Riverkeep Read Free Page A

through his own panted fog. The water was choppy, but he was an experienced rower, and his rhythmic strokes allowed him to settle once again into his reflective mood, the wind tugging at his thin mustache and pulling drops of water from his eyes.
    The bustle of the village could be sensed even at such a distance and such an hour, the murmur of voices in the shrinking specks of light thrown into the air with the smoke and the steam.
    The breakwater reached out alongside him, a broken finger of piled stone, the silhouette of the Mother’s statue at its tip. The village’s houses were mostly in shadow, lit at intervals by the lighthouse’s sweeping beam. His own house was among them, and he thought of his wife sleeping there, snoring gently, pictured the familiar things of his ember-lit bedroom around her, and shivered again to think of its warmth finding its way back into his frozen toes when he returned.
    He passed a few moments spotting the roofs of the other Blummells in Canna Bay: so many that an intricate system of bynames had sprung up over the centuries. His own family were the Blueloon Blummells, named for the color of woolen stockings his great-grandfather had worn to sea; next doorwere the Cutblade Blummells and, three cottages seaward, the Corry Blummells.
    Emory paused in his rowing for a moment to hoist his own blue stockings to his knees.
    By the time he had reached the open pen of the trout farm, he had been rowing for more than twenty minutes and his elbows had begun to ache. He fixed the skiff to the pen and let it drift a moment. It was even colder so far out on the water, and he fancied that his mustache had begun to crisp in his mouth’s fog. He pulled a few fresh strands from the lakoris pouch and pressed them between his lip and gum.
    Forty yards below, the mormorach circled on the seabed. The oils of the fish behind the net were thick in the water, clouding its senses. The splashes above had stopped, and it could not yet see the skiff. Instinct told it that a roar could drive away its prey, and so it waited, moving patiently, its every fiber delicately triggered for a sign of movement on the surface.
    Emory cracked his knuckles one by one, then lifted his net. It was about the size of a cooking pan, with a long, flowing mesh. It hardly needed its size—there were thousands of fish in the pen and they were all as greedy as they were stupid—but it made a straightforward task simpler still. He crumbled some meal between his fingers and sprinkled it on the surface. Any minute now he would see their pale shapes, then all he had to do wasextend the net and let the fish swim into it. It always seemed strange to him that a pearl trout, so delicious and strong, could be so blind—so unknowing of its fate.
    The mormorach began to drift toward the surface.
    A thin line of silver flashed across Emory’s vision.
    â€œThere ye are,” he whispered. “Come on—we need only the one o’ you . . . wi’ butter ’n’ beans. Come on now. . . .”
    A sudden wave made the skiff lurch, and Emory staggered back, righting himself on the seat.
    â€œWhat in gods’ was—”
    The mormorach’s senses were now brightly alert, and it dipped a pectoral fin to align its vision with the wide shape on the surface. It darted quickly forward.
    Another wave sent the lakoris pouch from Emory’s pocket and through the air. It landed with a tiny splash, barely rippling the water.
    It was enough.
    The mormorach thudded its tail and rose like a meteor, smashing its face through the frail hull of the skiff and clamping its jaws around the soft thing it found there, a roar of satisfaction trembling through its muscles. It sailed through the air, twisting for joy through the beam of the lighthouse before crashing back into the water and whipping its tail to drive toward the seabed.
    Emory felt only the heat of his blood surrounding him, the pain in