Heart of the Sea

by Sela Carsen

  “Again, I know this part.” Now she was starting to get annoyed. He was enjoying her misery way too much.

  “But when you shifted and found your true love, that’s when the clock started. You never had a chance.”

  “Could this be any more complicated? Your ancestor must have had a lot of time on his hands to make this up.”

  “Shut up, faithless whore,” he screamed at her, spittle flying.

  “Ew.” She made a show of wiping her face, though she couldn’t tell his spit from the splashes of water that drenched her.

  “The same sea that saved your true love will kill him now. Ronan will die trying to save you tonight. He’ll sacrifice his own life for yours.” Murphy leaned close and she swore she could see hell-fire burning in his eyes. “And you’ll live forever as a Selkie then. Unable to shift ever again, knowing that your love is what killed him.”

  The urge to weep in terror and hopelessness was strong. They were far out to sea and with the squall blowing around them, she didn’t know in which direction they’d fled. She could dive over the side, but she knew she’d never make it back to shore as a human.

  Without her skin, she couldn’t shift back. And without her… Meriel grabbed at her shirt, looking for the amulet pinned there, but it was gone. Oh no. It must have fallen off, but when? In the bedroom? Or on that torturous trip to the boat? Worse, what if it had gone overboard, back to the ocean it came from?

  A brief, quiet hole in the storm made one thing clear.

  “No more gas,” Murphy shrieked as his manic glee turned to fury. A large wave lifted the little boat and slapped it back down into a trough. Meriel watched as it finally dawned on her kidnapper that she and Ronan weren’t the only ones who might die that night.

  “Do something,” he demanded, twisting the starter in vain.

  “Gee whiz, what do you think I should do?” She knew it wasn’t smart to taunt a nutcase, but what the hell, right? What else could he do to her? So she lifted her brow and mocked both her tormentor and the raging sea.

  “Help. Help,” she said in her most deadpan voice. Meriel settled back into the corner and crossed her arms. “There. I did something.”

  He grabbed a wrench and raised it to wallop her when another wave crashed over the stern and flooded the cockpit. Enemies became teammates for the frantic minutes it took to scoop out the water.

  “It’s almost dawn,” Murphy said as they panted in tandem. “You’re going to die now.”

  “You’ll die with me, you miserable piece of lobster shit.” Inspiration struck her as something became clear. “And if I die without my true love, the curse dies with me. Bet Murchadha will be real impressed with you when you meet him in hell.”

  The crazy man blanched at her words and she was almost cruel enough to laugh at him.

  Then she heard her name. It should have been impossible over the wind and crashing thunder, but there it was.

  “Meriel, wait!”

  The Sea Bright’s sail cut through the gale. It was an extraordinary feat of sailing to have made it this far through the storm, Her pride knew no bounds. He really was good at everything he did.

  But her euphoria was followed by bowel-loosening fear. Oh God, no. He couldn’t be here. She couldn’t let him die. She waved at him, frantic for him to go back to shore and safety.

  “Go back, Ronan! Go back!” Murphy’s hand at her back was so cold it burned. His mad laugh rang in her ears as he shoved her over the side.

  Meriel twisted, tripping over a loose line in the bottom of the boat and she grabbed at him, at anything. He looked surprised when her hand closed on his shirt. She was too far over the edge to recover and, hauling Murphy with her, they fell into the cold embrace of the sea.

  Looking up at the roiling sky from two feet down was like peering into a different world. Under the water, it was calm, serene and dark. Peaceful.

  Meriel pulled herself up and broke the surface right before a wave swept over her head. Salt water flooded her mouth and nose and she choked, clawing for air. Ronan swam toward her and she grabbed for him.

  “Here,” he yelled, dropping something over her head. As soon as it touched her skin, the magic shot through her. The transformation back to seal was as painful as the change to human had been and she struggled weakly back to the air when it was over, searching for Ronan’s beloved face above the waves.

  She saw him, but only for a moment before he slipped under.

  “No!” Meriel swam out, but lost him in the darkness under the water. Lightning above her illuminated a pale arm sinking down and she dove for him.

  This was worse, infinitely worse than saving him had been the first time. It felt as if something was pulling against her, dragging him into the depths.

  She looked down to see Murphy’s mad eyes staring up at her. He wasn’t even fighting to get back to the surface. Meriel realized he was already dead, his fingers locked around Ronan’s legs.

  Oh God. She couldn’t pull them both to the surface, but if she let go of Ronan, he’d die before she could get Murphy free of him.

  The curse was winning. Ronan was sacrificing his life for her, and she would live all the rest of her days alone at sea. She hadn’t realized a heart could actually break, until hers shattered in her chest.

  Ronan reached out and rested both his hands on her face. One hand was clasped around something—a glimmer of silver—the brooch.

  “I love you,” he mouthed. A trail of bubbles left his lips and he arched in pain as his lungs filled with water.

  Ronan Burbank died smiling at her.

  Chapter Nine

  The weight was gone. Murphy’s hand had finally unclenched and he sank like hell-born brimstone as Ronan’s body rose with her to the surface.

  The fast-moving storm had swept over them while she fought and lost the battle for Ronan’s life under the sea. Now, as she raised his face above the waves, stars peeked out of the thin clouds racing past in the sky.

  The Sea Bright was still floating, but her mast was snapped in half, the mainsail trailing in her lazy wake. A sleek gray head popped up next to her.

  “Help me get him in the boat, Iona.” Her friend blinked and a trail of water that looked like tears dripped down her cheeks. Meriel wondered if there was a matching trail on her own face.

  Other heads appeared, bobbing along the surface. Selkies from all over the area had come, called by magic…called by love. The words that left her mouth sounded even and calm.

  “Can you help me get him back to port? Back to his people? He built a fine boat and it would be a shame to let it go to waste out here.” And the Sea Bright was a fine boat. She’d carried him through the storm and it was fitting that this great vessel bear him home again.

  “Aren’t you going with him, Meriel?” Iona asked.

  “I’ll help guide the boat.” She’d fall apart later. On her own. In the quiet depths of the ocean where no one could hear her scream her grief to heaven.

  “No,” the older Selkie said. “You’re going back with him.”

  Meriel laughed, though it made the broken pieces of her heart pierce her so she bled. “I’d like to see that tabloid headline. ‘Seal haunts bay, mourning dead man’. I don’t think so. I never want to be around humans again. Look what I did, Iona. The curse came true because of every stupid mistake I ever made and a good man—a great man—died for it.”

  “I didn’t take you for a coward, miss.”

  Meriel gasped. The last thing she expected from her friend and mentor was cruelty.

  “What makes you think a curse can have any effect on true love?”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “That’s because you weren’t born magic. That’s what we are, Meriel. We’re magic. Magic from the hands of God Himself. And what is God?”

  “God is love,” Meriel answered. Some Sunday school lessons stuck forever.

  “And love always, always triumphs over evil. Though it may occasionally take quite some time.” Th
e other Selkies clustered around Iona and Meriel and their sad eyes spoke of shared tragedy. She could feel the charge of destiny in the water.

  “A curse cannot stand in the way of true love,” Iona repeated. “Do you want to remain a Selkie forever?”

  “No,” Meriel barked immediately, then paused. “No offense.” A chuckle went through the gathering.

  “None taken. Do you love Emory Charles Ronan Burbank IV?”

  Meriel answered more carefully this time. “He’s only part of the man I am coming to love. I love Ronan Burbank. A boat builder. A good, strong man.”

  Iona smiled and touched Meriel with a flipper. “Then go to him.”

  This time, the change wasn’t painful. Music—the creek’s trill, the ocean’s roar, the river’s rush, the spring’s bubble—lifted her out of the water. A silver, blue-green light flowed out of the water upward, into, and around her. Her feet touched the water and she sank back into its embrace. A weight was gently lifted away and then the light receded. So simple. Except she forgot to tread water and was promptly dunked under a small, lapping wave.

  Meriel came back up coughing, laughing and crying at the same time as her friends, her ocean-bound family, laughed with her. She swam to the side of the boat and hauled herself up and over. She looked down over the edge to find Iona holding something in her teeth. It was her skin, and when she touched it, she realized it still held the tingle of magic. She pulled her arm back.

  “It won’t hurt you,” Iona said through her teeth. Meriel took the pelt and discovered that it held something besides magic.

  “Don’t drop them,” warned the Selkie as Meriel peeked inside. The dark blue glitter of a hundred sapphires threw the weak light of dawn back at her.

  “Find a place for the stones and then lie down with your love. Use the magic that’s left in the pelt to bring him back to you.”

  “Thank you,” she said to her friend as she realized that the boat was moving. Sleek, round heads in every shade of brown and gray bobbed through the water as they propelled the craft landward.

  Meriel found a covered tin pail in the tiny hold and dumped the stones in there before she settled in next to Ronan’s still form. He was so cold.

  “This will work. It has to work because I love you.” She kissed him and cuddled closer, draping his arms around her body. His fist was still closed around the amulet and she kissed his fingers. Meriel pulled the silvery fur over them both and fell into a deep sleep.

  “Wake up, sleepyhead,” said Ronan. He cradled Meriel’s body against his own for a moment before he looked around. The Sea Bright was a mess, but they were back in the sound. Docked at the marina on Block Island, in fact.

  And there were the harbor police bearing down on them to prove it. Frank Harmon had always wanted to be a cop, but didn’t want to go too far from Misquapaug to do it, so he was content with doing guard duty at the marina. He wasn’t bright, but he was diligent.

  “Did you actually take this dinghy out in that storm, last night, Mr. Burbank?”

  “Looks like it, Frank.”

  “Why would you do something so crazy? And how’d you get back with no mast?”

  Meriel stirred against him and he wanted to be the first thing she saw, the first voice she heard, so Ronan bent back down to her as her eyes fluttered open.

  “Good morning. I love you.” He watched as she came fully awake, as she remembered things he had no memory of, things he wasn’t sure he ever wanted to know about.

  Meriel threw her arms around him, dislodging the fur that covered her naked body.

  Frank gawked and Ronan wanted to rip his eyeballs out, but he reached for the skin instead, tucking it firmly around her.

  “We’re going to have to do something about you walking around naked in front of strange men,” he muttered, but she wasn’t listening.

  Meriel scrambled to her feet and looked out over the bay, searching for something. He looked with her until they found it—a hundred dark heads bobbing at the mouth of the harbor. Gray seals barked, dove and leapt through the air.

  “Thank you,” she yelled, waving to them as her hold on the pelt slipped dangerously. “I love you!” One leaped higher than the rest before they all turned and swam away, back out to the open sea.

  “Do you think we’ll see them again?” she asked, leaning back against him. She felt so right, so warm and alive, and he held her tightly.

  “I wouldn’t bet against it.” Ronan knew they had a fair bit of work ahead of them, getting Meriel back to civilization, learning more about each other. But he always had his eye on the future. Iona was a lovely name for a little girl.

  About the Author

  To learn more about Sela Carsen, please visit www.selacarsen.com. Send an email to her at selacarsen@gmail.com or comment on her blog.

  Look for these titles by Sela Carsen

  Now Available:

  Not Quite Dead

  Journey to the heart of Celtic legend.

  Love and Lore

  © 2007 Carolan Ivey, Gia Dawn and Sela Carsen

  Samhain is pleased to celebrate its second anniversary with three novellas that will lure you into the labyrinth of Celtic myth and legend.

  In Wildish Things, Carolan Ivey brings together an artist who is wounded in both body and spirit, and a sexy Irish bad boy on a Harley. Their whirlwind fling across Ireland takes a dangerous turn when their sexual chemistry awakens the deadly lust of an ancient goddess.

  Gia Dawn's offering of A Fairy Special Gift has it all: A woman who can see fairies and wishes she couldn't, and a man who promises to help her with her "problem"—for the price of a kiss. Stir in the Celtic god Lugh who wants the woman for himself, rowdy flock of untamed pixies, and a pining Banshee in need of a makeover, and let's just say there aren't enough fairy traps in the world to control the chaos.

  The Heart of the Sea beckons in Sela Carsen's take on the Selkie legend. When a woman accidentally falls into the sea and turns into a seal, the man she loves believes her drowned. Seven years later, she rescues him from a shipwreck and for one blissful night, she returns to her human form. But only for a night. Can true love overcome the Selchie curse?

  He’s gorgeous, he’s got great manners, he’s got a mission to accomplish. The only drawback? He’s been dead for a hundred years.

  Not Quite Dead

  © 2006 Sela Carsen

  Sabine Harper’s night started out badly—a dead man jumped out of his grave, she was chased by a vampire and now she has an uninvited guest. The worst part? A guy who may or may not be entirely dead is looking ten times better than any living man she’s ever dated.

  Willem Breaux has only three days to avenge his murder, but upon awakening more than a century into the future, he discovers that he needs Sabine’s help more than he could have imagined. And in the end, he’ll need her love more than anything else.

  Can Willem and Sabine find love—and a little laughter—in spite of time, death and an evil that’s waited a century to make its move?

  Enjoy the following excerpt for Not Quite Dead:

  “Rose.”

  Sabine looked up at the unexpected noise and saw a filthy man standing in the middle of her living room with his clothes in rags. She drew a breath to scream, but never made a sound. He was next to her in a flash, his hand covering her mouth. The blood ran out of her head so quickly, she thought she might faint.

  “Rose,” he said again, and gathered her in his arms, crushing her to him as if he had missed her. After a moment, though, his embrace changed. He held her upper arms and pushed her away from him. His blue eyes glittered coldly and he spoke, his voice gravelly with disuse. “You betraying little putain.”

  The synapses in Sabine’s brain stretched to keep up with the fact that what lay before her eyes was real. The stretching created a void and through the void, her own voice echoed, quavering and thin.

  “Who are you?”

  “What do you mean, who am I? Don’t you recognize me? Or has it been t
oo long since you stabbed me in the back?”

  She tried to pull out of his hold, but those strong arms pinned her to the back of the couch. A tiny, focused part of her mind droned useless, but her body struggled on.

  “I don’t know who or what you are. I saw you step out of a grave tonight and run after a…a…vampire.” The void in her mind filled with hysterical laughter. She wasn’t sure whether it released itself from her throat or merely pushed against the skeletal limits of her brain.

  “That’s right. The vampire you betrayed me for. Richard St. Ivraie.” He gave the name a French inflection and his accent was pure Creole.

  “No. I don’t know any Richard St. Ivraie. I know I saw a vampire for the first time in my life tonight, right before the walking dead arose.”

  “That can’t be possible, Rose. I know you loved him. How could you love a monster like that?”

  Sabine heard heartbreak in his voice. “You’re both monsters. You came out of a grave. Please, please let go of me.” It never hurt to be polite to the insane.

  “A monster?” He shook her and she shrank farther away from him. “I loved you. We were going to be married until you betrayed me with that fiend.” His eyes narrowed and she turned her face as his voice lowered to a whisper. “And then you murdered me.”

  Her limbs were leaden now, all the adrenaline used up. As blackness rose in front of her, she pleaded with him. “I am not who you think I am. I am not Rose. Sweet heaven, you have to believe me.”

  “You are my Rose. I would know you anywhere. Your hair, your face, even your eyes are…” He stopped. “I need light.”

  He looked around and his brow furrowed. He squeezed his fingers around her arm in warning before he said, “Fetch a lamp.”

  The man, blotched in gray and brown smears of dirt, made as if to rise with her. The incongruity of his action when there was a lamp on the end table, not two feet away, fired a lone spark in her mind.