“That’s something.” Morag’s gaze shifted to me, and the fire that seemed to animate her sputtered and died. “I’m sorry, girl.” Her voice was thick with unshed tears. “I’m too late. I wish I had a way to bring him back, but the greedy sea claims whatever it can.”
I stared at her, numb with cold and shock and disbelief. “You shouldn’t have come!” The words sounded strange, as though someone else had spoken them. I seemed to be watching everything from a distance, like a spectator at a game of cammag.
“What if the serpent had gotten you, too?”
Despite her intense fear of the sea, she had come ready to do battle. She had come for me, for my family, and I couldn’t have asked for anything more.
Morag closed her cold, waxy hand over mine. “Don’t worry. We’ll find a way to make things right, you and me. We won’t stop trying until we recover everything the sea has taken from us.”
I squeezed her hand. Words still eluded me.
“Bridey.” Da laid a hand on my back. “We have to go. Liss needs a doctor.”
I nodded, burying my face in Liss’s shoulder. The sea had stolen another piece of my heart, and I couldn’t bear to watch the crimson water churning in our wake. The serpent had won today, but now that Fynn lay beneath the ocean’s dark surface, I would never stop fighting.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
“Ready, my love?” Da rumbled in my ear, his whiskers scratching my cheek.
Without taking my eyes from the gleaming ocean, I nodded. “Remind me what I’m supposed to do, again.” I gripped the long handle of the dip net with both hands, letting the mesh dangle over the side of the boat.
Da frowned. “It shouldn’t be any different from the last time. Drop the net in the water, and—”
“Da,” I groaned. “I’m teasing.” I plunged the net into the brine.
In the weeks since Fynn’s disappearance, I’d learned how to set a crab trap, how to use dip nets, and how to bait a hook. Looking into the water still made my head swirl, especially when I thought of the creatures hidden in its depths. But I could hold a wriggling fish in my hands and ride in a boat without getting sick.
We sat in silence awhile, Da with two fishing rods and me with the dip net. An early autumn breeze combed my salt-crusted hair as I narrowed my eyes against the glare of the sun. As always, I searched for a sleek black fin, but the only fins jutting out of the water belonged to a school of dolphins.
A week ago, the serpent’s body had washed up near Peel. According to Da, pictures were splashed across newspapers, even reaching Mally in London.
Da took me to see the body one morning, thinking it would help. But as the sightless monstrosity rotted under the summer sun, I wept. I’d somehow convinced myself Fynn would be there, too, but there had been no sightings of a lad matching his description reported.
I wasn’t sure what became of the monster’s carcass after that, nor did I much care. Lugh insisted someone had carved it up for the meat. I pitied the person who found serpent on their plate at suppertime.
Da cleared his throat, and I tore my gaze from the dolphins. “Morag came by the house again this mornin’ while you were helping Liss to her room.” Liss still couldn’t walk unassisted, but she was growing stronger each day with the aid of the healing tonics Morag provided.
“What did she want?” I tried to keep my voice neutral despite the pang in my chest.
“Same as usual. She asked about Liss’s leg. And told me to remind you that your job’s waiting whenever you’re ready to go back.” Da shook his head. “She said if you’d like, you can be the boss, and she’ll be your apprentice. She misses you, bird.”
“I know.” I missed her, too.
Morag’s cottage would forever remind me of summer, of Fynn. Still, the absence of Morag’s sharp-tongued remarks and pungent teas smarted like a toothache. And I couldn’t delay my return much longer when more serpents and other monsters yet swam the depths. Whenever they reached our shore, Morag and I needed to be ready to fight them. Together.
My hand strayed to the Bollan Cross around my neck, rubbing the worn bone between my thumb and forefinger. “Did you invite her for supper like Mam wanted?”
“I would have, but Danell Gill stepped outside to work in his garden, and old Morag limped off before I could get another word past my lips. I’ve never seen her move so fast. Almost like magic.”
Da grew quiet, humming gently under his breath while we waited for hapless fish to swim near the boat. Neither he, nor Liss, nor I had breathed a word of Fynn or our encounter with the serpent to anyone in Port Coire. The arrangement suited us well. And though Liss’s doctor asked a great number of questions, though Mr. Gill continued to press us for news of Fynn’s whereabouts, we kept our silence. I got the impression Da had explained everything to Mam, though, because she hardly let me out of her sight now.
When Da finished the last line of his sea chanty, he offered me a tin. “Kippers?”