Free Home From The Sea: The Elemental Masters, Book Seven by Mercedes Lackey

before, wrapping his hand in a handkerchief.
    She was finished with the peas by then. An idea had occurred to her, so she got up and set the bowl of peas on her seat. Restraining her expression with difficulty, she picked up another basket from the side of the house, this one very old and battered, taking the least battered from her selection of three. Then she got two net bags. Without saying a word, she trudged down to the shore. He could follow if he liked; she wondered if he would.
    He did. “Where are you going?” he shouted, a little breathless, his tone angry. “I am not finished speaking with you yet!”
    She looked back. “I got work,” she said shortly, only a little above a whisper. “It needs doing.”
    “I demand that you answer my questions!” he shouted, red-faced, stumbling a little over the uneven surface. She doubted he’d even heard what she’d said.
    She shook her head. “Then I reckon,” she said, hunching her chin down and looking servile, “you’d best follow.”
    She plodded a good half mile down the shore to where the best kelp generally washed up. It was in the opposite direction to the site where her mother had been taken, but really, even
he
could not be so daft as to think she would go to that same spot! As she’d thought, the last storm had brought in plenty. It was almost dry now, perfect for her purpose. She began picking it up, shaking the sand out, and packing it into her basket, as he finally caught up with her.
    “What in God’s name are you doing, girl?” he asked, still sounding angry. She glanced at him again. He was angry—with an incredulous look on his face as if he thought she was playing some sort of trick on him. So she had been right. He had
never
heard of kelping. Did he think that the seaweeds washed up on the beach were worthless? Or had he been so spoiled all his life that he’d never had to find a use for everything that came into his hand?
    City man. Pff.
    “Kelpin’,” she said shortly.
    “Oh, he’s a rude one,”
said a bright voice beside her.
    The voice chilled her anger and made her swallow hard. She looked out of the corner of her eye, and spotted one of the seaweed-girls, like the one she had seen the other day, the ones that would lead her to good places for mussels and cockles. These were tiny little things, no higher than your knee, who were dressed all in green drapery, like seaweed, with hair as green as the seaweed. She glanced at the constable. Clearly
he
did not see her.
    This was the first time one of
them
had turned up when she was with another person. And that other person didn’t see the creature. So was this a confirmation? Was she really going mad?
    Before she could get any farther in her thoughts than that, the tiny thing spoke up again.
    “No fear; the likes of him can’t see the likes of me. And I’m minded to do him a mischief,”
the little thing continued. And before Mari could blink, the girl was gone.
    Do him a mischief? What on earth
— Oh, she knew what that meant in the stories. The Tylwyth Teg folk didn’t like rudeness, and they punished it in a number of ways. But if this creature was some symptom of madness… how could it do something against someone else?
    Automatically, her hands had carried out the work while her mind had been watching and listening to the seaweed-girl. Where she saw fresh laver or samphire she added it to her net bags. And now the constable had caught his breath and was back to his questions. “Your father fishes every day?”
    Good heavens, the man was persistent.
    “Aye,” she said, moving away from him, carefully picking up kelp and shaking it out. “E’cept Sunday.”
    “Why not Sunday?” He was writing again.
    “We go to chapel.” This time she allowed incredulity to creep into her voice. Didn’t
he
go to chapel? Or church?
    Oh. Wait. Anarchists were supposed to not believe in God. “Ask parson,” she added.
    “He goes out fishing every day but Sunday? Even when it