The beast continues to stare at me, tongue lolling. There’s a collar around its neck, with a small leather pouch suspended from it.
‘Are you cursed?’ I ask quietly, thinking of tales Maura told me of women and men who sprouted fur, sometimes on the full moon, sometimes only every seventh year, depending on the rules of their affliction. Hexes inflicted by witches or god-hounds who use the same magic as the females they’d prefer to burn. Other times some chose to become like this, especially women, when it meant freedom from responsibilities and life in general.
‘Cursed? A little inconvenienced, perhaps, having gone out of my way to find you,’ says the wolf, then the outline shivers and the boy from the troupe is in its place. Ben. Or at least, his top half is boy, the bottom remains covered in fur. He gestures. ‘No pants.’
‘I appreciate the consideration, Ben.’ I should have known from the flowers! ‘I’m sorry, I’ve no food to offer…’
‘Not to worry, rabbits are plentiful and slower than me. I’ve eaten quite well.’
My pocket watch tells me it’s only one a.m., so I throw some wood on the fire and built it up until it’s blazing once more. Then I toss my coat at the boy for him to wrap around his bare torso. I huddle back into my bedroll.
‘We found it,’ he says.
‘What?’
‘Your place. Blackwater.’ He grins hugely. ‘Viviane and Ellingham have been asking, subtle-like, around the streets and traps, ships’ crews and tavern folk, anyone as they can find.’
I swallow – grateful but wondering what kind of trails they might be leaving for me, for themselves. And yet what’s my choice? Just keep wandering north until I hit the sea once again? The ice? Find a hole in the world into which I might disappear? ‘And?’
‘There was an old bloke in one of the back-alley stores, a silversmith. Not all there if you ask me – lot of rambling, talking to people who weren’t there, but Ellingham’s known him a while. Asked him if he’d heard of the place.’ Ben shakes his head. ‘His face, like he were a kid with a secret. But his son, who’s looking after him, making sure he doesn’t short-change anyone, especially not the shop, interrupts the moment he hears “Blackwater”. Tell us it’s time to go, his father needs a rest. And he hustles us out like we’re no better than panhandlers!’ Ben’s expression is one of umbrage, then he smiles slowly.
‘But it’s not like we’re easily fooled – we’re players, aren’t we? That’s our game, fooling folk. So we don’t make a fuss, just act like nothing’s gone on, and we’re off down the road neat as you like.’
‘But?’
‘Well, we wait, don’t we?’ The boy says it like it’s obvious and I’m a bit of an idiot. ‘When the son goes out half an hour later, we nip back into the shop. The old bloke’s on his own, but we can hear some bustle out back – daughter-in-law, I suppose – so we talk soft like. And he’s happy as a pig in mud, seeing his mates again. Puts his finger up like this, waggled it so we’d come closer.’ Ben does the same thing, and I lean forward in spite of myself. ‘Said he’d never worked silver so pure as what came out of Blackwater.’
I close my eyes, offer a prayer to whoever will take it; I’m not fussy.
‘But he said he’d not had any shipments from there for a while.’
‘What’s a while when it’s at home?’
‘He couldn’t be sure.’ Ben taps his forehead. ‘Ellingham asked him where the place could be found and he did this little caper and giggled. Said no one would ever find it on a map, coz no one was supposed to know where it was.’
‘Aaaah. Then how can I know he was speaking truly and not just spouting fantasies?’ I drop my head into my hands. Clearly I should have been fussier with my prayers.
‘Well,’ Ben says, brow raised. ‘I suppose you can’t. But he did draw this.’ The boy reaches for the little sack on the collar around his neck, fumbles it open and pulls out a tight roll of parchment. He unfolds it, then hands it over, very careful reaching across the fire. I squint at the thick paper in the flickering yellow light. The drawing is very fine indeed, and it shows a map. I can see Bellsholm and a lot of the places I’ve passed by recently. There’s the gallows crossroads with the word “ghosts” writ neatly beside it and I think how useful this would have been some days ago. I wonder how long those men have been dead, how long their bodies had lasted in the elements before I burned them. I wonder whose magic kept them there so very long. There’s the village that was drowned, and there’s the bridge still intact on the map; I warn Ben about that, should the troupe ever go that way they’ll need to find another spot to ford.
The important thing is that I’m heading in the right direction. According to the kelpie, we’ll cross at Lelant’s Bridge tomorrow, then the trail leads up, into mountains. On the map, a grand house drawn small by a body of water, the name Blackwater printed beside
