The Selkie Bride (6 page)

Ponder as I did, no answers came to me and my bafflement remained, somewhat spoiling my walk. Duncan’s name had stupidly been invoked, and like a zombie he rose from where I had buried him and hurried across the sea. The mind is determined to relive certain events, and I recalled with some pain standing in the judge’s chambers with my heart, if not in my hand, then at least as open as hope in the face of parental disapproval could make it. I smiled happily while we said our vows in front of a clerk who stood as witness to our marriage, and for a while I remained emotionally undefended and expecting we would have a happy marriage, because Duncan, though a lot older and sometimes impatient in manner, was kind and affectionate in an offhand way. He was even a helpmate when my parents died and I was left feeling guilty for my unhealed breach with them. Had it all been an act? Was there
never
any affection in his heart?

One day, Duncan had received a letter from Scotland.
What it said I never knew, because he burned it, but he locked himself in the parlor he used as a study and when he emerged hours later, he was drunk and rude. From that day forward, I don’t think he was ever entirely sober again. He never touched me after that day either. His words and manner grew increasingly cruel and repulsive as he strove to drive me away. I offered sympathy, but my pity only infuriated him.

He did touch whores. Many of them. And he turned to a new love: cocaine. Duncan’s sudden passing had left me with a bittersweet incense of tragic memory that smoldered in my thoughts for weeks after his death. I thought I had doused the last spark, but apparently some embers lingered.

Had Fergus Culbin been the author of the letter that caused the change in my husband? It seemed that I might never know the answer. One thing was certain, though. My failed marriage had cast a long dark shadow over my life, deepened by the loss of my parents before we made up our quarrel, and I was tired of being lost in memory’s evil twilight. Duncan was dead and buried, and I needed to find my way out of his shade. I had to become my own woman again and put this blight from my soul once and for all.

On this thought, I rounded a headland and came face to cliff face with the
Sithean Mor
. The sight immediately shook me from my unhappy reverie and caused my nerves to shrill with awed alarm and unhealthy fascination. The mound was not the green of grass or moss that I had expected, but rather a salmon pink stone shaded through with the colors of a strong
sunset. It stood some two stories high and had no windows or doors—a fact for which I felt oddly grateful. Had there been an opening, self-respect would have demanded that I step inside and look around, and this was not something I wanted to do.

The islands had never held me in thrall any more than the supposedly enchanted lowlands or highlands, but I could sense that this was an uncanny spot. Lonely, a place of spiritual desuetude and perhaps something worse. It was what the natives called “feart.” Still, at some level it called to me, a familiar voice whispering in the closed-up basement of my brain. I had never been here before, but this place knew me.

Megan MacCodrum, come near
.

Terror is a strange beast. It can be repulsive, an urgent warning from that inner voice of sanity to stay away from something. But it can also be oddly enthralling, even addicting, and the foolish urge to rush out into the dark when one hears a noise, or to look beneath the hood of the cloaked stranger to see perhaps a monster can be very strong. At its worst, this mixture of fear and fascination can become a parasite in the blood that takes up residence in the heart and stays with you forever, always urging dangerous confrontation when common sense says to flee. This was the way my mood trended. Angered at what I had willingly endured at Duncan’s hands, I was ready to lash out wildly, to prove that I would not be subdued by anything or anyone again.

The whispering voice encouraged me:
Come closer and we shall make you strong!

Then, unbidden, a paragraph from Fergus’s book came to mind:

The savior of Man, enraged with the spilling of Christian blood on this, the most Holy of Days, allowed the phantom candle to appear at the stone as a sign of disgrace, and it burned throughout the night with unnatural brightness. All who beheld it were dead within a fortnight, a judgment upon them for their impiety.

The words, feeling suddenly quite real and crying out louder than the foreign whispers in my head, caused me to shudder and I was suddenly more than ready to leave that haunted place to the whispering ghosts who owned it. Surprised from my trance, I belatedly noticed that there lingered in the air, so unnaturally still for being hard upon the shore, a trace of something foul and threatening. I did not think the troubling residue was from the mound itself but from something nearby, and it made me recall Lachlan’s contention that he could smell Fergus’s murder. This seemed something similar.

Then I saw a most disturbing thing. As though conjured by my thoughts, a glow, rather like a small sunrise, began at the north side of the mound. Cautiously I skirted the
Sithean Mor
, keeping well back from the stone walls and praying that no door or window had opened while I wasn’t looking.

The light was not from the mound itself, but rather from something outside which quickly grew from a
few inches to something taller than a man, though in a man’s general shape. The phenomenon has many names, both in Scotland and in the United States—will-o-wisps, Saint Elmo’s Fire, hobby lanterns, spook lights, ball lightning and, most disturbing, corpse candles. Learned men in ivory towers would have us believe that they are caused by swamp gas escaping from the ground, but of what use is this theory when the seven-foot-tall shaft of painful, glowing light was appearing on a rocky beach where there was neither swamp nor gas?

Some think they are evil spirits turned away by both God and the Devil and doomed to roam the earth forever. Others believe they are the guardians of buried treasure. I could not help but recall that locally, these effulgent lights supposedly appear in places where the dead have been—or will soon be. And not just any dead—only those who die in violence.

Nerves shattered, I fled.

Come as the wind comes, when Forests are rended; Come as the waves come, when Navies are stranded
.

—Sir Walter Scott,
“Gathering Song of Donald Dhu”

I ran blindly, my feet guided by panic that did not in the moment seem so unreasonable, and it was some minutes before I realized I was stumbling through surf that had overrun the narrow beach. It took a moment to understand that this meant the tide had turned…and that I might not be able to return the way I had come.

Shocked back into my senses by a larger and more tangible fear of being trapped by the ocean, I slowed my galloping feet and heart and looked about to see how far the sea had progressed inland. My heart was dismayed by the view. How long had I been at the faerie mound? It had not seemed more than a few minutes, but I saw that the sun had actually swayed far
into the west and was preparing to set. On the horizon, another storm was gathering.

I squinted into the harsh light and perceived that thirty feet of my beach was gone, already under a foot of water. The sea’s breathless murmurs had become hissed threats from which the birds fled in disorder, all species winging together in panicked flight, which only added to my alarm. I was certain that the fishermen I had seen earlier had already paid heed to the warning and had brought their boat to shore without detouring to sell their catch at the fish market in Glen Ruadh. There would be no help there.

Could I make it along the shore, if I tied up my skirts and ran? As though to discourage me from any courageous but foolhardy thoughts, a wave washed over my knees, hitting hard enough to unbalance me, and biting my legs with icy teeth and making an effort to ensnare them with seaweed; cold wind, sharp as the flensing knives used by the fishermen, cut over my face and gouged tears from my eyes, which ran down my cheeks and then fell into the surf. Gasping with shock at the physical assault, I looked back toward the mound. The corpse candle was still burning brightly, taller and wider than ever. It might even be visible from the village. More unnerved by this sight than by the turning tide that seemed to be herding me back toward the cliffs, I shuffled carefully in a circle, looking for some option other than the flaming devil or the deep blue sea.

There was one. I had not noticed the fissure in the cliff face as I journeyed up the beach, but with the sun now casting long fingers of fiery light into its recesses,
I could see it clearly. It was some sort of upward sloping though narrow tunnel, and most happily for me, I could see from the bent marron grass that a breeze was blowing down it. That meant it opened somewhere to the air. Not hesitating, since the waves beating at me had reached my thighs and were threatening to drag me by the skirts right out to sea, I reluctantly waded for the opening.

Once inside, the air grew quite sultry, as though heated by some geyser. Quite oddly I began to feel sleepy, and to have gluttonous fantasies about eating toast with jam as I sat by the fire at the cottage and had a doze. So real was this vision that I almost stopped then and there to sit in the rough shells that had gathered in one of the depressions in the tunnel floor. Only the cries of the terrified birds and the hissing tide kept me moving.

Megan MacCodrum—come back!

The eerie voice had me moving again. The sunlight faded with every step, but I had no trouble seeing, because of a strange phosphorescence that covered the walls. I did not touch the luminance, for it smelled of ammonia and sulfur though it was rather pretty and conveniently bright. The floor of the cave rose gradually, promising eventual safety, but I had to walk quickly to outpace the water that rushed in behind me. It was difficult because my limbs were growing wooden and graceless.

Though feeling increasingly sleepy, I began to notice that there was an odd kind of sterility to the tunnel now that it had passed inland. No crustaceans or barnacles had taken up residence here, perhaps because
of the strange green slime, or perhaps because of the unpleasantly warm temperature that made my skin bead with sweat, which I knew would feel disagreeably chilly when I finally reached open air again. Or maybe it was because the water at high tide ran too fast through the tunnel to permit anything to lodge there. Urged to greater effort by this thought, I moved faster, fighting sleepiness and cursing the wet skirts that hampered and chafed my clumsy legs.

Fast as I trotted, the water was closing in faster—and the dark with it. And I found the gullies, both large and small, which increasingly laced the tunnel floor and walls, to be treacherously corniced with crumbling stone that gave easily, foot traps hidden by rotting sea wrack and loose scree and strangely shaped shells that waited just to turn my ankles. Haste was foolish, but dallying was not an option, and the inevitable finally occurred when I stumbled into a hidden hole, twisting my left ankle. The pain was sharp enough to make me feel sick. I leaned against the slimy rock wall, using blasphemous language as I reached for my pained joint and suddenly feared that even if Mistress MacLaren allowed herself to be inconvenienced enough to notice I was missing and send out a search party, help would come too late. Looking upward, I could see that the tunnel’s walls were wet all the way to the ceiling at this point. If I did not find another way out, I would drown in this narrow tunnel.

I looked back the way I had come and was not encouraged. I could see no sign of daylight, only white water that thrashed about as if there were creatures in it. My ankle would have to hold my weight, or I would
have to crawl. Hissing every bad word I knew, I forced myself to hobble around the sharp bend in the tunnel—

I ran straight into Lachlan. I couldn’t help noticing that he was shirtless and his kilt had been hastily donned. The bottoms of the uneven pleats were damp and smutted with sand.

“
C’aite am bheil thu dol
?”
Where are you going?
he demanded, catching me by the shoulders. I had the impression that he was not entirely happy to see me, and startled enough by my presence to use Gaelic rather than Scots.

“Out of here,” I answered, feeling immediate relief at not being alone in that terrible place, even if my companion was also rather frightening.

“Aye. That would be best. The white horses are running hard,” he said, looking past me; and when I turned I could see the cold green water was topped with white foam, which suggested great turbulence. “A storm is coming on. An unnatural one. Follow me noo—and make haste. We havenae much time tae spare.” He let go of me and started off.

The water roared behind me, sounding angry that I might escape after all. I made haste as best I could but fell behind almost immediately, and Lachlan looked back with annoyance and perhaps a bit of concern. He had a general damn-your-eyes attitude that afternoon, which left me confounded. I couldn’t imagine why my presence was bothering him. Surely he didn’t live in these caves or think that I was spying on him…?

“My ankle is sprained,” I snarled defensively. “I can’t go any faster.”

Frowning, he doubled back. Lachlan leaned in uncomfortably close, and before I could ask what he was doing, he pulled back his lips in a snarl of his own and scraped his rather long and sharp teeth along my earlobe and jaw.

“Ow!” But before the echo of my cry died away, he had followed up with a long lick along the injured skin, which also lapped up the last of my tears. “What are you…?” I trailed off. I had been given ether once when I’d had my tonsils removed, and the anesthetic had produced something similar to what I was feeling.

“ ’Tis the quickest way.” Lachlan’s long-fingered hands held me up while I fought for equilibrium. My sudden and unexplainable dizziness left me feeling helpless and grateful for his careless support. I noticed more than a touch of sin in those dark eyes that studied me, but whether it was the beginnings of lust or sins more deadly, I couldn’t say.

I became aware of his scent, something sort of spicy, and I was suddenly glad that Lachlan didn’t smoke. Duncan had, and I hadn’t liked it. I agree with James VI that tobacco is a weed fit for nothing but diabolical fumigation, and Lachlan smelled too nice to have his odor hidden.

“Is that better?” he asked, as I rediscovered my knees and shook the cobwebs from my head.

“Y-yes.” And it was. I felt no pain in my ankle or where he had bitten me. My limbs were again warm and flexible.

“Let us go on then. The tide willna wait,” he warned, releasing me more slowly.

“I know.”

“Can ye think of nae reason why Fergus Culbin might have called the finman?” The question was abrupt, and he turned away right after.

“Maybe. I found some more books and it seems that he was hunting for Spanish gold from that sunken galleon.” I hadn’t meant to say anything about this, but in my dreamy state I felt compelled to answer Lachlan truthfully. Lying was not even considered.

“Was he in earnest aboot it?”

“Earnest enough to be making plans to kill the cat. He was going to try some divination ritual that needed a blood sacrifice.”

“Unpleasant, but that wouldnae necessarily involve a finman. Unless he thought to compel him tae swim tae the depths and bring up the treasure…”

This sounded reasonable.

“You’ve had no luck discovering who has called the finman back or why?” I asked.

“I havena. Not yet. But be ye sure that I shall. I cannae fail. Tae much rides on this resolution.”

“Rend your clothes and gird yourself with sackcloth,” I muttered, thinking of King David and his battle with Goliath.

“He’s one of the Old Testament killers, is he not, this David, King of the Jews?”

I opened my mouth to protest the description, but then reconsidered. To a non-Christian, the Old Testament’s violent heroes and prophets could seem quite crazy and their actions questionable enough to merit such a label. “More of a cad really. And in his own way, brave—in a sneaky sort of manner.”

“I recall him noo. ‘She saw King David leaping and
dancing before the Lord and she despised him in her heart.’ He is a strange man to admire. As a woman, he doesnae off end thee?”

“Who said I admire him?” I was very surprised that Lachlan would recall anything from the Bible, and flattered that he would ask me this question. Absolutely no one in my old life would have posed such a query. “And, yes, I find men who have relations with many women to be objectionable—particularly if they are married. I simply don’t dwell on it because he’s been dead for thousands of years and it would be silly to carry a grudge for that long.” Duncan was another matter. I was entitled to hate him forever if I so chose.

“Ah.” Lachlan stopped abruptly and looked upward. There was a narrow chimney overhead, smooth as glass and slightly wider than my would-be rescuer’s generous shoulders. My heart was somewhat gladdened when I saw the red light of sunset glowing above.

“ ’Tis a blowhole. A bit tight but serviceable.”

“We’re going up there?” I said doubtfully. I wanted out of that tunnel, but this seemed impossible to scale without rope.

“What for nae? I came down it safe enough when I heard ye running. I canna see why it shouldna take us back up again.” I realized that the heavier Scottish accent had reappeared and he sounded amused.

I looked down and could see clear tracks in the sandy silt at the bottom of the chimney that had fallen in from above. He had obviously passed this way, though why he should be near the caves at all was a mystery.

“Up with ye noo. The
gair na mara
is unhappy and tracking us hard,” he said, stooping down so that I could climb onto his back. I was embarrassed and somewhat reluctant to do this, but Lachlan was correct. The water gurgling behind us in an ever-growing voice of anger kept me from shilly-shallying.

What he did then I cannot explain, but somehow he managed to spring upward, grip those glassy walls with fingers and toes, and pull us both up that stone chimney. His muscles flexed and rippled under my clinging limbs and in less than a minute we clambered out onto a flat rock surrounded by the beautiful feather grass nature sometimes sows on her stony shores. The fronds shook like a snoring gnome’s hoary beard. The wind was sharp with the smell of coming rain, and as I had feared, I was very cold. Especially when the clouds covered the setting sun and further depleted the sky’s dying light. I felt rather as if something had reached inside me, grabbed at my lungs with icy fingers and ripped my voice away.

I slipped around to the sheltered side of a largish rock, trying to hide from the wind, and startled a covey of fall-muted grouse seeking shelter in the grass and a lone winter-coated ptarmigan that froze in terror at our approach. I knew how he felt. Lachlan sometimes affected me that way.

“Thank you,” I said, when I found breath the cold had momentarily stolen.

“
Cha ghabh mi luach
,” he murmured.
I’ll take no reward
. I was made nervous by his sudden affability and found myself turning away so I wouldn’t have to confront that intent gaze and the strange half smile on his
lips. Or that mostly naked chest. How was it that he did not feel the cold? I was already half numb.

“
Nam bithinn-sa thusa, bhithinn as a so am mairech
.”
If I were you I’d be out of this tomorrow.
My Gaelic was not fluent but I had no trouble understanding him.

“Unfortunately, leaving isn’t an option. The ferry won’t come for several more days, and it may not be able to moor even then if the weather does not moderate.”

Also, I had nowhere to go.

Clouds thickened as I watched, forming hellishly fast. They carried the eye down to the horizon and the heaving sea, which was being driven inward by the wind. And I was suddenly certain that I had seen this once before.

“Yer knowing this place then.” The voice was languid, hypnotic. He moved closer.

Looking about confusedly as I mastered my uneven breath, I could see my cottage in the distance, and beyond it the steeple of the kirk painted orange by the last of the setting sun on the horizon that hadn’t been swallowed by the clouds. The rest of the town was invisible and mute, embraced in the hollow of the shifting dunes that hissed and whispered slyly. Talk about the foolhardiness of building a house on shifting sands! Both buildings were dark and deserted, and I was struck with the unwanted knowledge that we were in a place whose time was past—not far past perhaps, but still belonging to an age and people who were gone, amputated from the rest of the world by the Storm that had buried it years ago. We were trespassers in a
dead place and Findloss’s inhabitants were living on borrowed time. This filled me with a vague sort of atavistic fear and also resignation. I should have been more alarmed, but terror of other things had exhausted me and mild concern was all I could muster as the deadly cold crept into my bones.