Adrift (9 page)

She shrugged.  “It’s no matter.  I’m very happy with my life.”  She placed a hand on mine.  “Very happy, indeed.  It’s just the curiosity of an old woman.  I do wonder if the grass is greener on that side.  Perhaps the grass isn’t green at all.”  She offered me a cup of herbal tea, but I shook my head.

“I don’t think my mother wants me,” I said, my eyes on the table.  A few beads of water marred the surface and I skated my fingertips across them. 

Maura sat back in her chair.  “What makes you think that, Meg?”

I shrugged, trying to get past the knot of hurt in my chest.  I cleared my throat.  “She pushed me away.”  I described my dream to Maura, and the force at which my mother had thrown me away from her.

Maura looked thoughtful.  “If it were me,” she said, softly, “and you were my little girl… I would keep you as far from the sea as I could.”

I blinked hard.  I hadn’t thought of it like that.

Chapter Seven

 
I made a sandcastle.  I was walking down the stretch of white sand, past the rocky shore, an in a moment of spontaneity dropped to my knees and started digging.  A piece of tide-washed oyster shell was my shovel.  I built mushy towers and a wide moat.  I draped seaweed over the bottom half and pebbled the towers with bits of shell washed up by the tide.  I worked until the tide came in, then stood there, oddly at peace, as the waves swept forth and pulled my labors down.

I turned and Devin was watching me.  I laughed, showing him my sandy hands.

He waved back, but he didn’t smile.

I scrambled up the sand hill towards him, seeing his serious eyes watch me as I trudged.

“Where are you going?” I asked, noting the violin case he held in one hand.

One of his eyebrows swept upward.  “To work,” he said, concisely.  He raised the violin case up in his hands.  “I play for my supper.”

“Can I come?” I hated the eager tone of my own voice.  He obviously didn’t need me following after him like a sad-eyed puppy dog.

He hesitated, his eyes on the water, rather than on me.  “I don’t see why not,” he said finally, though the stiffness of his shoulders made it clear he was unhappy with it.

I wanted to ask him why, to know why there was such anger and resentment in his eyes, when he looked at me.  He knew what I was—he had told me himself, so why the anger?

I followed him through the dwindling twilight, long grass tickling my legs, the ever-present ocean sighing beside the well-worn path, calling for me to come and play.  I brushed my sandy hands off on my water-logged jeans, wondering if I should have cleaned up before inviting myself along, knowing that I would never have another chance if Devin got his way.

The walk to Trinity was not far.  The town was lit up with tourists and I could hear someone singing an old Irish song in a sweet, lilting voice.  I picked up my pace, guessing from the direction our destination.

The singing emanated from a restaurant courtyard, where a make-shift stage was set up.  The singer was accompanied by someone on the guitar, with another playing a lap harp, and yet another playing some large flat drum held flat in the palm of one hand.

To my surprise, applause rose up around us as Devin came into sight. He raised his hand and laughed and grinned in response to the warm welcome.

I felt very alone.

I knew now that Devin purposely excluded me from the sunny sphere around him—that his disposition wasn’t naturally unfriendly.

It was just me.

I settled at an empty table and put my chin in my hands, trying to understand how I had so offended him.

I was startled from my thoughts with the first rich tones as he pulled his bow across the strings.

There was no question of his incredible skill as he began to play, first gently, then quickly, in a lilting Irish jig.  He swept the audience up with him, filling them with energy.  Laughing tourists rose to dance between the tables, falling over themselves, unable to keep from moving to his music.

Yet there was something more to it.  Behind the music I could sense what I was beginning to associate with my dreams of Faerie.  He was more than just a talented musician. He had a Gift. There was something there, something more. There could be no other word for it but Gift. My guess was confirmed as he and the group behind him changed pace and he began to play a slow, sorrowful song.  The rich tones swept me up, and I was carried off in the waves of the notes, feeling each note race through me, pulling at my heart.

And then it ended, leaving me empty again. I felt strangely bereft, emptied of the wholeness the music had lent me. 

There was a pause. I held my breath. Then the tourists leapt to their feet and applauded.

And I was compelled to stand, my heart racing in my chest, my eyes staring in amazement.

And my eyes met Devin.

And his eyes turned towards mine.

And they were suddenly filled with disgust.

I clawed my way through the crowd and ran, not caring where I was going, just needing to be near the sea.  I ran until my heart beat so hard in my chest I could no longer hear his playing in my head.

His music had touched my soul.

I was quite sure he hated me.

I cried all night into my pillow, unable to understand his scorn, trying to comprehend what it was that made me so repulsive to him. And I needed to know, because I was attracted to him, I had been from the beginning, pug nose and all, and I wanted him to want me to. I wanted him to feel for me.

Heaven help me, I wanted him to love me.

I was alone in the world, and I desperately needed him, someone whom I could trust, to care for me too.

I didn’t care that I was acting like a young girl, snubbed by a crush.  It hurt.  He had seen me at my lowest, at my worst.

And he had despised me for it.

I just wasn’t good enough, I told myself.  I sniffed wetly, burying my face back in my pillow to stifle my sobs.

The door screeched open and the click-click of dog nails on the floor alerted me for a moment before a warm body heaved up beside me.  I looked up to see Kip’s resigned doggy face above mine.  He licked my face once, wagged his tail, and settled down on my pillow with a deep sigh.  In seconds the air was full of his snuffling snores.

I wrapped my arms around him, feeling his solid heart beating and the rather strong damp dog-odor emanating from him.  I wondered if he had walked all the way from Devin’s place in town to be with me, just as I was feeling so alone.

Then I was asleep.

When I awoke, Kip was gone, but the spot beside me in my bed was warm and covered in golden dog-hairs, sparkling in the morning sunlight that streamed through my window.  My eyes felt stiff, as if they were made of plastic, and my whole body felt lifeless, drained, empty of any and every emotion.

I washed my face and went to breakfast.

I was dismayed to find Devin there, eating pancakes with blueberries, dropping pieces of bacon to the happily writhing dog at his feet.

He looked at me as if he hadn’t expected to see me, his eyebrows up as he took in my be-circled eyes, my rumpled pajamas.  At least, I thought, I had taken the time to wash my tearstained face.  Not that it mattered.

“Had to find my dog,” he was saying to his mother.

Maura flipped another pancake with a sizzle, and regarded me with concern in her beautiful eyes.

Devin, oblivious, kept talking.  “I don’t even know how he got out.  Sorry if he made a nuisance of himself.”

“Not at all,” I interrupted, trying to keep my voice steady and light.  “He slept with me all night.”

Devin paused, mid-bite, and I could see a strange emotion pass over his face, and then it was gone.  He chewed slowly, ignoring me as Maura passed me a plate of pancakes.

“Oh, Maura,” I hated how my voiced cracked as I struggled to my feet, managing to stub my toe on the table leg, “I… don’t think I could eat… thank you.”

I fled, like the coward I was.

It was misty outside.  The water lapped up against the long dock that led from the house and I sat dangling my legs into the soothing cold.  I felt the fear, the anger, the hurt flow from me as soon as I touched the sea.

The salt spray sent warm shivers through my body and I leaned down, resting my cheek against the wood of the dock as I trailed my hands in the water, savoring the touch, the smell, the taste in my mouth.

I longed to sink under the frigid waves, to let them close over my head, to feel that icy peace… to let go.

“Get away from there.”  Devin’s voice was harsh, cruel, and I snapped back to sitting upright, scarcely aware of how close I had been to slipping altogether into the waves.

Why should he care anyway?

“You know how dangerous the sea is for you,” he said, angrily.  “Can’t you just leave it alone?”

I jerked back, stung by his tone as well as his words.  “What does it matter?” I demanded, hotly.  “Why should it matter to you if I did… go to the sea?  You h…hate me!”

“I don’t want you in my thrall,” he said angrily, ignoring my question.  “I don’t need a selkie-daughter hanging all over me because I have a touch of the Old Magic.”

I flinched back, feeling as though he had physically assaulted me, thrusting me from him.  My face burned with shame, though I couldn’t understand what it was that I had done that would merit such a response from him.

“I don’t understand,” I told him, hugging my arms across my chest, feeling the sting of tears burn my eyes.  I didn’t want to cry in front of him. He could never see how much he could hurt me.

“Of course you don’t,” he shouted.  “You’re as naïve and innocent as a morning glory, and you will choke me just as surely.”

“I don’t want to hurt you,” I whispered, feeling suddenly cold and very alone.

“But you will, whether you mean to or not.  It’s in your nature, in your blood.  You will fall for me just because I… I want you to.”  His face was suddenly very white, the rage all gone from him, replaced with desperation.  “And the sea will call you, the other side will claim you, and it will be stronger than even my desire for you.”

“I’m not a selkie!” I protested.  “Doesn’t my father’s blood count for something?”

Devin’s shoulders hunched together and he turned away, his face falling into shadow.

“I don’t know.”

Frustration filled me.  It was one thing for Devin to despise me, That had hurt enough. But for him to hate me because he felt like I did—because he felt that attraction, that stung far more. He acted as if I had forced him to care, when I had never asked anything of him. Did he hate me or care? How would I ever be able to tell?

Surely, he had been contradicting himself for as long as I had known him. He had been caring and kind in actions, unkind and brief in words.

I had thought he hated me.

But he didn’t, and that was so much worse.

I clenched and unclenched my hands, feeling my jaw work. I didn’t know if I was hurt or angry. I wanted to claw at his face. I wanted to scream at him, to throw his own words back in his face, to show him how cruel he was being.

He hated me for a mother I had never known. He hated me because he couldn’t hate me.

I whirled around and ran as fast as I could. The beach pebbles tore at my feet. I embraced the physical pain -- it was easier to bear.

I felt like every word he had spoken had been a scourge, opening up barely healing wounds in my soul. I was alone in the world. I already knew that, but in Devin I had seen hope for something more. I had bared my soul to him and he had struck me with his words, sending me reeling.

The sea called to me, singing of peace and oblivion. It wanted me, even if Devin didn’t. It didn’t care who I was or who my parents were, it loved me. I knew that it did.

Was it too much to ask him to care?

Did my heritage make me unworthy of love? How could that be? I had never even known about my mother. Could she have shaped the very essence of who I was, merely by existing? I was my father’s daughter, wasn’t I? It was he who had raised and loved me. He who had taught me to live. He had been so very mortal.

My feet thumped hollowly against the wood of the dock. I raced towards the edge, imagining the ocean with its arms wide open, accepting me as its own.

I stopped there, gasping, staring down at rippling water below.

“I don’t belong anywhere,” I whispered in despair.  “I want to be here with Devin, but I can’t… because he can’t trust me because of what I am.”

I dropped my face into my hands.  The unfairness of it all overwhelmed me.  Was I destined never to have a home, to have love again, just because of my heritage?

And part of me wondered if Devin was right, maybe I was wrong for him, maybe all that I could give him was heartache and pain.