Sea Witch(48)

Please Nik, just kiss her.

I don’t want it to, but her voice takes me back to that day Anna drowned, the song we were singing before we dove into the sea. Fru Liesel’s words play in my mind: Bad things follow her. Black death. Minnows . . . No. I stop myself from falling deeper into that hole. I’ve come too far from that day to take the blame for it and everything that followed. I have enough to live with.

I shift my attention back to Iker. He’s talking about our whaling trip. The cities we’ll dock in; the sea life we’ll catch. Apparently, I haven’t been the only one fantasizing.

“What do you think?” he says, his hand tilting my chin so our eyes meet.

“What’s that?” I ask.

“Hirsholmene or Voers? Havn?”

“Oh, whichever you think best,” I say.

“Where are you, Evie? Don’t you want this?” The vulnerability in his voice is a shock, but strangely comforting to hear.

“Of course I do!” I say, and I mean it. “I’m just thinking of how to tell Father and Tante. You know how they can be.”

“Tell them a prince wants to sweep you away. That should suffice.” Iker’s lips lower until they hover a breath from mine.

“If only,” I whisper. He closes the distance and I sink into him, all of him. The pad of his thumb runs the length of my cheekbone and he shifts again until both hands are holding my face to his, our breath mingling and eyes closed to anything but this kiss.

Annemette falls into bed in a shower of blond waves. Flecks of sand fall too, bouncing mildly into the air, just forceful enough that I can see them leap and settle in the candlelight as I shake the beach out of my own curls at the vanity table. But something is off. Her eyes are red and her face has gone pale.

“What’s wrong?” I ask. “We left when things grew quiet on your side. I thought maybe . . .”

Her shoes are off, her hands running the length of her feet, her face wincing in pain.

“Can I get you anything? Is there a spell that can ease the burning? I may have found something in Hansa’s book. Here, I’ll show you—”

But when Annemette looks up, I can see that her feet are not what truly pains her.

“I’ve failed, Evie. I’m going to fail. I know it!”

I swallow hard, because deep down inside, down in the snake pit of my belly, I fear that I know it too. I’ve been carrying it with me all day. “But there’s still tomorrow,” I offer, holding out hope. “You can’t give up, Mette.”

But she shakes her head, almost as if I’ve made it worse with my insistence.

“We’re not supposed to come to land. I should never have done this! How could I have been so stupid?”

I start to cry, the tears pouring from my eyes. I hold my throat tight so the maids won’t hear my sobs. I look up at her—a lost expression on her face, her eyes puffy and dry. And suddenly I realize that she can’t cry.

No soul. No tears. No way to truly feel. How is that a way to live?

But if we don’t succeed, she won’t live at all. And time is running out.

One day left.





FOUR YEARS BEFORE


The one who survived was starting to feel as if she had life left in her.

Most of that was thanks to the boy dragging her out into the sun, to school, up into the mountains.

But there was more to the change of things.

Time. People. Herself.

Winter was at the door, the whaling season at an end, her father home for good, drinking coffee and reading in his chair. They would talk sailing, the young survivor’s head spinning with ways to make it easier, ways to make next year more prosperous. Ways for her future self to be successful on her own ship in her own time, far away from the memories of this place.

She spent time with her tante too, soaking up every bit of magical knowledge the old woman thought to share, and stealing any she didn’t—tiptoeing into her room and taking one book at a time from her well-worn chest. The lessons could not come fast enough for all she wanted to know about what she would eventually be able to do.

Sometimes she found herself staring at her hands, wishing, as she had that awful day, that she could’ve saved her lost friend with magic. The failure still ate away at her.

Still, even with Havnestad’s archaic rules against magic—set in place by the same generation of ?ldenburgs who’d sent witches fleeing from Ribe more than two hundred years before—the survivor felt it necessary to arm herself so that she would never feel so helpless again.

She knew that with power, the bravery to act would come. The right magic would come at the right time.

And so she read all she could. Begged her aunt for more lessons, more spells. That winter and beyond, her magical education deepened anew, propelled by a desire not just to know herself and her power but what she could do.

The girl even tried to find her mother’s words and the history behind them. Digging through the chests for books her father had put away for years. Her tante eventually found out about them and added them to her extensive collection of magical tomes. And then the girl stole them back, one at a time, their dusty covers warped enough that they could easily be hidden within the wrinkles of her sickbed sheets.

And so she studied. And at night, she practiced quick spells with her tante as they made dinner. And then, cozied before a roaring fire, she listened to tales at her father’s feet.