Ashes on the Waves (13 page)

Stunned, I watched as he made his way down the path toward the harbor.

“That went well,” Anna said.

The hair tingled on the back of my neck. “Something’s wrong. Really wrong.”

In silence, we continued up the path to the cutoff for the wooded section, which overlooked the cliffs. The jetty could be seen in the distance.

“Oh, my God. Is that . . . ? What is that, Liam?”

Amid a swirl of turbulence, a human form could be seen, facedown in the water, halfway down the jetty just off the edge. The movement of the water was unnatural, and my entire being shuddered with an unexpected chill. “Stay here,” I said.

“Like hell I will,” Anna answered, following me down the cliff-side path.

The strangeness of the current was explained when I neared the jetty. The body was being, for lack of a better word, herded along by a pod of harbor seals. Seals often play with their prey, but that was not what was happening here. They were keeping the body afloat, and it appeared they were trying to beach it on the rocks.

Being facedown, the man was dead, I had no doubt. Who and why could only be answered by retrieving his body. Carefully, I made my way to the midpoint of the jetty. Anna followed several steps behind.

I climbed onto the rock closest to the water, trying to figure out the best way to lift the body.

“You get an arm, and I’ll grab a leg. We should be able to drag him up that way,” Anna said.

It wrecked me that she had to be a participant in such a macabre event, but her suggestion was a good one. With only one arm, it would be difficult to do this alone. A seal took his wrist in its mouth and dragged him closer. The animal met my eyes as if it were trying to communicate. The Selkie myths made sense when interactions like this occurred. It seemed almost human beneath its pelt. Those eyes . . .

From the harbor, the bells clanged a slow dirge, announcing death.

I lay flat on the rock and reached to the hand being offered. The skin was ice cold and slick. I jerked it closer so that I caught it by the forearm and had the shirt as well as slippery skin. I pulled hard, and Anna grabbed the shirt, then the waist of the pants, getting a solid hold on the belt.

“On three,” she said. “One, two, three.”

We tugged the torso up onto the rock and she rolled the body over, face up.

“Johnny,” I said. “Johnny O’Keefe, my dad’s fishing masthe torste.”

His lips were blue and his skin puckered from being in the water, but it was easy to tell it was Johnny because of the red beard and dense freckles. Small, angry gashes covered the exposed skin, probably from being repeatedly washed against the rocks, which had rough edges covered in barnacles. Honestly, he looked much better than most of the bodies rejected by the sea. Many were mangled beyond recognition.

Anna covered her mouth and stared wide-eyed at the corpse. A loud sob rose from her throat. “His eyes!” she gasped.

Johnny’s eyes stared lifelessly at the sky, pupils enlarged to completely fill the iris. I rubbed my thumb over one eyelid and then
the other, closing them. I shouldn’t have let her follow me here. I could have spared her this horror.

The harbor bells continued their proclamation of death. We might have retrieved the body, but someone else knew prior to our grisly discovery.

“You! I should have known you would be involved, Liam MacGregor. I’ve been saying for a long time you would kill soon.”

I fought the urge to vomit and turned to face Mrs. Katie McAlister, Megan clinging tightly to her hand.

Oh, the bells, bells, bells!

What a tale their terror tells

Of Despair!

—Edgar Allan Poe,
from “The Bells,” 1848

I
was . . . We . . .” I fell silent, deciding not to continue in my discourse with Mrs. McAlister. Words would only exacerbate the situation, which was worsening by the second. Half of the village was filing down the trail toward us, several of them already mounting the jetty.

The villagers’ angry words were indistinguishable, but their intent was as clear as the tolling of the bells in the harbor. Anna crawled closer to me. “What the heck? All they need are pitchforks and torches and we’d have a witch hunt here.”

“A demon hunt,” I whispered.

“Oh, God. They don’t think you—”

“Indeed, they do.”

“I caught him red-handed!” Mrs. McAlister announced with a tone bordering on glee. “I found him in the act!”

Anna pushed to her feet. “In the act of pulling a guy that was already dead out of the water!”

Mrs. McAlister’s face pinched up as if she smelled something foul. More of the villagers were picking their way across the jetty rocks to get a closer look at the demon and his prey. I saw no prospect of a positive outcome. Perhaps the Washerwoman’s recourse would happen sooner rather than later. I hadn’t envisioned my death at the end of a rope.

“Stop!” Anna shouted. “Stop right now.”

The villagers fell silent. I looked up to the trail and noticed Anna’s friends watching from the cliff above, not near enough to hear us. Miss Ronan stood slightly apart from them. It was too far to see her face, but I was certain Miss Ronan’s expression was one of triumph. The evil seed she had planted in the villagers’ brains eighteen years ago had tsther face, baken firm root and was driving their actions and thoughts. She controlled them like a master puppeteer.

Anna took several steps toward Mrs. McAlister. “You caught him red-handed doing what?”

Mrs. McAlister’s mouth opened and closed several times like a mackerel dropped into the bottom of a boat. Anna crouched down to Megan’s eye level. “What did you see?”

“You will not speak to my child!” Mrs. McAlister shouted.

“You will not speak to me in that tone. Are we clear?” I marveled at Anna’s forcefulness. “You are accusing someone of murder. This is not a game and you are not in charge.” She acted as I would imagine appropriate for a great lady of a mansion such as Taibhreamh. In awe, I held my breath and waited for Mrs. McAlister to react. To my amazement, her shoulders slumped and her mouth clamped shut in a tight line.

For a moment, no one spoke, but the bells continued their monotonous drone, underpinning the scene with a rhythmic dirge.

Clang, clang, clang.

“Justice!” someone yelled from the back of the crowd. An angry unintelligible rumble resulted. These people wanted something—someone to blame. I was that someone. My greatest hope was that Anna would not be implicated as well.

“No!” The cry was followed by harrowing sobs only the truly bereaved can deliver. Johnny’s wife pushed through the crowd. “No, Johnny!” She fell on her knees at his side, cries accompanied by the mournful tolling of the harbor bells.

Out of respect, I supposed, the angry villagers quieted.

Clang, clang, clang.

Once again, I scanned the crowd, including those on the cliff-side trail. I spotted my pa’s unmistakable broad form at the top, arms crossed over his chest. He would be as willing to believe I had given in to my murderous demon as anyone else. My spirit shrank with regret at the relationship we never had and never could have.

“What happened?” Johnny’s wife asked.

“I have no idea,” I whispered.

“I know exactly what happened!” Mrs. McAlister shouted, surely with the purpose of inciting the crowd again. “We all know what happened, don’t we?”

Several villagers shouted agreement, then were joined by others. I was most certainly doomed. Crowd mentality is powerful. Coupled with fear and grief, it’s unstoppable.

“I have one question.” I hadn’t realized I could raise my voice that loud. The crowd hushed. “Who is ringing the bells right now?”

“Edmond Byrne,” someone yelled.

“Why?” I shouted.

No one answered because everyone knew why. The bells only rang for fire, which was visible from anywhere on the small island; a birth, the last of which was Megan’s, six years ago; and death—the bells we heard most often on Dòchas.

Emboldened, I continued. “They started to ring before I removed the body from the water. You know this is true because that’s why Mrs. McAlister got here in time to see me pull the body out. She heard the bells and was told where the death had occurred. Who brought the news? That’s the person who knows what happened.”

A whispered murmur spread through the villagers.

“Who reported it?” I pressed.

“I did,” Pa shouted from the top of the trail. “I reported Johnny’s death.”

My heart stopped. This was the worst-possible outcome, well, other than if the witness had been Miss Ronan or Mrs. McAlister.

Clang, clang, clang.
It was my death knell too.

The villagers waited expectantly for him to offer me up. This was his chance. He’d told me my whole life he wished he could get rid of me—that the only thing keeping him from it was my ma. Now, without her, there was nothing to hold him back. He’d be free of his burden at last.

I closed my eyes and found myself breathing in time to the strike of the bells, waiting for the inevitable.

“Leave the boy alone,” Pa yelled. “He had nothing to do with this.” I opened my eyes. Based on their absolute silence, the villagers were as stunned by his response as I was. “Johnny went to the sea on his own in the middle of the night.” Pa paused and wiped his face with his handkerchief. He was too far away to see clearly, but he appeared overcome with emotion as he pointed at the sea. “He said he heard his son calling from out there. I was too drunk to realize what he meant at the time.”

Johnny’s son had died three years ago when he fell off the boat while out pulling lobster traps with his dad. Neither could swim, so Johnny watched helplessly as his only child drowned just out of reach.

“Johnny answered the call of the sea,” Pa said. “We’ve all heard it.” He shook his head. “Let the boy be.” With that, he turned and disappeared over the hill.

I remained motionless, frantically trying to form a cohesive stream of thought, but none came. I could only repeat one word in my head:
Why?

Like children denied a bright plaything, the villagers filed off the jetty with the exception of several men and Mrs. McAlister, Megan in tow.

Mrs. McAlister’s eyes narrowed as she studied me.

Anna slipped her arm around my waist. “Nice try, McAlister,” she said through gritted teeth. “This jetty is part of the Taibhreamh estate. You’re trespassing. Get off.”

Other than her eyes opening so wide white was visible all around the iris, Mrs. McAlister made no response. She pivoted and retreated to the trail. Megan looked back at me several times, lip trembling.

The four men lifted Johnny wordlessly onto their shoulders without making eye contact. Was it shame or disappointment that caused them to look away? I wondered. Fear perhaps.

The bells still moaned as the macabre procession cleared the jetty and disappeared over the hill.

“Are you okay?” Anna whispered, rubbing small circles on my back.

I was stunned, but alive and free. Pa had exonerated me—something I would never have dreamed possible. “Yes. I’m fine.”

Now that my shock was receding, my misery welled for Anna. She should never have been subjected to what she’d just witnessed. A battered corpse is traumatic even to one accustomed to death. For someone like her, it had surely been a living nightmare. And then the villagers.

I pulled her against me, breathing in the amazing scent of lilies and Anna. “I’m so sorry. I . . .” I shook my head. Words failed me again. My world was wrong for her and she needed to get out as quickly as possible. That’s what I wanted to say, but somehow could so neven’t. “My world is complicated.”

“Your world is screwed up,” she said. “Majorly screwed up.”

Pushing selfishness and desire aside, I vowed to myself that I would do anything in my power to ensure she returned to New York, where she belonged. She needed to shake free from this cursed island and evil it held, including me, before it was too late and her gentle spirit fell victim to the darkness here. “I’m so sorry,” I whispered into her hair.

She ran her fingers up my stomach and slid them between the buttons on my shirt, her fingertips skimming my chest, leaving tingles in their wake. Her simple touch had more effect on my tortured soul than a thousand words. I sighed and relaxed, the terror of prior moments receding like the tide, my breathing once again taking the slow rhythm of the bells sounding in the distance.

“What the hell was all that about?” Nicholas shouted from far down the jetty. I lifted my head to find Anna’s three friends awkwardly making their way over the rocks toward us. Miss Ronan was nowhere in sight.

Mallory jumped to the next rock. “Yeah, that was intense. Was that guy dead?”

Suzette was several feet behind, stopping on each rock and analyzing the best path to take to cross safely to the next.

Anna didn’t respond to them, but slipped her hand from my shirt and placed it on the side of my face. “Are you okay, really?” she asked, looking straight into my eyes.

“I will be.”

“I can send them back to the house,” she whispered.

“No. You’ve given too much already.”

She dropped her hands. “You don’t get it, do you?”

My mind raced to grasp her meaning, but found none. Almost imperceptibly, I shook my head.

She placed her lips against my ear. “Nothing is too much. I’m in love with you, Liam MacGregor.”

The world around me melted into silence: the waves hitting the rocks, my breathing, the pounding of my heart . . . and the bells. No sound, no pain, no fear. Only Anna.

* * *

Muireann was shocked by the treatment of her human by his own kind. She thought only the Na Fir Ghorm capable of such callousness.

It was humans’ unlimited capacity for love that appealed to Selkies. It was the reason they cared for humans and championed them with Otherworlders.

She rose to the surface and snuck another peek. The villagers had cleared, and he was with the girl she had seen him with before. He held her tightly as if his life depended on it. Maybe it did. No others of his other kind seemed to want him.

But Muireann wanted him. She’d been told about the lure of humans but had never experienced it until recently. She longed to shed her pelt and talk to him and get to know him.

Three humans she’d never seen before interrupted the couple’s embrace. After sharing words, the tall girl and the boy touched hands with her human and the smallest one embraced him, and then the three of them along with the girl he favored took the trail that led to the big dwelling. Her human went the other direction toward his home.

The Na Fir Ghorm were still celebrating last night’s victory. She could hear the revelry every time she put her e sion tohead underwater. That poor man had honestly believed he was joining his dead son when he entered the water. Muireann recalled the horror on his face when the Na
Fir Ghorm released him from the trance too early—but too late to save himself. He fought death until his last heartbeat.

It was her sincere hope that Manannán mac Lir had granted him passage and that he truly was with his son now.

Muireann swam toward Seal Island with her head above water.
The hateful creatures.
Their raucous singing and boasts made her feel sick to her stomach. If only there were a way to stop them from killing her human. From killing any human again.

Impossible. They were unstoppable.