The Pearl Whisperer E-Book

Karin Erlandsson

• Herausgeber: Young Dedalus
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Beschreibung

Magical treasures and terrible dangers in a beautiful underwater world… The Pearl Whisperer is the first book in the four-part series Song of the Eye Stone. Set in a fantastical world, it is an epic saga of friendship, longing and the things that truly matter in life. It is published with Book 2 The Bird Master.Pearls are the most precious commodity in the Queendom, and Miranda is the most skilled pearl fisher of all, even with only one arm. But she has her eyes on a greater treasure: the famous eye stone. Legend has it that whoever finds the eye stone will never want for anything again. But how is Miranda supposed to find it when Syrsa, a chatty little girl with no diving experience, insists on tagging along? It soon becomes clear that they are not the only ones on the hunt for the eye gemstone. Iberis, the white-haired woman with the burning eyes, is right behind them. Who finds it first will depend on the mythical pearl whisperer, someone with the magical ability to hear the pearl's song.The Pearl Whisperer won the Runeberg Junior Prize 2018 and was nominated for the Nordic Council's Children and Youth Literature Prize 2018.

Leseprobe

Contents

The Author

The Translator

Dedication

The Prophecy

At Sea

Into the Deep

The Rose-Shark

The Hunt Begins

While the Porridge Cooks

A Visit

Syrsa

Syrsa Tells A Story

Iberis with the White Hair

The Cave

A Boatload

To the Lighthouse

Tekla the Lighthouse Keeper

Upward

Dinner in the Lighthouse

Cellar of Treasures

The Silver Bugle

Nocturnal Farewell

The Bugle and the Pearls

The Curse

Hildegard of the Northern Region

Dinner on the Lawn

Another Guest

The Lesson

The Map Room

The Path

Gone

Away

Alone at Sea

Dangers

Stillness and Story

Rescue

The Square in the Northern Town

The Town at the End of the Sea

All the Others

Lydia’s Secret

Miranda’s Story

In the Forest

To the River

On the Island of Many Roots

In the River

Where is Syrsa?

In the Waterfall

By the Fire

Found

Away from the River

The End of the Story

In the Rain

Onward

Book Three of Song of the Eye Stone

Book Four of Song of the Eye Stone

Other Young Dedalus Titles

Copyright

The Author

Karin Erlandsson, born in 1978, is one of the most successful and most acclaimed children’s authors in the Swedish language. She is a Swedish-speaking Finnish author and journalist who has won many literary prizes. The Pearl Whisperer won the Runeberg Junior Prize in 2018 and was nominated for the Nordic Council’s Children and Youth Literature Prize in 2018.

Dedalus will publish her four-part series Song of the Eye Stone during 2022 and 2023.

The Translator

Annie Prime is a prize-winning translator of children’s fiction from Swedish into English. She is translating the four-part series Song of the Eye Stone by Karin Erlandsson, for Dedalus.

For the children.

Who are,

who almost were,

and who somebody longs for.

The Prophecy

The fortune-teller holds my hand in a steady grip. Her hands are chapped and it feels like her skin might cut through mine. But it is the cat that draws my attention. The cat is sitting on the fortune-teller’s shoulder and staring at me, unblinking.

It has pale blue eyes and white fur, and is nothing like the other cats prowling wild between the market stalls. This cat’s eyes are as blue as the sea.

I tear my gaze from the cat and look at the fortune-teller. She has been waiting; she is probably used to the cat distracting people’s attention.

I arrived in the southern region yesterday evening. The train was delayed so I decided to do the last stretch on foot in the company of a group of traders. They were taking their wares to market, carrying large sacks full of toys, bread and items made of woven straw. All I had was my leather satchel, the one I always travel with.

“Hey you,” said a large man pulling a cart of axes and knives. “Walk in the middle so we can protect you if something happens.”

I didn’t protest. I know I look girlish with my long plait and chequered shirt.

We walked in a long procession along the railway tracks. Wheat violet, the tall white flowers that this landscape is famous for, swayed along the ditch banks. They gave off a strong scent and I picked a handful of flowers to chew on.

They tasted wonderful, as always. If I am perfectly honest, which I may as well be seeing as I only have one chance to tell this story, these flowers are one of the reasons I always return. The flowers and the sea.

At dusk our caravan arrived at the square. The moon was rising over the rooftops and the long line of travellers parted ways without a word.

Perhaps that is why I like to travel. You share a period of time with people and then never have to see them again.

I sought out the room with a balcony facing the beach. It is where Papa and I used to spend the night, before he left me. Now he is gone I have taken over.

When I arrived, the same toothless woman was sitting outside in her chair. She held out her hand, but not in greeting — in this region people don’t touch each other. I laid a silver coin in her palm.

I fell asleep almost instantly.

Sleeping by the sea is both calming and exciting. The rhythm of waves on the shore is relaxing, but at the same time the sea is calling to me. When people can’t sleep in the southern region they don’t count sheep; they count waves hitting the shore.

I tossed and turned in bed, thinking about the depths of the ocean, that I should be down there. Any time I spend sleeping is time when I am missing out on hundreds, maybe thousands of pearls.

I came down to the market place as soon as I woke up. I have to find Marko. He is expecting me.

The fortune-teller appears before me as if from nowhere and takes hold of my hand before I can stop her.

The cat and woman both turn to look at me at the same time. They stare with their heads tilted to one side, then both very subtly shake their heads, first the cat, then the woman.

“You’re going to suffer,” says the woman.

Her clear voice carries over all the bartering in the market place.

The cat wrinkles its nose as if I smell bad and I try to free my hand from her grip.

“You’re going to suffer from…”

She pauses and looks at the cat that is slowly nodding its head.

“It’s something you will desire, something you should have… something great.”

I want to shush her, there’s no need to shout, but I say nothing and she continues.

“It will take you far away and maybe home again. Maybe somewhere entirely different.”

She lets go of my hand. The cat hops down from her shoulder and pushes past me on the narrow pavement.

“Wait,” I call after them. “When will this happen?”

The woman stops but doesn’t turn around. The cat carries on walking and my eyes fix on its tail as I continue speaking.

“Has my time come?”

The woman’s voice is so loud that I hear her response clearly even though she is facing away from me.

“You never know.”

Then, just as suddenly as she arrived, she is gone. I rub my hand on my leg to get rid of the tingling sensation.

People barge into me as they pass by. I stand up tall and look out to sea. I mustn’t forget why I am here.

I see Marko standing on the outskirts of the market place. He doesn’t smile — he rarely does — but he nods slightly as I approach. We haven’t seen each other in a long time. Without a word, we push the boat out into the water.

At Sea

Marko is staring out to sea. It’s dark blue today, shifting colours with reflections of the sky and its fluffy white passing clouds. I sit at the front of the fore and look at the foaming waves. The water is clear but there are no pearls left this close to land. They were picked long ago.

It is an ordinary fishing boat, the type everyone uses in these parts. The turquoise sail is patched in several places but Marko is confident. In the same way as I know the forests of my homeland, every knoll and every path, he knows the sea.

He barely touches the rudder with the tips of his fingers, but steers us easily around rocks and islets before we emerge onto open waters.

As we pass the harbour pier I see several other boats heading out in the same direction. It is a beautiful day. No pearl fisher could stay on land, knowing what awaits them in the deep. There are no boats ahead of us. I am first, as always.

Many pearl fishers have come for the season, like I have. They have left their homes for a spell in the southern region. The boats carry pearl fishers from the eastern mountain regions and the western farming regions. I am the only one who hails from the North.

I don’t want to think about the northern region. It is my homeland, with green forests and a sky so low it seems to rest on the fir tree canopies, yet it has never felt like home.

I think about the fortune-teller and her cat instead. It occurs to me that the cat had the same colour eyes as the sail stretching over my head.

I know what I want. I have always known. But the fortune-teller is referring to something else, something I have both longed for and feared. I must be prepared.

Marko clears his throat and interrupts my train of thought. He nods to a basket leaning against the mast.

Marko has a wife with red hair and unusually short legs. She reaches my chest, and I am not very tall myself. At the end of every season I am invited to Marko’s family home. Their five children run around the table while his wife stands at the stove and stirs a pot full of tomato, fennel and mussels. I picture her like that when I go hungry on cold nights in the mountain ranges of the East, or thirsty on hot days in the fields of the West.

The only thing better than her mussel stew is her sandwiches. The bread is baked from dried wheat violet flour, and mixed with spices she picks from her garden, and it is so flavoursome that it hardly needs anything else.

But I know the sandwiches in the basket will have all sorts of fillings: dried scallops, smoked salmon, honey-herring, scrambled eggs…

Marko watches me lift the white linen cloth and breathe in the smells. I know he will tell his wife everything this evening. My appreciation is her reward.

I unwrap the butter paper and take a big bite. The taste of marinated eel and pickled cucumber explodes on my tongue and I close my eyes as I eat. These flavours remind me of every single time that Marko and I have gone out sailing together like this, ever since I was a child. Papa sat beside me then, pointing at the sail and telling me about wind force and the symbols of the lighthouses. When it came time to eat he would always let me choose my sandwich first.

Marko could soon tell that I knew what I was doing. He knew that no one gets the sort of injury I have without plenty of underwater experience. He had seen me dive with my father.

I open the next sandwich and savour the taste of horseradish and oysters. My favourite. When I open my eyes again Marko has cast anchor. With his eyes fixed on a point on the horizon, he nods slowly, as if his head is rocking along with the motions of the boat.

That’s another thing I like about Marko: he knows when to look at me and when to look away.

My equipment has been packed away since last season and the diving hood is stiff with salt water. The fabric is light on my shoulders and I inhale the ingrained scent of seaweed and rubber.

This diving hood is the most expensive object I own, and you would be hard pressed to find a better one. The best diving hoods are made by the Queen’s artisans, with thin material that lies close to the skin, yet allows you to breathe freely. The looking window is so clear that you forget it is even there.

Papa never said how he came across it. One day he just took the hood out of his kit bag and gave it to me.

Marko pulls the wooden box out from under the seat. We both know the box will be full of pearls by the end of the day.

I am the most skilled pearl fisher in all the land. I am not saying this to be boastful; it is simply a fact. Before the day is done, this box will be filled with red, blue and yellow pearls, and the other pearl fishers will go home with their boxes only half full.

Seeing as my pearls have the brightest colours and make the most beautiful necklaces, crowns and rings, I will also command the highest price in the square this evening.

I sit on the railing with my back to the sea and let myself fall backwards. I sink like a stone before turning around and kicking hard to dive deeper and deeper towards the bottom.

Into the Deep

If anyone asks why I am the best pearl fisher, my answer is this:

I am the best because I want the pearls. The others see pearls as cattle to sell at the market, or wool to make into clothes, as something that can make them rich or at least help put food on the table. I want the pearls themselves.

Not to keep, of course. I sell the pearls to merchants from the capital, just like everyone else. But before I do, they are mine and mine alone. I watch the pearls’ colours reflect in the water and feel the hard mother-of-pearl in my hand.

Pearl fishers have no use for pearls; they are all sent to the Queen’s courtiers. At most, we might save the odd pearl in case we need to use it as a bartering chip. It is our job to find pearls, and the privilege of the Queen to use them.

But in the meantime, I think of them as my own.

As I sink into the turquoise water I feel warmth spread through my chest. Soon I’ll be there, soon I’ll be down among the pearls. The fish pay me no heed; to them I am no more noteworthy than a pebble thrown into the water.

The pearls transform the seabed into a rainbow. The white pearls reflect the colours of the others and shift between a thousand shades. Whites are my favourites, but reds command the highest price.

During the winter months pearl fishing is forbidden. The Queen has ruled that the pearls must have time to grow in size and quantity. When I step out of the water for the final time in the autumn I ache inside, and the ache continues until the first dive of the following summer.

I don’t care that we pearl fishers don’t keep the pearls ourselves, that they are transported to the capital to become ladies’ jewellery and be set into the paving of the Queen’s Avenue.

In the moment when I find the pearls, they are mine. It is enough.

They say that the Queen’s Avenue is two miles long and she has had the surface paved with pearls instead of cobblestones. It must be an incredible sight. And yet, as I reach the bottom I think to myself that not even the Queen’s Avenue could ever compare with the ocean floor in the southern region.

Everywhere I look, there are pearls. Some have sunk into the sand, others are stacked on top of each other, and others are solitary, lying on pillows of seaweed and algae.

I pick up a large green pearl that is sitting directly in front of me. The pearl is the size of my palm and feels just as it should: a smooth surface and hard as rock. Nothing can crush a pearl.

The warmth in my chest spreads to my legs and arm. I am home; I am where I belong. In the sea, under the water.

I don’t need to walk far along the seabed before I have filled my satchel with pearls. When it is too full to close, I kick my way up to the surface.

Marko sees the bubbles and has the box ready by the railing. I swing my satchel up on the deck and take a look around while Marko is transferring the pearls into the box.

Several boats have anchored nearby but they are all at an appropriate distance. We respect each other’s territory and keep our best spots secret, just like we do in the North with the best spots for picking mushrooms.

After just a couple of dives the box is almost full. I nod to Marko to let him know I am going to do one final dive, then I grab the satchel and sink back down.

I see several red pearls in a blue algae reef. They are a rare shade of red and I know I can get a good price for them.

I kick forcefully a few times, but as I reach out my hand I see a shadow above me. The pale green algae and red pearls darken. I freeze, because I know at once what it is.

The rose-shark was so named because its nose resembles a rosebud. But inside those rose petals is a mouth full of sharp teeth like thorns. They can rip off a limb in a matter of seconds. I know, because it was a rose-shark that took my arm.

I was 11 years old and had been joining my father on his outings for several years already. It was already apparent that I was a gifted diver and Papa was increasingly trusting me alone in the water and leaving me to go diving a little farther away.

I was only 11, so I can hardly be blamed for not being careful enough. I was distracted by all the colours of the pearls and didn’t see the shark until its ruffled nose butted into my shoulder. Rose-sharks have yellow eyes and white skin. Other sharks only bite if challenged, and are just as scared of us as we are of them. But rose-sharks attack. They see pearls as their property.

We held eye contact for a moment, me and the shark about to sink its teeth into my flesh. Its unblinking yellow eyes looked like those common amber pearls that you can buy by the dozen.

Its nose opened slowly, the petals unfolding, unhurried. It knew I couldn’t swim away, we both knew it could swim faster than me.

Then the rose-shark swam even closer. I saw its pointed teeth before it closed its jaws. With my arm in between.

The water turned red and I felt myself sinking. I don’t remember anything else, only the rose unfurling its petals in the red water.

Actually, I do remember one thing: lying on the boat deck looking up at the sky, thinking that the setting sun looked like the shark’s yellow eye.

“Take down the sails,” Papa called. “We have to stop the bleeding.”

And I thought something terrible must have happened for Papa to sacrifice the sails. They’re expensive, we had to dive for three whole summers to afford them.

Now, on my first dive of the season, with all the pearls waiting to be picked, the same thing is happening: the rose-shark circling above me approached while I was concentrating on the pearls.

The shadow above me stops moving through the water and I don’t need to look up to know how close it must be. I swim backward slowly until the reef is between me and the shark.

The black shadow moves towards me and I see its folded nose open.

The Rose-shark

There is no advice on how to escape from a rose-shark. Most don’t make it. My only hope is to offer it the pearls in the reef, in the hope that it will be so enraptured with them that it will forget about me. I drift backward slowly, so slowly that I barely disturb the water.

The shark’s yellow eyes look first at me, then at the reef full of pearls, then back at me.

I nod to the largest pearl in the reef, crimson in colour, and the shark finally makes up its mind. It doesn’t take its eyes off the big pearl and I swim backwards with small, quick movements. The shark has dived straight down into the pearl reef and all I can see are its tail fins undulating back and forth.

Marko raises his eyebrows when I resurface and shake my head. That will have to do for today.

I lie down on the deck and breathe a long sigh as Marko raises the sails. He produces a mug of lukewarm mulled pear cider. It doesn’t help. I need something stronger.