Seven Tears into the Sea (21 page)

Red O'Malley's daughter, Shannon, and her husband, Eric, were last year's King and Queen of Summer. As such, they got to crown their successors.

“Haven't you grown up pretty,” Shannon said. “Now Eric, look at her. Just look. She's a redhead like me, and next to no freckles. Gwennie, every Midsummer morning of my life, they've told me rubbing my freckles with dew would remove 'em—and look. So don't go believin' all the rhymes and rituals they'll be telling you.”

“Go looking too long for fairy rings up in the hills, and you'll end up with a brood like ours,” Eric leered at his wife and waggled his eyebrows.

I'd barely regained my breath from Shannon's hug when her father gave me another. “And Gwennie, where's your young man now? You need that fish-eatin' Jesse for the games.”

“Red, you old fool, he'll be here,” Nana said.

“And where's Jack Cates?” Sadie Linnet asked. “He's supposed to bring that syllabub of his. It would be a good thing if he didn't though,” Sadie confided to me. “Or I won't go home sober.”

Jack Cates, the psychologist? Wasn't it enough that he fixed cars and brains? Did he have to go around serving that sherry and cream concoction too?

I was cursed, and that's all there was to it.

“I need to stretch my legs.”

I started walking. I paced down Nana's garden paths, looking at the signs I'd posted. I strode through the house, looking at Nana's wreaths. They hung suspended, waiting for mine to join them. I lunged out the front door where the sea horse mosaic spun, singing to itself in the darkness.

Then I took a long deep breath and pictured Dr. Cates and Jesse.

My eyes popped open.

Dr. Cates, meet my figment. My selkie, actually. Certainly, no need to apologize. I know you all thought he was imaginary. Or a child molester. And now he turns out to
be my rescuer and a real man, at that. Oh, no really, please, don't torture yourself with regrets. How were you to know?

My nerves settled. If Dr. Cates showed up, I would introduce them, because Jesse wasn't a selkie spun out of my nightmare. He existed.

I sat on Nana's front step. Pretty soon I'd be sitting here in the dark. Wood smoke, music, and shouted hocus-pocus wafted up from the beach. I should have been feeling fine. Even if I spent the night without a partner, I'd found my own magic.

Jesse existed and he remembered.

“But what if he is a selkie?” My whisper flickered out, a condensation of all today's sighs.

If I wanted to believe he was, I could find plenty of evidence. He'd walked out of the storm-tossed ocean, apparently responding to my tears. He could read minds. There was the clothesline incident. Even Nana had “seen” him when he wasn't there. And I had seen his reflection over my shoulder when no one stood behind me. Could selkies be invisible at a whim?

Of course not. I raised my hands to cover my face and shook my head. I could explain it all away. Jesse would never convince me he really was a selkie.

No, there was one way. If I didn't have to take it on faith, if I saw him change with my own eyes, then I'd believe. But he wouldn't. If that moment of transformation
had ever happened in the history of the world, wouldn't it be so vulnerable and private that a selkie could never allow a witness?

When my hands dropped into my lap, there he was.

Jesse walked down the Inn's driveway, face shining at the sight of me.

And seeing him, my heart leapt up.

L
EMON
Q
UEEN
(Santolina chamaecyparissus)

W
ith its sharply aromatic, yellow-button flowers, this plant has trouble staying in the background. Included in a bouquet, these flowers warn of false riches. Lemon Queen tends to get woody unless chopped back occasionally, but it never feels a thing. In fact, it thanks the pruner by rebounding with more profuse blooms throughout the summer.

“Your hair is so pretty.” Jesse skimmed a fingertip along the crisscrossed mesh Nana had braided from temple to temple like a headband.

“Thank you,” I said.

“Are you cold?”

“Kind of.” But he probably knew I'd shivered because he was touching me. It had nothing to do with the balmy June night.

“What about my clothes? Sadie at the bookstore said it was the thing to wear. ‘Piratical' she said.”

Jesse, you're perfect,
I thought, but I considered the black leggings and the flowing white shirt. “Do you think you'll be able to swim?”

“Of course.”

Then the front porch light went off. It must be eleven o'clock.

Why did the darkness make the smell of Nana's violets so much sweeter? When I couldn't see her, why did the stone maiden pouring water into the goldfish pond make a more musical gurgle?

But the dousing of the lights didn't happen at Jesse's command. Nana had decreed no artificial lights after eleven o'clock.

I took Jesse's hand and led him into the Inn. “Let's cut through to the beach.”

Candle wax and potpourri mixed with sea scents blowing through the open casement doors. Even in the darkness we swerved around furniture, headed for the patio, without running into anything.

Jesse didn't linger or hug me in a secret corner. He hurried.

Still holding hands, we walked down the grassy hill sloping to the packed sand bordering the waves. There were two bonfires on Sea Horse Inn grounds—a really big one, smelling of fruitwood and flowers, and another, which had been built right at the margin of the waves.

I hoped that was the one we were going to jump.

Tourists had gathered on the beach now, twenty or thirty of them, playing kazoos and singing in off-key voices. Many carried flashlights and wore hats. Cowboy hats, a horned Viking helmet, a drooping fool's cap.

The rowdy merrymakers included some townspeople, too.

A girl I'd seen before wore a belly dancer's bare-midriffed costume. She did a grapevining step around the bonfire, eyes fixed on Jesse. Her pinkish hair and heavily kohled eyes made her familiar.

“Let's go watch Red play the bagpipes,” I said, but when Jesse slowed, I asked, “Do you know her?”

“She was in the village,” Jesse said as I strode on. “She offered me some grog from a cauldron in the square.”

“I just bet she did,” I grumbled.

“… and don't forget to gaze through the flames at your lover to see his true face,” Sadie was telling some people in hiking boots.

Then everyone hushed at the bagpipe's skirl.

Red wore a tartan kilt and a plaid fastened at his left shoulder. It was easy to overlook his knobby old-man knees and everyday orneriness while he played. He cradled the leather bag as if it were a child, and though I doubt anyone knew the song, they watched, faces turned amber by firelight, falling under a spell.

“Gwennie,” Jesse pulled me against his side, arm around my waist, but it was the music that held him transfixed. His eyes widened and he leaned forward. When Gina Leoni joined in, playing a silver flute, which looked tiny in her hands, his face shone with appreciation.

And then we were swept up by hands grabbing for ours.

“Circle of arms, circle of strife, circle of blooms, circle of life.”

The chant went on, the same words over and over, reminding people that Midsummer meant both change and continuity.

We danced around one bonfire and then the next.
Two down and seven to go,
I thought. And I gazed down the black beach, seeing dozens of them, burning like pagan midnight suns as far as I could see.

“Eat these!” Some girl I'd never met closed my hand around something grainy, then did the same to Jesse. “Fern seeds to make you invisible!”

With her wide skirt bumping those around her, she flounced on down the beach.

“In the city I wouldn't think of eating these,” I told Jesse. “But here …”

“Wouldn't you like to be invisible?” he asked.

But then Nana was at my side. “Poppy seeds,” she told me, and then I turned to listen to Sadie telling the Hobbits about the solstice fires.

“In the earliest days, the fires were lit to warm the sun as it traveled on its winter journey, and some thought the height of the flames told the old gods our high hopes for our crops, or the size of the fishing catches we expected …”

“It's time for the race, Gwennie.” Shannon appeared out of the crowd, carrying a fistful of white cloth.

It turned out that all the men were gathered at one end of the beach and all the women at the other. Once the competitors were blindfolded, they had to find each other. Only one each could they shout, “King, King, come to your Queen.”

Before we parted, Jesse squeezed my hand. “See you in a minute.”

Blatting horns and fluttering ribbons marked the starting line down the beach, and all of us made our barefooted way to it. Nana kissed me as I passed.

“We are so going to win,” I told her, full of Jesse's confidence. “You'll have another crown for the mantel.”

Once I reached the starting line with the other women, we were informed that we not only had to run blindfolded, but also had to have our thumbs tied behind our backs. A tide of laughter united us as we listened for the rest of the rules.

The men would have their hands free, and their job was to untie our thumbs and run with us back to their starting line. The first couple across, won.

Just before we were all blindfolded, we saw a little girl in a princess dress who would wave a wand and set us running with some magic word.

“Go!” she shouted, and there was more laughter until we were reminded the run must be silent.

Underfoot, the wet sand felt terrific. Shoulders jostled against each other, and the scents of lavender, soap, and perfumes of every kind came together.

We could hear the men's heavy footsteps approach. First one, then a dozen voices called out, “King, King, come to your queen,” and then giggles filled the silence.

“I'm here,” said Jesse's voice before I could call him, and he untied my thumbs, removed my blindfold, and led me running, but not toward the finish line.

We splashed into the waves.

“I think we should get used to it,” he said. “Swimming's the race we want to win.”

Every competitive bone in my body protested, but I didn't really care if we won. Not that much. I cared about standing in the waves, holding Jesse's hand.

Before the swim there was a tug-o-war over the water, and though we didn't join in, we watched.

Before we could begin the swimming race, we had to wait for Shannon's husband, Eric, who'd stubbed his toe on a rock.

After five minutes of hopping and moaning, Eric recovered, and we all lined up knee-deep in the sea.

I glanced over at Jesse just as Gina Leoni's flute signaled “Go!”

Together we flew forward lined out in flat racing dives into the sea. The sound of belly-flops splashed behind us.

He matched me stroke for stroke. Each time I raised my dripping face, I saw his. My hands looked small parting the waters beside his. Instead of diving and darting, he stayed next to me until we reached the marker boat.

Its candle-lantern glazed the ocean, turning the drops of salt water on Jesse's eyelashes gold. A warm gust of wind assisted our turn, and then the magic dropped away.

I felt fingers ripping the water at my toes.

“Faster!” Jesse ordered.

It was a point of honor, I could feel it. He could have tolerated losing the footrace. But he would not be beaten here.

Riptides are ruthless, and Jesse created his own, ducking me under the surface before I'd snatched a full breath. The glow of the finish-line lantern made a shifting beam above us. We followed it through salt water, then finally burst the surface. For an instant I thought his energy would take him vaulting over the rowboat, headfirst, arching like a seal.

It didn't, of course, but I tackled him, and we met in a soaked hug before we slogged ashore. My wet blouse dragged against my arms. I staggered a step, feeling my bruised ankle for the first time all night.

“Are you all right?” Jesse's arm went around me, warm through the wet fabric.

“I'm fine if you don't count how loony we both are to attempt that jump!”

There was the small bonfire before us, and it wasn't that small.

Now that all of us stood shivering, staring at it, I felt glad our clothes were wet. We might not be so combustible. A good thing, too, that we got a running start from the shore and leapt into the sea. That might put out any trailing flames.

Just do it, I told myself. Like each dive I'd tried for the first time, this one was a leap of faith. And I had something really good going for me this time. I didn't care about winning.

“Farther,” I said when Jesse wanted to stop just a few yards from the fire. We backed up for a longer running start.

“All right?” he asked as I ran in place with eyes fixed on the flames.