A dozen memories from childhood skated across Brida’s mind, stories told by her mother and others to enthralled children, of the mysteries of the sea, of things that swam there, beautiful and dark, dangerous and benevolent. Some believed and others scoffed at such fanciful tales as nothing more than the delusions of bored sailors trapped too long on deep-water ships.
Brida wasn’t a sailor, and her feet were planted firmly on the shore. She’d outgrown fairytales a long time ago, and while she was sleep-deprived, she wasn’t hallucinating. Merfolk were real, and two lay before her, dead or dying.
Chapter Two
Brida crept forward,balanced on the balls of her feet and ready to sprint away. Despite the chilly air blowing off the Gray, her hand on the sickle handle was slippery with sweat. She used her knees to nudge Moot out of the way so she could get a closer look at the two stranded merfolk.
The child made a faint noise, a cross between a kittenish mew and a whistle. The small fluke flapped against the sand, dislodging swags of seaweed. The merman’s hand flexed in response to the sound, fingers splaying wide to reveal webbing between the digits, the translucent skin patterned in a lacework of tiny blue veins.
Brida leapt back, nearly trampling Moot who’d stuck to her legs like a barnacle. The hound let loose with another round of barking, the hair on her back stiffening into a ridge that ran the length of her spine.
“Moot! Hush!”
The dog only did what instinct and training required of her, but Brida didn’t want half the village running over here to see what all the commotion was about. Moot quieted, though her hackles remained high and her teeth bared as she guarded Brida.
The merman’s eyelids lifted, and Brida gasped. His eyes were pale and strange, not human, yet so full of misery and pain that an involuntary moan of sympathy erupted from Brida’s throat. The bloodshot whites of his eyes contrasted against irises almost silvery in color. Two pupils, one atop the other and no bigger than the heads of pins, dotted their centers.
He blinked, a rapid flutter of a double set of eyelids, one a delicate membrane nestled under a thicker-skinned lid. The movement mimicked the sudden thrash of his tail. A piercing whistle cut the air, the sound so sharp that Brida dropped the sickle to cover her ears with her hands. Next to her, Moot yelped and danced backward, shaking her head hard enough that her ears flapped like flags in a hard breeze.
Brida held out one hand, palm forward, and pressed the index finger of her other hand against her lips. “Shhh. Shhh,” she told the merman. “I mean no harm.”
Blood cascaded down his tail to drip off the edges of his fluke. A jagged wound, where the hip might be on a human man, pursed open with his movements. Crescent in shape, it matched another one farther down his tail. Something had bitten him. Something big.
Numerous smaller wounds marred his body, from human torso down to dolphin tail, a mural of slashes and shallow bite marks. Brida glanced at the child, noting the absence of any bites or blood. Had the merman battled a hungry predator to save the merchild and ended up stranded on the shore, too weak to propel himself and his charge back to the water?
Both were alive, but not for long by the look of them. Their breathing was shallow, barely discernible, and the merchild’s newing sounded thin. Blood ran in continuous rivulets along the merman’s body, tempting tiny crabs to investigate and taste the salt and iron in the red flow. The lovely abalone shell shimmer of the pair’s flesh was dulling before her eyes, and flecks of skin furled off their tails and arms under the weak sun, peeling away as if they’d suffered sunburn.
She knew nothing of merfolk, but creatures born of the water belonged in the water. Beaching was a death sentence. She’d seen it firsthand as a child in the tragedy of a dying whale crushed by its own weight as it lay on the sand.
The urge to call to for help warred with the caution to remain silent. Brida’s cries would bring the entire village running to her aid. Of that, she had no doubt. But she feared that call would elicit a massacre, driven by a mindless fear engendered into people still traumatized by the terror theobludahad subjected them too not so long ago.
She jumped again when a voice boomed over the beach. “Ziga! Odon!”
Moot renewed her frantic barking, capturing the hem of Brida’s skirts in her teeth and tugging to pull her away from the tidal pools.
“Stop it, Moot!” She tugged her skirts up, lifting the dog with them as those teeth remained firmly clamped on the fabric.
Hobbled by the dog’s weight, she shuffled from behind the concealing rock face to see the new arrivals on the shore. Odon Imre and his daughter Zigana had joined the harvesters, leading their two mares by tether lines into the shallows.
The villager who greeted them pointed at the water, nodding and gesturing to the water seers as they engaged in conversation. Brida was too far away to hear, but she could guess at what was said. Odon and Zigana possessed the gift of water sight, an ability that allowed them to sense whether or not it was safe to trawl the waters for shrimp, fish from the boats or rake the seaweed from the shallows. The last had never required their unique assistance before. The horses and villagers harvested the kelp, wildweed, featherweed, sea whip, and pepper fern from the rocks or in the surf where the water was too shallow for predator fish to lurk. These days, however, the Imres’ talent was in high demand. No one dipped a toe in the waves without their signal that all was well. Brida could only imagine the reactions if she showed them the two merfolk trapped in the tidal pools behind her.
Laylam waved to her not far away, his gelding standing patiently beside him, cage rake attached to the traces behind him, as the pair waited for the signal it was safe to harvest. “All right there, Brida?” he shouted.
The wind caught his question, whirling it toward her. She waved back. “Fine.” She pointed to Moot who finally let go of her skirts. “Moot’s battling crabs, and they’re winning!” she shouted back to him.
He nodded and returned his attention to the Imres who stood together and gave a tandem nod. It was safe to enter the water. Like racers perched on a starting line, the harvesters guided their horses into the surf with a snap of the lead lines. Around them, women and children with baskets hoisted on their backs or strapped to their hips waded into the shallows, bending to pick the Gray’s gifts washed in by the storm.
Brida strode back to the beached merfolk. They lay as she left them, the merman’s webbed hand still resting on the child’s small body. The pool under the adult’s tail had turned a dark pink, evicting resident starfish from its tainted waters.
The merman watched her with that strange double-lidded gaze, his face a study in suffering. Discounting the most obvious physical differences, he looked mostly human. His nose was like any other she’d seen, neither too long or too broad, but his nostrils were smaller. They flared in rapid bursts as he struggled to breathe. In contrast to his nostrils, his eyes were large, sunk a little deeper in their sockets than a human’s. He didn’t have eyelashes, and his eyebrows were arches of rippled flesh instead of short hairs along his brow ridge. No hint of beard shadowed the sharp line of his jaw or his chin, and his partially open mouth hid his teeth from her view.
Beside him, the merchild breathed just as hard, though seemed in less pain than the adult. From the waist up, it looked much like a human child of two or three, with tiny webbed hands, rounded belly, and features still plump with baby fat. Brida couldn’t tell the child’s gender by the appearance of its face or torso, but there were differences between the pair on the exposed undersides of their tails not far from the flukes. The merman possessed two slits in the flesh, one long, the other much shorter and just below it. In the child, there was only the one long slit. If her assumption was right, the merchild was a girl.
Brida stared at the surf and then the distressed pair so far from it. The merman was much too big for her to move. She could see that in a glance, but if she was quick enough, she might be able to sneak the merchild into the water without the harvesters noticing.
Then what? Leave her in the water to drown?That inner voice, with its merciless reason, made her curse under her breath. She had no idea, no true plan for how she might possibly save these two on her own, and asking for help from the villagers wasn’t an option.
Moot’s ears pricked forward when Brida turned to her and shook her finger. “No barking, Moot. Understand? Hush.” The dog cocked her head to the side as if considering, her tail wagging. Satisfied, Brida shrugged off her baskets.
