Free The Selkie Enchantress by Sophie Moss Page A

finishing up a few paintings for the walls. I want to get a different comforter for the master bedroom and the window”—she paused, looking down at him—“in your bedroom still sticks.”
    He nodded, like he knew.
    “Have you tried to open it?”
    “Once,” he admitted.
    “Isn’t it a little cold to be opening windows?”
    He lifted a shoulder. “I couldn’t hear the ocean.”
    He couldn’t hear the ocean?
    “Look!” He broke into a jog as the cottage came into view. “It’s still there.” His voice caught in the wind, drifting back to her in snippets. He disappeared into the wall of rain, dropping to his knees in front of the rose. “One of the petals fell off,” he called back to her.
    Caitlin caught up to him, rainwater dripping down her nose and into her mouth. She heard a faint bell-like sound over the thundering ocean and her gaze dropped to the rose, where the rain tinkered over the frozen petals, like water on glass.
    Owen picked up the petal carefully, cradling it in his palm. “Look, it must have just fallen.”
    It was so white, almost like it glowed. There wasn’t a smudge of dirt on it, even though Owen had snatched it up off the ground. The wind tugged Caitlin’s hood back from her face and she grabbed it, holding it in place. “Come on, Owen. Let’s get inside.”
     “Wait,” Owen fished around inside his jacket pocket, pulling out one of the fairy tale books. Rainwater rushed from the roof, splashing onto the pages as he flipped through them. When he found what he was looking for, he held up the picture to her. “It’s just like in the story. When the last rose petal falls, the Beast’s time is up.”
    Caitlin felt a cold chill race up her spine.
    The rain poured down, hammering against the glass windows of the cottage. Sea spray exploded along the rocky coastline to the north. Owen lifted his eyes to her. “Is someone’s time on the island running out?”
    “It’s just a fairy tale,” Caitlin shouted over the howl of the wind. “Come inside.”
    But Owen reached out, touching the rose still planted in the ground. And slowly, one by one, his fingers turned blue and a thin layer of crystallized ice coated his skin, freezing his hand in place.

Chapter 8
     
    “Can you say that again, James? Sorry. The service is spotty.” Liam dumped the contents of his briefcase onto his desk, fishing around the crumpled papers, balled receipts, and sticky candy bar wrappers for a clue. The scent of frying cod and malt vinegar drifted up from the kitchen of the pub, where his grandmother was already filling orders for lunch. “This storm’s a lot worse than we thought it would be.”
    “Is your internet still working?”
    Liam double-checked. “For the time being, yes.”
    “Just send me what you have, then. We need to have it submitted by tomorrow and I want a copy in case you lose power.”
    “Sure. I’ll do that.” How? How was he going to do that when he couldn’t find the document?
    “This is going to be huge for the University. And specifically for the department. If this goes as well as I think it will, you’ll finally have a term to work on that precious island of yours.”
    “A sabbatical?” Liam’s fingers flew over the keyboard, only half-listening as he searched for the document. It had to be here somewhere. “Since when does the University of Ireland offer sabbaticals?”
    The dean laughed, a rich booming baritone through the crackly phone wires. “Very funny, O’Sullivan. You’ve only been hounding me about a no-teaching term since August. And you’re probably going to get it because you’re the best researcher we have on staff—even if all your research is grounded in folklore. We all know how seriously Ireland takes its fairy tales. But…” His voice lowered in confidentiality. “You can say it’s research all you want, but we all know it’s probably about some girl. In the end, it’s always about a girl, isn’t it?”
    A girl. On the island.