by Sophie Moss
“I’m sick of her leaving us in the dark.” Tara stepped out of his arms. She untied the apron around her waist and dropped it over the chair. She turned off the oven, where a pan of sugared rosemary was baking for a new tincture.
Dominic turned, watching her walk to the door. “Where are you going?”
“To Glenna’s,” Tara said, glancing over her shoulder. “To have a look around.”
SAM WHISTLED IN appreciation at the black two-seater Mercedes with buttery leather interior. “This is your car?”
Glenna smiled, hitting the unlock button on her remote key pad. The small fishing village of Sheridan was bustling with tourists who’d traveled to the coast at the last minute to take advantage of the sunny weather. Doors to the colorful shops were propped open, beckoning visitors to browse Celtic charms and hand-knit wool sweaters. Lobstermen were pulling up their cages and traps, their frustrated curses echoing over the bay when they found them empty again.
Sam ran his hands over the gleaming finish. “Can I drive?”
Glenna smirked, sliding into the driver’s seat. “Not a chance.”
Sam folded his tall frame into the passenger seat and she eased the sleek car into the street, steering around a family nibbling on a basket of fish and chips. She pressed on the gas, shifting gears as they climbed the hill leading up to the highway. The mountains of Connemara loomed in the distance.
It felt good to be behind the wheel, to be back in control. Glenna rolled down the window, letting the warm wind play through her hair. She had a lot to think about after last night. Sleeping with Sam might not have been the brightest idea, but it didn’t change the fact that she still had to stop him from finding Brigid. The problem was now she had two goals—to protect Brigid and Sam. And she wasn’t entirely sure how she was going to accomplish both.
She knew she couldn’t let Sam out of her sight. Not after what Moira had said on the beach—that she had a plan for him. She glanced at Sam out of the corner of her eye when he reached for the radio dial and fiddled with the stations, settling on a mix of folk and country. He stretched his legs and closed his eyes to take a nap. How could he relax at a time like this?
Oh, right, because Sam was certain they could break the curse. Glenna’s fingers gripped the wheel. But Sam had only caught a glimpse of what Moira was capable of last November. Now that she had Nuala’s powers, there was only one way to stop her.
Glenna scanned the craggy peaks of the Twelve Bens. She needed to draw out the truth. Stealing a glance at Sam to make sure his eyes were closed behind his sunglasses, she reached under her seat and pulled out a long curved blade. With one hand on the wheel, she slid the knife into a hidden cut-out inside her leather boot.
She had sworn to protect Brigid—even if it meant protecting her from the man she was falling for.
Owen’s eyes widened as he and Brennan rounded the corner to the harbor. The tide was so high the water had swallowed the pier. Boats floated above the docks, knocking into each other. Brennan leaned on his cane, pulling out his handkerchief to wipe his brow. “Haven’t seen a tide this high in years.”
Owen offered the elderly man his arm as they walked down the hill to join the rest of the villagers gathered on the hillside. He spotted Ashling, clutching her mother’s hand. Kelsey stood in the middle of the crowd with Fiona. Donal Riley shielded his eyes from the sun, gazing out at the driftwood floating at the mouth of the harbor. “We’re going to need to move it so Finn can get the ferry back in.”
“Aye.” Jack Dooley rolled up the legs of his pants. “I’ll help you get the nets ready.”
Sarah Dooley wrung her hands as the men started walking down the hill to the water’s edge. “First, the tides are so low fish are washing up on the beaches, and now this? What’s happening to our home?”
When Ashling turned her face into her mother’s skirts, Mary Gallagher stroked a comforting hand over her daughter’s hair. “Quinn hasn’t caught a fish in weeks. He left this morning for Galway to find work.”
Brennan took his weight off Owen and hobbled over to Mary. “We’ve gone through tough times before. We’ll get through this one.”
Owen lingered in the back of the crowd as Donal and the others sloshed into the water, using the pilings and ropes to balance as they navigated the submerged pier. Owen looked east, to the deserted coastline leading to Brennan’s farm. His parents had told him that morning they didn’t want him to go anywhere without an adult today, but they wouldn’t tell him why.
He’d gone down to the rocks last night at sunset, but Nuala never came. And he needed to know if she was okay. He started to back away from the crowd, but Kelsey turned, catching his eye. Owen put his finger to his lips and shook his head, backing away quietly. As soon as he got to the nearest stone wall, he ducked behind it, breaking into a run.
When he reached the rocks, he kicked off his shoes and waded barefoot into the sea. He fished out the book he’d tucked into a crevasse the night before. He’d left it there as a message for Nuala, so she would know that he’d been there, waiting for her. The book dripped seawater when he lifted it and he brushed a strand of kelp off the cover. The soggy pages clumped together when he opened to The Little Mermaid.
He backed out of the water and sat down on the rocks. Maybe if he read a little of the story, Nuala would show up. He turned to the page where they’d left off two days before, glancing up when he smelled smoke. He dropped the book, scrambling back from the water’s edge as the ocean wavered, shimmering under Moira’s heat.
“It’s a lovely day for reading, isn’t it?” Moira plucked the book from the rocks and eyed the title of the story. “The Little Mermaid? What an interesting choice.”
Owen’s gaze darted over his shoulder, back to the harbor.
“Expecting someone else?” Moira asked sweetly.
“Wh-where’s Nuala?”
“Nuala?” Moira lifted a brow. “You mean, your mother?”
Owen’s knees started to tremble. “Caitlin’s my mother.”
“It must be hard, having two mothers.” Moira turned, her skirt trailing over the rocks. Sparks snapped up from the lichens as they caught fire in her wake. “I wonder how Caitlin would feel if she knew you came here every night to spend time with Nuala?”
The sea rose, submerging Owen’s bare feet. The waves snatched at his discarded shoes, pulling them out to sea. “Where is she?”
“She’s gone.” Moira said coldly. “You won’t be seeing Nuala again.”
Owen backed up, slipping on the wet rocks. “What did you do to her?”
She snapped the book shut. “The same thing I’ll do to your mother if you don’t stay away from this story.”
Owen scrambled to his feet. “I’ll stay away from it. I promise.”
“Good.” She handed the book back to him. “But first you’re going to take it home and tell your parents you’re done with fairy tales.”
He heard a low keening sound. Moira turned, narrowing her eyes at the young seal watching them from a nearby rock.
“Stop!” Owen cried as she lifted a hand, sending a spark sailing through the air. The spark landed on the seal’s fin. A song of pain rose over the waves as the seal slipped under the surface.
“This obsession,” Moira hissed as she looked back at Owen, “is over.”
SAM BLINKED AWAKE. The midday sun lit up the craggy peaks of a mountain range. He sat up, rubbing a hand over his eyes and looking around at the deserted country road lined with tall grasses and boulders. “Where are we?”
“Connemara National Park.”Glenna opened her door, and reached behind the back seat for a small backpack. She slung it over her shoulder and motioned for him to get out of the car.
Sam unfolded himself from the passenger seat and took in the view. They were already pretty high up in elevation. He could see the ocean in the distance behind them. “I thought we were going to Dublin.”
“We are.” Glenna tossed him a bottle of water. “But we’re taking a d
etour first.”
Sam caught the bottle. “To go for a hike?”
“Something like that.” She turned, veering off the road and striding into the wild.
He closed the door of the car and heard the alarm system beep as she locked it with her remote. Well, aren’t we full of surprises, Sam mused. His boots crunched over the brittle grasses as he followed her. “You realize there’s no trail here.”
“I don’t need a trail.”
Sam lengthened his stride until he was hiking beside her. The air tasted fresher, cooler up here. “What are we looking for?”
“A stone circle.”
Sam lifted a brow. “What are we going to do when we get to this stone circle?”
“We’re not going to do anything,” Glenna corrected. “I’m looking for a plant that grows there—blackthorn.”
Sam scanned the rocky peaks. “This is a hell of a detour for a plant.”
“It’s a very special plant.”
Blackthorn. The girl at the pub in Bray, the one with the tattoo, had ordered a blackthorn cocktail. She’d said blackthorn was a plant that would bloom on Imbolc. He’d forgotten to research the pagan holiday, but he knew better than anyone that answers and clues could come in many forms, including a random conversation at a crowded pub.
Sam looked out at the wide rolling sea, at the cluster of islands in the distance. He thought of the roses, the orange petals fading to black outside his home. “We should probably talk about what happened last night.”
Glenna glanced up at him. “There’s nothing to talk about.”
“Actually, I think we have a lot to talk about.”
“I got caught up in the moment, Sam. It’s not going to happen again.”
“You can’t pretend you don’t have feelings for me anymore.”
“I told you. I’m physically attracted to you. But that’s it. And what you feel for me isn’t anything other than lust. You can’t resist me because of what I am.”
“I know you have selkie blood in you. Maybe that’s what first drew me to you when I saw you on the island. But it’s so much more than that now, Glenna. Besides, Tara has selkie blood in her. You don’t question Dominic’s feelings for her.”
“It’s not the same.”
“How?”
“I’m different from Tara.”
“Okay,” Sam said slowly. “Enlighten me.”
“Look.” She turned to face him. “One of the reasons I moved to Seal Island is because there are so few men there. And the only ones who are even remotely interesting are already taken. It’s safe there. I can live. I can breathe without worrying I’m going to hurt anyone.”
Sam narrowed his eyes, letting his gaze trail up and down her lush figure. “I have a hard time believing you’ve completely cut men out of your life.”
“I haven’t.” She looked out at the sea, a light wind blowing a curl across her face. “But I leave my affairs in the city, and I’m very careful about never seeing the same man twice.” She lifted her chin, looking back at Sam. “I know that seems cold, but it’s the only way.”
“So my arriving on Seal Island shook things up for you?”
“Yes.” She turned, starting to climb a steep incline.
“Good,” Sam called after her. “Because you can’t keep living like this.”
“This is my life, Sam.” She glanced over her shoulder. “I can choose to live it however I want.”
“You’re afraid,” Sam challenged. “You’re living in fear. Just like Tara was when she first came to the island. You may not be on the run, but I can see it in your eyes. And I’ve seen the way you look at Tara and Dominic and at Caitlin and Liam when they’re together. You want what they have.”
“What I want doesn’t matter,” Glenna said tightly.
“You want a normal life, but you don’t think you can have it. Because of some stupid curse.”
“You can psychoanalyze me all you want, Sam. It’s not going to change anything.”
He caught up with her and put a hand on her arm, turning her to face him. “What if there was a man strong enough to break the spell?”
The grasses shivered, rustling in the wind. Glenna pulled away, shaking her head. “I can’t take that risk.”
IT WOULD HELP, Tara thought, if she knew what she was looking for. Sitting on the floor in Glenna’s bedroom, she blew out a breath. She’d been here for hours: searching drawers and cabinets, checking for loose floorboards, rummaging under sofas and chairs, digging through her friend’s closet.
She wasn’t a stranger to secrets. She’d learned, during her first marriage, how to hide things so her husband couldn’t find them—wads of cash, fake ID’s, plane tickets to escape to another country. She’d made mistakes at first, and had been punished for them. But she’d gotten better at it after a while. She’d learned that sometimes the most obvious place was the best place to hide something.
She stood, empty-handed, and walked back to the bookshelves lining the walls behind Glenna’s bed. They were filled with ancient myths and legends, books of spells and magic, tales of enchantments and romance. She’d already combed through them once, but something kept nagging her to go back. She ran her hands over the leather-bound volumes, tracing the loopy gold calligraphy along the spines. On the bottom shelf, a collection of black Moleskine sketchbooks took up half the shelf.
She slid one out, then another, dropping them onto the scarlet comforter draped over the queen-sized bed. Maybe there was something in one of Glenna’s sketches that would give her a clue. She reached for the last one, frowning at the weight of it. It was the same size and shape as the others, but it felt at least a pound heavier than it looked. She nudged the other sketchbooks aside and edged her hip onto the bed.
A strand of red ribbon peeked out of the top of the pages and she eased it free. It was frayed at the ends, even though the book itself looked fairly new. She ran it through her fingers, noting the threadbare stitches in the material. A movement of curtains caught her eye and she glanced up, but it was only a puff of wind.
She settled back onto the bed, opening the heavy volume. Most of the pages were blank, save a few unfinished sketches of stone circles and moonlit paths. She flipped through the rest of the book, pausing when she spotted the hidden flap tucked into the back cover. She peeled it open and eased out a well-worn, topographic map. She unfolded it carefully and saw that it was a map of a mountain range. There were dozens of spots circled, many of them with a red x slashed through them.
Glenna was searching for something. But what? And where?
Tara froze when the spine retracted, cracking in her hands. The binding quivered. A hot, dry wind gusted in through the open window. Silver necklaces dangling from antique drawer handles clinked and jangled. Tara’s heart pounded as the wind caught the pages, blowing them out like a fan. They yellowed before her eyes, crinkling and stiffening with age. They made a dry scraping sound like dead leaves skittering over a city street in the fall.
The leather creaked and stretched in her palms as the pages—blank before—filled with ancient Gaelic letters scrawled in black ink. Her dark hair blew into her eyes as the wind teased the pages open to a rough sketch of a bush with long black thorns and delicate white flowers. Her hand shook as she brushed a finger over the word, draighean, under the fading black-and-white sketch.
Every candle in the room lit. Smoke curled up from the wicks. Tara gasped when the window slammed shut and sparks shot out from the cracks in the floorboards. She scrambled to her feet as the curtains ignited, the flames twisting toward her, cutting off her path to the door.
Sam knelt, brushing a hand over the scorched earth. “What happened here?”
Glenna balled up the topographic map, crumpling it in her hands. The rugged peaks of the Twelve Bens rose behind them and the Tooreen Bogs stretched out to the sea as she stood inside the crumbling stone circle, known only to a few pagan communities in the area. “My mother.”
Sam pushed slowly back
to his feet. “The blackthorn?”
Glenna nodded. “I’ve been searching for this spot for years. I’ve found nearly every stone circle hidden in these mountains, but this is one of the few I hadn’t seen. I thought if there was any blackthorn left, it might be able to help us.” A sparrowhawk cried in the distance. “I always knew it was a shot in the dark. But I had to try.”
“Are you sure this is the place?”
“This is the place.” Glenna pressed her palm to a cool stone. She could sense the energy, the undercurrents of magic hidden deep within the ritual circle. “I’ve seen it a dozen times in my dreams.”
“And this blackthorn…” Sam said slowly as he walked to her. “It holds the truth in its bark?”
Glenna nodded. “If you throw a blackthorn branch into a fire on Imbolc, the true story will be told in the smoke.” Her gaze dropped to the blackened soil. “But Moira got rid of it, and made sure none would ever grow again.”
Sam stepped inside the circle and Glenna watched him tense. He may not have magic, but his intuition ran deeper than any man she’d ever known. She could tell that he felt things, smelled things that didn’t belong here. He reached out, brushing a hand over one of the stones. Whispers and voices danced over the wind.
He jerked his hand back. “What was that?”
A gust rushed over the mountainside, whipping Glenna’s ponytail over her shoulder. The tall grasses bent, the wind whistling through their brittle stalks. Sam’s eyes locked on hers—clear, sharp and full of questions. “What happened in this place?”
Glenna held out her hand and he walked slowly to her. It was time for Sam to find out exactly who they were dealing with. Her fingers curled around his wide palm and she let the rush of power flow into him. He stood his ground, but she could feel every muscle in his body tighten as the air shifted and the sky changed from blue to vivid red.
Grass sprang up beneath their feet, where scorched earth used to be. A brush fire crackled by one of the stones, and in the middle of the circle a man and a woman lay together, their bodies linked in ecstasy, their bare flesh glistening with sweat. Sam gripped Glenna’s hand as the image wavered and shifted. The couple was standing now, and the man reached for his clothes balled up beside the fire. He looked back at the woman with hatred in his eyes. “I will find her. Wherever she is. I will never stop looking for her. You cannot get away with this.”