Page 16 of The Washwoman at the River’s End

“Smells wonderful, mo chridhe,” he says, bending down and pressing a kiss to her crown. She stands, wrapping her arms around his waist, and the tenderness in their embrace makes my heart ache.

“Caught them all?” she asks, standing on her tiptoes to peer over his shoulder through the still-open door. I follow her gaze to the moor beyond, where dozens of sheep as fluffy as cotton dot the bright green landscape, the bleat of ewes sailing on the wind.

“Aye. Fence went down in last night's storm. Shep herded them back, though. Speaking of the dog. Where’s he gone?” He looks out the door.

“I haven’t seen him. Probably tormenting the chickens,” the woman says, returning to the hearth and adding another log. The fire flares, and I take a step closer on instinct, greedy for its warmth. I reach a hand out, desperate to feel the delicious heat.

A loud whistle makes me jump, the man calling for his pet. I stumble back as it enters, a black and white dog with blue eyes, running directly toward me. It barks at me, and I jump back, the side of my hip slamming into the table. A pair of wooden candlesticks falls to the floor with a clatter.

Two pairs of eyes snap up to meet mine, and the man steps forward, shielding the woman with his body.

“Who are y⁠—”

But before his sentence ends, I’m back at the river, my back aching where it hit the table. The sound of the man’s whistle, his sweet words to his wife, circle through my mind.

They saw me.

I touched the table.

How is that possible?

My heart pounds as I try to understand what’s happening. Is it really the Cutter torturing me, or is it something else? Because once again, this death feels horribly wrong. I’m so distracted, I almost miss the clothes as they drift past, but the magic of my curse bends me forward, forcing me to grasp them.

I do not look at the clothes as I wash them.

I cannot bear to know which of the lovers I saw will die.

The clothes float from my fingers, but even after they are long settled in the After, I am not able to make sense of the vision.

Those people saw me.

They spoke to me.

But how? Did I leave the river? I’d thought the first vision on the hill had been more like a dream. That I’d only gone somewhere else in my mind, but I felt the table behind me. Had knocked the candlesticks to the ground, and the dog had run straight toward me.

But if I’d been in that cottage, how was I now back in the river, chain as tight as ever?

My dragon roars, darting in tight loops. Can she feel the change in the air, too? The feeling of a storm approaching, the energy of lightning crackling in the sky? She must. She’s becoming increasingly restless, her circles shrinking with each lap. Tighter and tighter she arcs, breathing fire in savage blasts, her keen shaking the rowan trees.

“What do you think is happening, Lolly?” I ask.

She roars, and I force a laugh, trying to brush off my heavy unease, but it sounds brittle. “Unless you tell me your real name, that’s all I have to call you,” I say. She doesn’t answer, of course, but I watch her all the same.

I’m so focused on the shine of her iridescent scales glinting in the sun that I almost miss the snap of the branch. The rustle jolts me to my feet, my ankle crying out in protest as warm blood trickles from beneath the cuff.

“Who’s there?” I call, straightening my spine.

Another snap. The shifting of clothing. A sigh.

Human.

Someone is here—he is here.

I nearly vomit. “Show yourself,” I demand, unease pooling in my belly. I scan the pines, searching for any sign of movement. Is this it, then? The man the goddess warned me of? The one who will remember?

The one I destroyed?

A blonde head peeks out of the shadows, tentatively at first, and I hold my breath.