Ashes on the Waves (30 page)

Time stopped. Nothing could surpass this moment. Pure exquisite emotion flowed through her hands to my heart.

“How long a term?” Muireann whispered. “You have to specify a length of bonding.”

I was too overcome to answer. I couldn’t even draw breath.

“Forever,” Anna said, still staring into my eyes. “Forever, Liam.”

I shook my head. She didn’t understand. This was real. Irrevocable. “You only need to do this for a month and a day.”

Her hand trembled in mine. “What don’t you understand, Liam? Look around. We’re on a beach with a Selkie and floating golden magical screeching things. This isn’t business as usual. This is meant to happen. Fated. I want you forever. If you don’t want me, tell me now. Don’t screw around with me. Don’t keep anticipating my needs or predicting my future regrets. I know what I need and want. What do
you
want?”

“Oh! Oh, I really like her,” Muireann said. “No wonder you told me you could love no one else.”

The Bean Sidhes had fallen silent, leaving only the lapping of the sea and my breathing to accompany my racing mind and heart. Surely this was a dream. A marvelous dream from which I would wake at any moment because it was too perfect to be real.

“What is it going to be, Liam?” Muireann asked.

I stared at the girl I had loved all my life, her pale skin and raven hair reflecting the moon, far more beautiful than a dream could be. There was no other sane response. “Forever,” I whispered.

Muireann squeaked in delight and tied the loose ends together again. “Okay, this is the part where you pledge yourselves to each other for the amount of time you have agreed upon.”

The Bean Sidhes chanted and Muireann translated. “So as this knot is tied, your souls will be likewise bound upon your declaration to make it so.” She nodded to me.

I stared into Anna’s blue eyes. “I wish to be bound to you forever. In this life and whatever comes after.”

“Yes, forever. Eternity,” Anna said, and at the moment the words were uttered, a gale-force wind swept around us, lifting sand and smaller particles with it to where we were forced to close our eyes. Anna buried her face in my chest, our bound hands clenched tightly. It felt as though the ground beneath us had shifted or fallen away completely and we were falling end over end. The Bean Sidhes’ cries sounded distant and the temperature dropped to where our teeth chattered. Just when I thought I could no longer bear it, the earth around us became solid again and a complete wash of warmth filled my body. I opened my eyes. We were on our knees, hands still bound.

“Wow,” Anna said. “That was trippy.”

Neither Muireann nor the Bean Sidhes were anywhere in sight. The jacket was laid over a rock and the sopping T-shirt was still in a heap on the beach where it had been discarded.

“So, what do we do about this?” Anna lifted our bound hands.

“We try to extricate ourselves without breaking the knots.”Àthe knot Which would be difficult with my useless hand.

She made her snort-through-her-nose sound. “Supernatural Celtic creepies’ version of a Chinese finger trap, huh?” She looped her finger through the section around my right wrist and pulled some slack. “Can you pull your hand out?”

It worked, and with the removal of that hand, the rest became looser and slipped off easily.

“Okay,” she said in a voice imitative of Muireann’s, “this is the part where we sneak back into the house and we celebrate all night long, right?”

I answered by passing her the candle from the jacket I had just slipped on.

The way back up the tunnel seemed half as long as it had been on our way out. We could hear banging and Miss Ronan shouting before we even entered her room. “Miss Leighton. I have strict orders from your parents that Mr. MacGregor is not to be in this house after nightfall. Stop ignoring me and open this door.”

I shoved the dresser back in place in front of the hidden panel, leaned against it, and pulled Anna to me.

“He must leave!”

Anna’s body molded to mine. A perfect fit in all ways. I captured her mouth in a kiss.

“Open the door! I’ll call your parents. They won’t like this.”

Whatever had occurred during the bonding had left me single-minded. I wanted Anna—I needed her. And I certainly wasn’t going to let Brigid Ronan get in the way. Anna groaned as I pulled away. “Hold that thought,” I said.

When I opened the door, Miss Ronan gasped. “You are wearing his clothes again.” Her eyes narrowed. “How dare you! Leave this minute.”

I kept my voice low and level, leaning down to meet her eyes directly. “I understand and appreciate your position, but let me make mine perfectly clear. I’m not leaving tonight. If you feel compelled to report this to Anna’s parents, by all means, do so. If your intention is to bodily eject me yourself, attempt it now. Otherwise, I want you to go away and not bother us again. Have I made my position clear to you?”

Her face flushed red. “You have no idea what you are doing. What kind of danger you are in. Both of you.”

I stood up straight, fightin
g the urge to shout, keeping my voice barely above a whisper. “Every day I live is an unexpected gift. I’ve been in danger from the moment I was born. You’ve made sure of that. Go now, and leave us be.”

Her mouth opened as if she were going to protest, but she clamped it shut, spun around, and stomped down the stairs.

I locked the door, feeling unstoppable. Brigid Ronan had backed completely down and I faced a night alone with the most perfect human being on the planet. Even if the Cailleach took me this very night, I had succeeded in taking control of my life and getting what I wanted. And at that moment, more than anything in the world, I wanted Anna Leighton.

Anna grinned. “Wow, Liam. Well done.”

I ran my lips along her neck and she wrapped her arms around me. “I do other things well too.”

She took my face in her hands. “Wait a minute. Is this the same guy who told me he was terrified?”

“No. That was someone entirely different,” I said. “Now that I have your love, I’ve nothing to fear. Not in this world, or the one that comes after.” I switched off theÀtched of light and the moonlight that streamed through the stained glass danced across her skin in a dreamlike kaleidoscope. “With you, I’m completely within my comfort zone.”

“Villains!” I shrieked, “dissemble no more!”

—Edgar Allan Poe,
from “The Tell-Tale Heart,” 1843

M
uireann was thrilled. She had finally done something to help her Liam. Something that would keep him safe from the Na Fir Ghorm. What good would it do to split them apart if their souls were bound forever?

Forever! She twirled around and took another breath before diving under. Liam’s female was strong and wonderful and worthy of him. Surely now, the Na Fir Ghorm would drop the wager. The Bean Sidhes said they didn’t even care about winning; they just didn’t want the Na Fir Ghorm to hurt the humans.

Muireann swam to the entrance of the cave and let air out through her mouth. She wished she could breathe and speak underwater like the Na Fir Ghorm. In the darkness, she couldn’t see the column of bubbles rising to the surface, but she could hear it. She hoped the creatures inside the cave could hear it too because there was no way she was going to swim inside.

It worked. One of them came to the entrance. “The Selkie has hailed us,” he called into the cave.

Releasing all of her breath while that deep made her a little light-headed, but she didn’t have time to waste. Empty lungs stinging, she shot to the surface and sucked in the sweet air. She needed to get to the island so that she was not out in open water when they emerged from their cave. Even though the Otherworld laws forbade them to kill her, the Na Fir Ghorm had never been ones to adhere to rules. Hopefully, they would listen to logic.

The Bean Sidhes hovered above the rocky ledge, waiting. Muireann propelled out of the water, landing on her belly with an
oof.
She shuffled and wiggled away from the water. Legs would have been helpful at this moment, she thought as she turned to face her enemy. “They are coming,” she said to the nebulous golden forms overhead.

Their only acknowledgment was an increase in brightness.

The moon had reached its high point and the air was almost still. Muireann scanned the water. They should have emerged by now.

Then, one at a time, heads popped through the water’s surface, only feet away from the ledge. “Why have you interrupted us?” the leader asked. He tipped his face up toward the Bean Sidhes. “Ah, I see your allies are not hiding and spying this time.”

Muireann took a deep breath, gathering her courage. “I’ve gathered you here to make one final plea for resolution. The Bean Sidhes are willing to let the wager go, dropping it entirely, in an effort to spare the humans any more hardship.”

“You must know something we don’t. You must be aware the humans are too weak to prevail, so you are trying to help your friends out by mediating and begging a truce.” He put his clawed, webbed hands on the ledge and pulled slightly out of the water. “We will not back down.”

“Why? They have proven themselves worthy. They have endured and passed every test. Leave them alone,” Muireann pleaded.

The leader lƀowered himself back into the water, smiling. “You are in love with the human male.” He laughed. “It just gets better and better! Now when we break him completely, we will be breaking you as well, you meddlesome, worthless creature.”

“They are bonded,” one of the Bean Sidhes shrieked.

The Na Fir Ghorm bobbing at the surface exchanged glances. The leader stared up at the Bean Sidhes. His expression transformed from surprise to rage. “How dare you!”

This was why Muireann had asked the Bean Sidhes to let her do the talking. She had hoped to not let the Na Fir Ghorm know about the bonding unless it was absolutely necessary. Since the female had returned and the couple was reunited, she had hoped the Na Fir Ghorm would see the strength of their love and simply allow the wager to be dropped. The bonding was the last resort. The secret weapon.

“They are ineligible,” he shouted.

Muireann moved closer to the ledge. “No, with his lineage, they qualified.”

“How came they to be bonded? Who witnessed it?” he asked.

One of the Bean Sidhes materialized from a cloud in her female form. “We witnessed it.”

He slapped his hand on the surface of the water. “Who officiated? If it was Brigid Ronan, I’ll see to it she dies a miserable human death.”

Another Bean Sidhe joined in form with the first. “Who officiated is of no matter. What matters is that they are bonded for all time. Whatever happens, they cannot be separated.”

“You broke the rules of the wager by interfering in this manner. We claim victory.”

“We interfered no more than you did with the fake letter and the Selkie going ashore. You also have not informed us of each test as you initiated it. Since they are bonded, the wager is no longer valid.”

The leader grinned and Muireann shuddered. “The test was of human love, not the inclination of the immortal soul. Despite this little setback, their human love can still fail. We intend to make that happen.”

“Please let them live in peace,” Muireann pleaded.

“With the added pleasure of watching the Selkie suffer along with them.”

“What do you intend?” a Bean Sidhe asked.

“Well, they overcame obstacles already in place—differences in lifestyle and interests as well as the disapproval of her family. Then they withstood more difficult tests of distance, jealousy, and infidelity.” He shrugged. “We’ve no choice but to move on to physical trials.”

Muireann’s heart stopped when she considered th
e horrible range of possibilities.

“What manner of trial?”

A grin spread across his face. “Sickness. The moment one becomes weakened and a burden rather than a pleasure to the other, the human love will snap as easily as a fishing line.”

“No!” Muireann hadn’t intended to blurt it out, but the thought of her Liam suffering illness was too much. “Please don’t do this.”

The leader laughed. “You are soft, Selkie. Your love for this human male is amusing.”

She trembled.

“Very well then. We shall spare him.”

She almost fainted from relief.

size="-1">“We’ll strike the girl instead.”

This was almost worse. Liam would rather be afflicted himself than watch his female suffer.

“Let this go,” a Bean Sidhe cried. “This is not a fair wager. Torturing them is not a test of love. It is wrong and outside the rules of the Otherworld.”

“Fair? Did you say it’s not fair?” he shouted. “There is a human saying that applies: ‘All is fair in love and war.’” He turned to look at his clan and then thrust a fist into the air. “This is war!”

The wind came out of the cloud by night

Chilling . . . my Annabel Lee.

—Edgar Allan Poe,
from “Annabel Lee,” 1849

T
he sea was eerily placid and the air unseasonably still. The morning sun, as if to make up for this ominous condition, threw golden ribbons across the water, creating brilliant sparkles that reflected off Anna’s skin.

She had surprised me with a picnic breakfast on a large flat boulder near the end of the jetty. She lay on her back on the checkered blanket, eyes closed, listening as the waves gently caressed the rocks around us.

I would never tire of looking at her. Lying on my side, I skimmed my fingers down her arm. She smiled. No one had ever been as happy as I was at that moment.

A boat horn sounded to the north. It would certainly be the supply boat we had been expecting for days. I sat up. “I need to go help Francine.”

Anna rolled to her side and draped her arm over my lap. “No, you don’t.”

“Okay, I’ll rephrase it. I
should
go help Francine.”

She opened her eyes, which were as clear and blue as the sea surrounding us, and my heart stuttered. No love had ever been greater than ours. I was certain of it.

“How will I manage?” she teased, running her hand under my shirt.

I grinned. “With great fortitude and conviction.” Which is what it would take to force me to leave her at this moment. The boat horn blew again, announcing its arrival in the harbor. “I’ll come back as soon as it’s been unloaded and reloaded.” I removed her hand from under my shirt and kissed the inside of her wrist. “Hold that thought.”

She grumbled and rolled again to her back, frowning.

Reluctantly, I stood. “Do you want me to help you carry things back to the house?”

“No, it’s just a basket and a blanket.” She opened her eyes. “Unless having you help me would keep you from going to work . . .” She winked.

The thought of leaving her was painful, but actually walking away was worse. I looked back when I made it to the base of the jetty. Lying there in the sun with her hair fanned out on the blanket, she was as beautiful as any angel. The emptiness and sorrow I felt at parting wasn’t due to any premonition or sense of dread; it was simply feeling as though I was missing part of myself—a critical part. Perhaps this was the result of the bonding. Maybe it was simply love in its purest form.

* * *

Muireann spotted Liam as he entered the harbor. He didn’t stay long in Francine’s store before he came out to where a boat had moored to the dock. For a while, he helped two men unload boxes and crates from the deck, then reloaded it with items as Francine marked on a piece of paper.

She needed to warn him of the Na Fir Ghorm’s plan but didn’t really know what to warn against. How did a human become ill? She would shed her pelt and tell him all she knew as soon as the boat left, she decided.

Thunder cracked from the northeast. Strange, she thought, since the weather was sunny and clear.

The men from the boat studied the sky. “Weird,” one said. “There are no thunderclouds and no storms predicted.”

“Let’s load up quick,” the other said. “Better get moving in case something churned up unexpectedly.”

Muireann was pleased. She wanted them to go away as soon as possible so that she could talk to Liam. She slipped from behind the boat around the bow to get a better look at him. He paused and stared at her. He let the device on wheels he was pushing rest against his waist. “Is that you, Muireann?”

She nodded and he smiled. If only he could understand her in her seal form, this would be so much easier. Despite the fact that she swam in agitated circles, he continued to smile, then resumed pushing the item on wheels to the boat. She had to be sure he didn’t go back into the store after the boat left. She didn’t want to have to go up on land for fear the Na Fir Ghorm were watching.

After way too much time and many more trips, Francine wrote on a piece of paper the first man handed her and he thanked her. Thunder cracked again, and from the direction of the large dwelling, black clouds hung low in the sky.

The boat pulled away, and as soon as Muireann was certain the men on board wouldn’t see her, she moved to the stairs and stripped her pelt below her shoulders. “Liam!” she cried just before he entered the back of the store. “Liam!”

Francine grabbed his shirt. “She’s trouble, I tell you.”

He removed her hand. “No. She’s helping me. Something’s wrong.”

A crack of thunder split the sky and Liam flinched, then ran to where Muireann clung to the stairs, only half transformed.

As he kneeled down, the black clouds expanded and blocked the sun, causing it to appear as though it was dusk.

“I’m here to warn you,” she said. “You need to protect your female. They intend to cause her harm.”

Lightning shot through the sky, making everything stark white before it fell back into dusky darkness.

“Who?” he yelled over the rumbling thunder.

She had nothing to hide any longer. “The Na Fir Ghorm. They made a wager with the Bean Sidhes. You and your mate are the objects of the wager. They’ll hurt her, Liam. They’ll kill her.”

“Dear God.” He ran his hand through his hair. “What else do you know?”

The Bean Sidhes’ shrieks drowned out the cracks of thunder. “Go now!” one screamed. “This is our fault!” cried another. They swirled around him in a tight circle screaming warnings and laments.

Liam shot to his feet. “What is it, Muireann? What are they saying?”

She could hardly see him through her tears. “They say you must go to her now and they blame themselves. I’m so sorry, Liam.”

The tortured look on his face would haunt her, she knew, until her last living breath.

* * *

I’d never run so fast in my life. What had been a sunny day transformed into inky night, broken by terrifying flashes of lightning and deafening thunder. As I neared Taibhreamh, stinging sleet showered down, making the path slick with ice and almost impossible to traverse. The air had become so cold, my teeth chattered. This was no ordinary storm. It was Otherworldly.

Near blackness had enveloped our tiny island, and the precipitation reduced my visibility to almost nothing. I prayed that Anna was safely in the mansion, tucked in her warm bed, watching a movie on her iPad. Something deep inside me knew this was remote. Far down in my soul, I felt her distress. I tripped on something in the path, tangling my foot in it. I reached down and grabbed the ice-coated picnic blanket that must have blown up here in the gale-force wind.
Anna.

“Where is she?” I shouted at no one. “Help me!” I screamed to the darkness.

The trail to the jetty was off to the left, but in the darkness and punishing sleet, I couldn’t see it. I crawled on my knees, feeling for it with numb, cold fingers.

Lightning crackled in webs through the sky, and the jetty became visible. All around it, a dozen or so creatures that appeared to be human-like twirled in the waves with their arms raised to the sky. Anna was nowhere in sight. “Anna!” I screamed. It had to be the Na Fir Ghorm. Only this time, it appeared they had claimed her. “No!” Again, lightning flashed, illuminating the jetty. I saw her just a few yards out from the base on the beach at the water’s edge. “Anna!”

Slipping and sliding more than anything else, I descended the trail, clothes and skin shredding on the rocks and vegetation.

In darkness, I stumbled to the base of the jetty and headed to where I had seen her. My feet stung as if perforated by needles and my breath came in shuddering gasps through chattering teeth.

“Anna!” I screamed, helpless in the darkness to locate her. I found the water’s edge, not by sight or feel because my feet were too numb with cold, but by sound. I heard my boots splashing. I knew she was somewhere just ahead of me. Not wanting to kick her accidentally, I crawled on my knees, hand outstretched in front of me. There. As cold as the water, I found her, stiff and rigid as a corpse. “Demons!” I shouted. “Devils!” They had conjured this storm.

I pulled her into my lap and felt her neck. A flutter of a pulse flickered below my numb fingers. Perhaps it was my own pulse instead. “No!” I screamed.

As quickly as they had come, the clouds dissipated. I squinted as the sun streaked through holes in their dissolving forms. Melting ice covered the beach. In my arms, Anna appeared like a painting in which the colors were all wrong. Her lips had a sickly bluish hue that I’d never seen in nature. Ice clung to her tangled hair. “No,” I sobbed, still rocking her body against mine. “Why didn’t you take me?” I screamed. “Why not me?”

Miss Ronan got to me first but said nothing. Francine had plenty to say even before she had reached the base of the jetty. Things I’d never heard come from her lips before.

“We’ve got to get her warӀo get hemed up,” Francine said when she reached me. “Lad, turn her loose.”

I folded in tighter around Anna, racked with shudders.

“Liam, listen to me,” Francine said, pulling on my good arm, looped around Anna’s chest. “You must let us take her or she’ll die.”

“No.” I couldn’t let her go.

“You’re not thinking straight, Liam. Let us help her.”

Somewhere far away, my reason called to me and drew me back. I released my hold on Anna and she was immediately pulled away. Francine patted her back hard.

“She’s near death. Her breathing is too shallow to issue water from the lungs,” Miss Ronan said.

“Take her legs,” Francine ordered Miss Ronan. “Can you walk, lad?”

“Yes,” I answered, stiffly getting to my feet.

“Of course he can,” Miss Ronan barked, following Francine up the beach with Anna stretched between them. “He was only cold a short while.”

Deirdre met us at the door. “I’ve already heated the water bottles and collected the blankets like you told me to do, Miss Ronan,” she said as the women hauled Anna into the kitchen.

“Put a blanket on the floor, Deirdre,” Miss Ronan said, lowering Anna’s feet. “Then get me a knife from the wall. A small one.” She nodded to Francine. “Lay her down. We need to get her off her back as soon as possible in case she got water in her lungs.”

A knife in Miss Ronan’s hands was terrifying. “What are you going to do?” I asked.

She stared up at me with a look so full of malice I shuddered. “Shut up.”

“Liam, lad. Go strip out of your wet clothes and wrap in one of those blankets,” Francine said, gently cradling Anna’s head as she lowered it to the floor.

I did so as quickly as possible, then sank to my knees at Anna’s side. Miss Ronan took the knife from Deirdre and held it up to me, as if taunting. Then she ripped it through the front of Anna’s shirt and down both legs of her jeans.

“Bring a blanket,” Miss Ronan ordered Deirdre. She rolled Anna onto it on her side. “You too,” she commanded, eyes boring into mine.

“Me too what?”

“He isn’t warm enough to help her. You should use the girl,” Francine said.

Ronan glared at her. “How stupid are you? With his blood, he is already fully restored. We need him. His touch and voice will encourage her to fight.” She returned her attention to me. “Do as I say. Get next to her now.”

She ripped the blanket from me and I lay next to Anna just as I had done with Muireann. Only unlike Muireann, Anna was cold as ice all over. Francine put a blanket over us, casting aside the wet one in which I’d been wrapped.

“Bring me the water bottles,” Miss Ronan ordered. Deirdre scampered to the sink to retrieve them.

Francine brushed hair from Anna’s face. “Poor little thing. You hang in there, now.”

Miss Ronan pressed a flat rubber bladder filled with warm water against Anna’s chest and I held it in place. She put another between her upper thighs.

“Here, hand me one and I’ll put it on her feet,” Francine said to Deirdre.

“You’ll do no such thing,” Miss Ronan ordered. “She’s too far gone. You’ll kill her. It will cause her heart to stop.” She stood and shook her head. “She’ll likely die anyway.”

A sob escaped me.

“Go ahead and cry,” she said. “This is all your fault.”

“I’ll not be lettin’ you brutalize the boy, Brigid,” Francine said, her accent thick.

“He’s just like his mother. I warned him. I practically begged him to leave, but he refused. Now this.” Miss Ronan crossed her arms over her chest. “It should have been him.”

“Yes.” My voice broke. “It should’ve been me. If only it had been.” Unlike Muireann, Anna didn’t tremble or shiver. “Are you sure she’s alive?”

Miss Ronan placed her hand over Anna’s neck. “Yes, but barely.” She squatted down close to our heads. “You need to say whatever you can to encourage her to hang on to life. You’re the only thing that will bring her back at this point. Isn’t that ironic since it’s your fault she’s near death to begin with?” She stood and joined Francine and Deirdre on the other side of the kitchen.

Anna’s leg twitched and my heart leapt. “
I’m here,” I whispered in her ear. “I’ll always be here.” The leg twitched again. I continued to whisper to her for a very long time until Miss Ronan changed out the bottles for warmer ones.