Ashes on the Waves

by Mary Lindsey

  The floor of the passage was only an inch or so below the level of the floor of the room. We were on the second story of the structure, so it made sense the floor was wooden. The passage was narrow, but there was enough room for a full-grown man to walk upright.

  “Wait,” I said, squeezing past her to examine the closing mechanism on the panel we had just come through. “If we get closed in, I want to see how it works.”

  “How could we get closed in?” Her voice wavered a bit.

  “We’re on Dòchas. Anything is possible.” The wall lever pulled up on a tongue-type lock, but the second latch was simply a safety catch that could be lifted with a finger. I pulled down on the lever from the back of the door and the tongue moved. It appeared impossible to be locked in or out. “It appears we can’t be trapped.”

  “Well, that’s a good thing, I suppose.” She struck out ahead of me.

  “Wait, Anna. Could you please tie your hair back?” I pointed to her candle. “The flame.”

  She handed me her candle. “Good idea. Like you said, ‘this is Dòchas.’”

  After tying her hair in a knot at the nape of her neck, she took her candle back.

  “My freaky great-grandfather probably had these passages built so that he could cheat on his wife or spy on the servants,” she said.

  The passage took a sharp turn to the right. Anna stopped at a door similar to the one in her uncle’s room. “This would be one of the bedrooms for guests. Mallory and Suz stayed in the blue room and Nicky in the green.”

  The demon in me roused a bit at the mention of his name. “Nicholas would’ve preferred to have stayed in your room.”

  She arched a brow. “No doubt. But I was with you, so it wasn’t an issue.”

  “Would it have been an issue?”

  “Not for me.” She grinned. “Are you jealous?”

  “Occasionally.” I pushed up on the lever behind the door and the tongue slipped out. I flipped the second catch and the panel swung inward.

  “Yep. This is the blue room,” Anna said.

  I peeked over her shoulder to find a room with wooden paneling and blue curtains and bedding. I pulled the door closed and it latched automatically.

  “We don’t even need to look in this one,” she said, passing another door. “It’s the green room. If there’s a secret door to my room, I’m going to freak completely out.”

  “Get ready to freak,” I said. “I have a feeling every room has a secret passage.”

  I was correct. We swung the panel open to find Deirdre sound asleep on Anna’s bed, iPad on her chest.

  “I want this sealed off,” she said, pulling the door closed.

  “It might come in handy.” I examined a perfectly round hole in a floorboard. “You never know when you need to sneak out.”

  “I just don’t want someone getting in.”

  “I think we can fix that.” I stuck my finger in and pulled up on the hole and found it to be a trapdoor with a ladder descending into darkness below us. The air that gusted up smelled of ocean brine.

  “Ugh. It smells like something dead.” She touched my shoulder. “What if there is something dead down there?”

  “Then perhaps we’ll have discharged our duty and the Bean Sidhes will stop tormenting us.”

  Anna shivered and crouched down next to me and peered into the dark hole. “I’m scared.”

  “Kiss me.”

  “What? This is not a time to make out, Liam. It’s a time to freak out.”

  “I need you to kiss me.” I touched my lips to hers. “It makes me remember why we’re doing this. It makes me willing to go down there even though I’m scared.” I held my candle out to my side to be sure it wouldn’t do any harm and kissed her again, more fully this time. She stretched far away, tipping her candle on its side, letting wax drip on the boards. When a pool of wax had formed, she placed the candle end into it, effectively making a candleholder. After glldecandle ouing my candle in a similar manner, she returned to where I crouched at the opening to the tunnel below. With a gentle shove, she forced me off balance and pushed me until I was on my back.

  She hovered over me until my breaths came in quick gasps. Unable to stand it any longer, I pulled her down to where our bodies and lips and tongues met and I felt anything but fear. Everything but fear.

  * * *

  Muireann had watched the female’s house for a glimpse of her Liam, but he had remained inside since he arrived just before sunset. Maybe he was going to stay the night . . . with her. She ducked under the water and swam farther north. She needed to head to the Na Fir Ghorm’s caves to listen in on their meeting.

  Something moved at the base of the cliff. Nose and eyes above water, she got close enough to tell it was a female human. It was Brigid Ronan coming out of a cave in the cliff under the house.

  Muireann’s heart almost stopped when she saw that Brigid Ronan met a Na Fir Ghorm who was just off the end of a boulder where the water was deeper.

  She was afraid to get any closer. After last night, another slipup could mean the destruction of her pod. From too far away to hear, she watched as Brigid Ronan said something, nodded, then walked away from the Na Fir Ghorm toward the cliff cave entrance.

  * * *

  Anna tied her hair up again and grinned as she pulled the candle loose from its wax holder. “You’re right. I’m not afraid anymore.”

  I took a deep breath, certain when I sat up, I’d be too dizzy to walk. She pulled the other candle out of the wax, keeping it upright, and held it out to me.

  “I’ll go first,” she said, stepping down onto the ladder.

  It was probably just as well that she went first because it took me a bit longer. Climbing down a ladder with a candle in my only hand was no easy task, and by this time, the candle was less than half of its original length. My feet hit dirt at the bottom.

  “This’ll be a lot more interesting,” Anna said. “I’m not as familiar with some of the rooms downstairs.”

  The path split in three directions. We took the left branch of the tunnel. The first room was the dining room.

  “This should be the library,” she said, outside the second door.

  I pulled the lever and entered the most amazing room I’d ever seen. Anna flipped on a light and I gasped. From floor to ceiling the entire space was lined with books. I’d never imagined such a place. Were there a heaven, I was certain it would look like this.

  “We can come back in the morning,” Anna said.

  “Wait.” I noticed that the books were organized by author. Hugo was at eye level. I blew out my candle and pulled out a book. Les Misérables, Volume III. “Anna. How . . .” I checked Tennyson. Sure enough, a book was missing. Likewise with Shakespeare and Poe.

  “My books came from here. How did my mother get them?”

  “Maybe she took them. She worked here.”

  I opened the volume of Hugo and something slipped out. Anna leaned down to pick it up. She blew out her candle and unfolded the piece of paper.

  “It’s another one of Uncle Frank’s portraits,” she said. “The woman is gorgeous. I have no idea who she is, though.”

  The woman who stared back at me from the small piece of folded canvas made me shiver. It was as if she wore suffering on the surface of her dark eyes. Draped over her shoulders was a spotted fur wrap and in the bottom-right corner were the now-familiar letters FMR. I put the folded portrait in my back pocket and returned the Hugo volume to the shelf.

  “Ready?” Anna asked, holding out both of our candles. I pulled out the lighter and lit them.

  “Ready.”

  The next room was the one in which we had discovered MacFarley with Deirdre, followed by several more small chambers similarly appointed. The second-to-last door was a bit different. It didn’t have the second latch and there were oil stains down the back of the door as if it had been lubricated frequently. Whoever used it had wanted a silent entrance—perhaps to sneak up on someone sleeping or unaware.

&nb
sp; I pulled down on the lever and the door swung open. The room looked just like the others before it with one exception. It had no windows. None at all.

  “The door from this room into the house has a double dead bolt,” I said. “The others had a thumb lock doorknob.”

  “What’s the difference?” Anna asked, raising her candle to look at a painting.

  “You can lock someone in from the outside.”

  She disappeared into the bathroom and flipped on the light. “Hey. Come look at this.” She blew out her candle.

  In the corner of the small bathroom where a shower should be, there was an empty space with a faucet sticking out of the wall. Protruding through the floor were four bolts that should have held a bathtub.

  “Well, this explains where my mother got that bathtub,” I said.

  “And we know she didn’t steal it. It would take several men and a wagon of some kind to get it down there.”

  I stepped back into the room and examined the art on the walls. All were paintings of the sea with Uncle Frank’s initials on them. “Someone in the village has to know how or when it happened because one or more of them had to have helped move the tub.”

  Anna ignited my candle with hers and we stepped back into the tunnel. “One room left,” she said. “Kitchen, maybe?”

  I slid the lock and pushed the panel aside. “Not the kitchen.”

  “Oh, God,” Anna said from behind my shoulder.

  The long, narrow room appeared to be made completely of black stone and had a tall cathedral ceiling stretching to sharp points at the apex. Wooden support beams ran the length of the ceiling with intricate carved spires pointing down like fangs.

  In the open windows, purple silken curtains writhed in a macabre dance to the ocean wind, creating an effect so terrifying all the hair on the back of my neck stood on end.

  “I could use a kiss about now,” Anna said, stepping into the room. “But I doubt it would help.”

  Nothing could help. The room we had entered was a cross between a dungeon and a sorceress’s lair. Only one person could inhabit such a place.

  Brigid Ronan.

  “What do you think she does with all this stuff?” Anna tuf.

  “I couldn’t begin to imagine.” I closed the door to the passageway behind us. “I know she’s considered to be a healer in the village. Maybe the jars and dried vegetation are related to that.”

  “She’s a witch doctor. That certainly fits.” Anna picked up a jar that appeared to contain a dead animal suspended in liquid and held her candle up to examine it.

  An enormous painting hung over the bed. Barely illuminated by the distant candle flame, the man staring out at us with dark eyes seemed alive. I held my candle closer. He had dark wavy hair and a haunted expression of utter desolation. Chills coursed through me as I stared at what appeared to be a mature reflection of my own face.

  “I think that’s Uncle Frank when he was young,” Anna said. “I only knew him as an old guy. Wonder why she has his picture?”

  “Is there a light switch?” I asked.

  “It should be by the door to the room.”

  I flipped on the switch and blew out my candle.

  “Whoa. Check out the wall to your right,” Anna said.

  The entire surface of the black stone wall was covered in hash marks in groupings of five—four vertical marks with one diagonally across them. There were thousands.

  “What do you think Ronan’s counting?” she asked, extinguishing her candle.

  There were long lines every now and then, like dividers between groupings. “I have no idea.”

  “I wonder where she is? What if she finds us in her room?”

  I counted twenty-five longer lines. There were seventy-three sets of hash marks between them.

  She ran her finger over the thumb lock on the door handle. “Liam. It’s locked from the inside. She doesn’t want visitors. We should go.”

  “I agree.” Seventy-three times five . . .

  There was a metallic scraping and a click behind the hidden panel from which we had come.

  “We have to get out of here,” Anna said, yanking my sleeve. “Now.”

  I reached for the doorknob.

  “No. She’ll know we were here. It’s locked.”

  We sprinted to the window. Fortunately, we

  were on the first floor. I followed Anna out. Hiding in the hedge under the window, we held our breaths.

  Anna pulled her knees to her chest and rested her head against the stone building. Flecks of moonlight shone through the bushes, gliding across her face. The exquisite beauty of the effect entranced me momentarily.

  We needed to move in case Ronan looked out her window. Crawling on my hands and knees, I made my way out of the hedge. I could hear Anna following. Once we were several yards to the side of the window, I stood and we ran around the corner of the house.

  “Three hundred and sixty-five,” I said.

  “What?” She was out of breath.

  “Marks between the dividing lines.” I shoved the bit that was left of my candle in my back pocket. “She’s counting days—years—over twenty-five of them.”

  Anna’s eyes grew huge. “Oh, God, Liam. I left my candle in her room.”

  25

  The wild—the terrible conspire.

  —Edgar Allan Poe,

  from “Tamerlane,” 1845

  When we rounded the front corner of the house, Brigid Ronan was standing on the porch, arms folded over her chest. “Bad things happen after dark,” she said. “Very bad things.”

  Anna clutched my hand. “We went for a walk. I was perfectly safe. Liam was with me.”

  Miss Ronan gave no reaction at all. Like a statue, she waited for something.

  “Well, we’re going to bed,” Anna said, mounting the porch steps, pulling me with her.

  Miss Ronan blocked the doors. “Not him.”

  Anna opened her mouth to protest but was cut off.

  “Your parents forbade him to stay the night. They were quite specific.”

  “It’s fine,” I said, giving her hand a reassuring squeeze. “I’ll just see you in the morning.”

  “Wait. When did you talk to my parents?”

  “On my day off. I called them from Francine’s phone. I give them a weekly update. I have for years.”

  “What did you tell them?”

  “The truth.”

  “Your truth and my truth are entirely different.”

  No good could come of this. Both of them had dug in and would never back down. I stepped between them. “Please. Let it go for tonight. I’ll just see you tomorrow.”

  “First thing in the morning, I’m calling home to clear this up.” Anna stood on her tiptoes and pulled my face down to hers. Miss Ronan never looked away as Anna kissed me in such a way it almost made leaving worthwhile.

  Breathless, she smiled. “See you in the morning. There’s nothing done at night that can’t be done in the daylight.” After flashing me a gorgeous grin, she brushed past Miss Ronan and into the house.

  Miss Ronan stopped me before I even made it down the porch steps. “You forgot something.” She dug in her pocket and pulled out the candle Anna had left in her room. She held it out to me. “You should never have come back here. I warned you, but you didn’t listen to me, did you? Just like your mother, you can’t stay away.” She moved closer and I fought the urge to retreat. “What is it you’re after? Money? Power? Sex, perhaps?”

  “No!” I found myself backing up, despite my best efforts not to do so. “I love her. Her. Nothing else matters . . . and she loves me too.”

  She arched a brow. “Are you certain?”

  “Positive.”

  “You’d better hope you’re right. Go home, Liam MacGregor.”

  * * *

  Muireann followed the Na Fir Ghorm that had met with Brigid Ronan back to his cave. Underwater, sound traveled great distances, so after he disappeared into the opening, she flattened herself against the
rocks at the base of the entrance to listen.

  So many of them were talkin/fo wr he dg at once, she couldn’t make sense of it.

  “It is time!” the voice of the leader shouted above the rest. “Listen well. Our success depends on getting this right.” The other voices fell silent. “Tonight is the night we win the wager.”

  Muireann’s lungs ached. She was at the end of her breath of air. The Na Fir Ghorm had gills and didn’t need to surface like she did. She zipped up, gulped air, and returned to the opening of the cave.

  The Na Fir Ghorm were all talking at once again; this time, in loud, unhappy voices. It sounded like she had missed something important.

  “What if she doesn’t come this year?” one asked.

  “She always comes on this night,” the leader answered, “and we have been assured that the broken one will be alone at the right time to make it work.”

  “But what if—”

  “Silence!” the leader shouted. “If you fail, this will be in your heart instead of hers! Now take it and go!”

  Muireann shot from the mouth of the cave to a hiding spot behind a boulder on the south side. A half dozen of the horrible creatures emerged from the cave, heading in the direction of the harbor.

  Thanks to her terrible timing, she had no idea what they

  were up to, but whatever it was, it couldn’t be good.

  Staying far enough back to not be seen, she followed them to the harbor, where they gathered under a pier. Swimming from the cover of one boat to another, she soundlessly slipped behind the lobster pen at the end of the dock to the store, feeling completely and totally helpless.

  The Na Fir Ghorm hung out under the pier in silence and she struggled to stay awake. She hadn’t slept for an entire sun cycle, and the exhaustion was overwhelming. She placed her chin on top of the pen, keeping her body in the water, and closed her eyes. If something happened, she’d hear it for sure.

  But she didn’t. By the time she woke up, it was too late.

  Too late, at least, to do anything for the poor human floating facedown in the blood-clouded water, a blue stick protruding from her chest.