The Spellcoats by Diana Wynne Jones

the tips of the rushes. “You mustn’t let Gull go to the sea, Tanaqui,” she said. “Can’t you see that? Promise me to stop him.”
    I turned round again, and of course there was nothing. “Might as well try to stop the River, the way he carries on,” I said, just in case she could hear me. Then I thought what a fool I was. I did almost cry, but not quite. I went back to the fire instead.
    Gull was not there. I was quite horrified for a moment. Then I found he had got back into the boat and was lying there, staring up at the gray sky. “You’d better stay there,” I said to him. I went and looked at Robin, still asleep. I had a feeling, from what Uncle Kestrel said, that my mother had looked a little like Robin. If you look at Robin that way, not just as a person you know very well, she is very pretty. Her face is longish, but round and even, and her eyebrows are quite dark. She always calls her hair yellow and wriggly, but I think that is what people mean when they talk about golden curls. Her eyes are large and blue. Even with her eyes shut, and mauve shadows under them, she was pretty.
    She woke up as I looked. “Why are you staring? What’s the matter?”
    â€œGull’s gone back to the boat,” I said.
    â€œBy himself?” said Robin. “Oh, dear, what is the matter with him, Tanaqui?”
    â€œHe had a bad time in the wars,” I said.
    Duck came marching across from somewhere, carrying the Lady by her head as usual. “No, it isn’t,” he said. “Uncle Kestrel told you. The Heathens put spells on him, and now they want him to go to the sea.”
    â€œI don’t think it’s quite like that, Duck, love,” Robin said, looking worried. “Tanaqui, I had a dream—”
    But I have not heard to this day what Robin’s dream was because Hern came rushing back just then, full of brisk talk about getting to the end of the lake by nightfall, and Robin must have forgotten her dream. Whatever it was, it made her happier. She was nothing like so scared of the lake after that.
    That lake is huge. We sailed in it all that day and half the next. Beyond the island it became wider yet, until we could barely see the other shore. There were more islands scattered on it, and we learned not to sail too near them, because our keel got tangled with any trees or bushes that grew at their edges before the floods came. We had one lucky escape from a bush and another from a great torn bough, moving on the flood, which I did not see behind the sail.
    I think the banks of the lake must have been quite crowded with people before the Heathen came. We saw planks floating and logs cut for winter, hen coops, barrels, and chairs. Duck saw two drowned cats, and I saw a dog. We all saw the corpse except Gull. That was horrible. We came quite near, because Robin insisted the person was alive, until we saw it was only the waves moving her. We thought it was a girl, but she was so small and the clothes so strange that it was hard to be sure. The long hair was browned with the water, but we could see it had been fair and curly.
    â€œIt’s a Heathen,” Duck said. He took the pole and turned her. Her throat was cut. Duck pushed her away with the pole quickly, and then he was sick. We all felt terrible. We none of us said anything, but we knew we did not dare to go near any of our own people. That corpse looked just like us.
    We met no one living all the length of that lake. Once or twice we thought we saw other corpses, but we did not go near them. Nobody was sailing except us. Later in the day it rained. A big purple cloud hung over us, lower than the rest of the sky, and rain soused down on us out of it. Behind us the lake was silver with sun, and in front of us a mighty rainbow came down across some dark green pine trees growing on a point of land and buried itself in the lake at their roots. We saw the trees sunlit through the colors of