“Finally her cloak was within his reach an’ he grasped the hem of it. It was cold and sodden with wet, an’ it felt like no earthly cloth he had ever touched, but rather like kelp that had been woven upon a saltwater loom into a strange silk. He clutched the cloak an’ then stood, startlin’ the maid, who turned as pale as the shells on the shore when she realized he had her clothing.
“He held the cloak out to her to lure her but when she snatched at it, he walked backward. She followed him thusly all the way back to his farm, although the rocks of the fields cut the webbin’ between her toes an’ caused her feet to bruise and bleed.
“An’ so the sea maid, havin’ no choice in the matter, stayed with the farmer. In time she bore him a son, a fine boy, firm of flesh an’ with none of yer merfolk about him, despite his mother’s blood. He was, like his father, a child of the field an’ the earth, bound to the land and its ways.
“The farmer could not complain for the sea maid was a good wife, a good friend, a receptive lover, doin’ and givin’ all that was expected of her. But her heart was never in the day’s given tasks, an’ so the bread did not rise as it should, the yard was never swept clean, the chickens molted their feathers, the sheets on the bed were always damp, an’ the fish her husband caught she would promptly return to the sea. She breathed her damp salt breath upon them an’ their gills would flutter an’ then they would gasp as she threw them back to their watery home.
“The women of the village never accepted her, for everywhere she went men’s eyes followed with the longin’ of a sailor for the limitless horizon. She carried the scent of the sea inside, the smell of wrack an’ salt, and of the deep places of the ocean where no man had ever been, nor would dare to venture. It was there in her movement, in the way she walked across a field or stood hip deep in a lake—she carried the singin’ salt of water in her veins, in the joints of her hips an’ shoulders, in the way she danced on the shore of a night, always lookin’ away to the west where the breakers rolled ceaselessly, croonin’ a mother’s lullaby to her.
“But a selkie cannot return to the sea without her skin, for she will drown as surely as any other mortal woman, lungs burnin’, limbs heavy and thick with the time of walkin’ on earth. For earth inveigles itself into one’s bones an’ flesh, weights it down, anchors it to keep to the land.
“The man had done his best to be a good husband, an’ while he loved her, he knew the sea maid did not love him in return. An’ yet he never betrayed by the slightest hint just where her cloak was hidden. Sometimes she thought she felt it, late at night, the sleek, wet chill of it, the salt an’ sand slippin’ over her limbs, so that she might return home, to her family, to the man who waited for her deep beneath the roilin’ dark waves. She walked the land at night, an’ would stand by the shore, feelin’ the ocean purl about her ankles, the tiny crabs nibbling soft at her toes. She swore some nights when the wind set from the west, just so, she could hear her people an’ the soft swish of their language an’ then she would weep for she could no longer understand the words.
“Aye, the man was kind to her, but he was neither kith nor kin to her salty soul. His love for her was a burnin’ thing that dried her skin, so that she could feel the scales beneath. He wanted all of her, every last inch of her within his possession. He moved her far from the sea, away from where the breath of it, the voice of it could blow over her, could speak to her each day. She couldn’t sleep at night for there were no waves to soothe her; only the night sounds of the land, which agitated her an’ would give her no peace.
“And so another year passed an’ another yet, an’ there was a daughter born to them, a daughter who was a sea maid herself. The farmer could see that at once, for the babe was a delicate blue, an’ not from any lack of air. She was a tiny mermaid, with hair the color of the sea at twilight, an’ eyes deep as any eel’s pool. The sea maid loved her daughter, as she had loved her son, but with somethin’ more, for the child longed for the water as she herself did.
“Her husband, land bound as he was, did not like this small watery child, he complained that she felt damp to his hands, that she cried when he touched her, that he went cold when she was in the room. The baby did not like him either, an’ seemed to sense that he was a stranger to her in all but simple biology, for his hands left burn marks on her fair blue skin, an’ scorched the ends of her soft twilight hair. An’ so the sea maid kept the child from him, fearing he would hurt her, that he would sense all the water that lived beneath the child’s skin, would feel one night the scale an’ sleek skin of a creature whose rightful home is water.
“So time passed, as time will, an’ the children grew, an’ the woman was still the best wife she could manage to be, an’ the husband tilled his fields and the tide came in to the shore an’ left it once again. Then one spring a powerful storm swept across the land, such a storm as hadn’t been seen in a century. It uprooted trees an’ knocked down fences, cows blew out to sea an’ birds flew upside down. It tore the thatch off the roof of the farmer’s cottage an’ scattered it into the next county. The farmer spent several days fixin’ it, for he knew the old ways an’ how to make a roof in the way it had been done for hundreds of years in that county.
“One morning coming back from a far hill, from the top of which the woman could view the sea, she found her son proppin’ a ladder up against the cottage wall.
‘Whatever are you doing, child?’ she asked.
‘Why, I only want to look at the beautiful cloth my father hid in the reeds of the roof.’
“The sea maid began to tremble an’ gently put her son aside, tellin’ him she would look an’ bring the cloth down for him to see. She climbed up, an’ parted the reeds an’ there was her cloak. She clutched it to her breast, an’ then made an effort to appear calm. She did not want to panic the boy an’ have him run to his father.
‘’Tis only an old bit of oilcloth,’ she told her son, kissin’ the top of his head, while her blood thrilled to the scent of the sea in the cloak. The wind was pickin’ up and she could taste salt on her tongue.
“The farmer noticed that night that his wife seemed nervous, she had a flush to her face like the innards of a seashell an’ she dropped a plate an’ scorched her finger on the kettle. He thought perhaps she was expectin’ another child, an’ wasn’t certain how to tell him. She fed him a big dinner, an’ refilled his tea cup an’ even put out a glass of whiskey for him. He felt terribly sleepy after dinner an’ went to his bed, tellin’ his son he would have to milk the cows that evening.
“His son woke him some time later just as the sun was fallin’ beneath the land, shoutin’ that his mother and sister were gone, an’ that his mother had taken the beautiful cloth he had hidden amongst the reeds of the roof.
“The man flew outside, panic beatin’ in his chest, an’ certain enough the roof was in disarray an’ his wife’s workaday clothes were left in a pile on the ground.
“He ran for the shore, his son cryin’ out for him to wait, but he paid the boy no heed. He was too far behind already. He hadn’t stopped to pull on his boots an’ so his feet were bruised an’ bleedin’ by the time he came over the rise an’ could see the shore below him. His wife stood with her feet in the water, wearin’ only her cloak. She was still every bit as beautiful as the day he had seen her rise out of the sea. Neither time nor hard living had touched her.
“He shouted at her to stop, but she paid him no mind. She held their wee daughter on her hip, the skin of her legs turning to scales, blue an’ shimmerin’ as the dawn right before his eyes. He could see the water in them both now, as though saltwater ran like the waves to the shore within their veins rather than the blood of a mortal human.
“She turned back at the last just before she slipped beneath the waves, an’ he saw the ocean there in her eyes, an’ the foam like a bridal crown upon her sleek black hair before she disappeared from his view forever. And the farmer took his son, who was of the earth like he was, an’ went home to his farm an’
his tilled fields an’ his dry sheets an’ bread that rose high as snowy mountains, but for all the rest of his days, he would smell the sea every time the wind came in from the west, an’ he would weep for the woman who had never loved him.”
The sound of the sea faded from his ears, and the crackle of the fire replaced it along with the noise of his listeners stirring, for with the cessation of words, the spell was broken and he came back to his surroundings, though he could still feel the woman he had conjured on the palms of his hands—the small of her back, the nape of her neck, the scent of her like the wind off the sea on a fine day, fading already into the smells of beer and damp clothes, and the smoke from the peat fire.
He stood when he was done, nodded to his small circle of listeners and went outside. His head hurt, as though a hive of bees had been set loose beneath the bones of his skull.
The night was thick with fog, and his breath turned to water droplets at once. He was completely unsettled, not uncommon for him, but this was different, it was like the story had set something adrift inside him that had been firmly tied before.
Eddy was sitting outside on a concrete block, a cigarette cupped in his hand.
“Thought maybe you’d go home with the redheaded woman,” he said.
Mick shook his head. “No.”
“So who was she?”
“What?”
“The woman in the tale—she’s real, isn’t she? I swear I could almost see her take form right there in the room, right there in your eyes.”
“I don’t know, truth be told,” he said. He felt vaguely annoyed for he wasn’t ready to speak of the woman who had risen in his hands just as she had risen from the sea in the tale. He had merely set out to tell the selkie tale, and he had told it true to the tradition of it, only the woman had become real there in his words and he had seen her so clearly in his mind that he thought for a moment he could reach out and touch her.
“I think you do know, somewhere in that head of yours. I think you know just fine who she is.”
“I think,” he said quietly, “I think maybe she was mine.” He turned then and walked off into the night, where the darkness, unlike the darkness in his head, was sometimes his friend.
Part Five
A Glimpse of the World Before
August 1976-June 1977
Chapter Forty-nine
The House With Moon and Star Shutters
Summer 1976
THE HOUSE WAS LONELY, or at least that was his first thought when he pulled up on his bike to the old Victorian. It was tucked away amidst a bower of roses growing wild, their canes clambering up the walls around the cupola and scrambling thick across the roof. They might be the one thing still keeping the house upright, for it had seen better days, to be sure.
He stopped and parked the bike in the overgrown drive. There was a ‘For Sale’ sign hanging faded and crooked off a post, nearly hidden in a patch of bramble at the end of the lane. He wondered if the house actually was for sale or if the sign was merely forgotten.
He walked up the drive slowly, taking in his surroundings. There was lavender gone wild next to the house, thick with bees and butterflies on this sunny afternoon, the shutters hanging off the windows of the bottom floor, the porch with an ancient swing, near rotted from the depredations of weather and salt winds. It swung slightly in the breeze, as if a woman sat in it reading, one foot on the porch floor, pushing the swing just a little bit.
The stairs to the porch were a silver grey, though he could see the original traces of white paint on them. They needed replacing. The porch itself had boards half rotted away, home now to ants and squirrels.
His hand traced a worn shutter, fingers stopping where a crescent moon had been carved with no small skill into the wood. Beyond it was a star, five-pointed and marked out in flaking blue paint. Touching the wood had set off an echo inside him, like hearing a beautiful song, but only a note here and there, so that one couldn’t quite recall the song in its entirety, only feel the ghost of it inside and the haunting of beauty half-forgotten by the mind, but remembered in some part by the cells and the heart.
He walked around it, eyeing up the house’s lines, counting the windows and imagining the layout inside. He automatically started compiling a list in his head of the materials that would be needed to fix it up. It surprised him a little, that he had gone that far in his thinking already, that he felt some strange connection to this house as if he needed it as much as it clearly needed him. He could do the work, of that he had no doubt. That he wanted to do it, well that too surprised him in no small way. He wanted to fix this house, and it was a foreign feeling for a man who had not wanted anything in a very long time.
Bridget had given him the keys but the back door was open, the old brass door knob turned verdigris with time and the elements. He walked in and called out.
“Hello? Is anyone here?” He felt a tad foolish as his words echoed back to him in the dusty, sunny air. Who did he think he was talking to—ghosts? Well, he supposed it wasn’t a bad notion to be polite to any that might be lingering. A man who didn’t make friends with ghosts was a fool.
The bottom floor was in decent shape, despite clear evidence that birds and bees had made their homes here for a season or two. The floor was solid enough, and made from oak so that it would withstand the years. In the kitchen there was an ancient cast iron sink, coated in chipped enamel, and a wood stove with a bent chimney, which no doubt housed a variety of wildlife. The countertops and cabinets were a little hideous, a result of 1960s decorating, no doubt. He was certain the tin ceilings were original despite being buried under layers of dirt and grease. And the moldings, too, somewhat worn with paint peeling off in long strips, looked like the original article to him.
There was a large hearth around the wood stove, built of crumbling brick. He touched the upper arch and a cloud of dust rained down. The entire thing would have to be torn out and re-built, maybe with stone native to California.
The house was from the Queen Anne period, defined by a variety of characteristics that he recognized on sight—the octagonal tower, the small colored panes of glass in the doors and windows surrounding a large, clear pane. This house also sported three of the fluted chimneys that were popular in that era, as well as the siding—clapboard shingles on the body of the house with fish scale shingles on the gables and tower.
There was something about an old building in need of care which calmed him. He understood the ways of wood and stone, of leveling and rebuilding and restoring something step by careful step, staying true to its original lines and purpose. Each building had a spirit of its own, some good, some bad and some, like this house, slightly melancholy with the echo about it of having known happier times.
Money, Bridget had assured him, would be no object. She explained that her grandmother hadn’t lived in the house for many years, but had been in a care home and had only recently passed away, leaving the house and her money to her only granddaughter. Bridget occasionally slept out here, though she had a room in the city too, where she most often spent her nights.
He started with the basics, for the electrical system needed an overhaul to bring it up to code and make it safe. The boiler needed replacing as well, and the house could use a new water heater. None of the fireplaces were functioning and much of the woodwork in the house was covered in black paint and grime; he would have to strip it all back to the original wood and sand it down and refinish it in a manner which better suited the spirit of the house. He didn’t even want to think what he was going to find when he pried up some of the boards—he was certain he’d heard pigeons cooing under one of the bedroom floors and there were definitely bats in the tower room on the third floor. The defining feature of the house though was the grand octagonal tower that fronted the three stories. He could feel the itch in his hands to strip it back and restore it slowly to its original glory.
He began the work a few days later and continued to labor on the house whenever he had a chance
—on weekends and in the evenings when he didn’t have a fight scheduled or a training session with Eddy. As he worked through the days of that long California summer the peace of the old house surrounded him, sinking down into his bones and setting a rhythm which was instinctive to him. It was a rhythm which was slow and easy and exacting for it was that of wood and stone, angles and saws, hammers and nails, sandpaper and paint.
Sometimes as he worked he felt like there was another house beneath the bones of this one, another house that he had built and which his cells remembered the form and shape of even if his mind could not recall it. It was like a hum in his brain, that other house, the ghost house, the tracery of which sometimes rose—just there in front of him—where he could not quite see it, only feel it in the boards and struts and plaster and paint. He wondered for whom he had built that house—had it been his, had he shared it with others, had he loved it? Thinking about it always started a sharp pain in the side of his head, so that he pushed the house away when it rose phantom-like in his mind.
By August he had made significant strides on the list of things to be done. The new boiler had been installed and the piping all through the house had been replaced. The wiring was redone throughout most of the house, though there were still the bedrooms to be done as well as all the tower rooms. He’d stripped back years of wall paper on the walls and paint on mahogany posts and stairs and on paneling in the study which turned out to be a stunning purple heartwood. He’d rebuilt two of the three hearths in the house, using river stone to create both drama and a sense of continuity with the natural surroundings. Over the months of work he felt the house changing, warming in its bones, the light transforming as the energy of the house shifted and the spirit of it was brought back to life.
In the Country of Shadows (Exit Unicorns Series Book 4) Page 52
