Brie looked unconvinced.
"And if I don't finish this boat in time, I won't be able to dance you across her deck," he teased. "So get off with you. Take a walk or go help Hyslin."
As Brie made her way to Jacan's house, Fara loping along at her side, she thought of the promise she had made herself that morning.
***
Winter solstice was a time for celebration in Dungal. Spring was still distant, but the solstice marked the turning of the sun and the lengthening of the days.
Three Travelers had arrived in Ardara for the sun-return festivities; Hanna was one, as was the severe-looking man with the red lips and an elderly man with a crystalline voice and a pure white beard.
Brie was glad to see Hanna. They spent a peaceful afternoon walking the coastline with Fara and the two dogs, who frisked together like old friends.
That evening they gathered, along with most of the townspeople, in Farmer Garmon's large barn. There the storyspinning, dancing, eating, and singing would continue until dawn on this, the longest night of the year. At sundown the families arrived, each bringing with them the greatest delicacy left from their rapidly dwindling stores. They ate at long tables amid much chatter and high spirits, and afterward the tables were moved away and everyone settled onto blankets or hay to listen to the storytellers.
During a break between stories, Brie and Lom got into a friendly quarrel about Lom's boat.
"Truth is, you wouldn't know a hawsepiece from a deck beam if it wasn't for me," Lom said with a rather superior air.
"Oh, and who was it measured the sternpost three inches too short?"
They continued to trade jibes, then finally dissolved into laughter at the absurdity of the quarrel. As Brie laughed, she happened to glance over at Lom's mother, Lotte. The innkeeper of the Speckled Trout was speaking softly in her ear. Lotte's eyes grew uncertain and darted to Lorn and Brie. Brie averted her own gaze just in time. When she looked back at Lotte, the innkeeper had moved away and the older woman was clutching her husband's arm, talking urgently. Farmer Garmon listened, then shook his head with a quick definite motion and returned to the chocolate tart he was eating. But Brie could see the uncertainty still in Lotte's face.
***
Several days later, on a dark, cool afternoon, Brie and Lom were working together on the hewing of the mast, a fine fir Lom had carefully selected for its clear, straight grain.
Abruptly Brie turned to Lom and asked him if he knew of any gossip that the innkeeper might be spreading. Lom frowned and his nose twitched slightly as though at a bad smell.
"It doesn't bear repeating," he replied tersely, hewing downward with the rasel, using long sure strokes.
"Tell me," Brie said.
"The innkeeper is a sour old miser."
"Tell me, Lom."
Lom set the rasel down and brushed wood shavings from his arms. "He has been calling you a leannan-shee."
"What is that?"
"'Tis an evil creature, female always, who attaches itself to a man and sucks the life out of him."
Brie was so astonished she nearly laughed, but because of the anger in Lom's face she did not.
"And is it your life I am supposed to be doing this to?" she asked.
He nodded, a hint of color in his cheeks. "And the boy Dil, who you're giving the bow lessons to, and some of the lads in the village as well, ever since you wore that yellow dress on harvest day..." He trailed off.
Brie had forgotten about the uncomfortable yellow dress. "Well, I am a busy little leannan-whatever it is, aren't I?"
Lom's face relaxed into a smile.
"You don't think I am, do you, Lom?" Brie demanded.
He laughed. "No proper leannan-shee would go around stinking of fish and arguing with a fellow about how to lay a keel."
"I do not stink!" Brie rejoined, laughing along with him. "And even you have to admit that keel was the slightest bit off center..."
***
The days and weeks following the winter solstice were hard ones. Spring was still a long way off, and there was little to break the desolation of dwindling food supplies, howling wind, and bitter cold. Other than working on Lom's boat and continuing Dil's bow lessons, the only thing that provided Brie a diversion was preparations for Hyslin's wedding ceremony. Brie learned that there was almost always a marriage ceremony at the end of winter as a way to celebrate the end of the dark season.
Hyslin had taught Brie how to use a weaving loom, and Brie was working on a piece of cloth. She had not decided what it would be when she was done, but she enjoyed the weaving of it. Hyslin, with her deft, experienced fingers, was making a luminous, pearl-colored cloth for her wedding cyrtel, the traditional flowing gown used for the binding ceremony.
For weeks the Storm Petrel did not leave the harbor. And constant driving rain or, more often, sleet meant no boatbuilding or archery lessons. Brie could hardly contain her restlessness. When she was not weaving or preparing food, she took long walks on coastal paths, occasionally pausing to stare up at the Blue Stacks, willing the snow to melt.
She began to experience a growing sense of unease, of something left undone. Every night as she lay in her pallet, after stowing the fire arrow safely in her quiver, she would go over the day's activities in her mind, few as they were. She tried to think of something she might have overlooked—mending a tear in one of Jacan's nets, some ingredient she might have left out of the lemongrass-and-rose wine she was helping Hyslin make, a missed thread in the cloth she was weaving—but she always came up blank.
Her dreams grew more vivid. She began to have the nightmare of the yellow bird again—the rapacious beak, the large, suffocating wings, the pulsing black sky. She dreaded going to her pallet at night and stayed up reading until she could keep her eyes open no longer.
There were other dreams as well, but two in particular that kept repeating. In the first she was approaching a lake, very still and gleaming like a mirror. From the center of the lake rose a bell tower. Coming toward her was a goat-man, dragging something behind him. When he drew close, she could see that the goat-man was dragging Collun, his head bloodied and raw. Then Collun's face blurred and changed, and became the face of Brie's father, streaked with blood and still contorted from his death struggle.
In the second dream she was watching the fire arrow flying through the sky, away from her. But where her eyes should have been, there were flames. The pain was terrible, a white-hot burning into her skull. She would awaken with a scream, hands clawing at her eyes, and later, when she looked in the mirror, there were scratches on her face from her fingernails.
She asked Jacan if she could sleep on the Storm Petrel; he told her she was daft and refused outright. So she, slept with the windows of her little hut wide open, and that seemed to help, though more often than not she woke shivering, her blankets drenched with rain and, occasionally, snow.
***
Slowly the storms began to be less savage; the boats could go out more often and for longer periods of time. Brie rejoiced in the return to work, though was still troubled by the occasional dream of bird or bell tower. Lom's boat suddenly stopped looking like a skeleton as it neared completion. Brie was there when Lom, Jacan, and Ferg hoisted the mast into place.
"She's yar," said Jacan tersely, squinting up, and Brie thought Lom looked like one of Hyslin's roosters, preening, a wide foolish grin splitting his face. She told him so, and he let out a great laugh and got her to admit his boat was one of the finest she'd seen.
"Not that I've seen all that many," she said, getting in the last word.
The day Lom's boat was taken down to the water, Brie was late getting up. She'd had the bell tower dream during the night and hadn't fallen into a sound sleep until the early hours of the morning.
She grabbed an oatcake and hurried to the shore. From a distance she could see a knot of men gathered around Lom's boat. There were woven garlands of sea grass and seaweed draped around the prow, and the men were bending their shoulders to her newly painted sides. Brie paused, holding very still. The boat slid into the water, and it was as if life had been breathed into her as she bobbed and dipped on the sea waves.