The Gracekeepers (10 page)

North sighed. “She'll be even worse when it's born. It's bad enough with her pregnant. She had this apple, and she quartered it, and I really thought—oh, never mind. She's the ringmaster's wife and so there's nothing we can do.”

“Not her baby.”

North turned to Callanish, ready to laugh, ready to deny, ready to draw back her fist and land a punch that would draw blood. Callanish wasn't looking at North; her gaze was still out on the inky horizon. There was a tension in her body, as if she was holding herself back against the wall of the house. North couldn't tell whether her expression was one of calm or sorrow.

“There's nothing there,” said North.

“There will be,” replied Callanish.

North's breath caught in her throat. She could keep telling herself that the baby couldn't be a baby because it was hidden,
unreal, just a growing part of herself. But soon it would be there. It would be real.

If the gracekeeper could tell just by looking at her, then other people would be able to tell. So far the crew had been blinded by familiarity, but that couldn't last much longer. For a moment, North was stuck between stomach-clenching panic and a quiet, distant acceptance. Then she leaned back, lying flat on the porch. The sky stretched above her, pinpricked with stars, and the boards seemed to sway with the rhythm of her breath. After a moment, Callanish lay down beside her.

It felt like a long time since North had lain like this; she'd spent the past months hunched over, in constant motion, trying to distract, desperate to hide her swelling belly. But that didn't matter now. She could let Callanish see. She
wanted
Callanish to see. She pressed her hands to her bump and looked out across the water.

“I want to tell you something,” said North. “I don't think you'll believe me. But it's true.”

She'd tried to tell the people she'd known for almost her whole life, and hadn't managed to get the words out. She might as well practice on a person she'd only just met.

“I'm listening,” said Callanish, and with a shock North realized that she really was.

“Well, this—it's hard to explain.” North shifted, leaning her head on the front wall of the house so that she was closer to Callanish. The closer they were, the more quietly she could talk, and the less likely they were to be overheard. “I've never actually got this far before. I've tried to tell people, but I couldn't manage it. You already know so I thought it would be easier.”

“The child's father is not part of your crew.”

“No. The father isn't really the father. He's—she's—oh, I
don't know.” North breathed out, emptying her lungs until her stomach ached, then pulled in a breath as deep as she could. “I'll tell you, and it doesn't make any sense. But I'll say it.”

North closed her eyes, comforted by the warmth of Callanish's skin and the sway of water underneath them. She remembered.

One night, months ago. Drunk and aimless at the edge of an island. All day she'd been distracted, catching a silvery gleam at the corner of her vision, squinting her eyes, sure she could see the angles and features of something beautiful swimming far out to sea.

Evening fell and she was drained from a night of forced conversation with Ainsel, tired of feigning interest in his spoiled-child dreams. He'd been woozy-drunk, telling her how he was born with a caul and so he was eternally blessed, meant to rule from an ancient castle beneath the sea. In shallow water those structures were visible—they'd all seen them—but they were just rock formations that people imagined into palaces. North had told Ainsel that he was a ringmaster's brat, that there was nothing for him to rule, and he'd sulked, and she'd turned away from him to stumble on to land, clumsy and disgusted but desperate to get closer to the person out at sea, purposefully not tying on her bell, glad to be courting danger. It turned out that there was no danger because there was no one there; no guards, no alarms, nothing on the island precious enough to be protected from the wicked, lawless damplings. Every time North blinked, she caught a glimpse of the sea-swimmer just before her eyes closed—but when they opened again a split second later, there was nothing. The world spun and spun and spun, but still she could not get any closer.

She had lain along the blackshore, seaweed tangling in her hair, the water stroking her legs, and let the stars pulse above her. Perhaps if she stayed there long enough the tide would claim her,
pull her out to the sea-swimmer. She let sleep drag her down, right to the bottom of the sea, and in the dreams there really were castles, and Ainsel really was a king, and she still didn't like him.

Then: a slow pull out of sleep, reality seeping into her dreams. A mouth pressing against hers, cold as the ocean. The weight of a body on her own. The limbs, the angles, the planes of the body matched her own—but not a man, not a woman. In the dim light of the stars, she saw the silvery gleam of scales. The sea-swimmer had finally come to her.
Yes
, she'd said,
yes
. She'd tilted back her head and opened up her body, letting words repeat inside her head, names she'd heard only in stories: selkie, nereid, mermaid.

Then the gracekeeper moved her hand away, and the wall of the house was too hard against North's head. She had put it in words as best she could, but it was like trying to describe the logic of dreams.

“So I woke at dawn,” she said, “and I went back to my coracle. I thought I must have imagined it. I thought I'd wanted it so much that I'd dreamed it happening. Until—” she motioned to her bump. “And I know you won't believe me, but I had to tell someone. So there it is. I've told you.”

“I believe you,” said Callanish. Her voice was so quiet that it could have been the sound of a bird shifting in its cage.

North got to her feet. Cradling her belly with one hand, she reached the other down to Callanish. “I want you to see him,” she said. “With strangers, he can be a bit—but it will be safe if you're with me.”

Callanish hesitated, then pressed her palms to the boards and stood. She looked away from North's proffered hand, as if she knew she was being rude but didn't want to acknowledge it. Could it be a gracekeeper thing? North had noticed that she never took off her silk gloves, so maybe she wasn't allowed to touch anyone's
hands because she had to keep her gloves white. It was odd, but then most things about being a gracekeeper seemed odd.

They walked together across the porch, neither seeming sure which should lead. The porch belonged to Callanish and the boats belonged to North—and also, these things belonged to neither of them. For them, everything was borrowed.

North wondered if she should tell Callanish to step cautiously, to stay quiet; she even considered raising a straightened finger to her lips like a strict mother. There was no need. Callanish seemed lighter than a bird when she stepped on to the deck of the
Excalibur
. They made their way across the coracles, silent as shadows in the still night.

North got cocky. She did a little leap, a flirty pirouette, as she stepped off Ainsel's coracle and on to her own. A cloud had darkened the moon, and it was impossible to see whether Callanish smiled at the theatrics. But North liked to think that she did.

The canvas of North's coracle sagged in the middle—she'd forgotten to pull its edges tight, too shocked to see the figure on the porch—and she felt Callanish stumble as she stepped on to it. North imagined the thud of her knees against the edge of the coracle, the undignified tumble as she toppled over. Before she knew what she was doing, she'd reached out and caught Callanish's hand, stopping her from falling. They crouched together in the darkness, hands pressed, breathing in rhythm.

The moon blinked bright again. North looked down at their linked hands and saw how close they were standing, saw that her thumb had smudged dirt on to the white silk glove; saw too that they were standing so close that her bump was pressed rudely against the gracekeeper's middle. She dropped the grip and hunched her body, pulling back the edge of her canvas without looking at Callanish.

They dropped silently into the coracle. Quick as blinking, North slipped a razor blade from its holder and into the pocket of her dress. Her bear would be fine. He would stay asleep. But if he growled, if the gleam of moon lit up his curved teeth—then what? Could she really use the blade on him? But it did not matter. He was safe. He was.

The grumble of the bear's breath filled the tiny space. North had wanted Callanish to see the bear, to meet her family, but it was too dark. Instead she took the gracekeeper's hand and pressed it to the bear's broad back. At first she flinched, but then she let North's hand hold her own.

The bear's snuffles caught from one breath to the next, but he did not wake. They kept their hands pressed to the bear's fur, feeling his heart beat strong and steady. Callanish smelled of warm breezes and saltwater. North breathed in deep, holding the scent inside her.

Suddenly Callanish pulled her hand away. North heard the shush of silk, and Callanish's ungloved hand was in hers. Her skin was cool and smooth. Their hands were linked, but their palms did not align—North could feel a high ridge of skin linking Callanish's knuckles, soft and solid. Webbing, like a fish. Like a mermaid.

North knew now why the gracekeeper had believed where her baby had come from—why the gracekeeper was the only person she'd ever met who would truly understand. She was suddenly sure that if there were light, she'd see the gracekeeper's skin gleam silver. She pressed their hands tighter, holding them close to the bear.

It was then, with their hands linked, that North first felt her baby: three taps, low down in her belly, like knocking at a door. She'd heard a word for this during Avalon's endless wittering
about her own baby, and she repeated the word in her head.
Quickening
. It was the quickening. She kept her hands tangled in her bear's fur. The four of them there felt good, and safe, and real.

“Thank you,” Callanish said, her voice as soft as breathing as she pulled away and put her gloves on. North did not know what to say in reply, so she said nothing at all.

She tugged back the canvas, led Callanish over the coracles, and left her on the porch. She made her way to her boat without looking at the gracekeeper. She did not dare. If she looked at the gracekeeper in the moonlight, if she saw the silver gleam of her skin, how could she leave? How could she sail away and leave Callanish there alone, knowing how they were connected?

Back in her bunk, tucked in beside the musty warmth of her bear, North fell asleep with her hands linked tight over her belly. In her dream, she was her child: tiny as a bulb of seaweed, tight as a balled fist. Above her, the beat of an enormous heart shushed and roared like waves. Through her closed eyelids, the world showed in reds and purples: the branching lines of anemones, the nodules of coral, the hard lumps of rock and mussel. Inside North was the sea. Her child had come from the sea.

For so long, the bear had been her only family. But soon that family would have to expand to fit her child—and perhaps there could be room for someone else too.

 

J
arrow dreamed of the storm. All night he had the same dream, slightly different each time but always with the same end, always losing a life to the sea. Layer upon layer of drownings. Whatever he did in the dreams, he could never save Whitby.

His final dream before dawn was of a sea monster with eyes as huge as a galleon's wheel, bloodshot and staring. The creature reached into the coracles one by one and retrieved its prize. In the dream, Jarrow's hands were stretched wide with daggers and machetes, harpoons and flensing knives. But all his weapons were useless—or rather, Jarrow himself was useless. However hard he tried, he could not move. He stood there, armed but impotent, as the coracles emptied. The monster had twelve tentacles, enough to grab every member of the Circus Excalibur. It saved Jarrow's wife and son for last. When its tentacles were full it turned its leering eye on Jarrow and sank down into the
shadows, leaving him untouched and broken among the bones of his fleet.

He choked awake. His heart was hammering in his throat, and his chest was chilly with sweat. Breathe out. Breathe in. Don't panic. Don't wake Avalon. Don't die. Don't die. You're not ready yet.

Captain's wisdom said that those who encounter monsters at sea are those who bring monsters on board. In all his years as captain of the
Excalibur
, Jarrow had been soothed by that thought. There was no monster on board his fleet. His beautiful wife, his noble son, his loyal and talented crew—there was no room for monsters to hide.

When he was sure that he wasn't dead, Jarrow opened his eyes. On the bunk beside him, his wife's face was lit by a ray of morning sun, her expression rapturous in sleep. Her black hair spread in a curve across the pillow, smooth as a fish hook. She was still the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. After the death of Blanche—his life's love, mother of his firstborn, the reason he'd left the land for the sea—he'd thought his heart would stay broken. But Avalon and their baby, Ainsel and North—he had a second chance. He'd get it right this time.

Gently, so as not to wake her, he slipped his hand beneath the blanket to rest it on her swelling belly. His baby, his son. He had never known such bliss. He'd lived almost forty years—not bad, considering he now lived the life of a dampling. Life at sea was hard and hungry and full of dangers. Most damplings were lucky to make it to thirty. He was lucky. And soon he would have a baby to coddle, to delight in; a glorious plaything to light up his twilight years.

He hadn't understood what it meant to love Blanche. Many landlockers saw the circus that night, and many fell in love with
the beautiful horse-dancer—but only Jarrow loved her enough to marry her and buy a whole new circus boat, just for her. Only Jarrow loved her enough to become the ringmaster. He'd built the Excalibur up from nothing, and he couldn't let it go now.

He and Avalon had waited so long, had lost so much—child after child, gone before their first heartbeats. He'd come close to giving up, but she'd convinced him to give it one more try, hope for one final miracle. He should have known that when Avalon wanted something enough, she could make it happen. He knew it from the moment he met her. With Avalon, he had found the land of bliss.

But there was no use in dreaming away the day. The crew needed to be fed, and for that the circus needed to perform, and for that they needed to get away from this damned graceyard. He wanted to kiss his wife, but knew that the scrape of his rough skin on her face would wake her. Instead he kissed the tips of his blunt fingers and touched them to Avalon's lips.

From the deck, Jarrow surveyed their situation. The
Excalibur
was tucked against the dock, sitting high and noble in the water. Behind it, the line of coracles curled around in a neat semicircle. How fine they looked. How proud, how respectable. Not the same sort of respectable as land, but not bad for a dampling. He felt the weight in his heart lift a little. Soon they would be at the island of his birth—and, true, there would be someone else's home on the old land that should be his. But this time the ache would not be as bad. This time, his son would be leaving the circus and living on the land. Ainsel would reclaim what Jarrow had lost.

All around him the sea was mirror-flat, the sky lightening to blue without a scrap of cloud. Even when they got the mainsail back from the gracekeeper girl, it wouldn't be much use in the
still air. They would have to drift until they picked up a decent wind—and that's assuming they could fix the rudder. He'd have a hard time steering their way out if he couldn't damn well steer.

As Jarrow moved toward the stern, he noticed that the
Excalibur
did not seem to be listing in the water any more. That meant one less thing to be fixed, and he sent up a silent thanks to the gods of the sea and of the earth.

His gaze settled on the wheel. Something was different. He grabbed the wheel and turned it gently, left to right. He leaned over the stern of the boat: in the clear water he saw the rudder swing from right to left. It was not bent, it was not cracked, it was not trailing fistfuls of seaweed. It had been repaired.

Jarrow's mind swerved. Ainsel must have come back—crept across the deck in the darkness of the night and fixed the boat while his father slept. Anger burned through Jarrow, settling as a hot pain in his belly. His son was trying to show him up. He had no idea how hard it was—what it had taken to establish the circus, what it still took to keep it going. Ainsel could never make it as a captain. There was no room for weakness. No chance for beauty. The sooner the boy was safely on land, the better.

Movement caught at the corner of Jarrow's eye. He glanced up. The sound of his feet on the deck had roused the clowns: they sat in a row on the rim of their coracle, watching him. The steadiness of their gazes, the anticipation held taut in their limbs. They were waiting for Jarrow to notice.

“You,” he called across the sleeping line of coracles. “You repaired the rudder, hmm? The three of you. You dived down and fixed it.”

Cash shrugged. Dough and Dosh picked at their fingernails and stared out across the water. Others might see the clowns as a threat, a gang of three existing only to mock and scorn and
attack anything that mattered. Jarrow knew them as they really were: their delicacies, their sensitivities, their quiet afternoons spent in thought. He saw that their tattooed skin and aggressive sneers served as masks.

“Good work, gents,” he added. He felt the pain in his belly cool, gratitude washing through him like cold milk. He wished, for one fleeting moment, that he were their father. But their fathers were long dead, the same as the fathers of everyone else in the
Excalibur
's crew. How fortunate Jarrow was to have another chance to be a parent so late in life—and he could be a father to this baby, and to the clowns, and to his whole crew. He strode across the taut canvases of the coracles and slapped the clowns briskly on the shoulder. “The Circus Excalibur would be nothing without you.”

He strode back and stepped down on to the gracekeeper girl's porch. Then he called to the clowns, loud enough for the rest of the crew—and Ainsel in particular—to hear. “Let's get this beast back out on the sea where she belongs.”

He walked across the porch and knocked on the gracekeeper's door, ready to collect his sail.

J
arrow felt, for a moment, at ease. His hands were on the wheel and his feet were spread wide on the deck of his boat. His beautiful wife was belowdecks, his noble son tended to his horses, and his crewmembers were all tucked away safely in their coracles. The wind was lazy and progress was slow, but at least they were moving. All was well now that they had left the bones and silence of the graceyard. If they could get a few days of good strong wind, they would be able to make port at North-West 1
archipelago—and from then it was only a few months to the North-East archipelago. On maps the islands look crowded together, but distance lies. Between almost all pieces of land there is nothing but miles of sea.

Despite his flash of good cheer, Jarrow felt ashamed at the payment he'd given to the gracekeeper girl. Four strips of oilskin, a tub of seal fat and a half-dozen eggs was surely not enough. But it was all they had to spare. The circus's usual payment was a show, but it did not seem appropriate to perform in a graceyard—not to mention to an audience of one, which would have made the whole endeavor ridiculous.

No, it was not just that. Something else was nipping at Jarrow's sense of well-being. Something else was wrong in the Circus Excalibur.

“Avalon?” he called.

The hatch slid back and Avalon climbed up on to the deck, cradling her bump with one hand. She raised her eyebrows at Jarrow in a way that was half questioning, half teasing, and entirely seductive. He kept one hand on the wheel and stretched the other out for his wife, turning her under his arm in a pirouette. Avalon laughed. She was the same height as the cabin, so no matter how fast the boat went the slipstream never affected her. Jarrow bent his knees so he was closer to his wife's height, feeling the strain in his thighs. There was no wind to hide his words, and he didn't want to be overheard.

“What is your wish, my king?” she purred, tucking her body close against him so that he could feel the swell of her belly. His smile stretched wide. He felt the skin of his cheeks crack. No matter: such bliss was worth a little blood.

“Simply the pleasure of your company, my queen.”

“Oh, no. I know you much better than that. Have you called
me on deck to show me the dubious glory of the doldrums? Or is something needling away at that big brain of yours?” Avalon reached up to tap one delicate finger against his temple.

“You do know me, sweet queen.” Jarrow sighed, unable to continue their game against the weight of his concerns. “My worry is for Melia.”

Avalon tutted. “Oh, Melia. She'll be fine. You worry too much about your performers. You let them question your orders, when they should silently obey. You will find Melia a new partner for her performance, and in a few months she will have forgotten all about what she lost.”

“I fear her relationship with Whitby was more complex than that. I think none of us really understood it.”

“Weren't they just sleeping together?”

“I assumed so. That's why I chose them—I only had a coracle with a double bunk. I hoped that would be enough of an answer for everyone. But they were more than that, Avalon, don't you see? They were connected in a way that was more than their act. I can't name it, but I could see it. I fear that she will never forgive me for letting go of that coracle.”

Out of nowhere, Jarrow felt the hot prickle of tears in the corners of his eyes. He stayed still, his eyes unblinking and his hand on the wheel, until the feeling faded.

“Hearts stop every day,” said Avalon, pressing her hand to Jarrow's broad chest. “Tomorrow it may be yours, or mine. But this time it was Whitby's. You did what you could to save him, but it was too late—and that coracle could have sunk the entire circus.” She dropped her voice to a croon, tiptoeing her fingers along his chest. “We have mourned him, have we not? His body rests in its proper place. You have done all that you needed to do,
even more than he deserved. What more could that little acrobat possibly ask?”

Still their bodies touched, still her hands caressed him, but Jarrow felt himself pull away from Avalon. After a moment she seemed to realize that her words might be interpreted as unkind—though Jarrow knew that although she was petulant and passionate, she could never be truly cruel.

“Life at sea is hard, Jarrow,” she said, her tone becoming distant. “And Melia will not be our concern for much longer. The bear-girl will take good care of her.”

Jarrow sighed. “North is looking after her now, but that can't last. Eventually Melia will need her own coracle—though perhaps she could inherit North's, and the bear with it. In time, Melia could learn to train him. Although the state she's in, I can't see her learning anything at all.”

“Let Ainsel and North worry about that after the wedding.”

Jarrow frowned. “After the wedding they will have their own worries. There's the house, and the promise of children, and North learning to fit in among the landlockers. She will have to fit in, and quickly, if the Stirling name is to be restored.”

Avalon pulled away. “What do you mean?”

“I mean that North will have to learn how to play her role. The landlocker life might not come naturally to her, but given time she'll get used to—”

“No. No, you said a house. Why would North have to worry about the house?”

“Avalon!” Jarrow was caught between a frown and a laugh. “I told you that I was buying a house. All the things I've been saving—what else would it be for?”

“But that house…”

“It can only be on reclaimed land, I know, not real land. And certainly not the true Stirling land.”

“The house.” Avalon's tongue seemed to stumble over the words, as if she was speaking a language she didn't fully understand. “We won't live in the house. It's not for us.”

The wheel turned, bumping into Jarrow's arm. He realized he'd dropped his hands.

“Avalon. My love.” He kept his voice soft, trying not to let it waver. “You knew that, didn't you? You knew that the house was for Ainsel and North?”

The sea, the sky, the dozens of scattered archipelagos: the whole world shrank to the expression on Avalon's face. Jarrow forgot to breathe. His head throbbed to the beat of his heart.

Breathe out. Breathe in. Don't panic. Don't let Avalon leave. Don't let anyone die. Breathe.

“Of course,” Avalon finally said. Her face stretched into a smile, so tight it looked sore. “Of course, my king. We are in total agreement, and your mind is my mind. We have no secrets from each other. I simply meant—” Her smile faltered; she looked as though she was going to be sick. “I meant…Excuse me for a moment, my king. Our child is restless.”