“Hey, Mackintosh.”
He turned his head, his copper eyes dark.
“I forbid you to drown.”
His eyebrows rose and he choked on a laugh.
“If we’re going to die in the Grimwood, it’s going to be much more exciting than sinking—I can promise you that.”
He snorted. “Only you, Poppy Sunshine, would forbid us to die boring.”
Poppy tried to laugh, but had to pinch her mouth shut to keep the water out. “Someone has to do it,” she retorted, and focused on the island. It was getting closer, and there was someone on the shore. “Who is that?”
Mack had spotted them too. “Is that—”
“It’s Jute!”
At that moment, Nula’s tail slapped the water, splashing their faces. “Hey!” Poppy cried. But Nula’s only response was to shoot around and give her back a painful shove. Poppy spun to yell at her, then froze.
Far off in the dark water behind them, a long black muzzle lifted silently. It was followed by black eyes and a floating black mane that she could almost sense more than see. There was a flash of red where the horse’s nostrils flared.
Poppy’s heart flew into her throat. “M—Mack?”
She heard his intake of breath.
Another head rose next to the first, this one the deep green of thick water. Only the smallest ripples showed in the water as others rose to join them.
Nula was already rushing Dog forward through the water when one word left Mack’s lips. “Swim,” he said.
“What are those?”
“Kelpies,” he said, and the tremor in his voice scared her more than anything. “Swim, Poppy. Swim as fast and as quiet as you can. Maybe they haven’t seen us.”
But Poppy knew as well as Mack did that the kelpies knew they were there.
Poppy had read about kelpies in her parents’ journals, but their notes hadn’t said anything about them being in the Alcyon—only in ponds and lakes.
She supposed her parents had never fallen into the Grimwood’s fathomless sea. Maybe no one else had either.
Or maybe they just hadn’t lived to tell about it.
Water horses, the kelpies were sometimes called. They gained legs for the land only on the summer and winter solstices … long enough to lure something to them. Their beauty was so magnetic that sometimes their victims would even climb up on their backs.
But once you were in its power, a kelpie would race into the water and drown you. Then eat you. Not necessarily in that order.
For once in her life, Poppy didn’t want to know any more than that.
They swam.
There didn’t seem to be enough air.
I didn’t mean it, she thought. I didn’t mean it, about dying an exciting death. I want to die a boring death—a quiet, boring death … a long time from now.
She wondered if it was the last time she would ever see Jute. The tall hob paced the shore, his long arms laced over his head. He could see the kelpies too.
Tears swam in her eyes, mingling with the salt sea.
Then Jute did something she’d never seen before. He stretched out his arms toward her, as if he could catch her hands and pull her to him, even from so far away. At first it only made her heart ache, but as she watched, his arms began to grow. They twisted and stretched, moving toward them.
Nula reached the shore ahead of Poppy and Mack, and transformed back into herself, with Dog on her heels.
“Swim, Mack! Swim!” Poppy screamed.
“My shoulder—” Mack grunted. He was slowing down … falling behind.
Still Jute’s arms stretched.
The ripples in the water grew closer.
“Go,” Mack choked, but Poppy grabbed his hand, tugging him forward. “No way. I won’t leave you!”
They were barely moving.
Something brushed against her leg.
Impossible though it seemed, Jute’s arms had reached them. One vine-like arm wrapped around her wrist as the other hooked itself around Mack. The hob tugged hard, and Mack cried out as they shot forward, skimming the water like flying fish.
Behind them she felt the water pulling at her feet, like a wake building, and she heard splashes.
She looked back.
The kelpies churned the water, utterly silent, their heads and necks high. Their sharp teeth gnashed, eyes rolling with fury or hunger, the herd rolling toward them like a wave.
Poppy screamed.
Jute yanked.
She landed on the pebbled shore next to Mack, her face pressed into Jute’s long toes.
The rushing sound continued. A few yards from the shore, the water horses pawed the water with their forelegs, their strange undulating bodies moving them forward and back again, so that they seemed to hover there.
“The Holly Oak is sacred ground,” Mack spoke into the stones pressed to his cheek. Nula paced the beach behind them, muttering to herself as Dog trotted at her heels.
Jute studied the pooka but said nothing as he pulled Poppy to her feet. She turned her face into his scratchy wool sweater, and he wrapped his arms around her. His arms had returned to normal, but his knuckles and fingertips were still twiggy.
“I didn’t know you could do that,” Poppy said, stilling at the sound of his two hearts beating their syncopated rhythm.
“Neither did I,” he said, pulling her closer. “I guess we’ve discovered another of my special hob powers.”
“Nice of them to show up when you need them.” Poppy gave a hysterical laugh as Jute kissed the top of her head.
“Poppy Sunshine. Little bug. You’re safe,” Jute murmered. “I have you.”
She squeezed harder. “I’m sorry for tricking you, Jute.”
“Shh, shh, shh. Never mind.”
“I didn’t think it would be so hard,” she confided.
“I know.”
“It’s not like I expected—not at all.”
Jute held her tight, the rumble of his voice tickling her ear. “Expectations are often just a trick we play on ourselves,” he said, patting her back. “The truth is always something more than we expect—and always something less as well. Contentment comes when we learn to be grateful for the good things in front of us.”
Poppy turned her face farther into him, breathing in the smell of wool, and warmth, and the sharp green scent that was her uncle. “What if I can’t be content?”
