“Then she is bad.” He brought the words out with such force and emphasis that they sounded like the crack of a whip.
The old man cuffed him twice. “Is it your mother you are speaking of?”
The boy stood his ground, without change of expression, but said nothing.
The youngest child spoke, for the first time. “My mother will not come back, but she will die dancing.”
Polecrab and his wife looked at one another.
“Where are you going to, Mother?” asked the eldest lad.
Gleameil bent down, and kissed him. “To the Island.”
“Well then, if you don’t come back by tomorrow morning, I will go and look for you.”
Maskull grew more and more uneasy in his mind. “This seems to me to be a man’s journey,” he said. “I think it would be better for you not to come, Gleameil.”
“I am not to be dissuaded,” she replied.