Plain Kate -- the bit with the fish
A bit from Plain Kate, following directly from this bit.
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The next day Plain Kate sketched and carved in scrap wood, trying to learn how the bow worked. Even as she bent over the little birds of the headdress for Nicolovena she was thinking about how the bow bent with the grain of the wood. She didn't notice how Linay watched her. She forgot even to be hungry.
When it got too dark to work, she packed the headdress pieces away in straw, and went down to the docks with her rod and wooden lures. Taggle went ahead of her with his tail curled into a question mark, which meant he was happy. The day fishers were just coming in, unloading the fish and nets and gear with great loops of talk and rope. The night fishers where just going out, lighting the fires that shone down on the water.
Plain Kate went down to a rotted dock, too small for the new boats, at end of quay. She fished as the stars thickened, throwing her line into the darkening water. Taggle spent time catching the moths drawn to the fires of the night fishers. He leapt and twisted in the shadows.
She caught only one small bluegill in the first hour, but as the fishers came wheeling the catch back into town things changed. Suddenly beneath her lure the river swarmed with fish. There were as thick as waves in a whirlpool. Taggle curled his claws into the end of the dock and leaned down until his nose almost touched the water. His yellow eyes were huge. He looked like a gargoyle, still except for a twitch in the tip of his tail. He clicked his teeth with excitement.
The fishermen had stopped to look. "Girly, would you look at that," said Big Hans, putting his wheel barrow down. "Are you using bait or magic? Look how thick they are -- a body could stand on them."
Plain Kate had pulled fish after fish from the river. She didn't even need bait for the hook. She stopped and tilted her head way back to see Big Hans looming over her in the moonlight. "A little body, maybe," she said.
"Maybe," said Big Hans, and nudged Taggle's twitching rear end with his big boot. The cat fell and twisted as he fell, sinking his claws deep into the rotting dock and kicking at the water. Plain Kate pulled him up by the scruff and held him to her. He dripped and yowled and hissed at Big Hans. Hans laughed. "Fierce beast you've got there, Girly. Don't you want to see if he can walk on fish?"
"Leave be, Hans," said the oldest fisher, who everyone called Father. "What happens here, Plain Kate? How did you draw the fish?"
"It's nothing I did, Father. They've just ... come."
The fish whirled and swirled in the moonlight.
"Fish, then," said Father. He eased Taggle out of her arms. "Don't turn your back on blessing." He set the cat down and watched as Kate cast the bare hook back into the swarm of fish. "You'll eat for a while anyway," he said. "But it is an uncanny thing."
"A witchy thing," said Big Hans, and someone behind him murmured in agreement.
"Leave be," said Father, again. "I'll come back with a wheel barrow, if you want, Plain Kate."
"They're not candlefish, either," said Big Hans. "They're trout."
Plain Kate ignored him. "The barrow would be a kindness, Father."
"Oh," he lilted. "I'll have a bit of mending for it. The Queen has a cracked spar. Come, lads, let's get the catch in." And he walked off and the fishermen followed, and the whispering of witchcraft went with them.
****
Plain Kate traded the chinking of two cracked spars in Father's boat, the Queen, for both the use of the barrow and the smoking of her fish. One fat trout she stuffed with wild dill and roasted on a hickory plank over the square fire. She ate as much of the fish was she could was full for the first time in weeks. The next day she had cold fish for breakfast, and Niki's hard rolls.
And she then she went into the woods to look for wood for the bow. In the town behind her there were rumours building.
****
When they opened the smokehouse on the third day, her trout were smoke yellow and pink and still plump. But all the other fish were bones and black ashes. They fell to dust at the slightest touch.
Niki brought her the news when he came from the wrens-and-roses headdress. "An uncanny thing," he said, shifting from foot to foot as Plain Kate packed the headdress into a box. "You should take care, Plain Kate. They say ...."
"What do they say?"
"Take care, Kate," he said again.
The day was warm and still but Plain Kate felt cold. There were whispers and glances in the market square. Taggle and came presented her with a half-dead bat. Plain Kate hit it with a hammer and hid it in a drawer. When she looked up half the square was looking at her. They looked down and she looked down. She pegged together the wood for the bow.
Taggle made a bleat that sounded like "want, want" and butted her hand with his bat-blooded muzzle.
"What?" she said. "You brought it to me. You can have some when I cook it."
The cat flopped down on top of her work. He yowled pathetically and presented his belly, pink under his grey fur.
"Look," she started. "I can't work when you're--" Then all at once the cat flipped to his feet and hissed.
Plain Kate looked up. Linay was lounging silently against the prop of her awning. "Fair maid of the wood," he said. "How goes the bow?"
Plain Kate shrugged.
"I've heard your name in strange tales, Katie girl. They say you witched the fish." He sang: "Witch, Fish, Flinch, Kiss -- Won't you let me grant your wish?"
"No," she said.
"Hmmm," he said. "I wonder how much it will take to make you change your mind." And he sang:
Plain Kate, Kate the Carver,
No one's friend and no one's daughter
Little Kate will meet her fate
Whittling sticks till it's too late
She kept looking down, and tightened the screws on the pegged wood. "I won't work any faster with you watching me."
Taggle, who had slunk around the upright, popped out and bit Linay on the elbow, then swarmed up his shirt and clawed him in the ear. Linay yelped. Taggle jumped and dashed. Plain Kate hid a smile behind her hanging hair.
"Tomorrow, then," Linay gave her an elegant bow, and stalked off nursing a bleeding elbow.
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Having read this far you must now comment ... I honestly am not sure if presenting
stories in progress in this sort of space serves either me or you, so let me know.
7 Comments
I love it! That cat is wonderful. And the hint of approaching trouble is working very well. It aces the Makes-you-want-to-read-more test
The half-dead bat is fabulous, as well as fish-so-thick-the-cat-could-walk-on-them. Lovely, completely individual details that make it work so well. Keep going! More!
I’m not sure about Kate herself…we don’t get anything of how she feels at all during all this, other than “the day was warm and still but Plain Kate felt cold” and the hidden smile when Taggle once again expresses his opinion of Linay. I wanted more, somehow. I feel a bit - distanced from Kate.
I do like the way you are building the tension with the witch rumors. Linay makes a cunning opponent, a sophisticated Loki-type.
When you find a publisher, I will buy this book. =)
I like the story and reading it as it develops. Please keep the bits coming.
I really love this…but I do have to agree a bit with Karla…it’s hard to know what Kate is thinking about all this. Maybe that’s intentional and it will come out later? I don’t think that the reader needs to “get into her head” per se, but if she showed a bit more emotion in some way it might be helpful.
Your attention to detail is wonderful and your descriptions are poetic and lovely. Definitely definitely aces the read-more test!
Just lovely.
Hello Erin, I am glad I have found your website. I am adding it to my blogroll and will read more of your work tomorrow at work. All the best from the Netherlands (where we have Cees Nooteboom, famous Dutch writer. I was wondering if you are family).