The Selkie Spell (Seal Island Trilogy) (6 page)

“Row house?” Tara asked, surprised.  “You’re not from here?”

Glenna shook her head.  “I only meant to come for the weekend, to escape a nasty divorce awaiting me back in Dublin.”

“You came here for the weekend and just… decided to stay?”

“Before I knew what I was doing, I made an offer on the McPherson’s cottage.”  Glenna laughed.  “As soon as they were packed and loading their things onto the ferry to make their way to their new home in Cork, I was ripping down the old flowered wallpaper and making plans to build a studio in the back yard.  A few weeks later, I’d finalized my divorce and opened a gallery on the island.  I never once looked back.”

Tara glanced over at her.  “You came here to start over?”

Glenna nodded.  “Seemed as good a place as any.  Isn’t that what you’re doing?”

“No.”  Tara shook her head.  “I’m just passing through for the summer.”

“And then what will you do?”

“I’m not sure.”

Glenna looked at Tara and was struck again by same strange feeling like she recognized her from somewhere but couldn’t place it.  “Where’s home?”

“I don’t have a home.”

“You don’t have a home?”

“Not anymore.”

“What happened?”

“I sold it.”

“And you didn’t think to get another one?”

Tara shook her head.

“So you’ve no ties to anywhere at the moment?”

“That’s right.”

“How… freeing,” Glenna ventured.

“It is.”

“But isn’t it also kind of lonely?”

“I haven’t felt lonely yet.”

Glenna stole a sideways glance at the woman walking beside her.  “Not even once?”

“Not even once.”

“I’m impressed,” Glenna admitted.  “I’m not sure I could do that.”

“Do what?”

“Set off without a destination.  I’ve always had a place to come back to.  Even when I made the move from Dublin to here, I knew it was
here
I was coming.  I’m not sure I could have cut my ties with Dublin without having a place to land.”

“Not everyone has that luxury.  Sometimes you just have to get away.”

Glenna’s gaze dropped to Tara’s left hand, noting the lack of a ring on her third finger, but at the same time there was the faintest discoloration where one might have been.  “What did you have to get away from?”

A gull circled overhead, its sharp calls echoing over the hillside.  When Tara said nothing, Glenna lifted her gaze, following the path of the gull.  She knew what it was like to be fresh off a divorce, to be carrying around all that anger, heartbreak, and remorse.  If that’s what Tara had travelled half-way across the world to get away from, then she wouldn’t want to be reminded of it.  At least not right now.

Glenna pulled her attention back to the footpath as they climbed the final hill to the cottage, expecting the pretty picture she was used to—the purple door and matching shutters, the brilliant whitewashed walls set against the glowing green cliffs, the vision Caitlin had worked on for so long.  But what she saw made her blood run cold.

Red roses crawled up the sides of the cottage.  They climbed and twisted, their thorns like knives piercing the whitewashed walls of the cottage, cracking paint as they coiled around the doorway.

Walking past her into the cottage, Tara brushed the heavy roses aside easily, as if they weighed nothing and slipped into the house, setting her books on the table and then walking back out.  “Would you like something to drink?”

Glenna walked closer, until she was directly in front of the flowers and then she stood stock-still staring at the roses, trying to fight the sweet scent wrapping around her, tempting her to come closer, to sniff the fragrant blossoms, to touch their silky petals.

When she reached up, brushing a finger over one of the scarlet petals, the air lost all its smell, the ocean all its sound.  She yelped when a thorn pierced her skin and the blood that dripped from her finger pooled to the ground at her feet.

In the pool she saw a vision—Tara curled into a ball at the foot of the stairs, her face bruised and bloody, one eye swollen shut, her arm twisted and broken as she begged the man above her to stop.  The man’s dark eyes glinted as with cool, steady fingers, he began to unbuckle his belt.

Glenna stumbled backwards, tripping over the stepping stones.

“Glenna?  Are you alright?”

Glenna shook her head, backing away from the cottage, trying to put more distance between her and the roses.  Because it wasn’t just the vision that chilled her to the bone.  You couldn’t grow up in Ireland without knowing a thing or two about magic.  And magic, like her art, suited Glenna almost as well as the Italian shoes she’d picked up on her last trip to Rome.

From her studies, she knew that white roses grown out of season meant your angel was watching out for you.  Pink meant love would soon knock at your door.  Peach meant passion.  Yellow, renewed friendship.  But red roses, blood red roses grown out of season, meant someone was coming.

And you wouldn’t want to be alone when he arrived at your door.

***

It was close to midnight when Caitlin slipped out of the pub and headed for Glenna’s.  In minutes she was knocking on her best friend’s door and huffing out a breath when she got no answer.  “Glenna,” she called out, pushing the door open.  “I know you’re not asleep yet…” Caitlin trailed off, pausing in the doorway.   “Whoa.”

“Pour yourself a glass of wine,” Glenna said, quietly, gesturing to the half-empty bottle of red on the table.  She didn’t bother to look up, instead continued to stare into the dancing flames in the hearth.

Caitlin bypassed the wine and sank onto the sofa beside her friend.  The room was completely dark.  Her bags sat unpacked on the rug.  Every curtain was drawn.  “What’s going on?”

“Why don’t you tell me?”

Caitlin’s brows snapped together in concern.  “What are you talking about?  I thought you were stopping by for a drink at the pub tonight?”

“I was.”  Glenna held out her glass for a refill.  “I needed some time to think.”

“About what?”

Flames snaked up from the log of peat, teasing a curl of smoke into the chimney.  “I went up to the cliff cottage this afternoon.”

“Right.”  Caitlin nodded.  “With Tara.  I tried to ask her about it earlier but she changed the subject so fast, I never got an answer.  And then we were so busy I forgot to bring it up again.  Did something happen between you two?”

Glenna swirled the wine around in her glass, rich fingers of red clinging to the spotless crystal.  “Have you been up there?”

“I dropped her off the first night, showed her around a bit.”

For the first time, Glenna pulled her attention away from the fire and focused on her friend.  “Then you’ve seen them?”

“Seen what?”

“The roses.”

“What roses?”

“I was afraid of that,” Glenna murmured, her gaze straying back to the flames.  The log of peat, almost gone now, puffed out little clouds of smoke.  “What do you know about her, Caitlin?”

“Tara?”  Caitlin reached for Glenna’s wine glass and took a few sips.  “I know she’s a terrible cook.  Other than that, she’s mentioned a few bits and pieces about her past, but I can’t say whether or not I believe them.”

Glenna nodded, processing.  “Has she ever said anything about a man?”

Caitlin shook her head.

“Do you think her being here could have something do with a man from her past?  Someone she’s trying to get away from?”

Caitlin set the wine glass down with a clatter.  “Now wait a minute.  Let’s not go getting ahead of ourselves.  You only just met her this afternoon.”

“I saw something,” Glenna whispered.

“You’re always seeing things.”

“Not like this.”

The scent of roses, the faintest of perfumes drifted into the room.  “Okay,” Caitlin let out a sigh.  “What did you see?”

“Someone hurt her, Caitlin.  And he’s after her.”  Glenna rose from the sofa and started to pace.  “What do you think she’s doing here?”

“No.”  Caitlin shook her head, refusing to believe.  “She answered the ad for a server.  She came to the island for work.”

“Why would she come here?”  Glenna spun around, facing her friend again.  “To
this
island?”

“Because...”  Caitlin stalled, struggling for a reason.  “It’s nice here.”

“Have you told her?”

“Have I told her
what
?”

“The
story
.  The legend of Seal Island.  Have you told her?”

Caitlin looked down, picking at the fraying gauze around her broken finger.  “No.”

“Are you going to?”

“I don’t see why—”

“She’s a right to know.”

Caitlin shifted, uneasily.  “It’s a story for the tourists.”

“Then why have you been avoiding it?”

“I haven’t been avoiding it,” Caitlin argued.  “It just hasn’t come up.”

“It hasn’t come up because you’ve been avoiding it.”

“Come on, Glenna.”  Caitlin scrubbed her hands over her face.  She was bone tired and all she wanted was to go home and fall face first into her bed.  Tonight had been another disastrous evening in the kitchen, but Tara was determined to learn and refused to give up.  She respected and admired that, and much as she’d like to know why their newcomer was so guarded about her past, it was Tara’s life and Tara’s business and she’d share it with them when she was ready.  Just because the woman had a few things to hide, didn’t suddenly make her the missing piece in their unfinished legend.

Shaking her head, Caitlin stood.  “What you’re saying is crazy.”

“You know what the legend says.”

“I don’t care what the legend says.”  Caitlin picked up the bottle of wine and jammed the cork back into the top.  “I’m going home now, and I’m taking this with me.” She stalked to the door, but paused when her friend said nothing, instead continuing to stand in the center of the room, worry etched into the lines of her face.  “Look,” Caitlin said, turning.  “I understand that whatever you saw this afternoon upset you.  It must have if you haven’t left this room all night.  But I need her.”  She held up her bandaged hand as proof.

“You won’t when Fiona gets back.”

Fiona.  Caitlin let out a breath.  She’d already thought of that.  Fiona would be back next week and then the college kids would start arriving.  They wouldn’t need Tara to stay on past the end of the month.  But there was something nagging her, a feeling deep in her gut since she first set eyes on that skittish woman.  “The thing is, Glenna, we may not need her.  But I think she needs us.”

Glenna looked back at the last dying flames of the fire, the embers shooting strange shadows across the dark room.  “She brings trouble.”

Caitlin’s hand rested on the doorknob.  “Everyone’s got a past.”

Glenna shook her head.  “Not like hers.”

Dawn broke cerulean blue over the horizon as Tara ducked under the canopy of roses.  Skimming a finger over one of the stems, she marveled at the way the thorns moved soft and flexible under her touch.  She could close her whole fist around the stem and the thorns wouldn’t even scrape her flesh.  Remembering the way Glenna yelped yesterday when she pricked her finger, Tara ignored the uneasy stir in her gut and slipped a handful of petals into her backpack.

The village was still asleep, save a few early morning fisherman down at the docks.  The air was cool and salty and she breathed it in, picking her way along a thin path over the mossy hills. She recognized the first shoots of lavender forcing their way out of the hard earth, the early buds of thyme hugging the base of the crumbling stone walls, the wild hedges of rosemary skirting the village.

Picking handfuls of the fragrant herbs and slipping them into her pack, she crossed to the eastern side of the island, thinking about what Glenna told her yesterday—how she had come here for a weekend away and never left.  What would it be like to have that freedom?  To know that she could pick up and start over?  A seagull soared overhead and she followed it toward a lone cottage badly in need of a fresh coat of paint.  When a stream of oaths drifted out of the neighboring shed, she headed toward the sound.  “Hello?”

“Who’s there?”

“It’s Tara,” she called, picking her way over the sandy soil to the shed.  “From the pub.”

Sticking his head out from behind a rusted tractor, Brennan Lockley eyed her warily.  “Are you lost?”

“No.”  Tara took in the wrench lying out of reach under the tractor, the way he flexed his hand, forcing each finger to uncurl until it was straight.  “Are you alright?”

Rubbing his fingers over his sore hand, Brennan sat back.  “It’s just a little stiffness,” he answered, gruffly.  “Part of growing old.”

“Or it might be arthritis,” Tara suggested, picking up the wrench and handing it to him.

“It’s nothing” Brennan insisted, reaching for the wrench.