“That’s the light at Near Ledge Isle,” cried Wigham. “Hold off supper until we come to anchorage. We’ll sail a little farther east, then turn south to bring us in on the lee side of Ledge Isle, with Far Ledge Isle seaward. You two hold yourselves ready now, and we’ll be at quiet water in the hour.”
As they were, though they were covered with gooseflesh and soaked through before they lay to in a cupped bay of still water opening only to the north. Lacking an anchor, they might float gently ashore, said Wigham, but they could not be driven asea. “Looky there,” he called. “Water-babies!”
Genevieve leaned on the rail to see the curious creatures swimming below, much like human babies when seen from the back, mostly buttocks and kicking legs, but when they turned over they were froggy things with wide mouths and hair that floated like waterweed. They seemed harmless enough as they circled the boat, swimming on their backs, peering up at the humans, gargling from their wide mouths as though they laughed. “Those are Haven creatures, are they Wigham?” asked Garth.
“Some say. Some say they’re born to Merdune women who go swim-min’ when they shouldn’t. And when the women’s times come, why then, the midwives deliver these things, and they run them to the shore, fast as may be, to get them in the water.”
“Surely not!” cried Genevieve, suddenly remembering why Aufors had been so frightened. Poor boy, who had been teased about becoming part-fish and had nightmares as a result!
“Probably not,” corrected Garth. “Though I’ve heard stranger things.” Wigham flapped his wings and told them to get themselves dried and warm. As for him, he would row ashore with the remnant of the anchor rope and tieUnlikely to the rocks, just in case. Then he’d hike himself to the Ledge Isle light and its attendant hamlet, hoping to buy an anchor and a line. Garth said he would go along, as he had never seen the light, so they went, leaving Genevieve to start a fire in the stove and make tea. She poured a cup, generous with the sugar, and drank it while she put together a stew of lamb and potatoes and onions, following directions Garth had given her, sotto voce, earlier in the day.
“Imogene,” he had told her, “would know how to cook, so you must pretend you know.”
Actually, she did know, for she had spent many a holiday afternoon in the Langmarsh kitchen helping Delia and the cook. While the stew simmered, she changed into dry clothes, warming her feet by the stove before putting on her boots. Then she wrapped herself well and carried her wet clothes and bowl of stew onto the deck, where she spread the clothes to dry before sitting sleepily on a hatch cover to watch the reflections of the light in the water and listen to the chuckle of the wavelets along the hull as the boat rocked soothingly, well out of the wind.
“Genevieve,” whispered the wavelets. “Come to the rail, Genevieve.”
Obediently, she rose and went to the aft rail, leaning over it to look into the depths. The water-babies were gone. In their place was a shining light, softly golden green, spreading from the area around the boat like a stain that broadened and lengthened until all the little bay was lit with its peridot glow. It came, she thought, from that something huge that lay below and swam in a light of its own, lending that light also to the fat golden fishes that flowed in linked arcs, like threads being woven into patterned lace. Beneath this filigree the gold of the depths came higher yet, making a brighter circle at the stern of the boat. For a moment, she thought she saw something there, as though the golden stain encompassed an enormous face. Two eyes, this time, and a mouth that could swallow the sea.
The fat fishes continued to swim, the golden light below hung in the water. She stared. The boat rocked.
“Why did you have your fishes chew through the anchor rope?” Genevieve asked drowsily, half-hypnotized by the movement of the creatures.