Wedded to the Highlanders by Katie Douglas

Chapter 9

As though the strange happenings with the well were not enough, Steen was now thoroughly perplexed. Not five minutes ago, Hugh came into the bakery holding a squid, or something with enough tentacles to be one.

"We've got a problem," he grumbled.

Steen waited for some sort of explanation. When none was forthcoming, he asked, "Why—and I ken I'll regret askin' mind—but why are ye standing in my bakery holding that sea beastie?"

"The sea's gone strange," Hugh said. "And I cannae find Lucy anywhere."

Steen frowned. "What do those two things have tae do with one another?"

"I dinnae ken, except the sea literally threw this squid at me just now."

"Very... peculiar," Steen said. "And Lucy?"

"We need tae find her for she has a bad ankle and she's no' in her house or around the village. Naebody's seen her for hours."

"I'll let my papas ken I need the rest of the day off." Steen walked into the back of the bakery, hoping his papas wouldn't turn down his request.

***

It must have been about an hour later. Lucy was sitting down on the forest floor, her ankle stretched out, her other leg tucked under her, and she was shredding a dead leaf and still trying to guess what Keelie wanted from the sea.

"Is it a message in a bottle?" she asked. She had exhausted all the types of sea creatures she knew of, and was now picking things from pirate stories her papas had told her about when she was younger.

It was so long since she'd last heard Keelie splashing in the stream that Lucy suddenly wondered if Keelie was still there at all. She still had no idea what was actually wrong with her.

"Is it some seawater?" she asked, because she literally couldn't think of anything else.

At long last, there was a very loud splash from the stream. Lucy laughed aloud.

"Ye serious? Ye need some seawater?" The spirit world was nothing if not bizarre.

Keelie splashed again.

"Will a bucket of it be enough?"

There was another splash. Lucy giggled again, having finally solved the mystery.

She carefully got to her feet and, with the aid of her walking stick, extremely slowly wandered back out of the forest. Of course, how she was going to carry a bucket, never mind a bucket filled with water, all the way from the sea to the stream, was another complication entirely.

She would build that bridge when she came to it.

***

Lucy wanted to avoid the village, because she had a feeling too many people would get in the way and ask questions and generally complicate what she needed to do, so instead, she filched a cast iron pail from around the back of the first house she came to, and lugged it all the way to the sea.

When she got there, she realised, whatever had happened to Keelie, there was a much more concerning problem. The sea itself was roiling and waves were cresting. It was like a terrible storm had hit the water, except it was a warm, sunny day in the middle of June. The wind was low and there were birds in the trees. But the sea was behaving as though it was January. When she stepped onto the sand with the bucket, the sea reared up, turning into the shape of an enormous, fifteen-feet-high man. He stood before her—no, she corrected herself, he loomed over her—and roared.