I’ve passed perhaps ten small towns and large, but always keeping at a safe distance; no one can talk to me nor get close enough to see my face isn’t that of a boy, no matter that I tuck my hair away. Stopping at the remote farms for food is a means of trying to hide, to not be noticed – perhaps it’s not so clever, but I rather hope that they’re so remote that no one else will find them. Late one afternoon I come to a deserted-looking village – not quite twenty ruined cottages. I wonder what happened here? Then I notice that it’s beside a wide river where the bridge is gone – taken by a flood by the looks of it. I wonder what else the flood washed away.
I urge the horse partway down the bank, but again not too close. The beastie isn’t happy and I’m learning to pay attention to him – gods know I should have ridden on no matter the storm back at the gallows house. Getting soaked would have been a small price to avoid the murderous brothers.
The river appears shallow in parts, there are rocks and sandbanks one might use to ford, but only so far and there are also spots where the water has the darkness that only comes with terrible depth. I put my hand to my throat, feel the silver ship’s bell beneath the collar of my shirt, wonder if I dare risk the crossing here. I wonder if the mer would have, could have, come this far; how could they know which way to go, which tributary to follow? Who knows when the bridge might be rebuilt? Perhaps never by the look of the decayed village, and certainly it won’t be soon enough for my needs. Shall I let fear of the mer paralyse me? Sit here until Aidan or his agents find me and drag me back to Breakwater; recaptured because I feared to get my feet wet. Wouldn’t that make Aoife rage? Of course, she’d probably want me caught.
Well, no, more than fear of wet feet: more serious. Dragged a’down by creatures who want me gone. There are plenty left with thinned O’Malley blood, but none with the name. Granddaughter of Aoife and Óisín who were siblings, and daughter of their daughter Isolde. I’m the last of my kind, when all is said and done. Once it was Aoife, now it’s me.
I hobble the horse so he can’t go too far, remove his tack, then sit beneath a tree. Reposing here for a bit (at a safe remove from the river’s edge, of course) while I eat the apple I stole from an orchard on the way and ponder my options seems like a good choice. The horse can graze and we can both have a rest, he his legs, me my arse. I feel I’ll have calluses sooner rather than later.
Soon I’m lying on the grass and staring at the sky through the branches and leaves above me. It’s so blue, not a cloud to be seen, and I try to make my mind as featureless, as blank. Too many thoughts, fears, uncertainties cartwheeling there. And that ever-simmering anger at my parents. As much as I’m fleeing Aidan, I’m also rushing towards Isolde to demand an explanation. Part of me… part of me is still a child hoping to find a home, parents who’ll tell me it was all a mistake, and they’ve been waiting for me for so very long to find them. That I had to find them, it was quest, my burden, my price. That, at the end of this road, all will be well.
I don’t know when I stopped staring and my eyes closed, but at some point I must have for I wake with a start an hour or so later. I sit up and look around. The light has changed and my mount is gone.
The saddle and bridle and blanket remain beside me, but of the grey horse there is no sign.
I rise and wander the riverbank. There: the hoofprints stop and become drag marks where the horse dug his hooves in, tried to stop whatever he’d acquiesced to at the beginning. They become trenches the closer they get to the edge of the water, but it’s clear my poor old beastie lost his battle. And him, dying without a name because I was too parsimonious and untrusting to give him one, lest his loss cause me hurt. Well, it hurts no less, I can say that for sure. I look out onto the rapidly rushing river and there is no sign. Whatever happened, it happened whilst I slept and I did not wake.
Anyone too lazy to follow the trail to the river might have simply believed the creature stolen by bandits and counted themselves lucky to escape with their own skin intact. I look back over my shoulder to where the saddle and so on lay. Swallowing, I make a decision.
I yell at the river, ‘Come out!’
At first nothing. I’m worried it will be the mer, I half-expect them, but ultimately: no. There’s a great bubbling and spurt of white foam out in the middle, in one of those deep dark patches, and abruptly something surfaces.
Neither mer nor combative rusalky, but something different entirely.
Its head is that of a horse.
Black as night, with a broad chest, it presses forward and climbs from the river to stand before me on the bank, but maintains a good six feet between us. The creature clearly doesn’t feel entirely confident about coming any closer; or perhaps it’s politeness. Water cascades off it and steams and boils.
