Read Online Ghostheart by Ananda Braxton-Smith - Free Book Online
Authors: Ananda Braxton-Smith
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humour from the twilight bog still hung about us. I watched the glow off the turf, the glow off the stars. I watched the glow off the moon.
‘Where do you think he’s gone?’ I asked Pa at last.
My father pretended to be sleeping. His chest rose and fell, and he made that noise like a bellows. We commonly let him be when he did that.
‘Do you think he went out there?’
‘Where?’ said Pa.
‘That Dead-isle,’ I said.
He sighed and rolled onto his back. ‘Do you think he was the sort to go there?’ he asked me. Like I might really know.
I shrugged. ‘What is it, that island?’ I sat up, wideawake of a sudden. ‘Why doesn’t it just stay put? What’s it for? Do folk live out there? Why doesn’t anybody go out to see? What is it?’
‘I don’t know what it is,’ said Pa with a big sigh. ‘But I know what it isn’t. It isn’t safe, it isn’t natural, and it isn’t somewhere I’d want to go. Those who have gone and come back, say when you get out there, there’s nothing.’
‘But there must be something,’ I insisted.
‘Look, I’ll tell you what’s really something,’ he said. ‘And that’s the sea-journey you’d need to take to get out there. That island is nothing to the waters that lie between us and it. The sea is not tame, Fermion, and it’s brimful with wild things that’d have you in one easy gobful.’
He seemed to think that would do it, and he yawned and snugged himself down into his sheep-bag. I just folded my arms and looked at him quiet-like until he started shifting and itching. He can’t bide being stared at.
‘That sea is full of tricks and various deaths,’ he went on from inside the sheep-bag. ‘If the kelp doesn’t strangle you, the merrow-men will have the skin off you. They say some of the younger ones have taken to filing their teeth to razors, the more personally to do the flaying, and that their maids have armed themselves with sea-squirts that can blind a man with the horrible stuff they carry in them.
‘If you manage the merrows, you’ll have to sail through the drag-waters of the kraken. His whirlpool can open at any moment, and then down you’ll fall into his crouch-pit. He is a master of patience and will wait as long as you like for a meal. And he is compassed by his followers, sea-things of such monstrousness that one look can kill you.’
His voice rose hard and he sat up.
‘There’s no point looking at me like that. It’s true,’ he said. ‘They have the eyes of death in their heads; they shoot every distemper and flux and once you’re struck, then it’s quicksmart with all the other nasty things. Plagues follow the first shot through the wound and pool in your flesh. You’re for it before you even reach the middle of that little bit of water between the islands.
‘Then, if you’re lucky and you do get through the middle, you want to pray to any god you choose that when you arrive the island is expecting you. Because if it’s not, if it doesn’t want you — it just disappears again. It goes back wherever it came from and leaves you drifting there. There’s no coming back.’
‘How do the fishermen come back, then?’ I said.
‘Those sea-folk who’ve come back have secret knowledge of sea-going particulars,’ he said, and added in case I hadn’t taken his point, ‘Quirks are not sea-going folk. We do not go to sea.’
I didn’t want to pain him so I didn’t say it but I thought, well, Boson was bog-folk. Secret knowledge of bog-going particulars didn’t save him. He died in his own bog, only a walk from his own threshold.
The night was coming damp now, and snaky mist-ribbons were invading the cut-camp. One icy lip-pincher forced us to snug right down into the sheep-bag. I kept my eyes above the wool, watching the creep of fogs around the banks. All the things I didn’t know hung about me. All the things I couldn’t remember.
‘Was he always like that?’ I asked Pa.
‘Don’t you remember?’ Pa asked me.
I
‘Where do you think he’s gone?’ I asked Pa at last.
My father pretended to be sleeping. His chest rose and fell, and he made that noise like a bellows. We commonly let him be when he did that.
‘Do you think he went out there?’
‘Where?’ said Pa.
‘That Dead-isle,’ I said.
He sighed and rolled onto his back. ‘Do you think he was the sort to go there?’ he asked me. Like I might really know.
I shrugged. ‘What is it, that island?’ I sat up, wideawake of a sudden. ‘Why doesn’t it just stay put? What’s it for? Do folk live out there? Why doesn’t anybody go out to see? What is it?’
‘I don’t know what it is,’ said Pa with a big sigh. ‘But I know what it isn’t. It isn’t safe, it isn’t natural, and it isn’t somewhere I’d want to go. Those who have gone and come back, say when you get out there, there’s nothing.’
‘But there must be something,’ I insisted.
‘Look, I’ll tell you what’s really something,’ he said. ‘And that’s the sea-journey you’d need to take to get out there. That island is nothing to the waters that lie between us and it. The sea is not tame, Fermion, and it’s brimful with wild things that’d have you in one easy gobful.’
He seemed to think that would do it, and he yawned and snugged himself down into his sheep-bag. I just folded my arms and looked at him quiet-like until he started shifting and itching. He can’t bide being stared at.
‘That sea is full of tricks and various deaths,’ he went on from inside the sheep-bag. ‘If the kelp doesn’t strangle you, the merrow-men will have the skin off you. They say some of the younger ones have taken to filing their teeth to razors, the more personally to do the flaying, and that their maids have armed themselves with sea-squirts that can blind a man with the horrible stuff they carry in them.
‘If you manage the merrows, you’ll have to sail through the drag-waters of the kraken. His whirlpool can open at any moment, and then down you’ll fall into his crouch-pit. He is a master of patience and will wait as long as you like for a meal. And he is compassed by his followers, sea-things of such monstrousness that one look can kill you.’
His voice rose hard and he sat up.
‘There’s no point looking at me like that. It’s true,’ he said. ‘They have the eyes of death in their heads; they shoot every distemper and flux and once you’re struck, then it’s quicksmart with all the other nasty things. Plagues follow the first shot through the wound and pool in your flesh. You’re for it before you even reach the middle of that little bit of water between the islands.
‘Then, if you’re lucky and you do get through the middle, you want to pray to any god you choose that when you arrive the island is expecting you. Because if it’s not, if it doesn’t want you — it just disappears again. It goes back wherever it came from and leaves you drifting there. There’s no coming back.’
‘How do the fishermen come back, then?’ I said.
‘Those sea-folk who’ve come back have secret knowledge of sea-going particulars,’ he said, and added in case I hadn’t taken his point, ‘Quirks are not sea-going folk. We do not go to sea.’
I didn’t want to pain him so I didn’t say it but I thought, well, Boson was bog-folk. Secret knowledge of bog-going particulars didn’t save him. He died in his own bog, only a walk from his own threshold.
The night was coming damp now, and snaky mist-ribbons were invading the cut-camp. One icy lip-pincher forced us to snug right down into the sheep-bag. I kept my eyes above the wool, watching the creep of fogs around the banks. All the things I didn’t know hung about me. All the things I couldn’t remember.
‘Was he always like that?’ I asked Pa.
‘Don’t you remember?’ Pa asked me.
I
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