by Sophie Moss
“Would you have let him see her if he’d asked?”
“I don’t know.” Caitlin shook his head. “After everything she did to us. To our family…” She fought back a hot rush of anger and walked into the kitchen, filling a kettle with water. “She stole our child, Liam. For ten years, Nuala raised Owen as her own, and we didn’t even know he was alive.”
“And he didn’t know we were alive.” Liam picked up the yellow dish towel hanging over the back of the chair, handing it to her. “Maybe we underestimated the bond that formed between them during those years.”
“He asked me to forgive her,” Caitlin said, drying her hands. “And I did. To get you back. But I don’t trust her. I don’t want her here.” She set the towel down. “And I don’t want her anywhere near Owen.”
“Owen thinks she might be trying to help us find Brigid.”
The gas clicked on the stove as Caitlin lit the burner with a match. “Why would she do that?”
“Maybe to prove to us that she’s trying to change?” Liam offered. “That she’s on our side?”
Caitlin turned. “I don’t want her on our side.”
“If Nuala is against Moira, she is on our side. She might be able to help us.”
Caitlin pushed away from the counter. How could she have been so stupid to think her son would forget about Nuala? Walking over to the box, she picked up the book Liam gave Owen for Christmas, the one that fell in the water. The pages were still damp and stuck together, but she opened them to the story marked by the gold ribbon and wasn’t at all surprised to find The Little Mermaid. “Have you come up with any ideas about why your mother would shelve the white selkie legend with the mermaid books?”
“I have a theory,” Liam admitted slowly. “But it’s pretty far-fetched.”
“I’m starting to think far-fetched is the norm around here.”
Liam walked over to the couch, pulling her down beside him. “Did Owen tell you the story Brennan told him? About the mermaids and the selkies?”
Caitlin nodded.
“I’ve been searching back, as far back as I can go, trying to figure out when the first white selkie was born. And I think it might have coincided with when the mermaids forced the selkies into these waters.”
“But they had queens before then, didn’t they?”
“Yes,” Liam answered. “But not white selkie queens. The siren who almost started the war between the mermaids and selkies was the daughter of a selkie queen. It was that queen’s refusal to hand her over to the mermaids that forced the selkies into these waters.” Liam’s gaze shifted to the book in Caitlin’s hands. “I can’t help wondering if the white selkie’s role was created by the mermaids as a punishment, a sort of twisted test to ensure the selkies maintained the peace between the land and the sea.”
Caitlin furrowed her brow. “But a white selkie has to bring a human man into the sea to rule beside her before she can be queen,” she argued. “If the reason the mermaids cut off the selkies in the first place was to stop the siren, or any selkie, from luring men into the sea, why would they punish the selkies with something that would essentially make them do the same thing?”
“Think about it.” Liam took a deep breath. “It’s the ultimate punishment. Only one land-man is allowed to be taken every few hundred years, and, yes, he’s cut off from his family and friends, but he gets to rule beside the white selkie. He gets to be king. The power is shared. Together they rule these seas and keep the peace between both their people. It’s a balance of power.”
“But wouldn’t that be disruptive?” Caitlin asked. “Wouldn’t the mermaids be afraid the ruling family would revolt, if someone didn’t want to lose power?”
“Not if the alternative was this.” Liam gestured out the window. “There are no fish in these waters, Caitlin. Nothing for the selkies to eat, to live off of. The ocean is growing warmer every day. And the tides…” Liam shook his head. “Donal and Jack spent half the day clearing a path for the ferry to get back in this afternoon. If a storm were to blow in when the tide was as high as it was today, our harbor could be wiped out.”
“Our island,” Caitlin whispered. “Our home. It’s slipping away.”
“I think that’s what the mermaids want,” Liam said quietly. “If the story Brennan told Owen is true, then the selkies are restricted not only by the boundaries under the sea, but by the amount of land they can shape-shift on. Their connection to these islands is the only magic they have left. Without the islands, the selkies would lose their magic. They wouldn’t be selkies anymore. They would only be seals.”
Caitlin’s hands clasped the damp pages of the fairy tale. She had never considered mermaids to be anything other than friendly sea creatures. But now that she looked more closely at the illustrations, she could see the sharp scales on their powerful tales, the elongated fins that could propel them through the sea five times faster than any selkie, and the piercing barbs of the king’s trident.
“Nuala couldn’t have been the first white selkie to rebel,” Liam went on, “to reject the idea of bringing a land-man into the ocean to rule beside her. There had to be others who felt this fate was forced on them.”
“Nuala rebelled twice,” Caitlin said softly. “First by eloping with her selkie lover, and then by taking Owen—a child instead of a man.”
Liam nodded solemnly. “She might have succeeded if Moira hadn’t tricked her into stealing our child—one with selkie blood in his veins.”
Caitlin’s gaze dropped to the pearl and sapphire engagement ring on her finger, a gift from Liam’s grandmother—the selkie queen who had passed away only six weeks before. “Do you think that’s why Nuala was here tonight? To warn us?”
“She’s on our side, Cait. I have no doubt of that.” He reached for her hand, lacing their fingers together. “As much as we both hate what she did to us, I think we may need her before the end.”
Caitlin drew in a shaky breath. “There has to be another way to restore the balance in the selkie kingdom.”
Liam lifted his eyes to hers. “The selkies need a queen.”
Caitlin gripped his hand as a new fear swept through her. “Nuala?”
Liam shook his head slowly. “I don’t think so.”
Caitlin searched his face, pale and fraught in the dimly lit room. “Then who?”
“If Nuala hadn’t been born,” Liam said slowly. “My mother was next in line to be queen.”
BRIGID LAY AWAKE, listening to the owl hooting in the woods. The moon was a pale disk of silver shining through her window. The house was quiet, but her fingers worried over the seam of the wool blanket tucked under her chin. She could hear it—the voice whispering to her through the pines—the voice of the sea.
Glenna was the only one who believed her, the only one who said she could hear it, too. But she hadn’t come today. And the voice was growing stronger. She could hear it wherever she went on the property now: in the chapel, in the greenhouse, in the dining hall where they ate their meals at night. It followed her like a long winter shadow cast by a frozen sun that would never set.
Glenna had promised her that they would follow it one day, that they would follow the voice together all the way out to the sea. But what if something happened to her? What if she was never coming to see her again?
Brigid slid her bare feet out from under the covers. Moonlight slanted in the small window as she slipped into her habit, fastening the wimple around her throat. She could not ignore it anymore. It was calling to her. If she could follow it, if she could just reach the ocean, everything would be okay.
She slipped silently out of her room and stole down to the river. A warm wind played through the branches of the pines. Clear water rushed over the rocks, twisting and bubbling through the woods. She gathered her stiff black skirt in her hands, lifting the hem as she stepped into the river.
She closed her eyes as the cool water washed over her bare feet. A branch snapped in the forest and an animal skittered through the underb
rush. Brigid breathed in the scent of the pines, and with one last look back at the house, she set out alone into the night, letting the voice of the river carry her home.
OWEN WAITED FOR his parents’ bedroom door to shut. As soon as their voices faded to whispers, he switched on his flashlight, shining a beam over the crown tucked under the covers. He dusted sand from the crevasses of the braided black vines, tracing the intricate pattern woven into the front. He’d seen it somewhere before—this pattern, like one of the Celtic knots in Brennan’s old books.
He didn’t know what it meant, or who the crown belonged to, but whoever it was must be special if Nuala risked her life to bring it to him. He switched off the flashlight and pulled back the covers. He wouldn’t let her down. He crept out of bed, stuffing pillows down the length of the mattress. The crown couldn’t stay here—not if it put his parents in danger.
He padded over to the open window, slipping out and landing softly in the grass. Brennan would know what to do with it. He might even know why Nuala had brought it to him. He hurried across the island, jogging up the hill toward the door of the main house, but a faint orange light coming from Sam’s cottage caught his eye. He hesitated as the scent of something sweet mixed with the salty air blowing in from the sea.
He heard tiny branches snapping against the wall, and he crept toward Sam’s cottage. His fingers gripped the crown as he rounded the corner. Thick black vines snaked up the walls, latching onto the whitewash, scraping over the glass. Shadows devoured the cracked shudders and the petals on the blooms gleamed iridescent black, like oil spilled into the ocean.
A single rose, at the very top, curled into the thatch. Three of the petals were orange and they radiated light, but the glow faded as another petal turned black. Only two orange petals remained, like the last dying flames of a fire about to go out.
He backed slowly away from the roses. The last time roses had grown on this island, it had meant someone’s time was running out. If these roses were growing outside Sam’s cottage, did that mean Sam was in trouble? Slowly, he pulled out the crown. They were so similar—this crown and these roses.
His gaze dropped to the soil around the base of the plant. The earth was turned up, as if someone had been digging earlier. His mother had hidden something underneath a rose once, something that meant a lot to her. She must think it was a safe spot to hide things.
He glanced over his shoulder at the barn. He could hear the animals moving around in their stalls. The crown would be safe here. At least until he figured out what the pattern meant. He ran into the barn and grabbed a shovel. Carrying it back out to the roses, he started to dig.
MOIRA FLOATED IN the dark, murky waters outside her cave. The volcano’s tremors had subsided, but trails of congealed lava still dripped from the rocky mountainside. Pockets of smoke puffed up from the gray soil, bubbles of sulfur popping and releasing a putrid stench.
With a swish of her tail, she was in her rose garden. She had never liked to garden—not like her sister. She had never seen the point in tending to sea flowers that would wither and fade as the seasons passed. But black roses were different. Black roses had a use.
Six black roses with ebony stems and glossy petals undulated in the currents. The soil beneath them glowed like embers. Her flippers wrapped around the black iron rake leaning against the mouth of her lair. She scoured the sharp prongs through the bits of lava rock, preparing a new plot.
Soon there would be seven.
Moira smiled. She had let Glenna think it was the curse taking her lovers all these years. But the truth was, Moira was taking them. Black roses could catch the soul of a dying man in their petals, and the emotions of that soul—the deepest emotion that soul felt when they died—lived on in the rose.
Love was a powerful magic. And without it, Moira would be nothing. She was a fraud, a sea witch with no real powers of her own. A selkie with no ability to attract. These men—her daughter’s lovers—they were her magic.
But none of them could give her what Sam would. True love was the most powerful magic of all. And now she was going to have it. She could taste it—the rush of freedom when the selkies crowned her as their queen. The bursting explosion of the volcano in the distance as her lair was destroyed.
She would never come back to this wretched place again. She had thought Glenna understood what was at stake, what Moira was doing for both of them. But her daughter had forsaken her. She had left her with no choice. She would take from Glenna the one thing that meant the most.
The sea pulsed, like a hollow heart beating in her ears. If she could not have love, no one could. A rose snaked out of the soil, its petals a glossy midnight black. A faint swish in the water behind her signaled her eels return. She turned, but they cowered in the shadows at the mouth of her cave, watching her with fearful eyes.
“What is it?” Moira asked dismissively as they entwined their tails, clinging to each other for strength.
“Nuala,” one of the eels hissed. “She escaped.”
Owen?” Brennan rubbed his eyes, gazing down at the child sitting on the floor of his living room with a flashlight, surrounded by a pile of books. “What are you doing here?”
Owen shifted his weight. “I needed to look at your books.”
“It’s the middle of the night,” Brennan said gruffly, taking in Owen’s torn pajamas and hands caked in dirt. “Couldn’t this wait until morning?”
Owen shook his head.
Brennan walked into the room, switching on the light. “Where do your parents think you are?”
Owen reached for another book, the one is his lap slipping onto the floor with the others. “Asleep.”
“Don’t you think they’ll worry if they wake up and find you gone?” Brennan asked, reaching for the phone on the wall.
“No,” Owen said, rushing across the room and grabbing the phone from him. “You can’t call them.”
“Why not?”
“Because I need your help,” Owen said quickly, hanging up the phone. “Remember that book you were reading to me a few weeks ago—the one with the Celtic knots in it?”
Brennan nodded slowly.
“Can I see it again?”
Brennan glowered at him, but he ambled over to the wall of books, pulling a heavy volume down from the tallest shelf. He held it away from Owen when the boy reached for it. “Only if you tell me what this is about.”
“I need to know what one of the knots means.”
Brennan narrowed his eyes, but he handed Owen the book. Owen took it and sank to the couch, flipping through the pages. He paused when he found the one he was looking for. “There it is,” he whispered. “Just like I remembered.”
Brennan sat down beside him, his knees creaking. He peered at the page. “That’s the knot the merprince wears in his crown.”
“The…merprince?”
Brennan nodded. When Owen’s hands started to shake, Brennan took the book from him. “What’s going on, Owen?”
“Nothing,” Owen whispered. “I just needed to know what that knot meant.”
MOIRA STEPPED OUT of the swirl of smoke. Fingers of fire clung to the sleeves of her dress, sizzling over the seams. She gazed up at the dark homes in the village. She knew the crown was here. She would find it and punish the person who had it.
Nuala couldn’t have gotten far. She had no one else in her life but Owen, no one she could trust. She must have given it to him. And Owen would have handed it over to his real parents, because he was young and stupid and wouldn’t know any better.
She focused on the house with the yellow door, the one next to the pub. She would gladly set it on fire, and burn them all in their sleep. But she couldn’t risk the crown being burned and the truth being exposed.
She needed to create a diversion, something else to lure them out of their home so she could search it. She scanned the village, her gaze lingering on every cottage until a swallow flitted out of a cave and swooped over to the harbor.
It landed
on the railing of the ferry, and Moira’s lips curved.
TARA TOSSED AND turned, drifting in and out of restless sleep. Dreams haunted her. Dreams of her past. Dreams of her future. Dreams of fires chasing her to the highest cliff of the island. She reached for Dominic, burying her face in his warm chest as another dream—a memory this time—pulled her under.
“I wonder why they sell the crosses so far from the church,” Kelsey asked, peering over Tara’s shoulder to look at the map.
“They sell them at the church, too,” Tara explained “But there’s a community of nuns who live in the hills. They weave the crosses out of river rushes. I’m curious to see how they do it.”
Dominic steered the car onto a long dirt drive, bordered with ewes and knotty pines. Tara rolled down the window, letting in the peaceful sound of birds chirping over the fields.
“What’s that?” Kelsey pointed past a modest stone house bordered with cheerful autumn gardens to a small structure with lots of windows and a roof made of glass.
“It’s a greenhouse,” Tara said. “A place where you can keep plants growing all through the winter.”
Dominic parked behind a small gathering of cars. A white chapel sat at the edge of the property, nestled into the hawthorns. Nuns wandered the paths between the unassuming buildings.
“Why are these crosses so special?” Kelsey asked as they climbed out of the car.
Dominic took her hand. “Brigid’s crosses are supposed to offer protection to people who hang them above their front door.” He ruffled Kelsey’s blond hair. “Who knows if it’s true, but we can never have too much protection.”
Tara trailed behind them as Kelsey and Dominic wandered over to a small outdoor stand where two nuns were weaving crosses and offering them for sale. The scent of basil and lemon verbena pulled to her and she looked over at the greenhouse. “I’ll catch up with you in a minute,” she called.