A sunny day greeted me, complete with swooping gulls and the familiar whoosh of a breeze gusting past the house. Shrugging off a hazy nightmare that had something to do with black water, I walked into the main room to find Mam at her easel.
“Where’s everyone else?” I’d remembered my vow to go to the beach today just moments after waking, and it filled me with unease. “Fynn?”
Mam didn’t look up from her canvas. “He’s down at the harbor with your da, working on the boat.”
“How long will they be at sea?” The thought filled me with an even more intense dread than I usually felt every time Da went off to his job.
“Oh, they couldn’t go out today. They have to patch a hole in the old bucket.” In my almost seventeen years, Mam’s way of referring to Da’s boat never changed.
My heart resumed its regular rhythm. “Right.”
Mam stopped swiping her brush across the canvas to study me. “Fynn asked that you meet him by the cliffs after lunch.” Resuming her work, she said casually, “I used to meet your da out there.”
A knot formed in my stomach as I steeled myself for the impending lecture. Several minutes passed as Mam worked in silence.
I was curious to see the new painting that had her so occupied, and moved behind her.
I took in a creature with the head and body of a horse, powerful fins, and a dolphin-like tail. Its deep blue eyes held the wisdom of the ancients, yet there was a wicked gleam there, too. Its powerful forelegs were poised to strike another familiar creature, the serpent, with its terrible fanged mouth open in a snarl. The dark water around them suggested that they were leagues below the ocean’s surface fighting over something that looked suspiciously like a girl in a working dress. A girl I’d seen before. Her hair and the shape of her face stirred a fuzzy memory that slowly became clearer the longer I looked.
She had washed up on the beach by the cliffs. Her eyes had been milky then, not the lively blue-gray Mam had captured. But the waist-length dark hair and heart-shaped face were the same.
Mam hadn’t been present when they found the girl’s body.
“What made you paint that girl? And the Bully again?”
Mam lowered her brush. “A dream, bird. It was about two very hungry creatures that dragged a girl into the water, and neither wanted to share their meal.” She sighed and for a moment her face showed the strain of lost sleep. “Sounds horrible when I try to explain, doesn’t it? Though …”
She hesitated, glancing between me and the painting. I leaned closer, nodding in encouragement. “My dreams have been stranger than usual lately. Darker, more vivid.” She rubbed her temples. “Perhaps I need to stop eating pie before bed, but I’ve been so worried lately.”
“You and everyone else.” I pointed to the canvas with a trembling finger. “That’s the girl I saw on the beach. The one who drowned weeks ago. What if … what if some of the things you see in your dreams are real?”
Mam laughed, dropping her paintbrush. “Oh, Bridey. If she looks like that poor girl, it’s only a coincidence. As you said, I never saw her.” Mam retrieved her paintbrush, then bustled toward the kitchen. “Come. I’ll make eggs and toast before you meet Fynn. This should go without saying, but I expect you to conduct yourself properly, young lady …”
I nodded absently, staring at the painting. I’d never thought of Mam’s dreams as anything more than fanciful imaginings until I’d opened Morag’s book.
But if sea monsters existed, perhaps the beings in Mam’s paintings did, too.
The sight of Fynn standing at the top of the beach path chased away all thoughts of Mam’s painting. He waved as I approached, and a strong gust of wind swept back the unkempt dark hair from his face.
“There’s a barber who lives three houses down from us. I could introduce you. Right now, if you wished. And Mrs. Kissack probably has some fresh scones waiting at the bakery for us …”
He frowned. “Don’t tell me you’ve changed your mind. After we shook hands the proper way, and all.”
Something in his gaze made me eager not to disappoint him. I pulled open my cloak, offering a glimpse of Mally’s blue bathing dress underneath.
Fynn ran a hand over his hair, making it stand on end, and grinned wolfishly. “You’re certainly dressed for a day at sea. Shall we, then?”
I followed him down the narrow path, each step costing extra effort, as though there were weights bound to my legs. “I dreamed of the ocean last night.” The words tumbled from my lips before our feet touched the sand.
“Dream, or nightmare?”