CHAPTER ELEVEN

No one smiled or waved as I crossed the nearly deserted market square on my way to Morag’s. The few folk not at Cat’s house or mulling things over by the comfort of their own hearths went about their business with bowed heads, some casting anxious glances over their shoulder as they tended their gardens or swept their steps.

“Poor little Alis. The search party hasn’t found a thing, and not for lack of trying,” Mr. Cretney remarked to his wife as they repaired a broken shutter.

“But who could be behind all these disappearances? Not any of my neighbors, surely!” Mrs. Cretney dropped a handful of nails as I hurried past. “Do you think the old witch has finally figured out how to work a curse on this town?”

I pressed my lips together and looked away.

“I haven’t a clue, dear,” said Mr. Cretney.

I pointed toward the cliffs, though I doubted either of them would understand that no signs of Alis or Eveleen or Nessa had been found because they’d been taken somewhere unreachable. Nothing kept secrets like the sea.

Ms. Elena’s words drifted back. Don’t be a victim, Bridey Corkill. I didn’t intend to be. With any luck, Morag would know something to aid in my search for the town’s monster, whatever it was.

As I ran to the witch’s house, the bright sky and twittering birds seemed to mock me. The sky should have looked thunderous, the birds silent out of respect for our sorrow.

“Morag!” I leaned against the weathered wood of the cottage, panting. “Mor—”

The door swung open, and I made a wild grab for the frame to keep my balance. Morag raised her brows as she put a gnarled hand on my shoulder to steady me. In her other hand a spoon dripped with sticky-sweet batter.

“I wasn’t expecting you today, Apprentice Bridey,” she grumbled, stepping aside to let me in. “Though I should know by now that you rarely turn up when you’re expected.”

“There’s something terrible happening in town.” I took a few deep breaths and sank gratefully into a chair at Morag’s table.

“Is there?” Morag hobbled to the kitchen and began fixing tea.

“Remember the two girls who went missing?” I hesitated, wondering how to explain about Alis without my eyes leaking worse than Morag’s rusty water pump. “Another vanished last night.” I dug my nails into my palms to stop myself from losing my nerve. “And around that time, I saw something in the water that looked like a ghost. And I’ve seen other things, too. Something dark and scaly, the night of the big crash.”

Morag kept her back to me as she poured the tea. Boiling water shot over the side of the first mug.

“How does any of that concern me?” she asked at last.

“I thought you could tell me about monsters. Being a witch and all. You swore to me they exist.”

“And you laughed,” Morag said shortly. “I didn’t think you believed me.”

“I thought you were teasing me.” I bowed my head. “I’m sorry. But I’m not laughing now, and I need your help. Do you have a spell to get rid of them?”

Morag finally turned, a grim but determined light in her eyes. “I’m sorry to disappoint you, lass, but the only magic I possess is in herbs and charms.” She shuffled to a stack of rubbish and picked up the battered book she’d shown me before. “Here. This will tell you far more than I can.” She thrust the book into my arms. It was heavy as a toddler, and the motion sent a wave of dust and mold into my face. “Keep it for as long as you need.”

“But—” I sneezed, and set the book on the table to examine its tatty cover. “By the time I read all this nonsense, who knows how many more of my friends will have disappeared?” Morag still wouldn’t look at me. “A little girl went missing last night. She was seven. Seven. She liked cake and horses and spending time with my sister.”

“I’m sorry,” Morag grunted, returning to her kitchen. She started mopping the spilled water. “But I can’t help you, and even if I could, why would I bother aiding a town that mocked and abandoned me?” Her eyes flashed. “Take that book and go now.”

“If you know anything, please—”

“There are monsters in the sea, that’s the extent of my knowledge. All I will do”—Morag paused, breathing hard—“all I can do, if it will get you to drop the matter, is make more Bollan Crosses so none of your wretched friends drown.”

I scowled at her. “Morag, please! Whatever I saw last night, I think it’s the same thing I thought I saw when Grandad jumped.”

“Go now,” Morag repeated, gentler this time. Still, there was something behind the words. Not a threat, but maybe tears. “Go. Now. And never ask me again about any of this.”

“Fine,” I huffed. It was plain there was nothing I could do or say to convince her. I reluctantly grabbed the heavy tome off the table and sprinted out the door, not slowing until I came within sight of home.

Fynn was reclining on the sofa when I stormed into the house. It seemed everyone else was still at the Stowells’.

“You left early?”

“Same as you,” Fynn said groggily, sitting up. “I was tired of all the questions about why no one was looking for me, and how a tourist could be clumsy enough to fall off a boat on the calm ride here. What’s that?” He pointed at Morag’s book.

“Just a stupid, useless old thing.” I tossed it into a corner, where it landed with a bang. “Morag isn’t going to be of any help.” Only my tremendous love of books stopped me from kicking the moldy tome. “How can she not care if every one of us walks off the cliffs in the night?”

Strong hands fell on my shoulders, holding me captive in the shadows. I turned to Fynn, and a wild fluttering replaced my rage.

“Relax, Bridey. I won’t let anything happen to you—any of you.”

“You can’t promise that.” The tears I’d been holding back since leaving Morag’s cottage threatened to stream down my cheeks, but I fought them back, blinking hard. I wouldn’t cry on her account. “You could be a businessman from London, for all you know. How can you fight whatever beast is behind this? Your last encounter with the sea ended poorly.”

“Fighting isn’t always about being strongest.” Fynn squeezed my shoulders. “Winning demands cleverness and strength of will, as you well know.”

“But what if there are things out there you’re not prepared for?”

Something about the way Fynn looked at me made me want to tell him all my secrets. It felt … dangerous. I’d never shared so much of myself with anyone. And yet, I couldn’t resist. Steeling myself against the painful possibilities of his reaction, I whispered, “Suppose I’d overheard someone say they think there’s a sea monster in Port Coire?”

In the mouth-dry, hands-shaking moment of silence that followed, I snuck a peek at Fynn. His posture was rigid, but he hadn’t scoffed or turned away. He watched me steadily. “Does that sound … mad to you?”

“A sea monster?” His voice was higher than usual. “Why would someone say such a thing?”

My stomach sank. “Lugh would have listened,” I muttered as I started to turn away. “He would have at least considered the possibility.” Though Lugh had never once said he believed my story about Grandad. He’d protected me from the stares and whispers of others, but he never thought there was anything in the water.

“I believe you,” Fynn declared, locking eyes with me. “After being attacked and seeing those giant crabs in the market, I’d say those who don’t believe in the possibility of monsters are the mad ones.”

“You do?” I touched his arm, which felt warm and solid as ever. This was no dream. “You swear it? Just like that?”

“Just like that.”

“Thank you.” I wished I could give him something more than whispered words of gratitude, but short of bringing him the moon, I doubted there was any way to repay him for the trust that meant everything to me.

“There’s no point in trying to warn my parents. I’ve tried in the past,” I added a moment later, my head still spinning. Fynn nodded. Breathing a little easier, I asked, “Have you ever heard of a glashtyn?”

His fingers dug into my skin. “No.”

“Ouch! Are you trying to leave a mark?”

He dropped his hands to his sides. “I’m sorry. I’ve never heard that word.”

“Never mind. I’m—” I took a deep breath. “I’m just trying to find answers. I’m scared of who we’ll lose next. Alis is gone. What if it’s one of my sisters next time? Or Cat?”

“You can’t think like that.” Fynn rested a hand on my back. “Being afraid for them won’t help them.”

“You’re right.” I raised my eyes to his. “I want to find the monster that’s making people disappear, and stop it. But it’s in the sea, and I haven’t swum in years. I don’t know if I remember how. If something drags me below, I’m doomed. I want to protect my sisters, but I can’t even save myself.”

“Come for a swim with me in the shallows. Tomorrow morning.” Fynn’s eyes gleamed with an unearthly light. “All the disappearances have happened at night, so we should be safe in daylight.” I shook my head, already uneasy, but he pressed his point. “Once you’re in the water, the motions of swimming will come back to you.”

“You don’t understand. I can’t!”

He gave me a puzzled look. “Help me, then. Tell me why an islander like you can’t swim.”

Fynn didn’t breathe a word as I explained about Grandad. “You’re stronger than you think, Bridey,” he said at last. “You can swim, no matter what painful memories are haunting you. And I’ll be right there with you to scare off any unwanted creatures. We’ll guard each other.”

I hesitated. Fynn seemed so sure of everything, even without his memories. If I went to the beach again, I’d surely embarrass myself horribly in front of the boy I wanted to impress most. But my desire not to be a victim, as Ms. Elena put it, was stronger.

The time had come to get my feet wet again.

“Tomorrow,” he added, watching me with a frown. “Or the offer’s gone.”

I narrowed my eyes at him and sighed. “You strike a hard bargain.” I extended my hand to shake. “But first, we need to find our monster.”

Fynn’s hand gripped mine, warm and steady. But not even his nearness could distract me just then. I hurried to retrieve Morag’s book from exile.

Holding my nose to avoid the musty smell, I sank to the floor and cracked the cover. The tome had probably made a dent in her savings.

Fynn sat down across from me, frowning. “Morag said that book’s an index of every sea creature?”

I nodded, skimming the words on the first page. Beasts of the Deep. This wasn’t so different from my beloved Non-Native Birds of the British Isles.

Each page concerned a specific sea creature. Information was printed in blocky writing. Multiple sketches of each beast adorned the margins of the text.

I flipped past the Bishop-Fish—a fish with the face of a wizened man and a head shaped like a bishop’s cap “last seen in Germany, in the year 1531.” I briefly glanced at Giglioli’s Whale, which looked like an ordinary whale except for its double dorsal fin and sickle-shaped flippers.

“Don’t you want to have a look?”

Fynn was gazing around the room at Mam’s paintings. “I can’t read.” He shrugged. “Either I never learned, or it’s the—”

“Memory loss,” I finished for him, as I continued to turn the book’s tattered pages. Its entries didn’t appear to be in any clear order. Zaratans—sea turtles so enormous they were often mistaken for small islands—preceded grindylows, creatures that drowned people, though they looked nothing like the monsters I’d seen. The drawings of skeletal women with stringy black hair and razor-sharp teeth made me shudder.

Next was the entry for the lusca, supposedly the world’s largest octopus. I remembered this one well from my talk with Morag.

The next beast resembled a horse, except for its dolphin tail and the fins along its spine. The word above the horse-creature’s head caught my eye: glashtyn.

I studied the drawing again. This was one of the creatures Ms. Elena had described to Cat’s mam, though it looked nothing like the phantom made of sea foam I’d now glimpsed twice. It was a closer match to the water-horse in Mam’s recent painting.

Shivering, I hoped none of Mam’s other outlandish creatures would appear in this book. I turned more pages, black-and-white sketches blurring together, but the Bully, her most recent painting, mercifully never appeared.

Fynn drummed his fingers against the floor as I worked, and the rhythm reminded me of a sea chanty Da often sang.

At last, after passing over an illustration of a hairy whale and an entry devoted to evil green water spirits called the fuath, my misty phantom appeared: a wispy man in elegant but outdated clothing, hovering on the page beside his name as he played a fiddle. Fossegrim.

“Foe-say-grim,” I said aloud. “This is it! This is what I saw!”

Fynn leaned forward, running his fingers over the images and words with a longing I recalled from when I was small. Maybe I could teach him to read.

“‘Fossegrim, male water spirits native to Scandinavia, are known for their love of music,’” I read aloud. “‘Their fiddle tunes call men, women, and children alike to the nearest body of water, where the souls drown as they try to reach the source of his haunting song.’”

A chill ran through me. And then a memory stirred. “I thought—” I paused, licking my dry lips. “I thought I heard music when Grandad jumped off that cliff. Everyone told me I’d imagined it, but …”

“It seems you’ve found his killer.” Fynn narrowed his eyes at the drawing of the fossegrim. “We won’t let him escape justice a second time.”

I nodded, lost in the thought that there could be more than one creature stalking our shores. After all, the fossegrim didn’t have a curious fin like the one I’d seen in the harbor—the glashtyn did. And then there was the scaly thing I’d glimpsed the night Lugh and I heard a crash over the water, a river of dark flesh that disappeared in a blink.

Gooseflesh covered me from head to toe the longer I stared at the fossegrim. “All right,” I said slowly. “The fossegrim took Grandad. Does that mean everything else in this book is a”—I gulped—“a vicious killer?”

“Just because you’ve never seen these creatures doesn’t mean they’re all monsters.” Fynn’s eyes never left my face. “Maybe they’re like people. Some are wicked, some are fair. Some look out for their neighbors, and others only care for themselves.”

I thought back to the sketch of the grindylow women with their gaunt faces and pointed teeth, and something tightened in my chest. “If they’re really anything like people, they all have the potential to do harm.”

“Perhaps you’re right.” Fynn dropped his gaze to the book.

“‘Fossegrim prefer colder waters, but as scavengers drawn to places where other beasts are feeding, they have been found throughout the northern hemisphere. Legend has it they sometimes play to attract a human bride. An instance of this was first documented in Oslo, in the year 1297 …’”

I winced. “Do you think that thing wanted Alis, or one of the others, as a bride?”

Fynn blanched. “It’s possible.”

“But Alis was so young!”

Perhaps my missing friends had refused to be this monster’s wife, so it dragged them to a watery grave. My stomach lurched.

I shut the book with a snap. “How can we keep everyone safe?” I’d collected enough material from its pages to plague me with nightmares well into my sixties. “I’ve tried warning this town before. They won’t listen.”

Fynn shrugged. “Short of telling them to stuff cotton in their ears, I don’t know. But as soon as I’m able, I’m going to find the fossegrim and I’ll kill it.”

“You can’t!” I grabbed Fynn’s hands. “You need to heal. I’ll not lose you over your ridiculous urge to act the hero.”

“Don’t worry. I won’t go tonight.” Laying a hand against his stomach, he confessed, “My wounds are aching again. And besides, I promised to prove to you that you still know how to swim. Tomorrow.”

Somehow, his words and his smile only made me more nervous.