‘I know your man’s gone,’ she said, not unkindly, ‘but so’s mine, a long time past. We all die, Kattie – Shyishans know this more than most. The village continues. So should you.’
She was about to leave when she noticed the rags bundled on the floor. Quickly, before Katalina could stop her, the widow hooked them up.
‘What’s this? Been out beachcombing have you?’
She held up the strange metal plates to the light, curved and barbed like seashells. There was something in her eyes then, Katalina felt; a lost memory resurfacing from deep places, an old fear finally confirmed. Like a change in the weather, the expression passed away. Agata cast the pieces down with a shudder.
‘Huh. They’ll make good flower baskets for your eaves come spring,’ she said. She squinted at the younger woman. For a moment her face looked drawn and harried. ‘Don’t suppose you saw much else out there?’
‘Like what?’
‘Tracks on the beach, the young lads say. Something dragged itself from the sea last night, maybe. Or dragged itself back.’
Katalina said nothing. The older woman stared at her, but under that piercing gaze she made her face blank. Only the thin material of the hanging separated the old widow from the truth of the rumour.
‘Well,’ she said at last. ‘Open a window, Kat. Get some air in. It reeks in here.’
When the door banged behind the old woman, Katalina fell into her chair. She wiped the sweat from her face and stilled her breathing, and when she could hear Agata back at her drying green she drew the hanging. The thing was staring up at her, its eyes a richer blue, the dark lips parted to show a sliver of silver teeth.
‘You’re safe,’ she said. ‘I won’t let anybody hurt you. I promise.’
She took the dull blue jewel from her pocket and placed it on the pillow by the creature’s head. It said nothing, moved not a muscle, but somehow Katalina was sure it was saying thank you.
Later in the day, she entered into the life of the village again, as she hadn’t done for months. Warily, the villagers watched her. Men and women she had known all her life crossed the square to avoid her, and at the sorting baskets the fishwives shunned her attempts to talk. Some whispered as she passed. It was like her grief was contagious, a sickness no one wanted to catch.
‘Pay no mind to them, Kat,’ Radomir said later that afternoon, taking her aside and sharing his bread with her. ‘Half of them think you’ve a lover in your bed, and the other half are jealous!’
Her face flushed red. ‘I’ve no lover!’ she said in a hoarse whisper. ‘And Borys not a year gone!’ Agata, she thought.
Radomir laughed and wolfed down his food. ‘No matter to me if you did, girl! Village gossip, you know what it’s like. Now come on,’ he said as the horns blew from the harbour. ‘That’s the dusk catch back, we’ve work to do.’
The day’s work laced her muscles with pain, but Katalina felt almost pleasurably tired when she headed home. She would sleep well tonight, she thought, and if she dreamed, she knew she would dream of Borys. He was close now, surely. All lost things will come home on the tide, in the end.
Radomir walked her back as evening fell.
‘What will you do tonight then?’ he asked her. Did he fear she would haunt the graveyard again, a lonely gheist maddened by her grief? Or did he half-believe in that village gossip?
‘I’ve those nets to darn,’ she said. ‘And the cottage to tidy. Maybe it has been too long, Radomir… Today was a good day.’
‘I’m glad to hear it, you need to move on with your life. Perhaps we could set up a memorial to Borys in the cemetery?’
‘Even without his body?’
‘Why not?’ Radomir offered. ‘I’m no philosopher, but do we really know that’s how it works? None of us have ever actually gone to the Placid Shore, have we? But he’ll be there regardless, I’d swear it.’
They reached the turn-off for the path that led to Katalina’s cottage. The wind danced between them, kicking at the sand. From over the fretful dunes came the boom and mutter of the surf.
‘Agata said they’d found tracks on the beach last night,’ Katalina said. ‘Something came ashore.’
Radomir did a good job of looking indifferent. ‘Oh, nothing to worry about!’ he said, airily. ‘Honestly, it’ll turn out to be nothing in the end.’
‘A ripperjaw, maybe?’ she asked. ‘One of them’s beached in these parts before.’
‘Nothing so dramatic! Just… just some things that were found on the beach. But they could have washed up from anywhere – it’s no real worry. There’ll be men out patrolling, just in case.’
They went their separate ways, but when she headed down the path to her home Katalina knew something was wrong at once. The door of her cottage was ajar, and even in the gathering night she could see flecks of what might be blood against the doorstep. She moved cautiously into the gloom.
‘Are you there?’
The bed was empty. She could see the impression its body had made on the mattress. She stood and listened, but all she could hear was Agata’s grumbling from the garden next door, the muted thunder of the surf.
The music of the sea…
She found it slumped amongst the dunes, not thirty yards from the cottage. If Agata had but raised her head when she was outside she would have seen it. The wounds had opened, and the bandages were wet. In the dusk’s flat light its pale skin almost seemed to glow, and the eyes it turned on her as it panted for breath were pained.
‘What are you doing?’ she scolded. ‘By the hammer and the throne, anyone could have seen you!’
She wrapped an arm around its shoulders and gathered it up. It felt light, diminished. There was something desiccated about it now, like a stick of wind-dried kelp. It scrabbled at her with its fingers, moaning, clawing her skin.
‘I know, but you’re not strong enough yet,’ she said. ‘A few more nights, please. Let me care for you a little longer.’
She heard the clank of metal, the tread of footsteps across the beach. Quietly she hunkered in the sand, drawing the creature down. Through the marram grass she could see one of the patrols Radomir had mentioned – two old salts and a boy, with gutting knives and a grimy lamp. The lad danced and slashed the air.
‘One quick cut with this beauty and I’ll be feeding it to the sharks!’ he shouted. The old salts mocked him, passing a leather flask between them.
‘Let me tell you now, boy, you wouldn’t last a breath against half the things in those waters!’
The patrol ambled on, the old salts still laughing. When it had passed, Katalina breathed again. She was holding its hand, the clammy cold fingers in her own. The creature gulped for air and said only its second word to her:
