The Mistling

A man’s shape made of river water, with bits of grass and wood turning through it. It burbled as it came, making the drowning sounds men make when the water takes them, and it came for Padraig. Dinl-Chi put his wet fur between the two of them, stamped, moved strangely — serpentine — and roared the hot vented breath of the earth’s fire through it until it came apart on the ground and ran back into the river.

It picked the witch-boy out of three. Did the mist carry it down to the ferry, or did it bring the mist?