Fear the Drowning Deep by Sarah Glenn Marsh

Author:Sarah Glenn Marsh
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Sky Pony Press
Published: 2016-03-21T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Fynn draped an arm around my shoulders, allowing me to carry some of his weight, just as he’d done when I found him on the beach. Dusk fell around us as we struggled toward home, another ten or twelve houses up the lane.

More red stained his shirt with each passing moment, and it didn’t take us long to attract the attention of the few curious neighbors who weren’t yet snug in their homes.

“What happened to him?” Mrs. Kissack called, her words echoed by Mrs. Kinry. The two women stood in the Kinrys’ yard, no doubt having a suppertime visit. I wished they would stop gawking and offer to help.

“I’ll tell someone to send for a doctor,” a young lad across the lane offered, dashing away before I could stammer out a thank you.

“What happened?” Mrs. Kissack demanded again shrilly, her hand fluttering at her throat. “Who attacked you? Speak, lad!” She glanced from pale, shaky Fynn to me with wide eyes. “Bridey?”

My head and heart pounded. I’d almost leapt off a cliff, enchanted by a monster’s melody. Between the unabashed stares of Mrs. Kissack and her friend, and Fynn bleeding and gasping beside me, I was too shaken to carefully weigh my words.

“There was something in the sea—the beast that took my grandad. It almost got me, too.”

Someone gave a derisive cough, and my skin prickled. I longed to bury my words forever like the sea swallows a lost ship.

Mrs. Kissack threw me a pitying look I knew too well—the one she usually reserved for the very old and very daft. “You might want to reconsider your story before the doctor shows up, dear. He’ll need the facts to determine proper treatment.”

As if proving her right—though I knew he couldn’t help it—Fynn groaned, leaning harder on me, like his legs might soon give out.

“She’s madder than the witch on the hill,” Mrs. Kinry murmured from behind her handkerchief. “Mad as her grandfather who jumped off that cliff.”

“It’s not her fault!” Mrs. Kissack snapped at her friend as Fynn and I resumed our struggle toward home. These neighbors of ours wouldn’t be any help. “It seems Morag Maddrell has addled her brains. It’s exactly what I knew would happen if she kept the witch’s company. I told her mother as much just the other day, when I saw her at …”

I started humming, trying to block out their voices as I guided Fynn farther away. “We’ll be home soon,” I whispered.

“We should pray for her!” Mrs. Kinry’s booming voice chased us up the lane.

“I made a mistake.” Memories of the town’s merciless stares and whispers flooded my mind, echoes of the last time I’d tried to tell what had happened to Grandad. If I hadn’t been so shaken, I never would have let those words pass my lips today. “A terrible mistake.”

Fynn grunted to show he’d heard. His half-lidded eyes and the sweat beading on his forehead made me all the more desperate to get him safely home.

Mam met me at the door, taking the burden of Fynn’s weight and shouting for Mally.

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