by J F Rogers
“My father had black hair. But he was human,” I said. “But Wolf has black hair too. And Evan. And everyone I’ve met from Kylemore. And what about the selkie woman from Saltinat? She was blonde.”
“Saltinat? The underwater city?” Slack-jawed, Kai grasped his chest as if his heart might stop. “It’s not a myth?”
I shook my head. “I’ve been there.”
Pepin sandwiched himself between us, facing Kai. He pointed a stubby digit in Kai’s chest. “You’re a selkie?” He turned to me. “And you knew this? Yet you still insisted on bringing him along? Have you learned nothing?”
“We’re not Cairbre and Deirdra. He doesn’t appear to be a full selkie, and I’m only half gachen. And I’m here…fulfilling my duty. I didn’t push it aside like Cairbre did.” Though I really, really wanted to.
“Hmph.” Pepin moved away and dropped down to sit, mumbling under his breath.
Kai sidled up next to me. “So, tell me about Saltinat.”
****
Evan and Wolf collected crabs and cooked them over a fire. Maili seemed rather disgusted but ate anyway. My stomach growled. Too bad we couldn’t eat some too.
Kai reached into his pouch and handed Pepin and me some dried fish. Not much, it was better than nothing.
“Thank you.” I bit into my piece.
“Yes. Thanks.” Pepin pinched his fish between two fingers and inspected it, his nose wrinkled in disgust.
I swallowed. “Perhaps we should have followed the other group.”
“Let’s stay a bit longer.” Pepin nibbled the fish and gagged.
“There they are!” voices called.
Everyone stood and watched the approaching men, swords swinging from their hips. Wolf and his group sought escape, then looked at the men, apparently deciding to talk to them rather than run.
“Ahoy!” one called out. “What purpose have you on these shores?”
Wolf neared the men, holding his arms out while Maili and Cataleen backed away. “We’ve been shipwrecked, sir. We’re looking for missing friends.”
“They haven’t appeared in our village.”
“We understand that. We’re planning to sleep here and resume our search in the other direction tomorrow.”
“Where are you from?”
“We’ve traveled from Bandia.”
“You’re gachen then?” The man’s right eyebrow rose.
“Aye.” Wolf sighed.
“Come with us.”
Wolf backed away. “As I said, we’re going to wait and continue our search. We won’t intrude on your village.”
“Regardless, we can’t chance you coming upon any selkie. Come with us.”
Wolf shook his head. “I don’t think so.”
The men drew their swords.
“I do.” The lead man waved his sword. “If you don’t want your women to get hurt, make sure they follow close behind. Otherwise, my men’s orders are to kill.”
Wolf looked at Cataleen, then Maili. They both nodded and bowed their heads.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
◊◊◊
THE MEN BROUGHT WOLF and his group to a vacant home. They put the girls in one room. The men in another. Pepin, Kai, and I stayed outside in the hallway. Where a man stood guard.
Another man approached. “I’ve spoken with the castle guard. They will be here tomorrow to take the gachen into captivity. They’re combing the beach for the others now.”
The man standing guard bowed, and the one who spoke turned and left.
“I can’t believe this is happening. Kai, how will we rescue them?”
Kai shrugged. “We’d have to get into the castle somehow, but it’s impenetrable without an army. We’re no match for them.”
“But our God is,” Pepin reminded us. “There’s a way.”
“Should we keep following them? Or should we leave and figure out a way to free them?”
“When we get back to Turas, will it be as if we’d never left?” Kai asked.
“That’s what happened last time.” Then again, I didn’t have a watch. But Pepin had an internal clock. “Right?”
“Right. And if we stay, we don’t risk attracting the demon’s attention,” Pepin said.
“Then we have nothing to lose if we keep going. I say, let’s follow them to the castle and see what we can find out,” I said. “As long as you’re willing to take turns with Drochaid so I can rest.”
Pepin and Kai nodded.
But what about food? I was starving. We may have been outside time and space, but my body was aware of passing time without proper rest or food. If only we’d planned for this and packed more to eat.
****
The next morning, guards arrived to escort my friends. The guards stuffed them in a carriage with an armed guard. Two more armed guards followed on their own horses. We traveled inland a little. Then the road turned back toward the sea. We rode along the cliff side, the ocean to our left. Another village emerged. White rectangular homes lined both sides of the street, up and down the cliff side. A massive castle loomed in the distance. From here, it appeared like a mass of rectangles and cylinders with jagged and pointy tops jutting into the sky to differing heights. We halted at a gate. The driver spoke to the guards, and the gate lifted. We arrived in a courtyard, passed the massive front door, and rounded a corner.
“I guess the front entryway is too good for them,” I said.
The carriage stopped, but the horses continued to stamp their feet on the cobblestones. Wolf and everyone else filed out. The guard led them into the castle down many winding steps and halls, tossed them inside a cell, and locked the door behind him.
“Wolf?” Cahal emerged from the shadows.
“Cahal!” Wolf hugged Cahal, then the others. Everyone was there.
I breathed easier knowing everyone was together. But we had a much bigger problem. How could we get them out without ending up behind bars ourselves?
“We’ve seen enough,” Kai said. “Time to make plans.”
“Wait.” I had an idea. Sully. His gray eyes glanced in my direction, then to the others. They were busy filling in the gaps of what had happened to one another. Sully crept along the wall to where he’d be less likely to be noticed.
“Sully, can you hear me?”
He nodded.
“What can we do? How can we get you out?”
“Use Turas,” he whispered.
“How? We’re not really here. Only you can see us.”
“That is because you’re in the past.”
“But we need to go back in time. Turas is broken. We have to travel to 1521 BC to when it was whole to get it to work.”
“But then you can travel to any time.”
“Right, but…” I paused. “So, you’re saying we could meet you here in jail, in the present time? Will everyone be able to see us?”
“God will free us. In the present time, connect everyone to Drochaid to pull them into the spiritual realm.”
“What?” Evan approached Sully. “Did you say something?”
“Bah.” Sully waved his hand. “Pay me no mind.”
Evan shook his head and returned to his prior conversation.
I turned to Kai and Pepin. “Let’s go back.” With that, the cell disappeared. The swirling resumed. Gray circled us, and the blue sky reappeared. The stones stopped, delivering us to the incomplete Stonehenge. I exhaled, relieved to be in the present. The aches and hunger I’d experienced disappeared.
“Hmm.”
“What?” I asked Kai.
“I was starving. But now I’m not.” He rubbed his stomach. “I guess I shouldn’t have wasted that fish.” He reached into the pouch. “Ha! It’s still here.”
“Wonderful.”
I didn’t know Pepin could be so sarcastic. “I guess that’s because we never ate it. Not in this reality.” Bizarre.
“I’m not tired either,” he said.
/> “I think we’re agreed.” Pepin rolled his eyes. “Time for our rescue mission. Since we don’t know what to expect, let’s proceed with caution. Fallon, no matter what happens, don’t let Drochaid disconnect with Turas.”
We’d become adept at returning to 1521. With the angel’s warning in mind, I didn’t dawdle. I conjured the image of the jail cell we’d returned from, where my friends were captive while I enjoyed my little reprieve in paradise. A cloud of guilt rained down on me.
When Turas stopped spinning, the jail cell materialized.
“Pepin?” Cataleen rose and moved toward him. “Where’d you come from?”
Pepin cleared his throat. “I, uh… Well, that’s…”
That was unexpected.
“’Tis good to see you, mate. But yer on the wrong side of this cage,” Wolf said.
Right. I imagined myself outside the door. Pepin and Kai stayed where they were behind bars. Were they now outside the spiritual realm?
The others stirred. Murmurs erupted among them.
“How are you here?” Maili asked.
“Who’s the lad with you?” Cahal asked.
“Have you seen Fallon?” Evan asked.
“How did you get in here?” Rowan asked.
Pepin’s head bounced from one person to the next with no opportunity to answer before the next question hit him. “Fallon is here.” He turned to me. His eyes bulged, and he searched around.
“Pepin.” I waved my hand. Didn’t he see me?
The others followed his gaze, but their faces remained blank as if I didn’t exist. “Where?”
Kai walked to where I had been standing, feeling the air.
“Kai.” I waved my hand in the air.
His blank stare continued to search where I’d been. Oh no. My stomach sank like Pepin. This was bad. Very bad. Had I just delivered them to jail?
Kai reached through the bars as if he knew I was nearby. I imagined myself beside him, and we entwined fingers. His face relaxed, and his crooked grin appeared.
“Where’d the lad go?” Wolf asked.
“Kai?” Pepin kept looking around. “What is happening? Fallon?”
I gripped Kai’s hand tight, moved to Pepin, and put my hand on his shoulder.
“Fallon!” Relief flooded his face. “What happened?”
“I guess travelers not attached to Drochaid get delivered. Tell them to hold hands. When they’re ready, I’ll grab your hand. Hopefully, I can pull us out of here.” I lifted my hand from Pepin’s shoulder, and everyone gasped.
“Everyone, link hands,” he said.
Everyone moved to ensure they were holding hands. Then Pepin reached out to Cataleen. “Whatever happens, don’t let go.”
I grabbed Pepin’s hand. Please let this work. Excited whispers filled the chamber. I imagined us outside the barred wall. We emerged on the other side in the same formation. More gasps.
“Nobody let go.” I returned to the current Stonehenge.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
◊◊◊
“WE NEED TO GO back.” Kai stared, unblinking. He seemed to vibrate as if he was plugged into an electrical charge.
“To the dungeon?” Was he insane? Risk capture? Risk demons? “Why would we go back? My friends are all here. We can resume our quest.”
“What is your quest exactly?”
“To kill Na’Rycha.”
“What if God brought you here for another purpose?”
“What purpose?”
“Free my people?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Remember, I told you about my banishment.”
I nodded.
“And what happens if I get caught in selkie territory.”
“You get jailed.” The light turned on. “But we need to stay under the radar if we’re going to get out of here.”
“Under the what?”
“The rad—We need to get in and out unnoticed.”
“You traveled all this way to get in and out? You’re going back to Bandia because all is well there now? That’s your plan? Just to get away until the vampires got bored and left?”
I hadn’t spent that much time with him in the grand scheme of things. But I had no idea he could be so sarcastic. First Pepin. Now Kai. Was it me? “I see your point.”
“Perhaps, this is what you’re here for…to free my people.”
“What good would that do?”
“Well, it might start a civil war, but you would gain support. Perhaps an entire army of support.” He moved his head closer, dark eyes staring so intently they seemed to penetrate me. “Wouldn’t that be helpful in your quest?”
“Possibly.” Okay…definitely. “But how can we help? Won’t it end in disaster? Selkie and gachen can’t coexist, remember?”
“’Tis a lie,” Rowan said.
I snapped my head toward her. “How do you know?”
“We encountered some selkie. They tried to help us before the authorities caught us. They told us everything.” Rowan leaned against a rock. “Ships sail to this land and never return because the selkie capture and jail them. Some elders, selkie elitists, in Cairbre and Deirdra’s day took advantage of the situation and made up the lie about the gachen-selkie attraction to keep the races apart. They want nothing more than to keep their isolated society of gachen who turn into seals. But that’s all they are—gachen who turn into seals. Nothing more.”
Was that true? “How can you know they’re telling the truth?”
“They were selkie. None of us felt an attraction.”
“Maybe it takes time to develop?” I eyed Kai.
“Fallon.” She said it in her princess voice, so full of authority and disdain as she clasped her hands. “Why else would they capture gachen and never set them free?”
“But they set me free…from Saltinat.”
“That was a different society of selkie. Had you come across any selkie men?”
“No.”
She crossed her arms. “You had nothing to expose.”
Was that why they threatened those who were banished, like Kai, with imprisonment if they ever returned? Because they might fight a system that wanted to remain a specific way? Offering them the choice between paradise or captivity?
“What choice do we have?” I lifted my empty hands as if demonstrating our lack of options. “We don’t know where to go from here. Perhaps Kai is right. Perhaps this is why we’re here. Let’s free these people and see what happens.”
“Is everyone agreed?” Wolf asked.
Nods and ayes came from the ranks.
Pepin grasped my arm. “Don’t forget the angel’s warning. The more we tap into Turas’s power, the more likely we are to attract unwanted attention.”
“I’ll move quickly, Pepin. It will be okay.”
He released his grip, but his stony expression didn’t change. I hadn’t convinced him. But he dropped his shoulders in defeat. “Don’t let go of Fallon until it’s time to reveal yourself to those we’re rescuing. To be safe.”
Kai grasped my hand and threw me a huge grin. His dimples deeper than ever, sending a thrill through me. I didn’t get an electric zap as I had with Declan. I seriously hoped that had something to do with the fact that we were superhuman bizarro twins. Or, well, triplets. But there was something in Kai’s touch. In that smile. Something comforting, a sense of what home should feel like.
Pepin grabbed my free hand in his thick, stubby one. “Again, don’t let Drochaid free of its place in Turas. And be quick.”
We returned to 1521. The moment we arrived, I imagined the cells we’d rescued my friends from. I couldn’t see anything but a flickering light at the end of the hallway. Something thumped, followed by clicks and clanks. Footsteps and heavy breathing came my way, growing louder and louder, in synch with my ever-deafening heartbeat.
Guards rushed into the cell where our friends had been.
“F
ind them,” the tallest called out. “They can’t have gotten far.”
Uh. Actually, they did. I chuckled.
Kai and Pepin’s grips tightened. Kai waved me forward, down the hall.
We came to another cell and went inside. Many of the occupants peered through the bars. King Aleksander and Abracham among them. Others remained on the floor.
I imagined us into their midst. Kai let go. One by one prisoners noticed us, tugged on others, and pointed.
“Kai?” one old man cried in a raspy voice.
“We’re here to free you. But you must grasp hands with one another and don’t let go until we say.”
Many bedraggled gachen and selkie with matted hair rushed toward me, squeezing me in. Stifled cries rang out as they clasped hands and noticed me and Pepin. They clung to one another, checking the line to ensure everyone connected to me.
“Fallon?” King Aleksander said. “How—?” He looked to Abracham as if to confirm he saw me too.
“I’ll explain later,” I said. “Just hold tight.”
“This way!” Came a voice from down the hall. Shuffling feet grew louder.
I sucked in my breath. Please don’t let them see us. “Where now?”
“Down the hall. Check all the cells.” Kai motioned toward the guard’s voices, his hand waved with impatience.
“This cell is empty too,” a guard called.
I released a trapped breath. Good. Everyone is linked. I imagined us in the direction Kai pointed.
We repeated the process in the next few cells, and there were far too many people. “How many more cells are there?”
“I’m not sure,” Kai said. “Let’s get them to safety and return to check for more.”
“We can’t keep going back and forth. It’s too risky,” Pepin cautioned, his voice sharp.
“So is trying to bring too many people with us,” Kai said.
“How about a few more, to lessen the number of trips?”
Pepin consulted the heavens and sighed. “As you wish.”
We cleared out another cell. Then I imagined us back, delivered the gachen and selkie—whoever I’d rescued—and left them to my friends for explanations. Pepin, Kai, and I returned to the castle dungeons.