The Fork-Tongue Charmers (16 page)

“Told you,” Hendry said with a smile. “The Fiddlers keep claiming the pulley system is rigged. We just ignore them—after all, they're the ones who built it!” Hendry let out a hearty laugh. “The Fishers and Crofters on the other hand, they're a bit more evenly matched.”

“Which team is yours?” Folly asked.

“Hendry Tarvish, First Apprentice Sheepherder,” he said with a little bow. “And eighth-generation Crofter.”

On the seawalls, the Crofters and Fishers took little time to relish in their first victory. The teams quickly turned their attention to each other. The prize at the center of the rope wobbled but did not rotate far either way.

“What's that in the middle?” Quinn asked.

“The Driftwood Crown,” Hendry explained. “It's just an ornament. No one actually wears it—that would just be foolish.”

It all struck Rye as a bit foolish.

“The Fishers have won the past two Pulls,” Hendry said. “But I think this may be our year.”

“How long will they go at it?” Quinn asked.

“As long as it takes,” Hendry said. “Last year it lasted nearly a week.”

“A week!” Quinn exclaimed.

“You can swap pullers out for a rest, as long as there are never more than twelve mates touching the rope at any one time. Substitutions are tricky.”

“Will you be one of the substitutes?” Folly asked.

“No, still too scrawny,” he said with a smile. Hendry flexed a bicep that produced an impressive bulge for a boy his age. Folly blushed. Quinn glanced down at
his own arm and frowned. “Maybe someday,” Hendry added.

Rye continued to study the teams battling each other on the seawalls.

“Isn't there a better way to decide who's in charge?” she asked.

“Of course,” he said. “It should be the Crofters every year. But ask three Belongers and you'll get three different answers.”

“Still, it doesn't seem like the best way,” she replied.

“No?” Hendry asked. “It's certainly better than the old way. That involved much blood and broken bones.”

Rye turned to him. “How long has Pest chosen its leaders like this?”

“Most of my life,” he said, then hesitated. “Although there was a time when the clans weren't so quarrelsome.”

Rye raised an eyebrow.

“There was once one leader who everyone agreed on,” Hendry said. “But he abandoned us long ago. It's been like this ever since.”

“Can't he be replaced?” Rye asked.

Hendry gave her a tight smile.

“Maybe,” he said. “But as far as I know, there's only one Waldron Cutty.”

H
endry took Rye, Folly, and Quinn on a tour of the vendors' tents and stalls. Drowning's silver shims and bronze bits were of no value on Pest, but after Hendry introduced Rye as a Belonger the peddlers were willing to let them sample the local fare. The face painters even added a touch of decorative color to their cheeks. Quinn filled up on something called offal pie, and when he asked Hendry what was in it, Hendry just slapped him on the back and said, “You've got so many goat bits in your belly you'll probably be bleating in your sleep.”

They all made their way back up the crushed-shell path as the sun hung low in the sky. Other groups of children followed the occasional adult out of the village, but most of the Belongers still crowded the harbor where the Crofters and Fishers continued to labor at the ropes. Hendry explained that many of the Isle's daily chores would be left to the children until the Pull was complete.

Rye heard the crush of shells behind them as two other children hurried to catch up. The boy was about Hendry's age but short and squat. His hair was shaved down to his scalp over each ear and around the back of his head, with a thick thatch of auburn hair sticking up on the crown like a plume. The girl was younger, perhaps seven or eight, and thin as a spring wildflower. She had perfectly round, green-flecked eyes that seemed to reflect the dull innocence of a halibut, and wore a crooked smile that reminded Rye of the bent cupboard back at the farmhouse. And yet her most striking feature was her hair. Her brown locks fell as straight and fine as thread past the hem of her frock, just short of the heels of her bare feet. Rye had never met anyone with hair so long.

“Is this them?” the boy asked, his cheeks ruddy with excitement.

Hendry nodded. “Rye, Folly, and Quinn, this is my second cousin twice removed, Rooster Dunner.”

Rooster gave them a cheerful wave.

“Do they call you Rooster because of your hair?” Folly asked with a smile.

Rooster's cheeks flushed even more. “Um, no,” he stammered, and he tried to flatten his auburn tuft over the bare skin of his scalp. “It's because I wake up so early.”

“Oh,” Folly said as Rye flashed her a reproachful look. “That makes more sense,” she added quickly.

“And this is our friend, Padgett Gilly,” Hendry continued. “We call her Padge.”

Padge kept smiling without blinking.

“Is it true?” Rooster asked, looking toward Rye as he grappled with his uncooperative cowlicks. “Are you really a Cutty?”

Rye had to think before answering but said, “Well, yes. I suppose I am.”

“Have you met him?” Rooster asked.

“Who?”

“Waldron, of course,” Rooster clarified.

“Yes. Well, barely. Folly and Quinn have too.”

“Told you,” Hendry said.

The three Belonger children exchanged wide-eyed glances, although Rye was beginning to get the sense that Padge's eyes always looked that way.

“Your grandmother's mother was my grandmother's
aunt,” the younger girl chimed in unexpectedly.

Rye returned a blank look.

“My great-grandmother was your mother's great aunt,” Padge clarified, in a way that was entirely unhelpful.

“Oh,” Rye said, “That makes us . . .” She wasn't exactly sure.

“
Related
, silly,” Padge said with a roll of her eyes, as if the answer should be obvious to anyone.

Quinn furrowed his brow. “I think she means your great-grandmothers were sisters.”

“Exactly,” Padge said, and blinked her eyes for the first time, batting them at Quinn. “You must be the smartie of the bunch.”

“Padge comes from a family of whalers,” Hendry explained. “Her father was a legendary seaman, but he was swallowed by a humpback when she was just a baby. We keep an eye out for her now.” Hendry flashed her a warm, brotherly smile, then leaned in and whispered to Rye. “He actually tangled his foot in a net and fell off the dock, but we tell her the whale story to make her feel better.”

Hendry leaned back out. “Padge also happens to have an uncanny ability to guess things before they happen.”

“It's true,” Rooster confirmed.

“We keep that to ourselves, though,” Hendry added warily. “We wouldn't want the adults to get the wrong idea and ship her off to the Lower Isles.”

“Why would they ship her off?” Rye began to ask, but Rooster had already jumped in.

“Who's going to win the Pull this year, Padge?” he asked.

“I already told you. Nobody.”

“Come on,” Rooster coaxed.

“You don't have to believe me, Rooster. But you can be sure who's
not
going to win—the Fiddlers.” She stuck her tongue out at him.

Rooster scowled. Folly giggled. Hendry suggested that they all move along, offering to see Rye, Folly, and Quinn back to Waldron's farm before dark.

Rye started after Hendry but stopped when she felt a small tug on her sleeve.

“My father wasn't swallowed by any whale,” Padge whispered, and winked a big round eye. “I just pretend to believe that to make Hendry and Rooster feel better.”

The children made their way along the footpath. Quinn chatted with Hendry while Rooster eagerly quizzed Folly about what is was like to live in a tavern. Padge followed closely at Rye's heels, so close she accidentally stepped on Rye's boot and sent her reeling. The little
girl didn't say much but just kept smiling her crooked grin.

Rye saw Quinn pause as they reached the small stone bridge.

“What's that?” he said, pointing to something nestled underneath. It looked like a leather pouch. “Someone's dropped their coin purse.” Quinn started down the embankment.

“Don't touch it!” Hendry cried. “We leave coins under bridges for the Shellycoats—to keep them happy and out of mischief,” he explained. “Disturbing their coins . . . that could be trouble.”

“What's a Shellycoat?” Folly asked.

“Like a wirry,” Rye said.

Padge leaned in close to Rye. “Silly boys,” she whispered. “The Shellycoats don't want coins.”

“No?” Rye asked.

Padge shook her head adamantly.

“What then?” Rye asked.

“Blood,” Padge mouthed.

Rye pinched her face tight at the thought. Padge just looked at her without blinking, then her shoulders began to shudder and a little wheezing sound came from her throat, like Shady coughing up a hairball. It took Rye a moment to realize it was laughter.

“I'm just tickling you,” Padge said, and jabbed a
small, bony elbow into Rye's ribs.

Hendry glanced at the sky. “Smells like we've got weather coming in. We should all get home ahead of it.” He turned and pointed up the path that Rye, Folly, and Quinn had descended earlier. “Keep to the footpath and you'll be fine. Don't stray north of your grandfather's farm, though. Beyond that is the old Varlet homestead—and you don't want any business there.”

“What's wrong with the Varlet homestead?” Folly asked.

“It's haunted,” Rooster jumped in. “And cursed on top of that.”

Rye, Folly, and Quinn had heard their share of ghost stories around Drowning. Rye had come to discover that the stories were mostly bogwash. She heard Hendry call out as the new friends parted company at the edge of Waldron's farm.

“Meet us in Wick tomorrow! Don't stray from the farm after dark—you don't want the Shellycoats to get you!”

Rye smelled the familiar scent of her mother's cooking wafting from the farmhouse. Overhead, the glowing clouds that had reflected a golden sunset over the hills now turned to dark bruises. The children hurried through the field, ducking under an enormous pair of billowing men's trousers Abby had hung on a line to dry.

Behind them, the seas churned the color of metal. On the horizon, a large ship bobbed on restless waves. Then the Salt materialized like a massive ghost from the depths of the ocean, obscuring it behind its murky wall.

Abby had done her best to arrange a proper setting around the farm table for supper. She'd cut wildflowers and placed them in an empty bottle as a centerpiece, and everyone blinked at one another from their seats without saying anything at all. Rye and her friends sat up straight and smiled politely in their chairs for the benefit of Waldron and Knockmany.

Their good manners lasted all of a minute, the children resuming their usual suppertime antics by the time Abby had filled their goblets. Rye was starving and the floor around her was soon covered with crumbs and soup stains. Folly and Quinn loudly debated the veracity of one of Folly's stories. Lottie, whose own story was getting lost in the argument, banged her spoon on her plate.

Abby was well accustomed to such commotion, if not altogether enamored with it. But Waldron and Knockmany seemed as baffled as if a flock of geese had joined them at the table. Waldron slurped at his stew, his large frame spilling out of his chair. He didn't have much to say, although the wildflowers made him sneeze now and again. Knockmany sat next to Lottie
and flinched at some of the louder shrieks and more boisterous laughter. He hunkered down behind his bowl and mug.

“So how was Wick?” Abby asked matter-of-factly, cocking a knowing eye at the children. They fell silent.

Rye exchanged glances with Quinn. His face was still smudged with the festive green and white paint of the Tarvish clan. She looked to Folly. A craftswoman had plaited strands of Folly's white-blond hair into a traditional Pest braid. It didn't take a sage to figure out where they'd been.

“We tried to stay out,” Rye explained, “like you asked. It just didn't work.”

“My father says a strong effort is sometimes worth more than a good result,” Quinn added helpfully.

Abby just shook her head.

“So who do you think will win the Pull?” Folly asked Rye and Quinn.

Waldron's eyes narrowed from across the table.

“The Pull?” Abby asked.

Folly jumped in before Rye thought to stop her, telling Abby everything they'd seen and learned from Hendry. Abby's face frowned as Folly rambled, although Rye sensed that her mother's annoyance was not with her friend but at the state of affairs in Wick. Rye watched Waldron's reaction even more carefully. He
didn't speak, but his eyes darkened with every word. It was the same sort of quiet anger she'd seen in her mother more than once.

Rye nudged Folly under the table in hopes it might quiet her, but Folly didn't take her cue. Rye felt the pit in her stomach move to her throat. Surely Folly knew better than to mention Hendry's words about the leader who'd abandoned them.

“They said it wasn't always this way,” Folly continued between bites. “Once, there—”

Rye forced out an enormous belch—one loud enough to abruptly halt Folly's chatter. Abby gave her a reproachful look and Rye's eyes darted to Waldron. His forehead had gone scarlet. The muscles in his neck tightened as if he were trying to contain himself.

Uh-oh
, Rye thought. Apparently that wasn't the custom on Pest either.

“Thank you for the dinner?” she said meekly.

Waldron's chin wrinkled, his brow furrowed, and he could control himself no longer. A sound escaped his throat. To Rye's surprise, it was a deep chuckle.

Rye looked at her mother. There was another burp.

Lottie smiled. “Tu, tu,” she said, which meant “thank you” in Lottie-speak.

Waldron's chuckle turned to a belly laugh. The children laughed too.

Folly let out a burp. Then Quinn.

“Thank you for the dinner!” they called in unison.

Waldron's great barrel chest heaved. Abby crossed her arms and stiffened in her seat, but Rye could see the hint of a smirk on her face. Finally, after the children had forced out as many belches as they could, Waldron's laughter drifted off and he paused in his chair as if catching his breath. He refilled his goblet, drained it with a vigorous gulp, and buried his chin in his chest. Within seconds his eyelids drifted shut and his red beard was rising and falling in deep breaths.

Rye and her friends exchanged curious glances.

Rye leaned across the table toward Abby. “Is he asleep?” she whispered.

Waldron's eyes snapped open and he abruptly pushed himself up from the table with great effort.

“Yes, to bed, then,” he said, and lumbered off to his bedroom, closing the door behind him.

That night the island was lashed by a storm the likes of which Rye had never before seen. She huddled with Folly and Quinn in a spare room of the farmhouse as the wind howled and shook the roof. Lottie had taken refuge with Abby in a second bedroom. Waldron seemed to sleep right through it, but Rye feared Knockmany would be blown out of his rickety shed.

Despite her exhaustion, Rye barely slept. Her first night back on dry ground, the floors of the cottage seemed to shift under her back like the decks of a ship. She had finally drifted off when the sound of moaning flooded her ears.