Lost Children of the Far Islands (12 page)

The old woman knelt by the fireplace. Gus got close to see what she was doing. Some distant memory was flickering in her mind, but she could not quite catch hold of it.

The fire had died down to embers. Moving swiftly,
the Móraí took a small metal shovel from next to the fireplace and pushed the embers off to one side. Then she smoothed out the ashes and made a flat bed of them. Using the shovel again, she arranged the embers in a circle divided into four parts, cut in the shape of a cross.

“That looks like the mark in the dirt under the window,” Leo whispered in Gus’s ear.

Gus thought briefly about that mark. Their father must have made it, which meant that he did know something of the Folk, even if he did not approve of them.

The Móraí stretched her hands out over the circle cut in four and began to speak.

“It’s the night poem!” Gus said joyfully. For a moment, she could hear her mother’s voice speaking the words, telling them it was a poem from her childhood, something they said at night before bed.

The Móraí stopped reciting the poem. “What did you say?” she said sharply.

“The night poem,” Gus explained. “That’s what Mom
called it. She told it to us just before …” She stopped, unable to say the words.

“Before she got really sick,” Leo said, finishing for her.

“So that is what she used,” the Móraí said wonderingly. “She remembered it.”

“Is it a spell?” Leo asked.

“It’s a song of protection,” the Móraí said. Her eyes shone brightly, as if she might cry. “It’s how this island is protected. Your mother must have used it to protect you. But to use it by herself, and so far from here …” Her voice trailed off. “It must have cost her dearly.”

“It did,” Gus said.

The Móraí finished the poem, the words washing over Gus and Leo like a lullaby.

Then she stood up and said briskly, “Time for bed. Follow me.”

Stumbling with exhaustion, Leo and Gus followed the Móraí. In the dining room, the Bedell picked up Ila and followed them to the girls’ room. There he deposited her on one of the beds and then took Leo to his room.

Both of the beds in the girls’ room had red flannel nightgowns folded neatly on them. Gus changed and crawled into bed. The Móraí was putting the other nightie on the still-sleeping Ila. Through the open door, Gus saw a low, sleek creature, the sea mink, slipping down the dimly lit hallway.

“Thank you,” Leo’s voice came sleepily from the darkness. The mink paused and dipped its head once, and then was gone. Gus closed her eyes. The last thing she
was aware of was the Móraí bending over her to stroke her forehead.

“Safe now, Rosemaris,” she whispered.

Gus wanted to remind her that she was Rosemaris’s daughter, not Rosemaris, but sleep pulled her down before she could form the words.

The next morning when Gus woke up, Ila was already gone from the little room. Gus wandered down the short hallway into the small kitchen, which was painted the same bright blue as the front door. Morning sunshine was pouring in through a window high above the sink. The table, which was covered in red oilcloth with tiny blue flowers printed on it, was set with blue glass plates and white bowls. The juice glasses were the same blue as the plates, but the mugs were made of rough clay, each one painted a different color. A vase of the same rough clay held a spray of yellow flowers. It was an altogether cheerful and welcoming scene, and Gus felt her heart lighten as she pulled up a chair next to her brother, who was already eating breakfast along with Ila.

And the breakfast! Heaps of smoked salmon; rich hot cocoa and tiny glasses of some sort of juice that was as fine and sweet as nectar; small silver eggcups holding eggs perfectly cooked for dipping the fingers of toast in; more
of the dark, spicy honey from the night before; and jar upon jar of jam of all different flavors. There was also porridge in the ceramic bowls, mixed with tiny blueberries and dollops of thick cream and the honey.

Leo was creating a tall stack of some sort of soft cheese, salmon, and pieces of brown bread that he then somehow managed to cram into his mouth in one giant bite. “Um,” he said happily.

Gus took a sip of the thick hot chocolate. Overcoming her normal aversion to jam on toast, she tried smearing a purple one over a thick layer of butter. It was sweet and delicious, tasting exactly like the August blueberries that they always picked back at home.

As soon as she finished the toast, the Bedell appeared from the kitchen bearing a silver rack of more, hot and buttered. He did not sit down to eat with them but hovered in the background, refilling mugs and fetching porridge for Ila, who gobbled up her first bowl and asked for another.

“Do you want a bite?” she added as he brought her a second bowl. The Bedell smiled his fierce little grin at her.

“Seabirds are more my thing, love,” he explained.

It was still a shock to hear Ila’s voice. Gus was not sure she would ever get used to it. But she liked it. In fact, sitting at the table with her brother and sister in the sunny kitchen, she felt a surge of optimism. Surely everything would be all right now. Ila was talking, and their mother would be better soon. Things were turning around. She spooned the last bit of egg from her eggcup,
which was shaped like a leaping fish whose open mouth held the egg aloft.

The Móraí sat with them while they ate. She did not eat either, but rather sipped a mug of dark, fishy-smelling tea. Gus supposed they should call her
Grandmother
, but somehow it didn’t feel right. The Bedell had introduced her as
the Móraí
, and the strange word seemed to fit her.

Surprisingly, it was Ila who spoke up first.

“Who are the Folk?” she asked.

The Móraí nodded. “Yes,” she said. “The Folk live in the borders. Sea and land, forest and fen. And always, human and animal.”

“The borders between sea and land,” Leo said. “You mean the seals, right? What Gus and I were.” He blushed as he spoke. It sounded so crazy. Catching his eye, Gus nodded at him, a quick, short nod, just to let him know that he wasn’t crazy—that they
had
been seals in the ocean.

“Yes,” the Móraí said. “What you were.”

“But Ila,” Leo said. “Ila was a fox. How did that happen?”

“It was a bit naughty of you, now wasn’t it?” the Móraí said, smiling at Ila.

Ila put on her stubborn look. “I liked it,” she said.

The Móraí laughed. “You are a sharp little one.”

Ila peered suspiciously at her and then, seeing that she was not in trouble, smiled back. “I liked it a lot.”

“There are different kinds of Folk,” the Móraí explained. “We are the creatures that live in the borders. The thing we all have in common is our human aspect.
Usually we are only the two things—human and animal. But occasionally one of us will carry within him- or herself several aspects. It’s rare, but it happens. That’s what you are, little one,” she said to Ila. “Something special indeed, I think.”

“Special,” Ila said happily. She dug her spoon into her bowl, whispering to herself, “Special, special, special.”

“Yup,” Leo said, grinning. “Ila’s special, all right.” He made quotation marks in the air around the word
special
.

Ila stuck her tongue out at him.

“And you are Folk as well?” Gus asked, looking to the Bedell, who stood behind her.

“I gave the Bedell the power to Turn, but he is not Folk,” the Móraí said sternly. Then, softening her tone, she added, “But he has been a faithful servant to the Folk for many, many years.”

Gus felt awkward for the little man. She was sorry she had said anything.

“What does
Loup Marin
mean?” she asked, to change the subject. “
Marin
is
sea
, right?”

“Les Loups Marin,”
the Móraí said absently.
“Wolves of the sea
. It’s the old name for the seals.”

“Les Loups Marin,”
Gus said, liking the sound of the words.

“Anyway,” the Móraí added, briskly now, “where were we? The Sea Folk. We gather in the old places. We are in many of the old stories as well.”

“Selkies,” Leo said. “But selkies aren’t real.”

“What makes you say that?” the Móraí asked.

Leo opened his mouth and closed it again, shaking his head.

“We were once better known,” the Móraí said. “But in time, the division between our world and the human world has widened. The Sea Folk have chosen, more and more, not to be seen. Most of them retreated to their animal forms long ago. For many years, I thought that I was the only one of my kind left. But now you three have arrived.”

“Why are you here?” Leo asked.

Instead of answering Leo’s question, the Móraí said, “Your mother was to take my place when I was gone, as the next Watcher. It’s a hard life here, and a lonely one. I think I did not realize just how lonely it might be for a young girl. I was the Watcher, but I did not watch her carefully enough. One day, while she was out swimming in the sea, she caught sight of a young man fishing. She fell in love with him. She turned her back on this island, on me, on the Folk, on her life. She turned her back and went with him to live in the human world.”

“And they got married,” Leo said.

“No,” Gus said. It couldn’t be true.

“Yes. And she had three children,” the Móraí said quietly. “Two with the dark hair of the seals and one with the red hair of the foxes.”

“Were you mad at her?” Ila asked.

The Móraí smiled. “I was sad,” she said, and it was clear from her voice that she would not say more on that subject.

It was suddenly all too much for Gus. “I don’t …,” she began, but then fell silent. What she meant to say was
I don’t like this
or
I’m afraid
, but it all sounded too silly. So instead she just said unhappily, “I don’t understand.”

“Your mother left the Folk behind her when she married your father,” the Móraí explained. “She chose a life on land. And I think she believed that her choice would make you three creatures of the land only. But it does not work that way. The Folk blood is strong, and it came down in all three of you. Had anything unusual been happening to either of you?” she added, looking at Gus and Leo.

“Leo won this swim meet,” Gus said. “Remember, Leo? That was weird. I mean,” she added quickly, “not weird that you won—”

“I don’t, usually,” Leo said cheerfully. “Gus is way faster than me.”

“But that wasn’t the weird part,” Gus persisted.

“I swam it underwater,” Leo explained. “It was a hundred-meter free, and I just … won. I didn’t even need to take a breath.”

“It was totally weird,” Gus said.

“And you?” the Móraí said.

“I don’t think so,” Gus said slowly. But then she remembered the bathtub, lying under the water listening to her family move around downstairs. She decided not to mention it. It seemed embarrassing, like she’d been eavesdropping on them or something.

“The dog at the motel,” she said instead. “He was afraid of me.”

Leo nodded. “Me too.”

“Was he afraid of Ila?” the Móraí asked.

The twins thought, but couldn’t remember. “She was asleep,” Gus said. “Dad was holding her. Anyway, the dog was freaked out by
something
.”

The Móraí nodded. “As your Folk attributes began to surface, you caught the attention of something very dangerous.”

“The King that the Bedell was talking about?” Gus said.

“Yes. The Dobhar-chú.”

“The what?” Leo and Gus said together. Ila said nothing. She was watching the Móraí very closely, the starbursts in her eyes gleaming with a steady light.

“The King of the Black Lakes. Or, the Water Hound, although you would never call him that and live.”

“A hound?” Gus said in disbelief. “A little dog?”

“Not at all,” the Móraí replied. “The Dobhar-chú is something different altogether. Have you never heard of him in tales?”

The three Brennan children shook their heads.

“And Leo’s read just about everything,” Gus said. “If he was in the stories, Leo would know.”

Leo nodded modestly. “Nope,” he said. “Never heard of him.”

“He is an ancient creature,” the Móraí said. “He can breathe in the water, and he can tunnel through rock.
But he cannot live on land. His mother was a wolfhound, but his father was one of the Femori. Do you know who they are?”

“Irish water creatures?” Leo asked, scrunching up his forehead. “I can’t quite remember the rest.”

“They are very old Celtic demigods. Very unpleasant. Their name means something like
under-demons
.”

“Ugh,” Gus said.

The Móraí nodded. “They dwell in the darkest parts of the sea, and call down storms and floods and disease on any humans unlucky enough to displease them.”

“And one of them is the father of this Dobhar-chú creature?” Gus said.