Time of Blood. Robin Jarvis

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TIME-BURNED

      In the shadow of the West Cliff, the fog lay thick over the broad sands, masking the margin between shore and sea. Its webbed fingers caressed the stone piers that reached out into the calm waters, coiling up around the lighthouses, absorbing the guiding beams from the great lamps and diffusing them in a wide milky spread before the harbour mouth.

      The wooden bathing machines, which were stationed overnight at the foot of the cliff, appeared to float on the undulating mist like an armada of poky, white-washed sheds. On the beach before them, two small figures wended their way through the fog. One sported a broad-brimmed oilskin hat, the other a string of seashells about her brow; both wore ganseys of different designs. They were aufwaders – the half-forgotten fisherfolk of Whitby legend, who had dwelt on that coast long before humans settled there, but who now lived quietly and secretly in caves beneath the East Cliff.

      Nettie Weever leaned against a large cartwheel of the end bathing machine and waited while her friend, Hesper Gull, caught up with her. Hesper was revelling in the fog, whisking and flailing her short arms through it, creating eddying waves. The deep wrinkles of Nettie’s brow bunched together as she watched her friend’s carefree play. Hesper had been so much happier these past few weeks – everyone in the tribe had noticed and the reason was known to all. Silas, her husband, was missing.

      Silas Gull hadn’t been seen for over a fortnight. He had always been prone to wandering off and spending time away from the caves on some sly venture, but he had never been absent this long. He was such an unpleasant, scowling and untrustworthy rogue, it was a relief not to encounter him in the tunnels and the other aufwaders understood why his mistreated wife was starting to feel her old self again. There were of course those poisonous tongues who suggested Hesper had done away with her husband, but she was such a gentle creature that they weren’t taken seriously.