Sins Against the Sea

by Nina Mason

  She hurried upstairs, jogged into the bedroom with the books, and started scanning spines. The top shelf contained an array of fiction—mostly novels she’d describe as “beach reads,” which made sense, given that this was a vacation cottage on a deserted island. On the next shelf, she found something more promising. A collection of island folktales.

  She flipped to the back in search of an index, thrilled not only to find one, but to find an entry for the Blue Men as well. She thumbed through the text until she found the referenced pages and started to skim. The passage told of strange, dripping, half-human blue-green men who came aboard ships and sang the verses of complex songs, then asked the captain and crew to match their otherworldly vocalizing. If the humans could not rise to the challenge, they sank the ship and drowned all aboard.

  Corey swallowed the lump now embedded in her throat. Definitely not friendly, then. She closed the book, shaking her head with a mixture of wonder and skepticism. Mermen speaking verse and sinking ships? It seemed so preposterous. Then again, up until about an hour ago, so did their very existence. Yet, she’d seen one with her own two eyes. Not that she was quite ready to believe it wholeheartedly. A shift in reality of this magnitude would take more than an hour.

  As she headed downstairs, another troubling thought crept in. What was he doing on Ronay all alone? Did he maybe have a hand in what happened to Ketos? If so, he could not have done it alone. So, where were his accomplices? Had they cold-heartedly left him behind to die of oil poisoning?

  A picture of Kew-in came into my mind. Alone. Afraid. Helpless. Suffering. Shit. Maybe the Blue Men of the Minch were cunning and heartless, but nobody was going to accuse Corey Parker of being the same. She simply couldn’t live with herself if the poor creature died because she was too cowardly to give him aid.

  Before she could talk herself out of it, she swept up the bucket and flashlight and slipped ever-so-gingerly out the back door into the cold, damp night. Not until she got halfway up the hill did she realize how incredibly tired she was. Her muscles ached with fatigue, her eyes burned, she couldn’t stop yawning, and her brain felt like it was packed in cotton. The weight of the bucket made walking difficult. It also numbed her arm, requiring her to stop a couple of times to restore the circulation.

  A few feet from the cave, she heard singing. The voice was soft, low, hypnotic, and so achingly beautiful it instantly brought tears to her eyes. As she bit them back, she thought about what she’d read. The Blue Men sang their verses to the sailors they encountered, and then drowned any who failed to match their vocalizing. The thought of it filled her with umbrage. No human voice stood a chance against something so ethereal.

  At the entrance of the cave, fear’s icy fingers clawed at her insides. She hesitated, suddenly afraid for her safety. What if he hurt her? What if he killed her? She thought about the crew of Ketos—all drowned except for the captain, and even he’d been badly injured. Left for dead, probably. All at once, the possibility of Kew-in harming her seemed very real.

  Run. Now. As fast as you can. He has no legs to give chase.

  Her feet refused to obey her mind. She set the bucket down with a clunk. The singing stopped. Except for the lapping of the waves, everything was deathly still. And then, he whispered her name. The sound was as soft as a breeze. In fact, she couldn’t be certain it wasn’t the wind working a spell on her exhausted mind.

  Cordelia? Och-eech!

  She gasped. There it was again. Faint as an echo. It wasn’t the wind playing tricks, though it might be her imagination…because, strange as it seemed, she could swear she’d heard him speak inside her head. Her arms prickled as goosebumps erupted all over her flesh. If she wasn’t mistaken, the merman was communicating with her telepathically.

  Kew-in?

  She thought it rather than saying it aloud, just to see. He returned something she couldn’t understand, but neither the words nor the tone of voice sounded the least bit threatening. With a rattling sigh, she collected the bucket. Holding her breath, she let the flashlight guide the way as she stepped through the curtain of vines.

  The cave, dank and darker than dark, reeked of tar, vomit, and fish. It was all she could do to keep from retching. Breathing only through her mouth, she approached him cautiously, speaking in the soothing tones she might use on a frightened animal. She shone the flashlight up and down his length. Oil coated every inch of him. She sighed with a mixture of weariness and exasperation. Holy shit. Where to begin? Setting the bucket down, she knelt at his side and pulled out the cooking oil.

  She worked in silence, starting with his tail, massaging downward in the direction of his scales, which were thickly coated with oil. It took more effort than she could have imagined because the oil was frustratingly stubborn. After scourings and rinsing a number of times, she started to see silver shimmering through the muck.

  Resistant as the oil was, she tried not to scrub too vigorously. The oil had badly irritated his skin. The book indicated that his complexion was a deep blue-green, but in the faint glow of the flashlight, it looked dusky gray, making it challenging to tell when he was clean. While she washed his torso, which was as firm and muscular as an Olympic swimmer’s, he flinched now and again as if her touch tickled him.

  Moving to his face, she tried to think of him as an animal—a specimen—rather than a sentient being. Tried being the operative word. There was something in his expression, a soulful intelligence that pricked her every time their gazes met. She could feel a bond forming, which freaked her out a little. This whole experience felt so bizarre, so incredible, and so surreal. She kept thinking she would awaken any moment back on the couch in her studio apartment to find that all of this, even the oil spill, had been no more than a bad dream.

  Hours passed as she washed and patted him dry, making anatomical observations as she worked. The spot on his belly that looked like a navel was actually his anal sphincter, and, where his genitals ought to have been, there was only an aperture. Clearly, he was built like a dolphin with a retractable penis and internal gonads, which made sense, hydro-dynamically speaking.

  Returning from the tide pools with yet another bucket of water, she asked, “Are you hungry?”

  He looked at her blankly, so she set down the pail and knelt beside him, mimicking the motion of eating with her hand.

  His eyes glistened with recognition just before he rubbed his belly. “Ah, bē-uh. Hah. Ha sun āchkras awrm.”

  Remembering the salmon in the freezer, she chided herself for being too shortsighted to bring it along. At the same time, she couldn’t face another trek back up here tonight. Aching with fatigue, barely able to keep her eyes open, she felt on the verge of collapse.

  “I will bring you something to eat in the morning,” she told him, gathering her things.

  As she started to stand, he cried: “Oot, oot! Fan!”

  He clearly wanted something from her, but she had no idea what. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.” She offered him a tight smile, wishing he could understand. “I promise.”

  As she followed the flashlight beam out of the cave, she made a mental note to ask Mrs. MacLeod what language the Blue Men spoke. Perhaps she could pick up a few phrases to help them communicate.

  Upon returning to the cottage, Corey took the salmon out of the freezer and set it in the sink to defrost. Too exhausted to do anything else, even undress, she went upstairs and collapsed on one of the king-sized beds, rolling herself up in the heavy floral quilt like a cocoon.

  When she came back to herself, sunlight was streaming through the lace curtains on the bedroom windows. Though plagued by a gnawing dread, she could not immediately recall the reason. She was, in fact, so groggy, she could scarcely remember who or where she was, let alone anything else. She only knew that it was warm inside the quilt and freezing cold in the room beyond. As she tried to nestle back into her toasty shell, the sound of someone singing downstairs reached her ears. The voice was female. Mrs. MacLeod, probably.

  The
reality of her situation snapped Corey back to her senses. So, there really had been an oil spill, she was on a remote island in the Hebrides, and she had met a merman the night before. No, not just met one—gave one a sponge bath.

  The memory filled her with guilt. She had promised to take him some food, but could not see how she was going to pull it off with the landlady here. The clock on the table beside the bed informed her it was just after seven.

  Corey groaned as she did the math. She didn’t get to bed until well after four, which meant she’d have to muddle through what promised to be another hellish day on a scant three hours of sleep. While jet lagged. Wrapping the quilt around her shoulders, she sat up and threw her legs over the side of the bed.

  The peppery-citrus smell of bergamot wafted on the air. Mrs. MacLeod must be brewing tea. Wanting some rather desperately, Corey dropped the quilt and made her way downstairs.

  Mrs. MacLeod, a plump woman with short curly gray hair, was at the sink when Corey entered the kitchen. She wore a cardigan over a purple floral housedress.

  “Good morning. Is that Earl Grey I smell?”

  Turning to face her, Mrs. MacLeod offered an apple-cheeked smile. “You have a good nose, lass. ’Tis indeed Earl Grey. Would you fancy a cup?”

  “I would. Very much. If it’s not too much trouble.”

  “It’s no trouble at all, lass.”

  She filled a mug from a teapot before handing it to Corey. The smell of the tea filled her senses as she wrapped her cold fingers around the hot cup. The floating bits inside told her it was made from loose-leaf tea.

  “Thanks.” She took a cautious sip. “Earl Grey’s one of my favorites.”

  “I prefer oolong, myself.” Mrs. McLeod’s blue eyes twinkled as she regarded Corey. “Earl Grey dissipates so quickly, it’s hard to make out anything of much use.”

  It took Corey a moment to realize what she meant. “You read tea leaves?”

  “Of course I do,” she said, beaming. “My seanmhair taught me, just as her seanmhair taught her.”

  “Shen-o-var?” Corey repeated the word the way she’d heard it.

  “Grandmother,” the older woman replied with a wink. “In Gaelic.”

  “Oh.” Corey took a sip of tea. “You come from a long line of tea readers, then?”

  “Long enough,” she said, turning toward the door. “Give me your cup when you’re finished, and, if you like, I’ll have a look.”

  A friend in college had tried to interest her in tarot cards and runes, insisting there was something to these ancient forms of divination, but Corey wrote it off as superstitious nonsense.

  Now, for some inexplicable reason, she was genuinely intrigued. She wanted to know what the tealeaves might have to say about her future. She felt as if she was standing at a crossroads and could use some guidance as to which fork to take. She also knew something now she hadn’t then. There were things in this world science could not explain.

  The existence of mermen, for example.

  Corey went back upstairs and, when dressed and ready, came back down and handed Mrs. MacLeod her empty mug.

  The older woman took the mug to the window over the sink, gave it a good shake, and then tilted it to catch the light. She studied the tea-leaf remnants for some time, squinting in deep concentration.

  “I see a heart,” she said at last, “suggesting a romance may be on the horizon…but there’s also a snake, which represents enmity or falsehood. Though, as I said, Earl Grey can be tricky.”

  “Your husband tells me you’re something of an expert on the local lore,” Corey said, figuring now was as good a time as any to ask about the storm kelpies.

  “My husband says a great many things,” Mrs. MacLeod returned with a playful wink, “and only some of them are true.”

  As a bemused smile broke across her lips, Corey said, “What can you tell me about the mermen who live in the Minch?”

  “What would you care to know?” Still studying Corey’s cup, she didn’t look up.

  “Anything and everything.”

  Mrs. MacLeod, apparently finished with the reading, turned to the sink and rinsed Corey’s cup. “Would you like another?”

  “Please.”

  While switching on the electric kettle, she said, “As for the Blue Men, I can tell you that they are not, as some folks are in the habit of claiming, fallen angels. Nor are they ordinary folk who’ve been put under a spell.”

  Corey’s curiosity was definitely piqued. “So, what are they, then?”

  “Some folks call them storm kelpies, but their real name is Glauckodai. The largest population of their kind lives here in the Hebrides, where Glauckos, the Greek god who fathered their race, came to live after leaving the Mediterranean.”

  Though Corey had studied classical mythology in high school and college, she couldn’t recall learning anything about the god she’d mentioned. “Was Glauckos one of the Olympians?”

  “He was, and the only one among them who started life as a human.”

  The kettle began to whistle. Mrs. MacLeod shut it off and poured a little boiling water into the pot. She took a moment to swirl the hot water around inside the pot before dumping it into the sink. She then added two scoops of fresh loose tea to the pot.

  Corey observed this little ritual in silence before asking, “How did he become a god?”

  Mrs. MacLeod filled the pot with boiling water. “Some say as a lad he drowned in a vat of mead and was brought back to life by a sorcerer; while others say he ate a special grass he found on an island where men had never set foot.”

  Corey told Mrs. MacLeod what she’d read about the songs and verse and how the Blue Men attacked ships and drowned everyone aboard.

  “Glauckodais only harm those who sin against the sea and her creatures.” She put the lid on the pot before turning back to Corey, leaving the tea to steep. “Like that awful tanker out there right now, bleeding into the harbor like a great wounded beast.”

  Holy shit. Might Mrs. MacLeod suspect, as Corey was beginning to, that the Blue Men might have had something to do with the accident?

  “So…you believe in these blue mermen, then?” Corey did her best to sound like a landlubbing skeptic to avoid arousing suspicion.

  “Of course I do. It would be impossible not to when their blood flows in many an islander’s veins.”

  Corey nearly choked. To her, Kew-in had been no more than a wounded sea creature. A mind-bending, reality-busting sea creature, but still a creature. Yet, she couldn’t deny there had been something between them. That uncanny sense that a bond was forming. That disconcerting spark each time she met his gaze. Truthfully, she wasn’t sure what to make of any of it.

  “Are you telling me they…mate with humans?”

  “Oh, aye,” Mrs. MacLeod said, now pouring. The spicy scent of the tea filled the room. “In the breeding season, they sprout legs and come out of the sea. Lasses in want of a lover will sometimes go down to meet them—and, mind you, not just the single ones. One of these days, if you like, I’ll tell you the story of Kerling and Gille-Gorm, the only Glauckodai to ever give up his life in the sea to be with the woman he loved.”

  “I’d really like that,” Corey told her, meaning it. “When does the breeding season start?”

  “On Ostara. The vernal equinox.”

  Worry tightened Corey’s chest. The first day of spring was the day after tomorrow, which meant that, if what Mrs. MacLeod said was correct, Kew-in was about to sprout legs and start shopping for a mate.

  “Are there any females of the species? Or do they only breed with humans?”

  “Oh, there are females all right,” Mrs. MacLeod told her, “though they don’t live in the sea. In fact, you’d be hard pressed to pick one out of a crowd of human lasses. Except for the webbed fingers, of course.”

  Corey swallowed hard. “Have you ever seen one of the Blue Men yourself?”

  “If I had, I wouldn’t be standing here now,” she said.

  Concern
pulsed in Corey’s gut. “What do you mean?”

  “Any who claim to have seen a Glauckodai either die or disappear soon thereafter.”

  Corey shuddered and glanced at the clock on the wall above the stove, suddenly anxious about the time. Lachlan MacInnes would no doubt be looking for her down by the wreck, and she still needed to call Peter to get the journalist the answers he wanted. Time to hurry things along. “Do you happen to know what language they speak?”

  “Of course I do. They speak the language of the islands.”

  Assuming she meant Gaelic, Corey harkened back to the night before, trying to recall any of the words Kew-in had spoken. Coming up with one, she said, “Just out of curiosity, what does the word fan mean? In Gaelic, I mean.”

  “Fan? Why, it means stay.”

  Strangled by sudden guilt, Corey swallowed hard. Last night, he’d begged her not to leave him! The poor creature. She’d better get back up there a.s.a.p. to check on him—and take him that fish.

  “Thank you, Mrs. MacLeod.” Corey set her cup in the sink. “For everything. You’ve been very helpful.”

  “Ishēh-do-veh-a,” the woman replied, which Corey could only assume was Gaelic for “You’re welcome.”

  She repeated the word quietly to herself as she crossed the living room to look out the front window. Relief washed over her when she saw men in bright yellow coveralls laying down booms and towels. Maybe the arrival of the clean-up crews would keep MacInnes at bay long enough for her to deliver the salmon, brush Kew-in’s hair, and call Peter, assuming she could get a strong enough signal.

  The moment the door closed behind Mrs. MacLeod, Corey grabbed the bundle of salmon and her hairbrush—the sturdy wooden kind with natural boar bristles—and headed back up to the cave.

  Kew-in was sitting up when she entered. His complexion looked pinker than the night before, which she took as a sign of improving health. His face brightened when he saw her, which warmed her insides. He did not look the least bit threatening, so maybe it was just a coincidence that the people who had seen storm kelpies died or disappeared shortly thereafter.