I sit back, hope it is enough. I cannot know how long he will take. Or even if he will honour his word. He might think carrying me here was recompense enough.
Perhaps I should go inside and check on Ena, feed her; perhaps the kelpie will knock politely on the kitchen door and ask for tea. I laugh and the sound is high and silvery, a little mad; I’m exhausted.
I wait a little longer and just as I’m beginning to doubt, the lake starts to boil up, white angry froth, and the kelpie leaps out onto the grass beside me. I manage a smile and climb to my feet, offer a curtsey. He bows in return, then asks briskly what I want, just in case I should think this a social call. I explain what I need and he looks unhappy, but I insist, saying, ‘Just swim fast.’
I watch him jump back in with barely a splash, give me one last reproachful glance, then disappear beneath the surface until it appears as smooth as glass once more. I run inside and get Ena, who is well behaved and quiet in her crib. In the kitchen I fill a bottle from a crock of milk and take the child outside with me. I sit a wise distance from the lake and feed her with one hand, and myself with the other with the freshly discovered apple from my pocket.
In the cellar I could see no mechanism for releasing the seaqueen’s cage. I suspect Isolde had it built without such a thing: after all, she did not have to lure the creature into the trap, all she needed to do was drop it into the water then cast whatever spell was needed to make it large again; she had no intention of ever freeing the mer-queen. And once the silver scales had been removed, I thought I could see markings on the bars of the grille in the water below, could see them flash like flames because O’Malley blood – albeit it thinned – had been spilt from Aidan’s veins. The magic, if not undone, was considerably weakened. Not enough for the sea-queen to break free for the magic had been forged specifically to keep her in place, but another magical creature? Something not as terrible as her, but almost. Something strong and strange like the kelpie?
Either it will work or it won’t. If not, then I will need to find other means of keeping my word. What I would prefer is for both sea-queen and kelpie to be gone before anyone from the village should think to come and visit. I would prefer to keep to myself most of what has occurred here, for the daughter of a witch, even a beloved witch, will at some point make someone uncomfortable – and there’s a big difference between a girl who can bring fruit from the trees and one who can keep a sea-queen captive and command a water-horse.
I’m almost finished with my apple when the lake boils and froths once more, one spot close to the shore, the other further out. The kelpie’s handsome head emerges from the former: he glares at me, nods. The message is clear: his debt is paid. I nod in reply, then toss the bridle to him. He catches it and dives away. I doubt I’ll see him again.
In the other spot: the sea-queen. She’s staring and I can feel the pull of her will. She’d like to have me walk into the water, she’d like to tear me limb from limb, swallow me then shit me out, wipe the last O’Malley from the face of the earth. But I can also tell she’s not really trying. I suspect, if she were, I would walk into the lake. I might even bring Ena with me as a snack. But she’s a creature who understands a bargain; she will abide by it.
I nod to her. She nods back. And then she is gone, and I know, though I cannot, that I will never see her again. But then there is another disturbance in the water and something flies towards me. It flashes silver and iridescent white and lands on the ground in front of me. Ena laughs. I reach for it.
It’s Óisín’s pearl-handled pocketknife, last in Aidan’s possession when he cut my finger, when he tumbled into the well.
40
We found my mother, at last, buried in the kitchen garden. Why Edward and Nelly put her there and not down the mine with my father, I’ll never know – perhaps soon after true Ena’s death he took Liam walking on the pretence of a friendly chat to separate him from Isolde. Then Edward returned to the house and dealt with my mother. I hope she did not know anything about it; I tell myself she could not have or she’d have touched him and made him care enough to not hurt her – although Malachi said that she could charm almost everyone, perhaps Edward Elliott for whatever reason was one of the rare exceptions. I recalled how closest to the house had been the only place where the plants had kept blossoming when everywhere else was stagnating. Isolde the witch, the magic in her kept everything growing in that tiny corner of Blackwater. I wonder too if, even in death, she kept a grip on the villagers even though it would have made sense for them to move on when the land stopped giving them a living. They’d talked about it, but hadn’t quite managed to actually do it.
In her arms was a blackened little figure, my sister, the true Ena, whose crime was no greater than to cry too much; placed there, I think, by Nelly. And I think
