“SO, DO YOU REALLY THINK you’ve been attacked by the malamander, Mrs F?” I say, settling down on an upturned fishing crate beside her.
“Oh, Herbie, I really don’t know,” says Mrs Fossil, wincing as she tries to move her bandaged arm. “I always said I believed in the old stories, but honestly, I was just saying that to amuse people. You know, the tourists we get in the summer? This is our Loch Ness Monster, after all. They come in the shop and ask if I’ve seen anything. So of course I tell them yes – glimpses in the sea mist, that sort of thing. It makes them more inclined to buy something. I never actually took the legend that seriously. But now…”
“What is the malamander legend, exactly?” says Vi. “I mean, the one everyone knows. The one the tourists ask you about.”
“Oh, there are lots of different stories about it, going way back,” says Mrs F. “It’s a monstrous creature – half man, half fish, half goodness-knows-what – that has haunted these misty shores since before ever a town was built on Eerie Rock. They say it can sometimes be glimpsed as midwinter approaches, as it searches for somewhere to lay its magical egg.”
“Magical egg?” Vi says. “What kind of magical egg?”
“Oh, the grants-you-your-dearest-wish kind.” Mrs F chuckles, with a return to her usual cheerfulness. “The whole makes-your-dreams-come-true shebang! But of course, you only get that if you can take the egg. And to take the egg, you have to defeat the malamander.”
“Which no one can do,” I throw in, remembering the first time I heard the tales too. “On account of its hideous spikes and steely scales and it being, you know, a monster.”
“So what happens to it then? The egg?”
“The creature devours it,” says Mrs Fossil. “As the sun rises the next day, when its mate never comes, it eats up that egg and slinks back into the deep for another year.”
“But have people tried to take it?” says Vi, after a thoughtful pause. “I mean, in the stories. Have people tried to steal this amazing wishing egg?”
“Oh, endlessly!” Mrs Fossil chuckles again. “Heroes galore in the legends. Every single one of them –” she rolls her eyes and waggles the fingers of her good hand in a way she probably thinks is spooky – “gobbled up by the beastie!”
Violet doesn’t smile.
“Anyway,” Mrs Fossil continues, “the tourists love it. Gives them something to look out for when the mists come in and they try a bit of beachcombing for themselves. Everyone loves a good story.”
“But you’d never actually seen anything yourself?” Vi asks. “Before yesterday?”
“Oh, I wouldn’t go that far. You don’t spend hours on the foreshore in all weathers without having strange experiences. Or hearing strange sounds. Those mists in particular can addle your senses, make close things seem far away and faraway things seem…”
“Close enough to nearly bite your hand off?” I say, finishing the sentence for her.
Mrs F grimaces, and begins to look exhausted. “I really don’t know what I saw, my dears. And that’s the truth of it.”
“There could be a plain and everyday explanation for it all, I suppose,” says Vi. But she doesn’t sound too sure. She glances again at the door through which Dr Thalassi just left.
“Is sea glass valuable?” she adds, turning back to Mrs F. “I mean, more valuable than a genuine dinosaur bone?”
“Oh, don’t mind old Thalassi,” says Mrs Fossil, managing a weak smile. “He’d never admit it, but his museum and my shop are more or less the same thing. He’ll have that old lump of red glass on a pedestal by the end of the day. With a fancy label on it, no doubt. You should go along there and see for yourself.”
We leave Mrs Fossil to her shop and her bandages and head back out into the narrow street. It’s midday, and almost sunny, but there’s still a hard nip in the air, and I want to get back to my cubbyhole. Violet, however, isn’t having any of it.
“I won’t find answers there,” she says. “I think we need to go back to the beach.”
“You’re not scared?” I say. “After yesterday?”
“There’s no mist today,” says Vi. “Why, are you scared?”
“Of course not.” I straighten my cap nervously. “Not a bit.”
“Then let’s get down there,” says Vi, pulling her coat close around her and leading the way.
“I was surprised you asked so many questions about the legend,” I say, running to keep up. “Back in Mrs Fossil’s shop. I thought you were reading about it in the book the mermonkey gave you.”
“Herbie,” says Vi, coming to a halt, “have you ever read that book?”
“Um,” I say, fiddling with my buttons, “not in so many words…”
“So you haven’t read the description of the magic egg?” says Vi. “The malamander egg that can grant wishes?”
“Er…”
“So you don’t actually know what it looks like?”
“Does it…?” I squint, scratching my head beneath my cap. “Does it look like an egg?”
Violet is unimpressed. She turns and marches off towards the beach with me flapping along behind.
We come out through an old stone archway onto the sea wall, which in this part of town is actually fortified ramparts. Ahead of us the beach stretches away for miles, the tide low and the sea only a distant murmur. Directly below us are the spindly tall fishermen’s sheds – black-painted, with seagull-dropping roofs. Reaching up between them are the spikes of stone that jut from the sand like giant teeth, giving them their name: Maw Rocks.
Violet leans out over the wall, and takes a deep breath of freezing sea air. Then she turns to me.
“It’s not just an egg, Herbie. Like the kind you can make an omelette with. The malamander egg is described in the book as being a wondrous ruby red. Red, Herbie! With a glow inside like fire. A red, glowing egg made of something like crystal.”
“You mean…?” I say. “Like the thing Mrs Fossil was picking up when she was attacked?”
“Exactly,” says Vi. “Like the thing your Dr Thalassi has just taken away in his pocket.”
