Kitabı oku: «Sea Witch», sayfa 4

Nik isn’t supposed to return from the farms until midafternoon, and while the streets will soon be alive with festival visitors, the real party doesn’t get started until suppertime, when Nik will have to judge the livestock. So I walk down Market Street and gather a late breakfast, paid for on Father’s account—fat strawberries, a stinky half-wedge of samsø, a jar of pickled herring we call slid, and a crusty loaf of rye bread so dense it could pass as a sea stone—and return to the Havnestad Cove.

It’s quiet here, just a few couples trailing along the rocks, none taking any notice of me. I remove my shoes and stockings and place them in the same spot as yesterday, and I hop between the smaller footstep islands to the big one, Picnic Rock earning its name yet again. The strong sun and calm tide has made the rock almost completely dry, so I lie on my back, face to the sky, and shut my eyes.

Though I don’t want it to, my mind shifts to Iker. He still hasn’t returned. I am already anxious, and the same panicky feeling quickly returns.

What if something’s gone wrong?

What if the steam stack exploded?

What if the whale crashed into the ship’s hull upon capture?

Am I at fault?

I know I’m being ridiculous, but worst of all, we would never know. All of us are here, for once our eyes inward instead of turned to the sea.

That sends my mind into a downward spiral about Father, and then suddenly a shadow falls across the backs of my eyelids, the direct sun blotted out by a passing cloud. It’s as if the weather worries too—

“Excuse me, miss?”

That voice.

My eyes pop open, searching for the face of a friend who I know in my heart is long gone.

But there, leaning over me, is the girl.

The girl from the porthole.

The one who rescued Nik.

Yet that can’t be right, either. I really am losing my senses today.

I sit up and rapidly blink my eyes in the sun, but when they refocus, the same girl remains. She shifts back, long blond hair swinging.

Her face is like the singsong of her voice—so much like Anna’s, but more mature. The smattering of freckles around her nose is familiar too. She wears a gown that’s nicer than all of mine put together, and her shoes shine with new leather.

Shoes. Feet. No fin—she can’t be what I saw. My stomach sinks, but I don’t know why.

“This is quite embarrassing, but . . .” The girl’s eyes fall to the strawberry in my hand. “I haven’t eaten in more than a day.”

I’m so stunned, I just hand over the strawberry. She isn’t ready for it and bobbles it in her fingertips before taking a bite. I shove my whole meal toward her.

Anna loved cheese and fruit.

“Oh, no, you don’t have to, I—”

“I insist,” I say, and I’m surprised that’s what comes out because there are so many other words on my tongue. So many questions. But I’m almost terrified to ask them because I know what word will fall out—Anna.

The girl eats, and I try to figure out what to say next.

Did you save Nik?

Were you a mermaid?

Are you Anna?

Don’t you remember me?

All would make me run if I were her. So, as she chews a hunk of rye bread, I open the jar of slid.

“Do you feel better?” I ask.

“Yes, much. Thank you. I’m so sorry. I’m done.”

I shake my head and tilt the open jar toward her, the little herring bobbing in their brine. “Eat, please.”

She sees the fish and recoils, waving her hands in front of her face. I pull out a herring and eat it myself, yanking the bones out by the tail before discarding them into the cove. She looks at me as if I’ve just bitten off her ear.

I used to do the same thing to Anna. She didn’t like slid either. I smile, but on the inside, the sadness is suffocating. I have to stop looking for the dead in the living.

“Are you sure you aren’t still hungry?” I try. “There’s more cheese.”

“No. I’ll be fine.” A sob swallows the word fine. Her brow furrows and the skin under her lashes reddens; there are no tears, but she looks exactly like she should be weeping.

My hand flies to her shoulder to comfort her. When the girl catches her breath, she begins talking again, her voice almost a whisper. She doesn’t seem to mind me touching her. “I ran away from home.”

“Oh, Anna—”

The girl’s eyes fly to mine. “Annemette. How’d you—”

“I didn’t . . . I just . . . you remind me of someone I used to know.”

She coughs out a sob-laugh. “I wish I were that girl.”

“No you don’t,” I say quickly as this girl—Annemette—wipes her nose.

“Was her father a liar? Weaving tales about where he’s been and what he’s done, selling off all our livestock and not bringing a coin home?”

I shake my head because I don’t know what to say.

“I’ve had to sell half our fine things to pay his debt and put food on the table. I couldn’t take it anymore. I took off running over Lille Bjerg a day ago.”

Her words are off. They seem forced. I can’t help it—I stare at her face. I’ve seen thousands of faces since Anna failed to surface, but I’ve never seen one so similar. Never heard a voice with the same timbre. If I hadn’t touched her, if this girl weren’t clearly made of flesh and bone, I’d think she was a ghost.

She scrubs her face with her hands, nails clean and shaped. Her eyes blink open and then she takes my hands. “I’m terrible. Here I am, barging in on your breakfast, stealing your food, dumping my problems in your lap, and yet I haven’t even asked your name.”

“It’s Evie,” I reply.

“Evie,” she repeats, testing my name out on her tongue. “British?”

“Evelyn, yes. My mother fell in love with the name in Brighton.”

“I can see why.” Annemette smiles, her teeth clean and straight, like that of a princess or a dairymaid.

I tell myself again that she’s not Anna. She’s not even the girl from the porthole or the beach or anywhere else. She’s a farm girl from the other side of the pass. My cheeks grow hot. Annemette squeezes my hands. “Thank you for your generosity, Evie—it’s a gift. Truly.” Her eyes sting red again and her lip trembles. “I doubt I’ll be so lucky again.”

I don’t know what to do with this openness. This odd feeling blooming in my stomach. “You really have nothing and nowhere to go?”

Annemette waves her hands across her body. “Only my clothes and my pride.”

I can’t explain this girl or my feelings or why I have the need to believe her, but I do. And I want to help. “Come with me.”

9

THE LITTLE HOUSE THAT MY FATHER BUILT ISN’T THAT far from Havnestad Cove—it’s practically waterside itself, the cottage at the end of a lane in the shadow of Øldenburg Castle. It backs up to a thatch of trees that buffer it from a rocky cliff jutting out into the sea.

“It’s so quaint,” Annemette says.

“It’s home,” I answer, and push through the front door. It’s been a long time since I’ve introduced someone to our tiny cottage. When I was little, we’d often take in children while their parents were away at sea. But that stopped after Mother died.

At the hearth, Tante Hansa is stirring something—by the smell of it, most likely the ham-and-pea concoction she brings to every Lithasblot to place beside the roast hog we have on the second day of the festival. Because “there can never be enough swine in this sodden fish market.” Hansa’s back is turned, and I feel the need to announce that we have company—it’s never safe for a witch to have no warning.

“Tante Hansa, I’d like you to meet my new friend.”

Hansa wipes her hands, and I know by the set of her shoulders she was stirring the soup without a spoon. Domestic spells aren’t spectacular, but they’re her favorites because she’d never planned on having a family of her own—and Father and I are more work than she’d like to admit.

When she turns, her face is pulled up in a smile, clear blue eyes flashing with the delight of catching me at something remotely unusual. Hansa is my mother’s older sister by almost two decades, the time between them filled with brothers who lost their lives to the sea’s moods much too young. She is as old as the grief of burying all her siblings suggests. But I have never been able to put anything past her.

Which means her reaction to Annemette is the same as mine. Only she actually says what she’s thinking.

“Why, Anna, returned from the deep, have we?”

Annemette’s mouth drops open as if she’s lost her tongue, her jovial attitude gone as well.

“Annemette, Tante,” I correct. “She’s from the valley. A farm.”

Hansa takes a step forward and raises a brow—quite the feat given the blood-drawing tightness of her hairdo.

“Is that so?” Hansa looks her up and down. “Those hands haven’t seen a day of hard work in all your years. That fair face hasn’t seen the sun. And that dress is worth more than the best cow in the valley.” She takes a step forward and grabs Annemette’s smooth hand. “Who are you really?”

“Tante, please, leave her be, she’s had a rough trip—”

“Hush. You only see what you want to see.” She turns back to Annemette, staring at the girl as if she could bend her will as easily as she tamed the soup. “So, again I ask—who are you really?”

Annemette’s eyes have gone red around the rims again, but she doesn’t cry. If anything, there’s an edge of defiance in the cut of them. Like she’s accepted Hansa’s dare for what it is. But when she speaks, she says the last thing I’d expect.

“Your soup is boiling.”

But the soup is more than boiling. The pea-green liquid hisses as it rolls in violent, unnatural waves over the iron pot’s rim.

“Ah!” Hansa cackles. “I’ve seen your type before.”

I’m stunned. Her type? Is Annemette a witch?

I stare at her.

Another witch. My age. Next to me.

Of all the things I can’t believe about Annemette, this might be the most unfathomable.

Something cracks open in my chest as the secret we’ve held so tightly as a family flies into the soupy air. I stare at this face so familiar and yet so strange, and my mind whirls. Anna was not a witch, but Annemette certainly is.

Annemette nods, and the liquid returns to a gentle simmer.

My aunt’s spotted hands grasp Annemette’s again, but this time there’s a funny light in her eyes, all her skepticism gone. “Evie, child, you’ve made quite an interesting friend indeed.”

It’s a long while before Tante Hansa allows us to escape, having thoroughly quizzed Annemette on her family. In the funny way of things, we both claim lineage to the town of Ribe and Denmark’s most famous witch, Maren Spliid. Tied to a ladder and thrown into a fire by King Christian IV 220 years ago, she became as much a lesson as a legend. Her talent was inspiring, but ultimately her audacity was her undoing. Her death and so many others under the witch-hunter king scattered Denmark’s witches like ashes in the wind. And our kind never recovered—our covens fractured, magic kept to families and never shared.

Given the time and distance, it shouldn’t be a surprise that there’s more than one magical family in Havnestad related to Ribe and Maren, yet I still can’t believe it. We’ve been alone for so long.

After Hansa is finally satisfied with her family tree, Annemette and I head outside. We walk into the woods behind the cottage, where we’re shaded from every angle, including from Øldenburg Castle and its sweeping views, and start to pick our way down toward the sea.

The ground is covered in gnarled roots and branches, a danger for anyone not looking where they’re going. But I know this steep path better than anyone, and I use this moment to steal another glance at Annemette. Her family may be from elsewhere, but her face still belongs here.

Anna did not have any magic in her blood, at least as far as I know. She had two “common” parents and a grandmother who loved her more than the sun. Her parents left shortly after Anna’s funeral. Took their titles and moved to the Jutland—miles and miles from this place and the daughter they lost. Her grandmother is still here, but she’s gone senile with grief, the loss of her family too much for her mind. I see her at the bakeshop sometimes, and she calls every person there Anna. Even me.

“What?” Annemette says, catching me looking as we pass between twin trees, slick with sap.

I can’t tell her what I’m thinking, but I do have questions for her. “It’s just . . . how did you know we were witches? If you’d been wrong, we could’ve reported you. You could’ve been banished.”

She dips her head to avoid a branch. “I could just feel it.”

Like Tante Hansa did.

“I must not be much of a witch,” I say. “I couldn’t tell. I mean, now my blood won’t stop singing, but an hour ago? No.” There’s so much I don’t know about the magic in my bones.

“I’m sure you’re a fine witch, Evie.”

It’s a nice thing to say, I suppose, but not necessarily true. Tante Hansa teaches me only the most mundane of spells. But I read her books and Mother’s books, and I know there is so much more. With a few words and her will, Annemette brought out all that possibility into the open.

“How did you do that? The soup, I mean.”

Annemette just shrugs and hooks a hand on a tree, swinging around it like a maypole ribbon. “It was just an animation spell,” she says as if impressing Tante Hansa was nothing.

The ease, the comfort, the understanding she has about her magic makes my blood tingle with envy. It’s so much of what I want. It took me months of studying and toying to create the spell to combat the Tørhed and even then, I’m not sure it actually works. My evidence is only anecdotal, and Fru Seraphine has taught me better than to use anecdotes as true measures of success.

In a few more steps we reach the sliver of rocky beach blind to Havnestad Cove, my own shortcut to Greta’s Lagoon. I try to calm my heart from beating so loudly, but I’ve never gone to the lagoon in daylight and I’m nervous. I steal a glance up the beach. It’s deserted as far as I can see, everyone off preparing for tonight’s festivities.

“Careful,” I say as we reach the end of the beach and the two large rocks. “The water is deep here.”

I take off my stockings and shoes and wade in. As I reach the sand, I turn around, but she’s still standing by the rocks. “Here,” I say, wading back out and extending my arm. “Take my hand. I’ll help you.”

With tentative steps, she walks forward and grasps my hand tight. I smile at her. “Come on. It’s okay.”

Once we’re in the right spot, I push aside the small boulders that obscure the entrance and steer her inside. Although it’s daylight, the cave is still steeped in shadows. I light a candle. Various mundane tools hang from juts on the wall, and on the floor, oysters sweat in a bucket—my latest failure. On a ledge in the rock wall are my tinctures, bottles full of octopus and squid ink, jellyfish poison, and powdered crab shells.

“You’ve made a lair.”

I laugh. “‘Secret workshop’ might be a more accurate term.”

“Oh no, this is a lair.” Annemette’s hands move automatically to the ledge. She holds each bottle up to the light, admiring the slosh or swoosh of the contents.

Her boot nudges the oyster bucket. “And what are your plans for these little fellas?” She scoops one up and holds it in her hand as if it’s a baby bird and not an endless source of frustration for me.

“They’re barren, but I’d hoped to spell them into producing pearls to be crushed for—” Annemette stops me cold with a wave of her hand. She mumbles something I don’t understand under her breath, her eyes intent on the oyster in her palms.

Within moments, the oyster swells to a pink as vibrant as the sunset and springs open. Inside is the most gorgeous pearl, perfectly round with an opalescent shimmer.

“It’s beautiful,” I say, though the word doesn’t do it justice. It’s otherworldly, unnatural. I want to touch it, but I’m frightened of it all the same. It seems . . . alive.

Annemette’s grin grows mischievous. “Too beautiful to crush, I think.” With a simple Old Norse command—“Fljóta”—she sets the pearl afloat over her palm. Then, without saying a word, she commands a few lengths of thread—repurposed and therefore unspooled—from the nails on the wall. Next, she covers the thread and pearl with both hands, shielding from me the magic she’s clearly working with her mind, her eyes set on her work. Seconds later, her hands part to reveal a perfect pearl necklace.

“Turn around and pull up your hair,” she says.

I do as she says and she draws the thread around my neck, draping it so that the pearl lies at the base of my throat. I don’t own any real jewelry and have never even tried any on, save for my mother’s wedding band—Father keeps it tucked away in a little chest, along with letters and drawings and other tokens from their life together.

I touch the pearl and look up at her, but she is busy working on another oyster and more string. After a few moments, Annemette ties her own pearl necklace around her throat.

“And now we match,” she says.

My throat catches. I remember Anna saying those words to me that time we made necklaces from wooden beads the tailor was giving away. They were crude and childlike, yet still special. We promised to never take them off, but I couldn’t bear to look at mine once Anna was gone. It’s now in a small box underneath my bed.

I force a smile at Annemette. My pearl sits in cool repose against my neck, pulsing with vigor. It’s a curious feeling that is not altogether pleasant, and I wonder if the pearl will always beat like this. Oddly, I find myself hoping that it will.

“Can you teach me?” I ask, the words spilling from my lips.

“What is there to teach? You’re a witch, aren’t you?”

“I . . . Tante Hansa hasn’t taught me anything like that. Everything I know is like a recipe to make cheese—fail one segment and the whole thing falls to curd.”

Annemette scrunches her nose. “It shouldn’t be that hard.” She picks up an oyster. “Here. Try. Fljóta.”

Annemette sees the reluctance cross my face and tilts her head. “It’s just a command. Say it with confidence and you’ll have the magic do the work.”