Ashes on the Waves

  Standing, I stumbled away from the boulder, falling against the opposite wall, holding it to support me as voices bounced and skittered over the stone walls of the tunnel and then scattered through my brain.

  Pa reached me first. “Son. I’m so sorry. We’ll get her out.”

  I couldn’t even form the words to tell him it was too late. Most of the men from the village were there: Mac, Ron, Edmond, and others. Everyone pitched in to push the boulder off, and before long it tumbled to its side, revealing a gaping hole almost full to the top with water. Anna rested primarily submerged on a shallow slope near the opening. I turned away as they pulled her out.

  “She’s gone,” someone said. It sounded as if they were far away. Their voices echoed and overlapped in my mind as they spoke to one another.

  “Frank!” Miss Ronan yelled from the edge of the pit. “Oh, dear gods of the ocean. What have I done?” Falling to her knees, she crumpled into a heap, her long hair dipping into the water. Her body shuddered with such violence, it appeared she would rattle apart into pieces.

  A Bean Sidhe floated over the top of the pit and through the clear water, human bones were visible. Frank. Something gold glimmered against the edge.

  “He took it off!” Miss Ronan screamed, tearing at her hair. “He could have lived forever, even underwater. I never imagined he’d take it off. I just wanted him punished.” She crossed her arms over her body and rocked.

  “She killed the girl. She killed them both,” Pa said.

  “No!” Miss Ronan jumped to her feet but was caught by Francine, who held her around the middle from behind, pinning her arms to her sides. Like a feral animal she struggled against Francine, writhing and kicking. “Anna wasn’t meant to die,” Miss Ronan shrieked. “Her parents were supposed to take the body home for burial, and she’d wake up. But they insisted on putting her in the family crypt.” Her eyes darted from one villager to another like a cornered beast’s. “I couldn’t have her screaming where Liam could hear her, so I had her moved. She was to be fed and kept alive by the Na Fir Ghorm, then released when the term of the wager was over. She wasn’t supposed to die.” As if her bones had dissolved, she went limp, and Francine loosened her grip, letting her slide to her knees, sobbing. “The Na Fir Ghorm did this on purpose.”

  “Let’s get the girl out of here,” Mac said. The men helped him carry Anna toward the beach, leaving only Francine, Pa, Muireann, and Brigid Ronan.

  Muireann, tears streaming down her face, moved to the edge of the pit. Eyes wide, she tilted her head and studied the glimmering object in the water.

  Wordlessly, she dropped her robe and slipped her feet into the back flippers of the pelt, crouched over, and stretched the pelt over her head.

  Brigid Ronan screamed, and when I looked back, Muireann’s seal form was complete and had slipped into the water. She returned to the surface with the gold object in her mouth. In her cumbersome seal body, she couldn’t climb out of the pit, so she bowed her head and human arms pushed through a slit in the belly of the pelt. Soon, Muireann’s full human form emerged. The amulet still in her mouth, she pitched her pelt out of the pit and began to climb up after it.

  Before anyone could react, Brigid Ronan broke free from Francine and grabbed the pelt. “It wasn’t supposed to happen this way,” she said, backing away, pointing a shaking finger at me. “You were the only one who was supposed to die.” As Francine lunged for her, she bolted out of reach, running through the tunnel toward the beach.

  “No!” Muireann’s scream ricoch

  eted off the walls. “No! My pelt!”

  I couldn’t let Ronan get away. I sprinted after her but was too late. When I reached the beach, she had already transformed and plunged into the sea.

  Catching my breath, I stared out over the water where Miss Ronan had disappeared, unable to fight off the delirium clouding my mind. The familiar sounds of the ocean seemed foreign, the rush of wind on my face abrasive.

  “I’m sorry about your girl, slouding mon,” Pa said from somewhere behind me, his voice skipping through my brain like a stone across water. “I’m sorry about a lot of things.”

  Francine wrapped her arms around me. I felt her, but still moved in a daze. Everything seemed far away. “You are bound, lad. You’ll see her in the next world.”

  Again, the memory of Anna’s voice filled my head. “Forever.”

  Forever, I repeated in my mind.

  It wasn’t until I turned around that the fog lifted from my brain and I found my voice. Anna lay on the beach, the moonlight reflecting off the gauzy silver fabric tangled around her limp body. The last time she had worn that dress, we were bound for all eternity on this very beach.

  I fell to my knees and pulled her to me.

  Folding over her body, the pain of my very soul issued forth in scream after scream, proclaiming my despair to every living creature in this world and the next.

  43

  The boundaries which divide Life from Death are at best shadowy and vague.

  —Edgar Allan Poe,

  from “The Premature Burial,” 1844

  Muireann had never witnessed agony like Liam’s. Her heart ached inside her human chest, but she knew there was nothing she could say or do to help him. Like the tide, his sorrow had to run its course before it would subside.

  The villagers, save for Francine and the human he called Pa, left through the tunnel.

  Liam had stopped shouting and now simply rocked, holding his dead female to him.

  Francine approached and squatted down facing him. She brushed his hair from his eyes. “Anna loved you, lad. That’s more than most people get from life. True love.”

  “It was more than love,” he said, still rocking. “I . . . I . . .”

  “I know,” she whispered, kissing his cheek. Pa patted his shoulder and then left through the tunnel with Francine.

  For the longest time, Liam was silent. He caressed Anna’s face and simply stared at her. Then something in him changed. Gently, he laid her down and stood, staring over the water with his good hand clenched in a fist.

  His rage was as terrible as his despair, and just as painful to watch.

  “Why?” he screamed to the sea. “Why her? Take me instead!”

  A gray head popped up a few dozen yards from shore. Then another. Yellow eyes peering from blue faces. More joined them. From thin air, the Bean Sidhes materialized in their nebulous cloud-like forms, floating just above the surface.

  Liam paced the water’s edge. “It was a bet? A wager? You murdered her for that?”

  Muireann ran her fingers over the raised gold crest of Manannán mac Lir on the amulet, hating the Na Fir Ghorm as they gloated from the water at Liam’s suffering.

  The metal warmed under her touch. That was it! Manannán mac Lir was the ruler of her people—of all ocean-dwelling Otherworlders. He had the ability to restore life to the dead; she’d heard stories of it since she had been a pup. She ru Libbed the amulet with her fingers. “Please come to us, great Manannán mac Lir. We need you,” she whispered.

  Lightning crackled in the clouds above, and the amulet grew hotter still.

  “Please,” she said, a little louder.

  A bolt of lightning slammed into the water just behind the Na Fir Ghorm, and where it had struck, a huge horse bearing a rider now stood, appearing more gaseous than solid. The beast strode across the surface of the sea and halted at the waterline, its rider so terrifying, Muireann trembled.

  Liam, halfway down the beach, stopped pacing and stared but showed no fear, perhaps because he had nothing else to lose.

  Muireann marveled as the transparent figure of a warrior in armor solidified before her eyes. His stallion did the same as it snorted and pawed the surface of the water.

  Manannán mac Lir turned the beast in a full circle, deep-set blue eyes traveling from creature to creature and stopping to rest on Muireann. He crossed his arms over his chest and said nothing.

  Fear felt the same in human form a
s it felt as a Selkie. Her stomach churned as she struggled to inhale. “Please,” she said. “Please help us.”

  Again, the warrior surveyed the scene. His eyes came to rest on the dead girl on the beach. He gestured to Anna. “Is this why I was called? A dead human?” His deep voice rumbled like distant thunder.

  Muireann swallowed hard and nodded.

  He dismounted and Muireann cringed. “In what manner did she die?” he asked.

  “She was murdered!” Liam shouted. “Murdered by all of them.” He gestured wildly with his good arm to the creatures in and above the ocean. “They made a wager and used us as pawns for their amusement. They killed her for sport!”

  Thunder rolled through the sky as Manannán mac Lir turned his attention to the Na Fir Ghorm and Bean Sidhes.

  “We killed no one,” the Na Fir Ghorm leader announced, his voice shrill. “The Selkie Brigid Ronan did.”

  “Are you this Brigid Ronan?” he asked Muireann.

  Unable to find her voice, she shook her head.

  “Where is she?” All the creatures cringed as lightning split the sky.

  “She’s gone,” Liam answered. “She stole Muireann’s pelt and escaped. But they”—he indicated the Bean Sidhes and the Na Fir Ghorm—“are as responsible as she. More so, even.”

  Muireann slid off the rock and took a deep breath. “No. The Bean Sidhes are not at fault.”

  “Tell me then, little Selkie, what happened.”

  As Muireann told the tale, thunderclouds thickened overhead, and by the time she had finished, lightning struck all around, stopping just short of the water. She assumed the weather was an extension of Manannán mac Lir’s emotions, since it intensified when his expression grew darker.

  “Enough,” he said, cutting her off mid-sentence as she reached the point when Anna’s body was brought to the beach.

  He stood very still and closed his eyes briefly before speaking. “Bean Sidhes, your involvement in a wager using humans as players was foolhardy and wrong. Your motives were not malicious, however, so I am granting you a reprieve. You have accomplished your task of exposing the wrongful deaths of the two humanwros. I will allow you to cross through the veil to the other side and join your loved ones there.”

  The six clouds took human form and shone brilliant gold. A bright white light shimmered just at the horizon, expanding toward the heavens in a thin vertical line that widened momentarily like a curtain being opened. The Bean Sidhes disappeared and the line narrowed into nothing but the night sky once again.

  Muireann, still clutching the amulet, returned to her rock and cowered against it, dreading the judgment she would receive for her participation in the wager. She sighed with relief when he next turned his attention to the Na Fir Ghorm.

  “Your part in this, however, was despicable and malicious. I can find no redeeming motivation behind your acts.”

  The Na Fir Ghorm exchanged looks, many of them

  shuddering to the point that ripples radiated around them in the already-turbulent water.

  Manannán mac Lir raised his arms in front of him at shoulder level, the bronze bands around his upper arms glittering in the light of the setting moon. “You are from this moment forward banned to the deep ocean, where you will never have human contact again.” Lightning shot from his fingertips in a wide fan, and as if they had never existed, the water’s surface was clear of the horrible creatures.

  Liam had moved back to Anna’s body and was again holding her to him, no longer taking notice of anything else.

  Manannán mac Lir strode to Muireann and held out his palm. “To prevent it from being abused again, I will take the amulet back.” She placed it in his hand and he smiled at her. “It is unfortunate, little Selkie, that your pelt was taken. I have no remedy for you. I wish you a long and prosperous human life full of joy and love.”

  His words felt like a blow to her chest. Love and joy was what Liam and his Anna had shared.

  Manannán mac Lir mounted his horse and jerked the reins, turning the beast toward the sea.

  “No, wait!” she said. “What about the girl? There are countless stories of you restoring life to the dead.” Tears streamed down her face. “Please.”

  From atop his horse, he stared down at the pitiful couple. “I’m sorry, she is but a mere human. Her soul has long taken flight. There is nothing I can do.”

  44

  And neither the angels in Heaven above,

  Nor the demons down under the sea,

  Can ever dissever my soul from the soul

  Of the beautiful Annabel Lee.

  —Edgar Allan Poe,

  from “Annabel Lee,” 1849

  Even in death, Anna was beautiful—her perfect flawless skin so pale, offset by her raven black hair. Long lashes fanned over her cheeks and a serene, almost-pleasant expression graced her features. My Anna. Forever.

  I stared up at the fierce Celtic god of the ocean as he looked down on me with pity. There was nothing he could do, he told Muireann. I had expected as much. Why would the Otherworld give me relief when the human world would not?

  Poor Muireann wept and ran to him atop his great stallion. She reached up and pulled on the edge of his kilt. “My life for hers,” she said. “I know it can be done. I’ve heard of your generosity in this regard. I will gladly die to restore her life.”

  There was no room in me for more pain. Numb, I hugged Anna’s cold body tighter, unable to even conjure coherent thought.

  “Why would you do such a thing?” he asked.

  “Because I love him.”

  He dismounted and took her face in his hands. “Sweet child,” he said, wiping a tear away with his thumb. “Were she of the Otherworld, I could do such a thing. But she is human, and therefore I cannot.”

  “They are bonded,” she said. “Otherworldly bonds.”

  He smiled. “Then they will be together. She waits for him just on the other side. She will continue to wait until he comes to join her. My power isn’t needed.”

  With that, he swung his leg over his horse and galloped out over the surface of the water, disappearing in a bolt of lightning.

  Muireann sank to her knees in front of me, fiddling with the sash on the bathrobe.

  She had been willing to die for me. For Anna.

  “Thank you,” I said.

  “Human tears burn the eyes,” she said, brushing hers away. “It’s a good thing you have hands to wipe them off. I suppose I’ll have to get used to it since I’m stuck this way.”

  Something caught my eye over the water where the horizon would be when the sun rose. Just a flicker of light, then it was gone.

  “You aren’t stuck,” I told her, shifting Anna off my lap and setting her head down gently. Again, a fleck of light glittered on the horizon momentarily.

  “But Brigid Ronan took my pelt.”

  “My mother’s pelt is in the mansion. It’s stuffed inside a needlepoint chair in the library. The room with all the books.” The light seemed closer and brighter this time. I stood and squinted to bring it into focus. It vanished.

  “What is it?” Muireann asked, staring up at me.

  “It’s . . .” I held my breath and waited for it to reappear.

  “Liam.” It was a whisper, just as faint and fleeting as the light over the water had been.

  Surely this was madness. I stared down at Anna’s lifeless body.

  “Liam,” her voice whispered again. It came from the direction of the sea.

  I ran several steps toward the water. “Anna!” I called.

  The sun had just begun to define the horizon. Halfway between the water’s edge and morning’s fuzzy white line was a silver form just over the water. It was too far away to make out. “Anna,” I called again.

  Muireann joined me. “What is it?” she asked.

  I pointed to the form that was getting closer to us. “Just there on the water. A light. Do you see it?”

  She shook her head. “No.”

  As it got
closer, I could make out its form, but not the face. It was a girl, sheer and shimmery and gauzy like the material of Anna’s silver dress.

  “Liam.”

  And she spoke with Anna’s voice.

  My heart hammered and I gasped for breath. “It’s her! Don’t

  you see her?”

  “It’s Anna?” Muireann asked.

  Anna’s face came into view as she hovered maybe fifty feet out from shore. She held her arms out toward me. “Liam,” she said. “Forever.”

  “You don’t see her? Hear her?” I asked, stumbling to the waterline.

  Muireann answered, but I only heard Anna’s voice calling my name.

  I waded into the water toward Anna’s open arms, ignoring the cold seeping into my legs from the frigid Atlantic Ocean.

  Anna smiled and my heart soared.

  “Liam. I love you,” her beautiful voice whispered.

  “Anna,” I called.

  “Yes, Liam,” she said. “I want you forever.”

  Forever. I closed my eyes.

  “You are almost here,” she said. It sounded as though she were right next to me.

  And all at once, the water became warm. So very warm. I felt buoyant. As light as air.

  “Love makes you feel as though you can fly,” she whispered. “Fly with me, Liam.”

  I opened my eyes to see her lovely face as she enveloped me in her arms.

  “Forever,” I said as the sun broke over the horizon.

  “Forever,” she whispered as her lips met mine.

  Acknowledgments

  The work of Edgar Allan Poe has affected and fascinated me since I first read “The Tell-Tale Heart” in elementary school language arts. It has been a delight and honor to work on a book based on “Annabel Lee,” one of the most hauntingly beautiful poems I have ever read. That said, I wish to thank Edgar Allan Poe, first and foremost, for his overwhelming genius and contribution to literature.