The Selkie Enchantress Page 10

Nuala smiled sadly. “I’m afraid you can. And since he’s my child, and I’ve seen how those stories affect him, I won’t have him reading them anymore and possibly hurting someone.”

  “Nuala, this is—”

  “What’s best,” Nuala said, cutting her off. “And until you have a child of your own, you might keep your thoughts on mothering to yourself.”

  Caitlin felt the sting like a slap in the face.

  “And furthermore,” Nuala said, sweeping her hood back up and over her face. “I’d appreciate it if you stayed away from Owen for the rest of our visit on the island. He’s young and impressionable. And I don’t want you influencing him.”

  “Influencing him? I’ve hardly—”

  “Stay away from my son, Caitlin.” She walked to the door and pulled it open. A cold wind swirled into the room. “That’s all I came to say.”

  Chapter 11

  Stay away from my son? Caitlin grabbed the book off the table, squeezing it in her hands to keep from throwing it across the room. Who did she think she was? Telling her to stop influencing Owen with fairy tales? Like she was some kind of a threat! Like she’d lured Owen over here and set out the big, bad fairy tale books as a trap!

  They were just stories, for God’s sake! Stories that might hold some truth now and then, yes. But to take them away from a child altogether? To cut him off from a world of magic and fantasy because his imagination had gotten carried away one night? It wasn’t Owen’s fault that boy drowned!

  Marching across the room, she yanked the phone off the wall. She started to dial the pub, then remembered the lines were dead. What would Liam think if he knew this woman wanted to suppress the imagination of her child? She shoved the phone back into the cradle and froze, her eyes going wide as her gaze dropped to the book. ‘It’s right here! The sea witch steals the prince away from his true love—the girl he’s supposed to be with!’

  It wasn’t possible, was it? This couldn’t be happening again. She circled the room, blowing out the candles. She grabbed her raincoat and shoved her arms back into the sleeves. She’d made the mistake before of not listening to a child, of refusing to see the signs of magic all around her until it was almost too late.

  She wouldn’t make that mistake again. She stalked out into the rain, wading ankle deep in the puddles filling the dips in the road. If Owen thought there was something about this story she needed to know, then she was going to find out what it was. The wind banged the Fosters’ teetering metal gate against the broken hinges. She glanced into the pub as she walked by, her mouth falling open when she saw Nuala seated at the bar through the window.

  She hadn’t even gone straight home to her son? After everything she’d accused Caitlin of? Unbelievable! Her boots splashed through the rising water as she tromped passed the darkened windows of her neighbors’ homes toward the cottage at the edge of the village. She knocked on the pale blue door and heard the sound of a child walking toward it and twisting the knob.

  He opened the door a crack, peering out, his eyes widening when he spotted Caitlin. “Ms. Conner,” he said, opening the door wider. “What are you doing here?”

  “I need to talk to you.”

  He squinted into the curtain of rain. “Does my mum know you’re here?”

  “No,” Caitlin said, pushing into the cottage and stripping off her jacket. The air inside was so cold her breath came out in little icy puffs and her gaze darted to the fireplace, where a poorly made fire was dying in the hearth. She pulled the book, The Little Mermaid, out of her jacket pocket and Owen’s eyes went wide as she handed it to him, crossing the room to work on the fire.

  Taking one last look down the empty street, Owen shut the door, leaning back against it. “She doesn’t want me spending time with you.”

  “I know.”

  Hugging the book to his chest, he stared at Caitlin. “Did she give this back to you?”

  Caitlin knelt to the cold floor, a match sizzling to life in the darkness and she cupped her hand around it to keep it lit as she trailed it along a fresh log of peat. “She did.”

  “What did you say?”

  “I said if you wanted to read it, you should be able to read it.”

  Owen’s gaze dropped to the cover as Caitlin got the fire started, a warm lick of flames drawing him toward the hearth where he knelt beside her, opening the book and tracing a finger over the pictures on the pages.

  “Owen,” Caitlin said, watching the flames play shadows over his gaunt face. “I need you to tell me what happened back there. At the cottage.”

  He snapped the book shut and clasped it back to his chest. “What do you mean?”

  “When you touched the rose. What happened?”

  He shook his head. “I don’t want to talk about that.”

  “Why not?”

  He nudged closer to the fire and Caitlin laid a hand on his shoulder. “Owen,” she began, then paused when she felt the damp material under her fingers. Her brows snapped together. “Your clothes are still wet.”

  He brushed her hand away. “They’re fine.”

  “But you must be freezing.” She started to push to her feet but he grabbed the hem of her sweater. “No.” He shook his head. “I’m fine.”

  Caitlin stared at him for several long moments before sinking back to the floor. “Owen, you said something back at the cottage. After you found the white rose. You said the reason we went there was because of the story.” She tapped her finger against the faded spine of the storybook. “Because of this story. What did you mean?”

  Owen lowered the book into his lap, the firelight dancing over the cover. Smoke curled up the chimney, the hollow sound of rain tinkering against the metal flue fading as the fire heated the hearth. Owen’s fingers gripped the book and his voice came out in barely more than a whisper. “I think my mother is the evil sea witch.”

  Caitlin gaped. It was exactly what Nuala said would happen—that Owen would start believing the stories were real. “It’s just a story, Owen. It’s not real.”

  Owen shook his head. “It is real. And she put a spell on me so I can’t remember anything.”

  Caitlin swallowed. What if Nuala was telling the truth? What if fairy tales were dangerous to some children? “What… don’t you remember?”

  “I can’t remember anything,” Owen whispered. The fire hissed, a coil of black smoke snaking up the chimney when the flames found an air pocket in the log. “Where I’m from. Who my father is. I don’t even know what we’re doing here.”

  “You’re from Limerick,” Caitlin explained. “And you’re here on holiday.”

  “That’s what my mum said.” Owen lifted his worried eyes to hers. “But it’s not true.”

  Conflicted, Caitlin felt a seed of doubt take root inside her. If Nuala was right, and she let Owen believe this insane theory was true, then could he end up hurting someone on the island? She searched his eyes, looking for something, anything that would help her understand what to believe. But she saw only innocence and truth in those troubled eyes.

  If Owen was right, then Nuala was… the evil sea witch in The Little Mermaid? Caitlin bit her lip. Everything inside her screamed not to trust Nuala, but an evil sea witch? That was simply taking this too far. “Owen,” she said, letting out a long breath. “Have you told your mother you can’t remember anything about where you’re from?”

  Owen nodded, staring into the fire.

  “What did she say?”

  “She said, ‘everything would be clear in time. And when this was all over, everything I ever wanted would be mine.’”

  Everything he ever wanted would be his? A gust of wind shook the cottage, rattling the windows. “And you have no idea what that means?”

  “No.”

  Struggling to come up with a reasonable explanation, Caitlin tucked her legs against her side. “Maybe something happened before you came here. Some kind of accident that caused you to forget. Maybe she’s hoping you’ll… heal here.” By leaving him alone in a dark,
unheated cottage during a storm? She was grasping at straws, but what else could she do?

  Owen clutched the book tightly to his chest, staring into the fire. “I saw her trip him.”

  “Trip who?”

  “The man who came in on the ferry with us.”

  Caitlin’s eyes went wide. “Liam?”

  Owen nodded. “She caught the rope around his ankle when he was stepping over the edge. She tripped him and he hit his head and when he woke up he couldn’t remember… things. Just like I can’t remember things.”

  Caitlin’s gaze dropped to the book still clutched in Owen’s arms. It was Nuala who pulled Liam from the freezing November waters. Nuala who sat on the pier beside him, barely shivering afterwards. So exotically beautiful she seemed from another place, or another time. “I want you to tell me everything, Owen.” Caitlin reached out, taking his cold hand in hers. “Is there anything… anything at all you can remember from your past?”

  Owen shook his head as a faint scent of roses drifted into the room. “The only thing I can remember is water.”

  ***

  Tara rolled out the pie crust, setting the wooden pin back on the counter and laying the dough carefully into the glass. A murmur of voices drifted in from the barroom, where most of her friends and neighbors were gathered around the fire, weathering the storm. She wasn’t a stranger to storms. She respected the sheer destruction one could leave in its wake.

  She’d ridden that wave of destruction less than a year ago, abandoning her car by a Houston bridge as the river rose and swept it away. She’d used that storm to fake her own death as she caught the last flight to Europe and fled an abusive husband, eventually making her way to Ireland and finding a new home and a new life here on Seal Island.

  But she’d never forget the terror of that day, and wondering if she’d make it out alive. She pinched the edges of the pie crust together to form a row of neatly spaced ridges. At the knock on the back door, she let out a breath. Dominic and Liam left a half hour ago to help Finn tie down the boats in the harbor. She didn’t want them out in this mess. She wanted them inside, safe and warm where she didn’t have to worry about them.

  She dusted the flour off her hands and headed for the door. She must have thrown the bolt by accident. A gust of wind blew into the kitchen and she stepped back from the rain spitting inside. “Caitlin?” She paused when she spotted Caitlin and Owen huddled under the overhanging roof in matching yellow slickers. “What are you doing here?”

  “We’re looking for you.”

  “Come inside.” She opened the door wider. “It’s freezing out there.”

  “No.” Caitlin shook her head and Owen shrank back from the doorway. “Can we talk to you privately? In your office?”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing’s wrong with either of us,” Caitlin explained, keeping her voice carefully neutral. “We just want to talk to you.”

  “Okay,” Tara said slowly, looking back and forth between them. “I’ll just give Fiona a head’s up and grab my coat.”

  “Wait,” Owen called when she turned, her sneakers squeaking on the wet floor. “Is my mother in there?”

  Tara nodded. “She’s at the bar. Fiona’s fixing up a couple plates for her to bring home to you. Do you want me to get her?”

  Owen’s eyes darted up to Caitlin’s face. “No.”

  Caitlin squeezed his shoulder. “That’s part of what we want to talk to you about, Tara.”

  Tara heard the ocean, a restless thundering rhythm in the distance. The skin on the back of her neck started to prickle when she noticed for the first time that the shape of Owen’s mouth actually mirrored Caitlin’s. “You don’t want me to tell your mother you’re out here?”

  Owen shook his head.

  “Where does she think you are?”

  “At home,” Caitlin answered.

  Tara swallowed. Some storms left scars you could heal and wounds you could re-patch. Others left paths of destruction so severe you could never recover. And the people left in their wake could do nothing but pick up the broken pieces and hope to find a way to start over as someone else, in some other place.

  A river of rain rushed through the alley, bubbling white and swirling through the puddles. She reached for her jacket, stepping out into the street and closing the door behind her. Which kind would this be?

  Chapter 12

  Liam knotted the wet rope around the piling, securing the fishing boat rocking in the dark churning waters of the harbor. Loose trawling nets tangled with lobster traps and crashed into cabins. Coolers and storage crates slid across the decks as the waves threw them from side to side. Blood pumped through Liam’s veins as he worked, sheets of rain pouring down around the men as they fought to secure the boats tighter to the pier.

  “Not bad, professor,” Donal shouted over the rain. “Just try not to fall in the water this time.”

  Liam ignored him, hauling in a seaweed-covered rope and looping it in a tight, steady knot around the metal hook nailed into the pier. His mind was just now beginning to clear, the terrible feeling of being swept out to sea fading and in its place a slow burning frustration over the afternoon he’d spent with Caitlin. An afternoon that had brought back more than one memory.

  Donal trotted down the slippery pier, catching the line Liam threw to him and wrapping it around the piling. “There’s no beautiful blonde down here to pull you from the waters tonight.”

  “Shut up, Donal,” Dominic barked, shoving him aside and pointing up at Finn clambering onto the ferry. “Give him a hand. I’ve got this.”

  Liam watched Donal step onto the ferry and help Finn cart supplies down into the cabin. Grabbing the cold metal railing of the nearest fishing boat, Liam lowered himself down to the deck. Seawater spilled into the rocking vessel, sloshing into the overturned coolers and storage crates. He went to work securing the loose supplies sliding around the deck, looping lines and tying the tight, steady knots he’d learned as a child.

  He caught his brother’s eye through the rain. Dominic was working his way down the long, narrow pier, tethering the boats to the pilings. It was so typically Dominic, always one foot rooted to the earth, not nearly as comfortable with the imbalance and unpredictability of the sea. Liam glanced down, where his feet were firmly planted on the rocking boat’s deck. He was as comfortable on the water as Dom was behind the bar.

  It would have been his trade if he hadn’t gone to university. He spent his childhood summers on the island learning to fish, apprenticing with Finn. He’d been climbing around these boats since before he was a teenager. How, then, had he tripped stepping down from the ferry the other night? Had he been so distracted by the woman who rescued him? Liam’s hands stilled on the ropes. ‘Don’t you think it’s a little strange that the only pieces of your memory you lost are me and that fairy tale?’

  Rain lashed at the pier. The wind tore over the harbor, snatching at the raised voices of Finn and Donal. “You have to admit,” Donal called, reaching for the railing to catch his balance as a swell slammed into the boat. “She’s a strangeness to her.”

  “Aye,” Finn said, gathering up the nets and making his way slowly across the slippery deck to the cabin to stow them. “Can’t recall I’ve ever seen eyes or hair as fair as Nuala’s.”

  “I asked her if she knew the O’Toole’s,” Donal added. “The ones who own The Curragower. Everyone knows The Curragower. It’s the oldest pub in Limerick. But she’d never heard of it.” Donal handed a lobster crate to Finn, still holding onto the railing as the boat rocked. “And have you taken a good, long look at that boy?”

  “Aye,” Finn latched the door to the cabin, testing it to make sure it would hold against the rain and wind. “He’s a strange one too, isn’t he?”

  Donal nodded, gripping the railing as he swung a leg over and jumped back down to the pier. “There’s something familiar about him.” Donal held out his hand, helping the older man clamber back down to the pier. “But I can’t pu
t my finger on it.”

  Liam stood, pulling himself up to the pier in one fluid motion. The rain sheeted down, dripping from his black hood and he stared at Donal. He wasn’t the only one who’d noticed something familiar about Nuala’s son?

  Donal crossed to the end of the pier, grabbing the line of the smallest fishing boat and tugging it closer. He grinned over his shoulder through the rain. “Strange or no, I wouldn’t kick her out of bed.”

  Finn let out a bark of laughter. “You wouldn’t stand a chance.”

  “No,” Donal agreed, knotting the line around the metal clamp. “At least not while the professor here’s got his eye on her.” He stood, wiping his muddy hands on his wet jeans. “Besides, Nuala’s too thin for my tastes. I prefer my women soft…” He grinned up at Liam. “Like Caitlin.”

  Liam sent Donal a look of warning.

  Donal angled his head, rising to the challenge. “Heard you stood her up the other night.”

  Liam stalked to the edge of the pier, unwinding a knot Dominic had tied in a hurry and rewinding it so it threaded securely around the wood. “Who told you that?”

  “Word gets around.”

  There’d been talk, Liam realized, gazing out at the angry sea. Talk amongst the islanders of what he’d done. He’d hurt Caitlin, not just by standing her up, but by embarrassing her in front of her friends and neighbors.

  “Nobody has any secrets here,” Donal went on and Liam turned. “And it’s no secret she’s been carrying a torch for you for years.” Donal took the line Finn threw him and looped it around a piling. “But maybe now that you screwed it up…” He shrugged, yanking it tight. “Maybe she’ll make herself available.” Donal glanced over his shoulder, wiggling his eyebrows. “I definitely wouldn’t kick her out of bed.”

  Liam was across the pier in two strides, hooking a fist in Donal’s rain gear. He shoved him back against the piling.

  “Whoa!” Donal tripped, his feet slipping on the wet wood as Liam held him there.

  “Stay the hell away from her,” Liam growled, watching the other man’s eyes widen as he fought to scramble free.