SSCS 02: Installment 11 of 32
How to Catch Flying Pigs, and Sea Monsters
This is Installment 11 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…
Mina could turn her head now, could look gran-Tom in the eye and see the old priestess’ grin hidden there, even as more kraken tentacles looped down around her shoulders, like deadly curtains.
…How to Catch Flying Pigs, and Sea Monsters
Installment 11: 19.0831
“Thank you, friend.” Gran-Tom reached up one black, clawed hand and stroked the turquoise and gold tentacle nearest her face. “Did you hear the Moon, too? It was singing so loud I thought for a moment it was going to carry my soul away.”
Gran-Tom always knew what was happening – she knew the pigs had eaten all the roses, and that Mina was turning green right now because a kraken this close up smelled very, very bad, especially to land-folk – but she didn’t seem to know about the Other One. Mina had already tried to ask her too many times before, and every time her words and gran-Tom’s slipped sideways against each other in a way that made Mina think she couldn’t really even hear the questions.
So now Mina stood up, slowly – there was still a kraken tentacle down her shift – and turned to face the old priestess. “It ate one of the pigs,” she said, and she could hear her voice shaking. If Hedwin was still there, she couldn’t see him past the curling bulk of the kraken, and he wasn’t volunteering anything. “More than one, it must have. But I don’t know if it ate all of them, or if the others are just hiding.” Pigs could be cowardly when they needed to be. As ridiculous as they were, they were also usually sensible.
Gran-Tom sighed. “Yes,” she said. “It likes to fly. And now tonight I suspect I’m going to be singing myself hoarse three times over just to get it to come back and call the tides properly. We’ll probably get a nasty message from Oyster spire about it in a day or three.”
At the words, the kraken’s tentacles shivered, and Mina shivered with them as the one down her back writhed against her skin. The terrible smell became momentarily even stronger, and she wanted to scream or be sick. Her toes curled with the effort not to do either.
“Yes. You know what tonight is, don’t you?” Gran-Tom gave the tentacle over her shoulder a sharp pat, and the bulk of them shivered again, and then pulled up and away abruptly, darting away, leaving Mina staggering. The glare of sunlight where the giant creature’s shadow had once been was hot, the morning well progressed, but there was still a shuddering splinter of ice deep in Mina’s breast. She wanted to turn and find the rock Hedwin was hiding behind and go hide with him, but now gran-Tom was standing straight, green-skinned head cocked as though listening or thinking, and Mina knew from experience a quick snap of orders was soon to be coming, and no time for hiding shivering next to her friend, or even for sitting down.
“There are oyster bells blooming in the cliff-cracks on the north side of the spire,” gran-Tom’s musty voice cracked out. “They’ll have to do. And they’ll keep until tomorrow, too, so you might as well gather two baskets full when you go.” She gave Mina a sharp-eyed look. “Don’t forget the claw straps for your boots. I won’t hear any excuses about the kelp-weed being too slick to get to the last of them.” Then, “Hedwin, get your lasso. There are still seven pigs on this prickly spire, and I need to see them all back in their pen before moonrise.”