deceptively serene surface of the lake she couldn’t see a single boat out there. Good, she thought with a shiver. They were safe on land… at least, they were for now. Eamon buried his face in her shoulder, clearly picking up on the fear and grief surrounding them, and she squeezed him tight, trying to give him comfort that she couldn’t find for herself right now.
“It’s obvious what we have to do,” Niall was saying in a loud voice that carried down the docks. His eyes were scanning the crowd, and she saw them alight on her and Eamon for a moment, saw the glint of recognition and gratitude on his face before he turned back to the men he was addressing. “It’s obvious that with these creatures on the hunt, and no protection offered by the wounded Monster, that it isn’t safe to fish.”
“What can we do? Carry iron with us?” one of the men demanded. “They were yanked into the water in a heartbeat —”
“Exactly,” Niall said. “Iron wouldn’t have saved them. The only safe place is the land. The only thing I can do is close the harbor.”
There was a murmur of dismay. Plenty of the men were nodding, their faces drawn — Helen imagined that seeing two men dragged to their deaths would certainly put them off fishing for the time being. But other men looked frustrated, frightened.
“What about our families?” one of them demanded. “I’ve gone through all my emergency stores already — we’ll starve if I can’t catch anything.”
“I’ll go to Laird Donal now and talk to him about sharing the castle’s emergency stores,” Niall said firmly, gazing around at the men. “I don’t make this decision lightly — I know that you and your families depend on the Loch for survival. But we can’t risk your lives like this. Not until this Kelpie threat is dealt with. I promise, you and your families will be cared for.”
A murmur of agreement went up — Helen saw one of the fishermen clap Niall on the back, his face drawn. At least they are all on the same side, she thought. With Perry gone, the fishermen were able to make sensible decisions, to talk reasonably about these matters. Still — she couldn’t help but worry about the food situation. It felt strange, to be in a place where scarcity was so close. In West Virginia, poverty was an issue, of course — it always had been. She’d had personal experience of it herself. But the idea of food simply running out — of there not being any food to get, regardless of whether or not you had the money to afford it — that was strange, to her. And a little frightening. She bit her lip, almost wanting to head up to the kitchens to talk to Blair about exactly how much food there was in storage. Could they ration it? It may come to that, if things continued on this rather dire track…
The fishermen scattered slowly, headed home to break the bad news to their families. Work had been suspended on the repairs for the day out of respect to the men that had died… and, Helen thought with a shiver, probably out of fear of the Kelpies coming up close to the docks and threatening the safety of the workers. Eamon was at her side, tugging at her hand and squirming — and she realized with a sigh that his eyes were fixed on the beach down by the Loch where he loved to walk. It was a sunny afternoon, and she had to admit, it looked wonderful down there. She braced herself, hoping against hope that he wouldn’t react too poorly when she refused to let him go where he wanted…
“Come on, Eamon. Let’s go talk to Da.”
“Don’t want to,” he whined, pulling at her hand as he tried desperately to get to the beach. Niall looked over, frowning a little as he saw the storm brewing. Helen tried every trick she knew — distraction, pleading, even singing him a song — but within minutes, the little boy was in tears, howling and pointing at the beach, too upset to even use words anymore.
“Oh, Eamon, come on, little man,” Niall said tensely as he reached them.
She could see how upset he was — the tension in his body, the grief on his face. He’d been through so much that morning — watching the Kelpies he’d sworn to fight claiming the lives of two