I walked to the edge of the cliff, shrugging off Fynn’s touch. The drop would be steep, but I would take the fall if it brought me closer to the maddeningly perfect music. My feet jerked forward as if pulled by invisible strings.
Come, come. Come to me. I’ve been waiting so long. Words swirled through my mind, chanted by an unfamiliar voice. Though devoid of rhythm, somehow I knew they belonged with the fiddle’s haunting tune.
“I can’t.” And yet, was there a reason not to go to the fiddler? Did I have a family? I couldn’t recall their names or faces … The fiddle sighed so sweetly. I forgot my name along with the rest. There was nothing keeping me here.
Just a few more steps, then I’d be falling free.
The music would catch me.
I twirled about, and my body felt so light, I realized I wouldn’t fall. I would fly. I was a seabird. I would soar with the melody until I landed in the fiddler’s arms.
My love, my life, you’ll make a beautiful—
“Bridey!” Fynn shouted. He wrapped his arms around my waist and yanked me away from the very edge, spinning me around until I no longer faced the sea. “Put your fingers in your ears!”
He grabbed my wrists and forced my hands up, pressing them hard against my ears.
As the dulcet tones of the fiddle faded, my desire to leap into the ocean vanished. A wave of cold horror spread from my head to my toes as I realized what I had been about to do.
Fynn lifted me over his shoulder with a grunt and ran toward town.
I glanced back in time to see a white figure hovering over the water. Its broad shoulders reminded me of a man, but no living being glowed like that. He appeared to be standing on the water’s surface, just past the waves, drawing a bow across a small stringed instrument as white as his skin and elegant clothing. This had to be the figure I’d seen from the window. The same spirit that took Grandad. The fossegrim.
“Turn back!” I demanded as Fynn kept running. “Turn back. We have to fight it!”
Fynn shook his head, refusing to stop until the shadows of houses blanketed us. He set me gently down and doubled over, panting.
“Why didn’t you turn back?” I collapsed in the grass, comforted by the firmness of the ground.
“We’re not ready,” Fynn said with a groan. “For one thing, how can we fight it if we have to keep our hands over our ears? And for another, we don’t know if it can be killed like an ordinary beast.” He turned, glancing toward the sea. A red stain blossomed along his side. “I thought the monster only came out after dusk. I never would have asked you to stay out for so long if I’d known this might happen.” He made a fist. “On second thought, I should go see if a good beating will finish that thing off right now. I almost lost you.”
“But you didn’t. And we need to get you home.” I reached for his hand with my shaking one, and he stilled, his eyes widening with pain as his rush of adrenaline finally ebbed away. In the process of saving my life, he’d reopened his nasty wounds.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Fynn draped an arm around my shoulders, allowing me to carry some of his weight, just as he’d done when I found him on the beach. Dusk fell around us as we struggled toward home, another ten or twelve houses up the lane.
More red stained his shirt with each passing moment, and it didn’t take us long to attract the attention of the few curious neighbors who weren’t yet snug in their homes.
“What happened to him?” Mrs. Kissack called, her words echoed by Mrs. Kinry. The two women stood in the Kinrys’ yard, no doubt having a suppertime visit. I wished they would stop gawking and offer to help.
“I’ll tell someone to send for a doctor,” a young lad across the lane offered, dashing away before I could stammer out a thank you.
“What happened?” Mrs. Kissack demanded again shrilly, her hand fluttering at her throat. “Who attacked you? Speak, lad!” She glanced from pale, shaky Fynn to me with wide eyes. “Bridey?”
My head and heart pounded. I’d almost leapt off a cliff, enchanted by a monster’s melody. Between the unabashed stares of Mrs. Kissack and her friend, and Fynn bleeding and gasping beside me, I was too shaken to carefully weigh my words.
“There was something in the sea—the beast that took my grandad. It almost got me, too.”
Someone gave a derisive cough, and my skin prickled. I longed to bury my words forever like the sea swallows a lost ship.
Mrs. Kissack threw me a pitying look I knew too well—the one she usually reserved for the very old and very daft. “You might want to reconsider your story before the doctor shows up, dear. He’ll need the facts to determine proper treatment.”
As if proving her right—though I knew he couldn’t help it—Fynn groaned, leaning harder on me, like his legs might soon give out.