Juicy Secrets Forbidden Tales of Lesbian Love

For a list of the many characters who populate this saga, check out Dramatis Personae.

Thus far in our story…

Prologue: Hailey Ellis has returned to Morcant-On-Sea after several years away, only to find the coastal town is a shadow of its former self. Amidst this decline, Hailey navigates her various relationships, but a shocking encounter with her selkie aunt foreshadows a chain of events that will change all their lives forever.

Ch1: Several months later in the village of Derwold, the summer holidays begin for the Newton girls. Eleven-year-old Freya struggles to cope with the changes that adolescence brings, and wonders why she feels so angry and alone. To add to her unhappiness, she experiences her first period. 

Ch2: The next day, Freya has a chance meeting with Elsa Hart, wife of the new lord of Derwold Manor. A little later, Freya joins Sadie and her sister Millie for a lesson in alchemy, but things don’t quite go as planned when Millie inadvertently amplifies the potency of the love potion they’ve brewed. After the effects have worn off, Millie visits the churchyard to pay her respects to an old friend. Whilst there, she has an encounter with a black panther, and discovers she can communicate with the creature.

Ch3: Several days later, Simon and Elsa host a housewarming party in the grounds of the old manor. Elsa treats Freya to a tour of the recent restoration efforts, and the seeds are sown for a burgeoning friendship. Meanwhile, post mistress Sally Jeffries has a few too many drinks and ends up accidentally setting fire to pompous druid Bernard, then has a few choice words for Simon Derwold, who she remembers from decades before. Georgia, Sadie and Millie make their way home, where they indulge in a night of passion in the lounge, only to be interrupted by Elsa and Freya. Elsa comes to suspect her new neighbours are not all that they seem.

Ch4: The vicar of Derwold has been murdered by an unknown assailant. Unaware of the events that are about to unfold, Sadie tries to fathom the mysteries of the ancient standing stone near her cottage with the help of Freya and Millie. Later, Freya pays a visit to Derwold Manor, and she and Elsa enjoy an afternoon of passion. It turns out Elsa is using Freya for her own ends, and the eleven-year-old is tricked into revealing all their secrets.

Ch5: Sadie receives a concerning call from Vivaan Dinesh, Derwold’s resident doctor. At the surgery, she is confronted with the murdered vicar. Meanwhile, Millie rescues Bernard from the mysterious black panther, and the traumatised man confesses he’s not a real druid at all. 

Sadie sets out to investigate the vicar’s murder, and discovers that someone has set an arcane wall around the village, preventing anyone from entering or leaving. In the woods that surround Derwold, she meets Astris the dryad.

Ch6: Astris tells Sadie that Elsa is the one who has sealed off the village, though for what purpose she doesn’t know. The dryad also hints that Elsa is a witch, and that she harbours great power. Sadie researches the Derwold family and discovers they have a troubled history. She also discovers Elsa changed her name to conceal her past, and is inexplicably older than she seems. 

At the post office, Sally Jeffries tells Sadie a disturbing childhood story, in which an eight-year-old Simon tortured and killed his pet dog. Suspecting the vicar’s murder may have been Simon’s doing, Sadie hastens to Beekeeper Cottage to make sure everyone’s safe, but Freya has already gone to the manor to meet with Elsa. Sadie races to retrieve her.

Ch7: At Derwold Manor, stark truths are revealed. Elsa has sealed the village off to protect Simon. More than that, she intends to set the stage for a new world order, one where women rule and men are consigned to history. She asks Sadie and Millie to join her, but Sadie refuses. She and Freya arrive back at Beekeeper Cottage only to find Georgia and Millie missing. They are captured by Elsa’s thugs, and reunited with Georgia and Millie, the four of them are imprisoned in the manor. 

Discovering the large rock in the cellar where they are confined is actually an ancient standing stone, Millie manages to tap into its magic, and she and Sadie are transported to an unknown location. 

Ch8: 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.

Ch9: Elsa uses the menhir to determine Sadie and Millie’s whereabouts. Having discovered they are in the town where she spent her childhood, the enraged woman prepares to recapture them. 

Meanwhile, Sadie and Millie meet Hailey and Derek. Hailey tells them that whatever’s sleeping inside the cocoon was once her selkie aunt, Rita. Sadie explains that she needs to get back to Derwold to rescue Georgia and Freya, but with no easy way back to the mainland, they will need to wait until morning. Meanwhile, Sadie’s cat familiar, Billy Buckham, sneaks into Derwold Manor with plans of his own.

Some time later, Millie is awakened by a strange voice summoning her to the top of the lighthouse. There she meets a spectral version of Rita, and the two of them enjoy a moment of intimacy, culminating in an exchange of old magics. Over on the mainland, Elsa makes her way towards the coast to prepare an invasion.

And now, dear readers, we make our way into the next installment. Read on…

by BlueJean

1

Jack knelt bare-chested on the floor of his lounge, his arms forcibly held out to his sides by things that had surely been conjured from his worst nightmares.

He’d been sold a dodgy batch of weed, that had to be it. The bastards must’ve put some kind of hallucinogenic chemical in it. What other explanation for the shifting green mass of dead-eyed creatures that occupied his living room?

He closed his eyes and shook his head from side to side, trying to pull himself together. When he opened them again, the spectral horrors still haunted his vision.

And if that wasn’t madness enough to contend with, now the apparitions were parting to allow a woman through. Her hair was a shocking flame peppered with two streaks of grey at the temples. Jack felt a palpable sense of relief to know he wasn’t alone with these creatures anymore.

The woman folded to her knees before him. “Hello, handsome,” she crooned, brushing her fingers lightly against his cheek. “I saw your light on. I hope you don’t mind me calling at this late hour. I used to live in this house, you know. I love what you’ve done with the place.”

Jack stared terror-stricken at the newcomer. “I think there’s something wrong with me. I’m seeing things. Can you s-s-see them, too? Can you?”

The red-haired woman tittered gleefully. “Of course I can s-s-see them, s-s-s-silly boy,” she told him mockingly. “It was me that summoned them, after all.”

“What the fuck are they?”

“The dead, sweetling. The dead. Of course, they don’t know they’re dead. If they did, they would’ve returned to the Great Cycle by now. And the longer they linger between life and death, the more of their humanity they forget, until eventually there’s nothing left but hate and regret. A perfect army of mindless rage, ready to be utilised at a moment’s notice.”

“M-make them go away. Please.”

The woman trailed her fingers down Jack’s bare torso. She pinched a nipple between thumb and forefinger and twisted painfully. Her mother had done the same thing to her many times, right here in this lounge.

Jack cried out, and the creatures in the room surged forward at the shrill sound.

“Sála!” the woman commanded, and it seemed to Jack that her voice came from all directions at once. He was unfamiliar with the word, and the language it belonged to, but somehow he still caught some sense of its meaning: Heel!

“No, you mustn’t make a fuss, my sweet,” the woman told him with mock concern. “The slightest thing can set them off. They despise the living, you see.”

She took his other nipple and twisted slowly, her nails digging into the tender flesh there. Jack clamped his mouth tight against the pain, tears welling in the corners of his eyes. “Shhhh…” she whispered. “Not a sound, lovely boy. Not a sound.”

A dark patch appeared on the crotch of Jack’s lounge pants and spread outwards. The woman released his bloody nipple and gave him a sympathetic look.

“Oh, dear. It looks like you’ve had a little accident. Well, it’s nothing to be ashamed of.”

She patted him on the head, and Jack flinched away from the contact.

“Dear me, you and I were having so much fun, I almost forgot the original purpose of my visit. What a scatterbrain I am!” She leaned into him. “I’m looking for a young woman and a little girl, you see. The woman is in her late twenties with long, chestnut hair. She’s very pretty – the kind of woman little boys like you sniff around like dogs. The girl is eight or nine with hair that’s dark blonde. She’s quite adorable, in a nauseating sort of way. Perhaps you prefer girls her age? Well, I’m not one to judge. They’re strangers to this town. Have you seen them?”

He had seen them, and he would’ve given them up without much thought to whatever this sadistic woman was going to do to them. He didn’t know these people, after all. They weren’t his problem. No one was asking him to protect two complete strangers, were they? No one had any right to demand that when a horde of undead were bearing down on him. That just wouldn’t be fair at all.

But he’d seen where the woman and her kid were headed from his bedroom window. Up towards the lighthouse. Up where Hailey and Derek lived. And Hailey and Derek were his concern. Derek was his friend and former captain. And Hailey was…

What was Hailey to him? Friend? Lover? Fuck buddy? Hailey had never made that very clear, and sometimes Jack needed people to spell things out for him, because it was too complicated to figure out that stuff for himself. She liked him, he knew that much, and he definitely liked her, enough that he didn’t want to send this spectral shitstorm heading her way.

Jack gave tiny shakes of his head, praying it would be enough to end his ordeal and make the lady and her pets go away.

The woman brought her face close to his, her breath warm against his ear. “I see the lie in your eyes, pissy boy,” she whispered. “I can do terrible, terrible things to you. Slow, painful, horrific things. You’ll beg me to kill you, but I won’t, not right away. And when I’m finally bored of playing, I’ll set my friends on you. They’ll tear you apart and claim you as one of their own. You mustn’t lie to me again, sweetling. I can’t stress that enough.”

She sat back on her haunches and smiled at him amicably. “Now. Let’s try again, shall we? Where did they go? Tell me.”

“L-l-lighthouse…” Jack whimpered, and in uttering that single word, some irretrievable part of his soul flickered out like a candle. He’d sold them out. As easily as that, he’d sold his friends out. And he could never take it back.

“The lighthouse, you say?”

Jack gave an almost imperceptible nod.

The woman tenderly pushed his lank hair back behind his ears. “Good boy. What a good boy you are.”

She rose to her feet, then turned to leave. The undead closed around her like a protective wall until both she and they were gone.

Jack collapsed to the floor and sobbed. “Sorry, Hailey… So sorry…”

Then he remembered his phone lying on the coffee table.

2

Hailey awoke with a start. Her phone was buzzing away on the nightstand next to her bed. In a fug of semi-awareness she reached out to see who the caller was, but knocked it onto the floor instead. Blindly fumbling around on the carpet, she managed to retrieve the device before it rang off.

It was Jack. Why the hell was he phoning her at this hour?

“Jack, what the fuck?” she groaned. “It’s 4:am.”

“Hailey! Get out of the house!” a frantic Jack cried, causing Hailey to pull the phone away from her ear with a wince.

“Wh-what? What’s happening?”

“Get Derek and run! She’s coming up to the lighthouse!”

“What the hell are you talking about, Jack? Have you been smoking that shit again?”

“Hailey, listen to me, I’m not fuckin’ around here! There’s a woman. She has an army of… I don’t know what the fuck they are – dead people! She’s lookin’ for a lady and a kid. She was gonna kill me, I had to tell her. She’s on her way. I’m hangin’ up. Get out of there! Now!”

Hailey stared at her smartphone for a moment, trying to make some sense of the bizarre call. She stood on the bed and peered out the porthole window. A sickly green glow roiled and undulated down by the harbour and the lower part of town. It looked like the Northern Lights, but that made no sense – Northern Lights happened in the sky, not down on the ground. And that green mass was moving through the streets at an alarming rate, like a wave of poison.

There’s a woman, Hailey! She’s coming!

“Oh my god…” Hailey murmured, then in a considerably louder voice: “Derek! Sadie!”

Sadie shot awake with a cry when Hailey crashed through the lounge door a few moments later.

“Sadie, there’s something coming!”

The witch brought her hands up in front of her. They were tingling like crazy, the power in her fingers readying itself, warning her something was near. She leapt from the couch and peeked behind the curtains. The night was awash with spectral energy, a green glow on the horizon that was rapidly encompassing the rest of the sky.

“No… Oh, bloody hell, no. This is not ideal.”

“What the hell is it?” Hailey demanded.

Derek barrelled into the lounge in a pair of boxer shorts and a t-shirt. “That’s what I’d like to fuckin’ know. Last time I saw summit like that was out on the boat with Sully. He swore blind it were the ghost of old Captain Bren and the Siren.”

“Elsa’s raised the dead,” Sadie murmured, her face gone pale. “The silly bitch has raised the dead.”

“The dead? Like… the dead dead?” said Hailey. “W-we should probably go, right?”

“Go where, girl?” Derek said. “You know as well as I do the only way out is right through whatever the fuck’s headin’ our way.”

“It’s too late,” Sadie said with a note of resignation. “She’s here…”

The sea of dead crashed into the old stucco cottage with a ferocity that took the witch’s breath away. They clamoured at the walls and the windows, their numbers so great it sounded for all the world like some living, seething earthquake bearing down.

Elsa must have summoned them from miles around, millennia of seafarers lost to the depths, unaware of their plight and thus prevented from returning to the Cycle. Most times these spirits were benign, unable to interact with the living world in any tangible way, but once given a conduit into the physical realm, Elsa would use them to command havoc. It’d been much the same with Isabel – Sadie’s ancestor had only been able to cause such harm because she’d anchored herself to the great oak and leeched off the dryad’s power.

Sadie could hear them clawing at the weaker points of the building – the glass of the windows, the slate tiles on the roof, the floorboards beneath their feet. She knew the old cottage wouldn’t keep them out for long.

She backed away from the window, regarding her tingling hands absentmindedly, as if the answer might be found there. “Uh… Okay. Okay.” When she turned back to Derek and Hailey there was steel in her eyes. “Stay close to me,” she told them. “Whatever happens, do not run. I can’t protect you if you do. Millie, get up, I need your help!”

Sadie pulled back the quilt on the inflatable bed only to find it empty. “She’s gone. Millie’s gone… Millie! Millie, where are you?!”

3

Millie dreamed she was slumbering on a huge egg. It was warm and moist, and pulsated against her body like a beating heart. It invoked memories of the womb, safe and comforting.

It was the tingling in her hands that woke her. She’d felt it before, that day in the cemetery when the dead had stirred beneath her. But now it was greatly amplified, like a bad case of pins and needles, the kind of tingling that could drive you mad.

Millie opened her eyes and found herself draped naked across the Rita-Cocoon, her limbs wrapped around its egg-like circumference. It smelled of the sea, and something else beneath that – the earthy promise of sex, or perhaps the remnants of the act itself.

She slid to the floor and went to retrieve her clothes. How on earth had she ended up here? There’d been a naughty dream with a naked lady on a bed, and—

Something was coming. The lighthouse shook with the violence of its approach. Millie scrambled to slip her t-shirt and knickers back on just as the hatch in the floor flew open and the dead poured into the light chamber. She screamed in terror.

4

Sadie didn’t hear the scream, she felt it. She’d unfurled her animal senses, probing for any sign of Millie, the same way she’d found numerous lost pets and missing livestock – though the folks of Derwold had always believed their resident schoolteacher just had a knack for being in the right place at the right time, if they considered the strangeness of it at all. Elsa had been right about that, at least – hiding the arcane in plain sight was remarkably easy in the 21st century.

“She’s in the lighthouse!” the witch cried, startling Derek and Hailey. “We have to get to her!”

Sadie drew in as much power as she was able, then used it to set a ward around the three of them. She strengthened it with an ancient chant. “Ónteros pelnis dó pālājō!” Second skin to protect!

An invisible barrier shimmered into life around them. It was by no means impenetrable, more a deterrent, a portable version of Elsa’s weavewall set around the village of Derwold. Attempting to breach the ward’s boundaries would invoke fear in the dead, but convincing a spirit is far from the same as convincing a living person. The dead were without reason, mindless husks of the people they had once been. In their madness, Sadie knew the apparitions would do whatever they could to get at them. She would need to go on the offensive as well as the defensive.

This is what you wanted, wasn’t it? she told herself. Bonafide witch business. The real thing. Well, guess what? This is about as real as it gets, girl. Time to do or die.

“Stay close!” Sadie told Derek and Hailey, then began moving forward. She paused at the front door of the cottage, then turned back to them. “Get ready. Do not panic. Do not run. Understand?”

“Are we sure we want to do this?” Hailey said in a thin voice.

“We don’t have any choice, Hailey. I have to get to Millie.”

Pale-faced, Hailey gave a grim nod.

Derek made some effort to swallow his own fear. He smacked a fist into the palm of his other hand, then hollered, “Fuckin’ bring it on! I’m in the mood for spankin’ some zombies!”

Sadie gave a quick approving nod, then slung open the door. In a heartbeat, hell closed in around them.

5

“Tá sheol thú!”

Millie wailed the chant as the spectral horde flung themselves at her. It was the incantation used to send the dead back to the cycle, the same one Sadie had used on Isabel months before. But where Sadie had used it as a tool to gently persuade and compel, Millie now used it as a weapon, the old Celtic words sharp and precise, hurled out with ferocious momentum.

Spectral figures sputtered out of existence at the uttering, only to be replaced by scores more, the small light chamber seething with the vile things. Millie cried out in terror, barely resisting the urge to simply fall to the floor and curl into a little ball.

“Tá sheol thú! Tá sheol thú! Sadie! Help me!”

More of them imploded into nothing, but others flooded into the chamber to replace those lost, filling the spaces their undead brethren had vacated. Millie knew she was fighting a losing battle.

Sadie had often explained to her how language was used to reinforce magic, how different languages represented tiers of power. In Europe, the Celtic dialects had always been intrinsically linked with witchcraft, the modern variants considered the weakest, the ancient precursors more potent. The root of all Celtic languages, Proto-Indo-European, or ‘Eurasian’ as the witches know it, held the most power. Millie and Sadie had been learning the reconstructed language together.

Millie uttered the tenuous words now, hoping they would be enough to turn the tide. “Egō sontejō juwetū!”

The dead evaporated in greater numbers, three or four at a time. Still they came, though now they seemed less sure of themselves. Without any clear idea of what she was doing, Millie amplified the spell, projecting it like a sonic wave. It rippled out, obliterating spectres along its path.

Power sought power, tapping into hidden knowledge locked inside Millie’s genetic code. Older words formed in her mind, a dialect never intended to be uttered by human beings. The language of the Tuatha Dé Danann. The First Tongue.

Millie pushed the ancient chant out like a tsunami, the lighthouse groaning at the sorcery unleashed within its walls.

“Mœ. Nê. Dâ!”

The dead flickered out like candles. Any that remained turned tail and fled, terrified of whatever it was the child commanded.

“MŒ! NÊ! DÂ!”

The canopy overhead suddenly shattered, raining glass down on Millie as she stood with her eyes tight shut, trembling with the power coursing through her body.

When she found the courage to open her eyes once more, the dead were mercifully gone. But something worse now stood before her.

“What a naughty little girl you are,” Elsa crooned disapprovingly, hands hooked onto her hips. She briefly considered the strange mass of the cocoon occupying the chamber. Then she was upon Millie.

6

Sadie mustered all the power she could command to both maintain the ward and send as many of the dead onwards as she was able, throwing out her chants in all directions. A single bead of blood trickled from a nostril and dribbled into her mouth. She licked the coppery taste away, then resumed her grim work.

They had reached the lighthouse, and were slowly working their way up the spiralling metal staircase. The dead seethed around them. They dogged and besieged the protective ward, becoming increasingly emboldened each time they breached its tentative membrane. Hailey clung onto Sadie for dear life while Derek thrashed around with his fists, hollering his own set of unique chants:

“Who you gonna call?! Who you gonna fuckin’ call?! By the power of Greyskull!”

Sadie didn’t think those particular phrases were part of the witch’s repertoire, but she knew any words compelled by courage held their own curious power.

Without warning, some unknown blast of arcane energy exploded towards them like a shockwave, the deep thrum of it invoking a sudden nausea. Sadie looked up towards the top landing just in time to see a throng of undead vanish into nothing. Those that remained fled down towards them, crashing through the ward’s membrane with terror-stricken expressions etched onto their pale, dead faces. The ward held for a few scant seconds more, then failed completely.

“Get down!” Sadie cried, and the three of them collapsed to their knees, arms moving instinctively to cover their heads, for all the good it would do them.

The dead flew past, clearly more concerned with escaping whatever power had been turned against them than harming the three living humans left so suddenly exposed. The spectres that had harried them from behind were now retreating too, what little rationale they still possessed informing them it was probably wise to put as much distance between themselves and the lighthouse, and indeed the town, as possible.

Sadie peered down the stairs after them. “They’re gone.”

Hailey held onto Sadie’s arm so tightly her nails were beginning to dig into the flesh there. “W-what’s happening? Are we still alive?“

“Permission to shit my pants,” Derek said, his eyes wide with fear.

Before Sadie could deny the request, a child’s scream echoed through the lighthouse. The three of them raced to the top.

7

When they scrambled up into the light chamber, they found Elsa with an arm clamped around Millie’s throat, her other hand held out limply in front of her, blood dripping from a wound between thumb and forefinger.

“You bit me, you savage little bitch! How dare you!”

“Let her go, Elsa!” Sadie demanded.

Elsa regarded the young teacher with surprise. “Miss Laine, you’re alive. Bravo! What on earth have you been teaching this revolting little hobgoblin? She severed my link with the dead and sent them all running back to the sea.”

Derek stepped out in front of Sadie and Hailey, using the bulk of his arms in a foolish attempt to shield the two young women. “I ain’t never hit a woman before,” he attested, “but God help me, if you don’t let the littl’un go, I’m gonna stick my boot where the sun don’t shine.” Like the others, he was barefoot, but the sentiment was sincere enough.

With a look of pure fury, Elsa snaked a hand out towards the big man and projected a single word at him. “Kruwós!”

Blood erupted from Derek’s nose, spraying out in a wide crimson arc. He fell back against the wall with a wail, cupping his face with both hands in an attempt to stem the flow. Hailey folded to her knees beside her uncle.

“You’re lucky I have more pressing matters, Captain Birdseye,” Elsa hissed. “I’ve drained men dry for less.”

“Let Millie go, Elsa,” Sadie said. “She’s just a child, for Christ’s sake.”

“You’re not in control here, Sadie. I’m calling the shots, do you understand? The three of us are going home, and everyone is going to do as they’re fucking told!”

“I’m not helping you! Neither is Millie. Face it, you’ve made a mess of things. Find someone else to help you with your insane plans and leave us all alone.”

Elsa curled her lip up into a snarl. “You have no idea who you’re dealing with, do you? I tried to be nice, but I see now that was a mistake. Unruly children need discipline, not mollycoddling.”

“What happened to you, Elsa?” Sadie said, trying to buy them some time until she could work out her next move. “I know your mother and her boyfriend died here in this town. I think you killed them, but you must have had a good reason.”

Elsa’s brow darkened, her eyes gone to flint. “I strongly advise you to shut your mouth, Miss Laine.”

“They hurt you, didn’t they? They hurt you and you lashed out. I don’t think you meant to kill them. You lost control. It wasn’t your fault. Stop this madness before it’s too late, Elsa. I can be a friend, if that’s what you need. Come back to the—”

Elsa held her palm out and thrust it forward. Sadie fell to her knees upon the cold metal floor. A terrible heat welled up inside her, kindling in the marrow of her bones. She screamed in agony.

“Tân a gwaed!” Elsa hissed. “Fire and blood! These are the weapons with which I killed my bitch of a mother, and I have kept them well honed, sister!”

“Leave Sadie alone!” Millie wailed, clamping her teeth over Elsa’s wrist and biting down hard enough to cause a jet of blood to spurt from the artery there. When she drew her mouth away, a small white tooth sat embedded in the flesh. Elsa roared in pain, but it wasn’t enough to make her release her grip on the child. Millie brought a foot out in front of her, as if she were about to frogmarch away, then swung it back with all her might, cracking it against Elsa’s shin.

Elsa howled, shifting all her focus to the child beneath her. She locked both hands around the girl’s throat and squeezed. “Vicious little monster!” she screamed. “You awful, awful people! I’ve had enough! I’m going to kill you! I’M GOING TO KILL YOU ALL!”

8

The creature inside the cocoon stirs from her long slumber.

She senses danger all around her, and the most primal of instincts rouses her to action: the need to protect the thing growing inside her at all cost. It is an utterly alien concept, for her kind do not give birth, but the other part of her understands the sentiment intimately, the old part, the part that remembers.

She is being pulled in two different directions. The wrongness of it induces a kind of breathtaking panic. The old part of her wants to escape, to use the thing growing in her belly as a vessel. Even now, memory and rationale migrate. What remains is base and animal – predation, hunger, instinct.

She can hear them outside. Angry, frightened, weak little creatures. Prey.

One of them is louder than all the others. Its sorcery washes against the walls of her cocoon. She can taste its arrogance. It believes it is all-powerful. It wants to dominate and control, but nature never intended its species to be apex predators, so it asserts its will fearfully, furtively. She will teach it the error of its ways.

Her stomach cramps with excruciating pain. The thing inside her grows with such speed and urgency. Such speed!

How dare these noisy, squawking primates invade her nest. How dare they disturb her rest and threaten her offspring.

The One Who Got Away. The name means nothing. And everything.

She’s angry. Very angry.

Her eyes flutter open.

9

A sudden urgent sound came from somewhere behind Elsa, like something tearing through flesh. From that shadowy part of the chamber, where the dim light of the single halogen wall lamp couldn’t quite reach, a grey mottled arm burst free of the cocoon, followed by the unfurling of a great membranous wing. Then another arm; another wing.

Elsa turned towards the ruckus, the rupturing cocoon no more than three feet away from her.

“What’s this now?” she said in wonder, and in answer, the full form of whatever had been gestating inside that sac for so many months chose this moment to unleash itself upon the world.

It exploded from the cocoon in a shower of amniotic fluid and, towering over Elsa, wasted no time in sinking its razor-sharp teeth into her right shoulder before the woman even had time to register the attack.

Elsa roared, a sound that was equal parts outrage and pain. She released her grip on Millie, affording the eight-year-old the brief opportunity to scramble quickly away. Hailey reached forward to grab her, shielding the child with her arms.

The creature thrashed its wings violently, their span so wide there was nowhere in the cramped confines of the light chamber to escape their reach. Sadie, now free of Elsa’s sorcery, noted with some horror that the creature had no choice but to keep beating them – with a long, serpent-like tail in place of legs, it would’ve collapsed to the floor otherwise. This was a thing designed to both swim beneath the water and fly through the skies.

Its upper body was that of a woman, pale grey breasts protruding from its chest. But its face was merely a mockery of womanhood, a death mask incapable of displaying the full spectrum of human emotions. Mimicry, plain and simple, the way a Death’s-Head Hawkmoth imitates a bee.

“Rita!” Derek cried, stumbling in front of Hailey, for it was indeed Rita’s face the monstrosity wore. “Rita, stop!”

The creature struck him with a wing, knocking the big man off his feet and into the wall. It was in a frenzy now, attacking anything it could reach, no doubt panicked to find itself in such inexplicable confinement. It grabbed the elevated dais in the center of the chamber that housed the huge lamp and lunged downwards, snapping at Hailey and Millie, its tail whipping back and forth in the air.

Hailey dragged the girl with her as she scrambled back towards the open hatch in the floor, her momentum inadvertently slamming it shut.

“KRUWÓS!” Elsa howled, unleashing a burst of sorcery at the thrashing creature. Blood sprayed from its sickly grey nipples, like grim sustenance intended for some hellish offspring. More blood trickled from its soulless black eyes. The thing screeched, a sound so loud and piercing in the confines of the light chamber, it made the eardrums pulsate. Millie covered her ears, burying her face in Hailey’s chest.

The creature flew at Elsa and caught her in a deathly embrace. Arms locked to her sides, Elsa could no longer direct her sorcery at the thing. It let out another nauseating screech, then bit down on Elsa’s right ear, ripping the appendage away from her head as if it were tissue paper. Elsa let out a howl that almost rivalled the creature’s in intensity and volume.

The monster lifted itself into the air, beating its wings with such force and alacrity they cracked the surrounding air with miniature sonic booms. Then it flew up through the shattered canopy and away, Elsa still clutched tightly in its arms. The dark witch’s screams echoed into the night, then faded to nothing.

10

No one moved for several long seconds.

“What the hell was that?” Hailey whispered, too afraid to speak the words out loud.

“A siren,” Sadie answered as she shuffled towards Hailey and Millie. She took Millie in her arms and began picking shards of glass from the child’s hair. “I believe it was a siren.”

“Aye,” Derek agreed, nursing the impressive collection of wounds he’d accrued. “Never seen one ’till tonight, but it were a siren all right.”

Hailey put her hands to her face and sobbed. “My god, poor Aunt Rita… This is terrible.”

“We need to get out of here,” Sadie said, “before it comes back.”

“She ain’t comin’ back,” said Derek.

“What makes you say that?”

“A siren don’t hunt its prey, it lures it in.”

“Yes, of course. The Siren Song. But still, if I’m to get back to Derwold, this may be our only window. If that thing’s out there, it has Elsa to – to deal with. At least for a while.”

Sadie made a reasonable assumption that Elsa would be the creature’s first meal upon entering the world, but she couldn’t quite bring herself to voice the notion.

“Don’t call her a thing,” Hailey whimpered. “She was my aunt.”

Sadie shook out Millie’s soft blonde curls of any remaining glass while Derek put a comforting arm around his niece.

“We’re going home, Millie,” the witch said softly. “How does that sound?”

“My tooth came out,” Millie said in a quiet voice, as if it were of little consequence.

Sadie pulled the child close and held her for a long moment, fighting back the urge to burst into tears. Millie looked so small and helpless. She didn’t much like the way the eight-year-old stared off into some imaginary distance, either.

11

When the four of them emerged barefoot from the lighthouse, the night had given way to the first rays of morning.

“What the hell,” Hailey murmured, gazing out towards the sea.

“What’s wrong?” Sadie asked.

“The lighthouse was never this close to the cliff edge.”

Hailey walked out to investigate. She stopped a metre from the edge, then sank to her knees, hands clutching despairingly at her head. “Oh my god…”

When the other three joined her, they offered their own versions of shock and disbelief.

Morcant-On-Sea was gone.

Elsa had vowed to wipe it from the map, and it’d not been an empty threat. Almost the entire town had collapsed, a gaping maw of chalk, sandstone and mud where once there had been roads and houses. A few roofs still peeked through the rubble, but most of the buildings had gone the way of the rest of the cliffside, shuttled down until whatever remained was piled up in the harbour district.

At least some of the houses on that lower part of town had survived. Hailey felt some measure of relief at knowing Isla and Madeline’s beachside property had remained largely untouched, but then a knot of despair welled up inside her – Jack’s house had sat halfway up the town. Like everything else around it, the building was nowhere to be seen.

“Jack… oh God, no! How could this happen?”

“It’s all gone,” Derek muttered. “I can’t believe it.”

“Was it Elsa?” said Millie.

“The dead came through like an earthquake,” Sadie said, by way of an answer. “If the cliffs were already unstable…”

“Let’s just get down there,” Derek said. “See what’s what.”

12

The four of them stopped off at the cottage first to get changed into their clothes and pick filaments of glass from bare feet and hair as best they could. When they were done, they made their way to the edge of the cliff, where the gate to Hailey and Derek’s property now opened out onto a yawning void.

“How’re we going to get down?” Sadie asked.

“Slow and careful,” Derek replied, lowering himself into a squat. “Climb aboard, shipmate,” he told Millie, gesturing to his back.

Millie clambered onto the big man, wrapping her limbs around his sturdy form. Derek lowered himself over the edge and began picking his way down while Sadie and Hailey followed closely behind. The four of them avoided any sheer drops, opting instead for the slopes, but the ground was loose and unstable beneath their feet, and more than once they found themselves slipping and sliding until they were able to gain purchase once more.

When they’d reached the halfway point, where the cliffside levelled out to a temporary wide ridge before continuing down, they found a handful of residents toiling away at the buried remnants of a house. Among them were Madeline and Isla, the two of them sifting through rubble and detritus. When Hailey saw who was with them, she sobbed with relief.

“Jack!”

Pale-faced and haggard, Jack pulled away bits of wood and brick from the destroyed home. When he saw Hailey and Derek, he clambered over to them and drew Hailey into a rough hug. “I thought she was gonna kill you! I couldn’t’ve lived with myself if she had. I’m so fuckin’ sorry!”

“It’s alright, Jack,” Hailey told him, kissing him on the mouth. She drew back and winced at the sight of the angry black bruise on his bare chest, the nipple there torn and bloody. There was no time to ask how he’d come by it. “I thought the worst about you, too. How did you manage to escape your house?”

“I got out just before the town collapsed. I figured goin’ in the opposite direction to those… things was prob’ly the best idea, so I ran down to the harbour. Then everything just started comin’ down.“

Jack looked shame-faced at Derek. “I feel like a right coward. I led them your way, didn’t I? But them ghosts, see, they was bad. I never saw nothin’ like ’em before. And that woman, she was a nasty piece of work.”

Derek lowered Millie to the ground, then put a rough hand on the back of Jack’s nape, drawing their brows together. “Don’t be fuckin’ daft, boy. They would’ve killed ya, and then found us anyway, most likely. I saw ’em with me own eyes. Don’t know any man that’d be brave enough or foolish enough to try and stand up to the dead.”

No, it takes a woman to do that, Sadie considered imparting.

“You would, Derek,” Jack told his old captain. “You would’ve told ‘em to go fuck themselves, wouldn’t you?”

Aye, boy, Derek thought. I wouldn’t’ve sold my friends up the river like you did. I would’ve let ’em tear me apart before I did that. But then, I ain’t got much to live for these days.

“We all made it out alive, didn’t we?” Derek said instead, not wanting to make the boy feel any worse than he already did. He looked across at the destroyed house. “Well, most of us.”

“Are there people buried under here?” Hailey asked Madeline.

“I can’t be sure, but we think this was Elsie Ryder’s house,” the doctor said.

Elsie was old and had lived alone in her bungalow for many years. If she had died here, Hailey prayed it’d been in her sleep, unaware of her plight and the horrors that’d caused it. “We’ll send help,” she said.

“Where’re you going?” demanded Isla. “You can’t just leave!”

“We have to get Sadie and Millie back to the mainland. It’s a matter of urgency,” Hailey answered, then realised how that might sound.

“More urgent than this?” Madeline asked incredulously. She brushed her hands against her slacks and trudged towards Derek. Her hair was in disarray, and she was devoid of makeup. The sleeves of her cotton shirt were rolled up to her elbows, then tied into a knot around her waist. She looked for all the world like Scarlett O’Hara in Gone With the Wind.

Hailey couldn’t help but feel a grudging admiration for the woman – Madeline was the last person she’d ever expect to see knee-deep in dirt and rubble, toiling away with the rest of Morcant’s dwindling populace. But despite her many faults, Madeline Guiliani was still a doctor, and was it not a doctor’s instinct to preserve life at all cost?

“What the hell is going on?” Madeline hissed. “Does this have anything to do with Rita, that thing up there in the lighthouse? God knows, the cliffs were unstable, but a town doesn’t just collapse like that, Derek! And that weird green mist? Jack was near hysterical when we found him down by the harbour, spouting some nonsense about the living dead.”

“It weren’t nonsense, Madeline!“ Jack cried.

“It ain’t easy to explain, Mad,” Derek told the woman. “And there’s no time to. But we’ll be back, don’t you worry.”

Madeline seemed ready to say more, but instead she waved a dismissive hand and turned back to the grim task of searching for survivors.

Hailey placed one last kiss on Jack’s brow before the four of them continued on down to the harbour and Derek’s boat.

13

While Hailey, Sadie and Millie climbed aboard the fishing vessel, Derek refuelled the boat via a large tub of diesel kept on deck. After several attempts at turning the ignition, it seemed uncertain whether the neglected trawler would start at all, but eventually it did, and they were on their way.

As they moved at a brisk pace along the coast, towards the river Severn, Sadie surveyed the utter destruction they were leaving behind. “What have we brought to your doorstep?” she murmured. “I am so very sorry.”

“It’s not your fault,” Hailey told her. “This is all on Elsa.”

“Do you think Rita ate Elsa?” Millie asked quite seriously as she sat on Sadie’s knee.

Despite themselves, the two young women looked at one another and smiled. It was a bizarre notion, until they stopped to consider that it might very well be true.

“To be honest, I’m not sure if sirens enjoy eating sour old harridans or not,” Sadie offered. “Personally, I prefer sweet little girls.” She wrapped her arms around Millie’s waist and pretended to nibble at the child’s neck. Though disheveled, feverish, and utterly exhausted, Millie still found room for a smile. She laced her fingers into Sadie’s.

Hailey could not have failed to recognise the signs – the way they touched one another; gazed into each other’s eyes. An intimacy like that went far beyond the boundaries of teacher and student. She was quick to recognise it for what it was. Hadn’t she experienced the very same forbidden passion with Rita, Madeline and Isla all those years ago? It was like discovering someone else who spoke the same secret language.

She yearned to ask, to know how they had come to such a place, perhaps even to speak of her own experiences. But Hailey couldn’t be completely sure she had the right of it, and regardless, there were more important things to think about right now. “Rita’s not Rita anymore, is she?” she said.

Sadie was quiet for a time. “No,” she finally answered. “I don’t believe she is.”

“I think Rita’s still there somewhere,” Millie said. “She called me to the lighthouse.”

“Is that why we found you there, sweetheart?” asked Hailey. “Because Rita spoke to you?”

Millie considered that for a moment. “I think so. She wanted something from me, but I can’t remember what.”

“The Selkie project a kind of glamour,” said Sadie. “It seems to draw people to them.”

“Oh, believe me, I know,” Hailey replied with a bitter smile. “Rita’s been using it on me for years. The same with Derek, I suppose. In some way, I think she set her own trap when my uncle stole her skin and hid it away.”

Sadie made a soft hum of agreement. “It’s incredible to think that some Selkie transform into Siren, but it must be a rare occurrence. Now that I think about it, it makes a certain sense. They both use a glamour; they’re both creatures of the ocean.”

“We’ve lost her for good,” Hailey murmured. “Poor Aunt Rita…”

Sadie gave a wince. “I’m such an idiot. Here I am prattling on with no thought of what you’ve lost. I’m sorry, Hailey.”

Hailey shook her head. “It’s okay. I lost my job too, and now my home, I guess. But I met you and Millie, so you know, every cloud.”

“But we dragged that bitch along with us.”

“I already said that wasn’t your fault. I’m just glad—” Hailey cut herself short. She peered around her, brow creased into a furrow. “Wait, why are we turning round?”

Hailey entered the wheelhouse where Derek was driving the boat. “Uncle Derek? What’s wrong? Why are we heading back towards Morcant?”

Derek’s face was set firm. “I can hear her, Hailey. She might be hurt out there. We should go to her, you know? Just a little detour, tha’s all. It won’t take long.”

“What’s happening?” Millie asked.

“Shh,” Sadie told her apprentice as she scanned the open water, a silencing finger held to her lips.

The sound was faint, but had a strange pitch to it that seemed to echo through air and water, a tremulous thrum that resonated in the pit of the stomach. If Sadie had been pushed to describe the sound (and never having heard anything quite like this, it was difficult to describe), she could only think to compare it to the sound of both whale and bird. It was strangely compelling.

Siren Song. What else could it be?

Sadie slipped Millie off her knee and rushed to the wheelhouse. “Derek, listen to me,” she said, placing a hand on the man’s broad shoulder. “That’s not Rita out there. Not anymore. Turn the boat around or we’re all going to die.”

“You don’t understand, girl. It is Rita. Why would she be callin’ to me if she didn’t remember who I was? It don’t make no sense otherwise. After everything I done to her, I got to help her now.”

“I have to get home, Derek. I can’t waste any more time, do you understand? Close your mind against it. She’ll hurt you if you go to her.”

Sadie gave Hailey an imploring look. Hailey nodded her understanding. She turned her uncle’s face towards her.

“I hear her too, Uncle Derek. We’ll come back here to look for her, if that’s what you want, but not now. We need to get Sadie and Millie back to their village. Their friends are in danger. Turn the boat around, okay?”

Hailey put a hand atop her uncle’s and gently turned the wheel. Derek looked back at her with tired eyes. “Aye. You’re right, girl. You’re always right, ain’t ya? Dunno what I would’ve done if you hadn’t come back to Morcant and set me straight. What a fuckin’ mess I’ve made o’ things.”

Hailey kissed her uncle on his hairy cheek. “Shut up, you big drama queen. You don’t have a monopoly on making a mess of things. We’ve all done our fair share of that.”

Derek smiled. “Aye, true enough. True enough.”

Set back on course along the coast, Sadie and Hailey settled into their seats once more. Millie sidled back into her teacher’s lap.

“I wanted to go to her too,” Hailey admitted. “But it wasn’t particularly hard to resist.”

“Not for you,” Sadie told her. “But Derek would’ve found it much harder to ignore.”

“Why?”

“Because men are the weaker sex. Mentally, at least. It’s no coincidence that all the old Siren tales mostly involve men sailing to their doom.”

“Wait, back up, girlfriend. Men are the weaker sex? Is that official?”

“Pretty much.”

Hailey threw a fist into the air. “Yes!”

Sadie and Millie laughed.

14

As they entered the Mouth of the Severn some time later, Sadie and Millie had drifted off to sleep in each other’s arms while Hailey took a seat next to her uncle in the wheelhouse. She offered to take a turn driving the boat, but a thin mist had settled over the water, and Derek told her it’d be best if he kept the wheel for now. For all his bluster and high-spirited bravado, Hailey couldn’t deny her uncle had always taken his job as captain seriously.

She left him to it and sat back down opposite Sadie and Millie. Oblivious in her slumber, Sadie had let a hand wander between Millie’s thighs. Hailey watched as she stroked the child through her leggings, the eight-year-old emitting content mewls in her sleep.

Sadie’s eyes flickered open and saw Hailey staring back at her. She noticed where her hand was poised and pulled it quickly away, then gave a yawn. “Hi.”

“Rita seduced me when I was eleven,” Hailey declared, her voice low enough that Derek couldn’t hear. “I found a video of her and Madeline doing things to Madeline’s daughter. Isla was only five then. I had sex with Madeline, too. I later found out she had a long history of sexual encounters with children, usually with their mothers’ approval. She can be very persuasive. I enjoyed my time with them very much, and think about it often when I masturbate.”

Sadie stared back at her for a long moment, reluctant to so much as blink. “Why are you telling me this?”

“You know why. I’ve seen the way you look at Millie. I just need to know she’s happy with what you’re doing.”

Sadie felt like she was suddenly backed into a corner, panic threatening to make her do something rash. She forced herself to keep her cool. Lashing out wouldn’t help here.

No one had ever found them out so easily before. Except for Elsa, she supposed, and that was only because Freya had opened her mouth. She could’ve kicked herself for her complacency. There had been a kind of protection over them back in Derwold, an air of acceptance that comes from familiar neighbours who have little reason to scrutinise people they know so well. It was Elsa’s hide-in-plain-sight theory at work again. And something else, something indefinable – old magics at work that kept trouble from their doors. Derwold was a special place. Derwold was an old place.

But leave the confines of home and everything changes. Strangers see things that friends miss. Strangers open their eyes and look.

“If Millie didn’t consent, I wouldn’t do it,” Sadie finally said. “Yes, she’s happy.”

“And her mother? Her sister?”

“If you’re asking if they know, then yes. If you’re asking if they participate – I don’t believe that’s any of your business.”

“I didn’t mean to pry,” said Hailey. “You’re right, it’s none of my business, and if everyone’s on board with it, then it’s all good. I just… seeing you touch her brought back some fond memories, that’s all. And Millie… she’s so cute.”

Millie was stirring now. She stretched her arms in a big yawn. Some colour had reached her cheeks again, and she looked healthier for it. “I am cute, actually,” she agreed. “Everyone says so. To be honest, it’s a bit of a pain being so adorable sometimes, but we work with what we’ve got. Right, ladies?”

Hailey clapped her hands together and shrieked with laughter. “Omigod, I’ve heard it all now!”

“Oi, stop havin’ fun back there!” Derek hollered from the wheelhouse – and just like that, the tension in the air evaporated.

“You’re going to be trouble when you’re older,” Hailey told Millie sincerely.

“Oh, she’s already trouble,” Sadie insisted. She glanced at Derek over Hailey’s shoulder, then settled her gaze on the young woman opposite her. Bottom lip trapped between her teeth, she snaked a hand back between Millie’s legs.

Millie pulled her leggings up higher, stretching the material over her mons to form a camel toe as she gave Hailey a naughty grin. Hailey could only stare in wonder.

“Do you like watching me do this?” Sadie asked Hailey, sliding a finger back and forth through the narrow crease of Millie’s vulva.

“Yeah,” Hailey replied, mesmerised.

“How about this?”

Sadie slipped her hand beneath the elastic of Millie’s leggings and panties. Penetrating the little girl’s pussy, she pumped her finger in and out, knuckles stretching the thin fabric.

Hailey peered back over her shoulder briefly. Derek was oblivious. Poor Derek had always been oblivious. “I like it,” Hailey confessed. “I like it a lot.”

“But she’s only eight, Hailey,” Sadie cooed. “Doesn’t it bother you that I’m finger-fucking an eight-year-old girl?”

Hailey could only shake her head. Her sex pulsed with a steadily rising heat.

Sadie pulled her hand from Millie’s leggings and held up her middle finger. It was glazed in a thin sheen of liquid. She brought it to her nose and sniffed. “Mmm… smells so nice.” She crooked the offending finger in Hailey’s direction. “Come closer, Hailey.”

Hailey leaned forward in her seat. Sadie spun the finger round and round, moving it ever closer towards the beguiled young woman. When it found her nose, Hailey breathed in the scent of little girl pussy, raw and heady.

“Taste,” Sadie said, and popped her finger into Hailey’s mouth.

Hailey had time to savour the slightly sour taste before Sadie drew her finger away and slipped it back inside Millie’s knickers. Back out it came a few seconds later, then found its way between Hailey’s open lips once more.

“Doesn’t she taste divine?” Sadie asked, checking to make sure Derek was still occupied. Thankfully, even had he glanced their way, Hailey was mostly obscuring his vision. The coast clear, Sadie peppered kisses across Millie’s neck, her tongue teasing at the girl’s nape. “Let’s pull your knickers down a little bit, poppet,” she said, and Millie lifted her bum, allowing Sadie to roll the leggings and panties down just enough to expose her bare slit.

A groan escaped Hailey’s lips.

“Shhhh…” Millie whispered with a finger to her lips. “You can touch me if you like, Hailey. Don’t tell anyone though, okay? It has to be our secret.”

“I won’t tell,” Hailey agreed.

In a carefully calculated move, Sadie took Hailey’s hand and brought it between Millie’s legs. Millie was warm and smooth, and Hailey wasted no time in brushing the tips of her fingers over the girl’s puffy labia.

Good, Sadie thought. Hailey has crossed the line with us.

It was uncharacteristically devious of Sadie. Millie wasn’t hers to share, and she knew Georgia wouldn’t approve, but it was necessary if they were to avoid complications.

Christ, I’m starting to think like Elsa, she considered with some alarm. Is this how it begins?

Sadie unbuttoned her jeans and slipped a discreet hand inside. “Lick your finger if you want to fuck her with it,” she told Hailey. “She’ll take all of it, won’t you, sweetie?”

Millie nodded enthusiastically. “Go as deep as you can, Hailey. I like to feel it moving in and out.”

“Oh, God,” whispered Hailey, though what dark deity she was invoking was anyone’s guess. She sucked her index finger, coating it in saliva, then brought it to the entrance of Millie’s vagina.

“Fuck her,” Sadie hissed, a hand toiling beneath her knickers. “Finger-fuck that little girl.”

Hailey slipped her finger into Millie’s cunt, all the way up to the third knuckle. She slowly drew it back out, then slipped it back in again.

“Faster!” Millie whispered, so Hailey began pumping her finger back and forth. Millie was so tight. So warm and wet and tight.

Hailey checked on Derek once more, then quickly popped the button on her own trousers, tugging the zip down. She strummed her fingers across her engorged clit, moving in time with the finger she was using to fuck Millie.

Millie leaned across and whispered in Hailey’s ear conspiratorially. “Do you want me to put my fingers in your pussy, Hailey? I will if you want.”

Hailey responded by pulling her jeans and knickers down until they ringed her thighs, then placed one of the girl’s hands against her throbbing sex. Millie felt around for a few seconds before plunging two fingers into the young woman’s cunt. If it hadn’t been for the thrum of the boat’s engine, and the lapping of water against the hull, the liquid sound of Millie’s fingers pumping back and forth would’ve surely drawn a curious glance from Derek.

Sadie came against her own hand, the climax unusually intense after so much pent up stress was finally able to find a means of release. She pulled her fingers from her sodden pussy and popped them into Millie’s mouth.

The sight was enough to send Hailey over the edge. She bucked against Millie’s fingers, whimpering as quietly as she was able, finally nodding to indicate she was spent.

Retrieving her hand, Millie brought two glistening fingers to her nose, breathing in the young woman’s  scent. She grinned at Hailey sheepishly. “You smell good.”

Hailey returned the smile, then regarded the finger she still had buried deeply in Millie’s snug little hole. “Shall I keep playing with you?” she asked the child, then to Sadie: “Is she able to come?”

Hailey had no reason to assume Millie knew what ‘come’ meant, of course. How could Hailey possibly comprehend the full extent of everything they’d indulged in.

“She doesn’t always come,” Sadie told her.

“Mummy says I don’t always have to, because I’m too young for it to matter much.”

“Land ahoy!” came a loud holler from the wheelhouse, making the three of them jump.

Hailey hastily jerked her finger from Millie’s pussy, and the three of them scrambled to reinstate their clothing.

“You don’t need to bloody shout, Uncle Derek!”

“Oh, beggin’ yer pardon, m’lady! I’ll write a fuckin’ letter next time, shall I? There ain’t no whisperin’ at sea, girl! Look lively!”

***

Breaking news: Picturesque Cornish town, Morcant-On-Sea, fell victim to a catastrophic landslide in the small hours of last night, completely destroying homes and infrastructure. The peninsula, home to the famous Seahenge, has suffered from severe coastal erosion in recent years, leading to the town becoming largely abandoned. Eyewitnesses report seeing a strange green cloud just before the incident, leading to speculation that a gas explosion may have played a part in the disaster. Rescue teams and the emergency services arrived on the scene an hour after the incident. The search for survivors has begun, and continuing support is being offered to residents. We’ll bring you updates as we have them.

National News Agency

15

A short while later, the trawler glided into the small harbour of the Anglo-Welsh border town of Lydney. The sky had taken on an ominous appearance, dark clouds roiling on the distant horizon. The air was cool and still. Derek tied the boat up to the jetty, and the four of them disembarked.

“How will you get back home from here?” Hailey asked Sadie.

“By rail is quickest,” Sadie told her. “There’s a train from here that stops close to Derwold.”

“And then what?”

“We’ll see when we get there, I suppose. At least we don’t have Elsa to deal with anymore.”

“You could just call the police. Let them deal with it.”

Sadie shook her head. “I’ve thought about it. But I have no idea if the village is still inaccessible. And besides,” she peered across the jetty at Millie, “we have too much to lose if the police start asking questions.”

“Sure, I get it.“

“What will you and Derek do now?”

Hailey watched her uncle carry out a rudimentary maintenance of the boat. He performed the task half-heartedly, his attention frequently returning to the open waters, as if he were anxious to be back out there. “We’ll return to Morcant and offer what help we can,” she said. “After that – I have a feeling we’ll be searching for Rita.”

Sadie placed a hand on the young woman’s arm. “Let her go, Hailey. You must. You saw what that thing’s capable of. It’s suicide to go looking for her.”

Hailey’s mouth tightened. “I told you not to call her a thing.”

“I will call her that! Because she’s not your aunt anymore. Whatever happened to Rita can’t be undone. You need to understand that.”

“He’ll go out there looking for her, regardless,” Hailey said, nodding towards her uncle. “I can’t let him do it alone, so if I can’t talk some sense into him, it looks like we’re going.”

“To do what?” Sadie asked incredulously.

Hailey offered a wry smile. “We’ll see when we get there, I suppose.”

The point was well taken. Hailey and Derek’s dilemma was not so different from Sadie’s. They all had their own problems to deal with.

“Make me a promise,” she told Hailey. “If you run into trouble, fall back and call me. Maybe I can help.” They had all exchanged numbers back on the boat. Sadie had given Hailey her home number, as well – their smartphones had been taken by Elsa’s thugs, and she had no idea if they’d ever see them again. “If you’re doing this, then do it smart.”

Hailey nodded. “I will.”

“Promise.”

“I promise.”

The two women stood and regarded one another wistfully for a moment. Then Sadie drew Hailey into a hug. “I wish you could’ve met Georgia and Freya. I’ll miss you, Hailey.”

“Me too,” said Hailey earnestly.

16

Millie sat on the gunwale of the boat, legs dangling over the edge. Peering out across the water, she considered the extraordinary events of the last day. It seemed like forever since she’d last seen her mum and sister, though in reality, it’d only been yesterday. So much had happened since.

One of the tasks Sadie set her students during the summer holidays was to write an essay about something they’d done during the extended break. Millie knew she could never tell the other kids about her adventures, but if such a thing had been permitted, she thought it might’ve gone something like this:

On my summer holidays, I was kidnapped by Lady Derwold, who turned out to be a dark witch, and a bit of a nutter to boot. Luckily, there was an ancient standing stone in the basement where we were imprisoned, so I used it to teleport me and Miss Laine to a Cornish town miles away.

Unfortunately, we came out the other side underwater, and would’ve surely drowned if it hadn’t been for the timely intervention of some nice selkies. Selkie are people that turn into seals, if you didn’t know. Or possibly seals that turn into people. Then we met Derek and Hailey, who live in a lighthouse.

Later that evening, Elsa raised an army of undead and tried to re-kidnap us, but I used my magic to scare the dead away and thwart her nefarious plans. She was so angry, she nearly strangled me to death, but just in the nick of time, Hailey’s Aunty Rita (who used to be a selkie, but then turned into a siren) burst from a giant egg, bit Elsa’s ear off, and then flew off with her.

We quickly made our escape, but the entire town of Morcant-On-Sea had been destroyed, so we had to climb our way down the cliffside. Safe and sound on Derek’s boat, we made our way home.

Millie tittered to herself. How’d you like that, Mia Pissypants? Makes your holiday in Greece look like a trip to Butlins.

She felt a big pair of hands settle on her shoulders and turned to find Derek peering down at her. She gave him a gap-toothed smile.

“It suits ya,” Derek said of the missing tooth.

“I quite like it, actually,” Millie agreed. “I think I might keep it like this.”

Derek nodded gravely, his attention drawn back to the open water. “How we doin’, Millie?”

“We’re doing okay,” Millie told him. “You’re going to look for Rita, aren’t you?”

Derek let out a big sigh. “Aye. To end it once and for all, whatever the hell that means.”

Millie furrowed her brow into deep lines of concentration. That thing was happening again – ideas floating around in her head she couldn’t quite grasp. She’d had the same feeling about the Dryad, wondering how the forest spirits had come to be, and again when she’d met the Selkie. It was like a big jigsaw puzzle with some of the pieces missing. And now she was on the cusp of understanding once more. So unbelievably frustrating!

“Derek,” she began. “Rita is still there. Don’t give up on her.”

Derek regarded the child with wonder. “Where is she?”

Millie thought about it for a long moment. Finally she touched her stomach. “Here? Maybe?”

“Er… in yer belly?”

“Not my belly.” Millie shrugged, feeling a little embarrassed.

Derek looked seriously at the girl for a spell, then broke into a grin. “I reckon yer ‘avin’ old Derek on. It ain’t nice to take the piss out of the elderly, ya know.”

Millie took the opportunity to show off her new smile again. “You’re not that old. I had a friend who was much older than you. His name was Mr. Dalliard.”

“Boyfriend, was he?”

Millie shook her head seriously. “Just a friend. You remind me of him.”

“Well, I’m honoured.”

Sadie called up to her from the jetty. “Millie, we’re going now.”

Millie and Derek climbed back down from the boat, and the four of them said their goodbyes. Sadie and Hailey promised to keep in touch, and Millie promised to send a big jar of Newton honey in the post, though it was far from certain whether Derek and Hailey would ever return to their home on the cliff, or even if the old cottage was still deemed habitable.

A short while later, Sadie and Millie were on a train bound for home, and whatever awaited them there.

Soon to come: Chapter Eleven!