Page 4 of Crown of Tides and Fury

I grimaced. “I’m afraid I don’t know what selkies are.”

“The seal people,” she said with a straight face. “Once every seven years, they’re allowed to come and live among us as the pretty folk. They leave their skins in caves and if ye can find one and hide it, they cannae return to the sea.Ever. And if one ofthe otherskisses ye under water, ye cannae be drowned!” She scrunched up her nose and laughed, like she’d rather drown herself than be kissed at all.

I made the same face. “I don’t know if I could kiss a seal.”

She giggled herself silly, explaining between breaths, “Not the seals. Themerfolk!”

What surprised me the most was that Annag never once corrected her granddaughter, never once suggested that mermaids and selkies weren’t real. And I half-wished I could tag along on that boat trip, just to see if even those fairytales were true. After all I’d seen, I wouldn’t bet against anything Disney deemed worthy of a movie.

* * *

Tarbat Ness wasthe fifth lighthouse we’d come across as we’d made our way along the coast. Starting at the northernmost point, we’d spent time at Muckle Flugga, Fair Isle, Stroma, and Duncansby. Each one had taken my breath away in one way or another. The lighthouses I’d hung on the walls of my apartment had been just a symbol, a goal to make it to the coast one day. I never expected them to be so massive nor so charming.

Since we’d never found a Muir witch in the vicinity of the first four, I’d worried we’d have to visit all of the nearly two dozen on the Scotland side of the North Sea. But luck seemed to have struck, and the four of us were flying high all day, hopeful Annag was the particular witch we’d been searching for. And if she was, and she understood what we needed, we could finally take a break from the coast. Maybe even go home for a while.

Home meant Oxford, not that it was technically home for any of us. But it was our current headquarters. And since our little hunting party had become an odd sort of family, headquarters was all the home we would know for a while. I was eager to spend time with my other friends. I assumed Wickham, Persi, and Kitch needed the same things I did—a change of scenery and some fresh conversation.

We’d arrived after dark the night before, so we took the day to get a good look around. The Tarbat Ness Lighthouse was a classic red and white striped tower that stood at the end of a promontory. An immaculately groomed yard surrounded it and was itself enclosed by a low wall of gray stones, perfectly straight and ancient, as if every generation of lighthouse keepers had suffered from OCD.

Or maybe it was just boredom. Nothing to do but maintain the wall and make sure the grass was uniform in length.

Outside those perfect confines, a wild pink sea of heather rolled and flowed in all directions, ending where the ground turned to rock and led to the water’s edge. A constant trickle of tourists cut through that pinkness on a path from Portmahomack, a larger town three miles away.

We were told we were too early for the real excitement, when the migratory birds from Scandinavia brought the impressive crowds. But it seemed the seals and dolphins were enough entertainment to keep everyone happy until then.

I’d been watching seals and dolphins long enough. And orcas. It was time for a mermaid to stir things up.Anything!Then I reminded myself that this lighthouse-stalking business might be coming to a close. Maybe that very night. The anticipation was killing me.

Nine o’clock seemed a lifetime away!

Unlike the other lighthouses, we didn’t have to bother getting to know the locals, didn’t need to get chummy and stick around for a while, so we could find out if the witch we sought might be nearby. To be honest, it was nice to just relax. But relaxing at the cottage meant one of two things. I’d either fall asleep or I’d end up obsessing about every moment I’d spent with Griffon and wondering where I might have missed something.

To avoid both those possibilities, I wandered over to the café, ordered a coke, and found a booth out of the way. Around four in the afternoon, Persi joined me and together, we watched the staff decorate one corner of the dining room with garlands and balloons. The tablecloth they spread on the center table was covered with mermaids. Sand from a purple bucket was dumped in the center, then the bucket was set on the pile. Around the base, a girl placed handfuls of shells.

From the ceiling, young men hung sea-green and blue ribbons. They then tied little stuffed animals on the ends of a few—a seal, a starfish, and a sea horse. They floated two feet above the bucket. A two-tiered birthday cake with purple and blue sugar bubbles was placed next to the sand. A mermaid’s tail stuck out of the top.

The staff stepped back to admire their work and we clapped. The girl came past our table.

“The perfect birthday for a five-year-old,” I said. “She’s going to love it.”

“Thank ye,” the girl said, “but Fallon is easy to please.”

Persi laughed. “Easy to please? A five-year-old?”

The girl rolled her eyes and chuckled. “Right, then. Let’s saymostof the time.”

* * *

Since it was too earlyfor dinner, Persi and I went for a walk along the shore. We ended up at the end of the promontory chucking rocks into the waves. It was a habit now, and a competition, though it was nearly impossible to skip a rock more than once or twice between waves.

“I wonder what Alwyn’s cooking for dinner tonight,” I said. Alwyn was the Welsh chef at Hope House, what we called the estate in Oxford.

“Anything but fish,” Persi said, wistful. “But it won’t matter. Even if Annag is our witch, it will probably take some time to convince her to give up her power to strangers.”

I had been keeping a worry to myself for a while, and I finally had to share it with someone. Especially now, when the witch we sought had a name and a face…and a granddaughter.

“What do you think Wickham will do…if she refuses?”

Persi’s eyes cut to mine, and I realized I hadn’t been the only one worrying. “He’s the chieftain, right? The Grandfather? Don’t we all have to like…obey him or something?”

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