The Selkie Sorceress (Seal Island Trilogy, Book 3) (9 page)

“Of course,” Sam murmured, thinking back to the theory Tara had voiced in the pub yesterday—that maybe Brigid hid the book in a specific spot in the library to give them a clue. “Did she move any of the other selkie stories to the mermaid section?”

“No.” Eileen shook her head. “Only the one. Which is why we had such a heated debate about it.”

Sam’s gaze lifted to the back of the row house edging up to Eileen’s back garden, at the long electrical wires hanging out the windows. “But why would she re-shelve only that one? And not the rest of the selkie books?”

“Believe me, I asked the same thing. But she wouldn’t tell me. She never had an explanation. But she warned that if I tried to put it back, she’d move it again. After a few days, I gave up. A week later, she was gone and we never heard from her again.”

Sam stared at a curved groove in the surface of the rusted table. “Did you put the story back?”

Eileen shook her head. “No.”

Sam glanced up. “Why not?”

“I’m not sure,” Eileen admitted. “But something about Brigid’s sudden disappearance has always haunted me. I’ve always felt that something bad must have happened to her. And I guess I hoped that maybe one day she would show up again.” She looked down, into her tea. “I think I left it there in case she ever came back. So she would know that I…believed her.”

“Do you?” Sam said slowly. “Believe her?”

Eileen looked up, her green eyes filled with concern. “I think there’s a reason Brigid put that book there. I only wish I knew what it was.”

“BRIGID,” SISTER EVELYN
called softly through the door as she knocked. “We’re having a last minute visit from Father McAllister. I wondered if you could put together a flower basket for the dining room?”

Sister Evelyn heard a faint scuffing noise and she put her ear to the door, tapping again. When she didn’t get an answer, she sighed and let herself in. A small shaft of light illuminated Brigid’s sparse furnishings. Her small single bed was already made—the corners tucked in, not a wrinkle in the material. The pens on her desk were lined up neatly in a row. Her stationery was stacked in a single corner, the edges aligned with the desk.

But the woman on the floor was only half-dressed, her long hair a tangled mess of black waves and knotted river grasses. “Oh, Brigid,” Sister Evelyn closed the door and sank to the floor beside her friend. “Not again.”

“I thought I heard him,” Brigid whispered, her eyes focused on the book beneath her palm. Slowly, she shifted it into a different position. “I thought I heard his voice in the river.”

Sister Evelyn brushed Brigid’s heavy hair back from her face. The grasses broke off, crackling to the floor. Her friend had gone down to the river last night…again. “But he wasn’t there?”

Brigid shook her head, reaching for another book and sliding it behind the last one in the second row. Twelve books on gardening. All hardbacks on loan from the local library. Sister Evelyn had left them in the common room for everyone to look at. She’d been surprised when she walked through the room this morning and noticed they were gone. “What are you doing with the books, Brigid?”

“I need to put them in order.”

“How about alphabetically?” Sister Evelyn suggested gently.

Brigid shook her head. “No.”

“How about by variety? Or blooming times? Earliest to latest?”

“No.”

“Tallest to smallest?”

“No.” Brigid shifted another book around. The back cover scraped against the floorboards. A warm wind ruffled the curtains and Brigid paused, lifting her eyes to the rolling green hills outside. “Something’s wrong.”

“There’s nothing wrong.” Sister Evelyn picked the river grasses out of her friend’s hair. The rest of the nuns might think Brigid was crazy. But they hadn’t known her when she was in that hospital. They hadn’t seen what those people had done to her. They didn’t understand that Brigid’s obsession with organization was the only shred of sanity she could claim in a life that had spun wildly out of control.

“The gardens are starting to bloom,” Sister Evelyn said cheerfully, shaking more grasses out of her hair while Brigid continued to stare out the window.

Brigid nodded, her gaze following the path of a robin into the forest.

“We might see daffodils for the first time in January.”

Brigid shook her head, the grasses rustling around her bare shoulders like tiny bones in the wind. “It’s not time.”

“It’s only a heat wave,” Sister Evelyn said gently.

Brigid’s pale eyes—the color of storm clouds gathering over the sea—shifted to Sister Evelyn. “It’s not time.” Her cold fingers wrapped around Sister Evelyn’s wrist. “It’s not right.”

O
wen glanced over his shoulder, as he did every night when he wandered down to the beach at sunset. Hardly anyone came here. It was mostly rocks and they could get slippery at high tide. But the coastline was bone dry. Even the lichens crackled under his feet as he picked his way over them.

He paused when he spotted a starfish washed up on the shore. He knelt, scooping it up and carrying it back to the water. Strips of dried seaweed broke off and crumbled under his shoes. His eyes widened when he saw the dozens of pale sea stars stranded on the thin sliver of white sand. He dropped the book he was carrying and scrambled over to them, picking them up and tossing them back into the water.

A lone seal swam into the shallow waters and circled the starfish, swishing her tail fins to help them back into the deeper waters. When Owen and the seal had returned all the starfish back to the sea, Owen glanced up at the horizon. The sun, a copper coin in the distance, was almost touching the hazy edge of the sea.

“I have to get back,” he whispered. But the seal swam closer. She lifted her sleek head out of the water and crooned out a sad song. Owen bit his lip. His parents expected him home before dark. He looked at the road leading back to the village. Maybe he could stay a little longer if he ran home.

Picking up the book, he climbed onto the long flat rock that hung over the water and sat with his feet dangling over the edge. He opened to the page where he’d left off last night and started to read.

“‘Don’t you love me best of all?’ the little mermaid’s eyes seemed to question him, when he took her in his arms and kissed her lovely forehead.

‘Yes, you are most dear to me,’ said the Prince, ‘for you have the kindest heart. You love me more than anyone else does, and you look so much like a young girl I once saw but never shall find again. I was on a ship that was wrecked, and the waves cast me ashore near a holy temple…’”

He trailed off as Nuala dipped and spun in frantic circles under the surface of the water. She flipped, somersaulting, and then hopped up onto the ledge of the rock, her pale eyes pleading at him to go on. Owen read a few more paragraphs, stumbling over some of the bigger words. He paused when Nuala nudged his fingers with her wet nose.

“What is it?” he whispered. She let out a low whimper and he ran his hand tentatively over her head. He knew she couldn’t answer. But she scooted closer, rubbing her nose on the pages of the book. He flipped back a few pages until she stopped nudging the book and he squinted to make out the words through the fading light.

“She saw dry land rise before her in the high blue mountains, topped with snow as glistening white as if a flock of swans were resting there. Down by the shore were splendid green woods, and in the foreground stood a church, or perhaps a convent…”

Nuala splashed back into the water, swimming in frantic half-circles around the rock. Owen paused, his finger on the word as he sounded out the syllables again. “Con-vent?”

She nodded, splashing warm water onto the rock.

“Con-vent,” he said again, not entirely sure if he was pronouncing it right. He didn’t know what a convent was. But it must be important. He slipped the gold ribbon back between the pages as the sun dipped into the ocean. He stood, waving goodbye to Nuala. “I have to go,” he called over his shoulder as he scampered over the rocks to the road. A trail of seawater dripped from the hem of his pants, steam rising up in his wake.

GLENNA LAID A
stick of sage across a small driftwood fire. The dried herbs crackled as she stepped out of her cloak. The ocean lapped at her feet, warm as a tide pool on Lunasagh. A swallow darted out of the caves, its black wings beating against the inky blue sky. She lifted her arms, the swell of power building inside her as ripples danced over the surface of the water.

Sky above me, sea below me, fire within me

Give me strength to see more clearly

The sea churned, bubbling around her ankles. Steam floated up from the surface and gathered in Glenna’s upturned palms. The air crackled as the mists crystallized, sparkling in her hands.

She bowed her head as her fingers closed over the salt. The tide rose, the water seeping over the scorched sand. It rushed like silk through her toes as she walked to the fire. Slowly, an image began to form in the flames—Sam sitting at a corner table across from a white-haired man in a crowded Dublin pub.

Salt of the earth

Salt of the sea

From seed to birth

I banish thee

She flung the salt into the fire. Sparks exploded from the flames. When the image reformed, the white-haired man was gone and Sam sat alone at the bar, nursing a glass of whiskey.

From the silver chain around her neck, she unscrewed the small glass vial—Tara’s tincture—and poured the herbs into her palm. She blew them over the flames and watched as a white light of protection formed around him.

By the light of the moon

On this January night

I call on thee

To shield and protect

May no harm be done

No more harm to come

By the power of three

So mote it be

The ocean receded, and the flames died, leaving only a pile of knotted driftwood inside a circle of stones. Glenna stepped back from the logs and lifted her gaze to the moon.