The Fork-Tongue Charmers (15 page)

Rye was about to ask her mother about it, but Abby seemed to have fallen deep into thought at the sight of the place.

The old man gestured for them to stay where they were and approached the door. Placing his ear against it, he listened carefully. He rapped with his knuckles. There was no reply. He rapped again.

“Waldron,” he called. “Yer in?”

There was still no reply. He banged louder with his fist.

“Wall!” he yelled. “There's some folk you need t'see.”

Just when Rye assumed nobody was home, the door burst open and a towering man appeared in the doorway, his creased forehead flush with anger. His hair was an unkempt silver mess befitting his age, but his bristly beard was red as anchor rust and shot out in all directions.

“'T'is it, Knockmany?” he barked. “Why must you call on me every day?”

“Pardons, Waldron, but there's sum'n you need see.”

“I've told you, I want nothing to do with the Crofters or the Fishers or the Fiddlers, neither.”

Knockmany nodded as if he'd heard this numerous times before. He simply stepped aside and pointed.

“It's Abigail,” he said quietly.

It seemed to take a moment for the words to register with Waldron. He didn't move at first, then took a step out of the door with the aid of a thick wooden staff. His chest and shoulders were massive under a tattered, unwashed shirt, his legs just twigs by comparison. The knotted blue veins in his forearms bulged, his grip tightening on his staff as he drew closer. His feet were bare and black with grime.

Rye saw his eyes squint suspiciously. They seemed to soften as he examined them, despite his efforts to keep their hard edge. Rye had seen that look before. They were her mother's eyes.

He opened his mouth, but nothing came out.

Abby took a step forward, and for the first time Rye could recall, her mother's eyes were moist.

“Hello, Papa,” she said.

Waldron's face drained to a stunned pallor.

Abby took a breath and looked back at Rye and Lottie, who had frozen next to Folly and Quinn. She beckoned for them to join her. They stepped forward hesitantly.

“These are my children,” she said.

Waldron blinked slowly as he regarded each of them.

“
All
of them?” he grunted.

Abby stifled a giggle. “No, Papa. Just these two.” She put her hands on Rye's and Lottie's heads as they pressed close to her on either side. “Riley and Lottie.”

Waldron started to smile, then his face fell, then he seemed caught in an expression between happiness and great remorse. With much effort, the towering man carefully lowered himself onto one knee to better see them. Rye wasn't sure what to do herself, so she gave him a tight lipped smile.

“I . . . ,” he started, then paused. “It's . . .” His eyes jumped from the girls to Abby and back again.

“Goomurnin-fi-seas,” he said, finally.

“Hello,” Rye said.

“Hello,” Lottie parroted, flashing a mouthful of crooked baby teeth.

They all fell into an awkward silence. Rye shifted from foot to foot. She always lost the who-could-stay-quiet-the-longest game.

“Should we call you Grandfather?” Rye asked, trying to keep the conversation going.

He pushed himself back up to his feet and scratched at his head. “You can . . . I . . .”

Waldron turned back toward the house. “I'll go . . . inside . . . wet some tea.”

He stumbled back inside the house as if thunderstruck, leaving the door open behind him. Folly and Quinn exchanged curious glances. Rye looked at her mother with alarm.

“Maybe he would prefer Waldron?” she asked.

Abby patted her shoulder.

“Went well, all t'ings considered,” Knockmany said, sucking a tooth. “Least he didn't chase you off with his stick.”

A
bby thought it best that she speak with Waldron alone at first, and left the children to play outside. Folly enlisted Quinn and Lottie to help her gather some mushrooms she'd spotted growing in the fields. Rye preferred to explore the grounds around the little homestead. Although rundown and in need of serious repair, it seemed to Rye that it must have been a marvelous farm at one time. Even now, standing on the gently sloping hills of the grazing field, she was spellbound by its sweeping view of the vast, rolling sea. A blue
dragonfly paused to examine her before fluttering away.

A rustle of grass at her feet startled her. She looked down and found two angular yellow eyes returning her gaze from some overgrown bracken. They belonged to a large smoke-gray cat with long, unkempt fur matted into clumps. It reminded her of Shady, even though, despite his appearance, Shady was no cat at all. She bent over to call for it, but the cat turned its back to her and skulked away. Only its bushy tail was visible as it made its way toward Knockmany's quarters—a glorified potting shed set back among the sheep pens.

“Riley,” a voice called.

It was her mother in the doorway of the stone farmhouse. Abby beckoned to her.

“Waldron's resting,” she said quietly when Rye arrived. Rye could hear his snores echoing down the snug hallways. Abby appeared weary herself.

Rye stepped inside and cast her eyes around the rustic farmhouse. At first glance, it seemed to have the ordinary trappings of a normal home—albeit one suffering from years of neglect. However, upon closer inspection, she found a number of unexpected oddities. A window opened into an empty closet. A set of wooden stairs simply ended at the timbers of the ceiling—there was no second floor.

“Mama, did Waldron build this place?” she asked.

If so, Rye thought, he must have been drinking homebrewed bilge wash at the time. She eyed the pile of empty, earthen jugs stacked by the hearth.

“No, my love,” Abby said, taking a broom. “This was my mother's childhood home—your great-grandparents' farm. They're all long gone now.”

In a corner, Rye found a small purple door, too small for even Lottie to fit through. She pulled its tiny handle but found nothing except solid wall on the other side.

“They weren't the finest architects,” Rye said, closing the little door and noticing a sideways cupboard tilted like a seedling bent in the wind.

Abby smiled. “This was all by design.”

“They wanted a crooked farmhouse?”

“Yes,” Abby said, “as peculiar as that may seem. Belongers are superstitious folk, the older generations particularly so. The house is built like this for the Shellycoats.”

“Shellycoats?”

“You may hear them called the Trow . . . or imps. Spirits.”

Back in Drowning, they called such things wirries. Those who still believed in them erected scarecrow-like stickmen to ward them off.
Shellycoats
had a nicer ring to it.

“Belongers say Shellycoats dot the island like sheep,”
Abby continued. “They live in walls and under bridges. They're harmless enough—most of them, that is. But when they grow bored, even the most benign of Shellycoats can be mischievous—stir up trouble. The endless staircase, the doors to nowhere . . . they're designed to keep the Shellies busy. You'll find that all houses on Pest have one or more of these quirks.”

Rye mulled over the strange custom. She doubted that her mother believed in wirries, or Shellycoats for that matter.

“Did you grow up in this house?” she asked.

Abby shook her head. “I was raised in Cutty House. Down in Wick. That's where my family lived. Where Waldron lived when I left this island. I'm not sure what brought him here to the farm.” Abby looked over the unkempt house. “Whatever it was, he hasn't been the finest housekeeper.”

Rye couldn't disagree. Even the Quartermasts were clean-sweeps by comparison.

“I'll give you a choice,” Abby said, extending the broom. “You can help me tidy . . .”

Rye's shoulders slumped.

“. . . or go explore with Folly and Quinn for a bit while Waldron finishes his nap. I'll mind Lottie.”

Her eyes lit up.

“Don't stray far,” Abby added hastily. “And please try
to stay out of the village for now. There'll be time for that later.”

But Rye was already out the door.

Village Wick came into view as Rye, Folly, and Quinn crossed the small stone bridge and traipsed down the footpath.

“Look at that,” Folly said in surprise.

“We must have taken a wrong turn,” Rye said, and pursed her lips.

“Will your mother be terribly upset?” Quinn asked, slowing.

“She said
try
to stay out of the village,” Rye recalled with a sly smile. “That's not the same as
don't
go in the village.”

Wick occupied the crescent-shaped harbor at the seat of the hills. Its stone buildings jutted out in irregular shapes and sizes like headstones in an ancient boneyard, their roofs topped with grassy turf. A tall waterwheel churned at the mouth of a narrow river that divided the small hamlet. The whole place could have fit into a corner of Village Drowning.

The village streets were lined with crushed shells that chattered under their heels as they approached. Rye wondered if the shells' gravelly voices were meant to serve as a warning of outsiders' arrival. But, as they
wandered through town, they found the streets remarkably deserted.

A fleet of fishing boats sat at the docks, even though the water was calm and Rye would have expected the fishermen to be at sea. The shops were empty. A shaggy pony tethered to a post eyed them expectantly as they passed. Quinn tugged some grass from the ground and held it out for him to chew.

“It's as if the town's been abandoned,” Folly muttered out loud.

Mixed in among the shops were other buildings Rye took to be private homes. The doors were painted in colorful hues that mirrored the moods of the sea—aqua, deep blue, seafoam green. Over each door was a carved wooden placard: G
ILLY'S
R
OCKS
. T
ARVISH
D
WELLS
. D
UNNER
P
LACE
. In each case, nobody was home.

Rye stopped at a house in the center of town whose paint was more faded than the others. It sat in shadows, as if the building itself was deep in sorrow. She looked up. The placard read C
UTTY
H
OUSE
.

Rye hesitated, then gently placed her fingers on the door to see if it was unlocked.

“Y'er late too?” a friendly voice called out.

Rye pulled her hand away and turned at the sound.

“I was stuck in the field,” the tall boy said as he hurried down the street. His hair was tawny and long
enough to push behind his ears. He looked to be a year or two older than Rye and her friends.

“Oh,” he said, stopping abruptly and looking them over with a suspicious eye. “Y'er not from here.”

“I'm Rye O'Chanter,” she said cheerfully. “These are my friends—Folly and Quinn.”

The boy crossed his arms.

“We're from Village Drowning,” Rye offered. “In the Shale.”

“Aye,” he said coldly. “Uninvited.”

“Well, technically, yes,” Rye said, furrowing her brow. “Although we weren't entirely
unexpected
. My mother is from Pest. Abigail O'Chant—I mean, Cutty.”

“Cutty, you say?”

Rye nodded. “My grandfather lives here. On a farm up on that bluff.”

The boy raised his eyebrows. “
Waldron
Cutty is your grandfather?”

Rye looked at Folly and Quinn, unsure of how she should answer. She opted for truthfully. “Yes.”

The boy had an astonished look on his face, as if he wanted to believe her but was unsure that he could. “In that case,” he said finally, “y'er a Belonger after all. How about you two? You have kin on the Isle?”

Folly and Quinn shook their heads with some reservation.

“Hmm,” the boy said, considering it. “Well, stick with Rye and me and you should be all right. I'm Hendry, by the way.”

“Nice to meet you, Hendry,” Rye said. Folly and Quinn echoed the sentiment.

A thundering sound rumbled from the far side of town. It was the roar of a crowd.

“Come on, then,” Hendry said, waving them ahead. “Let's get to the wall. The Pull's already started.”

He broke into a jog. Not knowing what else to do, Rye, Folly, and Quinn hurried after him.

“The Pull?” Rye asked as they ran.

“O'course,” Hendry said. “Where else do you think everyone is?”

They arrived at the far end of the village, where it seemed the entire town had gathered at the edge of the harbor. The Belongers cupped their hands and cheered loudly. Billowing, multicolored flags and banners waved over their heads. Savory smoke from large cook fires filled the air and made Rye's stomach grumble. From the back of the crowd, she stood on her toes to get a better view.

“Up here,” Hendry said. He had climbed atop a farmer's cart. Rye, Folly, and Quinn joined him.

From their perch, Rye could now see three separate segments of massive stone seawall. Two lengths extended inward from either end of the harbor's
crescent tips, while a third stretched from the center. Spanning the distance between them was a long, triple-ended rope thick enough to tether the largest of ships. The rope ran through an iron-and-stone pulley system housed on a solitary rock that formed a tiny, uninhabited island in the center of the harbor. Some sort of weathered wooden circlet was strung at the top of the pulleys, rotating clockwise and back as their wheels creaked. Each of the rope's three ends was held by a team of a dozen burly men—and more than a few stout women—on each seawall.
Held
was probably not the most accurate word, as they all gripped the rope for dear life while pulling their end toward the shore. All of the pullers wore tartan kilts.

It was a giant tug-of-war, like the ones children sometimes had in Drowning, except this one included three teams made up entirely of adults. Nobody seemed to be at play.

“This is the Pull,” Hendry explained. “It's held every spring here at the harbor, and everyone on High Isle attends. Surely you've heard of it where you come from?”

Rye gave Folly and Quinn a quick glance. They shrugged.

“Even some folks from the Lower Isles sail in,” Hendry went on. “You can always spot the Low Islanders right off. They're usually a bit wild-looking.”

He nodded to a large family with numerous children,
all of them with long, matted hair and nervous eyes that twitched like foxes'.

“Probably haven't left the Lower Isles since last year,” Hendry whispered.

All of the Belongers struck Rye as a little rough around the edges. They were generally large people, robust through the shoulders and hips but not soft, with weathered faces and eyes that brimmed with life. Many had painted their faces in colors that matched the kilts of the men and women on the seawalls. She saw quite a bit of red hair, which was uncommon back in Drowning. She finally understood where Lottie's raggedy mop came from.

“Is it some sort of competition?” Quinn asked.

“It's
the
competition,” Hendry clarified. “To determine which of the three clans will govern Pest for the next year. The Tarvishes, Dunners, or Gillys, although the families are all jumbled now anyway so the names really aren't important. What matters is whether it's the Crofters, Fiddlers, or Fishers.”

Folly squinted toward the three teams on the rock walls. “How do we tell them apart?”

“Well, Miss Uninvited,” Hendry said, in a way that was more of a gentle tease than a mean-spirited slur, “if you lived here you'd know. But since y'er new, the Tarvishes are the Crofters. That's them in the green-and-white tartan. Most live in the hills, tending sheep
and farming the crofts. The Gillys represent the Fishers. They're in gray-blue tartan and, as you might expect, are fisher folk.”

Rye watched as the teams of Fishers and Crofters strained at the rope.

“The Dunners—they're the Fiddlers, and you'll spot them soon enough. They're always the first ones pulled into the drink.”

“They're musicians?” Quinn asked.

“No, no,” Hendry chuckled. He waggled his fingers. “They tinker and fiddle with things. Great with their brains and thumbs, the Fiddlers—they devise ingenious crab traps and keep the waterwheel churning. But their brawn . . . not as much.”

There was a scream and a splash and most of the crowd erupted in cheers. Hendry threw up his arms, cupped his hands to his mouth and whooped and hollered. The first few members of the team in rust-colored tartan had tumbled off the rocks and into the water. Several dinghies rowed quickly from the docks to collect them before they drowned. A third of the crowd groaned and cursed, shaking their heads in resignation.