Ashes on the Waves

by Mary Lindsey

  “I’m great.”

  I flipped open the book. “Yes, you are.”

  * * *

  Muireann felt completely helpless. She had seen the flying machine arrive yesterday and the two men get out. Then they left this morning with the two young villagers. She had not seen Liam or Anna since the Na Fir Ghorm created the storm, and Brigid Ronan had not returned to the beach since her last meeting with them.

  She considered shedding her pelt and sneaking back inside the dwelling but was afraid she would do something wrong or get caught by Brigid Ronan.

  So, she waited. And waited. And waited.

  Just before sundown, the machine returned, bringing with it a finely dressed woman and man.

  * * *

  I didn’t hear the helicopter arrive, so I was completely taken by surprise when Anna’s mother turned on the light. I’d fallen asleep on top of the covers with the book on my chest, Anna’s head on my shoulder. I’d seen lots of pictures of the wealthy heiress in the tabloids. She always looked perfect, just as she did now with her blond hair and green dress.

  “I told you he was not to be here after dark,” she said to Miss Ronan as if I were not in the room.

  “He was not amenable to that request,” Miss Ronan replied.

  Anna’s mother approached the bed. “Imagine that.”

  I tried to sit up without disrupting Anna. She startled awake and sat bolt upright. “Mom,” she gasped before breaking down into a coughing fit.

  Her father entered the room and stood next to her mother, arms over his chest as he stared into my eyes in some sort of challenge.

  “Hey, Dad,” Anna said, handkerchief still to mouth.

  “We need to talk to you in private,” her mother said.

  I shifted to get out of bed and Anna grabbed my arm. “Anything you want to say to me, you can say in front of Liam.”

  Anna released me and I stood, extending my hand to her father. “I’m Liam MacGregor.”

  He looked at my hand but made no move to shake it. “I know who you are,” he said.

  I lowered my hand. “Maybe I should go.”

  “Good idea,” her father replied.

  Anna threw the covers off. “Liam, wait. Just wait downstairs, okay? I don’t want you to go.” Again, she degenerated into uncontrollable coughing.

  I nodded and left, closing the door behind me. A lump formed in my throat. A my throll my life, I’d battled discrimination. This was no different, just more personal somehow. I slumped down onto the top step. This would be my lot no matter where I lived.

  At first their voices were low but still discernible through the closed door.

  Anna’s mother spoke first. “We met with the lawyer this morning to go over some company business and he told us you had been there when you were home. He said you have asked him to find an agent for that village boy’s art.”

  “His name is Liam,” Anna replied, “and yes, I did. He’s extremely talented.”

  Her mother cleared her throat. “He also said that you had gotten the trust paperwork in order and that you changed your will.”

  Anna replied, but I couldn’t make out her response.

  “You changed your will so that your money will be completely thrown away,” her father said.

  “You have no idea what I did,” Anna responded before coughing. “The lawyer’s not allowed to tell you anything about it.”

  “You are giving it to that boy, aren’t you?” her mother almost shouted.

  My stomach dropped. Surely she hadn’t done such a thing. I gritted my teeth and closed my eyes, fighting the urge to throw up.

  “Is that why you’re here?” Anna’s voice was shrill. “I almost died and you’re here because of that?”

  “You would leave hard-earned Leighton money to him? Honestly, Anna, have you lost your senses?”

  “No! I’ve come to my senses. And you didn’t work for that ‘hard-earned’ money. You inherited it through Grandpa just like I did. And you’ve totally missed the point. I almost died!” There was a long pause before she spoke again. “The money didn’t almost die. I did.”

  “You’re right,” her father said, tone softer. “And we’re relieved you’re okay. We were very worried. We can talk about this later. We’re going to go unpack.”

  “Say your good-byes to Mr. MacGregor,” her mother said. “The three of us will be leaving in the morning. Dr. Jackson says you will be okay to travel then.”

  “Not without Liam,” Anna said as her father opened the door.

  I stood and they passed by me to descend the stairs, not sparing me a second look.

  I slipped into Anna’s room and pushed the door shut behind me.

  Leaning back against the headboard, eyes closed, she looked fragile and tired. “I’m not leaving with them,” she said.

  “Do you need anything?” I asked, sitting on the edge of the bed.

  She opened her eyes and smiled. “You.”

  I took her slender hand in mine. “I’m completely yours. Regardless of where you are.”

  “I’m not leaving.”

  The Cailleach’s reach might be infinite, but the Na Fir Ghorm wouldn’t be able to hurt her again in New York. “Perhaps it would be best if you leave, at least until you’re well.”

  Her brow furrowed. “My parents will change their minds. They’re just pissed off right now. They won’t make me leave. I just need to talk to my dad after they calm down.”

  I squeezed her hand. “Anna, I wasn’t thinking of themnking of.”

  She sat forward. “You know the blue guys were there when the storm came then. That they did that by magic or something to hurt me.”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “It won’t happen again. I’m going to stay inside the house until we leave. Together.” She placed a hand on the side of my face. “There’s not room for both of us and my parents on the helicopter, so I’ll have it turn right around after dropping them off to come back and pick us up.”

  She leaned back against the pillows piled against the headboard. “We’ll be free of this place. My parents will warm up to it. They have no real say anyway.”

  For a brief, shining moment I allowed myself to believe this dream. To imagine us living together free from the darkness and misfortune that had followed me my entire life. “I love you, Anna.” The words were pitifully inadequate.

  “I love you too,” she whispered. “And nothing and no one will ever keep us apart.”

  The door cracked open and Miss Ronan cleared her throat. “The Leightons asked me to tell Mr. MacGregor it is time for him to leave now.”

  I stood. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  “I don’t want you to go,” Anna said.

  “It’s only for one night. When you wake up, I’ll be here.”

  She smiled. “Okay. Come back ready to leave this crappy little island forever.”

  “Forever,” I repeated before leaving her room, heart so full, I was certain it would burst.

  I couldn’t bring myself to go home. Instead, I watched from an outcropping of boulders overlooking the front of the mansion. The great stone beast of a house seemed to watch me back, its great gaping mouth mocking my insignificance and inadequacies. “She loves me,” I said, as if it could hear me. “And nothing in this world or any other can change it.”

  Sometime well before sunrise, Miss Ronan strode calmly from the house and took the trail to the harbor. She strolled back later and disappeared into the house. Perhaps she was unable to sleep and had gone for a walk.

  Just after sunrise, the small helicopter landed in the clearing in front of the mansion. A man I’d never seen before got out and entered the house. The pilot remained in the craft.

  For several hours, no one came or went. Maybe the man was the lawyer and he would clear up the issues between Anna and her parents.

  “Come back ready to leave this crappy little island forever,” she had said. A silly grin spread across my face. For the first time, I was ready. Re
gardless of the difficulties learning the nuances of her world presented, they were preferable to this. And I would be with Anna.

  The man who had arrived in the small helicopter came out of the house. He now wore the black robes of a priest. Perhaps he had come to counsel the family.

  Her parents emerged, carrying their luggage. The pilot followed, lugging Anna’s huge suitcase. Anna didn’t join them. Maybe she was sending her things ahead.

  Once the doors were closed, the large helicopter took off, followed by the small one.

  Just as I stood to return to the mansion, Miss Ronan appeared from around the side of the house. She ran up the porch steps and disappeared inside.

  No one ans1">No onwered when I knocked on the doors. I pounded harder. Nothing.

  I rounded the left side of the house and pulled on the first set of windows, but they were locked. The next set was locked as well. The third would be harder to access as it was higher and behind a prickly hedge. When I went behind the hedge, there was a step stool. Grateful for the good fortune, I stepped up and found the window unlocked. It slid open easily and I climbed into the room in which we had found Connor MacFarley with Deirdre. He must have failed to return to retrieve the stool. I pulled the window shut behind me.

  Consumed by an inexplicable sense of dread, I held my breath. The mansion was like a tomb. No sound from anywhere, it was as if the evil in the house were waiting to overtake me when I least expected it. Silently, I climbed the stairs, then pushed Anna’s door open. My heart skipped a beat to find her bed empty and neatly made. The dresser was back in its original place, no longer obstructing the hidden panel. Even my books were gone from the window seat.

  “Anna?” I called, peeking into the bathroom. It was as if she had never been in there at all. Were it not for the faint smell of lilies clinging to the air, I would think the whole thing had been a dream.

  “Anna?” I called louder.

  Perhaps she felt good enough to go downstairs. I found the kitchen empty as we

  ll as the dining room.

  A loud thud followed by another came from the opening under the staircases. Someone was in the library. I smiled at the prospect of seeing Anna again. My smile dissolved when I entered the room. Miss Ronan was pulling books from shelves as if she had gone mad. Left and right, she shoved them from their resting places in a trancelike frenzy, her hair falling in disarray from its usual tight twist.

  “Where is Anna?”

  She froze and straightened, back to me. “She is resting,” she said, not turning around. “She does not wish to be bothered right now.”

  “Where is she?”

  She turned. “I’ll take you to her, but first you must tell me where you found this. It was on the desk when I came to replace the books from Anna’s room.” She pulled the piece of paper that I had found in the volume of Tennyson out of her pocket.

  “In a book.”

  “Which book?” Her hand trembled, causing the edges of the paper to flutter.

  “A volume of poems by Tennyson.”

  She nodded. “The red one.” A strange, wistful look crossed her face. “She loved that one.”

  I took another step into the room. “Who?”

  “Your mother.” Her brown eyes met mine. “My sister.”

  39

  Hearken! and observe how healthily—how calmly I can tell you the whole story.

  —Edgar Allan Poe,

  from “The Tell-Tale Heart,” 1843

  Numb, I sank into the chair by the window, the very one in which I had imagined my mother reading.

  “She came here to save me,” Miss Ronan said, folding the paper and returning it to her pocket. “We grew up in an educated and powerful clan t怅hat resides far up the Canadian coast. More and more of my pod were turning from the old ways and adopting the easier, simple life of the seal.”

  She grabbed several books and shoved them to the floor. “This troubled my father, who was their leader. Being the oldest of his offspring, I went in search of an island we’d heard of on which the villagers still honored the Otherworlders. Once it was found, I would return and lead my people to it.”

  She laughed, and my stomach churned at her crazed demeanor.

  “Fine dream,” she said. Another pile of books hit the floor. “When I arrived, I saw a human male on the jetty—a fine, strong, beautiful male who intended to throw himself into the sea. The Na Fir Ghorm, of course, were there to help him with this effort. I shed my pelt and kept him from destroying himself.”

  The look on her face softened as she stared out the window. “Never had there been so tragic a creature. He had lost his beautiful wife and was completely broken. I thought I could fix him.”

  The sharpness returned to her voice. “I lived with him for several years and fell hopelessly in love with him, thinking he returned my love.” She flung a stack of books from the shelf. “He didn’t.”

  My muscles tensed. She was surely on the brink of insanity.

  “I longed to return to my pod, but he had found and hidden my pelt, which made me his prisoner.” Another pile of books hit the floor. “Years later, my dear sister came in search of me, fearing rightfully that I had been captured. My father sent with her an amulet bestowed on our pod by Manannán mac Lir himself that gave the wearer immortality to use if either of us needed it.”

  She leaned against the desk, staring over my head as if she were witnessing the events as she recalled them. “I should have sent her away the moment she arrived, but I was overjoyed to see her. As we embraced by the sea, Frank took her pelt from where she had abandoned it at the water’s edge.”

  I held my breath as she cleared several more shelves with terrible violence.

  “He told me he did it for me. He wanted me to have company, and being in love with him, I believed him. He let us spend time together and we were happy. She told me all about my family and we talked about what it would be like when we returned to them. I had dreams to escape this island.” Her eyes met mine. “Just like you do.”

  She rolled a ladder attached to a brass rail at the top of the bookcases to the next bank of shelves and climbed it. “He moved her from my room to the one next to it telling me it was so that he could be with me at night again.” She shoved half of the shelf off and the books crashed to the floor, startling me enough to cause me to jump to my feet. “But he never came to me.” More books cascaded down. “He went to her instead. But she didn’t want him.” She slumped against the ladder. “I could hear her screams through the wall. I tried to get in to help her, but the door was locked.”

  After several shaky breaths, she moved down the ladder to the next shelf. I took a couple of steps closer to the door.

  “The next morning, he began calling her by his dead wife’s surname, MacGregor. He told me if I tried to interfere again, he would kill her. He told her that if she ever screamed or resisted him, he would kill me.” A tear rolled down her cheek. “She never uttered another word from that day forward.”

  She cleared that shelf and the one under it, not speaking.

  “What are you looking for?”

  “Her pelt.” She rolled the ladder aside and emptied the one at eye level. “The note you found was the clue to where she hid it.”

  “I thought Frank took it.”

  “He did, but he got sloppy. He fell in love with her the way I had fallen in love with him. One day he insisted on painting her wearing her pelt over her shoulders and she saw where he hid it. She later recovered it and stashed it where he would not find it.”

  She took several books and slammed them on the desk. “She wouldn’t leave. I begged her to go, but she remained because of me.” She kicked some books out of her way. “She offered her pelt to me, but there was no way I could leave her with him. It was my fault she was his prisoner.”

  I tried to recall the wording from the paper, but couldn’t. “What makes you think it’s in here?”

  “The clue on the note, but it’s hard to believe. I d
on’t think she was ever in this room alone. He always came with her. And he locked her in her room at night.”

  She knocked the books off the next shelf down.

  “What exactly does the note say?” I asked.

  “It is where my spirit found escape,” Miss Ronan recited from memory. “This is the only place she found escape. Through these books.”

  Again, I imagined her reading in the chair near the window. I studied it from where I stood near the door. It was the only soft surface in the room. It was certainly where she would have read and found escape. Ronan was thinking too broadly.

  As she continued to unload the shelves, I made my way casually back to the chair and stared out the window. I didn’t want to help her to find the pelt, but I wanted to locate it in case it could be used as a bargaining tool. I was certain she was behind Frank’s murder and perhaps my mother’s as well.

  “What happened next?” I asked, hoping she was still in a talkative disposition.

  “She came up pregnant, of course.” She shoved books out of her way with her foot. “Frank was pleased. So pleased, he lavished her with gifts. Then he got word the family was coming. He was only allowed to stay here by their good graces. He was afraid they would discover what he had done and throw him out, so he asked me to move her from the mansion temporarily until the season was over. I was thrilled to do so because it got her away from him.”

  I lowered myself into the chair as she moved the ladder to the next bank of shelves.

  She climbed several rungs. “He sent for her at the onset of the weather because he knew the family would not come back until spring.” Miss Ronan gave a sharp laugh. “She refused to come back. He could not have her bodily removed without the villagers figuring out what had happened. They believed she had been fired because of her unfortunate condition, and he was worried they would tell the family somehow. He was forced to leave her there.”

  When I was sure she wasn’t watching, I ran my fingers under the edge of the seat. Sure enough, there was a torn spot.

  “When her time came to have the baby, she tried to get to me but only made it as far as the edge of the woods. I heard her screams from the porch. I ran as fast as I could, but by the time I reached her, it was too late. She spoke to me for the first time since that horrible day and she begged me to save you. So I did, p. So I draying you were Selkie, but you weren’t.”