The Selkie Enchantress (5 page)

“No.”

“Then how did your clothes get all wet?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know.”

He didn’t know? The hood of his sweatshirt was still pulled up over his face, but the black curls that peeked out were damp and his hollow cheeks were far too thin for a child’s. “Owen,” Caitlin asked slowly, “have you had breakfast?”

He shook his head, still avoiding her eyes.

“Fiona O’Sullivan makes the best porridge in Ireland.” She nodded toward the pub, where smoke curled invitingly from the squat chimney. “It’s piping hot and full of brown sugar.” She smiled. “How about it? Want to join me?”

His wary gaze flickered up to hers.

“If we ask nicely,” she added, wiggling her eyebrows. “She might add a swirl of cinnamon.”

Owen’s stomach growled and he looked back down at the ground and nodded.

“Come on, then,” Caitlin said, turning toward the path leading back to the pub. But she took one last glance over her shoulder at the rose, shimmering in the bright sunlight, its petals coated in ice.

***

“I found a neurologist in Galway,” Tara said without looking up from the computer screen. “He wasn’t taking any new patients, but I convinced him to squeeze Liam in tomorrow.” She glanced up when Caitlin cleared her throat. “Caitlin!” She rose, snapping the laptop shut guiltily. “I thought you were Dominic.”

Caitlin’s eyes filled with worry. “You think Liam needs to see a neurologist?”

Tara crossed the room quickly to her friend. She took Caitlin’s cold hands in hers. “It’s just a precaution.”

“But… something must be really wrong if you’re sending him to a specialist.”

“I just want him to have a few tests done.” She squeezed Caitlin’s hand. “I’m sure it’s nothing, but I’ll feel better after I see the results.”

Caitlin searched Tara’s face. “You promise?”

Tara took a deep breath. From the corner of her eye, she could see her daughter, Kelsey, watching her. She lowered her voice. “Okay, I admit. I’m worried.” How could she not be worried after examining Liam this morning? How could he forget this one thing, but remember everything else? “But I’m not jumping to any conclusions until I have the data to back it up. Now come inside and warm up by the fire. Your hands are freezing.”

Tara ushered Caitlin into the room, pausing when she spotted the child lingering in the doorway. Wasn’t that Nuala’s child?

His gray-blue eyes lifted and Tara took a step back. Why did those eyes look so familiar? “Are you Fiona O’Sullivan?”

Tara shook her head. “She’s in the kitchen. Do you want me to get her?”

“It’s okay,” Caitlin said, pushing the child’s hood back from his face and ruffling his hair. “You can ask Tara.”

He looked down at the ground, shifting from one foot to another. “May I please have a bowl of porridge with extra brown sugar and cinnamon?”

Tara looked down at the child, then back at Caitlin. What was Caitlin doing with Nuala’s son?

“I’ll have one, too,” Caitlin said, pulling off her damp sweatshirt and hanging it over the back of a chair.

“Of course,” Tara said slowly. Walking around the bar and popping her head into the kitchen, she put in the order with Dominic’s grandmother and then came back out, smiling down at the child. “Why don’t you join my daughter by the fire and warm up while you wait.”

He looked uncertainly at the blonde curled up on a blanket reading a book. Kelsey scooted over, patting the blanket beside her. “Do you like fairy tales?”

“I guess,” he said, shuffling over to her and lowering himself to the very edge of the blanket.

As soon as he was out of earshot, Tara turned to Caitlin. “Where’s his mother, Caitlin?”

“I don’t know,” Caitlin admitted, walking with Tara over to the bar. “I found him wandering alone by the bogs. His clothes were wet like he’d been wading in the surf.”

“I saw her walk by earlier—Nuala, I mean,” Tara said, leaving out the part about Liam following her out into the street. She felt a new stab of frustration with Liam. And what kind of mother let her child wander around a strange island alone in the middle of winter in wet clothes?

“He wouldn’t tell me where he was from,” Caitlin said, lowering her voice. “I can’t help but wonder if something… happened before they came here.”

Tara’s eyes strayed to where Kelsey was turning the book around to show him the pictures. “Like what?”

“I don’t know,” Caitlin admitted. “But I have a bad feeling about it.”

Tara thought back to what she’d seen out the window this morning. The strange shimmer on Nuala’s cloak. “We should talk to Glenna.”

“No.” Caitlin shook her head. “She’ll just think I’m jealous.”

“What do you mean?”

“She thinks I’m sulking. I ran into her this morning and she accused me of giving up and letting Nuala win.”

“Are you?” Tara asked gently

“I don’t know,” Caitlin confessed, rubbing her thumb over the polished wood of the bar. “What would you do, if you were me?”

Tara’s gaze fell to the spot on the bar Caitlin was picking at. She thought back to what Liam said this morning—that he couldn’t remember anything about Caitlin or their relationship, which meant this wasn’t going to be easy for Caitlin. But what in life worth having was ever easy?

Tara thought back to everything that happened to her in the past year. She heard the familiar squeak of rusted hinges as the back door of the pub opened, followed by Dominic’s deep lilting Irish accent striking up a conversation with his grandmother in the kitchen. She felt the love surge inside her at the sound of his voice. She thought of Kelsey and Fiona and all her friends. And the life she would have lost if she’d kept running from her abusive husband instead of standing and fighting.

She lifted her eyes to Caitlin’s. “I’d fight back.”

Owen gazed at the glossy pages and hard canvas binding of Kelsey’s book, mesmerized. “Where did you get this?”

“My uncle gave it to me.”

“You said it’s a… fairy tale?”

Kelsey nodded, setting the book between them and turning the pages as she read silently to herself.

He angled his head to see the pictures better. She was turning the pages too fast. He reached out, stopping her.

“Sorry,” she said. “Are you still reading?”

He stared at the open page. The creatures in the drawing looked so familiar. He traced a finger over the markings at the bottom of the page. “What are these?”

Kelsey looked up at him, puzzled. “The words?”

“I guess.”

She stared at him. “That’s what makes up the story.”

“Oh.” He gazed down at the letters. Maybe if he knew what they meant, he would know why these pictures seemed so familiar. “Could you… would you tell me what they say?”

Kelsey’s eyes widened. “Can’t you read?”

Owen’s gaze darted over to where Caitlin and Tara sat at the bar, still deep in conversation. He lowered his voice. “Sure, I can… read.”

Kelsey narrowed her eyes. “Then what does this say?” She pointed to a word at the bottom of the page.

He squirmed, trying to make out the letters. Or were they initials? Isn’t that what Caitlin had called the markings on the rock under the rose? Frustrated, he buried his hands in the damp material of his sweatshirt. Rocks and roses. Those he could understand. They had rocks and roses where he was from, wherever that was. But he’d never seen a book before. He reached out, touching a finger to the edge of the binding. It was sharp. Like the tip of a starfish.

“Owen?” Kelsey asked.

“Yes?”

“What does this word say?” She tapped the bottom of the page.

Folding his legs up, he wrapped his arms around them, hugging them to his chest.

Kelsey scooted closer, so their shoulders were almost touching, and lowered her voice. “It says, ‘selkie.’”

Owen’s eyes combed the page, staring at the dark creatures surrounded by silver fish and pink seashells. Like the ones in the cottage. He pushed his hand in his pocket and felt the shells. They were still there. He rolled them around in his hands and the quiet clinking calmed him. “What’s a selkie?”

Kelsey pointed to the creature on the page. “A selkie’s a seal that can turn into a woman on land.”

He picked up the book, looking more closely at the picture. “A seal that can turn into a… woman?”

Kelsey nodded. She reached over his shoulder, flipping through the pages while he held the book. “See,” she said when they came to a picture of a beautiful woman with long black hair on a beach, her seal-skin hidden beneath a rock.

“Are there selkies that can turn into a man?”

“I don’t know. I’ve never heard of one.”

Owen touched the page where the seal-skin was tucked under a rock. “Why does she hide it?”

“It’s complicated.” Kelsey smiled, reaching for the book. “Do you want me to read it to you?”

Owen held onto the book, shaking his head and refusing to let it go. Flipping back through the pages to the pictures of the seals deep in the ocean, he tapped a finger against the glossy page. “I’ve been there.”

“Where?”

“To this place.”

“You mean… snorkeling?”

“What’s snorkeling?”

“You don’t know what snorkeling is?”

Owen shook his head.

“It’s when you swim around with a mask that has a tube sticking up out of the water so you can breathe.”

“I wasn’t wearing a mask,” Owen murmured. “But I’ve
been
there before.”

Kelsey giggled. “You couldn’t have been there.”

“Why not?”

“Because humans can’t breathe underwater, silly.”

Owen stared at the pages. Slowly, he reached out and turned to the next page. Then the next. Then the next. He could taste it—the salt of the sea. The sense of weightlessness as the dark water surrounded him. The feeling of pushing through those cold waters with… he glanced down… something
other than legs
. He started to shiver as the song, an echo of harp strings in the distance, pulsed through that quiet kingdom of green.

Kelsey reached out suddenly, grabbing hold of his shirt. “You’re all wet,” she exclaimed, watching him shiver. “Is it raining out?” She pushed up on her knees to see out the window. “No. It’s still sunny out. How did you get wet?”

He could hear her voice, could feel her touching him, but he couldn’t make out the words. He stared at the picture of the pack of selkies swimming together. “How come all the selkies are black?”

“That’s the color of their seal-skin. It’s always black.” Kelsey tugged at his now-dripping shirt. “How did you get so wet?”

“Are there any white selkies?”

“I don’t think so.”

He flipped through the pages again, searching for one. “Do you have more?”

“More
what
?”

“More books.”

Kelsey sighed. “Yes, but I don’t think they have white selkies in them either.”

Owen bit his lip, flipping back through the pages. “Have you ever seen one?”

“A selkie?”

Owen nodded, looking at her intently.

Kelsey sat back and smiled. “Sort of.”

“What do you mean, ‘sort of?’”

“My mum’s part selkie.” Kelsey nodded at Tara.

Owen’s eyes went wide. “Your
mum
can turn into a seal?”

Kelsey giggled and Tara glanced over, smiling at them. “No, silly.” She lowered her voice. “But her great-great-great-grandmother was a selkie… It’s a long story.”

“Tell me.”

Kelsey’s brows lifted. “Now?”

He nodded urgently.

“I can’t. I’m playing football with Ashling and Ronan soon. You can come play with us if you want.”

“Football?”

“It’s a game.” Kelsey rolled her eyes. “
Where
did you come from?”

He hugged his knees tighter to his chest.

Kelsey lifted her eyebrows. “Well?”

“I don’t know,” he whispered.

“You don’t… know?”

“I can’t remember.”

Kelsey stared at him, then scrambled to her feet, letting the book fall aside. She held out her hand. “Come on, we need to talk to my mum.”

“No!” He shook his head emphatically. “You can’t tell anyone.”

Kelsey’s eyes widened. “But we need to find out where you’re from!”

“I’ll figure it out. Please.” His eyes darted to the door. “Don’t tell your mother. Don’t tell anyone.”

Kelsey sank back down to the blanket. “Why not?”

“Promise me,” he said quickly.

Kelsey just stared at him.

His eyes darted around the room again. “If I come back tonight, will you tell me the story?”

Kelsey continued to stare at him when her great-grandmother came out of the kitchen, setting a piping bowl of porridge in front of Owen. “Extra brown sugar and cinnamon, like you asked for.”