“That was a lovely day, Aunt Nora,” my niece yawned as we finally turned our backs on the setting sun and headed for home. “Reminds me of the harvest festivals I used to see in those little farming towns. But nicer.” Her voice had a tinge of nationalist pride.
“Your mam never told you about the Shelling?”
“No, she just lumped it all together under the heading ‘stupid village superstitions.’ Hey, are those the pearls?”
“Yes.” I held up one of the small white spheres. “This will go to Simon on the day we hold the Parade of the Sea.”
“When’s that?”
“On Midsummer’s Day, of course. These old customs rely so heavily on proper dates.” I held up the second pearl. “This one will go to Gartred.”
“She already has one. Did it come from the time Simon’s sister got to be Child of the Sea?”
“Yes, each year the Child’s mother gets a pearl. Quite a few women in Covell have them, you’ll notice.”
“And the third pearl?”
“Is mine.” I unknotted the plaited flax thread around my neck and slipped on the newest addition. “The Undine always keeps the third one.”
“You’ve got quite a necklace there. How many Shellings have you seen?”
“Forty-two, now. One a year since I turned twenty. Many children. I could still tell you all their names.”
“Do that sometime, Aunt Nora.” Hallie’s hand slipped briefly into mine.
The Parade of the Sea starts well before dawn. It was still dark outside when I roused Hallie. “Can’t it wait at least until dawn?” she yawned, shivering in the biting cold.
“Not according to the Druids. Pity, isn’t it? I always feel sick, getting up this early.”
“You don’t look very well. Maybe you should get someone else to stand in.”
“Oh, it’ll pass; it always does. But why on earth can’t Druids do anything at a sensible hour like normal folk?”
“What are you doing now, Aunt Nora?”
“Getting out all my Undine paraphernalia.” I threw open the lid of the little wave-carved wooden chest that sat at the foot of my bed. “The conch shell, symbol of the sea. And the fishing knife, symbol of the fisher folk.”
“That shell’s huge! Big enough for a mixing bowl – it’s all dirty and crusty inside, though. Should I run it under the faucet?”
“No, just hand it over. A little dirt never hurt anyone.” I tucked the sickle-shaped knife into my belt.
“What’s that rattling around in the bottom of the chest? Pebbles?”
“Pearls. The necklaces of the past Undines.”
“There’re hundreds of them!” She stirred the pearl strings with her fingers. There were nineteen strings in all. “Aren’t you afraid they’ll get stolen? They must be awfully valuable.” “No one here would touch them. They’re almost sacred.”
“Only in Covell,” Hallie laughed. “In London you’d have to keep them in a bank.”
The torches were already lit and the parade assembled when we hurried outside. Simon was gritty-eyed but bouncing with the excitement of it all. “Where do I stand?” Hallie whispered.
“At the front, of course. Take Simon’s other hand.”
“Hi, townie,” he whispered.
“Hi, brat,” she whispered back.
The three of us locked hands and led the parade straight up towards Covell Crag. The torches wound along behind, single file and in total silence. Even Simon slowed his bouncing in response to the solemnity.
Dawn was just breaking when we reached the crag. I gently pushed Simon out to the forefront, standing behind with my hands on his shoulders. Gartred and Hallie squeezed in on either side. The rest of the torches came to rest, and we stood still to watch.
It’s a simple ritual, almost no ritual at all. Watching the waves turn pink and then gold, watching the sun slip up over the horizon. Watching the dawn – probably the oldest of all rituals. When the sun hung full and warm over the ocean, I quietly slipped a plaited flax thread over Simon’s head, and folded his warm, moist little palm over the pearl.
“Heave!” The cry went up, and the torches sailed lazily through the air, over the crag, and into the water forty feet below.
Breakfast was pasties and fruits and pints of fresh cream. And afterwards, the Sea Festival began.
There was a Crab Race, where the children frantically scuttled sideways like little crustaceans. There was a shell hunt, prizes going to the first child to find the hidden conch. More prizes went to the man who could mend a net the fastest. The smallest children competed with toy boats, the larger children with real ones. Ill-tempered lobsters yanked that morning from their tidepools were decked with ribbons like racehorses and set to race. There were swimming contests of various lengths; Hallie came second in the fifty-yard dash out to the end of the pier, and her smile rivaled the sun.
Simon was King of the Sea Festival. He sat up over everyone on a special heavy chair draped with fishing nets and seashells, a kelp crown sitting on his barley-fair hair. He handed out prizes to the winners, and settled disputes over finish lines. Sometimes when the temptation was too great he wriggled off his throne to join in the fun, pearl gleaming at the soft hollow of his throat. He presided over the evening’s feast, solemnly intoning the old toast to the sea. And he got the first bite of every dish.
“Ooof, I’m stuffed.” Hallie leaned back in her chair, yawning. “I’ll be fat as a pig if we eat like this every day. Fat and sleepy as a pig.”
“Don’t go to sleep yet. We’ve still one last ritual to go.”
“Which one’s that?”
“The sunset ritual.”
“We all get blessed,” Maura explained to Hallie. “So no one will drown in the new year.”
The sunlight was just beginning to slant over the rooftops when the sunset parade formed. More torches were lit, and once more Hallie and I took Simon’s hands and led the procession up towards Covell Crag. Simon’s feet dragged from weariness, but his eyes were still bright. He was the only child of his age allowed to walk in the sunset parade; the others had long since trudged off home, sleepy and sandy and ready for bed.
Once more the silent village clustered on the crag to watch the sun retire. I glanced over at Hallie; in the orange light her face was peaceful. Simon’s little shoulders moved under my hands as he sighed and touched the pearl at his throat. “I likes being the Child of the Sea, Nora.” We all smiled.
When the lower rim of the flame-colored disc touched the waves, I spoke. Ancient words. Silly words, perhaps, but not here, not now, and not to us.
“Lords of the sea, we have come once more to worship. For a year we have accepted your bounty and your protection. In the name of this child we have crowned in your honor, we thank you. Taste him, and know him.”
Gartred brought up my massive conch shell, which she’d filled with seawater and carried all the way up from the village. I looked down at the Child of the Sea. “It’s easier if you don’t fight, Simon.”
Hallie looked puzzled. “Aunt Nora, what are you—”
I may be an old woman, but my hands are still strong. I linked my fingers behind Simon’s head and pressed his face down into the water.
“What are you doing?” Hallie came forward, but old John Penhallow grabbed her wrist and pulled her back. Simon began to thrash, but my hands were strong on his neck and his mother held the massive shell steady. Bubbles drifted up frantically from the little submerged face.
“Aunt Nora!”
Simon struggled. Gartred’s face was white.
“Aunt Nora, stop!”
One last flail of the little arms, and Simon went still.
That was when I yanked him up briskly, and pounded him between the shoulder-blades. “You were very brave, Simon. Now go ahead and cough.”
He coughed again and again, spitting up seawater, and the torch-lit circle of watchers cheered. Simon’s curly hair was plastered flat to his head. Gartred dropped the shell, and I felt se
awater splash over my shoes as she reached for her son, drying his face on her dress and murmuring wordlessly. Two spots of color burned in her cheeks now.
“What –” Hallie jerked away from John Penhallow, blinking. “What did you—”
“He has to get a little seawater into his lungs,” I explained, pounding Simon on the back again. The crowd was cheering him now, and a dimple flashed in his cheek as he smiled around the bursts of coughing. “It’s how the sea will know him.”
“Oh.” Hallie reddened. “I thought—for a moment—”
“I knew it was gonna be like that,” Simon informed her between coughs. “M’sister—she said—when she was Child of the Sea—”
“Don’t talk, love,” his mother soothed. “Just breathe.”
Hallie managed a weak laugh, definitely red-faced now. “You won’t believe what I was thinking—”
“You’re a good boy, Simon.” I mussed his soaking-wet hair.
“Did I do well?” he beamed.
“Very well.” With my sharp sickle-shaped knife I gutted him in one long vigorous stroke.
His eyes sprang open and he thrashed against my arm. I tilted his small body outward, so the first dark jet of blood would fall into the waves below. “In the name of this child, we renew our pact with the sea.”
He opened his mouth to scream, and I cut his throat with the swift double slash of forty-two years’ practice.
Hallie found her voice and screamed. She flung herself forward, but John Penhallow was ready, pinioning her arms and wrenching her back. I heard Maura Cartwright whispering earnestly: “Don’t upset it now, Hallie. This is the important part.”
Simon convulsed weakly. Gartred stood impassive at the head of the crowd, watching his blood flow down into the sea. A cupful of that blood I caught in the conch shell.
The only sound was Hallie’s sobbing.
When the flow of blood thinned to a trickle, I allowed Simon’s small body to drop into the ocean. He bobbed limply in the vortex of the high tide.
“We give you the Child of the Sea,” I said to that vast ocean. “We give you his life. Take no more.”
I turned to face the crowd, bearing in my hands the conch full of blood. Gartred came forward and bent her head. I slipped a flax thread around her neck: her second pearl, and the second child she had given to the sea so the rest of us might live. “I’m sorry, Gartred.”
She nodded briefly, her face drawn. I dipped my fingers into the blood and touched her forehead. She backed away, taking her torch and heading for the rough crag path down to the village.
One by one the rest of the villagers came forward, and I anointed their foreheads. The touch of the Undine, which gives protection from drowning.
I heard Hallie’s low sobbing, felt her eyes fixed in horror on my string of pearls. Forty-two pearls, forty-two years, forty-two children. I wore forty-two lives around my neck. I could still tell you all their names.
It is terrible to lose a child. Little Simon will be sorely missed. But is it more terrible to lose one than many? For all the years we gave the sea its blood, we lost no other lives.
Still, it is a hard thing to be the Undine.
The last of the villagers passed beneath my hands and back towards their homes, and I turned to face Hallie.
“Don’t touch me!” she screamed. “Don’t touch me, you witch!”
I sighed. “Hold her,” I told John Penhallow.
She screamed as the blood touched her forehead. She screamed again as I withdrew from my pocket a plaited flax thread and dropped it around her neck. A thread exactly like my own, but barren (as yet) of pearls.
John released her arms as I nodded, and she dropped to her knees on the bloodied crag, covering her face with her hands. She clawed at the thread about her throat, but she did not tear it away. She already knew the weight of it, felt it settling on her neck like a noose. Her sobs were helpless, self-loathing.
She will make a fine Undine when I am gone.
KELLEY ROBY
Kelley Roby lives in the Indian Lake region in north-western Ohio with her wonderful husband, son and Golden Retriever. Kelley is a former EMT and former Volunteer Fire-fighter. Kelley has two wonderful grandchildren. She also misses her daughter dearly who is attending Rio Grande University. Kelley is the co-author of THE PULL OF BLOOD, the first book in THE KEEPERS OF THE DAMNED series. She is currently working on the second book in the series and her first erotic novel. When Kelley is not writing, she reads every chance she gets. Kelley also enjoys attending her children’s sporting events, fishing, scuba diving, attending hockey games and just hanging out with her friends and family.
S HE. A story of heartlessness, suffering and betrayal. Shriver Manor becomes a prison for Taren Shriver when her daughter disappears. Cries in the night haunt her and treachery surrounds her.
[email protected]
http://kelleyroby.webs.com
She
Kelley Roby
Copyright © Kelley Roby 2009 A cry in the dark, full of anguish and dripping with terror, echoed through the walls of the manor. The bloodcurdling shriek of the young nanny brought partygoers to a halt.
Thundering footfalls raced down the mahogany carved staircase delivering a young, tearful Ariane to the forefront of the festivities.
“Liliana,” she wailed, “Liliana is gone!” For a brief moment all means of breathing seemed to have been sucked from the vast banquet hall of Shriver manor. Taren Shriver, the beautiful mother of little Liliana, collapsed in a heap on the floor.
Eyes turned to a speechless and equally shocked Harden Shriver. Harden had no idea where to start. Did he see to his grief-stricken wife and nanny? Should he check Liliana’s room himself to make sure that Ariane was not mistaken?
Harden Shriver knew that as head of the manor that all eyes would look to him for guidance. Overwhelming fear settled into his soul as he barged through the crowding guests, elbowing his way through, walking past a still crumbled Taren and the females that had gathered around her unconscious form, to race up the stairs. Taking the steps two at a time, he barreled into the second story room and gasped from the chill of late autumn air funneling through the opened window. Heavy drapes swirled and pitched, screaming with the call of the night’s air. The mobile over the crib lurched back and forth, the pastel stuffed teddy bears tangled and frayed.
Two full months lagged by and nothing… nothing but the constant harassment of the county police and their persecuting questions. No word on the whereabouts of little Liliana. No ransom note. No fingerprints. No DNA…nothing.
Harden couldn’t concentrate on business, and of course by this time the community whispered behind his back when he strolled through town, or stopped to get gas or groceries, the gossipmongers loving every bit of his family’s misery.
The Shriver’s wealth came from decades of his ancestors’ sweat and hard work. Harden’s great-great-grand father had practically built the small town of Handlin with his bare hands. Starting with Shriver Mill, Shriver Trading Post, and Handlin Post Office, the small town just grew from there, to the point that when Harden’s father died, he had accumulated enough money that no descendant of the Shriver name would ever have to lift a finger or sweat blood ever again. That fact alone tended to make the townspeople just a little more than jealous, and it really didn’t help that Harden never grew up in the family home.
Hubert Shriver wanted his son well educated, sending him to boarding school at the early age of five, and then on to the Ivy leagues. After that, Harden traveled the world, and every time he called his father and told him he wanted to come home for a visit, his father not so politely told him to stay away.
Even on the day that he called his father to tell him he was to be wed; Hubert insisted Harden held the nuptials in another state and wanted no part of the ceremony. Harden’s parents died, never meeting or coming to know the woman that gave her heart to their son.
Taren never understood why she had never met her husband’s fa
mily, and her questions never gained answers either. Harden kept thin lips when Taren asked questions about his past. Taren married Harden not even knowing he was heir to a vast fortune.
The daughter of a poor farmer in southern Ohio, Taren grew up in a loving household, but she never knew what it was like to go shopping with girlfriends, or have clothes that were not sewn by her own mother’s hand. When Harden Shriver, with his intoxicating features, drifted through town—and took a liking to her—she fell fast and hard for his gentlemanly ways. In Taren’s eyes, the love affair bloomed and flourished. Within a few months she was married and pregnant.
Growing up poor, Taren worried over how they would survive, but every time she questioned her husband, Harden, with an impish grin would just say, “Fear not little lovely, we will prevail.” So with hope and love she gave her faith to him in total surrender.
One day, Harden received a fateful phone call. His parents had died in a questionable car accident and his presence was needed back in Handlin. He wondered how Taren would take the news of his wealth. And as one would expect, an eight month pregnant Taren collapsed, more likely than not, from pure shock.
When Harden returned to Handlin with a young, beautiful and very pregnant wife on his arm, the men gawked with envy, which in turn led to tongue wagging from the women.
Taren had a hard time adjusting to the wealth and the immense household that he put her in charge of. When Liliana came along, Hardin thought Ariane’s sanity might just break.
Harden noticed the change and, under the guise of searching for a solution, he hired Ariane, a long time friend of the family.
Taren worked day and night trying to take care of the household, the chores becoming more than any one woman could handle. Hardin disappeared more and more, on trips to God only knew where. Ariane became Liliana’s sole caregiver.
Taren seldom came into contact with her own daughter and this, more than exhaustion, demanded she spoke with her husband at once. Hours after her fatigue usually called her to sleep, Taren sat in the dark waiting for Harden to slink into the bedroom.
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