I think about Aidan’s fingers around my wrist, about his insistence that he knows best. I think about what he’d do if he knew what I’d done with the green-eyed man, and that makes me smile, until I remember what I suspect the green-eyed man did to Aoife. Then I think again that he freed me, at least in part, from my grandmother. It’s hard, still, to feel grateful for that.
‘I do believe so.’
* * *
I was out of Bellsholm before midday, heading north according to the signpost by the hostelry on the outskirts. My freshly acquired grey horse would excite no envy; I carried a bedroll, a tinderbox and charcloth for the starting of fires, a pocketwatch, three knives (one at my belt, one in my boot, one slid into a concealed compartment on the saddle), and my duffel was filled with a plentiful supply of bread and dried meat, and a full water skin. I’d exchanged an emerald necklace of Aoife’s for more than enough money to buy my new possessions, and for the leftover to jingle fatly in my purse. Viviane sewed most of the rest of the pieces into the hem of my coat where they’ll be harder to find should someone try pickpocketing me, or anything more violent. Before I left, I took one of the earrings I’d worn to the theatre that night with Aidan and wrapped it in a piece of silk. I hid it beneath the pillow of the cupboard bed in Viviane’s wagon; it will help when times are hard.
That was six hours ago and, apart from one event, it’s been without incident. I’ve found a clearing off the road where I might make a small fire without attracting unwanted attention. The final floral tribute from Ben has wilted, but instead of throwing it away, I put it into a pocket. I can’t bear to get rid of it; such small beautiful simple gifts made me happy for a time.
I’m sadder now than I was at my farewells, for tonight Delphine will be brought out of her casket and set up on the stage. Viviane has made a new dress for her, orange silk and gold lace, with an underskirt of deepest purple. The automaton’s hair has been brushed and reset into a high style rather like the one I wore to the Paragon Theatre that single night, and I wonder if it was done on purpose or unconsciously. I’ll miss hearing her sing. I think, sometimes, of those hours in the box beside her, of the sliver of soul inside her. How much awareness went with that little piece of spirit? How must she feel to be sealed in there? Would she weep or scream if she could?
I shake my head as if the thoughts will be dealt with so easily, and for a while, they are, purely because I replace them with something worse. The road I chose, heading towards the mountains Ellingham said. It goes north (north of Bellsholm, more or less); one would like to think my destination will be easy to find. It also passed by the Singing Rock where Viviane warned the rusalky spent their days. I might not have gone so close, but then again I might, curious to see another sort of water creature. Perhaps because they were once human, girls like myself, who’d met a terrible end, I somehow thought they’d be less dangerous.
Perhaps it was simply that I heard them singing and wanted to hear better, for the sound was divine. Mostly, Maura had said, they can talk a person into the water, wishing to visit a little rage on anyone who’d not passed on as they had. But I’m an O’Malley, there’s salt and who knows what else in my veins, so their airs did no more than delight me. I tied my horse to a tree and found a rocky outcropping to perch upon as I watched them sing.
Their skins were all colours, as was their hair; I seemed to discern that not all were beautiful in life but their deaths had conferred some sort of loveliness, a strange vibrancy. Yet there were moments when I could see through them, see the scars their lives and demises left upon them, I could see the rot beneath the ripeness.
They saw me too, but I didn’t seem to bother them, although one or two appeared put out that I was not ensorcelled, that I did not leap into the water – and a lucky thing that was, too, for after a while three heads bobbed to the surface, nothing like the rusalky, or perhaps their foreignness struck me because I did not expect to see them, not again.
The mer from Breakwater, I believe the same who’d pulled me in, drifting and showing me their teeth. Then the rusalky noticed them and the commotion began. The dead girls climbed up their rocks in the middle of the river much like ladies threatened by scampering mice, yet they hissed like cats as they prepared to launch themselves at the mer. They’d not left the river out of fear but merely to get a better purchase for a leap. They transcribed a perfect arc, each one.
Their illusions were lost and all I could see for the longest time were creatures of green and black putrescence, shaped roughly like humans, and a stench rose from them that was enough to make me gag. I scrambled from my roost and ran to my horse. I didn’t need to know who won.
It was hours before I allowed my poor mount a respite; it seemed hours before I stopped shaking. And I was careful when choosing this camping spot to make sure there were no lakes, ponds or streams nearby. That might well keep me safe for a while, but how can
