Fear the Drowning Deep(43)
Fynn shook his head, refusing to stop until the shadows of houses blanketed us. He set me gently down and doubled over, panting.
“Why didn’t you turn back?” I collapsed in the grass, comforted by the firmness of the ground.
“We’re not ready,” Fynn said with a groan. “For one thing, how can we fight it if we have to keep our hands over our ears? And for another, we don’t know if it can be killed like an ordinary beast.” He turned, glancing toward the sea. A red stain blossomed along his side. “I thought the monster only came out after dusk. I never would have asked you to stay out for so long if I’d known this might happen.” He made a fist. “On second thought, I should go see if a good beating will finish that thing off right now. I almost lost you.”
“But you didn’t. And we need to get you home.” I reached for his hand with my shaking one, and he stilled, his eyes widening with pain as his rush of adrenaline finally ebbed away. In the process of saving my life, he’d reopened his nasty wounds.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Fynn draped an arm around my shoulders, allowing me to carry some of his weight, just as he’d done when I found him on the beach. Dusk fell around us as we struggled toward home, another ten or twelve houses up the lane.
More red stained his shirt with each passing moment, and it didn’t take us long to attract the attention of the few curious neighbors who weren’t yet snug in their homes.
“What happened to him?” Mrs. Kissack called, her words echoed by Mrs. Kinry. The two women stood in the Kinrys’ yard, no doubt having a suppertime visit. I wished they would stop gawking and offer to help.
“I’ll tell someone to send for a doctor,” a young lad across the lane offered, dashing away before I could stammer out a thank you.
“What happened?” Mrs. Kissack demanded again shrilly, her hand fluttering at her throat. “Who attacked you? Speak, lad!” She glanced from pale, shaky Fynn to me with wide eyes. “Bridey?”
My head and heart pounded. I’d almost leapt off a cliff, enchanted by a monster’s melody. Between the unabashed stares of Mrs. Kissack and her friend, and Fynn bleeding and gasping beside me, I was too shaken to carefully weigh my words.
“There was something in the sea—the beast that took my grandad. It almost got me, too.”
Someone gave a derisive cough, and my skin prickled. I longed to bury my words forever like the sea swallows a lost ship.
Mrs. Kissack threw me a pitying look I knew too well—the one she usually reserved for the very old and very daft. “You might want to reconsider your story before the doctor shows up, dear. He’ll need the facts to determine proper treatment.”
As if proving her right—though I knew he couldn’t help it—Fynn groaned, leaning harder on me, like his legs might soon give out.
“She’s madder than the witch on the hill,” Mrs. Kinry murmured from behind her handkerchief. “Mad as her grandfather who jumped off that cliff.”
“It’s not her fault!” Mrs. Kissack snapped at her friend as Fynn and I resumed our struggle toward home. These neighbors of ours wouldn’t be any help. “It seems Morag Maddrell has addled her brains. It’s exactly what I knew would happen if she kept the witch’s company. I told her mother as much just the other day, when I saw her at …”
I started humming, trying to block out their voices as I guided Fynn farther away. “We’ll be home soon,” I whispered.
“We should pray for her!” Mrs. Kinry’s booming voice chased us up the lane.
“I made a mistake.” Memories of the town’s merciless stares and whispers flooded my mind, echoes of the last time I’d tried to tell what had happened to Grandad. If I hadn’t been so shaken, I never would have let those words pass my lips today. “A terrible mistake.”
Fynn grunted to show he’d heard. His half-lidded eyes and the sweat beading on his forehead made me all the more desperate to get him safely home.
Mam met me at the door, taking the burden of Fynn’s weight and shouting for Mally.
Time seemed to slow, as though I were moving through a dream. I fetched clean rags, then put water on to boil in the kitchen.
Fynn had saved my life today, yet I was powerless to help him in return. I leaned against the sink, taking deep breaths, trying to fight off the shakiness that hadn’t left me since I was nearly lured over the cliffs. The salt air blowing through the open window cooled my flushed face as I listened to Fynn’s ragged breaths from the next room, but the murmur of the sea trickling in with the breeze sounded too much like laughter.
I slammed the window shut.
There was nothing to do now but pace the kitchen, fetch supplies for Mally when she called for them, and hope the lad who’d run off to send for help was as good as his word. Even so, it would take hours to find a doctor and bring him here.
“I think the bleeding’s stopped again.” Mally’s voice was faint and uncertain.
Wringing my hands, I tracked the moon’s journey across the sky, trying to ignore the feeling of a massive fist squeezing my chest every time Fynn made the slightest noise. My stubborn eyelids were growing heavy, but until I knew he was out of danger, I would fight the haze of sleep and keep my vigil with the moon and stars.
Someone pounded on the door.