by Sophie Moss
What if Owen was right? What if his mother was a mermaid? What if Liam had discovered some new tale about a mermaid in the Trinity Library? And she had come on land to steal it away from him? But there was only one file inside the folder. A single document titled, ‘The White Selkie.’
“The White Selkie?” Tara whispered. “Is this…?”
“It has to be,” Caitlin breathed, her hand shaking as she clicked on the file and Liam’s words filled the screen. The wind howled through the streets, rattling the windows of the pub. The rusted chain holding the Guinness sign snapped, sending the sign flying and the loose chain cracking through the night like a whip. The image on the screen wavered, the words blurring together like wet ink.
“What’s happening?” Tara breathed, reaching over Caitlin’s shoulder to adjust the light on the laptop. But her hand froze on the dial as the cursor began to move backwards on its own, deleting word after word, sentence after sentence, paragraph after paragraph. Until there was nothing but an empty white document and the sound of the rain beating against the windows.
***
The siren’s song threaded into Liam’s mind. Her words twisted into his soul as he stumbled down the rocky cliff path. The ocean curled like fingers over piano keys, playing a haunting melody over the sliver of white sand far below. That voice. That song. Where had he heard it before?
Rocks slipped over the edge of the muddy footpath, tumbling into the sea. His hands brushed over the wet moss clinging to the cliff wall. Wherever she was. Whoever she was. He would find her. He would follow her.
He lifted his gaze to the water. And in the waves he saw her. Her white dress clinging to her curves. Her pale hair streaming to her waist. Her skin as fair as a winter moon. He staggered onto the beach, his shoes catching in the soft sand. He kicked them off, drunk with a desperate need to be near this woman, to touch this woman.
Nuala’s eyes were closed, her arms lifted, consumed in her song. His bare feet crunched over a trail of silver seashells. “Nuala,” he whispered her name, like a spell on his lips. Like a longing unearthed deep inside him. He held out his hand to her, over the spray of the sea. Over the restless thundering of the waves. Rainwater dripped from his hood, into his eyes. The rain tasted of sea salt, of rosewater, of her.
She opened her eyes as the wind caught the final notes of her song. As her words drifted up, fading into the night. She watched him, her eyes as cold and pale as the petals of the rose that had washed up at his feet.
“Nuala.”
Her skin shimmered as she walked out of the ocean, as the waves guided her toward him. Her dress moved with the swell of the sea, the thin translucent material clinging to her lush hourglass figure. She lifted her hand, her cold fingers threading through his. “I knew you’d come.”
Their breath mingled in the icy air. He inhaled the intoxicating scent of her. “You have the most beautiful voice.”
Nuala smiled. “I wrote a song for you today.”
He lifted her hand, brushing his frozen lips over her icy skin. “Would you sing it for me?”
“It’s about true love.” She took his hand, leading him out into the waves. “And finding it in the most unlikely places.”
Chapter 22
Hunching his shoulders against the rain, Sam knocked on Glenna’s door. He inhaled the stench of something burning and stiffened. When she didn’t answer right away, he kicked the mud off his work boats, scraping them over the rocks lining her garden and knocked again. When she still didn’t answer, he stepped into the squishy garden bed, peered through the rain-streaked glass. There were no candles lit. No lanterns burning. No fire in the fireplace.
But there was no doubt about it. The air smelled of smoke. Testing the knob, he found it turned and glancing over his shoulder he pushed into the dark cottage. He swore when he spotted her lying on the floor. “Glenna!” He rushed to her side, dropping to his knees. Turning her over carefully, he saw the soot smudges on her face, the black ash in her hair, the red welts on her forearms. She was breathing, but she was limp in his arms. “What happened to you?”
“Sam?” Glenna’s eyes fluttered open and she tried to push herself up onto her elbows, but her face was pale as a ghost.
“Come on.” Sam scooped her up, carrying her over to the couch. Glenna sank into the cushions and looked up at him, dazed. Anger coiled up inside him as he spotted the black scorch marks on the wall above the splintered drawing table, the fallen painting and melted oil paint dripping onto the carpet. “Who did this to you?”
“There must have been a fire,” Glenna whispered, pushing unsteadily at her heavy hair. Ash fell onto the front of her blouse.
“Who did this to you?”
“I-I don’t know.”
“Glenna, stay right here. I’m going to get Tara.”
“Wait.”
Sam turned. Glenna’s hand snaked out, wrapping around Sam’s wrist. Something shifted deep in her eyes, like a flame burning through the fog. “Where is he?”
“Who?”
Glenna’s fingers bit into his wrist. “Liam.”
Sam dropped back to the sofa. “That’s what I came here to talk to you about.” He took her hand, covering it in his own. “I think you might be in shock, Glenna. Tell me what happened here first.”
“No. I…” Her gaze swept over the room, assessing the damage. “I must have had an accident with a candle. It’s nothing.”
“Bullshit,” Sam seethed. “I know I’m the last person you want to see when your defenses are down, but don’t treat me like a fool.”
Edging her hand out of his, she brushed soot from her sleeve. “Really, it’s nothing.”
“It’s not nothing!” Sam shot to his feet. “I saw the painting, Glenna. The one you conveniently took over to Nuala’s cottage today. I find it curious,” he said, drawing out the word, “that you would paint a white coral palace for that guest cottage this weekend.”
“I painted it weeks ago,” she argued. “It just finished drying today.”
“That’s a lie,” Sam snapped, starting to pace. “You painted that palace for Nuala as a warning. To let her know you were onto her. Because it’s her palace, isn’t it?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Really?” Sam’s strides ate up the small room. “I find it curious that all this happened the day after you borrowed one of Brennan’s books. The day after Liam came searching for that exact book.”
“Sam, you don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Sam stopped pacing, turning to face her. “I’ve heard the story, Glenna. I know what we’re dealing with. I didn’t need a damn book to figure it out. I went straight to the source.”
Glenna swallowed. “What… source?”
“Brennan Lockley. The keeper of the fairy tales. He told us the tale of the white selkie.”
Glenna lifted her eyes to his. “The white…”
“You think you can handle everything, Glenna. But you can’t. None of us can.” Sam ran a hand over his wool cap. His forehead felt hot and scratchy all of a sudden. “But there is one thing I can’t figure out. Something I’d like you to answer. I know you painted that palace for Nuala. To show her you knew what she was. But how do you even know what it looks like?”
Glenna had gone very still, all the color drained from her face. “I see things, remember?”
Sam shook his head. “You said your visions last only seconds. You couldn’t have painted that from a few seconds.”
“I’m a very talented artist.”
He stared at her. Her words were measured—the very study of calm. But there was fear in her eyes. And he didn’t like the way her knuckles had gone white as she gripped the sofa cushion. He didn’t like it at all. “You have two choices,” he said carefully. “You tell me what you know and I’ll help you figure out how to stop her. Or you pretend you don’t know anything and let me figure it out myself. Either way,” he challenged, “I will figure it out.”
<
br /> “You need to stay out of this, Sam.” But her voice had gone cold and grave. “I’ll handle it.”
He watched her run her sleeves back down her arms to cover the burn marks, watched her try to compose herself. And damned if he didn’t respect her for thinking she could handle everything on her own. But not this time. This time, he wasn’t going anywhere. “Why won’t you let me help you?”
“Because I don’t trust you.” Glenna stood and a new resolve smoldered deep in her tawny eyes. “I don’t want you hurting any more of the people I love.”
Sam stared at her. “I’m not going to hurt anyone.”
“Maybe not on purpose,” Glenna admitted. “But you told me about your knack for finding things that don’t want to be found.” She brushed past him, rounding the edge of the couch and heading toward the bedroom. “Do us all a favor and go back to the farm.”
The wind tore over the fields, rattling the windows. Sam stalked after her. “Might I remind you of the part I played in solving the legend this summer?”
“That was a lucky break.” She paused by the drawing table, her foot shifting almost imperceptibly over the rug. He glanced down at the last minute, catching the small round objects rolling under the table into a pile of pale ash.
“It wasn’t lucky.” Sam bent down and scooped up a pearl, watching it glitter in his palm. “If Nuala’s a white selkie, why can’t we find her pelt? Like we did with Tara’s ancestor? Maybe it’s hidden somewhere on this island?”
Glenna snatched the pearl from his palm, slipping it into her pocket. “Stay out of this, Sam.”
“Why? Why can’t we just find out where it is and dig it up?”
Her eyes flashed as she looked up at him. “Because you cannot steal a white selkie’s pelt!”
“Why not?” he demanded. “Tell me or I’m going to track down a shovel and start digging—starting in your garden!”
“You can’t steal a white selkie’s pelt because no one is allowed to see her, or even know she exists when she’s on land! The only one who can see her pelt is the man she’s come here for! And even he has only a matter of seconds before she gives him his own pelt and takes him under!”
“Then we’ll destroy it!”
“You can’t destroy a white selkie’s pelt, Sam! It’s protected! And any human who lays eyes on it will either die instantly or go mad trying to follow her into the sea!”
***
“Owen!” Kelsey hissed, pelting rocks at his bedroom window. When he pressed his face to the glass and held up his finger to his lips, she shrank back behind a scraggly rosemary bush, peering through the other window. It was too dark to see anything, but the glow of firelight flickering over the pale walls. Rainwater rushed down the slope, filling her sneakers and her feet squished around inside them as she shifted, moving so the trowel tucked in her pocket wouldn’t jab into her side.
She heard the scrape of the window being lifted. Chips of white paint broke off, falling into the garden as Owen pushed it up far enough so he could slip out. “Come on,” Kelsey urged. The boats in the harbor knocked into each other. The smell of fish and a faint stench of gasoline drifted up as the ocean slammed into the rocks.
Owen stuck his leg out, scooting his small body through the narrow opening, and hopped down to the soggy earth. Together they forced the window shut and ducked as they crept past the living room windows. Kelsey put a hand on his arm, stopping him before they crossed the flooded street. “Is she in there?” Kelsey whispered.
He nodded. “With your uncle. Where do your parents think you are?”
“At Ashling’s. We don’t have much time.”
She looked both ways, making sure no one saw them before dashing out into the street and waving for him to follow her. They snuck past the statue of the Virgin Mary, standing watchful over the curve in the road leading up to the village. A flower had slipped out of the stone vase in her hands and Kelsey grabbed it before it swirled away, sticking it on the flat stone by the statue’s feet, protected from the wind.
She dug a flashlight out of her jacket pocket and switched it on. A small beam of light illuminated a thin soggy trail leading north through the village to the bogs. She led the way through the fields, shining the light over the stiles and helping him clamber over them. Cows lifted their heads, watching them as they passed. Sheep scattered at the sound of their voices, jumping over fallen fences and squeezing through breaks in the stone walls.
When they came to the crumbling cottage, the lone rose shimmered and glowed through the darkness and Kelsey switched off her flashlight. More petals had fallen, but even though the water moved, the petals stayed perfectly still around it, like a circle of white stones protecting it.
Owen knelt. “You’re sure it’s under here?”
She shoved the trowel into the mud under the rose, scooping out a shovel full of soil and tossing it aside. “It has to be.”
***
“Trapped in a selkie’s spell?” Dominic stared at his wife. “Liam?”
Tara nodded, wringing her hands. “We searched everywhere, all through his room, all through his things. We went through every book, every piece of paper. But I know what I saw. The document… it just disappeared before our eyes.”
“And you’re sure of the title? The White Selkie?”
Tara nodded. “Caitlin’s gone over there. To warn him. But I don’t know if he’ll listen to her. She said he was starting to remember things. That he was starting to remember her. But they were in her cottage earlier and he heard a voice, like someone singing. She said she couldn’t hear it but he followed it out into the rain. It was like he couldn’t stop himself. She said his eyes… they changed color and his skin grew cold. His clothes, even his shoes, were covered in ice. She came straight here looking for this document—this fairy tale—he told her he lost.”
Dominic thought back to the times he’d walked in on his brother this weekend in his room, bent over his laptop, searching through his things. He’d said he had writer’s block. But maybe he’d been lying, trying to cover up the memory loss. How had he missed all the signs? Dominic searched his wife’s eyes. But Nuala? A selkie? His brother, caught in a spell? There was only supposed to be one curse on this island, and they had broken it this summer. “Caitlin said that he told her… that he lost this document?”
Tara nodded. “It was all he’d talked about before coming here this weekend. He was going to tell her about it on their date. Apparently, he discovered a new fairy tale in the Trinity Library in Dublin. I went to ask Sam earlier if he’d heard anything about it—”
“Sam?” Dominic stared at her. “You talked to Sam about this?”
“I thought I was being ridiculous. I wanted to run it by someone first.”
“And you didn’t think to run it by me?”
“I was afraid you might not be able to listen objectively. With Liam being your brother and Caitlin your best friend. I didn’t know enough. I just had some suspicions. I didn’t want to worry you…”
“You didn’t want to worry me?” A muscle in his jaw started to tick. “Tara, I’m your husband. If there’s anyone you should be willing to worry, it’s me!”
She put a hand on his arm. “Dom…”
Dominic ground his teeth. “Is that why Sam was here earlier?”
Tara nodded. “He wanted to talk to Owen.”
“Owen? What’s Owen got to do with it?”
“That’s what I’m trying to figure out. If Nuala’s only here for Liam, then who is Owen? Is he even really her son?”
“Now hold on a minute. You were in here earlier asking me if I was descended from selkies. What’s that got to do with anything?”
The front door swung open and Dominic bit back his next question as Ashling and her parents walked in.
“I hope you don’t mind us dropping by.” Mary Roark shook the rain off her sleeves and started to peel off her jacket. “With everyone up at the Dooley’s we thought you all might want some company during the
storm.”
Dominic watched the door swing shut behind Ashling. “Where’s Kelsey?”
“What do you mean?”
“She was supposed to be with you.”
Mary glanced up at him, puzzled. “She stopped by for a little while earlier. Just to say hi. But she left soon after.”
“I thought you were making candles tonight?”
“Candles? No.” Mary shook her head. “I haven’t a clue how to make candles. Where’d you get that idea?”
Chapter 23
Caitlin spotted the glow of candlelight through the gauzy curtains, the shadow of two figures moving around inside Nuala’s cottage. She took a deep breath and knocked, listening for the murmur of voices through the door. She stepped back when Liam’s broad-shouldered frame filled the doorway, her eyes widening at the sight of him. Gone was the shimmer of blue on his skin, the ice in his hair, the frost on his clothes. Even his eyes were back to their normal color.
But there was no recognition in them, no apology for walking out on their kiss. No explanation for where he’d gone or how he’d ended up back at Nuala’s. He gazed down at her curiously. “What are you doing out in this storm?”
“I need to talk to you.”
He stepped back. “Come inside, then.”
“No,” she said. “I need to talk to you alone.”
“About what?”
Her gaze darted over his shoulder into the cottage. “About Nuala.”
“What about her?”
“Would you walk with me to the pub? I need to… discuss something with you.”
“Discuss something?” Liam lifted an eyebrow. “I think you better tell me what’s on your mind now.”
Out of the corner of her eye, Caitlin spotted a flash of white. Nuala turned from the kitchen, cradling two drinks in her hand. “Liam,” Caitlin said quickly. “I think Nuala’s put a spell on you.”