“Don’t say that. He was just being an idiot.” An ache settled in my chest. Part of me wanted to follow Lugh, to throw my arms around him and say something that would wipe the hurt from his eyes. But I didn’t know the right words.
Cat’s uncle had shut the door, but he left it unlocked and Fynn held it open for me. Smiling at the little bow he gave me, I tried to leave the memory of Fynn and Lugh’s shouting outside with the rain.
Given the number of visitors crammed inside the cottage, finding Cat or her mam in their main room was a daunting task. It seemed all of Cat’s relatives, even the ones who lived outside town, had arrived to lend their support.
The way they sniffled and embraced one another, it was as though everyone believed Alis was dead. I thought so, too, but a part of me still hoped we were wrong—that Nessa and Eveleen would stroll down the road tomorrow with Alis in tow.
Fynn stood behind me, shaking water from his hair and wringing it from his shirtsleeves. I squeezed his hand before wandering off in search of my friend. But the only raven hair among the folk gathered in the kitchen belonged to Cat’s mam.
She stood apart from the crowd, looking pale but dry-eyed as she spoke with Ms. Elena, the elderly mam of Liss’s mistress at the tavern, and the oldest woman in Port Coire. Perhaps on the entire Isle.
I hesitated in the hallway, listening for a pause in the murmur of their voices.
“… remember the glashtyn killings? I suppose you’re too young to recall that awful year,” Ms. Elena rasped. Her hearing had been failing for years, which usually made her the loudest one in any room, but now she took great pains to speak just above a whisper.
“A few drowned back when I was a lass, most of them young girls, but some men, too. I didn’t have any sisters, but I worried for myself. I watched the water every time I was to be on my way, even to a neighbor’s house. And no one was away from home after dark.”
“What’s this glass-thing?” Cat’s mam asked quietly. I detected a hint of wariness in her voice.
“A monster from the sea, a rare beast capable of coming on land. I never saw it, but one of my friends swore a glashtyn was responsible for the drownings. Killing young women is their specialty. She said it had a large black fin, rounded at the top—”
“Surely you mean one of the Little Fellas, not a”—Cat’s mam dropped her voice even lower—“a sea monster. There’s no such thing.”
My pulse sped up as I crept closer to the edge of the wall. Ms. Elena seemed to be describing the same fin I’d seen in the harbor.
“No, I mean a monster. A beast as unnatural and wicked as the Devil himself.” Ms. Elena sighed. “I wouldn’t be telling you this if you weren’t the daughter of my dearest friend, as no one ever believes me. They all think I’m daft.” Her voice shook slightly. “Now, the night before one of my cousins drowned, I saw something in the water, too. It looked like the ghost of a man floating above the waves. It disappeared when I blinked, but I can still see it just as clearly today as if it stood now before me.”
I resisted the urge to throw my arms around Ms. Elena. Her story reminded me of the figure I’d seen above the waves just before Alis had gone missing. Finally, someone else was admitting to seeing strange things in the water off Port Coire.
I took a step toward them as Ms. Elena gave a delicate cough. “Then there were more drownings almost eight years ago, when Alured Corkill and two of the Nelson girls died. You remember that, of course.”
Alured Corkill. Grandad. Hearing his name froze me to the spot.
“I remember those drownings, aye,” Cat’s mam said softly. “But I don’t see what that has to do with what’s happening now. Mr. Corkill and those poor girls didn’t leave their windows open and vanish into the night, did they?”
“No, but they were lost to the sea all the same.” Ms. Elena cleared her throat. “Alured Corkill and the Nelson girls’ deaths were the work of the glashtyn, mark my words, or whatever it was I saw that night before my cousin drowned. But everyone just said, ‘Oh, Elena’s finally losing her mind.’ And now the monster’s come to burden us again.” She added, a little louder, “I hope someone’s listening now.”
My mind raced with strange beasts of the sea. Until I’d heard Ms. Elena’s stories, some small, stubborn part of me had been clinging to the hope that the dangers facing us were familiar ones: men, sharks, storms.
Yet Ms. Elena had seen the unexplainable, just like I had. If I could find the strength to go looking, perhaps there was still a chance of catching this killer, be it glashtyn or other beast, before it lured anyone else into the deep.
“What should we do about the glass-tin, then, assuming it exists?” Cat’s mam asked, so softly I could barely make out the words. She didn’t sound convinced, but she wasn’t calling Ms. Elena daft, either.