“Don’t fish for compliments,” she said, wrinkling her nose.
“Speaking of fishing,” he said. “I need to catch something for supper. We go out every evening, if you want to come…”
“In a boat?” Her eyes nearly glazed at the thought of it. Wading into the water, swaying with the waves. The salt in her eyes, in her mouth, on her skin…
“We have fishing boats,” he confirmed.
For a moment, she thought about how easily her life could become small. One day she could be traveling across the country on her own at sixteen, a wild witch, free of covens and parents. Heading for the sea. And the next, a boy with green eyes that flashed when he laughed could invite her to join his coven, and she could spend the next five years thinking he’d join her collective, that she would stay there forever, that the nearby river would be enough.
Here she was again, standing at a crossroads. Standing in front of a man with sexy bedhead hair and an inviting smile, waiting for an answer. She could imagine staying here. Going out on the boat with him every evening to catch supper, swimming with him in the sea. Making a home here, by the ocean, just as she’d always wanted.
But it wasn’t exactly what she’d wanted. She’d learned the hard way that staying somewhere for a man would not make her happy. Even if she was a witch, and she got to add a dozen guys to her collective. They could still leave her the moment a curvy little redhead in red cowboy boots came waltzing by and caught their eye. And she’d find herself waking up, wondering why she’d wasted five years of her life in this place she didn’t belong.
Quill dumped you before Sagely came along, a little voice inside reminded her. It was true. But it was easier to blame another woman than to accept the truth—she simply hadn’t been what he wanted.
“I better not,” she said, stepping back and turning away so she wouldn’t see the disappointment written across Guthrie’s face.
“Well, you be careful,” he said. “I hope you’ll at least stay for supper. Or, if you’re going to be in the area for a while, stop by again for a visit.”
“Sure,” Raina said, peeling strands of her longing off him like the arms of a starfish.
“And let them fill you in on the sirens and other dangers of the area. I wish I could stay, but…” He gestured to the sky to the east, where a few clouds had begun to darken the horizon.
“Good luck,” she said. “With the fish.”
Without waiting for an answer, she hurried back along the path to where Shaneesha and Sagely were talking to Gale.
“You want to stay just beyond their reach,” Gale said. “That’s why we’re up here, instead of right on the beach. When they sit up on the rocks and call, you fall under their spell, and you can’t get out.”
“You’re talking about mermaids?” Raina asked.
“Yeah, the sirens,” Gale said. “It’s okay during daylight. But at night, you want to stay off the beaches. It’s safer anyway. Sometimes you’ll be down on the sand, and the tide comes up faster than you think. And there’s big rocks along the shore to the north. They’ll smash you to bits if you’re caught out there when the tide comes in.”
“Sounds great,” Shaneesha said. “Want to remind me why we couldn’t go to the beach in Mexico? White sand, water like glass…”
“So go,” Raina said. “I didn’t ask you to come with me. I’m here to find my brother. You wanted to come along.”
“Let’s just find him, and then we can take the stone and find the coven,” Sagely said. “The longer they’re under Viziri’s control, the more chance they’ll be dark witches forever.”
“As long as you don’t go past the lighthouse at night, you’ll be okay,” Gale said. “So camp on this side of it, away from the water. Then you can go right down in the morning and look for him. But I doubt he’ll want to come up and talk to you if he’s a mer. They don’t like to be seen by humans. That’s why they only come out at night and during storms.”
Raina remembered the scene in the mirror, her brother frolicking in the water with his mermaid. Determination gripped her like a chill. She would find him. His magic would recognize hers, even if it had never known it. And they would recognize each other, as sister and brother if not witch and warlock.
“They don’t sound so bad to me,” Raina said, staring off in the direction of the sea, down below the hill, in the distance. The air had grown chillier as evening approached, even though it was still summer. For the first time in her life, she was feeling a real ocean breeze. She wanted to wallow in it, to drink it in like water.
“If you don’t mind being hypnotized,” Gale said. Then her eyes took on a feverish glow, as if she were telling a particularly killer campfire story. “They like to enchant the pirates so they’ll sail too close to the shore and dash their ships to a million pieces.”
“And that’s bad?”
“Depends on if you’re a pirate,” Gale said, her excitement replaced by a sly grin.
“Thanks for helping us,” Sagely said. “We’d never have known if not for you.”
Gale’s eyes began to gleam again. “Once, they wrecked a ship right down on the beach. While they raided the remains of the ship, some of the pirates got away. They had a spell done on them in some distant port so they couldn’t be enchanted. They saw our fires and came up here and stayed with us for a few days. They had the best stories.”
Raina gave her a sideways look. “Didn’t they rob you or something?”
“Oh, no,” Gale said lightly, skipping along ahead of them towards the parking lot, her familiar circling overhead. “We don’t have anything worth stealing. One was cute, though.” She cast a wicked grin back in their direction.
“So they’re real pirates?” Sagely asked. “I didn’t think those existed anymore.”
“Oh, sure,” Gale said. “But they’ve gotten smart to commoners now. They have to have someone with magic on board to mask their ships from view, or sway the minds of regular humans who might see them.”
“Water witches?” Sagely asked.
“The ones who were here last time had wizards,” Gale said, skipping along the path back to the car.
“Now that we know you, we’ll recognize your magic and try not to attack you,” Gale called as the Winslow witches and Fox climbed back into the car.
Seeley barked in reproach, and Raina scooped him up in her arms and cuddled him under her chin, rubbing his forehead soothingly.
Gale waved after them as they drove away. “Come back and visit!”
“We will,” Shaneesha called out the window. She turned to Raina, a teasing look in her eye. “I know one of us has a reason to come back,” she said, wiggling her eyebrows. “That warlock was all about you, girl. And he was fine.”
Sagely laughed, but Raina barely heard her. She smiled distractedly, then turned her face to the open window. It was too late for Raina. The sea had already hypnotized her. A siren wouldn’t make any difference.
eight
Sagely
They drove along a paved road with sand blown across it in spots, until they could see the ocean just on the other side of a row of lobster shacks, a few run-down restaurants, and some jagged rocks with jetties periodically extending out into the grey, swaying ocean. Finally, they pulled up to a dock lined with fishing boats of all sizes, from tiny personal ones to big commercial boats. A group of men in rubber waders was unloading crates of lobster from one of the bigger boats.
“I need to get out,” Raina said from the back seat.
Sagely glanced at her in the mirror. She’d been quiet all day, not making her usual cutting remarks. She hadn’t even joined in their radio games, like Name That Band, or guessing who would be remembered in twenty years, Roxette or Bon Jovi, Madonna or Taylor Dayne. And though she’d had their backs at the Coastline Coven encounter, something had been off. Sagely just didn’t know exactly what it was.
“Just wait,” she said, pulling into the parking lot at the dock. Before she could even find a spot, R
aina opened the door and hopped out.
Sagely started to call to her, but Shaneesha put a hand on her shoulder from the back seat. “Just let her go,” she said. “She won’t go far, and it’s not dark yet, so we don’t have to worry about the sirens.”
Remembering the last time someone had told her to let a witch run off alone, which resulted in Willow becoming a shifter, which resulted in Quill not being there right now, Sagely had a moment of doubt. But she pulled the car around and parked, knowing Raina couldn’t get far. The ocean was not the forest. It would be awfully hard to hide here.
They climbed out of the car and walked out onto the wooden dock. Below, the water sloshed and splashed against the supports. Huge wooden poles supported the dock, stained black and lined with cracks. Raina stood at the very edge of the dock, her face towards the ocean, her hair blowing back in the damp sea air.
“It’s hard for a witch to be out of her element all her life,” Shaneesha explained as they approached. “It’s like…reverse drowning all your life. She’s soaking it in. There’s no harm in it. In fact, it’s probably exactly what she needs right now.”
Sagely was so focused on Raina that she’d almost forgotten Fox until his hand slipped into hers. Glancing at him in surprise, she caught a shy smile playing across his lips. When she met his eye, he shrugged and looked away. Just when she’d been missing Quill and his steadying effect on her, Fox had come up and given her anchor.
No, he didn’t know Raina as well as Quill, didn’t know what was good for her and why she was being moody. But that wasn’t exactly a bad thing. Sagely squeezed Fox’s hand, and they walked a ways down the lock, leaving Raina alone. They sat side by side on the edge of the dock with Shaneesha, letting their legs dangle above the waves that churned and sucked below.
For the first time, Sagely let herself enjoy the tingle of Fox’s touch without guilt. She wasn’t cheating on Quill. That’s now how this worked. Yes, she was promised to him. But she was equally promised to Fox. And she’d never really given him a chance. Her human life had taught her that once she had a man, she had to close herself off to all others. But her witch status said she could be generous with her affection. She didn’t have to feel guilt at the closeness of her body to Fox’s, didn’t have to scoot away from the warmth of his thigh pressing against hers. She was allowed to enjoy it. And so, she did.
Finally, when the light had faded from the sky and the workers had all left the dock, Sagely pulled her hand from Fox’s and stretched. “We should probably get up past the lighthouse before full dark,” she said.
“Sounds good,” Fox said, hopping to his feet and holding out a hand to her. She took his hand and let him pull her to standing.
“Shaneesha?”
Shaneesha’s head snapped around. “Huh?”
“We should probably go up before it gets darker.”
“Oh…I might stay a little longer. With Raina.”
Sagely frowned at Fox. “I really think we should go.”
“I wonder if there’s a boat here we could take out,” Shaneesha said. “We haven’t had dinner. We could catch some fish.”
“You hate fish.”
Now Fox’s brow furrowed, and he cocked his head, as though listening. “Did we wait too long?”
“Do you hear something?” Sagely asked, her stomach tightening with dread. One strain of a beautiful, heartbreaking melody began far across the water.
Fox shook his head. “Nothing.”
“Shaneesha, we’re going,” Sagely said, taking hold of the other witch’s shoulders. “Let’s go. Now.”
“Can we come back?”
“Of course,” Fox said before Sagely could answer. “We’ll set up camp, and then we’ll come back and go out in the boat. Catch some dinner.”
“What boat?” Shaneesha asked.
“We’ll ‘borrow’ one,” Fox said with a sly grin, gesturing at the small fishing boats. Sagely was about to protest the stupidity of the idea when she caught Fox’s warning look.
Dammit. They’d stayed too long. It wasn’t even dark, and Shaneesha was obviously under some kind of spell. Sagely had heard it for a second, too, but it must not have gotten her yet.
They led Shaneesha along the dock to where Raina stood, her eyes staring fixedly out to sea.
“Raina?” Sagely asked. “Can you hear me?”
Raina jerked around as if she hadn’t heard them approach. “Of course I can hear you,” she said. “I’m not deaf.”
“Oh, good,” Sagely said, beginning to relax. “We’re going to go make camp.”
“Okay,” Raina said. “Have fun. I’m just going to stay down here a little longer. Maybe swim out to those rocks.”
“It’s not safe,” Sagely said firmly, taking Raina’s arm. “If the sirens don’t get you, the rocks will. We’re going up, and you’re coming, too. I’m prepared to use magical force if necessary.”
“I’ll bring you back down to fish with me and Shaneesha,” Fox said with a toothy smile. “I’m not afraid of a little mermaid skirmish.”
Raina looked back over her shoulder the entire way to the car, but she let them lead her away, grumbling as they went.
Finally, they made it into the car and started along the road towards the lighthouse. They were going to camp just on the far side of it, like Gale had advised. Out of earshot of the sirens. Though if that was the extent of their pull, Sagely didn’t see how dangerous they could be. They didn’t seem to have much more power over Raina than the regular old ocean, and Sagely could barely hear them at all. Maybe they had to sing a while before the spell grew strong enough to hypnotize people completely.
When they’d made camp and were sitting around a small fire, huddled in their sweatshirts even though it was August, Shaneesha shook her head.
“That was wild, wasn’t it?”
“What?” Sagely asked.
“I heard them, just for a minute,” Shaneesha said. “Or I thought I did. Just a note or two…but I hardly remember coming back here. It was like it put me in a lucid dream or something.”
“I heard it, too,” Sagely admitted. “But it didn’t grab me.”
“Great,” Fox said. “Another kind of magic faeries apparently aren’t privy to.”
“You didn’t hear it at all?” Sagely asked.
Fox shook his head.
“How am I supposed to find my brother if I can’t go out at night, and they don’t come out during the day?” Raina asked.
“With the stone my fiancé gave you?” Fox suggested with just a hint of bitterness in his voice this time.
“Did you hear the siren?” Sagely asked Raina.
“I don’t know,” Raina said with a shrug. “I heard the sea, and that was calling me pretty loudly.”
“We’ll go look for him tomorrow,” Sagely said. “If he’s on this shoreline, we’ll find him. We have the stone. Even if he’s hiding, it will lead us to him.”
“Speaking of,” Raina said, standing from her spot by the fire. “I’m going to lie down in my tent. I want to check the stone one more time, and I don’t want to use it out here. Just in case we can’t trust those wind witches.”
“Good idea,” Fox said, casting a glare at Sagely. “At least someone is showing the stone its proper respect.”
Sagely laughed and stood, too. “Maybe we should all turn in, so we can get an early start.” She headed for the tent before turning to smile over her shoulder at Fox. “If you stop pouting, I might even let you hold me tonight.”
NinE
Raina
Raina lay in her tent, waiting to hear Shaneesha’s breathing deepen with sleep. In the next tent, she could hear the smooth murmur of Fox’s voice and an occasional giggle from Sagely. But she barely heard any of it. Inside, she was already at the beach, floating on the water. In her ears, the sound of the song was trapped. It was the sound of home, of being loved.
The moment she’d heard the first note, she’d known she was finally where she was meant to be. I
t hadn’t seemed to affect her like it did the others. Maybe using the stone and opening herself to faerie magic had made her more susceptible to the magic of other supernaturals. Or it could be that the siren had sensed that she was the only water elemental and called to her alone.
Whatever it was, she knew that if she started acting like an idiot, her group would be suspicious. So she’d torn herself from the song that called to her—not just her body but her soul, her blood, her magic. Everything she was made of, every element that made up her body and animated it, wanted to answer the song. It had to be her brother. Nothing else could make her feel that way.
Slipping from her sleeping bag, she paused when Seeley lifted his head and snorted. For a moment, she’d forgotten her familiar. That was the power of the song. Scooping him up, she nuzzled his sleek fur. She should leave him. After all, this wasn’t a dangerous visit. She was only going to the seashore for a walk, to feel the sand between her toes and the water on her feet. She’d be back before sunrise.
And yet, her instinct told her to take him. After all, he belonged to the sea as much as she did.
Unzipping the tent, she glanced back at Shaneesha. She was sleeping, her lips parted slightly, her green snake curled into the hollow of her shoulder. Raina smiled and slipped from the tent. The fire had died to nothing, and the giggles and murmurs in the next tent had stopped. Holding Seeley close to her chest, Raina ran barefoot through the grasses and spiny bushes, across the parking lot and down past the lighthouse. She ran over the dunes and through more grasses to the edge of a dune that came out above the water. Below, the sand cut steeply towards the sea at nearly a ninety-degree angle.
Far out across the water, she could make out the black silhouette of several large, jagged rocks. The moon was a fat crescent, hovering high enough to cast a shimmering line of silver from the horizon to the breaking waves near shore.
That’s when she heard it. One clear note, the sweetest sound she’d heard in her long, miserable life. But suddenly, none of that mattered, because she was home. At last.
Sister of the Sea Page 4