The Selkie Enchantress (9 page)

Caitlin swallowed. Surely it wasn’t normal for a child to have webbed feet. “Do you remember that cottage where we found the rose yesterday?”

He nodded.

Caitlin opened the door. A blast of cold wind swirled into the house. “That’s where we’re going.”

Owen stepped out into the street, blinking as the rain stung his eyes. “What are we doing there?”

Caitlin pulled the door shut behind them and they headed out into the biting winds, leaning forward to keep their balance. Across the street, the Dooley’s sheep dog pressed his paws against the window, barking at them from behind the glass. “I need to decide what to do with it.”

“The rose?” Owen asked, jogging to keep up with her.

“No,” Caitlin answered, veering off the main road and onto the muddy moss-covered path leading north to the bogs. “The cottage. It’s going to take a lot of work to get it livable again. But someone, someday…” Her voice turned wistful and the rubber flaps of her jacket smacked up and down in the wind. “Someone will either spend a holiday in it or call it a home.”

“Is that what you do?” Owen asked. “Make old things pretty again?”

Caitlin glanced down at him. “You could say that.”

“Is that what you did to the cottage I’m staying in?”

“Yes.”

“But you said you weren’t finished.”

He remembered that? From the first night on the dock? “That’s right. I’m not finished.”

“What’s left?”

“Little things. My friend Glenna is finishing up a few paintings for the walls. I want to get a different comforter for the master bedroom and the window”—she paused, looking down at him—“in
your
bedroom still sticks.”

He nodded, like he knew.

“Have you tried to open it?”

“Once,” he admitted.

“Isn’t it a little cold to be opening windows?”

He lifted a shoulder. “I couldn’t hear the ocean.”

He couldn’t hear the ocean?

“Look!” He broke into a jog as the cottage came into view. “It’s still there.” His voice caught in the wind, drifting back to her in snippets. He disappeared into the wall of rain, dropping to his knees in front of the rose. “One of the petals fell off,” he called back to her.

Caitlin caught up to him, rainwater dripping down her nose and into her mouth. She heard a faint bell-like sound over the thundering ocean and her gaze dropped to the rose, where the rain tinkered over the frozen petals, like water on glass.

Owen picked up the petal carefully, cradling it in his palm. “Look, it must have just fallen.”

It was so white, almost like it glowed. There wasn’t a smudge of dirt on it, even though Owen had snatched it up off the ground. The wind tugged Caitlin’s hood back from her face and she grabbed it, holding it in place. “Come on, Owen. Let’s get inside.”

 “Wait,” Owen fished around inside his jacket pocket, pulling out one of the fairy tale books. Rainwater rushed from the roof, splashing onto the pages as he flipped through them. When he found what he was looking for, he held up the picture to her. “It’s just like in the story. When the last rose petal falls, the Beast’s time is up.”

Caitlin felt a cold chill race up her spine.

The rain poured down, hammering against the glass windows of the cottage. Sea spray exploded along the rocky coastline to the north. Owen lifted his eyes to her. “Is someone’s time on the island running out?”

“It’s just a fairy tale,” Caitlin shouted over the howl of the wind. “Come inside.”

But Owen reached out, touching the rose still planted in the ground. And slowly, one by one, his fingers turned blue and a thin layer of crystallized ice coated his skin, freezing his hand in place.

“Can you say that again, James? Sorry. The service is spotty.” Liam dumped the contents of his briefcase onto his desk, fishing around the crumpled papers, balled receipts, and sticky candy bar wrappers for a clue. The scent of frying cod and malt vinegar drifted up from the kitchen of the pub, where his grandmother was already filling orders for lunch. “This storm’s a lot worse than we thought it would be.”

“Is your internet still working?”

Liam double-checked. “For the time being, yes.”

“Just send me what you have, then. We need to have it submitted by tomorrow and I want a copy in case you lose power.”

“Sure. I’ll do that.” How? How was he going to do that when he couldn’t find the document?

“This is going to be huge for the University. And specifically for the department. If this goes as well as I think it will, you’ll finally have a term to work on that precious island of yours.”

“A sabbatical?” Liam’s fingers flew over the keyboard, only half-listening as he searched for the document. It had to be here somewhere. “Since when does the University of Ireland offer sabbaticals?”

The dean laughed, a rich booming baritone through the crackly phone wires. “Very funny, O’Sullivan. You’ve only been hounding me about a no-teaching term since August. And you’re probably going to get it because you’re the best researcher we have on staff—even if all your research is grounded in folklore. We all know how seriously Ireland takes its fairy tales. But…” His voice lowered in confidentiality. “You can say it’s research all you want, but we all know it’s probably about some girl. In the end, it’s always about a girl, isn’t it?”

A girl. On the island. Liam’s fingers stilled on the keyboard as Caitlin’s shocked face floated back to him from that first night on the dock. Then the sand, sifting through his fingers last night, and that horrifying feeling of being swept out to sea.

“You haven’t told anyone about it, right?”

Liam swallowed. Told anyone about what? “No.”

“Good. The historical society’s going to eat this up and I want it to be a surprise. To think…” His voice went wistful. “We had no idea they even existed until now.”

“
They
being…?”

The dean laughed again. “Don’t be daft, O’Sullivan.” Then his tone turned serious. “I know your family owns a pub so don’t go tapping into the single malt before this file’s sent off. And speaking of.” Liam heard the sound of a chair squeaking faintly as the dean leaned forward to check his inbox. “Have you sent it yet? I haven’t received it on my end.”

“Internet’s a bit slow out here. It should come through in the next few minutes.” He scanned file after file. It had to be here somewhere.

“Did you see the
Times
this morning?”

“Not yet.”

“There was an article about the Prime Minister’s wife talking about wanting to expand government funding for more research into Ireland’s myths and legends. She thinks magic will help bring back the tourist trade.” He chuckled. “You’ve got to love this woman, really. But… I’m thinking big here, but if—and that’s a big if—you could crack this new legend like you did with your sister-in-law’s, it
could
mean creating a new department dedicated exclusively to Irish fairy tales and legends at the University.” He paused. “With you running it.”

Liam sat back slowly. A new department dedicated exclusively to Irish fairy tales and legends? “Do you happen to have any suggestions on how I might solve it?” Maybe if he got a sense of how it was supposed to end, it might trigger a memory of the beginning.

“Now let’s not go getting ahead of ourselves. One thing at a time. Let’s present our findings first,
then
you can spend the next term figuring out how to solve it.”

“Right.” Liam’s hands went back to the keyboard. “I wonder… if you’d given any thought to the title of the presentation?”

“The one we came up with last week is fine.”

Liam ground his teeth.
Come on, James. Give me something
. “You don’t think we need something catchier?”

“The one we have’s catchy enough. And, Liam, I still don’t have it. Can you try sending it again?”

“Sure. Maybe if I hang up it’ll go through faster.”

“Right. I’ll give it a read-through as soon as I get it and send my edits back this afternoon.”

“Thanks,” Liam said, hanging up the phone and dropping his head onto the desk. What was he going to do? He couldn’t remember anything about going to the Trinity Library, let alone
being
in Dublin. Rain pounded against the windows, streaking down the glass. How was he supposed to present his findings to the Prime Minister’s wife next week if he couldn’t even remember what he was working on?

He shoved back from the desk. A bubble of cheerful conversation drifted up the steps from the dining room and he turned away from the tempting scent of frying bacon and pipe smoke, strolling over to the bookshelf by the window. Outside, the heavy wooden Guinness sign swung back and forth on rusted metal chains, squeaking eerily in the storm.

Scanning the volumes lining the shelf, his gaze landed on the anthology of folktales he’d compiled this summer. He snagged it from the shelf and started flipping through the collection of island legends, including Seal Island’s own legend, which Tara played a large part in this summer. His fingers parted the pages, lingering on the words of this updated edition which now included the ending. His gaze drifted to the sketch of the selkie ghost, Tara’s ancestor, who’d needed her help to break the curse so she could return to the sea.

“Reading your own words again?” Dominic joked, good-naturedly, from the doorway.

Liam snapped the book shut. He hadn’t even heard his brother walk up the steps.

“Here,” Dominic said, holding out a steaming cup of coffee. “Thought you might need this as you haven’t come down for breakfast and it’s nearly noon.” Strolling into the room, he eyed the scribbled notes on the desk. “Thought you’d be working hard on a new story, not trying to remind yourself of your skill as a writer.”

Liam dropped the book onto the desk and took the coffee, swallowing a scalding sip. “Thanks,” he said, not even noticing when the hot coffee burned his tongue. His gaze drifted back to the blank computer screen.

“Hey,” Dominic asked, concern knitting his dark brows when Liam didn’t even crack a smile. “Everything alright?”

“Sure.” Liam forced a smile, but it didn’t quite meet his eyes. “Just stuck on a bit of research is all.”

“Might help if you eat something,” Dominic suggested.

“Fair enough.”

Dominic pushed away from the desk. “You’d tell me if something was up, right?”

“Of course.” Liam lifted his mug, downing another sip, and then brushed past him on his way out the door. “Just a bit of writer’s block. It’ll pass.”

Dominic turned. “Since when do you believe in writer’s block?”

“Since today.”

***

A sea of white surrounded him, pulling him under. The echo of waves shattering over a rocky coastline faded as Owen fought to breathe, seawater rushing into his lungs. He struggled against the strings of cold, white pearls snaking up his wrists, tugging him deeper.

The silent, lonely kingdom rose to greet him. He kicked, fast and hard in the other direction at the first sight of the white corral turrets, the soaring towers of broken oyster shells and white-walled paths lined with ice-colored roses.

“Owen!” Caitlin dropped to her knees, pulling him into her arms.

A shaft of light streamed down from the surface. A hollow female voice called out to him and he struggled against the rush of panic, reaching for that fleeting beam of light. Warm arms came around him, hauling him away from that empty kingdom. Clawing his way to the surface through schools of darting silverfish and sleek black rays, he clung to the hands pulling him to safety.

“Let go!” Caitlin shouted over the pounding rain. “Owen, let go of the rose!”

He choked, coughing seawater from his lungs. He tried to sit up, to suck in those first precious breaths of life-giving air, but his fingers were still stuck to the frozen petals. The same petals he’d seen surrounding the towering gates of the palace. He started to cry, little choking sobs and Caitlin grabbed his hand.

“It’s okay,” Caitlin said, rocking him as she pried his rigid fingers free from the petals one by one. “It’s okay. I’m here.”

When his last finger uncurled from the rose, he scrambled back, away from the flower, crawling into her lap and sucking air into his burning lungs.

“It’s okay,” Caitlin soothed, wrapping her arms around him as his fingers dug into the sleeves of her rubber raincoat. He clung to her as the rain poured down around them, soaking streams of rivers into the muddy earth. “You’re safe now,” she whispered, holding him until he stopped shaking.

And when he finally lifted his head from her shoulder, tears streaked down his face and those big blue eyes blinked up at her through the rain in wonder, as if seeing her for the first time. Slowly, he raised a shaky hand to her cheek. “Mum?”

***

Mum?
“No,” Caitlin shook her head, quickly. “No. Owen, I’m not your mother.”

“Then… who are you?”

Reaching for the hand still touching her cheek, she brought it down and gasped when she saw the ice coating his fingers. She chipped away at it, rubbing his freezing hand frantically in both of her own. His fingers were as rigid as stones and she struggled to contain her growing panic. “I’m not your mother, Owen. You’re in shock. I’m going to take you to see a doctor. It’s going to be alright.”