Selkie's Song (Fado Trilogy) (4 page)

The hallway was typical of B&Bs with the omnipresent tour folders and postcards. Not so predictable were the fanciful and exotic pieces of pottery set about in every corner and decorating each horizontal surface.

Ty ran his index finger along the lip of one vessel where the design and colors blended into a sunset of hues. “This is incredible. Is it from a local artist?”

Mary’s face split into a grin. “That would be my niece Muireann’s work. She always was one for playing in the mud. Who’d a thought it would come to such pretty pieces after all?”

“Your niece?” His throat squeezed and he thought he would choke. “Your niece Muireann?” Mary Conneely didn’t seem to know him, so he had to conclude Muireann hadn’t mentioned his name even in passing. Or, most likely, they had long forgotten the overly amorous lad of years ago.

“For sale?” he asked as he turned over a handwritten tag hanging from the handle of a pitcher.

“Ach, now, Ireland is in a recession. Everything has a price.” She laughed.

A series of framed photos hung from the paneled wall. One, a girl of perhaps eight years, her first communion veil slightly off-kilter on a head of windblown hair, looked into the camera as though her very soul would be stolen by the snap of the shutter. Her dark, intense eyes caught Tynan and held him captive for the span of a heartbeat. Those eyes held the same surprise they had, years later, when he chanced a kiss, stolen beneath the summer moon of his sixteenth year.

The other image was of a young man, fair of complexion with corn-silk hair. He sat at a harp. An Irish wolfhound with great, sad eyes lay at the feet of the harper. The photo was taken outside, on a clear day, with the sea as a backdrop. Muireann’s brother, Ronan. He had been the same age as Tynan, but the similarity ended there.

Ty remembered Ronan as a quiet, overly serious boy who rarely spoke and, while the others indulged in typical teen foolishness, observed quietly as he plucked out tunes on his harp.

Tucked into the corner of the picture frame was a small prayer card, the kind provided by the funeral home to honor the lost loved one. Tynan’s chest gave a squeeze of sorrow for a brother lost.

Mary was halfway up the stairs, chattering on as she fumbled with a bunch of keys, found the right one, and opened the bedroom door.

“If this doesn’t please you, young man, you let me know. I want to be sure you’re comfortable.”

The window was open and the breeze filled the room with salty air. “It’s perfect, Mary.” Ty set his bag down on the floor, his mandolin case on the bed, and stepped to the window. He’d lived in Ireland most of his life, but something about this place set the skin on the back of his neck to prickle with unexpected excitement.

Mary was puttering about, opening cupboards and showing him where to hang his clothes, chatting to no one in particular the whole time. “…and if ya happen down to those cliffs—”

“What do you call them? Those cliffs to the west there.” He pointed to a spectacular grassy paddock dotted with sheep and bounded on the far side by a drop of about five hundred feet.

“Ah, yes, now that headland is Ceann Na Conghaile, Conneely’s Head.”

“I’m certain there’s a story behind that name.” Tynan knew it wouldn’t take much probing to get the whole tale from Mary. She was poised to give it—with embellishments.

“True, oh, so true. Legend has it, long ago, the kin of the Conneely were selkies.” She pointed, with a slight tremor of her hand, for dramatic effect no doubt. “A man needs to be cautious when he hears the selkie’s song. I believe it’s not simply a tale, more than one man has been lured from those cliffs…” She looked square in his eyes and took a deep breath. “They can’t stop themselves. Ah, it’s a tragic thing, it is.”

He had to stop her. “I’ll get unpacked now. Thank you.” He gave her his best smile and hoped she would get the message.

“My granny knew a woman who had an uncle…one of the O’Malleys, sure now. He married a daughter of the Ó Conghaile. Her name was Mara. Yes, Mara Conneely was a lovely girl. Disappeared out on the cliffs. Her husband went out to find her. Story goes, he heard her singing.”

Tynan knew exactly where this was going. He had heard versions of this tale, up and down the west coast of Ireland. “Did he find her?”

“Well, he was never seen again, so the locals say.” She pointed toward the window with a shaky hand. “Ya see that standing stone across the paddock there? Some folks think he waited for her there, in a freezing rain, until he died, standing up, right there at that spot.”

Tynan saw the upright monolith. The shape, with the light of late morning casting odd shadows, was reminiscent of a man, standing, looking out to sea.

Mary shook herself as though trying to come to her senses. “Ach, now, would you come down for tea or shall I bring it up to you?”

“Oh, thank you, but I’d like to unpack and get organized.”

“Ah, sure, I’ll leave you to yourself. Breakfast is half eight. I’ve the full Irish or you can have griddle cakes if you wish. I try to please.”

She wasn’t moving toward the door.

“Eggs, bangers, and pudding…lovely, Mary. I’ll dream on it.” Deep wishing and telepathy weren’t working. He gently took her elbow and gallantly walked her out into the hall. “I’ll just settle myself in now. Thank you. Everything is perfect.”

She gave him a grin that deepened the crinkles at the edges of her eyes, turned, and humming a tune, left him in peace.

Tynan flipped his case open and started to sort his clothes, but concentration was interrupted by a glance out the window and down to the Ó Conghaile cliffs.

Selkies. He’d grown up on the lore of selkies, kelpies, and the water horse. Perfectly wonderful legends that had inspired bards and seanchaí since time out of mind.

The sun, skirting the eastern hills when he arrived, had reached its zenith. Ty left his suitcase half unpacked and made his way as quietly as possible down the stairs.

“Ah, Mr. Sloane, I’m just now wettin’ the tea. Would ye join me?”

Though food and drink were tempting, he craved solitude. “No, thank you very much, but I’m going to take a bit of a ramble…see what there is to see.” Suss out if there are truly selkies about.

“Sure now, watch your step. The rocks are slippery with the seaweed when the tide is out.”

“Thanks for the word of caution.” He reached in his pocket for his sunglasses. “I’ll be back after supper, I think. Do I need a key?”

“Ah, no. We don’t lock our doors here in Ballinacurragh.” Mary approached and whispered as though the walls had ears. “It’s said that on rare occasion, when the tide is low and the sea is calm with little wind to stir it, you can still hear her singing.”

****

Curiosity pulled Tynan by invisible threads across the brilliant green expanse toward the sea. A rock barrier separated the sheep paddock from the road and a well-worn path to the cliffs. When the trail forked, he followed the most trodden. He crossed the wall using a stile where the stones had been worn slick by years of use and ambled along the track, humming a tune that came to him unbidden. The words tickled the back of his mind. A poem by Yeats. How did it go?

And someone called me by my name:

It had become a glimmering girl

With apple blossoms in her hair

Who called me by my name and ran

And vanished in the brightening air.

The sea shone silver in the noon sunlight. Tynan felt the magnetic pull toward the edge of the sheer limestone drop. He knelt and then lay stretched out on his stomach and let his eyes scan the striations in the rock. Using his jacket as a pillow he rested his head on the fragrant turf. A horseshoe-shaped strand lay below. The incoming tide curled and caressed the megaliths that stood like sentinels at either edge.

Tynan’s eyelids felt heavy. The guillemots and grey-backed gulls called from their homes in the caverns and ledges and lulled him into a jet-lagged stupor.

He woke to a soft intonation. It must have been the wind. Through sleep-blurred vision, Tynan caught a glimpse of a seal frolicking beyond the waves that licked like lazy tongues at the beach. A dark brown head would appear and, just as quickly, be gone. Ty thought he imagined it. But it was not unusual to observe the graceful pinniped with a friendly face in this part of Ireland.

This must have been a young harbor seal, as the pelt was dark, almost black. He was mesmerized as it swam closer, into the shallows. Ty’s body was exhausted but he didn’t want to give in to sleep and miss the playful aquatic ballet.

Stealthy fingers of mist blurred and teased his vision. His mind begged for the healing balm of slumber. He fought the overpowering need to close his eyes.

A voice awakened him from a sleep so deep it left him disoriented. The sweet notes of a song hung in the salt air. This tune he’d not heard before seemed to come from a dimension beyond the bounds of earth.

A sleek nymph, born of the waves, swam with languid strokes toward the sandy rim of the sea. She stepped as lightly as a cat onto the shore below, caught his gaze, and shook the water from her limbs. Sable eyes were guileless as she licked salt water from her lips.

Ty’s heart pounded against the earth beneath him, and he feared a tremor would loose the rocks of the headland to tumble into the sea. He held his breath as she stripped her ebony skin from pale appendages. She at first appeared to have tendrils of seaweed, brown strands clinging to her shoulders and down her back. Dark Sargasso strands reshaped into tangled tresses, thick and wet with salt and sea.

He expected her to flee, be frightened by this mortal spying from his high refuge. But a timid beastie she proved not to be. Is this how a selkie lured a man to follow her? Would she transfigure and show her seal face only when he had drowned in the cold brine of the Atlantic?

She stood motionless, foamy tides swirling about her ankles, defiance in her stance. The sugary white sand that clung to limbs and body was all that clothed her.

Who was this selkie…this woman…who challenged him with her bold nakedness, the delectable curve of hip and thigh, and dark nipples tipping her full breasts? A hallucination brought about by jet lag and Mary Conneely’s story telling?

Tynan’s vision was clouded by a pall that overtook him and closed him in a blanket of blue mist. When the vapor cleared, the selkie was gone.

Chapter Three

Tourists!

God’s breath, could a woman have a bit of privacy to take a dip in the sea?

Muireann stowed her wetsuit in the duffel she had left on the rock ledge and shimmied jeans over her wet legs and hips. She brushed sand off shoulders and breasts before pulling her sweatshirt over her head. She’d shower at Mary’s where she always kept a fresh change of clothes.

Squinting into the early afternoon sun, she searched the shore for Cú. “Get up here, ya mangy mutt,” she called. He ignored her. The old dog was deaf as a stone.

His large grey head peeked around a big rock covered with seaweed where he had been foraging for tasty bits. Muireann gave him a hand signal she was sure he would not dismiss.

The wolfhound had been her brother’s constant companion. Now he was hers. Because the pup had been born deaf, Ronan had trained him to respond to subtle signals. Muireann had learned the essentials, but she had not the same, apparently telepathic, connection her brother had cultivated with this canine.

She liked having the hound near. So far he had never lived up to his warrior name Cú Chulainn …hound of Culann, but strangers kept their distance. Locals knew the only harm he might cause was from the copious drool he was happy to slobber over anyone foolish enough to show him attention.

“Let’s go see what Mary’s about,” she said, reached for his collar, and let him pull her up the steepest part of the path by the stone steps that had been known for centuries as Manach Dréimire, the Monk’s Ladder.

Cú lowered his head and rumbled a growl deep in his chest.

“Jaysus, would ya look at that now?”

The man lay prone with his head resting on a rolled-up jacket. He appeared to be deeply asleep. She wondered if she should wake him. It wouldn’t do at all to have him get disoriented and fall off the headland. Even here, where the drop was only a few meters, he would have a nasty landing.

But the gobshite had been watching her, and she wasn’t inclined to get into a conversation with him. She’d seen him while she swam. They had made brief eye contact when she had stripped off. Let him get an eyeful, she had thought. Good for the tourist trade.

She took him in from the back of his head to the soles of his leather shoes. He was certainly not from around here. No North Clare man would venture out on these sheep paddocks in those shoes. Besides, she knew everyone from Tarbert to Galway City and this man would have been hard to forget. She would have known him…and she didn’t.

“Stay close, Cú,” she warned by tapping him lightly on his nose. “We’ll not disturb him.” He whined and started to pull. He wanted to play with this sleeping form, sniff it, pounce on it. “You’ll scare the man to death,” Muireann whispered and tugged Cú along with her until he stopped objecting.

The sun shimmered green and gold across the fields, but Muireann felt, rather than saw, clouds gathering in the west. Boats that usually fished until late in the afternoon were making their way to the shelter of the harbor. The weather was changing, and fisherman were always the first to respond.

After a day on the water, the whole of Ballinacurragh would be ready for the craic and a song or two. Pints would flow at O’Malley’s tonight.

Conneely’s Pub attracted the tourists. Eámon Conneely had hired a three-piece band from Ennis with no shame about how many times they would play “Dirty Old Town” if the stout ran free. That left O’Malley’s for the locals. Turlough O’Malley served the best pub grub and pulled the fairest pint in all North Clare. It was a known fact and even though Turlough was her very own da, Muireann believed she was unbiased in her opinion.

A hare skittered across the field, and Cú took off chasing it toward the house. Muireann’s attention was drawn away from her hound to a red car parked at An Currach. “Auntie’s got a guest, it seems.”