Snakehead by Ann Halam Page A

than the ocean. It had different words on every island, even for every singer. But on Serifos nobody was allowed to sing “Dark Water” the Mando way unless she taught them; and she was very choosy.
    “No one can steal your songs!” cried Papa Dicty, sweeping the tallyboards out of sight. “The girl knows a few lines of the lyric. Why not, most people do. It’s your glorious art that makes the song! But listen, Mando dear, I was thinking. I want to make you an extra gift, to celebrate a superb performance. I’ve decided I will tell you the recipe for my wheat ribbons,
and
I’ll give you a ribbon press.”
    Mando seemed to expand. Though she dressed like a farmhand when she wasn’t singing, she was said to be extremely rich. She made sure she got paid, but the fame her shows brought meant far more to her. Papa Dicty’swheat ribbons! What news to tell the crowd! She bowed, with dignity, then took his hand and kissed it. The harsh, blunt farmhand accent vanished.
    “Papa Dicty, you truly honor me. Well, well. I think I
was
in good tone tonight. May I excuse myself, gentlemen and ladies: I must go to my audience.”
    Mando left us, like a court lady’s very solid ghost. Kore came out from behind the bar, and drew a deep breath. “I can’t stay. I’ll have to leave. But I
will
explain.” She walked quickly, chin up, out into the yard. Anthe made a move to go after her.
    “Don’t,” said Moumi. “She’ll tell us the truth. Let it wait until morning.”
    “I’d better join the people on the terrace,” sighed Papa Dicty. “Or it will look strange, and impolite to the singer. There’s a good chance that nobody noticed what Kore was doing, or understood what they saw, and a good chance that Mando will only remember the wheat ribbons. Let’s hope that’s the case.”
    “I’ll come with you,” said Moumi.
    The three of us stayed where we were. Palikari whistled, shook his head, reached for shot cups and poured a steadying tot of Kitron all around. Anthe downed hers at a gulp. Her hair, too curly to be tamed for long, was coming out of its stylish ringlets. “Why did she say,
I can’t stay?
Does she think we won’t protect her? I don’t understand why she’s terrified. She can read and write, it’s a wonderful thing!”
    “It’s
too
wonderful,” said Palikari grimly. “There wereinformers in here, there always are, and I bet they were watching our mystery girl. She’s given herself away. Someone will know who she is, a girl who can read and write: as good as if she’d shouted out her real name (whatever it is). The king is going to demand that we hand her over, like a piece of loot. He’ll force us to defy him, and you know what …?” He stopped, set his teeth, looked at the floor and muttered, “Maybe it’s high time!”
    “Did she say it’s a
new kind
of writing?” I asked.
    No answer. The lamps were dying, so we could barely see each other’s faces. Moonlight from outdoors spread cold white sheaves across the floor. There were eyes in the dark, down beside the hearth. The spirit that lived there had curled up into a quivering ball of limbs, like a threatened spider.
    My friends wanted me to face up to the king of Serifos, before he could strike the first blow. I couldn’t blame them if they thought I was afraid of Polydectes, the way I was reacting to this new crisis. But I wasn’t.
    It wasn’t the king who would take Kore from me.
    I could see things other people couldn’t. I could see hearth spirits and water nymphs. Now I knew, like thunder after lightning, why I had felt that strange fear as I saw her driving away with her stylus. It wasn’t because my darling possessed a dangerous, covetable skill. I had seen the finality of doom in her eyes when she looked up from the tallyboards where she had written the “Dark Water” song.
    She was god-touched. And tonight, in this room, in the flickering lamplight, her fate had tracked her down.

K ore did not explain herself. When I