Sayblood’s Children is a folk horror/romance novella, serialized in twelve parts. This is Part Three.
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Previously, Othniel brought the strange guest back to his home and deliberated about what to do with her.
In this chapter, Othniel seeks to send Sayblood on her way and out of his life forever, but something gives him pause.
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An appetite is an odd thing, and to be a creature of appetite is a maze with many rooms. When one appetite is sated, others rise to take its place, each one darker and sharper-edged in its turn. Appetites we had in abundance, a constant craving hunger and the will to fill each one as it appeared. This was power. This was purpose.
In Sumble’s guts we spun around an invisible center, a whirlpool of desire, and only one rule: survival is the highest good. To survive is to seek holiness, and none consumes so much as the Great Belly Himself. His Hunger was perfection. His Hunger was Self. We learned to think only of self, because that is how you survive.
As we passed each other in the cold-lit streets, we said these words in greeting:
May you make a choice meal.
May you fall prey to none but Him.
We said these things to one another as prayers, as blessings.
We worshipped hunger, yet within—ignorant of it—we were starving.
*******
The early morning sun rose up over the trees and slipped in through the windows of the little cabin, cold and wan, brightening the warm wood floor, the walls, the rag rug before the ember-filled stove.
Othniel woke on his chair, back muscles stretched and neck sore, and through his bleary eyes he saw that the woman was not where he had left her. But when he stood quickly, rifle clattering off his lap, he realized she was not gone. She was in the shadowed kitchen corner of the cabin, safely out of the way of the milky sunbeam crawling and widening across the floor.
Sayblood’s big-eyed gaze met his and she said, a growl of frustration in her tone, “May Sumble take your lights. They burn hot and strange.”
He nodded, repositioned the rifle out of the way, stretched out his back. “If you hate our sun in winter you’ll hate it in the summer.”
She cocked her head in confusion, but did not ask the question he expected. “When are we leaving here?”
“We should go as soon as we can,” he said. “The strait is awfully choppy on the best of days, but I’d like to travel before the wind that tends to rise in the afternoons out there.”
She nodded and stood carefully, using his handmade kitchen table for balance, cradling her belly in one thin hand. Seeing her in the light of day, standing there in her thin dress, Othniel sighed. It would not do to take her back outside in that, let alone across the water. She would catch her death.
Thinking quickly, he strode through the cabin and into a back doorway to the small, dark pantry space where he kept his potatoes, apples, onions, grains, and other pantry goods. There was a pile back there of clothes, a strange collection: bits and pieces that washed up on the beach from passing boats, morbid trophies from shipwrecked corpses, or gifts given to him in trade that did not fit. Some were his own past pieces, shirts and trousers that no longer fit. He had washed all of the clothes over time and they no longer stank of low tide, but they had a lingering earthy scent from sharing a room with the pantry goods.
From this collection he pulled out a long, soft shirt—billowy enough to cover her belly—a pair of breeches intended for a young man, a heavy oilcloth coat, and a wide-brimmed hat. He also found a pair of boots that he thought might fit.
Such an ensemble would win no fashion contests back east, he thought, but it would do.
He brought the clothes out to her and she eyed them.
“They’re not much to look on,” Othniel said, “but they’re warm. And you’ll need the warmth...”
…wherever you’re going, he wanted to say, but stopped himself. He couldn’t picture her anywhere. He couldn’t see her fitting in. But she couldn’t stay, that much he knew.
Sayblood took the clothes in her arms, peered at them. She lifted them to her nose and inhaled the loamy, earthy scent, then nodded with something like courage. Resolve. “Yes, these will do. Thank you.”
“I’ll leave you to it while I feed the animals,” he said, and took his own coat and hat from the peg by the door, leaving her to change into the clothes. “When I’m done, we’ll be on our way.”
*******
The waters of the strait were suspiciously smooth. So much so that Othniel felt it like an insult as he rowed his small boat out of the cove where he kept it docked and made for the place on the Big Island’s shore where he knew the fisherfolk made their camp.
He must have been frowning at the water in a fierce way, because Sayblood—wide-brimmed hat shielding her sensitive eyes from the worst of the sun—squinted at him and said, “Is anything wrong?”
He nodded absently. “It’s just odd,” he said. “I’ve lived on this island for five years and never once seen the strait this glassy.”
It was like a biblical miracle. Or the kind of enchantment a witch might weave.
He glanced at her where she sat in the bow, her back to the destination. “You wouldn’t happen to have any…powers, would you?”
“Powers?” She appeared genuinely mystified by the question.
“Powers, like…magic.”
Sayblood considered this. “Magic. No, I think not. In the place where I come from, my voice is heard and my invocations are often granted. But I cannot make things happen through sheer force of will. Is that what you mean?”
“I suppose I do.” He did not know anymore. As usual, her answers were not clear enough to parse without further questions, and he refused to learn any more about her. He simply shrugged. “I just wondered if you had anything to do with this.”
“I do not.”
She was afraid. He could hear it in her voice. He refused to think too deeply about that.
“When we arrive at the place where the fisherfolk live,” he said, “I think it would be best if…if you did not call yourself by your name. By Sayblood.”
She watched him carefully, making some kind of calculations beyond his ken. So steely was her gaze that he feared, all over again, that she might leap across the boat and attack him, all teeth and claws. But she asked, quietly, “What name should I say?”
Othniel considered. “Sayblood is near enough to the name Sarah, I think. Try Sarah.”
She nodded, said the name aloud a handful of times. “It fits me near as neatly as these clothes do,” she said at last, with a humorless smile, “but if you think it best.”
The boat slid across the strait with little effort, carrying Sayblood away from the little island. The faintest hint of a worry crossed Othniel’s mind: magic or not, it seemed a little too easy. Too simple.
As if something was very keen on making certain that Sayblood left the island’s shores for good.
*******
The fisherfolk encampment was small, simply a collection of windswept ramshackle houses and canvas tents clinging to the rocky, hilly coastline on the southeast corner of the Big Island—Ferris Island proper. There was a small cluster of docks populated with a collection of boats and canoes made for slipping carefully in a slow circle around the island’s shoreline, fishing for salmon, surf perch, dogfish, halibut, squid. Small yet hardy seacraft, built for easy beaching to gather oysters and clams, and to drop willow-cane baskets baited to catch the thick-shelled crab that roamed the silty seafloor.
The community was a tiny stalwart standing against the swath of deep, dark forest that covered the whole eighty-square-mile rock. The entirety of Ferris Island was covered in thick-trunked firs and cedars, old growth dripping with moss and lichen, dark corners where no one dared to tread. Few humans had ventured into it, yet already there were stories: disappearances, ghastly deaths, strange sounds and spirits.
The fisherfolk—Europeans and Natives alike, wanderers and families and outlaws—lived peacefully cheek-by-jowl in the shadow of the trees, caught their fish, and traded them to the mainland.
Othniel beached his own boat just down the shore from the camp and jumped into the hiss-frigid shallows, tiny shore crabs scattering from his boots with their minuscule claws raised. He pulled the boat up and away from the tug of the current and held out his hand for Sayblood, who took it. He had been expecting her hand to be icy, somehow reptilian. But it was warm in his grip. Heartbeat warm. Once she was safely ashore he let go quickly, afraid of something he could not name.
He led her up the beach, passing crouched groups of fishwives and ragged children sorting shellfish into baskets. Some glanced up as they passed but saw only Othniel and turned back to their tasks. This camp was well acquainted with strangers, and Othniel was a familiar enough face to take little note of.
Othniel led her through the small community, down the rutted dirt road that formed their main thoroughfare, lined with tiny shacks and tents. He did not slow, he did not pause. The touch of Sayblood’s skin was lingering on his palm like a sensation he felt he needed to wash his hands of, and the sooner he knew she was on a boat and crossing to the mainland and away forever, the better he would feel.
At the end of the dirt road was the harbor, a long handbuilt dock. Past its end in the deeper waters, an old cutter called The Tern—scuttled from a privateer, so the story went—was anchored and waiting, serving as the island’s only connection to the mainland.
A gray-haired ferryman man dressed for all weather sat on an upended barrel at the root of the dock, smoking his pipe and watching the fishermen carry their catch down to the dinghy that would row out to the Tern.
“Mr. Brack,” said the man, as Othniel approached. “I thought we’d seen the last of you for the season.”
“You have,” Othniel said. “Only one more errand. This good lady needs passage into Port Townshend Bay.”
The ferryman looked past Othniel for the first time and saw Sayblood. There was a scrutinizing pause as Othniel watched the old man’s craggy face change by degrees, slow and silent, from jaded interest into subtle horror.
“Where did the lady come from?” the ferryman asked. “And how is it you came by her, Mr. Brack?”
Othniel replied, “Shipwreck. It happens often.”
The ferryman spat on the ground at the mention of shipwreck, a reflexive charm, his eyes unbelieving. He stared at Sayblood. “What’s your name, girl?”
Sayblood replied, without flinching, “Sarah.”
But even a common name sounded strange on her tongue, and Othniel winced.
The ferryman glanced back at Othniel. “Forgive me, Mr. Brack. But…” He leaned in, whispering conspiratorially. “What you have there is some sort of omen, I think, and not a woman at all.”
Othniel shook his head. “She’ll be no trouble to you, I can promise that. She simply needs safe passage. From there, she’ll go on her way.”
But where? Asked a pitying voice in his mind, but he pushed it away.
The ferryman glanced over Othniel’s shoulder. “I’m responsible,” the old man said. “I’m responsible for who and which and what climbs aboard the Tern. She’s all we’ve got, Mr. Brack, you understand? Our only true link to the outside.”
Superstitious old fool, Othniel thought, but did not say out loud. “As I said, she’ll be no trouble. Harmless. Just needs safe passage, that’s all.”
The ferryman seemed to consider this, then he turned on his heel and strode down the dock toward a cluster of men at the end, who were making ready with the dinghy to take passengers and supplies out to the Tern. The ferryman spoke with these men in such a way that Othniel could not hear their words, but glances were thrown back at them. At Sayblood. Dark expressions, not a single smile. Sailors are not the sort to play with their luck, at least not out at sea.
Gambles are meant for land. On the waves, there must only be certainties.
When the ferryman returned, his words were a surprise. “We’ll give the lady passage,” he said. “But at the first sign of ill fortune, you’ll understand Mr. Brack…we cannot be responsible. We have the Tern to think of.”
The implication was clear enough to Othniel, and when he turned, he could see that while Sayblood did not understand the finer nuances of what was being implied…she had a nose for threat. Her entire body under the baggy clothing was braced, taut like sail rigging.
Othniel tried to smile, gently. It was one passage. She would not come to harm. “They’ll take you,” he said. “And from there, you can go wherever you like.”
She accepted this, stoic and calm. She held out her hand, and he took it.
“I thank you, Othniel,” she said. “For all you’ve done. For the goodness you’ve shown me. May you fall prey to none but Him.”
He did not understand the strange words, but she said it with such sincerity that he felt it like a blessing and smiled. For all her strangeness, he was no longer as afraid of her as he might have been before.
Sayblood let go of his hand and passed him then, following the ferryman up the dock. Othniel watched her, white hair spilling down out of the wide-brimmed hat, carrying her secrets and her child away into the unknown. He almost felt a tug of sorrow, but quickly tamped it down with relief. A solitary winter. Quiet. Calm.
“She’s going to die.”
An icy chill ran down Othniel’s neck and spread across his shoulders. Someone had spoken those words to him. He had heard them beside his left ear, a cold puff of air like breath.
He turned, quickly, but there was no one near him. The fisherfolk were going about their business, paying no attention.
“Catch her. Bring her back.”
The words whispered beside his ear were stern, with a hint of desperation in them. Urgency. Fear.
“Don’t let her go.”
And the feeling of icy fingers on his neck tightened, making him gasp aloud, as a vision rose in his mind: sudden ill weather on the crossing, the raised angry voices of terrified sailors, and Sayblood—the omen, the white curse—grabbed with rope-roughened hands and raised up and over the gunwale of the Tern, cast into the sea to appease saltwater gods older than language. Sinking, heavy, into darkness.
He didn’t want to believe it. But he saw it: her wide eyes emptying of life, her jaw slackening, bubbles rising from her final breaths, and it was so real he could feel the cold crush of the sea closing over her forever.
“Jonah. They will call her a jonah, an ill guest, a portent. Catch her. Catch her now. Don’t let her go.”
Othniel moved before he realized he wanted to, heart racing with the action. He started down the dock, following Sayblood and the ferryman just as they reached the cluster of men by the dinghy. The sailors glared at her with sour intensity, but she was straight-backed, dignified. Coiled like a spring.
“She is strong, but they are afraid,” said the whispered voice, again, following beside Othniel like a humming bird. “Man’s fear of the unknown is a murderer. Don’t let her go. Don’t let her die.”
Othniel called out, hearing his own voice like a surprise, “Wait.”
All stopped. Sayblood turned.
Othniel paused, lacking words, before he looked out across the channel, feigning concern. “There’s a smell of ill weather. Maybe today is not…ideal. To cross.”
The men looked at Othniel as though he had a nose growing from his forehead. They were going to cross one way or the other, and they knew that he knew it. They had trade to do, supplies to gather. The Tern always made its passage, passengers or not.
But Othniel held out his hand to Sayblood. “I think, perhaps, we should come back another time. Cross another day.”
She hesitated, confused. He tried to speak to her through his eyes. Tried to make her understand that he didn’t know, either, why he had changed his mind.
“Please,” he said, softly. “Another day.”
She was quick. He had to grant her that. She heard something in his voice, perhaps, that convinced her. Smelled the danger on the air. It was thick enough to fill a room, a miasma of terrible possibilities.
Sayblood reached out and took his hand once more, casting only a single backward glance at the men grouped beside the dinghy, The Tern bobbing in the dark waves beyond. Then she followed Othniel away. He walked quickly, shame flushing his cheeks. He had never acted in such a strange way before with these good, steady people, the closest thing he had to neighbors. His dealings with the fisherfolk were only cordial, only professional. They dealt fairly with him, and he with them. He had never given them reason to look at him askew.
This was madness.
I’m going mad.
“Why?” Sayblood asked, breathless as she followed him down toward the beached rowboat once more. The strait was no longer glassy smooth but tempestuous and angry, a breeze whipping up the narrow channel and turning the waves to whitecaps.
Something was unhappy. Othniel had broken a promise he never knew he made.
He did not reply to Sayblood’s question. He did not know what to say, or how. Instead, he helped her carefully into the rowboat and pushed off, ignoring the eyes of the fisherfolk on his back.
When he jumped in from the shallows and settled himself at the oars, he finally spoke to her.
“We’ll find another way,” he said, with a false confidence he did not truly feel. She let this lie, though her huge eyes were crowded with questions.
Mingled with the thunk-sloosh rhythm of the oars pushing hard against the rising tide, aiming like an arrow for home, he heard the whispered voice again beside his left ear, a relieved muttering.
“Well done,” it said. “Well done. Well done. Well done.”
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The worst part about these chapters is the waiting for the next one.
Methinks the island wants her to stay. She hasn't fulfilled her destiny yet.