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CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

The Great Mare.

The creature who’d supposedly given birth to the ocean.

The only thing Haera had ever seemed to reverence.

She’d never used the word goddess , but it seemed apt.

For a moment, Madeleine’s brain dug in its heels.

Supernatural creatures made of flesh and blood were one thing.

But the First Commandment was extremely clear: she must worship no other gods before God himself.

However, that didn’t mean she shouldn’t be polite.

As the creature had said, Madeleine was very small.

“Good evening,” she croaked.

The Great Mare made a wet noise.

It wasn’t horselike, as Haera’s sounds were, but an echo of the ocean depths.

It sounded like a chuckle.

Madeleine’s eyes darted back and forth.

The moon shone off the Great Mare’s liquid hide; she cast a glow all about her that caught the edges of the ancient stones.

This place no longer seemed of the human world at all.

“Is—is this your home? Is that why you, uh, came here?”

“ My home is not of the land .” Scorn roiled in that voice, for Madeleine in thinking something so ridiculous.

“ But this spot is sacred after a storm, when approached by a human connected to my kind. Such a human is worthy. That does not happen often—such a connection generally means your death .”

Madeleine shuddered.

“ It is a place of power, and I can be here for a little while. Besides, did you not call for aid? ”

Madeleine could say, I didn’t mean you, but that seemed unwise.

Was it rude to stay on her rear?

It probably was, right?

She pressed her dirty palms against the stone behind her and slowly rose to her feet.

“It’s, um, an honor to meet you.”

Her voice was shaking.

Why couldn’t she sound respectful but calm?

Because a horse made out of the ocean was towering over her, that’s why.

If only there was time for a real prayer to Mary or one of the saints, a prayer for intercession and protection.

As it was, she didn’t even dare cross herself.

It might anger the creature.

It might not work.

It might not even mean anything.

“ I was here not so long ago ,” the Great Mare said, “ some few turns of the world around the sun. After another storm, I appeared to a man who came to this place, who was bound to another of my children. He was drunk .”

Jonathan.

It must have been. The Great Mare had appeared before Jonathan, and he’d never said anything about that either.

“ He sang to me ,” the Great Mare said.

“ A song about a young queen of seventeen turns who loved to dance. He danced for me. It pleased me .” She cocked her head to the side.

A spray of water hit the ground.

“ For this, I offered him a boon. Do you seek one too? ”

Madeleine had read enough folklore to know you should be careful about asking “boons” of supernatural creatures.

They always came with a catch.

“That’s generous, but no thank you.”

“ You should not refuse me until you know what it is .” She sounded amused.

“ One question he could ask me, about anything at all, and I would answer true .”

An answer?

That was the boon? No offer of infinite wealth, absolute power, or worldwide renown?

Just an answer.

In that moment, no prize—not even salvation—had ever seemed greater.

Madeleine grabbed her sweater over her heart.

“What question did Jonathan ask you?”

“ Nothing. He asked to forget that he had ever seen me .”

Madeleine’s mouth fell open.

“ Now .” The Great Mare floated forward, between Madeleine and the moon.

The moonlight wavered and grew dim, filtered through her body, as if Madeleine were looking up at it from underwater.

“ What will you sing and dance for me? ”

Those eyes—dark— “I…I don’t dance much. And I’m not…”

“ Sing, then. Sing for your answer .” A wave crested down the Great Mare’s back and settled again.

“ Sing for your life .”

It would be hard to sing; her lips had just gone numb.

“My…life? You mean you—you’ll kill me if I don’t?”

“ That is not what I said. Do not sing to avoid death. Sing for your life. Sing to the sea, and hear what echoes back to you .” The Great Mare flicked her tail and sent spray backward over the cliffs.

“ The world is full of wonder. The other human chose smallness. Will you? ”

The world was full of wonder.

Madeleine’s faith was based on mysteries, and all her life she’d been told some answers would only be revealed in the afterlife.

But here—now?—

No one ever grew wiser, or more holy, by turning away from revelation.

Madeleine cleared her throat and began to sing.

Only one song came to mind.

It wasn’t one she’d have wished for, but it’d have to do: “Le Petit Cheval,” the French song she’d sung for Haera and Jonathan on the night she’d moved into the cottage.

At the time, she’d thought it was fitting: the story of a little horse who went bravely out into a storm.

There was never good weather where he lived, but he did his duty joyfully, pulling his cart through the wet fields as he hoped for spring’s arrival.

Her voice trembled as she sang the first, familiar words.

“Le petit cheval dans le mauvais temps, qu'il avait donc du courage…”

“ Ah yes. ” The Great Mare sounded pleased indeed. “ I have heard humans sing this one, over warmer waters. Continue .”

Madeleine did. Thank heavens, her voice steadied. As the Great Mare watched her, she lifted her voice and sang as if she were in Mass. Maybe she wasn’t worshiping the Great Mare, but something powerful whirled around her all the same. The moment deserved her best, didn’t it?

I will not be small anymore.

Then, as she had that night in the cottage, she got to the end of the third verse and had to stop. “Um, yes. There you are. I’m done.”

The Great Mare narrowed her eyes. “ There is more to the song .”

“Yes, I know. My mother sang it to me, but I…I don’t remember all of it.” She shifted back and forth from foot to foot. “I could try to think of another?—”

“ The little horse’s courage is not enough. The storm kills him. He perishes without ever seeing the sun .”

Whatever words Madeleine had meant to speak next died in her mouth.

“ How human of you ,” the Great Mare said, “ to turn your memory from such an ending. To be unable to face pain and death .”

“No!” The word burst from Madeleine, high and fierce. Unwise too, no doubt, but the Great Mare was wrong and had no right to say such a thing. “I lost my entire family. My parents and brother were killed. Trust me, I know about pain and death, and I want to know—I want to know so much—” Her voice cracked. “Was that good enough for me to ask you a question? What more do you want from me?”

The Great Mare regarded her silently. She flicked her tail again, and this time, the end of it dissolved. “ Very well. But hurry. I cannot stay much longer .”

There were so many choices. So many things Madeleine wanted to know, from the pathetic ( Does Haera really love me? ) to the terrifying ( Am I damned? ), and a dozen questions that fell in between. But in the end, only one of them seemed worthy of this moment.

“How much of it is true?” she asked hoarsely.

“ How much of what? ”

“Everything. Everything I was taught. God, and His saints, and heaven and hell and—and how to live?—”

How to live, and who to love. A sob made its way out of her throat, and she grabbed her hair with her muddy hands. She was cold everywhere, save for the heat behind her eyes. Cold, wet, covered in dirt. Her chest ached with all the screams she wanted to release.

This might be the worst mistake she’d ever made, depending on what she learned now. It might destroy her. She groaned, “How much is true? Do you know? Will you tell me the truth?”

Madeleine had sung for her life. This was her life. Everything else came from this, and whatever she did with whatever she was about to learn would show her how small, or big, she could become. Maybe, like the little horse, her courage wouldn’t be enough to save her. She could only try and hope she’d see the sun again.

“ That is what matters to you? ” The Great Mare sounded incredulous.

“Yes!”

The enormous head tossed, as if in resignation. “ Very well. Something moves the Earth and stars, and it has no name, and it has all names. There are saints, and there are not saints. You have lived in heaven and hell already. Your rules for how to live were devised by other humans, and I cannot explain them. If everything is true, then nothing is true too. That is your answer. ”

It had to be a joke. That was the “boon”? Madeleine had never heard anything so unhelpful in her life. What a ridiculous cop-out. What kind of wishy-washy nonsense…

Unless—

Unless maybe, possibly, it wasn’t, because?—

“Devised by humans,” she said numbly, thinking of priests in pulpits, of angry slogans on signs. Of God and the saints, she knew no more than she did before, but maybe she wasn’t supposed to. That was where faith came in. As for the rest…

“ That was a very limited question, ” the Great Mare said. “ You should have asked how a whale feels when it finds its mate through song. That is the answer to everything. But at least you asked about something other than how to find riches or fame. ” She tossed her enormous head. “ Or love. ”

Madeleine looked up into the blackness of her eyes and thought she saw stars there. Or maybe those were the stars above, shining through the water. “I think we have to find love on our own.”

“ And you found my unruliest daughter. She is unlike my other children, but I have a fondness for her. I put before her a great choice. It might not, however, have been a kindness. ”

The lightning, thunder, and wind. Madeleine shuddered. “You mean—the opportunity to become a Stormhorse. To eat me.”

“ No ,” the Great Mare said, to her astonishment. “ Something else. She could never have eaten you. Still, her love is unlike yours, and perhaps you cannot return it. Your love is not her hunger. ”

In her mind’s eye, Madeleine saw Haera’s face. It had been a study in agony as she lay in the mud, begging for pardon. In bed, it had relaxed in pleasure and relief. In conversation, it had creased in concentration whenever Madeleine spoke. Madeleine saw all of these things, and her heart ached so much it might have killed her.

“Has she changed?” she whispered. “She told me she has, but is that possible for your kind?”

“ You earned only one question, ” the Great Mare said. “ Ask yourself if your kind can change instead. And then ask yourself if your kind are wiser than mine. ”

Madeleine staggered a little, knees unsteady. She knew the answer to that.

“I don’t know if I can forgive her,” she said slowly. “But I’ll talk to her. I can do that.”

The Great Mare’s body shimmered. Was she about to vanish? “ Then you must hurry. She goes to the witch .”

“The…witch?” Haera had referred to a witch, when she’d knelt in the mud before Asgall, in tones of deepest defeat. The thought cut through Madeleine worse than any wind. “Do you mean the one in the whirlpool? What?—”

“ And even if she escapes that fate, the witch is not all she has to fear. There is one other in her family. ”

Madeleine froze. Haera had told her that she’d almost been killed by Asgall and… “Her mother? Beathag?”

The Great Mare’s watery body was rippling, becoming transparent. “ The Each-uisge all carry some aspect of myself in them. Haera is like one of my heartbeats: swift and strong. Her brother is like one of my ribs, hidden and frail .”

Madeleine gripped the collar of her sweater. Her own heartbeats were out of control. “And—and Beathag? What part of you is she?”

The Great Mare’s body rippled again, and its shape began to dissolve. Her tail and hindquarters spun, again, into the waterspout that had first arced up into the air from the cliffs. Ocean spray struck Madeleine’s face.

The mighty head was the last to melt away. But before she turned into the tide, the Great Mare had time to tell Madeleine one last thing.

“ My teeth .”