Sea Witch(11)

After nearly three months of practice, I spelled Father’s boat for the first time.

Three days after that, he came home with his first whale in more than two years. It was thin, but fat enough for all the joy that came with it.

Now the spell is a must.

The need to keep Father safe and prosperous is thick in my veins each morning when I wake, jamming my heart with anxiety until I can do my job. My part.

Even when I’ve done my duty and he’s away for days, I come to the harbor and spell any ship docked and still. The fishermen are used to seeing me daily now. They don’t seem to find it strange that I’m always there, letting my closed palm trail along the salt-worn bodies of ships, old and trusty.

And today is the day I begin to do more. Along with what I cannot claim, I have been working away on something I can. Something all of Havnestad will recognize as helpful and not some fate of Urda.

“Evie, my girl!” Father is hauling a crate up to the deck of his whaler—Little Greta, also named for my mother. There isn’t a single crate of supplies left on the dock beside the ship. I’ve only just caught him. “I wasn’t sure you’d come.”

I laugh lightly, fingers tight over the gem in my palm. “Just because I want you to stay doesn’t mean I’ll miss you going.”

Father’s mouth settles into a tart line, the sun spots marring his forehead crinkling up to his black hair—he’s Italian by birth, though he’s Danish through and through.

We walk up the gangplank together. He drops the crate two feet from the innovation I know will make these desolate seas that much easier to fish—a permanent cure my magic cannot provide. Mounted proudly to the mainmast, half-harpoon, half-rifle, my darting gun looks as shiny and perfect as I’d hoped.

Father hugs me close. “My Evelyn, the inventor.”

“It was nothing,” I say, though we both know that’s not true. It took me the whole winter to create one from an old rifle and modified harpoon, but if my calculations are correct, the contraption will send out both a bomb lance and a tether harpoon, narrowing the chances of a whale escaping. If all goes well with Father’s maiden voyage, we might be able to transform the way Havnestad snags its whales.

“It’s not nothing. It’ll be a revolution.”

I tilt my face up to his, brow raised. “It’ll still be a revolution if you wait a week.”

Father bristles at the sore spot between us. He’s not the only fisherman headed out during the festival, though far more are staying than leaving, bolstered by their recent luck—my recent help. But he’s the only one I care about. And, as the royal fisherman, he’s the only one King Asger cares about as well.

“There will be other Lithasblot festivals, Evelyn. If you’ve been pelted with bread once, you’ve been pelted with bread a thousandfold.”

“But—”

He cuts me off with rough fingers on the point of my chin.

“But nothing. I have to seize my luck while it’s there.” Father’s grizzled old thumb settles on my bottom lip. “I’ll return for the close of the festival—the ball.”

Despite my disappointment at yet another good-bye, I form a tight smile after his words. “If you’ve seen me once in my only nice dress, you’ve seen me a thousandfold.”

He leans in and gives me a quick kiss on the cheek, his beard both soft and rough against my skin.

“Take care of Hansa, my dear.”

I hug him to my chest, the cloying scent of pipe tobacco catching in my lungs.

“If only she’d allow such a thing, I would.”

He releases me with a single squeeze of my forearm. I turn for the gangplank, one last look at both him and my first stab at whaling innovation. When I’m back on the sun-ruined wood of the dock, Father yells for his men to hoist up the gangplank and anchor.

Before he’s gone, and with the sailors distracted by departure duties, I take my chance and press my little stone to the ship, right under my mother’s name, painted in block letters across the stern. My eyes flutter to a close, and I whisper my spell into the breeze coming in off the ?resund Strait.





6


IT’S A PERFECT NIGHT FOR BURNING WITCHES.

That’s what Sankt Hans Aften is, after all. A celebration in the name of ridding people like me from this earth through flames, drowning, banishment—whatever seemed right at the time.

Today, thankfully, witches are only burned in effigy. It’s the traditional opening of Havnestad’s version of Lithasblot. Ours is the earliest in the ?resund Strait, but we’re also the longest festival, five whole days, drawing people from all around to watch the games, sing songs in celebration of Urda, and taste plates of tv?st og spik: black whale meat, pink blubber, and sunny potatoes. Even through the T?rhed, the people of Havnestad have always been willing to sacrifice their limited food supply to honor the goddess.

As the bonfire grows hot, shooting tendrils of flames high into the salmon-toned sky, the festival is ready to begin. First is King Asger’s speech of love and gamesmanship.

Now Nik’s speech of love and gamesmanship.

For on the night of that treacherous storm, Nik, thankfully, still came of age. And as tradition demands, he must take the reins of the festival—near-drowning is not an excuse.

Thus, since regaining most of his strength, he’s been shut away, pacing the halls of the palace with his father’s words on his lips. I’ve heard him run through it twice—before his birthday and after, and both times he was excellent, if not a hair too fast. Still, that’s just because this is new to him. I know he’ll be amazing.