Page 14 of The Herlequin: Pitch & Sickle 6

‘There are creatures living in all ponds.’

The rain slanted towards Matilda as though seeking her out.

‘Yes.’ Silas nodded. ‘Of course…but I meant these were naturals.’

Matilda arched a thick eyebrow. ‘Are naturals not allowed to live in ponds?’ The water followed the reshaped contour of her brow, a tiny waterfall streaming near her temple.

‘No, no, that’s not what I’m saying at all.’

‘Are you ungrateful for the kappas extricating you from the pond? Would you prefer they had left you there to dither about in a frenzy?’

The undine’s comments were sharp as hail. Silas had the sense of being a child reprimanded by a governess. A few months ago such a retort might have had him cowering. Not now.

‘Kappa?’ he said. ‘Was it you who bade them assist me?’

Matilda’s eyes narrowed, though her expression did not change from utterly blank. ‘That is not what I first asked you.’

Was it Silas’s imagination, or was the downpour more ridiculously heavy now? Soon he’d be in danger of drowning without need of the pond. ‘I am most grateful for their assistance,’ he said. ‘There were more weeds than I’d anticipated, and I did have myself in rather a muddle.’

‘But you wish to be in that muddle again.’

Silas stared at the elemental. She was precisely right, and appeared to know it. ‘I do. I must.’

The droplets were not only drawn to Matilda, they shrouded her, a watery aura that managed to catch light in the dull surrounds. The beauty contrasted her rather plain features and dour expression.

‘You need not fear the water, Mr Mercer. You are a child of its womb.’

That was not a way he’d ever thought to look at it. ‘Unfortunately I’m also a corpse in its tomb.’ He swallowed. ‘I do fear it…terribly so. And I am not proud of it.’ He shivered so hard that it was making his muscles ache, those he could still feel at least.

Matilda stood, stoic as any tree in the nearby copse which marked the boundary of the estate. ‘So you wish to drown yourself until the fear is parched.’ The elemental tilted her head, exposing a wet and glistening throat.

‘I must.’

‘You keep saying that.’

‘Because it is true,’ Silas replied. ‘I cannot have such a weakness.’

‘Strength would snap us in two if not softened by a touch of weakness.’

Silas exhaled. He was cold and very wet, and in no mood for such deep conversation. ‘This is more than a touch, I’m afraid. I must be capable of more.’ He spoke firmly, Pitch on his mind, and fixed in his heart.

A loud croak came from behind, the guttural bellow of what must be the largest frog in existence. It made Silas’s ears ring. So much so he could barely hear the melody that played in the chamber at the back of his mind. A tune that did little more than mimic the bellyaching croak of the kappa itself.

Kappa. Yokai. River child.

Mud wiggled between his toes as Silas turned. His panic must have deafened him to the creatures’ naming tune earlier, but it was very clear now.

The kappa, the larger of the two, was in the shallows. Christ, it was an unappealing thing. Squatted down on amphibious haunches the colour of gutter water, the creature peered up at him with its saucer eyes. The concave skull was filled with pond water, which was yet to settle after the kappa’s emergence from the depths. It seemed a specimen of confused design. From the waist down it was without doubt an oversized frog, but there was a turtle’s carapace upon its back, rough with barnacles, and humanness to the front limbs, arms of a sort, with dubious hands, webbed in the way of a frog.

Staring at it, Silas knew what it was he must do. Mad as it was. ‘Would…would you help me?’ He turned back to Matilda. She stood in an ever-growing puddle that was glass smooth, despite the steady downpour. ‘Would you all help me? I wonder…if the kappa might agree to holding me beneath the water, and ensuring I don’t wind up in a tangle again. Would they do that for me?’

Silas balled his fists. Sweet mercy, the mere idea of being held beneath the surface terrified him. But that was entirely the point. He must be fearless.

‘Chinami,’ Matilda said, flat as a lake on a still day. ‘Mr Mercer would like you to help him drown. What say you?’

The reply to the request did not sound favourable: a series of rumbling regurgitations. Silas glanced Matilda’s way, inordinately anxious that the elemental and her water children would see fit to help him. ‘Was that a yes or a no?’

Matilda did not blink. Had not done so since he’d first set eyes on her. ‘That was an angry muttering about how much silt you churned up on your first foray and all the frog spawn you ruined.’