Home From the Sea: An Elemental Masters Novel Read online

  She worried at that and worried at it as she put the peas to cook, and got a nice bit of salmon ready for frying. She still couldn’t untangle the puzzle. Why was he coming after the Protheros? Or was he doing the same in the whole village?

  Finally she just gave it up as being something she couldn’t puzzle out. That was when the memory of the seaweed-girl practically leapt up out of the back of her mind. The seaweed girl, who Constable Ewynnog had not been able to see… but…

  Who had been able to make the constable’s afternoon a misery.

  Which meant only one thing. That the creatures that only she could see, were, nevertheless, able to do things. Real things. Torment real people… and if they could do that…

  Here was her proof. They were not fever-dreams or the phantoms of a mind going mad. They were real.

  The revelation thrilled and terrified her. Thrilled, because who wouldn’t be thrilled to know that they were not going to end up tied to a bedpost, mad-eyed and raving. But terrified…

  Tylwyth Teg folk. They were not safe, no matter that they had been helpful to her all this time. They were not tame. They operated by their own rules, which often seemed to be as much whim as rules. If they liked you, as they seemed to like her, they could do you great favors. But you could not count on that liking to last, and when they were angry with you, they could do a great deal more than trip you up.

  These were dangerous waters. And she was going to have to try and recall every tale that old woman had told her, just to have an inkling of how to navigate them.

  She debated telling her da this, but given his reactions to her talking about her odd “friends” when she was a child… she finally decided, no. No, probably not a good idea. So instead, when her da came home, she laid out dinner and gave a faithful rendition of everything that had happened, including the constable’s mishaps, but not saying what had caused them.

  Her da was grinning as she spoke of the man getting savaged by the cat, and grinned wider at his clumsiness. “Must have been them city boots,” he said, with mock-gravity. “I imagine he was fair put out.”

  “I imagine so,” she said, and grinned a little herself. But then she lost the smile, thinking that it was bad enough to have the attention of the Tylwyth Teg, but having the attention of the constable was no better. “Da,” she said, clasping her hands on the table in front of her, and ignoring the rest of her meal, “Da, I think he was trying to get something nasty he could use to put you in jail! But why? Why would he do that? Why is he trying to hurt us?”

  The lantern-light from the lamp he’d hung above their heads cast shadows on his face as he looked up. “I believe you’re right. But—oh now, that’s several questions in one, my heart,” her father said, gravely, and set his own fork aside. “Look now, first, I think he thinks that we are some sort of village outcasts for living out here. So he thinks we’re the weakest out of all of the village—that no one will spring to our defense if he comes up with some daft charge or other.”

  She nodded; that made sense.

  “He’s a bully; bullies always pick on the weakest.” He grinned at her. “But we’re not weak, we’re like the seals, strong and slippery and fast, and any rope he tries to cast around us, we’ll just slip right through and be gone.”

  She sighed, feeling a little more comfortable. It sounded as if her da had spent a goodly long time thinking about all this, and was already planning things.

  “Now as to why he would do this in the first place…” her da frowned. “I think we talked of this before. I’m going to say he’s been sent to find trouble. Sent to hunt out lawbreakers. Whoever sent him just assumed that no matter where you looked hereabouts, you’d find anarchists and unionists, and sympathizers, and I’m thinking it must go further than the Manor folk, since they seem no happier to have him than we. I’m thinking it goes all the way back to the big landowners and the mine owners who hold the leashes of the constables. Money talks, my love. Money is what tells power what to do. Money is always there, any time you see power moving. Only there’s no one here doing what he’s been sent to look for, so now he has to twist and bend and even make things up for the ones that sent him, so that he won’t find himself in trouble.” Dafydd Prothero shook his head, sadly, but also angrily. “If he was a good, honest man, he’d tell his bosses that there’s naught to be found here, and all their prodding him won’t give them what they want. But he’s not. He’s a little, petty man, with large ideas of his own importance, and he’s a bully, and those two things together are going to make trouble for someone.”

  “Then we need to make certain it isn’t us!” she exclaimed, with indignation.

  “Aye, true, but we also need to make certain we come to the help of whoever it does end up being,” he cautioned her. “Do as you would be done by. Or you’ll be done by as you did.”

  And with that, he picked his fork back up and finished his dinner thoughtfully.

  As usual, they worked for a bit, and sang together a bit, but the darkness seemed thicker tonight, and they soon went off to bed.

  She thought about all that he had said as she went up to bed. It was true that the folks in Clogwyn had come to her defense, but that was when none of them were in any danger of anything other than irritation. Would they still feel that way if it was one of their own with his neck being measured for a noose? After all, she and her da were something of outsiders. As far as she knew, no one was aware of Daffyd Prothero’s truly extraordinary good luck in fishing, and the daily sails to Criccieth before he came home, but they did know he was always able to bring in enough to sell, and for some, that was enough for jealousy.

  People had always been reticent to talk to her about her mother and her lost older brother too. Was that just because they felt it wasn’t right to, or was there something more, something to make them wonder why her mother had taken them both out kelping on that particular day? She’d never thought twice about it until today.

  Well, now she knew. She knew that the Tylwyth Teg folk were not some visions of madness, but just as real as she had supposed they were as a child. She knew that they could affect things in the real world—even do mischief to those who couldn’t see them! So… what if they had something to do with her mother’s drowning? It would explain why her father didn’t want to hear about them. It would explain why the villagers didn’t want to talk about it—because if she could see them, well certainly there must be others who could, or where would all those stories come from?

  Or maybe they had seen something truly uncanny. Maybe they had just seen the wave coming for her mother as if it was alive—or some of them had actually seen her and the child dragged into it. There were plenty of the Tylwyth Teg that would kill a mortal if they could.

  And if that was true, did it mean the Tylwyth Teg were coming for her next? Would they lure or push her into the sea? They’d never been anything but playful before… but who could tell for sure? They might do anything. There were plenty of stories about the malicious ones, the murderous ones. Even the prettiest… well, they were said to lure men to drown, too.

  She shivered in her bed. This did not make for comfortable thinking. Bad enough that she was going to have to worry about Constable Ewynnog and his spying ways, but if the Tylwyth Teg were a danger as well… the Tylwyth Teg were more dangerous than the constable. Him, she could see coming. They could be invisible if they chose, or hide in the shadows, or creep in at night when she and her da were asleep.

  But they never have before, she reminded herself. Nothing other than a bit of theft or hiding something. Even the Pwca, he never offered me harm.

  And there was another thing to worry about. Was that why her da didn’t want to hear about them? Not that he didn’t believe in them, but because he did, and he, too, was afraid that his wife had been their victim? Was he afraid they were coming for his daughter as well?

  What to think? Her mind went round and around in little circles, trying to reason it out, and she came to no conclusion at
all before she was worn out and fell asleep despite her fretting.

  The morning was another clear, clean day, and it seemed a day to ask the questions she had never asked before. Maybe not about the Tylwyth Teg, not yet but…

  “Da,” she asked, as her father stoked himself with hot food to keep him on the water, “Why do you always sell half the catch in Criccieth? You could sell it here. Especially on those days when no one else brings in much.”

  He stopped with his fork halfway to his mouth. “The long and the short of it is that in Criccieth I’m only one fisherman that only fishermen know, and not well, and only by ‘Daffyd’ and half of Wales is named that. No one cares who brings in fish, nor how many fish I bring in. In Clogwyn I’m Daffyd Prothero that everyone knows.”

  “Well yes,” she admitted, “but—”

  “It’s to keep you safe.” He practically bit off the words, as if he was afraid that to say more would be dangerous. This, from her da, who never let one word do when he could string out a sort of poem from many!

  “Safe from what?” she asked. The next question she had never asked before. “Whoever would harm me?”

  There were shadows on his darkly handsome face, and his brows knitted with unhappiness. “And why are you asking me this now?” he countered.

  “Because it can’t be to keep us safe from Constable Ewynnog; you’ve been doing this all my life.” She twisted her fingers together, anxiously. “Da, if there’s something that is a danger, aren’t I old enough to know about it now?”

  His mouth turned down in an unhappy grimace. “I—I can’t talk about it yet,” he said, finally.

  Yet? What does that mean?

  “Is it about my mother?” she asked. Still another question she had never asked. “Is there more about my mother you’ve not told me?”

  This only increased his distress, and she was suddenly reminded again of the tales, the tales not only of the Tylwyth Teg and fanciful things, but of princes and frogs and fishermen, and how it was always best never to ask questions, for the mere asking of them brought trouble upon the asker. She had, as a child, thought it silly that the princesses and brides and other girls would persist in asking the questions they knew were forbidden—but now she knew first-hand just how impossible it was not to ask them. They burned in your mind, and ate at you, until you had to blurt them out or die from them eating at you.

  She could feel all those questions, all those words, seething in her mind, as they had since she had awakened this morning, and she knew she could no more refrain from asking than she could refrain from breathing.

  As for her Da, he looked startled as well as unhappy, as if he had not expected her to make that intuitive leap. And that, in a way, told her something; it told her that yes, this all did have to do with her mother.

  “I can’t tell you yet,” he repeated, with an edge of desperation in his voice. “I will, I promise, but I cannot tell you yet.”

  “Is there anything I can do to help you?” she asked, softly now. She put one hand on the hand that still held the fork. “Da, there’s nothing I wouldn’t do for you, you know that. Is there—”

  He was sweating now. “That’s—part of it—” he got out with difficulty. “There will be something. But I can’t tell you what. Not yet. Just… just forget the questions for now. There’s troubles enough without us looking for more. Aye?”

  “All right,” she agreed, and he finished eating in a rush and was out the door as if he could not wait to be out on the water.

  She watched after him—and at least he had not forgotten his kiss at the door, nor his wave as he pushed out to sea, but his leave-taking left her feeling uneasy inside. As if she had somehow broken another of those Tylwyth Teg-tale rules.

  “Oh, oh, oh, silly girl that you are,” said a voice full of merriment from somewhere near her left knee. She looked down. It was the seaweed girl again. She bit her lip, then, screwing up her courage, addressed the creature as she had not in years.

  “And why am I a silly girl?” she asked.

  The little thing tossed her hair, the movement making her seaweed-gown move as well, and revealing enough to make Mari blush. There was a fully formed woman under that weed, regardless that she was only two feet tall. “There you go; you know, and you know that you know, that words are power and words can bind, but you go and tell your father ‘I’ll do anything to help you.’ It’s a good thing he is your father, or you could find yourself bound to serve him until white horses come out of the sea.”

  She bit her lip harder. The creature was right. And then it struck her: if anyone was to know what the bottom to all of this mystery was, it would be the Tylwyth Teg folk!

  “And what do you know about my mother?” she demanded.

  The tiny green eyes twinkled, and was there a touch of… well, not malice but something with more darkness to it than mere mischief. “And what will you give me for what I could tell?”

  Oh dear. She had forgotten that. The Tylwyth Teg, at least in the tales, had no generosity of spirit. Nothing was ever freely given. A gift enraged them; it put obligation on them that they had not agreed to. They’d steal what they fancied, but not food. The old woman had said it was because there was salt in most food, and salt was holy, so they could not steal it. You could leave food for them, though, and their rules let them have as much of it as they could eat in a sitting. If you put out bread and milk, say, they would take it, but would perform tasks to “pay” for it. Food was allowed. Put out more than that, without bargaining beforehand, and it enraged them.

  So, what would a sea-creature want? Something it couldn’t get in the sea, of course.

  “Bread and honey?” she offered, tentatively.

  The little creature scoffed. “That’s not enough for what I know,” she said. “You must do better than that.” She grinned, and Mari noticed that all her teeth were pointed, like a shark’s. “Secrets, secrets, oh, I do know them. Offer again.”

  But though she pummeled her mind for something to offer, she couldn’t come up with anything. She shrugged. “We bain’t rich,” she said. “I’ve not got much, and most of what we have, I won’t offer without I talk to my da.”

  The little thing wagged her head back and forth. “You’ve more than you think, Mari Prothero. Pledge me a service!”

  Oh no, she wasn’t going to be caught in that trap. You didn’t offer the Tylwyth Teg a “service” unless you were entirely certain of what that service would be, and even then you had to be careful lest you discover you’d bound yourself to them for years and years. “I’m not free to pledge a service,” she temporized.

  “Well then, you won’t be hearing what I know.” The Tylwyth Teg creature laughed. “And if only you knew what I know you’d never need to bargain again, never fear some bumbling landsman lording it over his lessers, and never know want.” She laughed again, mockingly. “But ask your da. If you dare. If he’ll dare answer you. Oh, he’ll be telling you one day, but the day he does, it will be too late for you to be bargaining!”

  And with that, she twirled around and vanished from sight—but her laughter rang out over the pebbly shore, growing fainter as she sped for the water.

  Mari frowned, much put out. It was very vexing to have finally acknowledged that these creatures were real only to have them turn about and act like this. She restrained herself from shouting after the creature. What would she say? “All right, just see if I don’t!” Oh that would accomplish absolutely nothing.

  So very irritating. The vexation was enough to make her feel less afraid of them, because this one certainly wasn’t acting like a powerful and dangerous creature, but like a tormenting little brat.

  She combed her hair back out of her eyes with her fingers, and went into the house. Uncanny creatures or not, mysteries could wait. She had chores to do. Just to begin with, that kelp-ash would need washing to get the salt out, and now was as good a time as any to get her buckets and go.

  But when she went to the stream in the sh
eep-meadow to fetch fresh water, there were other surprises waiting for her. Two of them.

  Again, these were tiny creatures, transparent as glass, and again, female. Instead of being clothed in seaweed, they were clothed only in their own hair, although they managed to be more modest that way than the little rude thing. They were clearly waiting for her, half-in, half-out of the stream, side by side, with their arms braced on the bank.

  She looked around, nervously, to make sure there was no one about to see her talking with nothing. But there was not a soul to be seen, only the sheep. She looked down at the two—whatever they were. They didn’t correspond to any Tylwyth Teg that she recognized. They smiled winsomely at her.

  “We are very glad you are willing to see us now, Mari,” said one, in a voice that sounded oddly like the burbling of water over stones. “It made us sad when you stopped wanting to.”

  Wait… now… she did remember creatures like these, though she still had no name for them. These were some of her childhood playmates; these, or something very like these, had taught her to swim at an age when most children were barely toddling. She’d never told her father that; he’d probably have gone quite mad if she had.

  “I didn’t know you were real,” she said, shamefacedly. “Da—”

  “Oh, we know,” said the second. “And Mari, he wasn’t unhappy because he thought we weren’t real. He was unhappy because he knows we are.”

  She stared at them, speechless, as they toyed with the grasses at the verge of the stream. “But—”

  “It means something very important,” said the first. “Some—we can’t tell you, until your father does. But some we can say, and he should have. You have magic, Mari. Magic like the old Druids and older. You will be able to command the creatures of the water when you are taught. He should have told you. He should have seen you were taught. But he was afraid.”