When the Sea is Rising Red by Cat Hellisen

Author:Cat Hellisen
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Macmillan
Published: 2012-02-27T23:00:00+00:00

“YOU’RE GOING TO BE LATE FOR WORK,” Nala says, far too loudly.

My head aches and my mouth tastes like marsh-rat fur. I sit up and blink in the unexpected light. Belatedly, I realize two things: one, I am completely naked, and two, I am not in my own bed.

“Oh Gris!” I pull the blanket up to my shoulders and look around. Dash’s bed, Dash’s room. No sign of Dash. A feeling rather like nausea fills my belly, and my face heats. I am revolting.

Nala taps her foot, then her face softens. “You don’t take Rake’s parsley, do you?”

Gris. No. Another wave of something halfway between shame and terror swamps me, and I feel like crying, only my eyes are too dry and itchy to produce even the smallest teardrop. I huddle deeper into the blankets and wonder if you can fall pregnant your first time, if, on top of everything else I’ve managed to do, I’m going to end up like one of those Hob girls who stand on the side of the road with some scruffy woebegone brat in tow, begging for a meal. I close my eyes in horror. “No,” I whisper, and feel even stupider for it.

She lets out a long sigh. “And we don’t have none. Lils and I don’t hardly need it.” Nala holds out a bowl of tea, long since cooled by the look of it. “Dash left that for you. Drink up, and then you best run as fast as your legs’ll take you before Mrs. Danningbread gets it in her mind to let you go.”

A cold wave courses through my body, leaving my skin tingling.

The tea is lukewarm, and I swallow it as quickly as possible—anything to kill the taste in my mouth—and then dig through the debris of Dash’s bed for my clothes. I pull my shift over my head, then pause to survey his domain.

There’s still a single book lying near the bed. Curious, I pick it up. It’s an old copy of Prines’s Mapping the Dream, so old that the red cover has faded to a dull brownish pink. The Dream is famous, and Prines has the dubious honor of being a crake worth studying, especially because of his historical connection to Mallen Gris. But why a Hob would be reading verse detailing the poet’s obsessive and ultimately erotic encounters with his House Master’s son is beyond me. The language is archaic, couched in layers and layers of metaphor, as impenetrable as a snarl of fishing line.

I lift the book, and a small folded note drops from the pages. Dash’s name is written on the outside in a neat slanted hand. An educated hand. I pause, feeling the crinkled edge against my fingertips. Dare I?

Perhaps it’s some girlfriend; perhaps I am just one of many. I unfold the letter. It’s short, merely stating a time and date, and ending with the word yours. A jealous heat crawls through me, and the taste of bile fills my mouth.

Hastily, I shove the note back, hoping that Dash won’t notice.

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