SSCS 02: Installment 32 of 32
How to Catch Flying Pigs, and Sea Monsters
This is Installment 32 of this year’s SSCS. If you want to start at the beginning of ‘How to Catch Flying Pigs, and Sea Monsters’, go here! If you want to know what the heck an SSCS is, go here!
Previously…
When she was finally able to make her body stop shaking and shuddering, Mina found that, in the meantime, gran-Tom had called up a quiet song to fill the emptiness. It wasn’t one of the Hums she’d taught Mina, and it didn’t really sound like a Moon song at all, except that there was something ragged and hollow inside Mina’s chest that felt soothed by it somehow. Something that had been shrieking, or sobbing, allowed to go still.
When gran-Tom stopped singing, the edges of the music seemed to tuck themselves into that grieving hollow so that, within the noise of the crashing waves, the song wasn’t entirely gone. It was Mina’s now too, for always.
…How to Catch Flying Pigs, and Sea Monsters
Installment 32: 21.1101
“Well, that was a waste, wasn’t it,” gran-Tom sighed, grumbling to her feet, “though I suppose it couldn’t really be helped. At least we have most of a month to call another one.”
“Another one what, gran-Tom?” Mina almost didn’t want to ask, wobbling, busy enough trying to pull herself back together and remembering how to stand up again. But she did want to know what had happened. Something had definitely happened.
“Another kraken.” Gran-Tom was already starting to stump her way back up the long spire stair, and Mina forced her throbbing self to follow. “We’ll be the weakest spire in the line next Moon if we can’t bind in another kraken by then. That one’s definitely not coming back.” She gestured behind her, at the whole of the ocean, waving her tentacles for emphasis. “That old spirit was as thin as paper, but certainly powerful enough to break our binding. They’ll be halfway to the other side of the ocean before the possession fades.”
None of these words were reassuring, and Mina felt the familiar fear filling her back up inside. The possession would fade. The Other One would be back. “And then what will happen gran-Tom?” Mina had to practically drag the words past her teeth, and even still she didn’t expect any sort of reply. Gran-Tom knew everything, except when she didn’t, and the Other One was always the exception. There would be silence now, and that would confirm it.
“And then we’ll need to send Hedwin to fly along to the next spire to start a message line that the spires should be on the watch-out for an angry kraken. They may be the best vehicles for helping the old spirits to cross free, but they Do Not Like It. Although,” she turned and gave Mina a look that was very, very gran-Tom, “maybe it would go better if we would remember to un-bind them before they go stark, shrieking mad, hmmm?” She nodded to herself and went back to climbing. “Yes, maybe by the time you get your tentacles we should think about unbinding another one or two of them. That would probably be wise…
“…Of course, we’ll have to be sure and call them up first, and get their songs. The oldest ones do know the most songs. But unbinding them now really would be the polite thing to do. I rather hope someone un-binds me before I go mad…” And so the old priestess’ muttering continued, all the way back up to the top of the spire, while Mina followed, dread, and relief, and exasperation, and alarm sloshing backwards and forwards and around and around inside her. They would be …summoning?… …binding?… a new kraken! And Mina would be getting tentacles?! …eventually…?
…And, well, first things first: Tomorrow Mina was going to have to listen to Hedwin whine about eating more scrounged-up bits of flying fruit covered in pig slobber because it was time for him to go a-messengering again. And probably there were more oyster bells in Mina’s near-future.
Because of course there were.