Mermaid Pirate Dispatch

[This story is part of the Soothfinder Series.]

“Do you plan to go after him?” Isabel looked up at Thomas impassively.

He looked down at her, intrigued. He had been so disinterested in taking an apprentice that he’d hardly given her much thought since they started working together. “I don’t know,” he said, his mind far from the conversation. “Perhaps one day, but as long as the citizens of Riverwood are safe I don’t think we need to worry much about Archibald.”

Her eyes dropped to her feet and she watched her footsteps for a moment before saying, “I don’t like that he got away.”

Something in the tone of her voice sparked a hundred questions in his mind and he could no longer hold back his curiosity. “Why did the queen choose you to be my apprentice?”

The question stunned Isabel. She was quiet for a long time, pondering the many ways she could answer. She stopped walking and looked to the east where the rising sun shot shafts of light through tree tops and over the town wall. The beams rolled and flickered in the hazy morning air, tracing the outlines of long, dancing shadows.

Finally, she looked up at Thomas and shrugged. “I don’t know,” she lied.

Thomas stared at her, expressionless and still. “You know,” he said dismissively, “they call me a soothfinder because I have a strong sense for what is true and what is not.” He smiled.

“We’re due at the castle,” she said, stepping off uncomfortably to resume their walk.

“We’ve got time. Come, I love a good story and I know you’ve got one to tell. I know the queen, she wouldn’t have picked just anyone to study under me.” He stood with his feet planted and his arms folded and watched her walk away for a few seconds, then she stopped and turned around rolling her eyes.

“It’s not a good story.”

“I’ll be the judge of that,” he said, smiling.

She shook her head and blushed a little, trying to hold back the grin that bubbled up from deep in her chest. She loved telling the story. “Fine,” she said. “I’ll tell you.”

---

It had been snowing nonstop for almost a whole fortnight. It wasn’t a light, dusty snow either. This was heavy, thick, wet snow that caved in thatched and tiled roofs alike. People from the camp outside the city walls had fled their tents and taken shelter with families in town, though even within the protective walls some homes were entirely swallowed by snow drifts due to the ferocious winds rushing through the roads in town.

Isabel loved the snow. She had spent the first week playing in the deep, dense powder. She built a snow castle, threw snowballs at her friends, and rolled down the hill in the pasture outside of town. But soon the snow was too deep and her mother forbid her to go out and play. So instead she sat inside, listening to the howling winds, poking the fire, and wondering if there was any way to annoy her mother into kicking her out of the house.

Finally, the winds died down and the sun came out. Isabel gazed longingly out the window until the brightness of the snow made her temporarily blind.

“Please mom, let me go out and play! The storm is over!”

“Sorry dear,” mother said. “The snow is still too deep. You could get stuck somewhere and I’d never see you again!”

“But mom,” she insisted, preparing her next retort. She was interrupted by a violent bout of pounding at the door.

She and her mother froze and stared at the door. The pounding resumed, snow blowing into the room by the force of the impacts.

“Who’s there?” mother called out tentatively, her voice wavering.

“It’s Cecilia,” came a shrill, frantic, shaking voice.

Mother scrambled to the door, opening it quickly. At once a tattered woman spilled into the room along with a pile of snow and a rush of icy air. Isabel shivered as another blast of cold air hit her while her mother shoved the door closed again, struggling to get it latched against the weight of the snow.

Cecilia’s cheeks were bright red and cracked with frozen tears. The fire shimmered off the shine of fresh moisture trickling from her bloodshot eyes as Isabel helped her to a chair and brought her a blanket.

“What’s wrong?” mother asked, taking the woman’s frostbitten hands in hers. She was on her knees by the chair, gazing up at the broken woman.

“It’s my husband and son,” she said, sobbing. “They took the horse out five days ago to hunt for food and they never returned.”

“Oh my,” mother said, gripping her friend’s hands tighter. There was a long silence while the implied weight of the situation drifted down on the occupants of the room like a great iron feather. Finally, mother choked and said, “did you alert the guards?”

“I’ve been to the castle,” she whimpered. She shook her head and began to cry again, her shoulders shaking violently as she heaved and gasped for air. “They sent out a hunting party to track them, but couldn’t pick up the trail. After three days, they gave up their search and returned.” She was inconsolable. She collapsed into mother’s arms and cried bitterly.

Isabel’s mind was racing. She knew the woman’s son, Richard. They’d grown up together. The thought of him all alone out in the woods, buried in snow… she shivered even with the warmth of the fire on her skin. She looked out the window and saw that the sun was beginning to set. Another night out there, lost and cold… Would he survive? Was he even still alive?

She had to do something. The castle guard and hunting party had failed to find them, but they didn’t know Richard like she did. She and he had played in the woods around the castle many times. She knew where he would go hunting with his father, north of the castle. She knew the area well. She had climbed the short mountain slopes, played in the trees, and chased Richard into the bushes.

Isabel looked at her mother, saw how Cecilia was draped over her, defeated and distraught, and she knew what she had to do. Quickly, she shoved her feet into her boots, grabbed her thick fur cloak and the blanket from her bed, and threw the door open. Looking over her shoulder at her mother, she wrestled the door closed again behind her, and ran out into the street headed for the south gate.

The top layer of snow was still glistening and crunchy in the cold evening air and fading light. With each step her boots crashed through a thick top layer of icy snow before being plunged into the deep, wet snow below. It went up to her knees in most places, but all the way to her hips at times. She fought and wrestled her way ahead, hoping that outside the city walls the going might get easier.

At long last she passed through the south gate and headed east before crossing the mill bridge, wrapping around the town wall and following it north. The windswept clearing between the wall and the forest offered a slight improvement over conditions in town, but she could see by the final warm rays of light that the snow was deeper among the trees. She watched the rich colors of sunset fade as stars began to twinkle overhead. A huge, bright full moon rose majestically over the trees, casting a cool, eerie light on the landscape.

Eventually she reached the tree-line north of the castle. The huge pines rose high into the air before her like the menacing spires of a dark castle. She paused, staring into the dark shadows beneath the thicket of green needles capped with thick snow weighing down the branches. Perched among the branches she spotted a single, beautiful white owl, it’s large eyes fixed directly on her. For a moment she lost her breath as it gazed at her. She wondered how big it was. Did it think she was prey? It blinked slowly and turned its head to look into the forest beyond. After a brief moment, it let out a spooky hoot, it’s pure tone echoing off the snowy landscape, then it turned to look directly at her again.

Isabel shuddered. Though it was still a good distance from her, she couldn’t help but feel as though she were standing right next to the owl. It looked at her with a familiarity that implied recognition. It’s long, slow blinking felt peaceful and relaxed, but it was poised for action. Suddenly, it spread its great wings and dropped from the tree, swooping low over the snowy ground and heading straight for Isabel. Her muscles tensed and she prepared to dive for cover, but at the last moment the owl pumped its wings powerfully, lifting into a wide arc around her. She followed its flight full of awe, her jaw slack and her unblinking eyes locked onto its beautiful, trembling wing feathers as they cut through the icy night air with only the stars and moon as a backdrop.

The mystical white hunter let out another perfect, beautiful coo that filled the sky and ran down Isabel’s spine. She felt an impulse to reply, but she had no idea how to speak owl. The beast circled behind her again and she turned in place, following its flight. “What do you want?” she asked aloud.

“Hoo,” it sang, the meaning obvious as the bird banked sharply and grazed the hood of her cloak as it rushed overhead.

“You want me to follow you?”

“Hoooot.” The tone was perfect and clear, like the lingering ringing of a church bell. She nearly lost her footing keeping track of the owl as it plunged into the depths of the darkness between tree trunks at the edge of the forest.

“Alright,” she spoke to nobody, dashing up the snowy slope without a hint of fear in her voice.

She followed the occasional hoots from the owl as it fluttered from tree to tree in the darkness of the forest. Moonlight could not penetrate the depth of the pines and their snowy covering, though she was pleased to find that the snow was not, in fact, as deep as she had feared. The further into the woods she went, the easier it was to proceed. There were occasional spots were the tree cover was thin and snow had piled high, but the owl guided her around these spots as she followed the powerful beat of its wings and its pure, uncanny song.

She lost track of any sense of time in the woods. She couldn’t tell if the moon had frozen in place overhead or if the stars were swirling around her leaving streaks in the sky as they spun through their heavenly arcs. All was dark except a faint glow that seemed to emanate from the gorgeous white owl guiding her around the dangers of the wood. She heard wolves howl and she trembled violently, but with a single command from the owl the wolves were silenced into submission.

As she went she heard twigs snapping under foot and each of her footsteps landed with a deep, rumbling crunch in the snow. The owl’s calls grew more frequent, almost frantic. She stopped to listen. The owl was no longer ahead of her, it was behind. She turned and it called again from the side. She whipped around and heard its wings beating the air behind her.

“Where are you?” she called out. “Is this the place?”

She heard a rustling, but not from the trees. She turned to face it and the owl let out a long “hoot” that rushed like wind and faded.

“Are you there?” she called.

Silence.

“Where are you?”

A groan.

She froze and stopped breathing, just listening. Her pounding heart was too loud. She strained her ears in the silent forest. “Hello?” she called tentatively. “Richard, is that you?”

More rustling and another groan. She slowly turned, trying to place the source of the sound, attempting to gain her bearing in relation to its position.

“Richard?” she called.

A rush of wind blasted her face and she squinted as a shaft of moonlight shot down from a crack in the canopy above, illuminating the clearing in which she stood. There, just ahead, a crumpled, shaking tangle of limbs and blood huddled against a tree trunk in a recess that had been dug out from a drift of snow.

Isabel gasped and rushed to the opening of the shelter and fell to her knees, throwing the blanket over the bodies. Richard’s withering fingers clenched at the edges of the blanket and he wrapped himself up tightly, but his father didn’t move.

“What happened?” she asked, embracing her shivering friend.

He tried to speak, but the shaking overwhelmed his core.

She held him tighter. “Don’t worry, you can tell me later.” She looked down and saw that his father’s body was badly mangled and caked with blood. “Where’s your horse?” she asked, looking over her shoulder.

Again, the shaking boy moaned and tried to speak, but he could form no words. The dim moonlight began to fade, but she could make out the smoothed-over remains of deep, dark hoof prints leading away. Their spacing suggested it was moving quickly. From the man’s injuries, she guessed the horse had been spooked and must have trampled the boy’s father. Tears formed and began to freeze on her face.

“We need to get you to a fire,” she said. She didn’t have the means to start a fire in the snow, especially with everything being so wet from the constant snow. Her only option was to get him home. If only she could find the horse. “Wait here,” she said, getting to her feet.

The boy mumbled something, but she was already looking around at the ground. The moon was shining through again, weakly, but it was enough to follow the tracks. She took off, whistling occasionally, hoping the horse hadn’t wandered far.

A few moments later, to her great relief, she found the horse asleep but standing, nestled against a bush and half hidden behind the trunk of a tree. Its head was down, and she approached carefully, whispering softly to avoid startling it. “Hey there,” she breathed in her kindest tone. “I need you to carry us back to town. Can I get you to wake up long enough to get us home?”

The horse’s ears twitched and it’s eyes shot open. For a moment it’s muscles jumped, ready to flee, but she held her hands out warmly and whistled softly. “Do you want to go home to the stables?” she sang.

Lazily, and perhaps a little grumpily, the horse snorted and lowered its head again. She approached and took the reigns, leading it back to Richard.

The poor boy was almost too weak to hold on to her or the horse as they trotted back down the mountain toward town. It was a struggle getting him onto the horse, but an even greater one keeping him from falling off. After what felt like a whole day, they finally passed through the south gate. She didn’t bother taking the horse back to the stable. She helped Richard down and threw his arm over her shoulder, half carrying him to the door. She kicked and pounded at it, until her mother arrived and opened up, dragging both of them inside with wide eyes.

Isabel was freezing and exhausted, but nowhere near as beaten and weak as Richard. Cecilia held her son, rocking him in her arms by the fire and crying while mother and Isabel worked to prepare a hot soup. The moon was high over head, but the first light of morning would be shining through the windows before any of them would close their eyes to sleep.

---

Thomas was quiet, gazing at Isabel as she finished recounting the story.

“So, word got around that I had found them when the guards couldn’t and I guess the queen heard about it. She summoned me, told me that she was going to get you to teach me to be a soothfinder, and that was that. It all happened over the course of just a week or so.”

Thomas thought back to the day the queen had enlisted him to find the missing children. The snow had only barely finished melting that day, if he recalled. He hadn’t really paid much attention to it other than the fact that he hadn’t been able to work in the fields for a little while.

“Well,” he said, “I suppose you’ve got a knack for trusting your instincts.”

She smiled bashfully and tucked her long hair behind one of her ears.

“Just remember that soothfinding is all about facts and observation. Owls don’t solve mysteries, facts do.”

She grinned. “I know.” Abruptly, she had her arms around his torso, her smiling cheek pressed into his sternum.

Thomas tensed up uncomfortably, then felt himself melt a little. He patted her on the head with one hand and put the other on her back. “Alright, alright,” he said. “Let’s go see what the queen wants today.”