Skin Deep (25 page)

He pressed his lips together for a moment, then opened his eyes. “Garland, there is no point in my telling you any more if you will not believe me. Will you accept that I am what I am?”

She lay very still and looked up at him. “How about I suspend judgment until I hear everything? Will that do?”

He returned her gaze steadily. “It will have to.” His voice was low and even as he began—the coming of his ancestors from Scottish waters to this side of the Atlantic, until they reached Cape Cod. She heard his words and let them paint pictures in her mind like the illustrations in some of her books—the seal folk standing on a new shore, gentler and less rocky than their old Scottish isles, where the full moon rose out of the ocean for them to dance by.

But at Cape Cod they met something they’d never seen before.

“There were evils in our old waters. We knew them, and fought them when necessary. But what we found here was different.”

Alasdair’s voice shook slightly. He cleared his throat and went on. “The entity we met was younger and hungrier than those we had known. He wasn’t content to lurk in deep places and be left alone. He wanted light even though he hated it, and he wanted to be known so he came forth and attacked men so that he could take delight in their fear and hatred. Most of all he longed to have substance, and hated men because they had what he never would—their own shapes, their own bodies. The men who lived here called him Mahtahdou.”

Mahtahdou. “Does it mean anything? It sounds a little…”

“In their language it means ‘Devil Bird.’ He can summon storms and make the waves do as he wishes. If he wanted to, he could send a wave to destroy your house. Or all the houses here. If there is sea water, he or his creatures can travel through it and do as they wish. They liked to grab children who were digging for shellfish and drown them. Or smash the canoes of those who went out to fish. The men who lived here then relied on the sea for their living. Mahtahdou made it nearly impossible for them to live.”

They liked to grab children digging for shellfish…did Alasdair know about the dead clammer? “What happened when your people first met him?”

“It is said that the men who lived here feared us when we first came. They were afraid we were Mahtahdou’s allies, come to help him kill them. But we abhorred Mahtahdou and his creatures, and joined with the men to fight him so that we could both live in peace. We could fight him and his creatures in the water more easily than men could, so they were glad to accept our help. At that time Mahtahdou had found a body to inhabit—it was a shaman visiting from an inland tribe who did not understand what Mahtahdou was—and our battle with him was fierce. After a long struggle we destroyed his body and bound him, and the men gave us these waters as our home so long as we kept Mahtahdou enchained.”

“Enchained how?”

“With magic. There have always been selkies among us who did have magic—it runs in my family, which is how we became guardians of Mahtahdou and lords of these waters, even after the men who were driven away by men from the old world who took their lands. My grandmother was a strong magic wielder and kept Mahtahdou well imprisoned. But none of her children had her strength. My father—” His voice caught again. “My father tried. For a while he succeeded, but he made a mistake. Instead of marrying one who did have the power to keep Mahtahdou chained, he fell in love with my mother. She was bright and strong and a brave warrior but not a magic wielder. And while they were happy and had five sons—my four older brothers and me—Mahtahdou was waiting and watching from his disintegrating prison.

“He escaped when I was young, when my voice was just starting to break. Father was killed almost immediately and the rest of my family fled. Our home—”

“Selkies have homes?” she interrupted.

“We did. It is an island, near to the place men call Monomoyick. But it’s not on your charts and maps. We selkies know where it is but men almost never see it, and when they do, it’s on a misty evening and no one believes them. We had a beautiful palace there, built of old sea-polished wood and roofed with shell so that it shone silver by sunlight and moonlight. At least it used to. Mahtahdou took it to live in—though he’s a spirit and did not need an abode, he thirsted for what we had. Now it is so befouled—half of it is a fetid wreck—that I fear it can only be burned and rebuilt.” A bitter smile twisted his face. “If any of us are left to rebuild it, that is.”

Dear heaven, this was real. She didn’t know how she knew that, but she did. “What about the rest of you? Your mother and your brothers?”

Alasdair rolled off the bed and began to pace at its foot. “Mother died trying to avenge my father and retake our home,” he said. “My brothers, one by one, tried to defeat Mahtahdou and failed. Then there was only me. The last of the lords, ruling over a small fragment of what had once been a large people.”

“And Conn,” she said softly.

“And Conn.” He stopped pacing. “Gods, Garland, what have I done, begetting a son? My people begged me—if I were to die, who would be lord after me? They needed someone to rally around, even if it were only a child. It didn’t feel right to take a mate, but there was Finna.”

He sat down on the end of the bed with his back to her and his head bowed. “She had always tagged after me when we were small,” he said. “She was younger than I, and so pretty. Her father had died alongside my mother and I thought that by taking her as my wife I’d be giving back to her for that loss. I thought that she’d be safer because I’d be there to protect her. But I wasn’t. Mahtahdou took her because she was mine and because she’d born me an heir. If she hadn’t she might still live. I might as well have struck her down with my own hand. She would have suffered less if I had…” He trailed into silence.

She climbed down to the edge of the bed and touched his shoulder. “You couldn’t have known.”

“I
should
have known. I should have realized that Mahtahdou would use Finna to get at me. That was how he got Mother out to fight…” He shuddered. “When we were taken that night before you found us, I very nearly did kill Conn to keep him from being touched by Mahtahdou. But I was too late. They took us and three of my warriors and I had to watch while Mahtahdou gave them to his creatures to play with. It took a very long time for them to tire of their sport.” He swallowed. “And then they started on us. I expected far worse than what my warriors had been through, but Mahtahdou wouldn’t let any touch us but himself. And in the end he chose not to kill us outright. He wanted us to die slowly and be conscious of death as it took us. Too much torture doesn’t permit that, you see. He said he was taking our sealskins to hang on the wall of his hall that used to belong to my family so that he could look at them and gloat over his victory, and he cut us until we were bleeding from many wounds. He licked at my wounds and said that I was delicious and he wished he could eat the rest of us. And then he had us bound and dragged to the water and thrown into the storm.”

She remembered the eerie shouts and screams in the wind that night, her first in Mattaquason, and Rob examining their wrists and ankles the morning after, and shivered. “How did you get free?”

“I don’t remember,” he said slowly. “When I hit the water I screamed as the salt of it touched my wounds, and then I blacked out. No selkies would have dared to be near, but our little brothers the seals might have been there. The only thing I can guess is that they bit away our ties so that we wouldn’t drown. I don’t know if they brought us to your beach or not, but the next thing I knew I was lying on the sand in the sun, and a beautiful woman was holding my son wrapped in a magic skin, and—”

She stopped him. “Wait—that’s the second time you’ve said something about magic—what are you talking about?”

“Garland.” He turned and touched her face gently. “I know you don’t know it. I don’t understand why you don’t, but your quilts—they’re magic. Very magic. When I touched your shirt that you put around Conn that morning—you had sewn a piece  of your quilts—”

“A block,” she added automatically. “A Compass Rose block.”

“Yes. Whatever it is, it is like—like a cloak of protection. Why do you think Conn never wants to take it off? Why do you think that he wasn’t killed when he wandered out of your house the other day?”

“That scratch on his cheek—”

“One of Mahtahdou’s creatures had found him, I think. But it couldn’t take him or even hurt him much because of your shirt.”

Her head was spinning. Selkies and demons and quilts—

“And the robe that you gave me to wear—the one you made for your husband—” His expression softened. “I was so jealous when I felt it, wondering what perfect man had merited that robe. There was such love in it—”

And Derek could barely stand to touch it when she’d given it to him. “But I don’t
do
anything to them. I just make them.”

“It is
because
you
make them that they have magic,” he said. “The first thing I thought of when I touched your shirt was my grandmother. Do you know how she kept Mahtahdou bound all those years? With a braided circlet of beach grass. Something that anyone could make. But when she made it, it could keep Mahtahdou restrained and powerless. Think, Garland! What else has happened with your quilts?”

This was ridiculous. “Nothing,” she said. “Yes, people like them—”

“Being struck by a car while you held a quilt that told of the return of life to the land and being unhurt—is that nothing? Catching Conn’s fingers in your fishnet quilt is nothing?”

She was silent. He nodded and went on.

“After I felt your power and understood that you meant us no harm—that you would take care of us—it was the first time I’d had any hope in years. My people are scattered and my—my skin is in Mahtahdou’s hands. But if you were helping me, with your power… There was only one problem. You were kind and gentle with my son, and strong and caring to help us heal…and so beautiful, like summer fruit ripening in the sun…” He leaned toward her and kissed her, letting his lips linger on hers.

“I ached with wanting you,” he murmured. “But I have to leave you, before I can’t. I thought the healer loved you—that he would take care of you—”

She held his face between her hands so that he couldn’t look away. “But why do you have to leave?”

His eyes were dark and sad. “Why else? I killed Finna with my love. I will not kill you the same way. Listen to me. Mahtahdou knows I am alive and that I’m here with you. He must have guessed when my body was never found. He tried to get into your house but couldn’t—remember how all the other houses here have been damaged, with their windows broken? His creatures found Conn but could not take him. And I think your accident with the car was a test, to see how strong your magic was—”

“Wait—a test? How could he have—”

“I told you that Mahtahdou can inhabit a human body when he needs to. I think he used the body of that woman to see if he could kill you. If he could not, then he would know you were out of the ordinary.” He put his hands over hers. “If we don’t leave soon, something worse will happen. Your magic may be able to keep his creatures from breaking windows, but will it be strong enough to withstand a mountain of water flung at your house? All I ask is that you give me the quilt you have made me—it may keep me safe long enough to gather my people together and rescue my skin, and then—”

“And then what?”

“I don’t know,” he said softly. “But I’ll know that you’ll no longer be his quarry. I need ti make sure you’re safe. And I”—he took a deep breath—“I will not hide behind you any longer. I am not a Derek. I have used you, and I am not proud of that. If matters were different—” He broke off, shaking his head. “I owe you my life, beloved. Now I must protect yours.”

She jerked her hands away and pounded the bed in frustration. “But you and Conn won’t be safe. Alasdair, if this is real, I—I don’t want to lose you now. Either to this Mahtahdou or to anyone else.”

“Then you do believe me?”

Did she? His story accounted for so much—his otherworldliness, his injuries, his fear of leaving the house—but demons and magic quilts? “I don’t know. I think I do, but parts of it…I just don’t…” She exhaled, and met his eyes. “But I know this. I love you.”

“Garland—” He reached for her.

“I don’t care who you are or where you came from. I want to be with you always, and I want to be a mother for Conn. I
love
you,” she whispered.

He didn’t reply but pushed her down and kissed her hard, and then made love to her, and she stopped thinking again and let her body say everything that could not be said in words.

Chapter 15

G
arland looked through half-opened eyes at the sleeping Alasdair who lay on his stomach next to her, one arm flung possessively across her. Aragorn. She had called him that once, hadn’t she? It had been a more apt nickname than she’d guessed for her dark, beautiful, dispossessed lord.

Dispossessed lord…what did she think about his tale? Impossible—and yet it had been impossible not to believe him last night, watching the emotions that had chased each other across his face as he spoke. Did she believe him now, in the cool light of day?

She stroked the hand that lay atop her breast and touched the webs between his fingers. Selkie hands. He hadn’t even thought of using them as proof last night—she’d been the one to remember. But was that proof enough?