I could see Red, a distant figure still seated on the rocks. His hair made the only vibrant note of color in a landscape of gray and green and white; flame on the water. He had put aside the book, and was sitting quite still, straight backed, watching me. Perhaps he thought I would try to run away. But no; he knew I must go back, for he understood, at least, that I was bound to complete my task, though if he knew the reason for it he would find it hard to believe. Such things were beyond the comprehension of a Briton. Voices in the head, strange dreams, those he could accept, reluctantly. But there was a whole world beyond that, and he had barely touched its margins.
I came back more slowly. Halfway along the beach, the sea had cast up a treasure trove of shells, each more beautiful than the last. I sat on the sand and held first one, then another in my hand, marveling at these tiny, convoluted homes that had each sheltered some small creature of the sea. For I was the daughter of the forest, and for all my growing years had not ventured far from its enveloping arms, had not imagined the wonder, the strangeness of the ocean and its secret life. The shell in my hand had been split open by some great storm; inside, it held chamber on chamber, each lined with a shimmering, pearly coat fit for a queen’s adornment. It was truly wondrous. I sat there a long time, looking and dreaming, my thoughts growing distant from that place, my spirit turned inward. And then—and then—how can I describe the moment? A voice in my head, not the one that tormented me, nor the one that spoke sense and woke me up; a voice not heard for a long time, such a long time.
Sorcha. Sorcha, I am here. I’m here, little owl.
Conor? I scarcely dared think his name, hardly dared call him, in case the moment was lost. I stared into the sky, out over the water. There was a lone bird there, wide wings spread, circling, gliding.
Conor? Is it really you?
Listen carefully. I can speak only a little, then I must be gone.
The others—where are they? Why didn’t—
Hush, little owl. Just listen.
I stilled my thoughts, made my mind empty and open.
That’s good. Tell me, will I find you here, at midsummer?
No. I pictured the valley of Harrowfield, as closely as I could, trying to show him where it lay, over the hills, down to the southeast. How would a swan fly to Harrowfield? A swan does not go by tracks, and bridges, and paths under trees.
I see this place. Who is he, who guards you? Why have you come here, across the water? It is far, too far for us.
I felt tears coming to my eyes, and my throat ached. I did not answer him.
Are the shirts made? Will you be ready, by midsummer?
The tears began to fall. No. There is one yet to make, and part of another.
Don’t weep, little sister. I will be there. At Meán Samhraidh wait for me. I will come there.
I felt him withdraw his thoughts, delicately, from my mind. He had ever been the most skillful of us at this. I saw the bird circle once more, and with a powerful beat of its white wings, sail off into the west. I was alone again. But not alone, for they still lived. I would see them again, soon, so soon, for it was already May. I had not recognized, until then, how close I had come to believing the task fruitless.
Thank you, I said silently. Thank you, oh thank you. But to whom I spoke, I could not say. There was a power around me so strong it could almost be touched, a strength in the waves and the rocks and the strange sea creatures with their gentle eyes. I had heard my brother’s voice because of this, because of where I was. But I had not forgotten who brought me there.
Later, as the tide reached its lowest ebb, I fashioned a sea woman in the wet sand, with long hair of fronded weed, and gray shell eyes, and a graceful fish’s tail. Her breasts were round, her waist narrow, and she had small, delicate hands. She was like the creatures I had heard about in the old tales, who would cry out to the sailors as they passed, with voices so enticing they could drive a man crazy. I got wet and sandy, and I was engrossed in my task, so that I never saw my companion come down the beach until the breeze whipped my hair into my eyes, and I raised my head to flick the tangled locks back over my shoulders. He was sitting not far away, watching me, and I surprised a smile on his face, the first real smile I had ever seen him give, a smile that curved and softened the tight mouth, and warmed the ice-cool eyes; a smile that brought the blood to my face and made my heart turn over.
Something deep within me shouted danger! This turning in the path you cannot afford to follow. I looked away from him, for when I saw the sweetness of that smile I felt Simon’s hand clutching mine in his terror, as if it were a talisman. When I looked into Red’s eyes and saw the deep loneliness there, I heard Simon’s voice, like a child’s: don’t leave me. These brothers, with scarce a word spoken, they asked for more than I had to give. I sat with my back to him, and watched the birds over the sea. Gulls, and geese, and others which I could not name, great wide-winged travelers. There were no swans there, not now. But somewhere across this wild expanse of water they waited. That was all that mattered.
“Simon and I used to come here,” said Red, behind me. “A long time ago. Nobody else knew about it. The seals come here to rest, not for long, they live most of their lives at sea, and are seen only when they choose. We never knew if they’d be here or not. I wanted to show you.”
I nodded, but I would not look at him.
“There’s an old story about this place,” he said. “It is a tale about a mermaid such as the one you have fashioned here. Your people are skilled at the telling of such tales. I have no gift with words. But I think you would like this story.”
Now he had really surprised me. I turned halfway round. He sat cross-legged on the sand, still wearing his riding boots. At least he had left his cloak up on the rocks, and his book and quill. I frowned at him and showed him my bare feet, then pointed to his. Scrunched my toes into the sand. You can at least let go this much. He narrowed his eyes at me, but he pulled off the boots, got up, and walked down to the water’s edge, next to the mermaid. He studied her with a half smile on his face, as the wavelets lapped around his ankles.
“The folk in these parts live by fishing,” he said. “A youngster learns how to net a catch, or fillet a cod, before he’s half grown. But there was one lad who had no wish to follow that calling. All he would do, day in and day out, was sit on the rocks by the headland playing his whistle. Dances, airs, strange tunes of his own making. His father despaired of him. His mother said he’d be the shame of them, that he couldn’t turn his hand to a good day’s work in the boats. But Toby, for that was his name, just stared out to sea, and played his tunes, and in time folk came to listen with awe, for his music echoed the joys and longings of their own hearts.”
I sat stunned. I had not believed buttoned-up Hugh of Harrowfield had such words in him.
“The lad became a young man. Sometimes they’d ask him to play at a wedding, and he’d come reluctantly, and go as soon as he could. And then came the strange part of the story. Strange, but true, they say, for a man who was mending nets saw it with his own eyes. There was Toby, at dusk on a summer’s day, alone on the dark rocks with the notes of the whistle hanging in the air around him. And there beside him, suddenly, was a lovely young woman with skin pale as moonlight and long dark hair like tangled weed that flowed down to conceal her nakedness; and liquid eyes with a look of the wide ocean in them. She came up out of the water, and for a moment the man thought he saw the flash of a silvery tail, the shimmer of scales in the last rays of the setting sun; but when he looked again, she was sitting demurely on the rocks, listening entranced to the music, and she seemed a woman like any other, save that she was more comely, and wilder, than any lass from those parts.”
Red bent down, a strand of seaweed held carefully in his large hands. He laid it on the mermaid’s neck.
“Toby took her back home with him, and his mother, frowning, found her a gown to cover herself, and his father was torn between admiration and foreboding when Toby declared tha
t he would wed her the very next day. But his grandmother said, you’ll not keep her long. It’s always the same with the sea folk. You think they’re yours, and then one day they hear the call of the waves, and they’re gone.
“The two of them moved away from the sea, all the way to Elvington, where Toby eked out a living playing at fairs and gatherings. The sea woman kept his house neat and slept in his bed, and in time she bore him two small daughters with dark fronded hair and faraway eyes. And folk hesitated to walk by their cottage at dusk, for sometimes you’d hear the sound of the whistle, lilting high, and other times you’d hear the voice of the wife keening a lament that made your hair stand on end, there was such longing in it.
“Three years passed, and things were not right with them, for Toby’s wife grew thin and pale, and her lustrous hair dry and brittle. You’d no longer hear the sweet sounds of the whistle echoing out in the twilight. Folk said the wife was close to death, and the man was beside himself, for she was the woman of his soul, and he could not think of giving her up.
“Then, one morning, they slipped away from Elvington as quietly as they’d come: Toby, and his wan young wife wrapped in a big shawl, and the two small daughters side by side in the back of a donkey cart. Down to the shore they traveled, and every step the donkey took toward the pounding surf and the wild expanse of the ocean, the more the wife’s eyes brightened, and the more Toby’s face grew pale and old.
“It was another dusk, when at last they stood again on the rocks gazing out to the west. The little girls were splashing in the shallows, heedless of the cold bite of the sea. Nobody knows what Toby said to his woman, or she to him. But they say the two of them stood together hand in hand until the very moment before the last sliver of sun disappeared into the water, and then Toby took out his whistle and began to play a lament. And by the time that tune was over, the sea woman was gone, slipped back into the embrace of the waves. But out in the darkening water, there was a movement of flashing tails; and a sound of strange voices, echoing the music of farewell.”
And? I moved my hands, wanting more. A tale must be properly ended.
“She was a creature of the deep, and there she must return, or perish. Toby understood that, but it hardly helped him. For all he had of her was his memory, where he held every moment, every single moment that she had been his. That was all he had, to keep out the loneliness. His daughters grew up, and were wed, and their descendants still live in these parts. But that is another story.”
Red sat down, his back to me, quite near, but not too near. There was a little space of silence, as the tale settled in our minds. I thought, Toby found treasure, he found the woman of his dreams, though he lost her again. All you fished up was a scrawny girl, with a curse on her that damaged all who came close. You got a bad bargain, Hugh of Harrowfield. Might as well cut your losses and let me go. But where did a Briton learn to tell such a tale? This was indeed the strangest of days.
Red had brought the small bag down onto the sand. He offered me the bottle of water, took out a loaf of oaten bread, which he divided, and a wedge of cheese, which he cut with his small knife. I found, despite everything, I was hungry. He watched me eating, but took little himself. The space between us was heavy with unspoken thoughts. When I had finished, he packed away bottle and cloth, and wrapped his hands around his knees, looking out to the west.
“Today,” he said, “I finished the last page of this record. It’s time to begin another. Each set of bindings holds one year. They go back a long way. Every oak they planted, every barn they built, the breeding lines of sheep and cattle. The battles they waged; the fires and floods they braved. The story of the valley. It was all I ever wanted, to carry out the work they had begun; for my beasts to thrive, for my crops to grow healthy and my people to be safe and content. That, I believed, was what I was born for.”
There was a pause. I glanced at him sideways. His profile was very stern. But? my hands signaled.
“But—since Simon went away, since—since I found you, and brought you to Harrowfield, it’s as if I have been walking through shadows, and dicing with ghosts. As if I have lost my way. Or—or as if the way I always believed to be mine is changing before my feet. Always, before, it seemed enough, for my life to follow this path, as my father’s did and his father’s before him. But I have stepped out of the pattern, and there is no going back. I am not afraid, not for myself; but I am uneasy, for the real and the unreal draw ever closer together, tangling and twining so that I cannot tell them apart. I hear two versions of the same story, and do not know the truth from the falsehood. Here I am telling tales, and half believing them. For I think sometimes that you, too, will go back one day, hear the call of the sea and slide away under the water as Toby’s mermaid did. Or maybe one night, as I watch outside your window, I will see an owl fly out and vanish into the forest; and when I look for you, all that will be left is one small feather on your pillow.”
My hands were unable to speak for me. Since that night, when I had tried to comfort him and had made him so angry, I had given up hope of his ever speaking to me like this again. Had believed the shutters closed forever. Why had he chosen, now, to reveal so much of himself? I needed words. I could have told him, it is the spell. The enchantment they laid on you, to keep me safe. To accomplish the task. Now, the task is nearly finished, and my brothers will find me, and then your doom too will be lifted. You can go back to your valley, and the ordered pattern of your life, and I—I will go home.
“You’re not saying much,” said Red. I made no effort to respond. I thought, whatever I try to say, or do, it will be wrong, and the mask will come down again. Perhaps if I sit here very still, I can hold this moment, with the sky and the sea and the day’s warmth, with my brother’s voice in my head and Red sitting by me and talking as if—as if—
“Ask your questions now, if you like,” he said diffidently. “I owe you an explanation. Several explanations. And I have something to tell you, and something to ask you. There’s no hurry. We have the rest of the day.”
This worried me. So my first question was, sun goes down—ride—home?
“That’s of no concern,” he said, frowning a little. “I said we would make sure you got back safely, and we will. You can trust us on that, at least.”
I mimed exasperation. He was skilled at framing answers that were no answers. I showed him, you—wedding—today?
“By now,” he said, glancing up at the sun high in the sky, “Elaine and her father will be on their way home. There will be no celebration at Harrowfield.”
I conveyed to him that I thought this answer quite inadequate.
“They will waste no time in questions,” he said carefully. “Elaine was to break the news to Richard this morning, and to my mother. She will not wish to stay any longer than she must. Yes, Jenny, she knew. I am not quite so heartless as you would believe me.”
Elaine—sad, angry?
He gave a grim little smile. “No. Disappointed and inconvenienced, maybe. But it was never me she wanted. Elaine will do well enough. Her father, now that’s another matter.”
He still had not answered the real question, the only one that was important. Why? There was no clear gesture for this, but I did not really need one; the question must have been written in my eyes.
“I—I will explain, in time. There are reasons. It’s complicated. I—”
You will have to do better than that.
“Why this day? Why not tell them, and be done with it? Will you believe me if I say, because I wished to bring you here, and show you this place, and see you run on the sand? Because I could do this only if I kept this day secret from all but those whom I trust with my life?”
I shook my head.
“Nonetheless, that is a good part of the reason, Jenny. Since—since the day John died, I—no, I don’t have the right words for this.”
I mimed, take your time. I’m listening.
“You have suffered, since that day. I am not blind to i
t, I—you must understand, on that day, when it happened, when we first came there, I thought—I thought you both—and then, I found I could not—I’m sorry, this is—I have no skill with words, and I can only hope you understand me. I have been unfair to you. I did not protect you as I should. What happened, it was not your fault. Each of us blamed himself. If only I had done this, or had not done that—but it was the fault, only, of him who ordered it done. He was clever, there was no proof. But I think, now, he has set a trap for himself that can be sprung. Only—” he fell silent again.
I waited.
After a while he said, “It’s getting hot. You should not be in the sun too long.”
I followed him up the beach, and we sat again, under the headland, where the shadows were starting to creep across the sand. Out by the water, the tide was lapping at the mermaid’s tail, coaxing her back into the sea.
“I must ask you a question,” said Red, turning a small shell over and over in his hands. “You need not answer, if it is forbidden to you. But answer if you can.”
I nodded. It sounded serious. But I thought, on such a day as this, surely there is little more that can surprise me.
“The thing he made for you, the carving,” said Red, and for a moment I could not think what he meant. “The carving with the arms of Harrowfield—I want to know, did my brother give this to you? Did he place it in your hands, did you know what he intended?”