bank.
The mud had gone. The water was clear, the crowfoot swaying gently, great, trailing tendrils, stretching towards her. She kicked out for the bank and the crowfoot seemed to pull back. But as it did, a shadow curled underneath. Too big for a fish.
For a flit of a second, the shadow showed itself. In the tangle of weeds.
What she saw almost stopped her heart.
A hand. Then a face. Then it was gone.
Moss dived back into the river, floundering through the weed, dragging it out in great clumps, pulling it apart.
Nothing. The shadow had vanished, and with it, the face.
It was a face she’d never seen before. Yet it was familiar. Green eyes, a tangle of hair. So like her own. But older, sadder.
She couldn’t be sure. She’d never seen her.
Her mother’s face.
It was dusk by the time Moss and Salter made it back to the village. She had stashed her apple sack in the hollow of the willow as usual, changing back into her dry dress in the bushes. Salter was wet through. But despite his sodden clothes, he kept up a cheery banter all the way from the fields to the lane. Every time Moss tried to mention the river, he changed the subject, so in the end she gave up and slunk into her own thoughts. In her head, a picture shimmered. She’d only seen it for a moment. But she had seen it.
The face. Her mother’s face? Was it possible? But her mother was dead. Could that have been her spirit in the river today? She turned the thought over and over. A year and a half ago, she’d seen with her own eyes how the dead could be given life by the cold waters. The Riverwitch had revealed herself. A restless spirit who haunted the rivers, looking for children to snatch.
Ignoring Pa’s pleas to stay away from the river, Moss had left him and made her way out of the Tower. And on Moss’s twelfth birthday the Riverwitch had come for her, just as she’d promised on the day Moss was born. She’d dragged Moss down to the depths of the murky Thames. But there in the swirl and suck of the river, Moss succeeded in changing her fate. And the Riverwitch had let her go.
Moss, Pa and Salter had walked away from their old lives in London and settled in a country village where Pa was welcomed as the new blacksmith. During those early days, Moss had wondered whether the Witch would come for her again. But the more she’d swum in the gentle village river, the bolder she’d become, until the strangeness of that winter had seemed so far away it was almost unreal. She’d buried those memories deep, hoping she’d never have to dig them up. The Riverwitch was gone from their thoughts and their lives. But today . . . what had she seen? The coiling weeds had filled her head with thoughts of the Witch. Yet the face in the water was not the face of the Riverwitch.
The squat little forge was a welcome sight. Moss pushed at the door. Warmth and smoke wrapped her like a blanket. Pa was already asleep, a rising, falling bundle on his pallet. They trod past him softly and settled on the low stools by the fire. The clear October sky brought a chill to the air and Pa allowed a log or two to burn way into the night.
‘Rabbitin tomorrow,’ said Salter. ‘Set the traps yesterday an’ I’m goin back to see what I’ve got first light.’
‘Salter . . .’
‘Yep?’
‘What was that, in the river?’
‘Search me. Some sort of freak current. Ain’t never seen it like that. All whipped up with mud an’ stinkin like a badger’s bum. Best not go swimmin fer a while, Leatherboots. Too dangerous. This time we was lucky.’
But it didn’t feel like luck to Moss. It felt like the river had changed. And the face in the waterweed – she couldn’t stop thinking about it.
‘Salter,’
‘Mmm.’
‘Can I ask you something?’
‘If you must. I can tell that head of yers is stewin. Though if you was to ask me, I’d say that questions only lead to more questions an’ don’t make yer troubles go away.’
Moss gave the fire a poke. On the one hand, she liked the way Salter just got on with life, making the best of things wherever possible. But he never questioned why things were the way they were, and this frustrated her no end. She supposed he couldn’t help it. After all, he’d been just six years old when his parents died. From that day on, alone, with nothing but his hands and his wits, he’d had to fend for himself. ‘Bread first, then morals,’ he always said. Survival was the most important thing and Salter had learned not to ask too many questions, of himself or anyone else. But the village was a world away from that harsh life, thought Moss. And there were moments when she wondered if there was more to Salter than he was letting on.
‘You think too much,’ he said.
‘Do I? And what about you? What goes on in that head of yours? Or is just full of rabbits?’
Salter grinned. ‘Yep. Fish an’ rabbits, that’s me, shore girl.’
‘Shore girl? I can swim almost as well as you.’
‘All thanks to my brilliant teachin.’
‘Oh, is that what you call it? Holding a rope and shouting from the bank?’
‘I could have just thrown you in and watched you sink.’
‘Do you know, sometimes I can’t quite believe it. All this. Swimming in the river, us living here, Pa working the forge. It’s more than I could ever have hoped for.’
Salter eyed her. ‘So what’s on yer mind, then?’
Moss hesitated, not even sure herself what she wanted to say.
‘Go on, Leatherboots, out with it!’
‘Well, here in the village, we have food, Pa has work, I’m not catching heads in a basket. Life is good, Salter.’
‘Yes it is.’
‘It’s just that, do you ever, sometimes . . .’
‘What?’
‘. . . feel that something is missing?’
‘Missin?’ Salter’s eyes widened. ‘Missin.’ He rolled the word around his mouth. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘since yer askin, I miss the old river.’
Moss sat up.
‘Yes,
