Read by Josie Charles (podcast here, first story)
My man went with the rest, down to the sea. To mended nets and patched boats, and stories of the night before. The sun was bright, so they strode bare to the waist, muscles flexing as they pushed their crafts into the foam, laughing at each other’s jokes.
The children went too, clambering sure-footed and long-legged over the rocks towards the cliffs, to see what treasures the waves had deposited in the rockpools. The braver ones might climb those cliffs or dive into the sea for pearls, their mothers scolding and praising those that returned with a prize.
I retreated into the cool shade of the trees, while the other women set to their work at the river, gossiping as they scrubbed the scales from yesterday’s catch, leaving flesh raw. I cradled useless hands inside long sleeves, and hung my head as I passed the others, their gazes slipping over me. Pity is a terrible mercy, so easily it gives way to something worse. My husband’s sisters bore the brunt of my work, when my wrists swelled and fingers stiffened.
Not today. I passed the fire where the old ones huddled inside woollen shells, passed my home, that my husband had built from stone and wood with his strong hands, and walked on.
Far from the others, on the riverbank, daring the water to swell and carry it away, was the witch’s tent. Shaped like her tall hat, shells and stones hung from its supports, weighing it down. They rattled at my approach, though there was no wind.
She appeared from behind the tent, a basket on one hip. She smiled her greeting and invited me to sit on the grass with a sweep of her hand. I forced my aching knees to bend and moved towards the ground, catching myself on my elbows as my wrists couldn’t support my weight. The impact jarred my shoulders, and I bit my lip to keep from crying out. The ground was damp and cold.
“You haven’t run out of the salve already,” she said, settling easily, bare feet protruding from her patchwork skirt.
“No,” I said.
Her feet were pink and smooth, like a child’s, her nails iridescent like the shells that decorated her home. Red flowers bloomed in her long hair, that emerged like sunlight from the shadow of her hat. Ageless she was, or so the others whispered, older than the sea, fresher than a daisy. Some hated her, some feared her, but my husband trusted her, and I trusted him. She cradled the basket in her lap like a precious thing. It was covered with a cloth, and I grew cold, wondering at the contents.
“The salve soothes the pain,” I went on. “It lets me sleep, but…”
“But it is not enough.”
I nodded.
“I warned you,” she said, and so she had, every time. “Your curse is a strong one, tied to you by jealous love. It needs a stronger remedy.”
“I am afraid,” I said.
She said nothing at my answer but placed the basket on the ground between us.
“Last time I caught one of these,” she said, “you rejected my gift. Do not be so quick to judge the creature today.”
She pulled the cloth aside, revealing the same silver-scaled, long-whiskered beast she’d produced when I first dared visit her. It was big as a trout, squashed in the basket, its head and tail pushing upwards towards the edges. A foul smell like spoilt meat and salt rose from the creature, though I could tell from its glassy black eye that it was a fresh catch. Its swollen body and odd, snakelike neck, its gaping mouth, its crooked teeth, these things made me loathe to even touch this so-called remedy.
“Trust me,” she said, “this will renew you, make you strong enough to carry…”
I looked up into her blue eyes, and her lips settled into a knowing smile. She didn’t need magic to know my fears. I had been wed nearly a year, and there was no sign of a child.
“Don’t fear change,” she said.
It wasn’t only change I feared, but I pushed my doubts aside. I would do this for my husband, so I could be a true wife to him, and work, and give him children. I would do it for him, and for myself, to stop the pain that coloured everything I did or thought, since it arrived on our wedding night.
The witch slipped a long knife from her sleeve and pressed it to the fish’s underside. The creature wriggled, its tail rising and flopping back as she cut a line across it. It flapped and thrashed as its glistening viscous innards slid out into the basket. She plucked one fat purple organ from the tangle and cut its ties. Then, the creature lay still at last.
My heart was fluttering like a bird caught in a trap.
“Here,” she said. “This is the only part you need.”
I held out my palm and she placed it there, wet and surprisingly heavy. I looked to her for assurance, but she only nodded and smiled, her eyes bright. She watched me closely as I held it near my mouth, trying not to gag at the fierce, acidic smell.
“Eat it,” she said, “and the pain will stop.”
So I opened my mouth and pushed the thing inside. My stomach roiled as I forced myself to chew the rubbery cure. It burst, releasing some thick juice, and I had to clap my hands over my mouth to keep from spitting it out.
The witch’s eyes were on me, unblinking. Her lips moved as she recited some spell, but no sound reached my ears. Oil ran down my throat and choked me. I released my hands but my lips seemed bound together. I fell back on the grass and chewed fiercely, stomach clenching and heaving as I tried to force it down.
Suddenly she took my hands and pulled me upright, and I winced at the touch that should have sent spasms of pain up both arms. There was no pain. I opened my mouth and gasped for breath; the thing was gone, inside. The deed was done, and my hands …
I looked at them; my claws had uncurled. My fingers were straight and smooth and strong.
“Thank you,” I said, and promised her whatever my husband brought back from the sea that day. He would be so pleased, so relieved, so kind to me.
#
That night I lay easily in his arms, and he touched me without fear of hurting me. I could lie on my side, pressed against him, and my shoulder did not scream for me to move. I could wrap my arms around him without pain. I fell asleep sure all would be well.
I dreamt of dark water, felt waves lap against my skin like hungry tongues. My body shifted with the tide and I let it carry me from the beach, under the stars, until the loneliness around me was complete. Only the stars burning above, and waves whispering below, to keep me company. I could not see myself, but knew I’d changed. I reached for my face and found whiskers, long and rubbery.
I woke and sat up, but my husband was gone. I ran outside. Already the sun blazed down between the branches of the trees. He hadn’t woken me, had let me sleep when I should be working. I could hear the babble of the other women, but I couldn’t go to them yet.
I ran to the river, where the bank was steep and there was no one to see. I peered down at my face, rippling and shimmering, but I couldn’t see the whiskers that I could still feel on my cheeks, those fishy tendrils I’d seen on the creature the day before, above its gaping mouth. I would visit the witch again, tell her my dream, my fears. Then I could shed them like scales washed away in the river, slipping away over the rocks.
#
Once my belly swelled, my husband left boasting each morning. Such a strong boy he said, to grow so quickly. Such deeds the boy would do. He did not notice how my eyes turned black and my hair silver, or that the skin of my neck wrinkled where that of a fish would part to breathe.
I worked alongside the other women, but I was not one of them. I wore a scarf over my hair, kept my eyes cast down. If they saw my fingers grow clumsy, flap uselessly, slip desperately into the cool river water, they said nothing.
I blew the candle out at night, when he undressed me and put my belly to his ear like a conch shell. He thought he had put a boy inside me, but I knew better. I had taken something else within myself, and it had taken root. I had fish swimming round and round inside me, thousands of tiny gaping mouths. One day, soon, he would discover me.
#
We were both wrong, or else the larger fish had eaten the smaller ones, until only one remained. The witch was my only witness; she sucked in a breath as brine leaked from my skin, and the creature slid quietly from me. Small for a baby, big for a fish. She patted and rubbed my offspring until he made a choking sound and wailed, shrill and high. She wrapped him in a blanket and placed him in my arms. I did not move.
“Feed him,” she said.
I could not bear to touch him. I looked at her, and she shook her head at me. The child still wailed. Beyond him, I heard the lumbering of the men outside, of my husband eager to catch a glimpse of his son. They would not cross the threshold while the witch remained.
With a sigh she scooped him up, opening her dress to press him like a familiar to her breast. She sounded disappointed when she sighed, but I saw her smile that flickered with the candlelight. Her eyes remained on the child’s face as he quietened and fed. I knew then that he had always been meant for her.
Afterwards she placed him back in my arms. She left, inviting my husband in. He took the bundle from me and stared at the face. He smiled and praised me. She had enchanted him then; he did not see the child’s scales and whiskers, its gills and fins. He saw what he wanted to see. Perhaps it was his after all; I had promised the witch what he brought back from the sea that day. He had brought this life with him from the ocean, to plant inside me. Some monster from deep below the surface, never meant to see the light.
I waited until my husband slept, and then left the little creature, fragile as an egg, in my place beside him. I fled into the night and the world I’d dreamt of; black water, fire in the sky. I smelt the salt of the sea and it smelt of some home I had yet to live in. I stepped into the water and the waves came to greet me as I walked, pulling me in, numbing my feet and legs before they disappeared. I became free, my body loose, and I swam with my new fins for the first time, on and on until I could not see the shore. I swam further and further still, afraid that otherwise I might float too close to the nets come morning.
I wondered if he would raise that odd fish as his own, or would the witch claim it as hers? They might raise it together. I should have listened to the spiteful warning of my husband’s sisters, when they whispered he was the only man the witch ever loved.
(c) Lisa Farrell, 2019
Lisa Farrell lives with her husband, sons, & two black cats. In a previous life she studied Creative Writing at the UEA, and worked as a bookseller for seven years. Now she writes freelance for Fantasy Flight Games. Read her occasional tweets @lisamrc8
Josie Charles recently graduated from an MA in Acting at the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama, after a BA in English at University College London. She is a member of the National Youth Theatre, performing in The Fall by James Fritz at the Southwark Playhouse and The Tempest at Theatre Royal Northampton. She also writes and is currently making her first short film.
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