The Selkie Sorceress (Seal Island Trilogy, Book 3)

by Sophie Moss

  She broke into a run, stumbling over the rocky path as the land dipped and rolled into the sea. She spied a white beach in the distance and she sprinted toward it. She tripped when her feet sunk into the soft sand and Neil caught her elbow, steadying her.

  “You said you were meeting someone,” Neil said, scanning the deserted beach. “Who were you coming to meet?”

  The waves crested, splashing over the beach. Brigid’s breath caught as a rush of seawater spilled over her bare feet. She remembered the feeling of weightlessness, of swimming into the arms of her lover. “Someone from my past,” she whispered, pulling away from him. “He’ll be here.”

  “I don’t see anyone,” Neil said.

  Brigid’s blood roared in her ears as she walked into the waves. The water snatched at the hem of her dress and she waded deeper, until the sea came up to her waist. Her fingertips trailed over the surface, and her heart leapt when a shadow edged toward her through the fog.

  But it was only a seal—a lone seal with pale eyes the color of winter frost. She stared at the seal through the mists. Those eyes…they looked so familiar.

  Where had she seen them before?

  Her wet skirt dragged through the water as she walked closer, but with every step the seal edged away, leading her further down the beach.

  “Brigid,” Neil called insistently, trailing after her. “I think you should come out of the water.”

  She ignored him, following the seal until they came to a curved wooden boat pulled up onto the sand.

  The seal paused beside it, letting out a quiet croon.

  The waves surged and retreated as Brigid walked slowly out of the water. Would this boat take her to him—to her lover?

  The seal’s eyes pleaded up at her, and Brigid grasped the rope in her hands.

  “What are you doing?” Neil asked.

  The seal dove into the waves, and Brigid dragged the curragh toward the water. Wherever her lover was, she would find him. They would find a way to be together again.

  “Brigid!” Neil grabbed the rope from her. “This is crazy!”

  “No,” she said, snatching it back and dragging the boat into the surf. “This is where I belong.”

  “You don’t even know if it floats!”

  Brigid climbed into the boat, grasping the driftwood paddle lying across the seat. “It floats.”

  Neil ran after her, splashing through the surf and hooking a hand around the edge of the boat. “Let me take you back to town. Let me get you something to eat, find you a place to rest for the night.”

  Brigid dipped the paddle into the waves and pushed away from the beach. “I have been resting for far too long.”

  The seal with the pale eyes surfaced beside the boat. Neil stumbled back as dozens more skimmed through the waves, surrounding her, forming a circle around the curragh, and pushing her out to sea.

  Brigid lifted the paddle out of the water. She could hear the swish of fins beneath her, and the ocean lapping at the hull. Behind her, the mists swallowed what was left of the man standing helplessly in the waves.

  SAM TAPPED THE brakes of Glenna’s Mercedes as the tires skidded on a pile of loose chippings. Tightening his grip on the wheel, he hugged the edge of the narrow road that wound through the hills of Connemara. “Who else knows the truth about you being the daughter of a selkie and a merman?”

  “Only my mother,” Glenna answered, “I grew up underwater, but I was well hidden. No one knew I existed and no one ever came to the sea witch’s lair unless they wanted to make a trade.”

  She pointed to the right when they came to a stop sign. “Even then, few were lucky enough to make it all the way to the cave. It’s not an easy journey.”

  “How did you end up on land?”

  “When I was sixteen, a boy about my age came to trade a priceless family heirloom for a potion to heal his dying sister. My mother was out, and I was not allowed to show myself to anyone. She had warned me that no one would understand what I was, and I could be in great danger if anyone found out the truth. But I was afraid if I waited for her to return this boy would lose his sister, and I knew enough about magic to help him. I fixed the potion and was about to reveal myself and make the trade when she came back.”

  Glenna kept her eyes peeled for signs leading to a new housing development along the bay as they rounded the final hill into town. “My mother was furious, and she killed the boy on the spot. The next thing I knew, I was in a hospital bed in Dublin and the doctor was telling me a fisherman had found me washed up on the beach.” She looked out the window. “You know the rest of the story.”

  “But Dublin’s on the other side of the country,” Sam protested. “Wouldn’t it have been easier to send you somewhere on the west coast?”

  “The more crowded the city, the less likely anyone would try to help. It’s easier to lock a crazy person up, to let her slip through the cracks than deal with the issue. My mother knew no one would believe me when I woke up and tried to tell them the truth. She wanted to break me down, to teach me a lesson so that when she finally came back into my life, I would be desperate for her forgiveness and willing to do anything she asked.”

  “Things didn’t exactly work out the way she planned,” Sam murmured.

  “No,” Glenna said. “Not exactly. But if it hadn’t been for Brigid—if I hadn’t met her by accident in that institution—my mother might have gotten what she wanted. Without Brigid’s stories, and the bond that formed between us, the system might have broken me down. I might have given up and decided I truly was crazy.”

  Sam put his hand on hers. “I doubt that.”

  Glenna took a deep breath. “Brigid saved me, Sam. I owe her my sanity, and my life.” She looked out the window, scouring the country roads for a blue lorry. “We have to find her.”

  “We will,” Sam said, pulling into a colorful downtown filled with pubs and sweater shops. Wisps of fog danced over the mossy green hills dipping into the bay. “Glenna,” Sam asked slowly. “Do you have a pelt?”

  “No.”

  “Can you go underwater?”

  “I can change back, if that’s what you’re asking.”

  “Have you ever…changed back?”

  “No.”

  Sam turned onto the road leading down to the bay. “If your kind is forbidden, what would the selkies and mermaids do to you if they found out the truth?”

  “I don’t know what the selkies would do,” Glenna admitted. “But the mermaids…” She trailed off, sitting up as she spotted a blue lorry with a Clifden Construction logo parked in front of a waterfront restaurant. “There it is!”

  Sam braked and they climbed out of the car. “He could be inside,” Sam said, already striding to the door of the restaurant. But Glenna paused in the street when she saw all the chairs were overturned and the potted plants were on their sides, cracked with soil spilling out of them.

  “Wait.” She pointed to a man walking toward them from the trail leading over the hills. He was stumbling as if he was either drunk or in a daze. She shaded her eyes. It looked like the man she’d seen briefly in her vision. “I think that could be him.”

  Glenna raised her voice. “Is this your truck?”

  He nodded.

  Glenna’s gaze dropped to his hands and she saw he was clutching a swatch of black material. “The woman you drove here.” Glenna motioned to Brigid’s wimple. “Where is she?”

  The man paused, all the color draining from his face. He looked back and forth between Glenna and Sam. “I…I tried to stop her.”

  Glenna glanced down, noting that his jeans were soaking wet and plastered to his legs. She went to him, taking his arm and leading him over to a low-lying stone wall. “Where is she?”

  He sat heavily, catching his breath. “She went…to the ocean.”

  “When?” Glenna asked. “How long ago?”

  The man’s deep voice shook as he spoke. “About a half an hour, maybe. I don’t know. I lost track of time. Are you…friends
of hers? Do you know her?”

  Glenna nodded. “Tell me what happened.”

  The man lifted his haunted eyes to hers. “She went out in a boat…with no motor…only a paddle.” He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket, wiping his brow. “I-I tried to stop her. But there were seals. So many seals.”

  Glenna looked up at Sam. They were too late. They weren’t going to make it in time.

  “She kept saying she was meeting someone,” the man said, “but I didn’t see anyone else on the beach. Only the seals. And one of them…I’ve never seen anything like her before.”

  “What?” Sam asked. “What did she look like?”

  “She had these eyes…as pale as glass.”

  “Nuala,” Sam breathed.

  Glenna stood. “She knows. She’s trying to protect Brigid.”

  “How can you be sure?” Sam asked, pulling her away from the driver. He lowered his voice. “Nuala could be planning to offer Brigid to Moira in exchange for Owen’s pelt.”

  Glenna shook her head. “Nuala knows what’s at stake. She’s taking her to the island. She knows we have magic and we can protect her.”

  “Then we need to go, now!”

  “No.” Glenna planted her feet, gazing out at the bay.

  “What?” Sam stared at her. “What do you mean no?”

  “I need to help Nuala,” Glenna said quietly. “I need to help the selkies protect Brigid.”

  “Glenna,” Sam grabbed her arm. “You said you don’t know what the selkies will do to you when they see you, when they find out what you are.”

  “Don’t you see?” Glenna looked up at him. “Without the blackthorn, there’s no proof of what Moira did—except for me. I am living proof that she slept with my father and murdered him.”

  Sam shook his head. “No. You can’t do this. I won’t let you do this.”

  “I have to show them the truth. This is the only way.” She took both of his hands in hers. “Go back to the island. There’s still time to catch a ride with Jack if you hurry. Tell the others everything. Tell them I’ll be there by nightfall.”

  “No.” He shook his head. “I won’t let us be separated.”

  “We won’t be,” Glenna said. “I will be with you, just not beside you. Now go. There isn’t much time.”

  “Glenna—”

  “Do you trust me?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you love me?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then let me go.”

  Sam searched her face for some hidden meaning, trying to read in her eyes what she wasn’t telling him. “Do you promise to come back to me?”

  She nodded. “You asked me out on a date to the best restaurant in Galway. I have to come back.”

  He pulled her close, holding her tightly against him. She could feel his heart beating through his shirt. “Promise me,” he said gruffly.

  “I promise,” she whispered, tilting her face back up to his.

  His mouth captured hers in a possessive kiss, drawing everything out of her. But she forced a smile when he pulled back, gazing down at her. “Glenna, I…”

  “I know.” She laid a hand on his cheek. “I love you, too.”

  Sam took her hand as they walked to the cliffs in silence. When they came to the edge, Glenna bent down and peeled off her boots. She turned away from him, so he couldn’t see the tears sliding down her cheeks.

  She heard his sharp intake of breath as she dove, as her toes pushed off the rock and her body curved toward the water. With a splash, she broke the surface. The salty sea slid over her skin and the sounds of the village faded to a dull echo.

  She blinked through the murky water. Sea grasses undulated in the pulsing tide. She pushed deeper, cupping the water with her hands and pulling her body through the bay, awakening the muscles that had been dormant for so long.

  A flash of light and a sharp stabbing pain coursed through her as her clothes peeled away, drifting up to the surface. Her bare legs sealed together and her lungs burned as she held her breath, but she pushed deeper, faster, through the dark waters as a powerful mermaid tail made not of scales, but of brown seal-skin, bound her legs.

  Schools of fish darted around her as iridescent gold fins fanned out from the tip of her tail. A thin strip of seal-skin banded her breasts. And, for the first time in fifteen years, she opened her lungs to the sea.

  Dominic stood at the edge of the splintered pier, watching the last boat motor into the harbor. A winter sunset painted the hazy sky an eerie yellowish-green. He caught the line Sam tossed him. “Watch your step,” he warned. “These boards are loose.”

  Sam nodded, stepping over the charred planks as he climbed out.

  “My engine overheated outside Sheridan,” Donal said, helping Jack navigate into the crooked slip. “Jack had to tow me in the rest of the way.”

  Dominic looped the bow line around a piling. “But you came back.”

  “Aye.” Donal gathered up the stern line. “I was born on this island. It’s going to take more than a sorceress to scare me off it.”

  Dominic eyed Jack’s small fishing boat. He respected Donal for coming back, but he really wished they had a second boat. “There’s not enough room for everyone if something happens tonight.”

  “No.” Jack rubbed a hand over his sunburned face. “But there’s enough room for the women and children.”

  Dominic pushed to his feet. The sea was uncomfortably quiet again, and the tide was rising. The water licked at the bottom of the splintered pier, a hushed lapping sound that set his teeth on edge. “Fiona’s been cooking all day. Go on up to the pub and have something to eat. I’ll meet you there in a bit.”

  Jack and Donal started up the hill to the village, but Sam lingered. They stood for several moments in silence, taking in the destruction of the harbor. “It’s worse than I imagined,” Sam said finally.

  Dominic turned to face him. “Tara told me Glenna knew where Brigid was all along.”

  Sam nodded.

  “Why didn’t she tell us?”

  “If you had known where your mother was, you would have wanted to visit her,” Sam said. “If you and Liam had both started traveling frequently to Kildare, it would have made Moira suspicious. She would have eventually followed you and found out where Brigid was hiding all these years.”

  Dominic took a step back. “What does Moira want with my mother?”

  Sam looked back out at the harbor, at the strands of dried kelp in the water. “I have something to tell you—all of you. But it’s not going to be easy.”

  Dominic frowned. “I don’t like the sound of that.”

  Sam dipped his hands in his pockets. “Is everyone gathered at the pub?”

  “Yes.”

  “Including Owen?”

  “Owen?” Dominic raised a brow. “He’s not speaking. He won’t talk to anyone. Not even Kelsey.”

  “He needs to hear this,” Sam said. “And I think he might start talking when he does.”

  SAM AND DOMINIC walked into the pub. Utensils clinked and scraped across plates as the islanders—the few who were left—ate in silence. The boards over the windows blocked out the last of the fading daylight.

  “Sam!” Kelsey scrambled off the leather chair in the corner. “Did you figure out who the other princess is yet?”

  “I have a hunch.”

  Kelsey’s eyes went wide. “Who?”

  “Actually, I want to tell you a story.” Sam glanced around the room at the remaining islanders. “All of you.”

  “A story?” Kelsey wandered back to the chair, her eyes lighting up. “What kind of story?”

  “A fairy tale.”

  Owen looked up, his expression darkening. He was sitting on a wool blanket beside Kelsey, tying strips of rope into knots. He pushed to his feet and headed across the room to the stairs.

  Sam blocked his path. “You need to hear this, Owen.”

  Owen looked down, closing his fingers over the piece of rope in his hand.

/>   Sam frowned at the intricate knots tied into the scattered bits of rope littering the floor. “Where did you learn how to do that?”

  Owen lifted a shoulder.

  “He’s been tying them all afternoon,” Caitlin explained, sliding a hardback book across the table to Sam. “Brennan gave him this last night. It’s a book of Celtic knots.”

  Sam took the book, flipping through the pages. “It’s written in Gaelic.”

  “The knot Owen’s tying belongs to the merprince,” Brennan explained from the armchair in the corner. “It’s the symbol he wears in his crown.”

  Sam bent down, snagging a piece of frayed twine off the floor.

  “I think our prince is a merman,” Kelsey said, tucking her legs under her, “but there aren’t any merprinces in the stories we could find.”

  “There is in the one I’m going to tell you.” Sam set the heavy book back on the table.

  Owen went back to his spot on the blanket, but he turned his back so he was only partially facing Sam.

  Sam settled into a chair across from the children. He’d agreed to let Glenna go this afternoon, but he knew she was hiding something. He knew how much Brigid meant to Glenna now, and how far Glenna was willing to go to save her. He had a pretty good idea of what she was planning to do.

  But there was no way in hell he was going to let it happen.

  Every clue he had ever needed had been on this island, and it had always come down to a fairy tale. This time, he knew the fairy tale, but he needed the clue. He looked down at Owen, who continued to twist the ropes into knots, refusing to meet his eyes. Sam knew exactly who was going to give it to him.

  “I’m not much of a storyteller,” Sam admitted, glancing over at Brennan. “I might need your help.”

  Brennan packed a fresh pinch of tobacco into his pipe. “If I know the story, I’ll try to help.”

  Sam looked down at Kelsey, taking a deep breath. “Once upon a time,” he began, his lips twitching when she gave him a thumbs up, “two identical twin daughters were born to the selkie king and queen.”

  “Twins?” Tara asked, surprised. She walked out from behind the bar and sat at the table with Caitlin. “But that would mean Brigid has a sister?”