Fear the Drowning Deep(54)
As I took a step toward the door, Morag muttered, “Wait.” She tapped her fingers against her cheek and fell silent. I was about to take another step when she said, “To put out the serpent’s eye, I used the tip of a spear. Steel. Perhaps if someone could get close enough to pierce the fossegrim’s heart with steel, it would finish him, or at least wound him.”
“And to kill the serpent, if it should rear its ugly head?”
“I don’t think that monster has a heart.” She laid a hand against her chest. “It’d have to be poison. The question is, which one would do the trick?”
“Why don’t you try, then? It attacked you. If it’s near the Isle, assuming it’s still alive after it tangled with Fynn, it’s a threat to our fishermen.”
“Fishermen? Blazes, girl, it can swallow boats whole when it’s hungry. But I can’t be the one to poison it.” Morag shook her head violently. “It’s still here, mark my words. Slithering around the Isle, waiting for me.” The lines in her face looked deeper, etched in shadow, like she’d somehow aged twenty years since I’d seen her last. “It’s come back here to take my life as payment for its eye, and it won’t leave until it gets what it wants.” She raised her chin a fraction. “I don’t intend to let it finish the job.”
“Right. Well, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go find Fynn before the fossegrim takes another victim.” As I strode to the door, my gaze fell on a tangle of string and bone. I stopped and brushed my fingers over the pile. “You’ve made more Bollan Crosses.”
“Some. I have enough twine, but I’ve only a handful of wrasse bones. I need more.” Morag’s eyes dimmed for a moment, like a wisp of cloud passing over the sun. “Take those and give them to your mam and sisters.”
I stuffed the crosses in my skirt pockets, ten in all. I paused, then pulled one out and slipped it over my head. I didn’t feel any different with it on, but Morag was so insistent that they worked, it couldn’t hurt.
She leaned across the table to grab my almost-full mug. Liquid sloshed over the sides as she drew it toward her mouth. “And I’ll make a poison for the serpent in case there’s a soul alive who’s brave enough to kill it. I’d never forgive myself if anything happened to you or your mam.” She eyed the fishbone charm now dangling from my neck with approval. “Be careful, and watch the water always. I don’t want to lose my best apprentice.”
Despite the leaden feeling in my stomach, I nodded. “I’m your only apprentice.”
“True, true.”
“Mally’s wedding is tomorrow, but I’ll be back to work after. You should come if your foot isn’t bothering you.” I waited for her reply, but none came. “If you’re not doing anything important, like making serpent poison or …” I hoped she might glance up, at least for a second, but she had returned to studying the dregs of my tea. “I’ll save you a place at the family table.”
Hoping Fynn hadn’t taken me at my word and dived where I could not follow, I opened the door to the golden afternoon.
Morag’s trembling, whispered thank you followed me.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
There was a chill to the wind as I started down the hill. I rubbed my arms and peered at the horizon. Great columns of clouds, fluffy as churned butter, yellow-white as cream, glided toward town. The clouds’ black bottoms warned of a spectacular storm to come in the evening. As I rushed homeward, I said a silent prayer for Da to hurry back from the day’s fishing.
I crossed a strawberry field that had long since gone wild, green and gold grasses swishing against my skirt. From a distance, the town looked deserted, but I narrowed my eyes and scanned the shadows for dark hair and the faded blue of Da’s old shirt.
Where could Fynn be? Still on the beach, wrestling with whether to leave? Sitting up in a tree again, where it would take hours to find him?
I darted through the dwindling afternoon market. Aside from two women stuffing skeins of colorful yarn into baskets, the square appeared to be empty. Most of the pie-sellers and fishmongers had gone home early, no doubt to guard their families as dusk fell.
I waved to the two women, though neither returned my gesture, then hurried toward Ms. Katleen’s tavern. It had been Ms. Elena’s until three years prior, when Ms. Katleen inherited the place from her mam.
With the sun slipping from the sky, fishermen would already be filling the tables, their voices loud, their cups overflowing. A fisherman seemed the most likely to have seen Fynn, either sitting on the beach or slicing through the waves.
I was steps from the tavern doors when fingers closed over my wrist.
“Let go of me!” As I attempted to twist free, I met Lugh’s dark green eyes and gasped. The hand gripping my wrist released me.
“I’m sorry.” His voice softened, and he held up his hands—surrendering to what, I wasn’t sure. Like Morag, he seemed older than when I’d last seen him, though there were no lines creasing his face. It was in the set of his shoulders and an unfamiliar hardness in his eyes. “I didn’t mean to startle you, Bridey. I just wanted to see you, and you’re a tough lass to find lately. If you aren’t running errands for the witch, you’re off somewhere with the comeover. You never stand still anymore.”