The Wild Ways (24 page)
It was impossible to tell at this distance, in the dark, if they were merely seals but swimming out to check seemed like a very bad idea. As Aston had discovered, seals bit.
And Selkies . . .
Now she couldn’t stop wondering if Eineen was a biter.
The fiddler in her head got out only the first three bars of “Haste to the Wedding” before Charlie shut it down.
Next morning, Shelly’s cheerful whistling of the same tune jerked her out of a sound sleep.
“Good night?” Charlie yawned without lifting her head as the other woman bounced into the small room.
Shelly grinned. “Not bad.” Then she frowned and sat on the edge of her unused bed, legs filling the minimal space between them, right knee pressed against Charlie’s left elbow. “Tell me you didn’t not hook up because you’re not pining for Eineen. Because, sweetie, that’s never going to happen.”
“You know her?”
“Oh, yeah, you see her at the festivals all the time. Last year Mark thought she was one of the secret judges, but it seems she just really likes the music. And I saw her at the protests for stopping the seal hunt; she’s part of some environmental watchdog group. Also, I think she introduced Tanis to Bo—they’re related somehow. But my point is very, very straight.”
“I know. It’s . . .” Charlie flopped over on her back and sighed up at the ceiling. “It’s complicated. I look at her and I want her, but I swear, I’m not pining. I just didn’t feel like partying.”
“Steve Morris was asking after you.”
“Did he have the money he owes me for that session work?”
“I doubt it since he had a plan to make it up to you.”
“Do another CD and he’ll pay me for both?”
“It’s like you know him.” Straightening her leg, Shelly kicked her in the thigh. “Now get up. We have to be out of the cottage by eleven and it’s nine forty-five.”
Grinneal was off until Wednesday afternoon when they’d meet up at Cheticamp in the Cape Breton Highlands National Park for a paid gig. According to Mark, the Wednesday ceilidh was essentially a barn dance, but it made the tourists happy and that was all that mattered.
“I will not forget we have a sound check at three,” Charlie insisted as Mark glared at her through two very bloodshot eyes. “I won’t be even be late. I’m just going to help Tanis look for the heirloom she’s lost.”
Arms folded, holding a pair of sticks in both hands like Egyptian regalia, Mark’s glare morphed into a puzzled frown. “Hadn’t realized you two were so close, Chuck.”
“We’re not. But I’ve got some time to kill, and if she’s happy, Bo’s happy.” They moved in unison to avoid being run down by Tim carrying three accordion cases and the coffeemaker. “A happy fiddler makes for a happy band.”
“So you’re doing it for the band?”
She grasped his shoulder, cupping the spider tat, and drew a small, reassuring charm on damp skin with the edge of her thumb as she squeezed. “I’m selfless that way.”
Unwilling to chance the Wood with a passenger and a new, and potentially dangerous guitar, Charlie left it and her clean clothes with Shelly, borrowed a backpack for her dirty clothes, and went out to meet Tanis and Bo. Bo continued to take the
world is wider than you imagine
remarkably well although Charlie was beginning to think it had as much to do with Tanis not allowing enough oxygen into his system as it did with Selkie brainwashing.
world is wider than you imagine
remarkably well although Charlie was beginning to think it had as much to do with Tanis not allowing enough oxygen into his system as it did with Selkie brainwashing.
Watching her rub the soft curve of her hip against Bo’s groin, Charlie had to admit it was an effective way of keeping Bo distracted.
“Bo? There’s a familiar truck approaching.”
He moved his lips far enough from Tanis’ mouth to say, “My brother’s picking me up.”
Charlie recognized the driver. “Your brother have a bad ’70s pornstache?”
Impossible to pucker while smiling that broadly. “No such thing as a good one.”
“Hey, dipshit!” The mustache didn’t seem to affect his volume. “Stop molesting that woman and get in the truck.Your audition’s at two fifteen, and Dad’ll want to see you first. Hey, Tanis, still not interested in trading up?”
“Audition?” Charlie asked as Tanis went to the driver’s window.
“Symphony Nova Scotia. Dad’s Assistant Principal Cello and Feroz is Second Bassoon.” When Charlie lifted a brow, he snickered. “He shaves during the season. Mostly I audition to make my father happy, but I wouldn’t turn down a steady job over the winter either.”
“You go where the music calls,” Tanis murmured, tucking back under his arm.
When he bent his head to kiss her, Charlie shared a look with Feroz and flicked Bo’s ear. “Two fifteen audition,” she reminded him. “Go. Call her when you’re done.”
“Do you need a lift . . . ?”
“No.”
“Is it . . . ?” He widened his eyes and waggled his brows up and down.
“Yes, it’s a bad Groucho Marx impersonation. Get in the truck. Tanis, get the door. You know,” she sighed as the truck finally headed away from the cottages, and Tanis gave a weak sniffle, “nothing against Bo, he’s a great guy and one hell of a fiddler, but you don’t
have
to lock your landlife to a man.”
have
to lock your landlife to a man.”
“Actually . . .” she paused to blow her nose. “. . . we do.”
“You do?”
Tanis smiled and spread her hands, the webbing evident. “We leave the sea to dance in the moonlight and fall in love. That’s the Rule my people live by. Fortunately, we fall in love easily. With men,” she added hurriedly. “Eineen can’t . . .”
“I know.”
“But you still want her.”
Her personal soundtrack agreed with a spirited “Cherish the Ladies
.
”
.
”
First Shelly, now Tanis; apparently, she’d been more obvious about her attraction to the Selkie than she’d thought. Charlie spread her hands as Tanis had, letting the gesture answer, then turned and headed behind the cottages, Tanis falling into step beside her.
“Have you tried wanting men?” she asked after a moment.
He’d been a strong man once, broad shoulders, large hands, skin browned by the wind and the sun and sea.
Charlie grinned. “Not since Friday,” she said as the fiddler segued into “Boys of the Town.”
Too innately graceful to trip, Tanis paused for a moment, then hurried to catch up. “But . . .”
“Human rules are less specific than the Rules of the Fey.”
“You’re not entirely Human,” she pointed out.
“Gale rules are Gale specific.” Charlie ducked in under the reaching branch of the big pine and stopped, settling her guitar into place. “Put your hand on my shoulder and I’ll bring us out by those three birches behind your house.”
Dark eyes widened in wonder. “How did you know?”
“Google Earth.You gave me your address, I borrowed Mark’s laptop.”
“Oh.”
“Still magic of a sort.”
“I suppose.” Her fingers felt slightly damp against Charlie’s skin. “Are you sure you can take all of what I am through the Wood?”
Charlie shushed the fiddler and checked. The missing skin left a gaping hole in Tanis’ song, silence where there’d been both deepwater music and waves against the shore. Easy enough to fix. She wove the absence of the skin through the song—a wail of longing bending the treble strings. She didn’t need to turn to know Tanis was crying again.
“Trust me,” she said lightly, trying to lift the Selkie’s mood before the Wood got wet. “I took a Dragon Lord through last year, and your other form can’t possible weigh what he did.”
“A Dragon Lord?” Damp interest.
“They were . . .” Hunting. Invading. Igniting. “. . . visiting in Calgary, and we went to Chicago for pizza. He weighed more on the way back. Those guys can eat.”
Tanis’ grip tightened and she sniffed, more in pique than sorrow. “I’ve always been told that we opened a gate to this world because of the Dragon Lords. That they found our other form . . . tasty.”
Charlie snorted. “I get the impression they find pretty much everything tasty. Hang on.”
Tanis lived in a small house on Grandfather’s Cove outside Main-a-Dieu. “It’s been in the family for generations,” she said leading the way out of the brush and over the rough cut lawn to the back door. “Not our generations of course, yours. Actually, Humans. I’m the only one living here right now; the others with landlives live with their husbands. But my sisters and my cousins visit often, and I spend a lot of my time with Bo.” She caught a handful of hair blown wild on the wind and twisted it into a braid. “Soon, I’ll leave here to live with Bo. Until he betrays me.”
“What?”
“It’s how our story always ends. With betrayal.” Her eyes went dark from lid to lid and a single tear fell to roll down the perfect curve of her cheek. “Mortal lives are so short.”
The Fey were walking, talking clichés sometimes. “So they betray you by dying?”
“The ultimate betrayal.” She shrugged, the glamour back, whites in her eyes again. “It’s the only betrayal left, isn’t it? These days, we choose the men we live a landlife with.”
Is seemed as though the men so chosen couldn’t decline. But then, the Fey tended to get what the Fey wanted and as long as none of them made a move on a Gale boy, not her problem. “So no one ever sees you doing the obligatory moonlight dancing and steals your skin instead of falling in love?”
“Please, most modern men wouldn’t believe what they saw and the last man who did and then strutted around saying
I have your skin and you must be mine
got visited by half a dozen cousins who kicked the living shit out of him until he divulged the hiding place.”
I have your skin and you must be mine
got visited by half a dozen cousins who kicked the living shit out of him until he divulged the hiding place.”
“Half a dozen cousins? Not one of your males?”
“A male would have killed him.”
Seals bite.
Also,
divulged
? Who actually said divulged? Tanis’ speech patterns were an interesting mix of Fey formal and twenty-first century casual.
divulged
? Who actually said divulged? Tanis’ speech patterns were an interesting mix of Fey formal and twenty-first century casual.
“Mr. Alcock next door mows the lawn,” Tanis continued, as though she hadn’t just been talking about putting the boots to a modern application of Celtic myth. “And his wife comes in and cleans once a week as the Alcock family has done for generations. In return, the family are the most successful fishermen in the village. Actually, these days, they might be the only successful fishermen in the village. Over the last few months, the remaining fishing grounds have all but emptied. As though the fish are fleeing before Carlson Oil can destroy their homes.”
“Good for them . . . but back to the kicking. If you could find that skin . . .”
“You weren’t listening; we could only find the man who had it—not that it was hard, what with the strutting and bragging and all. He had to tell us where the skin was.”
“Okay, but my point is, we
know
who has the four missing skins.”
know
who has the four missing skins.”
Tanis sighed and pulled a key for the back door out from under an upturned clay flower pot. “Don’t be ridiculous. We can’t threaten an entire corporation. They have the skins, so we won’t
be
a threat. Plus, the CEO is a woman; we can’t even lure her somewhere secluded and point a male at her hoping she’ll survive long enough to talk. Given the way she does business, she’s probably taken that possibility into account. Her executive assistant is a man and he’s usually the one getting his hands dirty, but even if we get these skins back, we can’t stop them from getting more, and they’ll definitely up the ante. I’m the only landlifer without kids and Carlson Oil has a rep for being hard-line and we’re vulnerable now they know what we are. What?” she asked as Charlie stared at her. “Because we spend so little time in the water, those of us living a landlife are the core of the environmental group, and offshore drilling was on our radar even before Carlson filed for permits.”
be
a threat. Plus, the CEO is a woman; we can’t even lure her somewhere secluded and point a male at her hoping she’ll survive long enough to talk. Given the way she does business, she’s probably taken that possibility into account. Her executive assistant is a man and he’s usually the one getting his hands dirty, but even if we get these skins back, we can’t stop them from getting more, and they’ll definitely up the ante. I’m the only landlifer without kids and Carlson Oil has a rep for being hard-line and we’re vulnerable now they know what we are. What?” she asked as Charlie stared at her. “Because we spend so little time in the water, those of us living a landlife are the core of the environmental group, and offshore drilling was on our radar even before Carlson filed for permits.”
Of course it was. Turned out Tanis was pretty chatty when she wasn’t sobbing or her lips weren’t attached to Bo’s. “So offshore drilling’s innately evil?”
“If the Gulf spill taught us anything, it was that spills are inevitable. Even ignoring the flight of the fish stocks, Carlson wants to drill right next to a seal rookery. We have family there. Wipe your feet,” she added as she opened the door.
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