Sarah clicked her fingers. “Come here, Ethel,” she said to the duck. The duck got up and went to Sarah, who picked it up and sat it on her lap. “One of Jenna’s creatures,” Sarah said with a smile. “She never was one for pets and suddenly she has two. Strange. I don’t know where she got them from.”
Jannit smiled politely, unsure how to begin telling Sarah what she had to say. There was an awkward silence and at last she said, “Um. Well…it’s a big place you have here.”
“Oh, yes. Very big,” said Sarah.
“Wonderful for a large family,” said Jannit, immediately wishing she hadn’t.
“If they want to live with you,” said Sarah bitterly. “But not if four of them have decided to live in the Forest with a coven of witches and they refuse to come home, even for a visit.
And then of course there’s Simon. I know he’s done wrong, but he’s still my first baby. I miss him so much; I would love to have him living here. It’s time he settled down. He could do a lot worse than Lucy Gringe, whatever his father says. There’s plenty of room for them all here—and children, too. And then there’s my little Septimus. We’ve been apart all these years and there he is, stuck at the top of that Wizard Tower with Marcia Fusspot Overstrand, who whenever she sees me has the nerve to ask if I am enjoying seeing so much of Septimus. I suppose she thinks it’s some kind of joke, since I hardly ever see him now. In fact ever since Nicko…”
“Ah,” said Jannit, seizing her chance. “Nicko. That’s what—well, I expect you can guess why I’m here.”
“No,” said Sarah, who could but didn’t want to even think about it.
“Oh.” Jannit looked down at her boater and then, very purposefully, put it on top of a pile of something behind her.
Sarah’s heart sank. She knew what was coming.
Jannit cleared her throat and began. “As you know, Nicko has been gone for six months now and as far as I understand, no one knows where he is or when—indeed, if—he is ever coming back. In fact—and I am very sorry to say this—I have heard that he will never return.”
Sarah caught her breath. No one had dared to say this to her face before.
“I am very sorry to have to come here like this, Madam Heap, but—”
“Oh, it’s Sarah. Please, just call me Sarah.”
“Sarah. Sarah, I am sorry, but we cannot struggle on without Nicko any longer. The summer season is looming, when even more foolhardy idiots will be putting to sea to try and catch a few herring. They’ll all be wanting their boats ready, plus the fact that the Port barge is in for repair again after this month’s storms—well, we are facing our busiest time. I’m so sorry, but while Nicko is still apprenticed to me, according to the Boatbuilders Association training regulations—which are an absolute minefield, but I do have to abide by them—I cannot engage anyone else. I urgently need a new apprentice, especially as Rupert Gringe is nearing the end of his Articles soon.”
Sarah Heap clasped her hands together tightly, and Jannit noticed that her fingernails were bitten down to the quick.
Sarah was trembling and did not speak for some seconds. Then, just as Jannit thought she would have to break the silence, Sarah said, “He will come back. I don’t believe they went back in Time—no one can do that. Jenna and Septimus just thought they did. It was some wicked, wicked spell. I keep asking Marcia to figure it out. She could Find Nicko, I know she could, but she’s done nothing. Nothing. It’s all a complete nightmare!” Sarah’s voice rose in despair.
“I’m so sorry,” Jannit murmured. “I really am.”
Sarah took a deep breath and tried to calm down. “It’s not your fault, Jannit. You were very good to Nicko. He loved working for you. But of course you must find another apprentice, although I would ask you one thing.”
“Of course,” replied Jannit.
“When Nicko returns, will you renew his apprenticeship?”
“I would be delighted to.” Jannit smiled, pleased that Sarah had asked for something she could readily agree to. “Even if I have a new apprentice, Nicko would step straight into Rupert’s shoes and become my senior apprentice—or journeyman as we call it down at the yard.”
Sarah smiled wistfully. “That would be wonderful,” she said.
“And now”—this was the part Jannit had been dreading—“I am afraid I must trouble you to sign the Release.” Jannit stood up to pull a roll of parchment from her coat pocket, and the pile of towels, suddenly losing their support, fell down and took her place.
Jannit cleared a space on the table and unrolled the long piece of parchment that formed Nicko’s apprentice Indentures.
She secured it top and bottom with whatever came to hand—a well-thumbed novel called Love on the High Seas and a large bag of biscuits.
“Oh.” Sarah caught her breath at the sight of Nicko’s spidery signature—along with her own and Jannit’s—at the foot of the parchment.
Hastily, Jannit placed the Release—a small slip of parchment—over the signatures and said, “Sarah, as one of the parties who signed the Indentures, I have to ask you to sign the Release. I have a pen if you…if you can’t find one.”
Sarah couldn’t find one. She took the pen and ink bottle that Jannit had taken from her other coat pocket, dipped the pen in the ink and—feeling as though she was signing Nicko’s life away—she signed the parchment. A tear dripped onto the ink and smudged it; both Jannit and Sarah pretended not to notice.
Jannit signed her own signature next to Sarah’s; then she took a needle threaded with thick sail cotton from her bottomless coat pocket and sewed the Release over the original signatures.
Nicko Heap was no longer apprenticed to Jannit Maarten.
Jannit snatched up the hat balanced behind her and fled. It was only when she reached her boat that she realized she had taken Sarah’s gardening hat, but she stuffed it on her head regardless and rowed slowly back to her boatyard.
Silas Heap and Maxie the wolfhound found Sarah in her herb garden. Sarah was, for some reason Silas did not understand, wearing a sailor’s boater. She also had Jenna’s duck with her. Silas was not keen on the duck—the stubble gave him goose bumps when he looked at it and he thought the crocheted waistcoat was a sign that Sarah was going a little crazy.