Beneath (8 page)

“Don’t people worry about it all the time?” Jess asked,
eyeing the tower with interest. There were spikes protruding from the walls, and for a moment she thought she saw heads impaled on them.

“Not really. I suppose people just get used to being extra careful about fire. I know it bothered Magnus’s parents when they first moved here, but they never even mention it now.”

“They talk about the wolves instead,” said Freya darkly.

“Why?” asked Jess. “Surely they don’t come into the town?”

“They never used to, but in the last few winters packs of them sometimes roam through the city. No one knows where they come from.”

“No one’s been able to track them,” added Arnor. “They come out of the darkness, cause mayhem, then disappear. And they don’t just take livestock, they’ll attack people too; adults as well as children.”

“That’s not normal,” said Jess. “I know there are stories from long ago about people being attacked by wolves, but nothing like that ever happens now. Not around Kirriemuir anyway.”

“Mmnn… it’s a mystery, right enough. Anyway, the tower keeps a watch for wolf packs too, so folk know to get inside. Looks like there’s been a hunt here recently, too.” Arnor pointed at the spikes as they drew level with the watchtower, and Jess saw what was impaled there: wolf heads, half-rotted.

A few minutes later, they turned into a quieter side street, then into a narrow lane where the houses pressed close together. Arnor drew the cart up in front of a blue-painted door.

“Here we are,” he said, just as it opened, and Anna, Magnus’s mother, came out on to the doorstep smiling.

She was a small, cheerful woman, with brown hair and a round face: utterly unlike the sister who had married Arnor and passed her beauty to Freya.

“Come in, come in,” she called, throwing her arms wide. “You must be frozen through. Come and thaw out.”

The girls climbed down with their bags, stiff with cold, and Arnor drove off to stable the horses.

Anna fussed round them as they walked into a wall of heat inside the house.

“Gavin and Magnus won’t be back from work for a couple of hours, so you can have some peace and quiet to warm through and unpack before they come thumping in. It’s good to see you, Jess. We’re all so glad you could come with Freya. We don’t see nearly enough of you any more. How are your parents? And Ashe? He always looks to me as though he’ll turn out a handsome lad when he’s a bit older.”

If Anna paused for breath as she talked, Jess didn’t spot it, and there was certainly no chance of finding a gap in her words to answer any of the questions she asked. Jess contented herself with smiling instead, as she unwound the layers of clothing that had kept her from freezing solid on the cart, and got out the present she had brought.

She and Freya followed the still-talking Anna into the room at the front of the house. There was a fireplace all right, large enough to satisfy Jess’s most optimistic imaginings, and in it roared a fire so perfect that she thought perhaps she’d just stay in this room until spring.

Anna was still talking.
Maybe she breathes through her ears,
Jess thought.

“Oh Jess, that’s very kind but there was no need, no need at all, it’s a treat for us to see you. Smoked eel, oh lovely! One of my favourites, I do miss it, you can’t catch them in the river here – did you know that?”

Arnor came in blowing on his fingers and Anna disappeared, still chatting, into the kitchen.

Arnor rolled his eyes and Freya giggled.

“One night of it’s fine, but more than that… I wonder how Gavin copes?”

“Magnus said once that Gavin pretends to be deaf. He said it just rolls over you like the noise of a stream after a while, and you stop noticing,” Freya said, with the air of an expert.

“… don’t you think so, Arnor?” said Anna, coming in with
a laden tray.

“Definitely,” said Arnor.

Anna distributed scones and butter to everyone, and a nip of whisky to Arnor.

“To keep the cold from your bones,” she said.

For some moments, everyone’s mouths were full, and peace settled on the room. As soon as the girls had finished, they escaped to unpack, leaving Arnor to smile and nod in appropriate places.

Smells of cooking and occasional laughter drifted up from below.

Freya sniffed. “Venison?”

“Could be. Shall we go down?”

“Mmnn,” said Freya, checking her appearance in the mirror and pinching colour into her cheeks. She held out a comb to Jess.

“You might want to comb your hair first.”

Jess sighed as she took the comb, but when Freya stood aside from the mirror she had to admit her hair did look like something designed to trap birds. Grumbling, she hauled the comb through it under Freya’s disapproving gaze.

“That’s better,” said Freya. “Now let’s go and have another scone before Magnus comes home and finishes the lot.”

Gavin came in not long afterwards, tall and dark and smelling pleasantly of cut wood.

“I see the hunt’s been out,” said Arnor.

“The wolves? Aye. That was a fortnight or so ago. I took Magnus along, but neither of us got one. There were a good few taken though, and the crown’s paying a decent bounty.”

“We saw the heads on St Mary’s.”

Gavin fidgeted in the room trying to make conversation with the girls for about ten minutes, then took Arnor off out with him.

“We’ll be in the Black Bull,” he said. “Tell Magnus in case he wants to join us.”

“Just make sure you’re back for supper and remember Arnor doesn’t want to be driving back to Kirriemuir tomorrow with a sore head,” said Anna, kissing him goodbye.

They met Magnus on the doorstep.

“Hello Magnus,” Freya called. “Stay and talk to us instead of going to the inn.”

Jess got to her feet and Freya started towards him.

“No, no,” He waved them away. “Don’t come any closer. I’ll see you once I’ve washed and changed.”

They heard him clump along the hallway and out of the back door.

Anna came back in a few minutes later.

“He hates that job, you know. I’m not surprised, working with the blood and the skins and the smell all day. The sooner his father manages to get him a job at the sawmill the better. I mean, there’s nothing wrong with the tannery exactly, everyone’s got to start somewhere, but it’s so
dirty
– you should see what they throw in the river, no wonder the eels have gone – and it’s no place for a clever lad like Magnus. There’s much better pay at the mill, and a chance to advance yourself; he could end up managing it one day. That’s what Magnus needs, a job with prospects so that when he marries he’ll be able to look after his family properly.”

Smile frozen on her face, Jess saw Freya’s eyes slide to her briefly, and then away again. She tried to think of something to say, for a pause had developed in Anna’s monologue that she seemed to be expecting Jess to fill.

“It’s a shame about the eels,” she said weakly, and heard Freya sniggering beside her.

She was rescued by the return of Magnus himself, washed and changed, wet hair sticking everywhere and smelling strongly of soap.

Freya leapt to her feet to hug him, pulling his head down by his wet hair so that she could give him a kiss. Jess got to her feet more hesitantly, horribly self-conscious, wondering what to do.

Oh don’t be ridiculous, girl. You’ve always given him a hug before. Why should it be different now?

With a determined smile, she gave him a slightly awkward hug and suddenly everything was all right again.

Finn finished checking the barrier at the pool and looked around to make sure everything was as it should be. Except that it wasn’t, of course. He knew it wasn’t. The wound on his neck was healing at last, but the real damage was hidden.

The halter had weakened him. He’d thought that what had happened the day that Rowan was here was a fluke, and so he’d challenged another wolf a couple of days ago, when he was on his own. He’d managed to subdue it, but it had taken all his strength to do it in human form, and left him exhausted. If another wolf had appeared then…

What if the halter had done him permanent damage? He couldn’t guard the gateway any more, that much was certain.

He should tell his mother. Perhaps she’d know what to do. But he didn’t want to tell her about this. She was already furious with him.

“How could you be so stupid as to go back up there so soon after you took Freya? I should have forbidden you to go to the Upper World long ago. Don’t think I don’t know how much time you’ve wasted up there, obsessed with that other girl when you should have been here, helping your own people. It ends now. You will not go there. Do not cross me, Finn. You are Nykur. The fact that your father came from the Upper World makes no difference. You are Nykur.”

“I’m sorry,” he had said. “I never meant this to happen. I did the wrong thing, I know, but she was just there and I thought… Nothing went wrong when the boys were taken. I thought this would be the same. I never thought anyone would try to get her back.”

“Thought? If only you would think. But you spend your life in a trance. Forget the girl. It is time you took a wife.
”

“That’s what I was trying to do! I want Jess as my wife.”

His mother’s face was implacable. “I forbid it. You must take a Nykur wife. I’ll hear no more about this girl.”

A sound shocked him back to the present, the whimper of an animal in pain. It didn’t sound like any animal he recognised, though.

He stood still, listening. When the sound came again, he could tell where the animal must be: behind one of the great briar bushes. He moved towards it cautiously, giving the thorns a wide berth.

Nothing could have prepared him for what he saw as he came round the bush. It wasn’t an animal: it was Rowan, in human shape. She was curled into a ball, her dark hair wet and tangled. Her skin was covered in scarlet weals and blisters.

Finn gasped in shock.

“Rowan! Rowan, what happened?”

She opened her eyes, saw him, and tried to speak, but her voice only emerged as a painful whisper.

He bent down to pick her up.

“Hush now. Don’t worry. Mother will know what to do.”

Magnus had a half day off. He and the girls had planned to climb the hill behind Dundee, but when the time came, Freya stayed behind, pleading a sudden headache.

Jess didn’t believe a word of it, but Freya returned her suspicious stare with a look of blank-faced innocence. She still didn’t believe a word of it, but she had to admit she’d been outmanoeuvred.

She ploughed grumpily up the hill, answering Magnus’s questions curtly and making no attempt to keep the conversation going until, three quarters of the way there, he caught her arm and swung her round to face him.

“You can go back, you know. You don’t have to be here if you don’t want to be.”

He looked so worried that all her anger drained away on the spot.

“I’m sorry… I do want to be here. I just…” She shook her head, smiling. “Never mind. Come on – I’ll race you to the top.”

She couldn’t compete with Magnus’s long legs of course, and he laughed at her as she dropped, panting, to the ground at the top of the hill some minutes later.

“I hope you’ve got something to eat and drink in that bag,” she gasped.

Still laughing, he unslung the canvas bag he’d had over his shoulder and passed it to her.

Jess looked inside.

“Water, that’s a start. Apples.” She sniffed at a slab of cake. “Fruit cake.” She lifted out the final package. “And pie.”

“Rabbit pie.”

“My goodness, what a feast. Was the whole family meant to be coming? If you’ve remembered a knife as well I’m going to be really impressed.”

With a flourish, Magnus produced a clasp knife from his pocket.

“Well, that settles it. I am genuinely impressed. And amazed. Actually, I think I’m mainly amazed. You never used to be this organised.”

He sat down beside her.

“Well, I suppose my mother did most of it, really.”

“But you remembered to bring it. And you remembered the knife. I’m still impressed.”

They looked at each other for a long moment.

“Jess… I…”

“I’m starving,” she broke in. “Go on – cut up that pie.”

They didn’t linger once they’d eaten. A cold wind had got up, and the clouds moving in towards Dundee promised rain.

Jess looked down at the town as Magnus repacked the remains of their meal.

“I like it better from up here,” she said. “Where you can’t tell how noisy and smelly it is.”

“You wouldn’t want to live here, then?” Magnus asked, coming up beside her.

Jess shook her head.

“Neither do I,” he went on, to her surprise. “I was thinking of moving back to Kirriemuir.”

Jess turned to look at him properly, pushing her hair out of her eyes as the wind tugged at it.

“Wouldn’t you earn more money here? If you get a job in the sawmill?”

He shrugged. “Probably. But there’s more to life than money. I’ve been trying to convince myself that I like Dundee, but every time I visit Kirriemuir it feels like coming home.”

“Then you should come back,” she heard herself say.

“How would you feel about having me around again?”

She opened her mouth to say something facetious in reply, but stopped when she looked into his eyes. After a few seconds, she gave him a proper answer.

“I’d like that very much.”

“That’s good,” Magnus said, and then the rain arrived. He grabbed her hand and they ran for it.

“Keep still, Sorrel,” said Jess, giving the cow she was milking a whack on the flank. “I know I left you for a week, but I’m back now. Anyway, it could have been much worse – you could have had Ashe milking you instead of Mother.”

She and Freya had got back yesterday afternoon, and life at Westgarth had closed back around her already. She’d woken to a dusting of snow that morning, though it soon melted once the sun was properly up.

Last night at supper, when she was telling the family about her visit, she’d made the mistake of saying that Magnus might
be moving back to Kirriemuir, and then had to endure falsely casual questions from her mother and pointed ones from Ashe. She thought of Magnus for a while, there in the warmth of the cow-smelling shed, trying not to let her imagination run away with her. At least it had a bit more to work on now: he had held her hand, and put an arm round her waist as they ran home through the rain from the top of the hill. He’d even kissed her – just once – just before they got to his house, and she hadn’t felt the least bit like slapping his face in response. She found her heart beating faster at the memory. Heavens, Freya would say she was turning into a proper girl.

Now that she was home though, something else tugged at her mind. She tried to ignore it. She had been able to push it out of her head in Dundee, but now that she was back, she couldn’t avoid thinking about him.

Finn.

His face haunted her. The events at Roseroot Pool might be over as far as the rest of the world was concerned, but Jess realised she would have no peace until she found out what had happened to Finn. She had to go back to Roseroot Pool and find him.

It took her another two days to find a free afternoon to go to the pool. Birch leaves crunched under her feet, still crisped with frost here in the shadows. Fallen larch needles lay in golden drifts; now only the pines kept theirs. Soon more wolves would come down from the high slopes where they hunted in the summer, and the livestock would need careful watching.

She remembered Finn talking about wolves in his world. He had said they were different from the wolves she knew.

Jess stepped out from the trees at the edge of the little meadow that bounded the pool on this side and walked to the margin. Something was terribly wrong. In the water drifted the bodies of fish, sickly silver, dull eyed in death.

What could have happened to the pool? She wondered briefly if it was some vengeance of the Nykur for her stealing
back Freya, but that made no sense. The pool was their gateway to this world; why on earth would they damage it?

As she moved along the edge her foot crunched on something. She looked down at what seemed at first to be a lump of ice. It couldn’t be, of course. She crouched to study it more closely.

Surely not?

Jess licked a finger and wiped it over the grey-white lump, licked it again and spat.

She knew what it was. It was a salt lick from the farm. What was it doing here? As she straightened, she began to notice more fragments here and there at the water’s edge. A horrible suspicion began to take shape in her mind as she looked at the dead pool.

Scanning the ground, she moved along the margin of the pool, noticing lumps of salt, and one or two large boot prints where the ground was soft, and finally, shocking her to a halt, a little patch of coarse powder that looked just like the rat poison they used on the farm.

Exactly like it.

Her flesh crawled.

“Finn!” she yelled to the poisoned water. “Finn, where are you? I didn’t do this, Finn, do you hear me? I didn’t do this. I never meant you any harm. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

Her words fell to earth like dead birds. Nothing stirred. No one answered. Finn didn’t answer.

Of course he didn’t answer. How could he now? He must be trapped under the poisoned water.

Without stopping to think what she was doing, Jess began to wade out, still calling Finn’s name. She pulled her feet free of the muddy bottom and swam out to the middle, then stopped, treading water.

What was she doing? What was she thinking? She’d swum here before. There was no way through to the Kelpie world without Finn. Even if there was, she was mad to consider going
.

She took a deep breath and dived.

The water pulled her down immediately, spun her over and round until she had no idea which way was up. She whirled like a leaf caught in the current that shouldn’t be there at all. And then the water simply spat her out, and she fell through air to land with a thump on dry ground.

What had she done? How had she done it?

She lay still for a minute, getting her breath back, before she sat up. She should be soaking, but she wasn’t even damp. Around her breathed the Kelpie – the Nykur – world, shimmering as disconcertingly as it had the first time.

It didn’t look like autumn here. The great trees still had their leaves, the huge briar bushes were still heavy with flowers. She could smell their odd musky scent from where she sat.

Slowly, Jess got to her feet and looked round, trying to find her bearings. The trees stretched away in all directions. She would have to be very careful not to get lost. She thought of calling Finn’s name, but she didn’t want to disturb the silence. She remembered what he’d said about wolves in the forest.

Jess looked around for a sharp stone, so that she could mark the tree trunks and find her way back. She picked up a short, thick branch as well. She wasn’t sure it would be of much use against wolves, but it made her feel better.

From behind her came the sound of running water. She headed for it, scraping marks into the tree bark every twenty paces or so.

Her common sense was reasserting itself more every minute. What on earth had made her do this? She had never thought it would work, of course. But why had she even tried? These Kelpies were no friends to humans. They’d stolen Freya, and Jess had taken her back and hurt one of them in the process. What would they do if they found her here? This was the stupidest thing she’d done in her whole life.

No it wasn’t
. Finn’s fate mattered to her. She had to find out what had happened to him. She didn’t want to be haunted by a
Kelpie for the rest of her days, like her gran had been.

Jess came to the edge of a stream. The rose bushes grew thick along its banks. She hadn’t been here before, but surely this stream would take her back to Roseroot Pool.

And if it didn’t
? Would she wander the forest until she died?

“How did you get here?”

Jess gasped and jumped, heart racing. Finn stood among the trees, a look of utter disbelief on his face.

“I… I came through the pool.”

“That’s impossible.” He walked slowly towards her.

So he was alive
. Relief washed through her. But he looked drawn and tense.

“You couldn’t have come through the pool,” he said.

“But I did. I swam out and dived and I was here. I didn’t think it would work: I’ve swum there before and nothing happened.”

“It shouldn’t be possible,” said Finn. He was within arm’s length now. Was he dangerous? Jess took a step back.

“Only Nykur can travel through the gateways alone. I would know if you had Nykur blood.” His hand went to his neck and as he pulled at his tunic Jess saw the angry red mark that the halter had left.

“Could it be because of that?” She pointed. “When I trapped you, maybe it did something to me as well as you. It gave me power over you. Maybe it gave me some of your power as well.”

She expected him to scoff at the idea, but he simply stared at her.

“Why are you here?” he asked abruptly.

“I…” What should she say? “I was afraid that I’d killed you with the halter. I only wanted Freya back, I didn’t mean to hurt… anyone. I’m sorry. And then I saw what had happened to the pool…” She felt her skin glow with shame, as though she was the one who had poisoned the pool. “I wanted to know if you were all right.”

He nodded. “I am. But my sister’s sick. She went through the water and it burned her.”