Sea Witch

Iker—I don’t know what to think of Iker, though he’s standing right before me on the royal dock, borrowed crew packing a borrowed ship behind him.

“Come—the sea calls.” Iker brushes away a few of my curls and cups his hand about my ear as if to amplify the sea’s ancient voice. He leans down, his cheek brushing right against mine, his lips warm next to my skin as he whispers, “Evelynnnnn.”

His enthusiasm makes my heart skip, and I wish I could go, but Father is leaving this morning as well, and he hates the idea of me being aboard a different ship while he is at sea too. He’s superstitious to a fault, even if it’s just for a quick trip up the Jutland and back before Sankt Hans Aften and the opening of the Lithasblot festival. Iker is enchanted by sightings of a large whale—one that would feed Rigeby Bay for weeks in both meals and trade. I hate it, but I know Iker must go—the seafaring season waits for no one, not even a prince.

“I’m so very sorry to disappoint,” I say. And I am. This time with him has been strangely magical, even if all we’ve done is sit with Nik, telling stories to make him smile as he recovers.

“Too late, the sea is already disappointed—your skills during the storm were top-notch. You’re a sailor she needs upon her waves.” His eyes flash, the curve of his mouth serious. Vulnerable, even, as strange as that is. But I don’t—I can’t—let myself think that it’s he who needs me and not the sea. Reality doesn’t work that way.

“The sea will have to wait.”

“And so will I.” He bends down to kiss me then, and though it’s the second time, it’s still a shock—a deep dive into ice-capped waters.

“You don’t have to go,” I say when we part, my voice small and slurred.

“What’s that?” he says, pretending not to have heard. “You don’t have to stay?”

He grabs my hand in both of his and begins to tug me toward the ship, full of crew waiting for his instruction. “Splendid, let’s get going—you steer; I’ll sip portvin and keep an eye out for the whale.”

I laugh and let him tug me a little farther up the gangplank than I should. In my heart, I don’t believe in Father’s superstitions. And yet I have superstitions of my own. Nik is still recovering. I can’t leave. What if he took a turn for the worse while I was gone?

No, I must stay.

Iker will come back. He says he will.

I know he will.

Something changed that night on the steamer. More during the storm than in the huddled moments before—we’d seen each other in our element. The salt of the sea, the both of us. And despite choosing to stay, it is the very last thing I want Nik to know about. Most especially the kissing. But it shouldn’t be too hard to keep a secret from my best friend—after all, I’ve been keeping my magic from Nik his whole life.

I step down from the gangplank and onto the dock. With a wave and a shout to his crew, Iker is off, taking our secret leagues away as I tuck it deep within me. I watch as he leaves the harbor, standing there just long enough to glimpse him turning back, my hand ready to wave. And then I set out for one more good-bye and my daily duties, Tante Hansa’s amethyst heavy in my pocket.

No, I don’t believe in mermaids. But I am willing to believe in whatever it is that happens when I kiss the amethyst to the bow of my father’s ship before an expedition. What happens when I cast the spell I created using centuries-old magical wisdom.

It’s only been a few weeks, but already it has worked, bringing in far more catch than by this time last year. I smile when I see the fishermen celebrating on the docks now. After four years of suffering through the Tørhed, a barrenness so severe the town’s fishing fleet decreased by half, these hearty cheers are welcome sounds. I haven’t heard them since before Anna’s death; the grumbles from tired fishermen coming ashore to restock on salted meat and limes have filled our ears instead.

After three years of the Tørhed, King Asger knew that praying to the gods was no longer enough. Havnestad had to find a new way to stay afloat. The royal steamship was ordered, and any man not at sea was put to work building the boat from late summer to first frost, shaping wood, and fitting sheets of metal to the smokestack.

But even that ship, hammered together by the strength of this fine town, was not enough to keep all of Havnestad’s bellies fed. The steamer was a one-time measure. Even the crown can’t afford a new ship every year.

I had to do something.

So, as I’ve done since the summer of Anna’s death, I stole into Tante Hansa’s room while she was off playing her weekly turn of whist down at Fru Agnata’s shack. Hansa’s bedroom is a stifling place, with the fire lit every night, even in the summer. Dried roses line the walls in a ring as high as she can reach—the hundreds of them a testament to her belief that their scent and beauty are superior to the tulips so popular throughout the Øresund Kingdoms.

Beneath the line of roses, in a corner opposite the flue, there’s a sea chest draped in shadow and an ancient moose hide. Inside is everything the Øldenburgs fear, all they have banished by law: gemstones, age-stained books, cobalt bottles sealed with pinches of cork and wax. The very same items Tante Hansa used on me when I resurfaced in Nik’s arms four years ago, Anna nowhere to be found. When I’d been in bed, nearly dead myself, watched over by Hansa and spoon-fed elixirs tasting of perfume and age. And aged they certainly are, passed down in shadow generations for centuries. Someday they will belong to me, I suppose.

That day I took a purple stone—one so small that I hoped it would escape Hansa’s notice, but big enough to have an impact. I snagged one of the tattered books with crumbling spines, too, fishing it out from where it was packed under a cake of beeswax and a marble mortar and pestle.

Hours after lights out, I crept down to the beach, but well beyond Havnestad Cove. As the shoreline thins, becoming one with the rocky mountain, sharp boulders jut out from the sea. The water is deeper there and the waves choppy, but in between the shadow of two large rocks is a swath of sand. Overhead, stone from the edge of Havnestad has formed into a perfect arch, the result of Urda coaxing the sea into this crevice for thousands of years.

This place doesn’t have a name, as far as I know. I’ve never seen anyone come here, and it’s hidden from view on the beach and by the boulders from the sea. I’ve taken to calling it Greta’s Lagoon, after my mother. She would have liked a place like this. Deep in the shadows of the lagoon is a small cave barely large enough to fit two, but it’s plenty big to store the few tinctures and inks Tante Hansa has entrusted to me.

I moved away the few small boulders I use to hide the entrance and lit a candle. With the amethyst stone cradled in one hand, I slid the book under the meager light. The words were ancient and yet familiar, recalling our great goddess, Urda, and the power she bestows on the land and sea. As the waves splashed against the rocks outside, I read the scrawl over and over, swirling the spells across my tongue. It took until nearly daylight, but finally I could feel the magic tingle in my blood.

After nearly three months of practice, I spelled Father’s boat for the first time.

Three days after that, he came home with his first whale in more than two years. It was thin, but fat enough for all the joy that came with it.

Now the spell is a must.

The need to keep Father safe and prosperous is thick in my veins each morning when I wake, jamming my heart with anxiety until I can do my job. My part.

Even when I’ve done my duty and he’s away for days, I come to the harbor and spell any ship docked and still. The fishermen are used to seeing me daily now. They don’t seem to find it strange that I’m always there, letting my closed palm trail along the salt-worn bodies of ships, old and trusty.

And today is the day I begin to do more. Along with what I cannot claim, I have been working away on something I can. Something all of Havnestad will recognize as helpful and not some fate of Urda.

“Evie, my girl!” Father is hauling a crate up to the deck of his whaler—Little Greta, also named for my mother. There isn’t a single crate of supplies left on the dock beside the ship. I’ve only just caught him. “I wasn’t sure you’d come.”

I laugh lightly, fingers tight over the gem in my palm. “Just because I want you to stay doesn’t mean I’ll miss you going.”

Father’s mouth settles into a tart line, the sun spots marring his forehead crinkling up to his black hair—he’s Italian by birth, though he’s Danish through and through.

We walk up the gangplank together. He drops the crate two feet from the innovation I know will make these desolate seas that much easier to fish—a permanent cure my magic cannot provide. Mounted proudly to the mainmast, half-harpoon, half-rifle, my darting gun looks as shiny and perfect as I’d hoped.

Father hugs me close. “My Evelyn, the inventor.”

“It was nothing,” I say, though we both know that’s not true. It took me the whole winter to create one from an old rifle and modified harpoon, but if my calculations are correct, the contraption will send out both a bomb lance and a tether harpoon, narrowing the chances of a whale escaping. If all goes well with Father’s maiden voyage, we might be able to transform the way Havnestad snags its whales.

“It’s not nothing. It’ll be a revolution.”

I tilt my face up to his, brow raised. “It’ll still be a revolution if you wait a week.”

Father bristles at the sore spot between us. He’s not the only fisherman headed out during the festival, though far more are staying than leaving, bolstered by their recent luck—my recent help. But he’s the only one I care about. And, as the royal fisherman, he’s the only one King Asger cares about as well.

“There will be other Lithasblot festivals, Evelyn. If you’ve been pelted with bread once, you’ve been pelted with bread a thousandfold.”

“But—”

He cuts me off with rough fingers on the point of my chin.

“But nothing. I have to seize my luck while it’s there.” Father’s grizzled old thumb settles on my bottom lip. “I’ll return for the close of the festival—the ball.”

Despite my disappointment at yet another good-bye, I form a tight smile after his words. “If you’ve seen me once in my only nice dress, you’ve seen me a thousandfold.”

He leans in and gives me a quick kiss on the cheek, his beard both soft and rough against my skin.

“Take care of Hansa, my dear.”

I hug him to my chest, the cloying scent of pipe tobacco catching in my lungs.