by Sophie Moss
“The Little Mermaid?” Sam’s eyes shifted to Kelsey. “I thought Sleeping Beauty was your favorite.”
“It is,” she chirped, tucking her legs up and scooting closer to the fire. “But Owen won’t let me look at any other fairy tales. He only wants to look at this one.”
“Not this one,” Owen cut in, frustrated. “This one doesn’t even look real.”
Sam lifted his free hand, rubbing it over his wool cap. His skin had lots of marks and scratches on it, like he’d been building something with rocks. “But the other one does?”
“This is the Disney version,” Kelsey explained. “It follows the story of the movie.” She lowered her voice. “Mrs. Dooley had it special ordered for my birthday. She didn’t know any better.”
“And the other one…?” Sam asked.
“The other one is the Hans Christian Anderson version.”
“Of course it is.” Little lines fanned out around Sam’s brown eyes when he smiled. “You’ve been spending too much time with Liam.”
“Maybe I have,” Kelsey admitted. “But at least he knows what he’s talking about.”
“So… what’s the difference?”
“The main difference is that this one ends happily.” Kelsey tapped a finger over the glossy cover. “In the Hans Christian Anderson version, the mermaid turns into foam and the princess wins.
“Like I said,” Owen mumbled. “The other one’s better.”
Sam lifted an eyebrow. “Why do you want the mermaid to turn into foam?”
Owen squirmed. “I don’t really want the mermaid to turn into foam. I just want her to go back where she belongs.”
“Underwater?”
Owen nodded.
“But what if the mermaid really loved the prince, too?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“But…” Sam’s gaze shifted to where a row of instruments hung above a cozy booth in the corner. “The mermaid saved the prince’s life. Without her, he wouldn’t be able to choose either of them.”
Owen shook his head. “The prince is supposed to be with the princess.”
“I think you’re being too hard on the mermaid.”
“She should never have made the trade in the first place,” Owen argued. “It was a stupid idea.”
“The trade with the sea witch?”
Owen nodded.
“But what if she didn’t have a choice?”
“She did have a choice. She could have stayed in her kingdom and married one of the mermen.”
“You know,” Sam said thoughtfully. “Sometimes it’s harder to stay where you are. Especially when you consider what could be waiting for you on the other side.”
Owen narrowed his eyes. “What do you think is on the other side?”
“I don’t know,” Sam admitted. “I’ve never been there. But I imagine it could be wonderful.”
“Well, I have.” Owen shoved the book aside and shot to his feet. “And it’s not.”
“Owen!” Kelsey scrambled up after him. “Wait!” She grabbed his arm before he got to the door.
He whirled. “I can’t go back there!”
“Nobody’s asking you to go back there!”
“Back where?” Sam stood, crossing the room to join them.
Owen started to tremble. He lifted a finger, pointing at the book. “Back there.”
“We still don’t know if that’s where you’re from,” Kelsey hissed, trying to keep her voice low enough so Sam couldn’t hear. But it was too late. He’d already heard. “You said you can’t remember ever even seeing a mermaid.”
“No,” Owen whispered. “But I’ve seen selkies. And everything else in that book.”
Sam dropped to his knee and looked Owen straight in the eye. “These selkies…” he asked gently. “The ones you can remember. What did they look like?”
Hot tears sprang to the backs of Owen’s eyes. What if this man turned him into his mother? What if she made him go back to that terrible palace? What if all of the petals from the rose had already fallen? Owen swiped the back of his sleeve across his cheek, mortified as a tear slipped free. “They’re white.”
Kelsey squeezed Owen’s hand and looked at Sam. “That’s what he keeps saying. But I’ve never heard of a white selkie. Is there such a thing?”
“A white selkie?” The barstool squeaked as the lone man at the bar turned. “Now there’s a story I haven’t heard in a long time.”
***
The water felt so cool, so soothing against her raw skin. Her pale arms lifted, weightless beneath the undulating waves. Her hair drifted around her face like silverfish, dancing with the movement of the sea. The welts were slowly fading, the marks the rain had left on her skin.
How could they live like this? Trapped on this spit of land when all the wonders of the ocean glittered under the surface? A fish brushed against her bare leg and she closed her eyes, relishing in the rough scales sweeping against her skin.
Home. Soon she would be home. Her toes curled into the silky white sand, sinking into the palette of shells sparkling at her feet. All she needed now was her king.
Her hand darted out, catching the fish. It writhed, squirming against her vise-like grip. She’d seen the change in Liam this afternoon. She’d seen the way he had stood between her and Caitlin, like she was the one who couldn’t be trusted.
The redhead was determined to steal him away from her. Her lips curved. She had no idea who she was dealing with. She opened her mouth, shoved the fish down her throat. She heard the bones break, felt the slimy wriggling as she swallowed it whole. She didn’t have time to waste on foolish teenage crushes. Her time was almost up.
She kicked her way up to the surface, the sea sluicing down her long hair as the frosty air surrounded her like a winter kiss. The rain had thinned to a quiet mist. And a thick fog wound through the village, a yellow ribbon dripping over the edges of the cliffs.
She walked out of the crashing waves, gathering her cloak around her shoulders. She felt the itching in her throat, the burning in the backs of her eyes before she smelled the smoke. Before she saw the glow of a tall thin flame in the circle of rocks on the beach.
Nuala paused, ankle deep in the waves, letting the cold water roll over her bare feet. She drew strength from the sea as the woman stepped out of the fire. Moira’s strawberry blond hair tumbled around her shoulders, curling in the mists. Those cruel green-gold eyes were as cold and hard as gemstones. The raindrops sizzled as they met the heat of her skin. Steam rose up around her like curls of golden smoke. “You wanted to see me.”
“I need your help.”
Moira lifted a bejeweled hand, studying her long scarlet nails. “I thought you would work faster than this.”
“There’s been a… complication.”
Moira arched a winged eyebrow. “A complication?”
“There’s a woman on the island.” Nuala’s gaze drifted up to the village. “She says she’s an artist from Dublin, but she knows who, or at least, what I am.”
“You didn’t expect that there would be some who would recognize our kind?”
“I thought most of our kind were gone.”
“Most. But not all.” Moira walked out onto the beach, her dress crackling around her like a driftwood fire. “Glenna is not your problem. The only woman you should be worried about now is Caitlin. Liam is already starting to remember things about her. About how he felt about her before you arrived.”
“I can handle Caitlin. I need to know who Glenna is. She painted a picture of my palace today. She brought it over to hang in the cottage I’m renting. She wanted me to see it. She wanted me to know.”
“Did she?” Moira’s lips curved. “How thoughtful of her.”
“Do you know who she is?”
“Of course I know who she is,” Moira’s voice snapped out into the rain. “But what I don’t know is why we’re having this conversation. If you can’t do this on your own, Nuala, then let me take Owen off your hands for a while.
He’s getting in your way.”
Nuala narrowed her eyes. “What do you want with Owen?”
“What do I ever want with anyone?” Moira’s eyes gleamed. “Leverage. It’s all I live for, darling. You could learn from me. I’m never in debt to anyone. But many people owe me many things.” She smiled. “Including you.”
Nuala took several long, deep breaths. “I can do this on my own. I will do this, but I want this to be Liam’s decision, too. I don’t want to take him until he’s ready. Until he wants to go.”
“You stole his memory,” Moira reminded her, angling her head. “Suddenly you’re developing a conscience?”
“It’ll be easier this way. If he wants to be there. If he sees it as a chance, an opportunity to continue his research, it’ll be easier to get back into the kingdom.”
Moira laughed, a low hollow sound that made Nuala’s skin crawl. “You didn’t really believe that? When I told you they’d let you back in?”
Nuala staggered back into the ocean. “Of course they will. I’ve paid my penance. I’ve suffered long enough. They’ll accept Liam.”
“They’ll never let you back in. Not after what you did.”
“But this is all they’ve ever wanted me to do.” She shook her head. “I don’t understand.”
“Oh, my dear. It’s not Liam you should be worried about. It’s Owen. What you did to him was unimaginable.”
“Unimaginable?” Nuala stammered. “I did the best I could.”
“You stole Owen from his mother and locked him away in an ivory palace.”
“To protect him!”
“I’m not sure that Caitlin would see it that way.”
“I thought it would be easier to take a child! Stealing a grown man from his home and his family is wrong.”
“And, yet, that’s exactly what you are doing right now.”
“Because I have no choice!”
“There’s always a choice.” Moira picked up a glittering seashell, tucking it into her hair. “You were the one who chose this path so many years ago.”
“I was eighteen. I didn’t know any better. I was in love!”
“What is love, but a weak emotion to make us all suffer? Where is your precious Rowan now?”
Nuala looked away, blind with rage. Rowan had been her husband—her selkie husband. He was her first love, her only true love. At eighteen, she’d turned her back on her fate, refusing to accept her role as the new white selkie. A white selkie was supposed to find a land-man and bring him into the sea. The man she chose was destined to be king. Together, they would rule the ocean. And with this man’s connection to the land, they would maintain the peace between their two worlds.
But instead of bringing a land-man into the ocean, she fell in love with one of her own kind. She eloped with Rowan and they had a child, a sweet selkie child she’d loved more than anything in this whole world. But Rowan and her son were killed in an accident, when two boats collided on the surface of the sea where they liked to play.
In her grief, she blamed the selkie kingdom and their backward traditions for her loss. She should have done then what she was doing now. She should have chosen a land-man—any land-man—and taken him with her into the sea. But she vowed one final rebellion against the selkie kingdom.
Instead of choosing a land-man, she went to Moira. She asked the sea witch to help her find a suitable child, a boy who could rule beside her as her son. She knew no man would ever replace her Rowan, but maybe in time she could learn to love this boy the same way she had loved her son. Moira assured her she knew the perfect child, and Owen would hardly be missed.
Panic lodged like a stone in Nuala’s throat. Had she lied about that, too? Had she lied about everything? She had never meant to hurt anybody. All she had ever wanted was a family. But because of what she’d done, she was cast out of her kingdom, exiled from her home.
For years all she’d had was Owen. She had tried to love him. She had tried to raise him as her own. But he had never filled the hole inside her. And the loneliness had eaten at them both until she knew the only way forward would be to accept her fate and find the land-man who would be their key back into the selkie kingdom.
Nuala struggled to breathe. She had gone back to Moira then. And Moira had led her to Liam. She could never have done this alone. White selkies were linked too closely to the sea, their pelts more fragile, more delicate than regular selkies’ pelts. The longer her seal-skin was exposed to the air, the weaker it became. Even these three short days were a risk. But she had taken it. She had made the trade.
Moira smoothed a hand down her dress, her bracelets glittering in the firelight. “You weren’t seeing clearly when you came to me the first time. And you’re not seeing clearly now. You could have chosen a suitable mate, and surrendered to your fate. You chose this path, Nuala. Not me.”
“You knew,” Nuala whispered. She had foolishly traded her powers to the sea witch in exchange for this time on land. She had thought Moira wanted to help her. But all Moira had ever wanted was power. “You knew the whole time that they wouldn’t accept Owen? That they would send us away?”
“Of course I knew. Just like I knew that Owen would never be enough. Nothing is ever enough.” Moira walked back to the circle of rocks, the flames bursting out of the sand. “The only thing certain in this world, is that everyone wants more.”
Chapter 20
If there was ever a time in her life when she needed to turn on a light, this would be it. Caitlin sat in her candlelit cottage, the rain thrumming against the walls like witch’s fingers, tapping an impatient rhythm, beating against the thick layers of paint for the truth. The truth.
What was the truth? She didn’t even know anymore. Her last log was burning down in the hearth and she scooted closer to the dying flames, tugging a blanket tighter around her shoulders. There had to be a reasonable, logical explanation for all of this. She hadn’t been thinking straight since the moment Nuala and Owen had arrived. She’d been letting her twisted emotions string her along, but it was time she got control of them. There was no way what Glenna was suggesting was possible. It simply wasn’t possible.
But why, then, couldn’t she sleep? Why couldn’t she stop running all these crazy possibilities over and over in her mind? What if her baby hadn’t died? What if Owen was in some kind of danger? What if Nuala was a sea witch? What if that was what the selkies were trying to tell her when they pushed her baby’s cradle into Owen’s arms?
She jumped at the sudden knock on her door. It was probably one of her neighbors coming to check on her, to see if she needed anything. If she didn’t answer the door they’d poke their head in anyway, to make sure everything was alright. Dropping the blanket, she rose and walked to the door. She pulled it open and the scent of saltwater and kelp rushed in from the ocean, colliding with the dizzying scent of loosened earth.
Liam’s cobalt eyes seared into hers. Caitlin felt a sudden rushing, like rivers of rainwater sucking her under. His long black coat flapped around him like wings in the wind. He strode into the cottage, sweeping back his dark hood. His thick black hair glistened with drops of water. The shadow along his jaw was even darker now. His wet shirt clung to his broad shoulders and chest, the thin dark gray cotton plastered to the hard outline of muscles. His eyes never left hers as he closed the door. “I think we should finish that conversation we started earlier.”
The sharp snap of the lock clicking shut set off a warning somewhere deep inside her. His eyes were so blue, so beautifully blue, and so much like Owen’s, she started to tremble. “What conversation?”
Liam dug a crumpled object from his pocket, holding it out to her. “The one about the fairy tale.”
Caitlin reached for the rose, her fingers brushing the smooth green stem. It was bent and twisted, but the petals were snow white and perfectly shaped—glowing iridescent in the candlelit cottage. “Where did you get this?”
“It washed up on the pier.”
“The… pier?�
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“You were right.” Liam took a step closer. She had to tilt her head to look up at him. The wind whistled through the strings of the chimes, a restless chorus of caution singing in the storm. “What you said earlier. It’s all connected.”
“I’m not sure about that anymore,” Caitlin whispered. Because things were getting too close now. They were stepping over that line she never wanted to cross. If all of it was connected, she wasn’t ready for it. Not now, maybe not ever. “Do you… remember anything else?”
“I remember you.” He lifted a hand to her cheek. Her skin warmed under his touch. She could feel the calluses as he skimmed a thumb over her cheekbone, could smell the sea on his rough palm. “I remember this.”
Caitlin placed a shaky hand on his chest. She could not let this happen now. Not after everything that happened today. “Liam.” One of them had to be rational. One of them had to keep both feet on the ground. The scent of the rose swirled into the air between them, deliriously, intoxicatingly sweet. “If this rose has something to do with the fairy tale you can’t remember, do you know what it means?”
“No.” His strong hand curved around the back of her neck. “But I think you do.”
Icy shivers danced over her skin. “What do you mean?”
“I heard you went down to the beach today.” His other hand settled on the curve of her waist, drawing her against him. “Care to explain what you found?”
“It was… nothing,” she stammered. “Just a piece of driftwood…”
“I’ve seen it, Caitlin. It’s not nothing.” Something like sadness flickered deep in Liam’s eyes. “What happened?” The sickening sweet scent of the rose grew stronger. “You’re the one who turned me on to fairy tales and magic. What happened to make you stop believing?”
“That was a long time ago.” Caitlin’s fingers curled around the stem. “We were children.” She winced as a thorn bit into her thumb.
“And isn’t it always the children who seem to know the truth, when we’re all too blind to see it?” Flames crackled in the hearth. The rain pounded against the roof. “There’s a reason this flower washed up at my feet today.”