by Sophie Moss
“Alright,” Sam said, tipping the glass back and letting the warm liquor burn a path down his throat. “What’s so magical about these seals?”
The bartender’s eyes twinkled as he reached into the kitchen for two steaming bowls of stew and set them in front of the middle-aged couple beside Sam. “Legend has it that the selkies on this island are actually beautiful women disguised as seals. And that on Midsummer’s Eve they come to shore and shed their seal-skin to dance under the moonlight.”
“Women?” Sam asked, amused. “Disguised as seals?”
“Aye.”
“Have you seen one? One of these… selkies?”
“No. And I hope I never do. You’ve got to be careful with selkies. They can cast a spell on you.”
Sam smiled, setting his glass down on the bar. “What kind of spell?”
The bartender topped off his glass and leaned an elbow on the bar, lowering his voice. “It’s said that one look from a selkie can drive a man mad. That he’ll do anything to be with her, even follow her into the sea.”
Sam swirled the amber liquor around in his glass. “So the men who’ve supposedly seen these selkies? They’ve what… disappeared afterwards?”
“Some.”
“And the others?”
“Don’t know.” The bartender shrugged as he pushed back from the bar. “Probably locked up somewhere by now. Beating against a padded cell and screaming for their seal-woman.”
Sam laughed as the bartender cleared another round of empties.
“You laugh,” the bartender said, wandering back over. “But there are plenty who believe the stories are true.”
“If that’s the case, then why does anyone go? Just to test the limits of their willpower? To see if they can hold onto their sanity if a selkie tries to cast a spell on them?”
“Ah,” the bartender held up his hand. “Every fairy tale creature has a weakness.” He smiled. “There’s always a way around the curse.”
“Humor me.”
“If a human man finds her seal-skin and captures it, he claims her for his own. She loses all her powers and she has no choice but to follow him.”
“But she’s half seal.”
“See, that’s the problem with selkie-wives. They may look human enough, but the sea’s in their blood and they long to get back to it.”
“Why don’t they just take their seal-skin back and swim away?”
“They can’t. No man who captures the pelt of a selkie will ever return it. He’ll hide it from her so she’s forced to live out the rest of her days on land with him.”
“She’s trapped there, against her will?”
“Aye.”
“So…” Sam downed the rest of his glass. “Where’s the happy ending?”
“There isn’t one.”
Sam glanced up. “That’s a pretty messed up fairy tale.”
The bartender lifted a shoulder. “The Irish don’t sugarcoat their fairy tales like the Americans.”
“What do you mean?”
“I have a little girl. We own a stack of Disney movies. My daughter watches them over and over and over again. You know how it is.” He rolled his eyes. “But the original fairy tales—before Disney got a hold of them—didn’t always end in happily ever after. Sometimes the bad guys won. And that was the point. They taught us a lesson. Like the parables in the bible. A way to learn from others’ mistakes.”
“But wouldn’t you rather your daughter believe in happily ever after than power struggles with seal-women?”
“Maybe. But I’d also rather she learn what to watch out for. Who to watch out for.”
“Okay,” Sam said, slowly. “But unless your daughter’s a selkie, how does that fairy tale teach her who to watch out for?”
“It teaches her to watch out for men who would try to control her.”
Sam glanced up at the bartender’s unsmiling face. “How old is your daughter?”
“She’s six.”
“Isn’t she a little young to be worried about falling for a man who would try to control her?”
“I don’t think a woman is ever too young to learn to watch out for something like that.”
Chapter 16
Tara gazed into the faces gathered around the table in the pub. They sat in a circle, Dominic’s hand resting on hers, Glenna’s fingers worrying over the thin onyx pendant around her neck, Caitlin and Liam’s eyes locked on Tara in disbelief.
“Have you gone to the police?” Liam demanded as Tara finished telling them everything she’d told Dominic earlier that day.
“No.” Tara shook her head. The night air drifted in through the windows, filling the room with the scent of roses and saltwater. A single candle burned in the center of the table, flickering in the dim light. “I can’t go to the police. I’m living here, working here, illegally. I came here with a fake passport. Under a name that is not my own.”
“You were protecting yourself,” Caitlin argued. “It was self-defense.”
“Was it?” Tara asked. “Was it self-defense to travel to Ireland? To move into a cliff cottage on this picture-perfect island? To fall in love with the man paying my salary?”
“But that’s not what—”
“That’s only one way a lawyer could spin it,” Tara interrupted. “If I go to the police, and I tell them everything, they choose whether or not to protect me. They choose whether or not to involve my husband. If I’m taken into custody and tried in the states as a fugitive, I don’t stand a chance. My husband is wealthy, powerful and connected. He’ll hire a lawyer who will find a way to make him come out the hero. And me the abuser.”
“But this is crazy. He beat you! He put you in the hospital!”
“Prove it.”
Caitlin opened her mouth, closed it.
“That’s the thing about abuse,” Tara said, quietly. “It’s almost impossible to prove unless the neighbors heard a fight or witnessed a scene. Which mine didn’t. I lived on the top floor—the entire top floor—of a high rise condo building in Houston. The walls were soundproofed. We never had a complaint.”
“It’s her word against his,” Glenna finished for Tara. “Unless,” she angled her head. “You can prove that he killed that nurse. Then you might have a solid case.”
“Exactly,” Tara agreed, nodding. “Which is why I called a lawyer this afternoon and explained the situation. He’s coming down from Dublin on Monday to talk and we’re going to start building a case against Philip. But it’s not going to be easy. And I can’t guarantee that we’ll be able to prove anything. Or gather a strong enough case.”
“Alright,” Caitlin let out a breath. “At least you called a lawyer. If he’s coming on Monday, that’s only four days from now. And then you’ll have a better handle on the situation and what rights you might have that you don’t even know you have.”
“Yes,” Tara said slowly. “That’s true.” She glanced up at Dominic. “But if Philip has someone looking for me—and I’m certain he does—and that nurse was killed over two weeks ago, there’s a good chance he’s followed my trail to Ireland. And if this person is good at what he does—which I’m sure he is if Philip hired him—then there’s a chance he’ll track me to this island.”
“What are you trying to say?” Caitlin struggled to put all the pieces together. “That if this person finds you and contacts your husband, he could…what? Show up here? Before Monday?”
Tara nodded.
“But the festival’s this weekend,” Liam argued. “There’ll be hundreds of people on the island by tomorrow morning.”
“I know,” Tara said softly. “And so much easier to get lost in the crowd.”
Caitlin’s jaw dropped as she stared at Tara. “You think he’s going to come for you during the festival?”
Tara nodded.
“Then we have to get you off this island,” Caitlin said, pushing her chair back. “Now!” She glanced at the others, her voice edging toward frantic. “Come on. What are we waiting fo
r?”
“If Tara leaves the island,” Dominic said, speaking for the first time, “she risks being followed. If she stays, we can protect her.”
“But this guy is a psychopath!” Caitlin protested.
“And there will be half a dozen officers on the island this weekend to witness that.”
Caitlin’s eyes went wide. “You mean… you want him to come to the island this weekend? You want him to find you?”
“I don’t want him to find me,” Tara assured her. “But if he finds me and there are enough people around, enough people to witness his reaction, we might be able to trap him.”
“But that’s using you as bait!”
“She won’t be alone,” Dominic cut in. “At least one of us will be with her. At all times. We won’t leave her side until every tourist has left the island on Sunday. Until everyone is accounted for.”
Caitlin put her head down, between her knees. “I think I’m going to be sick.”
Liam glanced up at his brother. “Who else do we tell?”
“I think at this point, the fewer people who know the truth the better,” Dominic answered. “We don’t want to pull the whole island into this.”
“But wouldn’t it be better to pass around a sketch of his face? Have everyone on the lookout?” Liam looked over at Glenna. “Could you do one from Tara’s memory?”
“I could,” Glenna answered slowly. “But I think Tara and Dominic are right to want to keep this between us. No one in this room is going to slip. No one in this room is going to accidentally say anything to anyone else. You know Donal and Finn spend a lot of time in the pubs over in Sheridan. We can’t risk them spilling something one night when they’ve had too much to drink.”
“But if it was something this serious. Something that Tara’s life depended on—”
“I understand your concern,” Glenna interrupted. “But I think we have an advantage—a powerful advantage—that no one’s even brought up yet.”
Caitlin lifted her head, her eyes locking with Glenna’s in disbelief. “You cannot be serious.”
“I’m dead serious.”
“This is Tara’s life we’re dealing with. Not some fairy tale!”
“What do you think she’s doing here?” Glenna demanded. “On this island? With this past? You can’t just write this off as coincidence!”
Liam’s gaze settled on Tara. “Dark hair, green eyes, a healer,” he murmured. “How could I not have seen it before?”
“Come on!” Caitlin threw up her hands. “Listen to yourselves. Dominic,” she glanced at him, searching for an ally. “This is insane.”
Dominic shook his head. “I don’t know what to think anymore. And I can’t ignore any possible angle that could help Tara.”
“If Tara’s the selkie’s descendent,” Liam realized. “Then she’ll have to defeat her husband to break the curse.”
“Exactly,” Glenna said.
“And if the legend is true,” Liam continued. “Then the selkie may be able to help her.”
“If,” Glenna cut in, “she can find the selkie’s pelt.”
“Which is hidden somewhere on the island,” Liam finished, looking back at Tara. “All we have to do is figure out where it is and we win.”
“Do you have any ideas?” Tara asked. “Any clues where it might be hidden?”
“I have a theory,” Caitlin cut in, shoving back from the table. “Every single one of you has lost your minds.”
***
“Caitlin!” Liam followed her out of the pub, the door slapping shut behind them. “Caitlin, come back!”
“No!” Caitlin shouted, whirling to face him. Moonlight bathed the streets of the village in liquid silver. The ocean surged, crashing against the cliffs. “I’m not going to just sit there and listen to that madness!”
“It’s not madness!” Liam argued, catching up with her.
“Did you even hear anything Tara said in there?” Caitlin’s eyes were wild with worry. “There’s a man coming after her and he’s going to try to kill her!”
“And we’re going to stop him.”
“By searching for a nonexistent pelt?”
“How do you know it doesn’t exist?”
“It’s a legend, Liam! A myth! It’s called that because it’s make-believe! Because the people and things in it don’t exist!”
“How do you know? How do you know it’s not history instead of myth?”
“Because I know!” Caitlin threw up her hands. “Because what you’re saying—what you’re all saying—is crazy! Why am I the only one who sees that?”
“I’ve been studying this legend my whole life,” Liam countered. “Since I was a child and I first came to this island. I can’t discount what Glenna is saying.”
“But you can question it! You can ask yourself if it’s even possible for something like this to be real!”
“It is possible, Caitlin. And frankly, I can’t believe I missed it before.”
“Missed what?”
“The connection. The similarities. Think about it, Caitlin. The looks, the parallel histories, the fact that they’re both healers.”
“It’s a coincidence!”
Liam shook his head. “You can’t write this off as a coincidence. I’ve studied other curses, just like the one on this island, that have been broken by people—real people who had to believe in them first. Things like this have happened!”
“No!” Caitlin shouted, refusing to believe. “You only want it to happen so you can write about it! So you can gain some kind of academic notoriety because it happened on your island, to your brother’s girlfriend!”
Liam took a step back. “How dare you accuse me of only wanting personal gain from this?”
“Then tell me it didn’t cross your mind,” Caitlin challenged, crossing her arms over her chest. “Tell me it didn’t even occur to you when you put two and two together.”
Liam stared at her, the silver moonlight illuminating her pale skin and wide blue eyes. “Okay. I admit it crossed my mind. But this isn’t about that,” he insisted when Caitlin started to turn. “Dominic is my brother. My only brother. And he is in love with the woman inside that pub. If he thinks we can protect her by trusting in clues from a century old legend, then that makes it my business.”
“Don’t you dare accuse me of not supporting Dominic in this,” she bit out, spinning back around to face him. “Dominic may be your brother, but he’s been my best friend for as long as I can remember. And real best friends tell each other when they’re about to step off track, when they’re about to make a mistake. I didn’t do that with Rachel. I stayed out of it. I kept my mouth shut. And look how that turned out?”
“This is completely different than that,” Liam argued.
“Is it? Is it so different than that? Rachel was a real person, Liam. Tara is a real person. And there is a real psychopath coming after her. The only way we’re going to protect her is by using tangible objects and real people, not some fairy tale creature and her seal-skin!”
“So what I do is fine for academia?” Liam realized. “It’s fine for journals and books? For capturing the culture and stories of our country? But it’s not real? It’s not something we can count on? Or trust in?”
“Exactly. It’s not real.”
“And in real life, there’s an explanation for everything?”
“Yes,” Caitlin answered, exasperated.
“Then tell me, Caitlin.” He put his hands on her shoulders and turned her around so she was facing Tara’s cottage. “How do you explain those roses?”
Chapter 17
After everyone left, Tara and Dominic walked quietly up the stairs. They looked in on Kelsey and, satisfied that she was sleeping peacefully, slipped into the bedroom at the end of the hall.
“What do you think Liam said to Caitlin to make her come back?” Tara asked after he shut the door.
“I don’t know,” Dominic said, shaking his head. “But I’m still not sure she’s co
nvinced.”
“Neither am I,” Tara admitted, sinking to the bed and staring out the small window at the darkened village. “Do you think it’s even possible?” she whispered. “That what Glenna and Liam are saying is true?”
Dominic sat on the bed beside her. “I think anything’s possible.”
Tara looked at him. “You don’t think I’m making a mistake?” She searched those gray eyes, looking for a sign of doubt. “You can change your mind, you know. I can still leave the island. You would be safe. Kelsey would be safe.”
“Kelsey is safe. And you are safe. That is what matters to me.”
Taking a deep breath, Tara gazed back out the window. “I said something earlier, Dominic. In Cleggan. Something I didn’t mean to say to you.”
“What was that?”
“I said that I wasn’t young and stupid and vulnerable enough to believe that someone could fall for me in a matter of weeks anymore.”
“Ah, yes.” Dominic sat back. “That.”
Tara’s gaze drifted back to his face. “You told me you loved me.”
“I did.”
“And I basically told you to shove off.”
Dominic’s lips twitched. “Tara, it’s okay, you don’t have to explain yourself. If I’d known what I know now, I might have waited a few weeks.”
“Even so,” Tara said. “I think I do.”
“Okay,” he said slowly. “Go on then.”
“It wasn’t fair of me to compare you to him. I can’t—won’t get into the habit of doing that in the future.”
“I’m happy to hear that.”
Tara’s looked back to the window. “When I left this morning, I thought I would never see you again. I thought that… I would be okay with that. That this,” she motioned between them, “was just a fling. But a fling wouldn’t have left me feeling the way I did when I climbed onto that bus in Sheridan. Like I’d lost a part of myself.”
She lifted her eyes to his. “I thought it would go away. That the ache in my chest would subside as I rode away from the town. But it was like swallowing a stone. It just stuck there, pressing down harder the farther north we drove. And then… when you showed up—when you just showed up in that store in Cleggan—I knew I had fallen for you. But I couldn’t handle it.” She shook her head. “Falling for you didn’t factor into the plan.”