Undaine-on-the-Sea

The beekeepers kept to themselves when they first arrived, but there were signs.First, it was just bees- bees, everywhere- but soon, it was the sweet scent of honey overtaking the once-pervasive smell of fish guts. Even the most wizened, nose-blind old fisherfolk tipped their noses up to catch a whiff.One frigid midwinter morning, when it was too cold even for the snow to fall, the village folk rose to find the ice on their front stoops melted.In its place, at every door, was a bundle of three beeswax candles and a sprig of Unseasonably fresh lavender, all tied together with twine.How wonderfully comforting it was, in those long, dark winter months, to see a candle burn in every window!Unfortunately, the pleasant aroma caused everyone in the village to inhale so deeply and collectively that they shifted the wind patterns and drew in a fresh winter storm.That was alright. They’d weathered many a storm before. Now, they had a curiously potent candle to light their way through it.CREDITSMusic:Hand Print by tcabstudio from Pixabay Get full access to Alice’s Substack at alicelefae.substack.com/subscribe

[Ragtime Music]Good evenin’ folks, welcome back to Scuttlebutt Radio. The time is 6:18 pm. The tide is on its way out, but a winter storm is on its way in. Residents are encouraged to bring a cat or three indoors for the duration of the storm. If ye cannae find a cat, please report to the Village Library where a cat’ll be assigned to ye.The beekeepers have kindly offered a jar o’ candle reed honey te anyone that takes in a cat, free o charge.This storm is goin’ ta be a doozy and if reports from the North Lighthouse are correct, there will be a few large jellyfish comin’ down from the mountains to complicate things.Dermot Nubbin is celebratin’ his 160th birthday this week, so if ye see him give him a gentle pat on the back. His grandchildren will be throwin a party fer him after the storms clear, so keep an ear to the radio- we’ll have yer invites here first, folks.Don’t turn that dial, we’ll have storm updates fer ye every hour. Until then, may your hearth burn bright, yer roof never leak and yer cat never bite.[Ragtime Music]CREDITSMusic:Ragtime by Fae Spencer from PixabayJazzy Rag by Giga Chad from Pixabay Get full access to Alice’s Substack at alicelefae.substack.com/subscribe

Two lighthouses on opposite shores. Two rival families. Two doomed lovers.You know this story.A bustling town square at dusk, alive with the sights and sounds of a vibrant festival. A band plays in front of the tiled fountain, underscored by the ever-present shush of the sea. The sun slips below the horizon as bonfires burst into life.It is across these flames that our lovers meet for the first time.Othelia: bright-eyed, rosy-cheeked, hands calloused from years of tending the lighthouse lamp.Tiernan: quiet, introspective, hair always a little too long, eyes always a little too sad.They walk the cobblestone streets hand in hand- talking, laughing, falling in love- until they find themselves sitting atop the sea wall gazing at the stars. Tiny bioluminescent air fish flit around them, dancing on the salty summer breeze.Their first kiss is sticky and sweet with cotton candy. The moment is so tender and true that even the ocean releases a wistful sigh, remembering the first time it kissed the shore.Alas, the very stars our lovers gaze upon are gazing back, weeping at the tragedy they know will unfold.An old woman hobbles her way around the village square, a jar of yellowish green powder tucked in the crook of her arm. She pauses before each bonfire, dipping her gnarled hands into the powder and sprinkling it over the flames. One by one, the fires are extinguished.Othelia gazes into Tiernan’s eyes, and he into hers, with a soft desperation. Neither wants this night to end.“Othelia!” A gruff male voice slices through the night.Othelia whips around to face her father.The final bonfire is snuffed out.There he is, a dashing silhouette tending his own bright flame.Othelia’s parents are livid. Horrified. They say a lot of things, but these words they repeat over and over. Her little sister, Adelaide, is sent to bed with ice cream still smeared over her face. She stomps each step all the way up… before creeping back down the stairs to press her ear against the door and listen.Their parents settle around the old wooden family table. Lighting a lamp, they tell Othelia a tale.Adelaide’s ears are keenly pricked, but the words are still muffled.Othelia, for her part, is only half listening. Her head is congested with love.Something about an ancestral feud; secrets stolen, or stolen back: the details do not matter. All that matters is that she will never be allowed to see her true love again.But she does see him. Every night, she tends the flame in the lamp room and gazes across the waves to the lighthouse on the opposite shore. There he is, a dashing silhouette tending his own bright flame.Does he yearn for her as she does for him?Her answer comes in a parcel tied to the foot of a seagull. Seagulls are surprisingly romantic creatures, and this particular seagull was honored to be chosen as a courier.Othelia’s hands tremble with anticipation. She fumbles with the knots until, at last, the paper falls away to reveal a silver hand mirror. It is simple, but elegant. The handle fits neatly in the palm of her hand, as if it were made just for her.Gull and girl peer at their own reflections in the mirror, then at one another, puzzled. In unison, they look up to the other tower.There he is on the balcony of the lamp room, holding a mirror of his own. He flashes it back and forth, transmitting a pattern of light.They develop a code. It takes time, but soon they are fluent. They converse in rapid, bright flashes late into the night and early hours of the morning. Some nights, they use their silhouettes to play games or tell stories. They bring props, each tableau becoming more intricate than the last. They send little gifts back and forth with the aid of their winged coconspirator, always mindful that a seagull may have more important things to do than convey lovesick missives.Truthfully, this seagull would not have minded carrying letters and gifts every night.After all, the seagull thinks, what cause is more worthy than true love?Some nights, our lovers do not converse or jest. They simply sit in their separate lamp rooms, each enjoying the company of the other’s shadow.Othelia does not realize it at first, but she is being watched by someone else.Adelaide is a precocious eight-year-old who has spent her entire life in awe of her older sister. Othelia is more than a girl to her, more than mere flesh and blood. She is an ethereal creature, a fairy princess from bedtime stories, only better because she is real. She watches Othelia’s glowing love story unfold, transfixed.On nights when Othelia sneaks out to meet her lover, Adelaide takes her place in the lamp room with a timid reverence. She watches until her sister appears on the shore below. She is only a speck at this distance, but Adelaide would know her anywhere.And there, that other speck, that must be Tiernan. She watches as they disappear among the rocks and do not emerge for a long, long time.Some nights Adelaide takes herself off to bed, but most nights she falls asleep right there on the weathered floor of the lamp room. She wakes only when Othelia picks her up and carries her to bed, singing soft lullabies and stroking her hair.The girls are sleepy-eyed and distracted during the day, and their parents grow concerned. They take their daughters to the doctor, who pokes them and prods them and gives them slimy things to drink. When they do not improve, there is talk of visiting the Haruspex.The Haruspex is an old woman of great height and stern presence. She is a terrifying figure to a little girl with a head full of fairytales. Adelaide is desperate to save herself and Othelia from a visit to the formidable lady.Adelaide breaks her silence.She believes she is helping. She believes it is all a misunderstanding. She believes she can make her parents see reason.She tells them what she’s seen, what she knows. She tells them it is true love, like in the stories. When they brush her aside, she tells them they are stinkier than fish guts and only half as smart.She is sent out to clear slimy clumps of seaweed off the pier and, when the sun sets, she is sent to her room without dinner.Othelia is confined to her room as well while her parents deliberate. They sit at that old family table late into the night, determined to find a way to save their daughter.By morning, they have made a decision. Othelia will be sent away.The final carp caravan of the year leaves in one week. It will take her to a village on the other side of the mountains where she will be taught to tend goats and to weave to forget about the young man who has stolen her heart.Don’t worry, Othelia, she thinks. Adelaide is coming to save the day.Adelaide has been very, very good. She feigns contrition and is diligent in her chores. She allows herself, once again, to fade into the background while her parents remain preoccupied with Othelia.This provides Adelaide a certain amount of freedom- freedom she puts to good use on the eve of her sister’s departure.She tiptoes up to the lamp room, Othelia’s mirror clutched tightly in her little hands. She has made a study of the lover’s code and thinks she understands it well enough to transmit a simple message.She flashes it, a little shyly, across the waves. Then she waits. She does not blink once for fear of missing the reply.A few moments later, a message flashes back.Adelaide sets the mirror gently on the floor. Her heart is pounding with excitement, but also with a quiet sort of pride.Don’t worry, Othelia, she thinks. Adelaide is coming to save the day.Othelia drifts out of her room clad only in a nightgown and slippers.“Othelia,” Adelaide whispers through the door. “It’s time to go.”The door creaks open… and there she is.Her big sister.Othelia’s hair is unbrushed and her eyes are rimmed with red, but she is still as radiantly beautiful as ever.“It’s time?” Othelia repeats back, her cheeks flushing with hope.Adelaide nods. She expects her sister to carry a bag of some sort, maybe even a stick and bindle, but she brings nothing. Instead, Othelia drifts out of her room clad only in a nightgown and slippers.The sisters walk the rocky shore, hand in hand, savoring their final moments together. It is not until they reach the caves that Adelaide remembers something and pulls her hand away.“Your mirror!” she cries. “I left it in the lamp room. I’ll run back and get it!”“No!” Othelia catches her gently by the arm and kneels to look her in the eye. “Addy. Don’t. I don’t need it anymore. I want you to keep it. It’s yours. Take good care of it, okay?”Adelaide nods solemnly. “I’ll keep it. Until I’m grown. Then I can visit you and give it back.”At this, Othelia begins to cry.“Thank you, Addy,” she says, her voice cracking. “That would be lovely.” She pulls Adelaide into a hug, kissing the top of her little head.They might have stayed there holding one another for hours, were it not for the sound of approaching footsteps.Tiernan stops a few yards away, giving the sisters time to finish their goodbyes. For Adelaide, this is the last she will see of Othelia.Tiernan will have her forever.Othelia leans back and holds Adelaide’s tear-streaked face in her hands.“I love you, Addy,” she says.“I love you, too, Telly,” Adelaide whispers back.“Run home now,” says Othelia. “Tuck yourself into bed and sing yourself a lullaby from me.”Adelaide watches her sister vanish into the night, her lover by her side and a new, golden life ahead of her.Adelaide is almost asleep when she remembers the mirror, left all alone on the floor of the lamp room. She is already breaking her promise to Othelia.Wearily, she drags herself out of bed and up the stairs.There is the mirror, just as she left it. She picks it up but does not leave. Not yet.She cannot resist sitting, one last time, in the place where her sister sat and gazing, as her sister did, at the lighthouse across the sea.She cradles the mirror in her lap and imagines what Othelia’s new life will be like. She and Tiernan will be pirates together, maybe. Or people who catch pirates. That would be even better because pirate catchers don’t get into trouble and get punished like pirates do.Or maybe they’ll hunt sea monsters together, saving Selkies and becoming best friends with them.Whatever it is, Adelaide knows it will be full of glamour and adventure, romance and bravery.She is halfway through imagining her sister swimming with the Seal Folk, who are having a special Sing in her honor, when she sees a movement in the lamp room of the other lighthouse.There is Othelia, standing at the edge of the balcony. And there, that shadow joining her- that must be him.They embrace, their silhouettes becoming one.Adelaide reaches for the mirror to signal across to them.One final goodbye, she thinks.Her fingers curl around the handle of the mirror, but before she can lift it, the figures tip over the edge of the balcony and plummet to the rocks below.Some days, I even forget her name. Did I know before we jumped that I could not die?No.But I had begun to suspect.There were too many close calls, too many near misses.A monstrous wave dashing me against an unforgiving cliffside.A fall from a tree that should have shattered me.A bite from a venemous fish that never manifested.I became reckless. I scaled cliffs without fear and plundered bird nests. I swam in tempestuous waters and spied on Selkies. I stood in a field during a storm and waited to be struck by lightning, just for the thrill of it.But these thrills were cheap. I began to wonder what else I could do, what I could make others do.Maybe you’re not asking if I knew. Maybe you don’t care. Maybe you’re asking a different question.Did I love her?I may have.I think I did, as much as I can love another. I certainly felt that way at first. But, like all the thrills before her, she lost her luster. She was beautiful, she was funny, she was clever. Could I trick someone so clever into doing something so foolish?It was an entertaining diversion, but ultimately it was inconvenient. I couldn’t stay after that. How would it look to the village if she vanished and I remained?I left that very dawn, and I didn’t return for a long, long time.It’s been many years and there have been many others. Some days, I even forget her name.CREDITSSound effects:Sound Effect by https://pixabay.com/users/dragon-studio-38165424/?utm_source=link-attribution&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=music&utm_content=376898“>DRAGON-STUDIO from https://pixabay.com//?utm_source=link-attribution&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=music&utm_content=376898“>PixabaySound Effect by https://pixabay.com/users/u_up4clmd95a-47470658/?utm_source=link-attribution&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=music&utm_content=272695“>u_up4clmd95a from https://pixabay.com/sound-effects//?utm_source=link-attribution&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=music&utm_content=272695“>PixabaySound Effect by https://pixabay.com/users/soundsforyou-4861230/?utm_source=link-attribution&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=music&utm_content=119594“>Mikhail from https://pixabay.com//?utm_source=link-attribution&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=music&utm_content=119594“>PixabaySound Effect by https://pixabay.com/users/mariacorgo-22706249/?utm_source=link-attribution&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=music&utm_content=13513“>Maria filomena Do corgo Silva from https://pixabay.com/sound-effects//?utm_source=link-attribution&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=music&utm_content=13513“>PixabaySound Effect by https://pixabay.com/users/liecio-3298866/?utm_source=link-attribution&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=music&utm_content=132289“>LIECIO from https://pixabay.com//?utm_source=link-attribution&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=music&utm_content=132289“>Pixabay Get full access to Alice’s Substack at alicelefae.substack.com/subscribe

“The Selkie language is the only language I know of in which silences are not only used to accentuate a point, but hold as much structure and meaning as words. This has made translation attempts difficult, but I will do my best.”-Excerpt from The Language of Selk by Cabernat Twillis, 1842“The village of Undaine was built on shipwrecks.At its origin, Undaine was just one of many rest stops for the indigenous Selkie population. (Note: the closest Selk translation is ‘shedding harbor’.) They cast their skins off on the shore, stretched their legs, and bartered their treasures. They gathered beneath full moons to sing their histories and mark the changing seasons. They erected a few humble structures, but only the necessary bare bones. The sea was their true home and they would always return to it.Selkies are, rightly, protective of their histories and culture. It is a wonder they have allowed scholars to record any of their oral history at all. Because of this, it is difficult to pinpoint exactly when the first shipwreck arrived, but educated estimates place it at around 400 A.D. (note: Selkies maintain a different record of time and years. According to a very rough translation of the Selkie records, this time period would be referred to as The Rime.)The wreck was devastating, leaving few survivors. After only a few days of what must have been a harrowing journey through dark forests, they somehow found themselves many hundreds of miles away.Despite their miraculous transportation, they remained in dire straits. It seemed they only traded one brutal coastline for another. Many lost consciousness on those shores and surely would have died of starvation or exposure had it not been for the approaching crest of Selkies, who took pity on them. They brought scores of fish ashore with them. They shed their skins and wrapped them around the unfortunate castaways. They sang lullabies and tenderly nursed the feeble strangers from the brink of death. (note: it is believed that one of these first survivors was an early ancestor of the Twillis family. While impossible to confirm, it seems a likely cause for the many strange powers possessed by the Twillis line.)”-Excerpt from A History of Undaine, vol. 1 by Isla Fairchild, historian-SOUND CREDITS-under water ambiance.OWI. WAV by lenayrossouw -- https://freesound.org/s/707574/ -- License: Creative Commons 0SFX_UnderWater by Perel -- https://freesound.org/s/173439/ -- License: Creative Commons 0SFX_Submerge by Perel -- https://freesound.org/s/173438/ -- License: Creative Commons 0Turning Pages by vartian -- https://freesound.org/s/425467/ -- License: Creative Commons 0 Get full access to Alice’s Substack at alicelefae.substack.com/subscribe

Ms. Twillis is widely regarded by the village as an oddity. She lists slightly to the left at all times, giving her a perennially inquisitive look. Her head-to-toe mismatched florals are adorned with lace and pearls that rattle. One might watch her daintily mincing her way through the bloody, damp fish market and assume she is on her way to attend some posh tea at the house on the hill, but this is unlikely to be the case. A Twillis has not been welcome in that house for generations.However strange and slight she might appear, Ms. Twillis is a woman of great power.She is a diviner, a fortune teller, an oracle, a prober of fish guts. It is within their glistening viscera that she finds the truths of the universe… or where you misplaced your left stocking.She guts the fish, divines the fortune, fries the meat, and serves it to her inquiring client. Waste not.CREDITSFog Horn and Gulls Sound Effect by Deborah Wong from Pixabay Get full access to Alice’s Substack at alicelefae.substack.com/subscribe

[Ragtime Music]Yer listenin’ to Scuttlebutt Radio, the time is 4:02am and the tide is on its way in.We’ve got a strong wind from the East today, so be careful out there, fisherfolk. Keep your earplugs at the ready and don’t fall prey to that sweet singin’. I promise you it is not your dead husband, it’s a ravenous monster.Folks, keep an eye to the horizon, any horizon, the Carp Caravan will be back any day now and you know what that means. That’s right, Flavor Fest. Loosen up your belts, cuz you’re about to eat somethin’ other than fish.Village Council asks parents to remind their children that the Lighthouse is not for climbin’, nor is it for breakin’ into. Village Council is happy to provide you with some truly haunting bedtime stories about the Lighthouse if necessary. I read one just last night and haven’t slept a wink since.Don’t turn that radio off, we’ll have weather updates for ye every hour. Wishin’ ye smooth seas and a gentle breeze from all us here at Scuttlebutt Radio.[Ragtime Music]CREDITSMusic:Ragtime by Piano_Musichttps://pixabay.com/music/vintage-ragtime-115446/Vintage Comedy by Piano_Musichttps://pixabay.com/music/solo-piano-vintage-comedy-115449/ Get full access to Alice’s Substack at alicelefae.substack.com/subscribe

There are only two ways to find Undaine-on-the-Sea, and they are perilous. The first is for either the very brave or the very foolish: become lost. Do not carry a map, do not consult a compass, do not ask for directions. The way is fluid and ever-shifting; if you set out with any of these things, you would be wise to lose them… or risk losing yourself. You might step over a root in a dense forest and careen over a seaside cliff, or perhaps will fall asleep in a meadow only to wake on a cold, jagged rock a cable or more from the shore. You may even go quite mad and forget your purpose, building a new home for yourself in a hollowed-out tree with insects and mice as your only companions.The second way is the surest, but the wait may be long. You will need to travel on the back of a giant flying carp. No matter how much the path may shift, a carp will always find it. Perhaps it is their whiskers that pick up on the subtle fluctuations in the air, perhaps a carp in the air is always a little lost anyway, or perhaps they hear Undaine-on-the-Sea calling them home.But how, I hear you ask, are you to find a giant flying carp? First, you must travel to a small mining town nestled in the Copper Basin of a shadowy mountain. Don’t fret, traveler; I have a map for this part of the journey at least.This is the only town to ever trade with Undaine, a relationship that has been fostered over hundreds of years. A few times a year, a glittering parade of giant flying carp emerges from the foothills. They are weighed down with baskets of flowers, bricks of beeswax, and bundles of fresh ocean fish carefully preserved in inky newspaper. These sojourns have no fixed date, so you may need to stay in town for several weeks or months. I’d recommend staying at an inn called The Copper Goat. Of course, there aren’t many other options- it’s the only inn in town.You will duck beneath tiny copper bells hanging from red strings in the doorway. Maybe you hit your head, maybe not. If you do, do not act surprised or frightened at their sound; a fear of bells is considered highly suspicious, and you may be made to sleep out in the goat pen.Agnes will greet you in the Main Room. In her younger years, she roamed the hills with her goats; foraging, exploring, tearing her skirts, and getting into trouble. Tracking her down used to be an all-day affair. These days, however, you are far more likely to find her inside… though still with her goats.Maybe you arrive on a busy day, and the inn is bursting with life. Children haul wood to the big stove and race back out to play in the snow, parents calling after them to remember their chores. In the kitchen, two women gossip hard over a boiling pot of hearty stew. A young man works on a loom in the corner, eavesdropping on the women’s conversation. He is pleasantly distracted and does not notice that a goat has begun chewing on the trailing threads of his work. A man kneads dough on a long wooden counter, and a group of school-age boys and girls hang fresh charms in the windows. Agnes will be at the center of all of it, checking the ovens, catching dropped stitches, and shooing the goats away from a vegetable basket. Before you can ask for a room, you are handed a carrot and knife and told to chop.Or perhaps you have arrived on a peaceful day. Agnes cards wool in a well-worn chair, feet propped up on an ottoman, while the cast iron potbelly stove chugs out heat. The snow on your boots melts the moment you step inside. Goats of all sizes (and a few sheep) graze on hay that has been stacked in one corner or nap lazily around the room. A goat with a broken horn rests his head on Agnes’s shins, gazing at her lovingly while she works. A few dozen more tiny copper bells hang from the rafters, chiming softly in updrafts from the fire.Agnes rises to greet you, her old bones creaking. “Oh, you looks likes you’ll be wantin a rooms then,” she says.Before you know it, you’re swept upstairs to a cozy room with a small window overlooking the lake. More tiny bells hang from the window hinges and rafters. You may toss and turn your first few nights away in this room, kept awake by Agnes snoring from her chair in the Main Room below or the soft chiming of the bells, or the looming shadow of the mountain just across the water. Maybe the strangeness of it all will be enough to make you give up your journey entirely… but you seem the hearty sort. It will take more than the uncanniness of night to scare you off, even if the shadows of the mountain stretch and shift and move in unnatural ways.Make yourself comfortable, you could be here for weeks or even months.Does the prospect of such a long wait bore you, adventurer? Worry not- you can pass the time and earn your keep shoveling goat manure or hauling wood. There is never a shortage of chores to be done. They will leave you tired down to your bones and ease your nightly tossings and turnings.The best nights at the inn are ‘Goat Nights’- the nights Agnes brings the goats indoors. Maybe it is too cold outside, or maybe the dark, eldritch shadows of the mountain have crept a little too close to the borders of the town. You watch from the safety of the bells at your window as they stretch languidly across the crisp snow, shifting and splitting into long, brittle fingers.Do not linger at the window for too long, it will do you no good. Better to spend these nights in the Main Room with Agnes and her goats, where she will teach you to card wool and spin it. If you’re patient enough and learn to spin without breaks or lumps or throwing a fit, she may teach you to weave.Your patterns will never be as beautiful or intricate as Agnes’s, but the blanket you make will be butter-soft and warm. Maybe you will even get halfway through making a sweater before the carp arrive. Best of all, if you are very patient and have a willing ear, Agnes may tell you stories from her wild youth.“Oh he mades me so mad,” she says, shaking her head as she recalls the neighbor’s son and his romantic pursuits of her older sister. “Sos my brother Georgies and I- my younger brother you know, we was always gettins’ into troubles together- we makes this map. Very detaileds, very complicateds, all nonsense of course. Georgie was good at that sorts of thing. We tells him our sister, Rosie, she’s waitins’ for him with a picnics and to just follows the map. So off he goes that way all excited and of we go, this way…”While you work by the flickering lamp light, fifteen sets of hooves clomp noisily around the wooden floor. But when Agnes begins her stories, they settle in to listen alongside you.“Now there’s two things yous should knows about cows,” Agnes says, holding up two knobby fingers with yarn wrapped between them. “The first is if you’re nice to em, you can leads em just abouts anywheres. Especially if you has some real nice turnips, which it just so happens Georgie an I did. Thing two about cows is this: you can get cows to go upstairs pretty easy, they don’t minds it a bit, but you’ll have a hards time gettins em to come backs down again.“So that poor neighbor boy he comes home, all flustereds for not findins’ Rosies and not undersandins’ the maps and abouts to get in troubles for skippins’ out on his chores for the day, and also maybe he fell a few times and gots all scrapeds up, which we didn’t plans on and we did feel a bit bads about that. Alls he wants to do is have a lie-downs in his nice cozy beds except he can’t- cuz we gone and broughts a cow up to his bedrooms. We wanted to brings three of em in but wouldn’t you know it, cows is a lot bigger once you gets em indoors. And here’s the kickers- which we didn’t knows it til later on accounts of we got outta there quick as we could- but that cow made herself rights at home on his mattress- which at the times was on the floor- and she took herself a little naps. Head on the pillow and everythin’.“So then, and here’s the real kickers of it all, that neighbor boy and I gets a little more grown up and he turns out kinda handsomes. One thing and another happens, Rosie goes off travelin’ the world- she’s always been an explorer- and wouldn’t ya know it, I’m the one gettins’ marrieds to that neighbor boy. We tie the knots, have a real nice party, so on and so forth, we gets backs to our new home, this very buildins, and guess what we finds in our bed? A cow. Georgie’s weddins’ present. But we didn’t complain! Cuz we needed the cow.” She pauses her weaving and looks over the top of her glasses at you. “Everyone shoulds have a cow.”There is a question that pricks at you whenever Agnes tells these stories. Framed photos of people crowd the walls of the Main Room and up the staircase. The inn is full of people during the day, running errands or doing chores. There is no shortage of company… yet you have never met any of the big family in Agnes’s stories.For now, you will not ask The Question. It feels too tender, too delicate.Perhaps one night you share a drink with Agnes at a local pub and find that she still has a wild streak in her.She drinks a full-grown man under the table before playing several rounds of pinfinger, only bleeding a little. You try to bandage it for her but she brushes you off and buys a round of shots for everyone. A pretty young bartender distracts you for a moment with a flutter of her lashes and when you turn back around, Agnes has climbed atop a rickety wooden table to sing a song so perverse it gets you both thrown out on your asses. You hum it in front of the goats the next day and swear you see them blush.A few days later, the carp arrive.They are more beautiful and colorful than you can ever imagine, winding their way down the mountain and into the village center. They carry spring with them and the town unfurls like a welcome banner. Shutters are flung wide, a fiddler lays his hat down in the square and begins to play, and stalls spring up on every street. Children scramble in and out of the crowds, fists sticky with sweets. Enjoy the revelry, but keep your wits about you. One of these sticky fingers might try to find their way into your pockets.You wander the festivities with Agnes, her arm looped through yours. You never realized until this moment how tiny she is. Even as you take in the wonders around you (you’ve never seen a flying fish, I’m sure), you find yourself gazing down at the top of her white head in wonder. How lucky you are to have this feisty, intimidating woman for a friend.You jump as a giant carp nudges your free hand with a damp nose. It gazes up at you with round eyes full of trust and you give it a small, uncertain pat.All around is the steady hum of commerce.How much copper for five bottles of pitch-black ink? Special-made by the Barnacle Lady.A few of my best-laying hens in exchange for a fishing net woven from mermaid hair?And what can you offer in exchange for transport to Undaine?Agnes leads you to a wooden stall creaking beneath the weight of hundreds of miraculously fresh fish.“This here’s Eamons,” she says, gesturing toward a rugged-looking middle-aged man whose shoulder-length, dark brown hair has a strange seaweed green tinge to it.Before Agnes can say anything else, Eamon leaps out from behind to stall to wrap her in a hug. He jostles the stall and a few fish slide off, slapping wetly against the cobblestones.You bend to scoop the fish; making yourself useful has become a habit by now. As you place them back on the table, you feel someone watching you. A girl of about twelve stands a few feet off, flanked on each side by two lazily grazing carp. Her hair is the same brown-green as her father’s but her wide eyes are a much darker brown. She holds a large blue glass bottle in both arms, using it to mist the fish with the air of someone who has been given a solemn task and is determined to perform it well.“You hafta wrap ‘em in the paper,” the girl says, “or they’ll spoil. They go bad real quick here.” She isn’t bossy or condescending, only confident. You do as you’re told.“Miss Molly Mae, come meet your Auntie Agnes.” Eamon and Agnes have finished their hug but he keeps one arm wrapped around her stooped shoulders. He is beaming.The girl, Molly Mae, places the glass bottle gently on the ground with both hands before picking her way primly over.“How do you do, Auntie Agnes,” she says, offering her hand.“Oh quites well, and I thanks you for askin’, Miss Molly Mae.” Agnes matches the girl’s formal tone and shakes her hand once, firmly. She does not crack a smile, but you know her well enough by now to spot the twinkle in her eyes.The girl smiles a little, delighted at being taken so seriously. “You can just call me Molly, Auntie Agnes.”“Thanks you Molly, that does save me a bit o’ time. A good things at my age, seeins’ as how I’m runnins’ out. Now I’d like yous to meets a dears friends of mine.”You shake Eamon’s hand warmly, but offer Molly the same firm, respectable handshake she seems to prefer.“Eamons will take you to Undaine, and be goods about it,” Agnes says, patting him on his hairy cheek. “He’s a very goods boy.”Of course you know nothing is free, so you offer him your lumpy, half-finished sweater as payment (you plan to finish it on the journey). He eyes your dropped stitches and irregular pattern and politely declines. What he would like are stories- any stories. They can be true, made up, half-remembered.“Just so long as they’re good,” he says. “We’ll be in town a few more days, so you got time. Miss Molly here loves a good adventure story though, don’t you, minnow?”Molly grabs her father’s hand and looks up at him, eyebrows furrowed urgently. She says nothing, but he understands. “Adventure stories with happy endings, please.”Her brow relaxes and she nods at you, satisfied.“They loves a story up there,” Agnes says. “Especiallys a true story with just a hints of exaggerations. True fisher folks, even the ones what don’t go out on boats.”You are in your room at the Copper Goat, packing your bags. Agnes sits on the edge of your bed, feet dangling like a schoolgirl.“Oh you’re in for such a treats,” she says, kicking her feet a little. Excitement sparks her eyes, but there might be a tinge of sadness there as well.A few nights ago, on another Goat Night, you finally asked Agnes The Question.“Where is your family?”“All around!” she crowed, throwing out an arm. This set off a round of lazy bleating; the goats were too warm and happy to be properly startled, but felt they had to keep up appearances.You laughed and stroked the forehead of the nearest goat. It huffed contentedly, resting its heavy head in your yarn-filled lap. You did not ask again, but as you banked the fire later that night, she told you.“Rosie never cames backs. Never heards from her. Maybe somethins’ happeneds, she gots hurts or died, I dunno. Maybe she just gots lost. I always hoped she was havins herself some darns good adventures and thens founds a place she loved and hunkereds down. I do wish she cames backs for me, though.“I likes to pictures her beins a cowboy somewheres, catchin tornadoes and sellins em in jars. Or a pirates with a great big parrot on her shoulder. I thinks, maybe the parrots was a sailors thats gots a curse puts on em. Maybe they’re in love. Maybe nots. Or maybe she’s livin in a big city with a different festival every day and fireworks every nights. I wouldn’t be likin that- too noisy- but Rosie woulds.”Agnes went quiet for a bit then.“I like the cowboy one,” you said as you settle back into your seat. Or maybe, “I hope they got the poor parrot sailor’s curse lifted.” Or maybe you didn’t say anything at all because you’ve learned to wait.Agnes sipped her whiskey, lost in thought.Then, “Georgie dieds a year after the weddins’. We always joked how that boy had a big heart, well now. We didn’t knows how true that was. Turns outs havin’ a big hearts like that can do you in. One mornin I sees him go out to the fields, all bouncy in his heels like he always was, only he never comes back. I go out to looks for him, and I finds him there next to a baby goats whats got torn apart by coyotes or some such. He was colds all over by the times I got to him. That boy loved his goats so much, I think his too-big heart just broke. Dropped ‘im dead right next to that poor baby.”Another few moments of silence passed before you asked, “and the neighbor boy? Your husband, what happened to him?”More silence. Then, “There was a neighbors boy. Never had time to gets married to him though. Died two weeks afore the wedding. Accidents at the mines.”You said nothing, then.Or maybe, even though you knew words could never heal this magnitude of loss, “I’m sorry.”“Thank yous,” she said. She reached out and squeezed your hand. You sat, cradling her papery hand in yours, until she leaned her head back in the chair and began to snore.Your first few nights at the Copper Goat, you slept with a pillow clenched over your ears to drown out these snores. They were loud and incessant, and punctuated with bleats from the goats. You tossed and turned and wrestled your way into fitful sleep, cursing the old crone’s nasally tremors.On this night, however, you kissed her forehead before making your way up the stairs. You tucked yourself into your cozy little bed and let her honking snores rock you to sleep like a lullaby.“Looks likes we got another Goats Nights on our hands,” she says now, looking out the window.It isn’t a Goat Night, not really. The sun is bright and warm with Spring and the shadows from the mountain have been quiet and reclusive. You don’t correct her, though. You’ve begun to suspect Goat Nights are not always just for the benefit of the goats.“A Goat Night, indeed,” you say.Your breath mists in the early morning air as you wait on the front steps of The Copper Goat. Agnes waits with you, much quieter than usual. She stamps her boots on the porch, knocking a bit of warmth into her old bones.“You gots your stories ready?” she asks.You do.“They don’t needs to be true,” she reminds you. “They just needs to be real.”You nod.Your eyes sting with the threat of tears, but before they can spill over you catch sight of the Carp Caravan.It all happens so fast. Your bags are thrown onto a cart carried between two carp while Eamon helps you onto the back of a third. As you settle into the unfamiliar saddle, Agnes tucks something into your hand.“For lucks,” she says, reaching up to pat your cheek.You open your hand to find a little copper bell on a string of red yarn. You clutch it tightly as you wave goodbye, letting this strange scaly procession carry you up into the mountains and all their moving shadows.CREDITS:Soundscape created using freesound.orggoats and birds morning crete 3 by RimmerGoats at Biertan, Romania by AntonioZozobra -- https://freesound.org/s/468968/ -- License: Attribution NonCommercial 4.0Wood fire in a fireplace / living room by flwrpwr -- https://freesound.org/s/614885/ -- License: Attribution 3.0soca_goats1.wav by LukeIRL -- https://freesound.org/s/75097/ -- License: Attribution 4.0bells.wav by keweldog -- https://freesound.org/s/181139/ -- License: Creative Commons 0Rabbit Jingle Decor by karinalarasart -- https://freesound.org/s/443970/ -- License: Creative Commons 0Train Passing By 184 with Horn, Bell, Engine, Whooshing, Track Noises, Outside Ambiance.mp3 by FunWithSound -- https://freesound.org/s/593035/ -- License: Creative Commons 0 Get full access to Alice’s Substack at alicelefae.substack.com/subscribe

CREDITSSoundscape created using Freesound https://freesound.org/Sounds used:Urban Herring Gulls by acclivityShip's bell by cgeffexShip's bell by Arnaud CoutancierBells by JustiiiiinDormition Cathedral Bells by vortichOcean Waves by Lucas Chacht Get full access to Alice’s Substack at alicelefae.substack.com/subscribe