I don’t know this man at all. He seems kind and courteous, but so is Aidan Fitzpatrick when he chooses. I’ll not give Edward Elliott reason to mistrust me.
‘Miren? What is it?’
‘Oh, nothing, Uncle Edward.’ I rise, turn and smile at him from beneath the brim of my sunhat. One of my mother’s I assume. ‘I thought perhaps I might recognise it – something similar once happened at Hob’s Hallow’ – a lie, for Maura’s clever works kept such things at bay – ‘but I do not know this thing. How mysterious that they remain so healthy!’
‘Nature is a mystery unto herself.’
‘And you also say the mine is no longer producing?’
‘There are some viable seams,’ he says in a way that’s both grand and dismissive, and rings false to my ear; I wonder how much or how little he knows about mining. ‘But a negligible amount is coming out. There are new places where we might dig deeper, but the rock is unfeasibly hard. We might only get through them by blasting, yet the chief engineer is fearful that it will bring down tunnels and perhaps even weaken the floor of the lake.’
‘The lake?’
‘It runs deep and wide underground – as large as it is above the surface, it is even larger beneath.’ He shrugs. ‘My brother told me there was such an accident some years ago and it took a terrible toll. There are still widows and orphans who mourn to this day. Tunnels had to be to sealed off, others pumped dry; twenty miners died and none of the bodies were found – perhaps they still float in the deeper hollows beneath.’
I think about how long this mine has been operating, how long it’s been fruitful, producing riches for my parents; riches that never made it back to Hob’s Hallow. My hands shake and I clench them so he doesn’t notice. With a deep breath I swing back into the saddle.
He sighs. ‘Come along, Miren. The village next.’
The temperature drops slightly as the path takes us into a wooded area. Beneath the canopy of trees the light is dim and its warmth filtered out. Just as on the road up the mountain to my new home, there are no sounds of birdsong or badger, fox or wolf. I wonder at it: is it related to the same dearth of magics to affect the orchards? Or is perhaps that the animals are simply hiding?
One day soon I will explore on my own. It’s not that I don’t trust my uncle, or no more than is wise, but it is much easier to examine a new place without the company of folk who are used to taking the everyday things of their home for granted.
I notice after a while, however, that there is a sound. The trickle of water. Soon a stream is running beside us, and it’s nothing to cause fear. A mer with its great tail would be marooned in such a shallow rill. It must flow underground from the lake. There are sparkles of silver in the rocky bed that are pretty but I see no fish there, neither big nor small. ‘Does anyone fish in the lake?’
He seems startled that I’ve asked. ‘What an odd question!’
I laugh. ‘Not really – I come from the sea, Uncle Edward, a body of water is always a source of food to such a one.’
‘Ah! The answer is no, my dear. No one fishes there. There is nothing to take a bait, or so I’m told.’ He sighs. ‘Miren, may I ask how you found us?’
So I tell him a little. Again, my trust is a thing so badly battered and so recently, I’ll not give it away easily. I tell him of the loss of Óisín and Aoife, but I do not mention how Aoife died. I tell him of Aidan and Aoife’s matchmaking, but I do not mention Aidan’s cruel hands, nor his hired assassin, nor how the blade in my hand felt biting into the green-eyed man’s throat. I mention finding Isolde’s letters in Óisín’s study, but I only say there was one – and his interest is piqued.
‘What did Isolde say in her missive?’
‘Very little, I’m afraid. Merely that she and my father had settled here, that it was north of Bellsholm and where it might be found.’ I tell such small lies, no one will know. I will not mention the old silversmith, giving away secrets in his senility. This place was hidden for a reason – I think of the concealed entrance in the hedge that I used only yesterday. My parents have gone to great lengths to keep Blackwater’s location undisclosed. And I consider Aoife and her rages when she spoke of Isolde. I ponder if that was enough to hide away like this? So she would not find them?
‘Nothing more? No details of the new home and family?’
‘No, Uncle,’ I say and lean towards him as if to share a secret. ‘You must know that my mother parted from her parents on terrible terms?’ He nods. ‘My grandmother Aoife never forgave her.’ And still I cannot bear to tell him that I was left behind to pay a debt of some sort.
‘Oh, my dear girl. And to come here and find them gone again, albeit temporarily! What a blow. I’m sorry I could not soften it for you.’
‘You have been so kind, Uncle! I will never forget that.’ I smile and reach out to touch his arm.
‘Isolde confided some things to me,’ he says. ‘Troubled, the O’Malleys, but every
