what is a mermaid but a woman half-drowned,

what a selkie but an unwilling wife,

what a tale but a sea-net, snatching up both

from the gentle tumult of dark waves?

from “elegy for a siren,” collected in the poetical works of emrys myrddin, 196–

208 ad

effy tucked her copy of angharad into her purse. her trunk was packed full of trousers and her

new turtleneck sweaters and warm woolen socks. rhia went with her to the train station.

“are you sure i can’t convince you not to do this?” rhia asked.

effy shook her head. passengers milled past them in blurs of gray and tawny. rhia was

generous and open-minded and clever, and kind enough to never mention the rumors about effy

and master corbenic.

but she didn’t know about the pink pills, the ones effy kept at her side always, in case the

edges of things started to blur. she didn’t know about the fairy king and had never read a single

page of angharad. she didn’t understand what myrddin meant to effy, and she didn’t understand

what effy was escaping from. rhia was a southerner—but she didn’t know what it was like to

drown.

a woman in a blue cloche shoved by and stepped on effy’s foot. “i’ll miss you. tell maisie

she can have my room.”

“i will.” rhia chewed her lip, then managed one of her incandescently bright smiles as the

train sang like a teakettle behind them. “be safe. be smart. be sweet.”

“all three? that’s a lot to ask.”

“i’ll settle for just two, then. your pick,” rhia said. she reached around effy to embrace her,

and for a moment, with her eyes shut and her face pressed into rhia’s fluffy brown hair, effy felt

calmer than the windless sea.

“that’s far more reasonable,” effy mumbled. they broke apart as a mother trailing two

ornery-looking children shouldered past them. “thank you.”

rhia frowned. “what for?”

effy didn’t reply. she didn’t really know. she was just grateful not to be standing on the

platform alone.

the other passengers were breathing in clouds of white, belts and wallet chains jangling, high

heels striking the tiled floor with a tinny sound. effy dragged her trunk on board and watched from

the window as the train pulled out of the station. she didn’t look away until rhia, waving,

vanished into the crowd.

she’d meant to work on the train; she’d even brought her sketchpad and pen in her purse. but as

soon as the train started down the bridge that led south over lake bala, her mind filled with a

vague yet obliterating dread. the blank white page of her sketchpad and the bright midmorning

light glancing off the lake made her eyes water. the woman sitting next to her crossed and

recrossed her legs over and over again, and the sound of silk hissing against leather was so

distracting, effy couldn’t think of anything else.

northern llyr spooled past her, emerald green in the winter. when she had to switch trains in

laleston, she shuffled off and crossed the platform in a haze, dragging her trunk behind her.

though she couldn’t see outside, the air felt humid and thick, and there was rainwater trickling

down the windows.

they arrived in saltney just as the clock ticked past five. in caer-isel, even in winter, the sun

would have still been holding stubbornly to the line of the horizon. in saltney, the sky was a dense

and dusky black, storm clouds roiling like steam in a pot.

as the last few passengers disembarked, effy stood in a rheumy puddle of lamplight, staring

down the dark and empty road. she didn’t know where to go.

her mind felt cloudy. even though she’d read ianto’s letter so many times, now she couldn’t

remember the name of his barrister, who was supposed to pick her up at the station—wheathall?

weathergill? no one had given her a number to call. and as she peered down the dimly lit street,

there were no cars in sight.

there was only a row of small, dingy buildings, their doors and windows as black as mounds

of dirt. farther down, she could see a cluster of thatched-roof houses, rising out of the stubbly

grass like broken teeth. there was the faint, distant sound of water breaking on rocks.

the wind picked up, and it seemed to blow right through effy’s coat and thick woolen sweater,

lashing her hair around her face. she could taste the sea salt in it, grit gathering on her bottom lip.

she squeezed her eyes shut, but a tremendous pain was sharpening in the center of her forehead,

right between her brows.

there was only the wind and the cold and the dark, stretching out all around her, solid and

endless. there would be no other trains before morning, and what would she do until then? maybe

no one was coming at all. perhaps the whole project had been a farce, a joke played at a naive

first-year’s expense.

or, worse: a ruse to lure a young girl to a faraway and dangerous place she’d never come back

from.

everyone had said there was something off about the whole affair. something strange. rhia

had warned her; even master corbenic had warned her. and yet she had flung herself toward it

like a sparrow against a windowpane, oblivious to the sheen of glass.

a panicked sob rose in her throat. through the glaze of unshed tears, she could see a

rectangular blur in the distance. she shuffled closer and it took shape: a telephone booth.

effy picked her trunk back up and dragged it with her into the booth. with shaking fingers, she

reached into her pocket and pulled out a few coins, cramming them into the slot.

she hesitated before dialing. one part of her wanted to slam the phone down; the other was

desperate just to hear a familiar voice. so she dialed the only number that she knew by heart.

“hello?”

that familiar voice split through the silence. “mother?”

“effy? is that you? where are you calling from?”

“i’m in saltney,” she managed thickly. “in the bottom hundred.”

she could almost see the little pinch of her mother’s brow. “well, what in the name of all

saints are you doing there?”

at that, a strange hollow opened up in effy’s chest. she shouldn’t have called.

“there’s this project i’m doing,” she said. “for the estate of emrys myrddin. a bunch of

architecture students sent in designs, and they picked mine.”

there was a stretch of silence. effy could almost see her mother curled up in her armchair, one

sip of gin still left in her glass. “well, then why are you crying?”

effy’s throat felt very tight. “i’m at the train station. i don’t know if anyone is going to pick

me up, and i don’t have a number to call . . .”

her mother drew a quick, sharp breath. and then: the sound of ice clinking as she poured

herself a new glass. “you didn’t think to get a phone number before you went to some no-name

town—what, six hours south of draefen? i can’t listen to this right now, effy. it’s just bad decision

after bad decision with you.”

“i know.” effy’s hand tensed around the receiver. “i’m sorry. can you ask grandfather if he

can—”

“you can’t always expect someone to bail you out,” her mother cut in. “i’m not going to ask

grandfather to drive six hours into the bottom hundred in the dark. listen to yourself.”

but effy could only hear the muffled sound of the sea.

“i wouldn’t be doing my job as your mother,” she went on. “at a certain point i have to let you

sink or swim.”

effy’s cheeks were slippery with tears. the phone kept almost sliding out of her grip. “i’m

sorry. you don’t have to wake grandfather. i just don’t know what to do.”

“first you have to calm down,” her mother said briskly. “i can’t talk to you when you’re

behaving like this. when you’re having one of your episodes. are you seeing things?”

“no,” effy said. outside, the darkness pulsed and seethed.

“do you have your medication?”

“yes.”

“then take it. all right? call me when you’ve calmed down.”

effy nodded, even though she knew her mother couldn’t see. but she held on to the phone until

there was a soft click on the other end and her mother’s breathing was gone.

she let the phone slide out of her grasp, dangling on its cord. she pried open her purse and dug

for the small glass bottle, uncapped it and poured out a single pill. it was the rosy color of an

unopened flower bud, dead before it would ever bloom.

effy clapped a hand over her lips and swallowed it, dry-mouthed.

it took several minutes for the furious drag of her pulse to slow. she’d gone through bottle

after bottle of these pills since she was ten years old. it was inside the doctor’s office that she’d

first learned to call these moments of panic, these slippings, episodes.

the doctor had held the bottle of pink pills in one hand and wagged a finger at her with the

other, as if he were admonishing her for something she hadn’t even done yet.

“you have to be careful with these,” he said. “only take them when you really need them.

when you start seeing things that aren’t real. do you understand, missy?”

she was ten, and already she’d given up trying to explain that what she saw was real, even if

no one believed her.

effy had looked instead at the tuft of silver hair curling out of the doctor’s left ear. “i

understand.”

“good,” he said, and gave her a stiff, clinical pat on the head. her mother had bundled the pills

into her purse. they had left his office, walking into a damp spring morning, and under a flowering

pear tree, her mother had stopped to blow her nose into a handkerchief. allergies, she’d said. but

her mother’s eyes had been rimmed with red and when they got home, she had shut herself in her

room for hours. she didn’t want to have a crazy daughter any more than effy wanted to be one.

now her surroundings returned to her in pieces: the dark road, the puddle of lamplight, the

houses with their shut windows and locked doors. effy stepped out of the booth, dragging her

trunk behind her, and inhaled the salt smell. the rush of waves bathing the rocky shoreline was

loud again, oppressive.

she hadn’t been outside for more than a minute before a swath of light beamed down the

gravel lane. as it grew closer, the single beam of light cleaved in two, and a black car crunched to

a halt in front of her.

the driver’s-side window rolled down. “effy sayre?”

at once she was flooded with a staggering, breathless relief. “yes?”

“i’m thomas wetherell, barrister for the myrddin estate. i was instructed to pick you up at the

station.”

“yes,” she said again, the word pluming white in the cold air. “yes. thank you.”

wetherell frowned at her. he had slicked-back gray hair and an extremely clean-shaven face.

“let me help you with your trunk.”

once she was inside the car, effy felt her body go stiff again, her short-lived relief curdling into

fear. there were, suddenly, a hundred new worries in her mind. mainly that she’d made an

abysmal first impression.

in the bleary, rain-spattered window, effy saw a muddled version of herself: nose pink, eyes

puffy, cheeks still damp and shiny. she scrubbed at her face with the sleeve of her sweater but

only succeeded in reddening her face further. the car clattered down the dark road, and a

particularly nasty lurch sent her jolting forward, knees jamming up against the glove box.

effy bit her lip on a curse. she didn’t want wetherell to think her a squeamish city girl, even

though that was exactly what she was.

“how far to hiraeth?” effy asked, as they passed saltney’s handful of buildings. a pub, a

small church, a fish-and-chip shop—in the bottom hundred, that was enough to constitute a town.

wetherell frowned again. effy had the sense that she would be seeing that frown quite a lot.

“half an hour, maybe more. depends on the state of the road.”

effy’s stomach churned. and then the car began to slant sharply upward.

instinctively she grabbed the handle on the door. “is that normal?”

“yes,” wetherell said, looking at her with sympathetic disdain, something almost approaching

pity. “we’re going up the cliffs.”

it was only then that she realized hiraeth manor would not be in saltney at all. even that

flyspeck of civilization was nothing she could count on. effy’s heart sank further as the car jostled

up the cliffside.

she was almost too afraid to look out the window. the moon seemed to keep pace with the

car, painting the road and the moldering cliffs in a pallid light. they were white, ribboned with

bands of erosion, grown over with moss and lichen and speckled with salt. they looked beautiful

against the black enormity of the sea, its titanic waves striking the pale rock over and over again.

effy was halfway to admiring them when the car jerked to a halt. in front of it, where the road

curled up the cliffside, the road was suddenly awash with foam and dark water. she looked to

wetherell in horror, but he scarcely reacted at all. when the tide receded again, he drove on, tires

sloshing through the newly wet dirt.

it was another long moment before effy found her voice. “is that normal?”

“yes,” wetherell said. “we usually wait until low tide to drive into town, but the timing of

your arrival was . . . unfortunate.”

that was putting it mildly. as the car climbed farther up the hill, the roar of the waves grew

dimmer, but a thick mist descended, shrouding the trees in white cloaks. the road narrowed, fog

closing in on all sides. effy’s throat tightened.

“how much further?” she asked.

“not very far now.”

and then something burst from the tree line and the mist and out in front of the car. effy saw

only a flash of it. there was dark hair, tangled and wet, moving as fluidly as water. where the

headlights caught it, she also saw a pale yellow curve of bone.

“mr. wetherell.” she gasped as it disappeared into the mist again. he hadn’t even let up on the

gas. “what was that?”

if she hadn’t just swallowed one of her pills, she wouldn’t have asked at all. but wetherell

must have seen it, too. she couldn’t have imagined it: the pink pills were for obliterating her

imagination.

“most certainly a deer,” wetherell said, in an offhanded way that seemed almost too

offhanded. “the deer in the south have developed some peculiar adaptations. webbed feet and

scaled bellies. biologists have speculated that it’s evolutionary preparation for the second

drowning.”

but effy had seen no scales. she had seen a wild knot of hair, a crown of bone. she scrubbed

at her face again. what would the doctor have said? was it possible for two people to have the

same hallucination?

the car made a strenuous, halting turn, and the mist seemed to cleave apart in front of it.

wetherell stopped right beside an enormous oak tree. its branches heaved and bowed with the

weight of dangling moss. he reached over and opened the glove box, removing a small flashlight.

wordlessly he clicked it on and stepped out of the car, even though effy could not see a house

rising out of the mist.

she heard him begin to drag out her trunk. effy opened the door and followed him around to

the back of the car. “are we here?”

“yes,” wetherell said. he dropped her trunk into the grass, which was so thick that it seemed

to swallow the sound. “just up this hill.”

the mist made it difficult to see more than a few steps ahead, but effy felt the incline in the

soles of her feet. she trudged after wetherell, his flashlight parting the mist. after a few moments

of walking in silence, following only the faint outline of wetherell’s back, the fog thinned again.

she could see that they were in a small, close circle of trees, the branches overhead knit together

so thickly that no sky showed through.

a stout, clumsy shape emerged: a stone cottage with a thatched roof. it was so old that the

earth had begun trying to reclaim it—grass was growing over the south-facing side, giving it the

appearance of a large head with green hair, and vines were threaded through every crevice in the

walls.

wetherell stamped right up to the door and opened it with a blunt and businesslike shove.

there was the rasp of metal against stone, like a knife being sharpened.

effy couldn’t help the choked sound that came out of her. “this isn’t—this can’t be hiraeth?”

halfway through the door, wetherell turned and gave her that now familiar pitying look. “no,”

he said. “but the mistress has requested that you stay in the guest cottage. you can view the house

tomorrow, when it’s light.”

the mistress. myrddin’s obituary had mentioned that he was survived by a wife and a son, but

neither had been named in the article. she only knew ianto from his letter, which hadn’t spoken of

his mother at all. her skin prickling, effy followed wetherell inside.

he set down her trunk and began to fiddle with an oil lamp on the wall, which, after a moment,

flared to life. effy looked around. there was a small wooden desk in the corner, and a tub for

washing, but the cottage was dominated by an enormous four-poster bed, which looked absurd

against the crumbling, lichen-covered stone of the walls. it had a delicate, filmy canopy that

reminded effy of cobwebs. its green velvet duvet was tucked under at least a dozen pillows, their

gold tassels wilting like cut stalks of wheat.

everything seemed worn out, somehow, weather-blanched and faded as an old photograph. it

felt colder inside the cottage than out.

“no electricity,” wetherell said frankly. he lit a second oil lamp, hanging over the door. “but

the taps work, if you’re persevering.”

effy looked at the two rusted taps above the tub and said nothing. she thought of her mother’s

voice, crackling on the other end of the phone line. bad decision after bad decision.

wetherell finished with the lamp and handed her the box of matches. effy took them

wordlessly. “well, i’ll send someone to fetch you in the morning.”

“how far is it to the house?”

“a ten-minute walk, give or take.”

“depending on the roads?” effy tried a fragile smile.

wetherell looked back at her without humor. “depending on a great many things.”

then he was gone, and effy was alone. she had expected to hear him stomping through the

grass, but everything was unsettlingly silent. no crickets chirping, owls hooting, or predators

shifting behind the tree line. even the wind had gone quiet.

after growing up in draefen, with the sounds of the city playing on a relentless loop, cars

always honking and people always shouting, effy found the silence intolerable. it was like two

daggers driven into her ears. she drew in a deep breath and let it out again tremulously. she could

not allow herself to cry. today’s pill had already been swallowed.

standing there in the cold, damp cottage, effy considered her options. there were very few,

and none of them good. she could try to stumble her way through the dark back to saltney, but she

would be at the mercy of the cliffs and the sea and whatever waited out there in the mist. she

thought of the thing she’d seen dart across the road, and her stomach folded over on itself.

even if she did make it down, there were no trains until morning. and then what? she would

ride back to caer-isel, back to her decrepit dorm room, back to the spiders and soap scum, back to

her terrible attempts at cross sections and boys who whispered about her in the halls. back to

master corbenic. back to staring across the snowy courtyard at the literature college, full of envy

and longing. she would call her mother to tell her the news, and her mother would sigh with relief

and say, thank you for being reasonable, effy. you have enough problems to deal with as it is.

just then, all of it seemed preferable to staying in hiraeth. but she could do nothing about it

until the sun rose.

she opened her trunk and changed into her nightgown, cringing at the feel of the icy stone

floor against her bare feet. she opened up her other pill bottle and swallowed her sleeping pill

without water, feeling too demoralized to even try the taps. she lit the candle on the bedside table,

and extinguished the oil lamps.

effy was about to crawl under the velvet duvet when a terrible fear plucked at her. she thought

again of the creature in the road. it had not been a deer, but it had been nothing human, either; she

knew that much. and it had not been imagined. she’d taken her pink pill. wetherell had seen it,

too. even the doctor, with his medical tomes and his glass bottles, could not have explained it.

anything could come bursting in, anything. effy snatched up the candle and walked toward the

door, her breath coming in short, cold spurts.

there was no lock, but the door was extraordinarily heavy and bolstered with metal. iron. effy

ran her finger over the brace, and no rust flaked away under her touch. everything else in the

cottage was ancient, but the iron was new.

as effy returned, haltingly, to the four-poster, a phrase floated up in her mind. i waited for the

fairy king in our marriage bed, but he didn’t know i was wearing a girdle of iron. angharad’s

words were so familiar, they were like the voice of an old friend. few things could truly guard

against the fair folk, but iron was one of them.

effy knelt over her trunk and took out her copy of angharad, flipping to the page where she’d

underlined that passage in black pen. this was myrddin protecting her, giving her a sign. keeping

her safe.

she tucked the book under the pillows and pulled the duvet up to her chin. the dark was heavy

and still. it was utterly silent, save for the faint sound of water dripping. wherever the water was,

it sounded close.

she was sure she would never be able to fall asleep in this clammy, dense silence, but the

sleeping pill did its work. effy slipped quietly under, the memory of angharad’s words something

close to a lullaby.