The Selkie Spell (Seal Island Trilogy) Read Online Free PDF Page A

head.  “Been empty for years.”
    “I thought I saw a woman here earlier.”  Tara squinted into the darkness.  “But it was only for a second.”
    “What did she look like?”
    “I can’t remember.  Long, dark hair?  Maybe…  She might have been wearing a white dress?”  Tara turned toward Caitlin.  “But that’s crazy, isn’t it?  Who would wear a white dress when it’s this cold out?”
    Only one person she could think of, Caitlin thought, gazing at the dark windows of the cottage.  But that was just a tale for the tourists, wasn’t it?  She pushed open the car door, shaking off the crazy thought.  “Want to see inside?”
    Tara nodded.  But when she reached for the handle she felt that same jolt of energy she’d felt when she stepped off the ferry earlier.  Gazing down at her hand, she shook off the strange sensation and pushed open the door.
     
    ***
     
    Caitlin’s tail lights faded down the hill and Tara turned away from the window, taking in the cozy furniture, tidy kitchen and charmingly mismatched throw rugs.  Colorful bowls of seashells were scattered throughout the room and stained glass pendants hung from the windows.  Tracing a finger over the shiny surface of the breakfast table tucked into the nook beside the fireplace, she flashed back to the places she’d slept for the past few weeks.  The damp basement in Amsterdam.  The drafty attic in Rome.  She breathed in the silence.  There were no horns honking, no sirens wailing, no trash bins in the alley below.  There were only miles of ocean and cool, clean air.
    Pinch yourself, Tara.  Pinch yourself and wake up.  And all of it will be gone.
    A movement, a silvery flash out the window caught her eye and she crossed the room. Drawing the gauzy curtain aside, she saw nothing but the fog slithering across the ground and she turned away, but another flicker of light caught her eye and when a shadow passed over the sill, a chill ran down her spine.
    Sliding the knife out of her back pocket, she crossed the room and quietly opened the front door.  Stepping out into the darkness, she crept around to the back of the house and lifted the blade, her knuckles white around the handle.  But when she rounded the back wall, she froze.
    A woman, a whisper of white against the night, stood with her toes curled around the edge of the cliff, gazing out to the sea. Hundreds of feet below, the ocean broke over the cliff wall, spilling over sharp, jagged rocks. With each crest the woman inched closer to the edge and the pearls sewn into her dress unraveled and fell, rattling and rolling over the edge, tumbling into the sea.
    Seaweed wrapped around the woman’s wrists, dripping green-tinted water onto the grass. Glittering seashells sprang up at her feet. Sea water dripped from her long black hair, sand spilled from her pockets, and when she turned, Tara saw the tears falling from her cold green eyes.
    But it wasn’t the tears that had Tara’s blood running cold.  It was the woman’s face—Tara’s face.
    The woman stopped, looked at Tara, and seemed to see all the way inside her. Her dress whipped around her ankles like darting silver-fish. Her hair caught the wind, wrapping like thick, wet ropes around her neck. Tara stood, barely breathing, as the woman turned, and stepped from the edge.
    “Wait!” Tara cried. But instead of falling, instead of plunging to her death, the woman vanished. And there was only the ocean. The wind. And the terrible crunch of seashells as Tara sank to the ground.
    It was a dream.  Tara wrapped her arms around her stomach.  It wasn’t real.  She made a change today, a huge shift in her plans. Instead of looking for work in Galway, she came here and, within a matter of hours, she met a man who didn’t want her here, landed a job whose duties she couldn’t perform, and accepted the keys to a cottage she couldn’t believe was really hers.
    She gazed down the hill at the sleepy village.  Smoke curled up