An Otherworld Novella
YASMINE GALENORN
An áit a bhuil do chroí is ann a thabharfas do chosa thú.
Your feet will bring you to where your heart is.
— CELTIC SAYING
The sea gives and the sea takes away.
—GRANDFATHERTO FIONA CONNEELY
FROM
THE SECRET OF ROAN INISH
1
I stared out over the water as the call of the waves sang to me. They raced in my blood, enticing me to shed my humanity and dive deep, to return to the Mother’s core. The Ocean Mother’s presence was strong here, and she was a part of me now, a part of my life like she’d never been on the distant shores of my old home. I’d lived long enough on the western coast of Washington State to realize that my old life was slowly receding into the past for good.
Oh, I was a lot older than the one hundred and one years that had passed since I first set foot on Ellis Island, claiming the United States as my new home, but my past was retreating, and I wasn’t sorry to see the memories fade, like aging photographs. Over the intervening years, life had shifted and changed drastically, and so had I. But now… now I felt ready to settle in as my true self. To fully adopt this land as my home, this life as my fate.
And even more, I was ready to step out of the closet and tell my neighbors, my employer, and the world who I really was. For the first time in my life since I fled under the cover of night to the waiting boat, I was ready to step out and say, I’m Siobhan Morgan, and I’m a selkie, a wereseal if you will. I’m part of the Supe Community and I’m not going to hide anymore.
Life in this country had treated me well. Oh, there had been setbacks and downfalls, but now… I patted the rounded curve of my belly, which up until the last few months had always been flat and toned. Now there was life within me, and I had everything I ever wanted.
“Little daughter,” I whispered to the presence within. “I’ve waited a long, long time for you. I just wish I could bring you into a world that wasn’t so hostile and angry.”
As if in reply, a faint kick from a tiny foot answered back. Or was it a flipper? Mitch and I would have to talk to the midwife before long to get clear on everything that would happen to me—and the child—during the birthing. I knew I would have her in the water, with the mothers of the Pod surrounding me. But beyond that, I wasn’t sure. Mitch and I had tried for so long to get pregnant, our hopes dashed time and again. And now, it was really happening, thanks to the elfin med ics that my friends—the D’Artigo sisters—had hooked me up with.
As I blinked against the gray clouds that were threatening a downpour during the autumn afternoon, my cell phone rang. I flipped it open, expecting to hear Mitch’s voice—he was the only one who knew where I was right now—but to my surprise, a deeper voice answered.
“Siobhan? Siobhan Morgan?”
Crap. I let out a cry and dropped the phone, staring at the glowing screen. Should I pick it up again? Could I be wrong? Could it be someone else? Praying I’d made a mistake, I cautiously retrieved the phone from the ground and slowly raised it to my ear.
“Who’s speaking, please?”
“You know damned well who I am. Don’t play dumb.” His accent had faded, as had my own, but it was the same rough tone I’d run away from all those years ago.
“Terry? Is that you?”
“Yeah, it’s Terrance. And before you hang up—because I know you’re thinking about it—let me leave you with this thought: I’ve been tracking you down, girl. For a hundred years, I’ve searched for you. And now that I’ve found you, I’m going to make sure you live up to your end of the bargain.”
I caught my breath. It couldn’t be him. Not after a hundred years. I’d crossed the ocean to get away from him, and then crossed the continent. I’d run so far, so fast, leaving everything behind, that I could barely remember the days before I landed in New York.
What the hell was I going to do?>
“It wasn’t my bargain, Terry. I didn’t make the arrangements, and I didn’t agree to them. In fact, if you’ll recall, I wanted you prosecuted by the Tribunal. But so much for justice. I claim my freedom. I claim injury by what you did to me that night. So you might as well turn around and go back home to Cobh, because I’ll never set foot on her shores again.”
“Babe, I left Ireland to find you, and I swore I’d make it happen, no matter how long it took. I’ve been home a few times, but I’ve spent most of the years combing this land. And now I know where you are. You can dance around the issue all you like, but the facts are simple. Even though you ran away and signed up with another Pod, your parents struck a contract with my parents, and you’re honor bound to fulfill it. Siobhan Morgan, you’re going to marry me. You belong to me, and I’m coming to get you. So resign yourself to your fate, because you’ll not get away from me this time. I’ll track you down no matter where you go.”
With that, the line went dead. I pressed my knuckles to my lips. I’d spent the past century moving from place to place, lying about who I was, darting glances over my shoulder to make sure Terry hadn’t followed me.
After twenty-five years, I felt a glimmer of hope.
After fifty years, I began to believe I’d managed to escape and went back to using my own name.
And after ninety, I relaxed, and that was when I met Mitch and fell in love. For most of the intervening years, technology had been in its youth, and until recently, tracking down someone who didn’t want to be found had been a whole lot harder. Until the Internet, I thought. That must be how he found me.
I flipped the phone shut and shoved it in my pocket as a drizzle began to splash to the ground, trickling down my cheeks like tears. The taste of acid rain burnt my tongue as I caught one of the fat drops and swallowed it. Water used to be pure. Water used to be sacred. Now, even in the depths of the oceans, it was tainted. But still, the Ocean Mother persevered. She rolled in waves across the face of the world. She sang to my blood and reminded me of what I was.
The sky lit up with a dizzying flash of lightning and I shook my head, clearing my thoughts as I dashed for the car. A roll of thunder rumbled overhead as I sat there, clutching the steering wheel, wondering what to do.
Mitch would know, if I could bring myself to tell him. And now that we were pregnant, surely the Pod elders would come around and help us out. But somewhere deep in my heart, I knew that I’d lied. I’d lied to all of them. Would that change how they felt about me? Whatever happened, I’d never willingly give myself over to Terry. I’d die first. In fact, at one time, I’d tried and failed.
“Siobhan Morgan, you won’t be defying your father.” Mother shoved me back into my chair. She looked harried and tense, and I had the feeling she hadn’t expected me to protest. “Terrance Fell is your betrothed and you will marry him. Your father and I gave our word. You’re honor bound to uphold our promise.”
I closed my eyes and leaned my head against the back of the rocking chair. The walls were in need of patching, and the roof leaked, and my mother was trying desperately to sweep the floor but the dirt and sand were thick.
We’d moved into the house six years before, when Father first brought the family out of the Orkney Islands, where we were starving, to the streets of Queenstown in Ireland. The dirt here smelled nasty, unlike the clean tang of the dirt in our old home. The house was always dusty, and too close to too many humans. I longed for the sound of rolling waves cresting on the coast of the islands, but here we had food, and my brothers and father could find work. We lived on the outskirts of the city, near the cove, keeping to ourselves as most of the roane did.
That was what our people were called here—the roane, rather than selkies, but I stubbornly held on to the name I’d grown up with. Selkie was comforting and familiar; roane was strange and confusing. As confusing as the ways of the city and the bustle of so many humans wandering through the streets. After six years, I’d adapted to living in their midst, but now I wished I’d never seen the streets of Queenstown.