And I’m torn because I want very much to come back here and carry on with my life. But I don’t know how I could, because of Mama. More than that, I don’t know if I could after everything I’ve seen beyond the city walls.
That’s the trouble with knowing things: you can’t un-know them. Once you let yourself look at them, or say them aloud, they become real. I look ahead to the gates, noticing the guards are different this morning. They give my papers a cursory glance before allowing me to pass, and I glance back one last time at Tremayne, my heart torn as we exit the town.
I urge my horse to pick up the pace a little and then we ride, towards Scarron and the sea. I’ll find the girl, and get my mother back. Then I’ll make a decision.
Scarron is a tiny, isolated fishing village that sits at the most north-westerly point of Tregellan, on the mouth of the estuary where the River Aurmere meets the sea. The river begins somewhere in the mountains; there are supposedly over a hundred waterfalls in them, made by the Aurmere rushing back to the sea. Rumours of pirate caves and hidden treasure abound; they even say there is a fountain of youth in there somewhere. I used to think it was a myth, but given the way stories are coming to life these days I might go and look for it if I ever get the chance.
Once the river has escaped the mountains, it runs between Tregellan and Tallith. Seventy miles long and getting wider and wider until it spills out and joins the sea. It’s known for being rough, dangerous to cross, the currents violent and merciless. On clear days, you can see clean across the Aurmere to Tallith City, or what’s left of it. The castle sat high on the cliff-side over the harbour and the ruins of its seven towers are still there, crumbling slowly into the sea below.
The people who live in Scarron are fisher-folk, and they are hardy, possibly the hardiest people in all of Tregellan – they have to be, to fish the waters there. Their skin is tanned by the wind, their faces lined prematurely, carved by salt and sea and air. Scarron is the kind of village people are born in and die in. Rarely does anyone leave. Still more rarely does a new face arrive. So unless the girl is in hiding, like Silas was, I should be able to find her easily; she’d be known as the “new one” for the next fifty years if she stayed here.
I’ve been to Scarron once before, with my mother, around eight years ago. She took Lief and me away from the farm for a few days, and it was here we came. We arrived after dark, so we didn’t see the sea until the next morning when we raced from the inn to the beach. But we could smell it; all night long we could smell it, the briny, greenish air rushing in through the open windows. I dreamt strange dreams then, of a woman with fish scales and green skin smiling at me with a mouth full of pointed teeth, beckoning me into the water. I wanted so much to go to her. When I woke I was gasping for air as though I was drowning.
I loved Scarron. I loved its handful of wind-battered cottages in a higgledy-piggledy row along the harbour front. I loved the harbour master, a jolly man with a booming voice who was happy to show Lief and me how to tie knots, and bait lobster pots, and dig for mussels. Everything sparkled by the sea, everything was scoured clean by the wind and better for it. And it was so far from everything. It was completely itself, like Almwyk; practically a country of its own, except better, more honest and wholesome. I can see why the girl went there.
The landscape changes again as I ride further north, and I pull my cloak tighter around me to combat the colder air. The trees become sparser, more evergreens, bent from bracing against gales and storms. I stop every couple of hours to eat and drink and get the blood flowing in my hands and feet. I feed the horse her apples, and then a little of the cheese; I drink my milk and chew happily on the fresh bread Carys packed for me.
I alternate between riding and walking