For a list of the many characters who populate this saga, check out Dramatis Personae.
Enraged, Elsa threatens to kill Georgia if Freya doesn’t tell her where Sadie and Millie have gone, but Freya manages to convince her they know nothing of their whereabouts. Taking no chances, Elsa locks them in a room full of taxidermy specimens. Freya opens up to her mother, expressing her fears and doubts.
Meanwhile, in the Cornish town of Morcant-On-Sea, a tribe of Selkie rescue a near-drowned Sadie and Millie, then point them in the direction of the lighthouse. Sadie hopes that whoever lives up there can help them get back home. Having reached their destination, they discover a strange cocoon-like object. Before they have time to consider exactly what it is or what it means, they realise someone has followed them into the lighthouse.
And now, dear readers, we make our way into the next installment. Read on…
by BlueJean
1
Hailey had seen them crossing the yard from the porthole of her attic bedroom. Most evenings – assuming she was at home – she would stand on the bed, poke her head out of the window and light up her single cigarette of the day. The habit had gone from needing, or even wanting, to something more ritualistic, an invocation of loss and longing to accompany the fading light of day.
Having watched the sun disappear into the sea, Hailey took the last puff of her cigarette and then pinched it out. She was about to throw the butt down below when two figures moved across the yard. When they came into the light of the garage, Hailey saw it was a woman and child.
Her first thought was that they were peddling some religion or other – Jehovah’s Witnesses or Scientologists, perhaps – but it seemed unlikely. Ferries from the mainland were few and far between these days, and none of them operated at this late hour.
Instead of ringing the doorbell, the couple bypassed the cottage altogether and made for the lighthouse. Were they tourists, then, hoping to get a view from the top? Even if the lighthouse had been unlocked, what were they expecting to see up there in the pitch dark? Maybe their climb up here had taken longer than they’d anticipated, and the daylight had simply run out on them.
But when the woman grasped the handle and pushed open the door, Hailey was aghast to discover the lighthouse was unlocked, after all. Even now, they were venturing inside.
How many times had she told Uncle Derek to make sure it was locked when he came back down? How often had she stressed the importance of it? And it wasn’t people entering that had been her chief concern. Rather, the thing inside getting out.
Flicking her cigarette butt through the window, Hailey jumped off the bed and scrambled downstairs. She was through the front door and halfway across the yard when it occurred to her there was nothing on her feet but socks, but all the better if it silenced her footfalls upon the metal staircase of the lighthouse. The interlopers didn’t seem like a threat – probably just idiot grockles with no respect for private property – but better to be cautious.
She padded up the spiral staircase, careful to keep some distance between herself and the visitors. When she caught sight of them lingering on the landing above, she hung back until the woman climbed up into the light chamber, soon followed by the little girl.
“Sadie, what is it?” she heard the child say when she followed them through the hatch. The two of them were regarding the cocoon with understandable confusion.
“That,” Hailey said as she entered the light chamber, “is my Aunt Rita.”
In retrospect, it’d been a stupid thing to say. Such an outlandish claim would inevitably require an explanation, and trying to explain such a thing as this would be as difficult as it was unwise. But the way these trespassers had regarded her aunt with looks of dull horror – it irked her. There was a person inside that thing. Someone she loved.
The woman and girl spun to face her.
“Who are you?” Hailey demanded. “The lighthouse isn’t open to the public.”
“We’re not here to cause trouble,” the woman said. “We were told Rita might be able to help us.”
“Help with what? Who told you that?”
The woman seemed reluctant to answer, so she and Hailey simply stood and stared at each other until the young girl broke the silence.
“Is that really Rita?” she asked, pointing to the cocoon on the floor. “If that’s the menopause, I don’t ever want to have one.”
“No, sweetheart, it’s not the menopause,” Hailey said, amused despite herself. Then to the woman: “I’m not sure what’s happening to my aunt, but I can’t help thinking this was something better suited to the ocean. I don’t know who you are or why you’re here, but if you know anything at all that can help…”
The woman shook her head. “My knowledge of the Selkie is limited. Karnu said she was going through some change, but I didn’t expect… this.”
Hailey started at that. Who were these people?
“You spoke to the other Selkie? Listen, I… I’m not sure what’s going on, but you can see Rita’s beyond helping anyone. It’s really not a good time for us right now.”
The woman regarded her awkwardly. “I’m sorry. I had no idea.”
Hailey offered her a strained smile. “We just want her back, you know? It’s been hard to deal with.” She brought her hands to her face and broke down, no longer able to contain the months of despair and worry. She collapsed to her knees, huge sobs racking her body.
Millie peered up at Sadie with wide, concerned eyes, then burst into tears too.
Sadie could’ve used a strong drink.
2
Elsa’s hand hovered over the collapsed menhir. She hated the stones, hated their particular brand of alchemy simply because it couldn’t be tamed; couldn’t be owned. The Tuatha had undoubtedly versed their human cohorts in how to travel through the monuments safely, but those days had long gone, the knowledge lost along the way.
Attempting to traverse the stones now would be a fool’s venture. With no reliable way to navigate their complex networks, gods only knew where you’d end up, assuming you even reached a destination at all. The thought of becoming lost forever in the realm between realms filled Elsa with a rare terror.
But this time she had no choice. Sadie and Millie had run, and no one ran from Elsa. Even if she declined to follow them through the menhir, she would still need to enter that dream-like nexus to determine where they had gone, then travel to their destination using more conventional means.
They were too important to let go. Both Sadie and Millie knew how to find the dryad, but more than that: like Elsa, Millie was Old Blood. Her power was too valuable to squander. If she could be brought on side, the child would become a force to be reckoned with in the war to come. If she could not… well, Elsa knew ways to absorb such power once its host had been eliminated. Hadn’t she been drawing power from the dead the same way all these years?
She steeled herself, then brought her hand down upon the runes etched into the stone. All at once she was inside the nexus, pathways snaking out in all directions like the silvery limbs of some vast celestial tree. She could see the faint residue of Sadie and Millie’s course, and followed it as far as she dared without fully committing herself to the crossing.
Water. A henge fashioned from fossilized trees. A beach. A harbour. A seaside town full of colourful houses built into the cliffside.
What mockery was this?
One of them must have drawn the location from her mind. They were laughing at her, weren’t they? Having a fine joke at her expense.
Not only did we escape, Elsa, but we went there. To that place you tried so hard to forget. We know all about it. We know, Elsa.
Elsa’s rage threatened to cast her into the current that tugged and harried from every side. It was all she could do to pull herself back from the nexus and exit the stone for the dim light of the cellar.
“You devious bitches!” she screamed at the fallen menhir. “But I have you now!”
3
Sadie got her drink. A tall gin and tonic with a slice of lemon.
Millie asked for tea, and it arrived in the biggest mug she’d ever seen.
“A sailor’s mug, that is,” the large bearded man Hailey had introduced as her Uncle Derek told Millie with a wide grin.
“It’s like a bucket!” Millie exclaimed, and when the man threw his head back and bellowed out a great laugh, she’d nearly jumped out of her skin and upended the vessel.
They’d all exchanged names after that, telling one another abbreviated versions of their respective stories.
The town they’d found themselves in was called Morcant-On-Sea. Sadie wracked her brains trying to recall why the name seemed so familiar, then it struck her: The newspaper article about Elsa had been from a publication called The Morcant Echo. This must have been where Elsa had lived when she was a girl. Surely it was no coincidence. Had Elsa somehow primed the menhir in the manor’s basement to deposit any potential travelers here? Did she visit her old haunts from time to time?
“Witches…” Hailey murmured as they all sat up to the kitchen table. “That’s… mental.”
“Is it really that strange?” Sadie said. “Considering your aunt is… was a selkie?”
“I suppose not. But dryads? And travelling through ancient monuments? It’s hard to take in. Did you know about any of this, Derek?”
Derek toasted and buttered rounds of bread with his usual workmanlike efficiency. “Can’t say I’m familiar with dryads, but Sully used to tell tales about the henge down in the bay, how it could show you other worlds and whatnot. Mind you, it was always best to take whatever he said with a pinch of salt when he’d had a skinful, God bless the old bugger. And make no mistake, we saw some strange things out on the water. Things neither of us could explain.”
“The Selkie and Dryad are both part of what’s known as the Tuatha Dé Danann,” Sadie explained. “A confederation of supernatural beings that seem to have guided humanity long ago.”
“But where did they come from?” Hailey asked.
“I don’t know,” Sadie admitted. “But I don’t think there are many left now. The Romans wiped out most of the Dryad when they invaded Britain.”
Hailey offered her own version of that sad story. “Rita said the Selkie were driven from their hunting grounds and scattered. She thought her tribe might be the last.”
“Hailey? What happened to Rita?” Millie asked. “How did she end up like that?”
Hailey opened her mouth to speak, then closed it again. Sadie put a comforting hand on the young woman’s arm. “You don’t have to explain.”
“No, it’s okay. The change began months ago. I found her at the top of the lighthouse. Her hair had turned white, her skin started showing signs of lesions, and this… weird stuff started growing all over her body. When it got worse I had our local doctor examine her, but she didn’t know how to help. The other Selkie weren’t much help, either – Karnu just kept telling me Rita wasn’t Rita anymore. He seemed scared.
“After that, Rita wouldn’t allow anyone to touch her. She was adamant that the lighthouse was exactly where she needed to be. We could only watch as that cocoon thing began to grow around her.”
“Was Rita able to tell you what was happening to her?” Sadie asked.
Hailey shook her head. “I couldn’t get much sense out of her at the end, but she said it was a metamorphosis of some kind. She said the Selkie of old devoted rituals to it.”
“You think she’s still alive in that cocoon?”
“Something’s alive in there,” Hailey said.
“It’s Rita,” Derek growled. “How many times have I gotta say it?”
“Don’t start this again,” Hailey told her uncle with a tired groan. “You don’t know what she’s turned into any more than I do.”
“If you’d let me cut that thing open like I suggested, we wouldn’t be arguin’ ’bout it, would we?”
“We have no idea what it is! We could end up killing her if we start interfering with it!”
“I think it’d be very risky, Derek,” Sadie agreed. “If this is some natural part of the selkie’s life cycle, better to let it play out. Like Hailey said, whatever’s happening to Rita, it was surely meant to occur underwater. I’m amazed it’s managed to survive up there.”
“We think the cocoon draws salt and moisture from the air,” said Hailey. “There are vents in the light chamber from where it used to run on gas decades ago.”
“We shoulda got her out and back to the water when we still had the chance,” Derek grumbled as he deposited a plate of toast and various jars of condiments on the table. “Now she’s too big to fit down the hatch.”
Hailey ignored her uncle. “What do you plan to do now, Sadie?”
“We need to get back to Derwold, but I don’t know what we’re going to do once we get there. Even if Astris has unraveled the weavewall, we don’t stand a chance against Elsa without help.”
“Well, don’t think you’re goin’ anywhere tonight, girl,” said Derek. “The ferries don’t run this late. My boat needs refuelin’ before it’s ready for a trip, and I don’t fancy doin’ that in the dark. I can take you round the coast and up the Severn first light tomorrow, if it’s any help. My boat’s the only vessel left in Morcant, anyhow.”
“Don’t people live here anymore?” Millie asked.
“Not many,” Hailey told her. “Most of the houses were sold as holiday homes years ago, and when the cliffs started to collapse, the town was more or less abandoned. Now the only people who live here are the ones who can’t afford to sell up, or are just too stubborn to leave.”
“Which category do you fall into?” Sadie asked.
“The my selkie aunt is trapped at the top of a lighthouse in a weird cocoon category,” Hailey replied with a wry smile.
Millie let out a big sneeze, then wiped her nose with a sleeve. “Can’t we just go back the way we came? Through the tree henge?”
“Absolutely not,” said Sadie. “We nearly drowned coming through. I’m not taking the chance. Besides, transporting ourselves back into a locked basement doesn’t seem like a particularly good rescue plan. Is there no way we can get back across land? Morcant’s a peninsula, isn’t it?”
Derek shook his head. “The land behind the cottage is connected to the mainland, but you’d be riskin’ life and limb tryin’ to get over that way. It’s full of fissures and covered with gorse. You wouldn’t know you’d put a foot wrong ’till it was too late, ’specially in the dark. That’s why they never built a road across – too unstable. Looks like you’re beddin’ down here for the night.”
Sadie was sick with worry about Georgia and Freya. Did Elsa value them enough as hostages to keep them alive? Would her and Millie’s inadvertent escape drive her to vengeance? She could only hope they would remain unharmed until she could make it back to Derwold. But she dared not voice those fears in front of Millie.
“That’s ours!” Millie squealed, pointing to a large jar of Newton Pure Honey.
“Aye, aye, we’ve got a live one here,” Derek chuckled, ruffling Millie’s hair. “She thinks we’ve nicked ‘er honey.”
Millie sneezed again. When Sadie put a hand to her brow, she found her apprentice unusually warm.
“No, I mean we made it from our bees! Me and my mum and my sister.”
“You made this honey?” Hailey asked, a frown etched into her brow. She’d always been a sucker for good quality honey, and had not long ago discovered the small website from which the Newtons sold their product. Now it seemed like too much of a coincidence.
“No, the bees did!” Millie replied enthusiastically. “But we put it into jars.”
“So… your mum’s a beekeeper?”
Millie nodded proudly. “Hmm-mm. So am I!”
Sadie confirmed it with a nod. “Are you okay, Hailey?” she asked. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
“This woman that kidnapped you, this Elsa. Will she come after you, do you think? And how dangerous is she, really?”
“Why do you ask?”
Hailey leaned back in her chair and gave the two newcomers a fresh appraisal. “Because I think Rita knew you were coming here. And she seemed to think it wasn’t going to end well for any of us.”
4
Georgia opened her eyes to find Elsa staring back at her. She gave a start, rousing Freya from her own slumber, tucked in front of her mother on the couch.
“I didn’t mean to wake you,” Elsa said softly.
“What do you want?” asked Georgia. She had no idea what the time was, but knew it must be late.
“I thought you might like to know I’ve found Sadie and Millie.”
Georgia and Freya sat up straight, both fully awake now.
“Are they safe?” Georgia asked.
“I assume so,” Elsa said with a shrug. “Their trail is still active, so they’re alive at least.”
Georgia wasn’t sure what that meant, but to know they were alive was enough for now.
“Where are they?” Freya asked.
“That’s not important right now. I just thought you’d want to know they’re both okay.”
“Like you care what we think,” Freya told the woman curtly.
Elsa gave her a hard look. “Don’t be petulant, Freya. It doesn’t suit you. I’m going out to collect them now. If all goes well, your little family will be reunited soon.”
“Don’t hurt them, Elsa,” Georgia said. “Just don’t.”
“I don’t want to hurt anyone, Georgia,” Elsa told her. “I was born to lead, you know. That was what the Tuatha fashioned us to be. The trouble is, you fucking people don’t seem to have any idea how to follow. And so things get messy. It really is infuriating.”
Elsa turned on her heels and made to leave. “Kurt and Bernie will see to your needs while I’m gone. I’ve instructed them to bring you food and refreshments, and to escort you to the bathroom when you require it. Simon’s ever so keen to say hello, but I’ve warned him not to bother you. You’ll thank me for that, I’m sure.” She stood in the doorway and turned back briefly. “You see how courteous I can be? When we’re all together again, we’ll make a fresh start. Sadie and Millie will help me with my work, you and Freya can go back to tinkering with your bees and flowers, or whatever it is you do, and we can all be a little more civilised. Doesn’t that sound nice?”
Without waiting for a reply, Elsa left the room, closing and locking the door behind her.
“What an absolute cow,” Georgia muttered.
5
Sometime later, Georgia was rapping on the door of their makeshift prison.
After what seemed like an age, Kurt unlocked it and peered in, looking as if he’d just woken up. “What?” he grunted.
“We need a pee,” Georgia said.
Kurt glared at her and Freya for a moment, then nodded begrudgingly. “You first, then the kid. Try anything and I’ll smack you.”
Kurt led Georgia down the corridor to a small water closet, clutching her arm the whole way. She closed and locked the door, her attention immediately drawn to the sash window above the toilet, and with it a small ray of hope. As quietly as possible, she flipped the catch and pushed the lower sash up. It opened six inches or so, but wouldn’t move any further than that. She tried pulling the top sash down, but that wouldn’t budge at all.
She knew from experience that these types of windows were a pain in the arse to maintain. If the hinges and ropes weren’t oiled on a regular basis, and decades of paint allowed to accumulate, they would never operate as intended. With screwdrivers and no small amount of brute force, she probably could have got it open, but there was nothing to be done here and now, especially with Kurt outside. And even if she could escape, there was no way she was leaving without Freya.
“Shit,” she hissed, then parked her arse on the toilet to relieve herself.
When it was Freya’s turn, the girl practically sprinted to the toilet, Kurt hot on her heels.
“Slow down, you little brat.”
“I’m gonna piss myself, dickhead!”
Kurt seemed to find that highly amusing, hooting with laughter. Freya turned and gave him the finger, then closed and locked the WC door behind her. That only made him laugh all the more.
She barely had enough time to push her knickers round her knees and plant her bum on the loo. “Oh, thank God,” she sighed in relief, finally able to unloose. She closed her eyes while her bladder emptied, and was only faintly aware of the purring noise behind her. When she turned her head, Billy Buckham was sitting on the window sill, regarding her with the cool indifference only a cat can muster. Freya let out a startled cry.
“What’s going on in there?” she heard Kurt grumble.
Freya racked her brains for some excuse. “I pissed on the toilet seat, if you must know,” she called back.
“Just hurry it up.”
Freya finished her business, then pulled her leggings back up. “What’re you doing here, Billy?” she whispered to the cat.
Billy gave her a languid blink, as if to convey that it was none of her concern; that she should carry on with her day and let him do the same.
“You’ll get caught if you stay here,” Freya warned him, trying to push him back through the small gap in the open window. Billy swatted at her hand, drawing blood. “Ow, you arsehole!”
“Who you talkin’ to?” Kurt called, rapping on the door.
“Shut up, I’m washing my hands!”
“If you’re not out here in the next few seconds, I’m gonna kick the fuckin’ door down.”
“Billy, go!” Freya hissed. “Please!”
Billy wouldn’t budge. Neither would the window when Freya made a last ditch attempt to open it wider. There was no way she could squeeze through a gap that small, and even if she did, she would surely plummet to the ground in the absence of something to hold on to.
Out of time, she unlocked the door and glared at Kurt, hoping she could draw attention away from Sadie’s cat. “You know, it’s actually quite rude to stand outside a toilet and harass a lady like that. I’m telling Elsa when she gets back. I don’t think she’ll be very pleased, do you?”
“Yeah, yeah. Just go back to your room, so I don’t have to listen to you whine anymore.”
Billy strolled out of the WC and padded up the hallway. Inexplicably, Kurt didn’t even seem to register that a cat was there, though there was no possible way he could have failed to see him.
“What?” the thug said, following Freya’s line of sight with a frown.
Freya shook her head. “Nothing.”
When she looked again, Billy was nowhere to be seen.
6
Millie sat curled up on Hailey and Derek’s couch wrapped in a quilt, a hot water bottle pressed against her chest. Her cheeks were flushed, her skin warm and clammy. It hadn’t been long before the events of the day had begun to take their toll, leaving the eight-year-old aching and exhausted. If that wasn’t enough, sneezes and snuffles had set in, a sure sign of a cold, no doubt brought on by their unplanned dip in the ocean, followed by a breezy trek up to the lighthouse in damp clothes.
Hailey had called on the local doctor, Madeline, to check on Millie, then insisted on washing and drying Sadie’s and Millie’s clothes. She lent Sadie a sweatshirt and a pair of lounge pants (the two women were of a similar size and build), but Millie had settled for the warmth of the quilt, and not much else besides her knickers.
Madeline placed a hand upon the girl’s brow. In the years that Hailey had been absent from Morcant, the woman had lost little of her statuesque beauty, and none of her chic style. Tonight she wore a tight fitting black skirt and a white blouse, her dark hair loose around her shoulders.
Hailey knew it for what it was: a carefully cultivated image, a layer of elegance and sophistication designed to hide a seedier truth – Madeline Guiliani was an unrepentant sexual deviant. She had been having sex with her own daughter since the girl was knee high. She’d also seduced an eleven-year-old Hailey, though Hailey had never held that against the woman. Even to this day, some of her most powerful masturbatory fantasies were memories of kinky afternoons with the perverted doctor and her little girl.
No, it was Madeline’s corruption of Rita that had soured Hailey’s disposition towards her. Rita had been little more than a plaything for the woman, an object of revenge for her husband’s death at sea. Perhaps Rita would never have ended up in this predicament if Madeline had stood with her in female solidarity from the very beginning.
Or maybe she was always destined to end up in a cocoon at the top of a lighthouse, Hailey considered. I can hardly blame Madeline for that.
“Well, you’re certainly very warm,” the doctor told Millie. “Let’s pull that quilt down a bit, so I can take your temperature.”
“Don’t thermometers usually go in the mouth?” Hailey asked. “Or, er, up the bum?”
Millie looked somewhat alarmed at the prospect of a glass tube up her bottom. Thermometers weren’t really her cup of tea, not since she’d been very small and another doctor had unceremoniously deposited one up her backside when she was entirely unprepared.
“I don’t want a thernomonom up my b-b-b—” But before she could finish, Millie screwed her face up and erupted into another sneeze.
“It’s a digital thermometer,” Madeline told her with a look of distaste. “It goes under the armpit. Now slip the duvet down for me, and don’t be a baby.”
“I see your bedside manner hasn’t improved much,” Hailey said, an edge to her voice.
Madeline shot her a cool look. “I’m afraid I don’t have many patients left to practice on these days.”
Millie let the quilt fall away from her bare upper half. Madeline’s eyes wandered over the child’s boyish chest. “Oh, my. This brings back memories. Aren’t you a pretty little thing?”
“Don’t even think about it,” Hailey muttered, peering back at the closed lounge door. Sadie was in the kitchen with Derek, planning their trip back to the mainland. They could walk in any second.
Isla, Madeline’s teenage daughter, was sitting next to Millie with her knees tucked beneath her. She blew an enormous bubble with her gum. When it’d reached the limits of its elasticity, it exploded, covering the lower half of her face with a pink mask. She peeled it away, and Millie joined the teen’s chorus of giggles until another sneeze claimed her.
Madeline tucked the thermometer into the pit of one of Millie’s arms and held it there for a long moment, the thumb of her other hand brushing discreetly against the child’s nipple so Hailey couldn’t see what was happening.
The doctor’s sleight-of-hand had been refined and perfected over the years – a touch here, a touch there. Never enough to arouse suspicion, at least until Madeline could be certain that a little one’s mummy was conducive to the idea of a bit of naughty fun. And there had been quite a few willing participants over the years, enough that Madeline had begun to suspect the rulebook on female sexuality wasn’t quite as definitive as the world believed.
Isla was well aware of what her devious mother was up to, though. “Do you like that, Millie?” she asked the girl in hushed tones.
Millie smiled and nodded. The doctor lady was pretty, and smelled nice. True, she was feeling rough as a badger’s arse (one of Mr. Dalliard’s favourite sayings), but that gentle stroke against her nipple felt awfully soothing.
“She’ll put her hand into your knickers if you want her to. Won’t you, Mum?”
“Don’t you bloody dare!” hissed Hailey. “Just hurry up and take her temperature.”
Isla gave a pout, then poked her tongue out at Hailey.
Madeline smiled thinly. She removed the thermometer from beneath Millie’s arm. “You have a little bit of a fever, sweetheart. Hailey or your mum can collect some decongestants from the pharmacy tomorrow.”
“Sadie isn’t my mum, she’s my teacher,” Millie said.
“Oh? Are you on a school trip? How did you end up naked in Hailey and Derek’s house?”
“It’s complicated,” Hailey said.
Just then, Sadie entered the lounge with Derek. She and Madeline regarded one another with interest.
A popular theory states that when two beautiful women meet for the first time, they’ll either scratch each other’s eyes out or fuck one another senseless. Suffice to say, there was no danger of violence in Derek and Hailey’s lounge that evening. The signals were easy enough to interpret, had anyone bothered to look.
“As I was just telling your student,” Madeline told Sadie, drawing closer, “she has a small fever, but it’s nothing to be too concerned about. Keep her warm and rested.”
Sadie didn’t think either of them had the luxury of warmth and rest, but nodded anyway. “Thanks for coming over here at such a late hour,” she said, her eyes flickering down to admire the doctor’s cleavage, the first couple of buttons undone on the woman’s blouse. “I really appreciate it.”
Madeline followed Sadie’s line of sight with an arched brow. “I’ve no doubt,” she cooed.
There was an unusual atmosphere in the lounge. Some indefinable dynamic at play. Sadie let her senses snake out tentatively: A scintilla of intimacy passed between Hailey and the pink-haired teenager. The doctor regarded Millie with an interest that was all too familiar. Hailey scowled at Madeline, animosity festering there. Intriguing. But it was none of her concern, and there was no time to dwell on such things.
The only one who seemed to have nothing to hide was Derek. In the few hours since Sadie had met the man, she’d developed quite a soft spot for him. There was a gruff honesty about the old seaman that demanded you take him as you found him or not at all.
Derek pulled Isla into a rough hug, then saluted Madeline. The doctor’s usual shrewd regard softened somewhat. She rolled her eyes, then flipped back her own salute.
“Isla’s fun,” Millie said when doctor and daughter had departed. “I like her.”
“Oh, she’s a hoot a minute,” Hailey agreed wryly.
Derek stretched his arms behind his head and gave a loud yawn. “Time for some beauty sleep, I reckon!”
“You could use it…” Hailey shot back.
Derek threw his head back and boomed out a great laugh. “See how I gets treated in me own house, Millie? It’s an injustice, I tell ye!” He turned to Sadie. “We’ll set out at first light. I can get you as far as Lydney, but you’ll need to make your own way back home from there.”
Sadie smiled. “Thank you, Derek.”
“And I don’t keep a lock on me bedroom door, so no funny business, all right?”
“Uncle Derek!” Hailey barked.
“Oh, I’ll do my best to restrain myself,” Sadie replied with a chuckle.
Derek gave another belly laugh, then left the girls to it.
Hailey shook her head in embarrassment. “You can’t take him anywhere. Listen, I can sleep on the couch if you two want my room.”
Sadie waved a dismissive hand at the offer. “I wouldn’t dream of it. We’ll be fine on the couch, honestly.”
“Well, as long as you’re sure. We have an inflatable mattress Millie can use. I’ll fetch you some bedding, too.”
While Hailey was doing that, Sadie took a place next to Millie. She pushed the girl’s lank hair back behind her ears. “How are you feeling, sweetie?”
“I’m okay,” Millie said. “It’s just a cold.”
“Mmm. What a kerfuffle we’ve got ourselves into.”
“Sadie, will Mummy and Freya be alright?”
Sadie wasn’t sure how to answer that. Would they be alright in that dark, damp basement, at the mercy of a dark witch and her sadistic, nappy-wearing husband? It didn’t bode well, and that was without taking into account Sadie’s lack of any kind of rescue plan. She still had to somehow breach the wall around Derwold before even considering what came after that.
“I’m sure they’re fine,” the witch said, trying to reassure herself as much as Millie. “Tomorrow we’ll head back to Derwold and find Astris. Then the three of us will march up to the manor and lick some arse!”
“I think you mean kick some arse,” Millie said with a giggle.
“Exactly, my apprentice!”
7
Georgia awoke for the umpteenth time that night. There was some kind of ruckus out in the hall – raised voices, shoes upon floorboards. When the door to their makeshift prison swung open a few minutes later, she discovered the source of all the hullabaloo: Simon Derwold.
He appeared to be wearing one of Elsa’s frocks, and he’d had a fair bash at applying some of her makeup, too. Georgia thought he could’ve used a few pointers.
“Mr. Derwold, sir!” she heard an alarmed sounding Bernie hiss from somewhere behind Simon. “Mrs. Hart said they’re to be left alone, sir. She was very clear about it, she was.”
Simon had a big grin on his lipstick-smeared face. “They’re guests, Bernie! It’d be incredibly rude of me not to greet guests, wouldn’t it? Hmm?”
“You’ll get us into trouble, sir,” Kurt pitched in, although he didn’t seem quite as concerned about the situation as Bernie. The burly man extended a hand to the Lord of the Manor, but Simon slapped it away as if it carried the plague.
“Don’t touch me, you brute! I’ll tell!”
“Be reasonable, Mr. Derwold,” Kurt grumbled. “Elsa gave us very clear instructions that these two weren’t to be bothered tonight. It’s our jobs on the line here, sir.”
“Elsa’s not the King of Derwold, I am! I’m the fucking King of Derwold! I pay your wages, not Elsa! Actually, do I pay your wages? Well, I’m not sure, to be honest, but that’s besides the point.” Simon began stamping his feet like a petulant child. “I’m the King of Derwold and it’s my job to greet guests at Castle Derwold!”
Kurt and Bernie stood in the doorway, seemingly unsure how to proceed. Georgia doubted anything in their job description would’ve prepared the two men for a madman in a dress.
“Right, have it your own way, sir,” Kurt said at last, and ushered himself and Bernie away.
Georgia was about to plead with the two men not to leave her and Freya alone with this madman, but Simon had already closed the door behind him. He regarded them both with a sheepish smile. “Can you believe the insolence? I mean, really! What a pair of absolute rotters! I can only apologise.”
Georgia, now standing next to the couch with a stunned Freya beside her, knew she had to play this carefully. If Simon had really killed the vicar (and thankfully, Sadie had not gone into any great detail concerning that), then he was obviously a very dangerous man. The fact that he was also clearly insane only made their situation that much worse.
“You just can’t get the staff…” Georgia said with a weak smile, praying that the fear wasn’t evident in her voice.
“Oh, don’t get me started!” Simon replied with a chuckle. He reached a hand out to Georgia. “I don’t believe we’ve been formally introduced yet. I’m Simon, and you’re Georgia. Are you?”
Georgia took the hand offered to her and gave it a hearty shake. “Er, yes. I’m Georgia. Lovely to meet you, Simon.”
Simon pointed to Freya with a delighted grin. “There she is! Lady Freya! No introductions necessary here. Freya and I are old friends, you see. Quite the frequent visitor to Derwold Manor of late, am I right, Freya?”
Freya glanced at her mother briefly, and all Georgia could do was flash her eyes, hoping the meaning was clear enough: For God’s sake, just go with it!
“Uh, yeah,” Freya said in a small voice.
Simon paced the room, regarding each of its stuffed occupants in turn. “Ah, my old friends. Each one frozen in time. Memories of a happier life. Of a more civilised age. If I remember correctly…” He reached behind a stuffed mongoose and retrieved something about the size of a human fist. “Ah, yes, here we are.”
He brought the object to Freya. “This is Monty.”
Monty was apparently a dead mouse encased in a sphere of glass and mounted on a small plastic base. The poor thing looked like it’d been teleported inside a snow globe.
“Monty was my very first friend. I loved him very much. But Monty could often be a rather naughty little mousie, and sometimes it was necessary for me to give him a jolly good talking to. I’m sure Monty would’ve gone on to live a very long and fruitful life, had he cleaned up his act, but, well, I was only a wee lad back then, and I was very curious to know how long a mouse could survive underwater.”
Simon pushed the globe into Freya’s hands and closed her fingers around it. “Monty is yours now, if you’d do me the great honour of accepting this humble gift.”
Freya regarded the mummified mouse with barely concealed disgust. “Um. Thanks?”
Simon reached out and jiggled the globe to and fro. “You’re welcome, Lady Freya!” he said in a high-pitched voice.
“Ha, good one, Simon,” Georgia said. “That was nice of Simon, wasn’t it, Freya?”
“Yeah… terrific.”
Simon clapped his hands together. “Well, I’ve taken up enough of your time. I shall let you both get some sleep. I do hope Elsa finds Sadie and Millie. I’ll visit again, if you’d like me to.”
“Oh, yes. That sounds great, Simon,” Georgia told him.
Simon lingered in the doorway a moment. When he turned back, his near permanent grin was gone. Whatever replaced it was cold and hard, and utterly devoid of humanity. “I don’t much like broccoli,” he said morosely. “But I’m doing my best to eat it like a good boy.”
Then he was gone.
“Mum,” Freya said, after a moment of stunned silence. “We really need to get out of here.”
8
Millie opened her eyes in the dark of Hailey and Derek’s lounge.
Someone was calling to her, the voice faint but insistent. When her eyes had adjusted a little more, she peered back at Sadie’s vague shape on the couch. Her teacher was deep in slumber, chest rising and falling rhythmically.
Millie pulled back the blanket and crept from the room, dressed in nothing but her knickers and t-shirt.
Child of the Tuatha… Come to me…
She could hear whalesong off in the distance somewhere. The sound tugged at her, impossible to resist.
Millie opened the front door of the cottage, then shuffled across the yard towards the lighthouse. Its glass canopy was awash with a strange light, a beacon that seemed to lure instead of warn away, as lighthouses were surely meant to do.
Come to me...
Hadn’t she heard those words before, from some other place? Not from a lighthouse, but an ancient tree? The bearer of those words had wanted to keep her for itself, hadn’t it? Wanted to draw her into the tree forever. Did this one mean her harm, as well? The words were honeyed and alluring, and Millie didn’t think there was any ill intent behind them, but hadn’t she thought the same about that other voice once?
She entered the lighthouse and climbed its many steps to the top. Finally, she clambered up into the light chamber.
She found herself in a bedroom. It had a little window and pretty wallpaper on the walls. There was a naked woman sprawled out on a bed, her dark hair styled like one of those old movie stars that Millie had seen on TV. Her figure was that of the hourglass, her breasts large and pillowy.
The woman propped herself up with an elbow. “Hey, kid.”
“Hello,” Millie said back. “Who’re you?”
“I’m Rita.”
Rita? Wasn’t Rita the thing inside the cocoon? Or had the cocoon just been a dream?
“You’re a very pretty little girl, Millie,” Rita cooed. “I happen to like pretty girls.”
“How do you know my name?” Millie asked.
“Isn’t that what the witch called you?” Rita said. “I haven’t seen one like you for a very long time. I’ve been waiting for you. I think you might be able to help me with a little problem.”
“Problem?”
Rita dipped two fingers into the dusky crease between her legs, making them slick with her essence, then swirled them through the air. The aroma quickly found its way to Millie’s nose, its thick musk more potent and seductive than anything her senses had ever experienced. “Come closer,” Rita said, and Millie found herself padding barefoot over to the bed.
Rita brushed a sticky finger across Millie’s top lip, and it was almost enough to make the eight-year-old’s eyes roll back in their sockets.
“Oh, that smells so nice…” Millie murmured.
Rita tittered gleefully. “Let’s get that t-shirt off, shall we?”
She drew the child’s top up and over her head, then pressed her pillowy breasts into the little one’s boyish chest. Millie slung both arms around the woman’s shoulders and mewled in satisfaction, the warmth and softness of Rita’s tits delightful against her bare skin.
Rita cupped Millie’s bum through her panties, kneading the firm little cheeks. “It’s been so long,” she murmured. “I never felt so filled with desire as I did when I was in this form. Madeline taught me all the delights of human lust and depravity. Such a heady concoction. Nothing at all like the mindless animal coupling of Selkie.”
“Mmm,” Millie hummed, rubbing her body against Rita’s voluptuous form. She wasn’t sure what the woman was talking about, but that was okay.
“Stand up on the bed for me, Millie,” Rita said. “I want to watch you take those pretty panties off.”
Millie clambered up onto the bed and inched her lilac knickers down while Rita sat on her haunches and squeezed her breasts together.
“Oh, look at that beautiful pussy,” Rita cooed when Millie’s panties had reached her knees. “So smooth and bare.”
“My mum likes it, too,” Millie said, and briefly wondered if that was information she should be sharing.
“I can’t say I blame her,” Rita chuckled. “Let me help you take those knickers all the way off, sweetie. Then we can get down to the nasty stuff.”
Rita slipped the panties down to Millie’s ankles, letting the child step out of them.
Millie couldn’t help herself – grasping the woman’s thick, dark hair, she thrust her smooth vulva into Rita’s face. “I – I’m sorry if it’s not very polite, Rita, but I really need you to lick me, okay? Mummy likes licking me there a lot. So does Sadie, and my big sister— Oooh!”
Rita lashed her tongue up and down the girl’s pussy, the fresh, tart savour of child cunt invoking memories of lazy afternoons with Madeline and her six-year-old daughter Isla, and later with a younger version of Hailey. She stabbed her tongue into Millie’s hole, and the little girl welcomed it with a whimper, grinding herself against the woman’s mouth.
And then Millie was coming, white hot waves crashing against every nerve ending in her body, the intensity of it making her growl like something feral. Her thrusts petered out until there were none left, and she collapsed to her knees upon the bed.
She’d never come that hard before, had never felt the need to. Her body was entirely capable of such pleasure, but her childish mind had rarely made full use of its capacity, usually content to fool around until boredom or indifference set in. Some days, playing with her mother and sister, she didn’t climax at all.
But now the smell of this mysterious woman, so thick and rich, had ensnared her. And with it, Millie’s arousal stirred once more. It tapped into something old and primaeval, some part of her wanting to penetrate and burrow into her new lover’s cunt, to be inside Rita, to explore her on a subatomic level.
And therein lay the magic that Rita sought. There was still a chance, slim though it was.
Rita sat back against the headboard and slung her legs wide for the child. “Show me what you can do, kid.”
Millie was all too eager to put her mouth where that wonderful aroma originated. She flicked her tongue up and down the sour flesh, nuzzling at Rita’s folds.
“Fuck yeah,” Rita groaned. “Eat my cunt, little girl. So fucking nasty.”
Millie found the woman’s clit, already popped free of its fleshy sheath, then took it between her lips, swirling her tongue round it while she clumsily stuffed two fingers into the hole below.
Rita pinched her dark nipples, mouth set into a snarl while the girl went at her. She kept herself from climaxing for as long as she could, but finally gave in to her body’s demand and came in Millie’s face, the cream of her passion oozing down over the girl’s mouth and chin.
Millie didn’t seem much inclined to stop licking. That was fine with Rita. Reaching down, she tugged at the child’s shoulder. Millie understood what the woman wanted, and swung her legs over Rita’s head until the two of them were mouth to cunt.
Rita prised open Millie’s bum cheeks and went to work on her arsehole, tracing the little pink confection with her tongue. She slipped a finger into the tight hole below and pumped it back and forth while she pleasured the girl’s anus.
Millie brushed her fingers over Rita’s clit, breathing in the woman’s thick aroma.
When the two of them had come several more times, and the muscles in Millie’s mouth were beginning to ache, the eight-year-old twisted her body round and let her weight settle back on Rita.
Rita kissed the child on the mouth. “I don’t have much time left, Millie. I can feel myself slipping away. There’s just one more thing I need from you, if the Elders spoke true of Old Blood magic.“
She twisted her hips until their pussies slotted together. Millie moved against the woman, brushing back and forth. Rita arched her pelvis to press them even more tightly together. Their fluids mingled, creating a liquid bridge between them. They both cried out in ecstasy, and finally it was done.
A seed had been planted. Whether it would take root or not would remain to be seen.
“You must not be here when I wake,“ Rita said, stroking the child’s hair.
“Why?“ Millie murmured.
Rita whispered in her ear, “I’ll hurt you.“
9
Elsa stood on the beach and gazed out across the water at the peninsula she had once called home, visible in the darkness only by a few street lamps and half-lit houses. It had taken her two hours to drive here; now it was almost morning.
Morcant-On-Sea had been another life; another person. A weak, frightened little girl called Frances Mooney had lived in one of those houses, beaten and tortured by her mother and her mother’s vile boyfriend.
Then Frances had begun menstruating, and the power that had lain dormant within her quickened. She had used it willingly enough. But without mastery or self control, and driven by rage and fear, the sorcery was a terrible thing to behold. Frances had turned her tormentors’ insides to liquid until they bled from every pore and every orifice. Then, just before they could escape into the soothing release of death, she’d made them combust.
Surrounded by blood and fire, serenaded by their screams of agony, her rebirth was complete. Frances Mooney became Elsa Hart, not yet in name, but certainly in sentiment.
But there was still something of Frances left in Elsa. And only now, having returned to this wretched place, did she realise it. She felt the old weakness bubbling beneath the surface, the uncertainty threatening to swallow her up. It sickened her.
What was Morcant-On-Sea if not a withered limb? A useless, burdensome thing that served no purpose other than to hinder. Better to cut it away and be done with it.
She had come to find Sadie and Millie and bring them under her command. But now she knew there was something else left to do that was equally as important. If she was to kill Frances Mooney for good, Morcant-On-Sea would need to be wiped off the map.
Elsa fondly regarded the magpie sitting on her shoulder. It nuzzled at her face and she kissed it on the beak. “My sweet Minerva. You’re so precious to me. And that’s why you must stay here.“
Will come! Will help!
No, my friend. Not this time. There is grim work to be done. Fly now. Fly!
Minerva fluttered her graceful wings and took to the sky.
Elsa made her way down to the shoreline. Raising her arms skywards, she began to summon the drowned dead.
Soon to come: Chapter Ten!
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