might be catastrophic, especially where a witch like Isolde was concerned. Her workings, they said, were grand and powerful; none of them are blood-witches. You’re her daughter, they said, that’s different, though you’re no more witch than we. But, Keziah had admitted, with things heading towards the grim, they had been discussing something desperate, however they would not tell me what it was. By their tones and sideways looks, I suspected they’d considered a sacrifice, the blood of a young man to water the ground. I doubt it would have had much effect, not when Isolde had made this earth so very much her own.
‘How are you, my dames?’ I ask. They smile wickedly; they’re out in the sun, they’re showing up their own daughters and daughters-in-law, who take the insult well, for a decent sweet roll is worth the price of your pride; everyone returns for second and third helpings, and they’re getting a chance to chide and snipe. There’s no great malice in them, or no greater than any woman accumulates in a life not designed for herself, and they are very clever; we’ve swapped recipes for potions more than once since I’ve been here.
‘Well enough, lovely, well enough. How are you?’
‘Well enough,’ I say with a grin. ‘Well enough.’
‘No sign of your uncle then? He’ll not be joining us?’ asks Zara slyly.
‘Nor that Nelly Daniels neither?’ Elena passes me a pastry filled with apricots and thick cream. I bite into it, shake my head.
‘My uncle is going over the accounts,’ I tell them what he told me. ‘Nelly is tending to Ena.’ I would have liked my little sister to play with the other children, but Nelly insisted she remain inside, that she was coming down with something; a litany of reasons why Ena should not be exposed to the village brats.
‘She is devoted to that child,’ agrees Elena, her eyes flicking a glance towards the big house.
‘I’m sure it helps her after her own loss,’ Keren-happuch agrees.
‘What happened?’ I ask around a buttery mouthful; there’s a lot of cinnamon, but not too much, it’s perfectly judged.
‘She was pregnant when she and your uncle arrived here, gave birth soon after.’
I am surprised: I’d assumed Nelly had come from the village. ‘They came together?’
Keziah shakes her head. ‘I believe they met upon the road. Your parents had hired Nelly to be a wet nurse to Ena, sent for your uncle to come and caretake or so we’re told. She used to talk to us, then. She gave birth the week before your mother. Those two little girls, sleeping in the same crib.’ She smiles sadly.
‘What happened?’ I repeat, and she seems to understand I’m asking more than one question. Uncle Edward has only ever called Nelly the housekeeper, no mention of a wet nurse for my sister. And Ena’s been bottle-fed the whole time I’ve been here – or at least by me. What might Nelly do in her own room?
‘The accident.’
‘Terrible thing to happen to a woman, especially a woman on her own,’ mutters Keren-happuch, and the others nod.
‘Poor Meraud.’
I think of the burned cradle in the locked wing of the house. Not just Ena’s then. I’ve asked Nelly nothing about herself because I assume she’ll tell me nothing. But mostly because I don’t like her; it’s rendered her of no interest to me. But she lost a child and that must hurt and it’s not something I’d wish on anyone. I wonder if my uncle has not mentioned her tragedy out of kindness and sensitivity. Before I can ask any more I’m distracted by childish shrieking.
A group running madly by the lake. A little girl with bright auburn-rose hair is being pursued by boys and girls, all screaming in delight. But they lose track of where they’re going, as children are wont to do, and their parents have grown inattentive with sun and food and drink. They go too near the edge.
I’m watching even as it happens; it seems so slow, it seems as if the moment in which it could be prevented is long and it is an amazement to me that no one does anything. The little girl is there, then she is gone; her pursuers stop, a good distance from the water, mouths agape.
The child has disappeared completely, swallowed by the black liquid. Her mother, Miriam Dymond, alert to the danger only too late is now running back and forth on the shore, no one is going to the rescue. There are those trying to stop her in her tracks, stop her running about like a headless chicken. These are mountain folk, inland folk, there’s not a seafarer amongst them. No one is taught to swim from birth, no one but me’s an O’Malley here. As afraid as I am of the lake, I’m more afraid of letting a child be taken.
I kick away my delicate slippers, loose the sash and pull off my dress, dropping it beside the crones, and run toward the lake in only my thin cotton shift. I feel the bell pendant against my throat thud up and down, hear it tinkling with every step.
Behind me someone shouts ‘No, Miren!’ but I ignore them.
My right foot hits the spot where land and water meet, and I launch myself forward. It’s a good leap, I’ve long legs, and it seems like an age before I break the surface.
But when I do, it feels like a shock, as if I’ve been struck by lightning, and my heart will explode. I begin to sink like the proverbial stone.
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You’d think, really that I’d only sink a few yards, that I’d hit a shelf of rock or some such, but no. Perhaps six feet out into the lake and I keep going down, down, a’down. And the fluid is cold, cold, cold, even colder than Breakwater Harbour.
As the liquid closes over my head, I think I might just drown and make no effort to save myself. My limbs feel so heavy, so sluggish, and it takes every bit of willpower I’ve got to gather my wits before I die then and there. I tread water, halt my descent to get my bearings, and stare into the depths below me, my shift billowing as if in a strong wind. I’m half-looking for the child, half-looking for mer.
The liquid is a strange green from here, turgid barely seeming to move despite my thrashing, but at last I see something below me, a pale blur, struggling weakly, increasingly weakly. I duck-dive, kick, and press further into the icy dark.
The child seems to plummet, heavier than she should be, or perhaps pulled but I can see nothing that grips her. At last, I get a grip her fingers, her palm, her chubby wrist. My lungs are burning. The girl’s eyes are glazing over, the lids beginning to drop. Her hair’s like red smoke around her white moon of a face. I pull her hard toward me and clasp her to my chest. She’s too far gone to hold onto me, so I have to swim single-handed, kicking like a frog. I want to look behind, I want to make sure nothing is following us, but I don’t. Concentrate, Miren, on up. I can still feel a shudder through the water, like it’s shivering from its own frigidity.
Then I break the surface and the air is ridiculously warm. I strike out for the shore, which seems further away than it should be. There’s no gradation, no shallows, my feet scrabble against the steep vertical wall of the lake. Someone takes the girl from my arms, then someone pulls me up too. My legs are like jelly as I’m dragged away from the edge, well away, following the woman who carries her daughter some distance before her legs give way. I break free of whomever pulled me to safety and follow Miriam Dymond. She collapses, howling, with the child draped across her lap. The little one remains breathless.
I grab at the girl, lie her flat on the ground. I press at the chest, then breathe into her mouth; I repeat these actions until she spits up so very much fluid it seems a small pond, then coughs and wa
ils. I fall away. Miriam gathers her daughter, rocks back and forth.
I’m hauled to my feet once more, so exhausted I could cry and all I want is sleep, to let the lethargy that hit me with the lake’s touch take me down. I look up into Jedadiah’s face; the heat of him seems strange but I am frozen through. For a moment I’m confused as he stares at me, then I realise that his expression is one of dread. Not something I expected to see; and he’s not staring at me, but past me.
I try to turn, but he presses my face firmly into his chest. I kick his shin in a temper and he lets me go in surprise. I gaze out to the lake.
Three heads, large; pale skin with a greenish tinge; gills that I can see in the necks even from this distance; and tails that flip and splash and slap.
The mer, grinning at me and hissing. No song this time. No need. They stare for a little while; then they are gone with more splashing. Jedadiah has his arms around me again, apparently undeterred by the kick. He’s shaking as much as I am, but how much is from the cold of my skin and how much from fear is anyone’s guess.
What I realise now that my mind has slowed, my terror has ebbed a little, is that the lake was salty. Not fresh. It makes me wonder how can anyone escape such creatures, when all the waters in the world are joined? Idly, I wonder how the kelpie liked this saltiness.
‘Did you see them?’ he asks and there’s a rough edge to his voice. He knows my answer, that’s why.
‘They followed me from Breakwater,’ I confess. ‘They want no one but me.’
He grabs my shoulders and says urgently. ‘We must talk, Miren Elliott, but not here. There’s more for you to know.’
Any reply I might have given is lost as my name is shouted from the house. Uncle Edward is striding towards us. Nelly hangs in the doorway, appearing somewhat disappointed to see me still extant. Any sympathy I might have had for her is leached away.
‘Tonight at the mine. Midnight,’ says Jedadiah in a low voice. I neither nod nor shake my head, for my uncle has reached us and wrenched me from Jedadiah’s grip as if he was the cause of my ills, not the person who saved me.
‘Miren, you’re soaked through! What happened?’ He’s looking at Jedadiah, as if I’m not an adult to speak for myself.
‘The Dymond girl fell into the lake, Uncle, nothing more. We are both safe,’ I say coolly and point to the child now sobbing heartily in her mother’s lap. He barely glances at her and I’m aware that the disposition of the gathering has changed.
Oh, it was already different when I came out of the water, but there was an air of relief; and as far as I’m aware only myself and Jedadiah saw the mer. So: the fear had dissipated quickly, replaced by that special lighter-than-air fizz that bubbles up when a tragedy is averted. The celebration might well have gone on, people drinking faster and more, laughing more loudly, better inclined towards their fellows, all because of the failure of fate to take something from their lives.
But now, here is my uncle, and the mood is blackening faster than overripe fruit in high summer. People are packing their baskets, scooping food into them, folding blankets, shepherding children and old folk. They all file past the spit where Woodfox and Oliver slice slabs from the carcasses and dump them onto platters, which the villagers carry away with them. The desertion is a swift process. My uncle has brought the curtain down.
‘Uncle,’ I say. ‘Uncle Edward, be calm.’
‘Come inside, Miren. I don’t want you catching your death. Let Nelly tend to you.’ And he grasps both my wrists and all I can think about is Aidan Fitzpatrick bruising my skin. There’s the stink of alcohol on his breath; I pull away violently, feeling like a petulant child.
Edward Elliott locks eyes with me and glares. This is the first time we’ve been at odds; the first time I’ve not simply gentled him into an agreement. The first spark of a rebellion in his mind, no doubt.
Then he backs off, hold up his palms. ‘I’m sorry, my dear, I should not have grabbed at you. I... worry makes for fear and fear makes one rash. I do apologise.’
I lower my eyes, shutter my rage, but I can still feel the anger that enabled me to draw a knife across the assassin’s throat. I don’t want my uncle to see that. Instead I turn to Jedadiah.
‘Thank you for your aid, Mr Gannel. I’ll not keep you further.’ I say nothing else but hope he’ll take my meaning as it’s intended.
When I feel the heat’s gone out of my expression I look back to Edward Elliott.
‘Thank you, Uncle. I am rather chilled.’ I reach for his arm, then let him lead me into the house.
* * *
I refuse dinner, saying I am exhausted by the afternoon’s dramas. I refuse Nelly’s assistance, tell her I’m more than capable of bathing myself. I say I need to sleep but will be well in the morning. I know it’s childish and ungracious, but I feel... so many things.
Afraid. The mer have followed me. But the more I think about it, the more I wonder. They could have taken me, once again, but they did not. They did not sing any threats. The child went in accidentally. The water of the lake, salty. So salty and so far from the sea. I think of a tale Maura told me once, about how the sea got its briny taste, wherein an enchanted quern fell into the ocean before anyone thought to command it to stop grinding salt, but that’s no help at all.
Suspicious. My uncle and Nelly. My parents’ room with all their possessions (but those missing clothes) still there, even the cases, even the hairbrushes. My uncle keeping me from the locked wing, the burned cradle; keeping me from the mine and the smelter. Lying about Nelly’s position. Never mentioning the dead child.
Robbed. And this I recognise as the most selfish thing: that the celebration was cut short. That the people of Blackwater were happy and enjoying themselves and it was all due to my efforts. They have accepted me, look to me in a way that never truly happened at Hob’s Hallow, in part because Aoife was the chatelaine, and in part because we had so few dependents there at the end. I know it’s childish, but I can’t help feeling deprived not by the mer, but by Uncle Edward.
I wait until I hear Nelly’s footsteps going past my door, then I wait a little longer and I am glad for it. There’s a light knock and no waiting for any answer. I am beneath the covers in my nightgown. I’ve left a small vial of sleeping tincture and a cup on the bedside table so anyone will think I’ve taken it to sleep. I believe they drugged me the first night I arrived with what was ostensibly a tea to calm me. I’m experienced at faking sleep, having practiced so many years when Aoife would check on me; when she had gone, I’d sneak to the library and read the book of tales by the light of a single candle. My breathing is even and deep, my lids held still by sheer willpower. Again, I wonder if all Aoife taught me was deceit.
I can sense the flicker of candlelight as someone approaches the bed. The tread is not Nelly’s nor is the hand that touches my hair, caresses my face. I smell alcohol and know it’s my uncle – but then, who else would it be? It’s all I can do to stay immobile.
He seems to remain forever, until I give a deep sigh and roll over, away from his hand. I don’t like putting my back to him, but it has the desired effect. I open my eyes a slit and see the candlelight dancing away as he retreats, no doubt to go to Nelly’s room.
I wait a little longer, then rise and dress warmly.
* * *
‘We found it weeks ago,’ Jedadiah says.
‘Two days before you arrived,’ adds Lazarus. Father and son are both kitted with stout lanterns, hung around with ropes and grappling hooks, and I wonder how far we are going to dig into the earth. I have a silver knife at my belt, one in my right boot, the other in my left, and the pocketknife in my jacket pocket. Should I be more wary of these men? I barely know them, and yet my instinct tells me I’m safer with them in the dead hours than I am in a house with Edward Elliott.
We stepped into the black mouth of the mine almost an hour ago, following the metal tracks that small carts are pushed along to carry the ore. Thick rough-hewn beams support the rock ceilin
g, seem to keep the basalt walls from bulging inwards to crush us. I can feel the weight of it all as we go deeper and I’m sweating profusely. In some places small niches have been carved and candles are set therein. Lazarus lights them as we go so we leave illumination in our wake as we tread into darkness. Other spots, there are hooks dug into the beams, and lanterns hang there pushing the blackness back. Lazarus lights them too.
‘Who found it precisely?’ They will not tell me what; they say I must see it.
‘ Vera Penhalligon. She was scavenging, wasn’t supposed to be here. You know your uncle closed the mine?’
I shake my head. ‘He told me it was simply not producing much but he had people looking for new seams, that the chief engineer was considering how best to get through to other tunnels?’
‘Chief engineer? Who’s that then? Closest we had was Timon Bleaker,’ snorts Lazarus. He’s gruff still, but less so than the first time I met him.
‘Timon died in the collapse five years ago,’ says Jedadiah.
‘Never replaced. Your father didn’t deem it necessary.’ Lazarus’s lips thin.
‘We’re here.’ Jedadiah hangs his lantern on a nail in a wooden beam, then begins to uncoil the rope from his shoulder. He threads it through a metal circle lower down on a sturdy-looking post, and goes to tie it around my waist. I step back. He looks surprised, then grins. ‘Think I’m going to drop you into a hole and leave you there?’
‘Well, it would be the ideal time.’
‘It would hardly have been worth dragging you out of the lake, would it?‘ But he nods. ‘I’ll go first. Da, you send the miss down after me.’
‘Can you trust me?’ scoffs Lazarus, then laughs. ‘That better for you, Miss Miren?’
‘It’ll do.’ I’ve got my knives and a willingness to use them if required. But these men don’t need to know that. Best if they don’t, in fact.
Jedadiah wraps the rope around his own waist and disappears over the lip into the shaft. It doesn’t take long before I hear his boots hit bottom. He shouts for the rope to be pulled up.
All the Murmuring Bones Page 24