Free The House Between Tides by Sarah Maine Page B

was still and quiet around him. Below him the sea was a dark wash of ultramarine tipped with white stretching clear to the horizon but an icy jade where the waves rose to meet the shore. He watched, transfixed by the sight, by the relentless energy, seeing veils of spray flung back as each wave raced ashore. Torrann Bay—at last! Here was the very essence of the island, its elemental spirit. Mystical at dawn, blazing white hot at midday or drenched by showers, and an awesome symphony of light as the sun drowned in the western sea.
    Twenty years ago he had set up his easel just behind where he now stood and had painted the scene. It felt like yesterday, and the sound and the smell of the place had haunted him throughout his self-imposed exile.
    After a while he turned away and sat on a stone, his customary seat, and leant against the wall of a ruined croft house, closing his eyes and losing himself to the sound of the waves and the wind rattling through the dune grasses.
    The sun had not yet tipped the peak of Bheinn Mhor on the main island when he’d reached the dunes this morning, and he’d been panting by the time he’d climbed to the top. City living had taken its toll. Or was it age? Forty, by God! He’d looked back across the machair towards the house, where he had left Beatrice sleeping. Content, it seemed, to be here. Or was it simply the novelty? Orto please him? Beatrice, bless her, was eager to please. He smiled slightly, his eyes still closed, savouring the thought of her, and this perfect moment, before the land was flooded with light. A calm, expectant moment, a moment of quiet solitude.
    To reflect.
    And slowly, as he sat there, he felt the sanctity of the place wrap around him, and knew that he had truly returned.
    He had not dared to come here until now—
    His eyes remained shut.
    But even with them closed, he could clearly see Màili standing where he had just stood, and where he had once sketched her, skirt flattened against her bare legs, outlining the curves of her form. A few deft strokes, a little light shading, and he had captured her—or so he had thought.
    But she had slipped away, as surely as a selkie maid.
    Once, as they had lain lazily in a sandy hollow just below here, where dunes became beach, she had told him the island legend of the selkies, the seal people who came ashore at midsummer, shedding their skins to dance on the beach. Unwary fishermen would fall under their enchantment, she had told him, her eyes wide and believing, and then steal their skins, binding the creatures to them, compelling them to stay ashore as wistful wives, forever seeking their lost pelts, their only chance of returning to their ocean home. She had been stretched out on her stomach plaiting the coarse dune grasses as she told the story, and he beside her, watching her nimble fingers twisting the blades. “And are you weaving binding spells in the marram grass?” he asked, capturing her hands and ruining her handiwork as he pulled her to him. “Strong magic, Màili.”
    But no spell had been needed; by then he was already bound to her, hand and foot and heart.
    And it was here, on another occasion, that they had stood together and looked up to the sky and watched two sea eagles twistingand turning in a strange, violent dance. “Are they fighting?” Màili had asked as the birds came together, locked talons grappling, tumbling, and rolling over each other, doing cartwheels through the air, their wing pinions fluttering and feathered legs swinging out below.
    â€œCourting, not fighting,” he had replied.
    They had watched as the birds plummeted, apparently out of control, until the last moment, when they had recovered and climbed again, only to repeat the performance.
    Then she had given him her slant-eyed smile. “And I thought courtship was a gentle business.”
    But he had not heeded her words. And later that day he had sketched her lying on the