Gareth man's Arc

Chapter 3 of 3

The innkeeper found Gareth at dawn. She stood in his doorway with a ledger and held out her hand. "A week's lodging. You pay now, or you're out before the tide." Gareth had nine fewer coins than he needed. He had no coins at all. He asked for one more day. She shook her head and told him to be gone by noon. Gareth walked the shore to think. The sun was low and the water lay flat. He had two nights until the crossing and nowhere to sleep. Then he saw something caught in the rocks below the tide line. It was wedged among the stones, half in the foam. He climbed down. A carved figure lay there, tall as his arm. A mermaid queen, cut from pale wood, with a crown of coral and a scaled tail that caught the light. Pearls lined her arms. Someone had lost her, or thrown her away. The paint was bright. The gold was real gold leaf. Gareth lifted her from the rocks. She was heavy and finely made. He carried the carving to the trading post. The shopkeeper there bought odd things off sailors. The man turned the figure in his hands and ran a thumb over the crown. "Ship's carving. Off a prow, I'd guess. Hasn't been in the water long." He looked at Gareth with narrow eyes. "Where'd you get it?" "The rocks by the shore. The tide left it." The shopkeeper named a price. It was more than Gareth owed the inn, with a little over. Gareth took the coins. They were island coins, worn and plain, the kind the innkeeper would take. He felt the weight of them and thought of how close he had come to sleeping in the cold. He paid the innkeeper before noon. She counted the coins twice, found them good, and marked her ledger. "You keep the room through the crossing night," she said. Her voice was softer now. "Lucky you found something to sell." Gareth nodded. He went up to his room and sat on the bed. He had a roof again. He had two nights of sleep before the boatman rowed him out. But his pockets held only a few coins now, and after the inn took its share, almost nothing was left. The boatman had his nine. The channel waited. If anything went wrong at the lighthouse, if his daughter needed more than his two hands, he had no gold to buy it. He had traded a drowned queen for a bed, and he would reach the lighthouse with empty pockets.