Authors: Flora Dare
She smiled back at him. “Thank you for letting me have a little space.”
“I understand, it's an intense experience. Let’s get some fresh air. Do you want to take a walk on the beach?”
“I'd like that.”
They walked down to the beach and started meandering down the sand in companionable silence.
Danae saw Liam look out over the water and sadness cloud his eyes. She reached out, touched his arm and said, “Do you miss the sea?”
“It's more than that...it used to be freedom to me. Now it's just full of sorrow.”
“But you seem to want to run into it.”
His piercing green eyes bore into hers and she was almost frightened by his intensity when he said, “You are not the only one to suffer unspeakable loss. Sometimes I wonder what would happen if I plunged into the sea and swam out until my strength gave out. Without my sealskin, I'm as easy to drown as you. Would Neya let me, I wonder?”
Danae felt drawn closer to him, she couldn't help but take a step closer to him. She whispered, “Your sealskin...what happened to it?”
He moved towards her, until she could feel the heat radiating off his body. He reached a hand out and rested it on her cheek. “Do you really want to know?”
She just nodded at him and found her gaze drawn to his lips. She'd never felt like this before, even with David. All of a sudden she was lit with the burning need to touch his lips with hers. The electricity sparked between them and she watched his lips get closer to her.
She closed her eyes as his cheek rubbed her own and he whispered in her ear, “Neya forced me to land, to do something very important. But when I came back, my skin was gone. I don't know if she took it, or someone else seeks to steal the power of the selkies for themselves. But it was gone, destroyed. Neya plucked me from that shore and guarded me in my home until the moment you found me. If you picked up my sealskin what would you compel me to do?”
For a wild moment, Danae was prepared to throw herself into his arms and she raised her hands to his arms. She felt Liam’s smooth skin beneath her hands and she wanted him. She wanted to beg him to help her forget everything, as if that was possible, to try to erase memories of one man in the arms of another.
But she remembered David and dropped her hands. She couldn't stop a tear from slipping down her face, and onto Liam’s. He pulled back, but flicked his tongue and caught the tear before it finished its trek down her cheek. Then he stepped away from her and faced the ocean.
After a few moments they both started walking back to the cottage. The once friendly walk was now tense with the physical knowledge between them. As soon as they made it back, Danae excused herself and fled to her room for the night.
She needed to get her balance back. To remember what she wanted and needed. To forget. To forget so she could stand on a beach with a handsome man and not feel shame at the desire she felt for him. She stared at the ceiling for hours until she finally cried herself to sleep in her cold, lonely bed.
Chapter Four
The next few days were the same.
Danae was sleeping later and deeper than she ever had before, and when she woke up, Liam always had breakfast ready, perfect timing. She wasn't sure how he managed it, but they were somehow in perfect sync. She would spend the morning working at her computer while he disappeared to the beach. She'd make lunch and then he would ask for a single memory. He tried to keep them short until she finally said, “Liam, why are you skirting around anything hurtful?”
“I don't want to flood either of us with emotions we aren't ready for.”
“Everything is painful. Remembering the joy is almost worse.” She pulled him to the sofa and pushed him to sit down. “What do you want to know?”
Liam shook his head, “Let's go into town.”
“Town? I...” Danae was startled by his sudden request.
“I'm going to need hot cocoa.”
She said, “I am so confused.”
Liam took her hand and said, “This is going to be really hard for both of us. Let’s run into town, charm Maude, maybe get another pie. Then we can focus on the harder memories. Maybe not the accident, yet, though.”
“Liam, so you know, there are holes in my memory about that night. I’m afraid I won’t be able to share enough, that this won’t work because of that.”
He patted her hand and said, “That’s good to know. I’ll send a message to Neya, to see if she wants us to try something specific.”
~ * ~ * ~
They pulled up to Maude’s shop and wandered in. Maude’s eyebrows went up as Danae almost never came into town unless she was summoned. But Danae was done being treated like a pariah. She smiled at the woman and pointed at Liam.
“He claims he can’t go another moment without a good cup of hot cocoa. Any brand you recommend?”
Maude almost cracked a smile and said, “Ghirardelli has never let me down. But you use real cream in it, you hear? None of this water nonsense.”
“Yes ma’am. I’ll grab some.” Danae grabbed the items and came brought them to Maude.
Maude said, “Go on ahead Liam. Pub will get busy, go grab a table.”
Danae tensed up as Liam walked out, but she smiled at Maude.
Maude started to say something when Lori strode into the store. Maude’s face settled back into her normally sour look.
Lori sneered at Danae as Maude handed her the bagged items. As Danae walked out she heard Lori say, “I can’t believe you let people like
that
shop here. After what she did.”
For a long moment, Danae fantasized about going back in, grabbing Lori and shaving off all her long, blond hair. But instead of making her feel small, Danae just laughed at how ridiculous Lori sounded. Jealousy wrapped in a pretty package. She stopped at the car and stowed the groceries in the cooler before heading up the street to the pub to meet Liam.
Danae was focused on how incredibly blue the sky was when a heavy hand landed on her shoulder and pulled her off her feet and into the alley next to the pub. She staggered, finally catching herself as she turned around, facing her attacker with her hands up.
It was Simon.
“How dare you!” Danae was shocked that Simon would be so aggressive in town. Anyone could have seen them and they were close enough to the pub that all she had to do was scream. “Don’t you ever, ever do that again!”
Simon backed away and said, “Or what, your new little boyfriend will get angry? How long did you wait before David was dead before you had him? And now you’re bold enough to just move him into David’s home. Into David’s bed?”
She said, “Don’t you dare, you rotten little man. You’re the one who’s been trying, since day one.” Knowing she was so much closer to being free of the town, to Simon not having any power over her made Danae bold. “Simon, crawl back and hide behind Lori's skirts. There was never a chance that I'd have you in any way.”
His face twisted and his hand shot out, grabbing her wrist. Danae was shocked by the rage that flooded her, slapped his hand away and pushed him away from her.
She hissed at him, “If you ever touch me again, I'll channel Doralee Rhodes and turn you from a rooster to a hen with one shot!” He stumbled back, deeper into the alley, never expecting her to fight back. “And if a single piece of my mail goes missing again, I'm going to do what I should have done a year ago. You'll be lucky if you ever get another job.”
She spun on her heel, leaving the sputtering man behind her and she strode into the pub. She marched to the booth Liam was seated at and sat down. The barkeep, Helen shuffled over. The color in Danae's cheeks was still high and when she saw Helen's face curl into a sneer she snapped. “I'll have a cider, Helen. Liam?”
“A lager.”
Danae stared down Helen until the older woman blushed and turned away.
Liam said, “Are you okay?”
“I'm fine.” She actually was fine. More than fine. Slapping down Simon felt better than she thought it would.
Liam tilted his head and took in her flushed cheeks. “Really?”
Danae opened her mouth, then snapped it shut. She finally said, “No, sorry. That's not entirely true. Simon grabbed me and that's why I took so long.”
Liam slammed his hand down on the table and Danae was shocked to see he was angry, no
furious
. “Are you okay? Where is he? Did he hurt you? I will flay him and leave him for the eels.”
Danae grabbed his fist in both her hands and said, “I'm totally okay. I uhm, well, I told him if he bothered me again I'd shoot him in the...well...his unmentionables.”
Helen choose that moment to come back. She plopped their drinks down on the table with a sour look and said, “Well! Taking up with strangers and apparently being rude to Simon, who has ever only wanted to help you! What would David's mother say about how you’re acting?”
Danae narrowed her eyes at the woman and barely parted her lips to say, “Myrna would tell you it was none of your business. And that if you really cared about me or any woman in this village, you would have taken Simon to the woodshed the moment he accosted a woman and drug her into the alley.” Danae took a deep breathe, but kept going as the fire that was finally lit in her raged at what she’d allowed to happen to herself. “That if you were anywhere as righteous as you claim, you would have been a comfort to me in my time of grief, rather than trying to break into my home and steal my belongings under the pretense of salvaging
my
family pictures for the village.”
Helen's mouth gaped open and she flushed bright red. She tried to stutter out a few words and finally turned on her heel and fled to the back room.
Liam started to smile at Danae and said, “I don't think we'll be getting a refill any time soon.”
“I have no idea what came over me,” Danae gestured helplessly, “I think I must be coming down with something.”
“You were always strong. The memories you’ve shared with me, they are not of a shrinking violet. They are of a powerful woman who fears no one. I think you are finally healing from your grief, coming out of the fog that kept you from being awake and aware, and kept you from standing up for yourself.”
Danae sipped her cider. Thoughts roiled in her head. It was so easy for her to disappear under the weight of the villagers’ anger because she blamed herself as much as they did. She hadn’t realized how much she'd lost herself until she got glimpses of who she used to be, through Liam's eyes. The older women of the village had always been fairly grumpy, but she used to know how to talk to them, to jolly them into smiles.
She smiled and said, “You know Liam, I have to have some sympathy for them.”
“Do you? They have been very cruel.” Liam frowned and shook his head.
Danae took another sip of her drink. “I know, but they also pinned so many hopes on us. It wasn't just my life and dreams shattered. We represented the village surviving, their children coming back, bringing them grandchildren. I think I'm finally angry, but not even at them.”
He said, “Who are you angry at?”
She said, “The universe, I guess. The gods and goddesses. I know this is the back end of nowhere, but why has something so obviously wrong been allowed to flourish. There is something profoundly wrong in Flickend.”
He said, “When the Veil cracked, it broke so much. Things fell apart.”
She slapped her hand on the table, and said, “It's been 30 years!”
He said, “I know, I know. I think people got lazy after the really visible breaks, curses and evil portals were dealt with. It was easy to let the hidden evils flourish.”
Danae said, “What can we do?”
Liam paused for a moment and took Danae’s hands in his. He said, “Do you want to fix this place that has treated you so badly?”
She squeezed his hands and said, “I do. I know I'm not originally from here, but through David, I came to love this place so much. It seems ridiculous, after all the talk I did about wanting to leave, but really I want to help the place to heal.”
“If you complete the spell, you won't be able to do that.” Danae crumpled a little at his words. Another thing taken away from her. He continued, “Besides, the people won't have changed. It will be filled with the women who hurt you. Simon will still be lurking.” He let go of her hands and cracked his knuckles with one hand. “Although we can deal with that in other ways.”
Danae grabbed his hand back. She said, “I don't know what I want anymore. I've been so very alone. If I don't complete the spell, I'll be alone again.” Danae left off that she would be alone because he would be gone. He owed her nothing.
I'm not sure I could survive another loss and I don't know what we share, but I like Liam. He's kind, gentle and he makes me laugh. And I want to know what his hands would feel like on my body.
Danae blushed at the path her thoughts were taking.
Liam said, “I am under a geas, a spell-bound obligation to Neya. But assuming you remember me, I hope you would still consider me a friend.”
He stroked her hand softly with his. He opened his mouth to continue, when the pub door slammed open and Lori stomped in. She walked halfway in, scanning the room until she found Liam and Danae. Her mouth twisted and she sauntered over to their table.