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.

Ch10: Elsa raises an army of the dead and invades Morcant-On-Sea. Sadie does her best to protect Hailey and Derek, but Millie is trapped in the lighthouse and they must get to her with all haste. Fighting their way to the top, they find a very angry Elsa. Revealing her true power, the dark witch threatens to kill them all, but she has invoked the wrath of the creature slumbering inside the cocoon. It bursts free, revealing itself to be a Siren. Amidst the ensuing chaos, the creature flies off with Elsa in its grasp, and Sadie, Millie, Hailey and Derek make their escape from the destroyed town.

Safely on board Derek’s trawler and bound for Derwold, Hailey discovers the sexual nature of Sadie and Millie’s relationship. The four of them part ways in the border town of Lydney. Hailey and Derek return to Morcant to help with rescue efforts, and Sadie and Millie head home, unaware of whatever awaits them there.

Ch11: Sadie and Bernard rally the entire village to march on Derwold Manor and rescue Georgia and Freya. Meanwhile, Georgia and Freya, with the help of Billy, manage to incapacitate Simon and escape. Finally reunited, Sadie, Georgia and the girls can only watch as the manor is consumed by flames. Simon chooses to perish in his home, rather than face the music.

Some days later, with life in Derwold having returned to normal, Georgia and the girls visit Sadie at her home. Sadie reveals she must leave the village and seek out the fate of the covens and her Wiccan sisters. To mark her departure, Sadie, Georgia and the girls enjoy an intimate picnic at the waterfall glade. But watching from the trees is a mysterious figure.

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

by BlueJean

Several days before, in the aftermath of the Battle of Morcant, Hailey, Derek, Sadie and Millie have escaped the lighthouse and are on their way down to the harbour. Elsa Hart has been abducted by the Siren and is presumed dead.

Elsa/Siren

Elsa drifted in and out of consciousness. The right side of her head roared with pain. She tried to bring a hand up to assess the damage, but both arms were pinned against her body. There was more pain in her back, something cold and sharp embedded in the flesh there.

Claws.

A sudden jolt of comprehension hit her. The creature. The thing that had emerged from the cocoon. Whatever it was, it had taken her from the lighthouse. Taken her up. Even now, she could hear the beating of its wings.

Pressed tightly against her abductor’s body, Elsa managed to turn her head just enough to take in her surroundings. The dark of the night was beginning to give way to the first rays of morning, enough to see land off in the distance, and ocean far below. Her stomach lurched.

We’re in flight! By the Gods, whatever happens, I mustn’t struggle! If it drops me, I’m done for. Keep still, now. Keep…

In spite of her best efforts, Elsa faded back into unconsciousness.

Frances/Reeta

The girl on the beach.

Why do I think about her now, after so much time has passed?

I’d forgotten her, like all the other things about this place, filed them away in some dark corner of my mind where they couldn’t trouble me.

The selkie girl with the wooden clock.

She had red hair, just like me. I hated my red hair. The other children made fun of me for it. Hers was thick and flowing. Mine was frizzy and wild. But at least we had that much in common.

How long had it taken to pluck up the courage to talk to her? A month? Six months? A year? I can’t remember. But I did eventually talk to her.

No, that’s not quite right. She spoke to me first.

“Look see!“

She was playing on the beach, down by the old seahenge. I was loitering up on the bank where the sand gave way to sea grass and scrub, pretending to look for fossils. I turned and peered behind me, thinking maybe she was calling out to someone else. I gestured to myself. “Huh? Me?“

“Look see, girl!“

It was the first time I’d heard her speak. She had a strange accent, and she never seemed to wear any clothes. I thought she might be feral. Or worse – one of those gypsy girls. Mother always told me the gypsies couldn’t be trusted.

“Come look at my clock!“ the naked girl cried. “I will show you how it works.“

The clock was made entirely of wood. It was a wondrous, impossible thing, a multi-faceted network of complex parts inlaid with carved depictions of trees and unknown animals. It was shaped like an intricate leaf, and its etched numerals – if indeed they were numerals – were of a design I had never seen before. I wonder now how much of that detail was real, and how much my memory has embellished over the long years since I last laid eyes on it.

I watched as the girl took the clock apart piece by piece, until the small flat rock where she worked was strewn with little wooden cogs and springs, dowels and dials and pegs.

“Why are you breaking it up?“ I asked.

The girl paused in her task. “Breaking? No, no, not breaking. I separate the bits and bobs, then put them all back together. Over and over again.“

“Why?“

“I like to understand how it works. It is a puzzle.“

“It’s a clock, not a puzzle.“

“It is both, human girl,” she told me. “If even one single piece is put in the wrong place, the clock will not work.“ She looked off wistfully towards the town above, its brightly painted houses barely visible above the cliff line. “I would like something new to play with, but I just have this. The Elders say there are many strange machines in your village, but I am not allowed to go there.“

“What’s your name?“

“Reeta of the Selkie,“ she said proudly.

I felt a little shiver ripple through me at the way she pronounced her name, the ‘R’ rolling off her tongue in a liquid, throaty trill.

Reeta of the Selkie slotted a delicately carved cog into place. “This wheel goes here, see? We will use one of the little sticks to secure it. Now we can put this smaller wheel to the first. When we spin one wheel, the other will move too. Do you see, human girl?“

“I’m called Frances. Why don’t you have anything on?“

“Hmm?“

“You’re always naked when I see you. Don’t you wear clothes?“

Reeta of the Selkie gestured sheepishly to the animal skin lying next to her, as if unsure such a thing qualified as clothing. “Um… I wear this when I swim.“

“Oh. All right.“

She gave me her full regard for the first time. Her eyes were the colour of dusky emeralds. “Did someone hurt you, Frances?“

My hand went instinctively to my bruised cheek. “N-no. I… I hit my head.“

“Your aura is so bright! Will you sit with me awhile? We can build the clock together.“

Reeta of the Selkie. How could I ever have forgotten her?

Because I left her there. I left everything there. Everything that was weakness, everything that was pain. Everything that was love.

But I was fool enough to come back.

Elsa/Siren

Elsa opened her eyes to find herself atop a rocky outcrop overlooking the sea, seemingly stranded on one of the small islets that dotted the coast.

The creature sat poised a few feet away, its serpentine tail coiled beneath it. It cocked its head from one side to the other, as if trying to take measure of its quarry. A tremulous pulsing sound resonated from its throat, and from the way it thrummed through Elsa’s body, it seemed likely to be some kind of sensory apparatus.

“Harpy, is it?“ Elsa asked of the thing. “Siren, maybe? The only visual reference I have is a medieval bestiary, and they were terrible artists back then.“

She slowly drew herself into a kneeling position, careful not to alarm the creature. The pain rushed up to meet her, and when she brought a hand up to feel for the source, she knew for sure her right ear had gone. Whatever remained was raw and bloody.

Elsa gave her immediate surroundings a cursory survey, trying to determine a quick escape route. There was none, save the obvious.

The creature peeled back its lips into a rictus grin, revealing two rows of sharp teeth. It swept its hair back behind its shoulders in a gesture that was somehow mocking.

Red hair like mine.

“I’m afraid you’ve made a rather foolish mistake, creature,” Elsa said. “You think I’m trapped up here with you? No. You’re trapped up here with me!“

She thrust a hand out and directed her sorcery at the monster, dark energy seeking flesh to feed on. The siren screeched in surprise as a gash opened up below its pale breasts, blood spraying from the wound. In the blink of an eye, it uncoiled and launched itself at Elsa.

Not expecting the creature to move with such startling speed, Elsa barely managed to pull up her ward in time. The siren recoiled from the disorientating magic, shaking its head in confusion.

“Serves you right for biting my ear off, bitch! Now fucking die!“

The witch stumbled to her feet and reached out with both hands, hurling energy at the siren with terrifying ferocity. More lacerations began to erupt across its pale body, and all at once Elsa was twelve years old again, back in the living room of that house of horrors with her mother and her mother’s brutish man.

Frances! Frances, please! She’s killing us, Samuel!

“I’m not your victim, monster!“ Elsa roared. “I’m not anyone’s victim! I was done with that a long time ago! Do you hear me?! Do you—”

In one swift movement, the siren unfolded its great wings and used them to close the distance in a heartbeat. Too late, Elsa realised her error. She tried to snatch her arms back inside the protective membrane of the ward, but the creature caught her left hand between its teeth, biting down with a sickening crunch of bone and sinew.

In Elsa’s adrenaline-fuelled state, the pain was not immediately apparent. Instead, it was the sight of her hand reduced to thumb and four bloody stumps that made her scream, as much rage as it was shocked despair. “Stop biting bits off me, you repulsive thing!“ She grabbed hold of the creature by its hair – red hair like mine – and dragged it inside the boundaries of the ward.

The siren screeched in terror, doing all it could to pull itself free. Elsa held on with all her might, laughing hysterically, all rationality pushed aside in favour of blind rage.

Frances! Frances, please!

“Do you see now, creature? You’re trapped up here with me! I win! I fucking w—”

And then she was falling. They were both falling. Siren and witch tangled together, tumbling down to the water below.

Frances/Reeta

When I wasn’t at school I’d spend all the daylight hours playing with Reeta on the beach. I knew my reclusive mother would never venture out of the house to look for me, and her disgusting boyfriend spent most of his time at the pub down by the harbour, drinking himself into a stupor. Eventually, I would have to go home and face the music, but there was some respite in that secluded cove, for a time, at least.

Reeta and I would dismantle and reassemble the clock until we grew bored of it, then simply occupy our time playing together or talking about inconsequential things.

I suppose by then I must have been aware of what Reeta was. I’m sure she had an inkling that I was not quite the normal human girl I appeared to be. I don’t recall that we made much of our distinctions. We accepted one another, as children often do, and like our red hair, perhaps that otherworldliness we shared was another thing to cement our friendship.

Reeta showed me where she stashed the clock. It had its own box made from the same dense wood, and she would bury it between two large rocks up by the cliff. “If I am not here, you can still play with the clock,” she told me. “But you mustn’t tell anyone, Frances. It was gifted to us long ago by the Dryad. It is very old and precious, and a great honour for me to be its custodian. But if it is stolen I will be in big trouble. I would probably be exiled, and it is a terrible thing for a selkie to be alone!“

“I won’t tell anyone,” I promised.

“Good. Shall we kiss now?“

I looked at her dumbly. “What?“

“A kiss. You know what a kiss is, yes? I want to, and I think you want to because you keep looking at me that way. So we should kiss.“

So we kissed. And it was the single most wonderful thing I’d ever experienced in all my eleven short years. I fell in love without a second thought. Because I needed it. I needed it to keep the dark from swallowing me up.

I turned twelve that summer. Reeta taught me how to breathe the oxygen in the water, and how to use echolocation to see what my eyes could not. I took to it easily, if only because I was capable of so much more than the average human.

My own gifts were beginning to make themselves known, threads of kinetic energy primed in my fingertips, the ability to kindle heat and manipulate blood.

I remember the day I foolishly decided to give Reeta a demonstration of my new powers. My mother had been particularly cruel to me that morning, pinching my nipples beneath my jumper and pulling my hair until I cried out for her to stop. After one too many visits from welfare officials, she had learnt not to leave any marks.

I was angry, and abuse has a tendency to become circular, so I decided to pick on a little red crab.

Reeta had found it minding its own business in a small rock pool. I pulled it from the water and set in down on the pale sand.

“Watch this,” I said with a grin, then directed heat towards the little creature. It immediately adopted an aggressive posture, reaching out with its claws.

“What are you doing?“ Reeta asked me with a concerned look.

Tendrils of steam began drifting up from the crab. It fell onto its back, pincers working in futile gestures until finally it became still.

“Frances, stop it. Stop it!“

Reeta barrelled into me, knocking me aside.

“What did you do that for?!“ I yelled.

“You killed it!“

“So? It’s just a bloody crab! You kill fish all the time, I’ve seen you!“

“For food, not for fun!“

I screwed my face up in fury. “You told me you enjoyed the hunt! You said so!“

“Yes, I enjoy the hunt, but what you just did wasn’t joy, it was spite!“

“Shut up! You don’t know anything! It was just a stupid crab!“

I stormed away angrily. Why should I feel bad for not being the victim for once? Why should I feel ashamed for turning the tables, for being the one to exercise power?

It was the first time I realised I was not so weak, after all.

Elsa/Siren

The siren pulled her down into the depths.

They were in the creature’s territory now, the cold, dark, unforgiving waters that had claimed so many lives.

But Elsa Hart was rather more robust than other members of her species. She was of the Tuatha Dé Danann. Old Blood.

The dark witch had no choice but to let her ward drop. The protective barrier was all but impossible to maintain underwater, and her energies would now be needed elsewhere. With the ward extinguished, she expected the creature to lash out, but it simply held on and dragged her down, its tail cutting an easy path through the water.

Clever thing. Why waste energy fighting when you can just drown me? But I’m not done with the world just yet. 

Against all her instincts, Elsa opened her mouth and let the cold, saline water fill her lungs. Panic threatened to set in until she could tamp it down and master herself.

Fear is irrelevant. It doesn’t help me. Cut it away. Ignore it.

She could breathe the water, though not for any great length of time. Her lungs would work at extracting the dissolved oxygen as best they could, but the limits of human physiology would eventually render the task untenable.

Elsa stilled both body and mind, inducing the same dream-like state that had so often dulled the beatings as a child.

You’re a dirty girl, Frances! What do we do with dirty girls? We punish them, don’t we? Yes, we do!

All you did was make me stronger, Mother.

She closed her eyes and let the creature take her down. If they went deep enough, the pressure would kill her long before the siren could finish the job, but Elsa was fairly sure the waters around the coast were shallow enough to avoid that particular fate.

Something hard and jagged brushed along her arms, and then she was kneeling on a surface of the same material. Wood. Old wood.

The creature released her from its grip, and Elsa let her arms fall to her sides. She had reduced her heartbeat to a slow, deathly tattoo. She opened her eyes, but all was black. The creature was making that awful sound again, a deep, resonant thrum that made the cold water vibrate. It was watching her. Waiting for her to die.

No. No, I think not.

Elsa made a series of sharp tongue clicks against the roof of her mouth, the sound waves bouncing back to reinterpret themselves as images. She drew on her arcane reservoir to clarify and prolong them.

A ship. I’m inside an old wrecked ship.

The creature was poised a few metres away, its tail coiled around a thick wooden beam. It stirred at Elsa’s clicks, perhaps realising its prey was not quite as helpless as it had first believed. It lunged forward, threading itself through the wreckage towards her.

The dark witch pulled herself quickly from her suspended animation and raised both arms aloft. The water surrounding the creature instantly began to boil, causing it to writhe in fury and pain. It lashed out, gouging Elsa across the scalp and down her face. The pain was immense, and Elsa was sure one of her eyes had been dashed out. She generated more heat around the siren, and while it thrashed about in agony, she braced herself against the rotten hull and kicked out at a large oaken strut set at an awkward angle, once, twice, three times. On the fourth attempt it finally came free, the structure it supported crashing down onto the creature.

Elsa quickly pushed herself back out of harm’s way, narrowly avoiding being buried in the wreckage herself. She dragged her body through an opening in the hull, then swam with all her might towards the surface.

Frances/Reeta

The last day of Frances Mooney’s life. And the first day of Elsa Hart’s.

It was inevitable I would snap one day. Of course it was. Fight or flight, and there was never anywhere else to fly to.

My recollections of that day are fragmented; a series of snapshots.

I see myself shuffling through the harbour. People are staring at me. I’m black and blue. There’s pain between my legs. They really went to town on me that day, worked themselves into such a frenzy they probably didn’t stop to consider the marks they were leaving. They wouldn’t ever do it again, though. No.

I found myself down on the beach. Reeta ran towards me with wide, horrified eyes, but something stopped her from reaching out to me. She must’ve seen something there. Something different. Something dangerous.

“Wh-what did they do, Frances?“ she whispered.

My voice was a drone, devoid of emotion. “It doesn’t matter anymore.“

“Come away with me. You must! Before it’s too late.“

“No.“

“Why?“

“I can’t live in the sea, stupid. I’m not Selkie. Stupid stupid stooopid…“

“Frances, you’re scaring me.“

“I’ve come to say goodbye.“

“G-goodbye?“

“I can’t be your friend anymore.“

Reeta of the Selkie looked crestfallen. “You mustn’t say that!“

“I’m going to do something terrible. You won’t want to be friends with me after that.“ I turned and walked away. “You’re just a dirty animal, anyway. I hate you.“

“Frances!“

Keep walking.

“Frances, come back!“

Don’t look back. Close your heart to it.

“Look see, Frances! Look see!“

Don’t need friends. Don’t want friends.

“FRANCES!“

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

Elsa/Siren

Elsa dragged herself from the water. Every part of her body screamed with the effort of it. Down on her hands and knees, she retched violently, clearing her lungs of seawater. She gulped the cool, clean air, then wiped blood from her eyes, relieved to find she still had full vision in both. She staggered over to the wall of rocks nearby and collapsed down next to them, resting her back against their hard surface.

Don’t pass out. Stay awake, damn it.

Somewhere beneath the jagged lines of pain, something else was working its way through her system.

Wonderful. The disgusting thing poisoned me.

Was the toxin meant to kill, or merely incapacitate? Nothing to be done about it now, either way.

She picked the sharpest looking stone she could find and used it to hack away at the hem of her shirt, tearing a piece of the fabric away to tie around her brow. It would keep the blood from oozing into her eyes; stem the flow a little. Having done that, she brought her ravaged hand up to inspect. A low groan escaped her.

Don’t you dare cry! We’re not going to feel sorry for ourselves. The fingers are gone. Accept it.

“Christ, it hurts, though. Hurts like hell.“

She needed to get to civilisation, to a hospital. But what was she supposed to do, swim? It looked like she was stranded on a rocky spit of beach, the mainland a couple of miles or so off in the distance. She’d summoned the dead and used their spectral energy to buoy herself across the water to Morcant, but in her current state there was no chance of repeating that task. She could barely stand, let alone muster the power needed for such sorcery.

I’m not dying here. I’m not.

But when she caught movement down by the shoreline, and turned to see what it was, she was forced to reconsider that assessment. There was a very good chance she was going to die, after all. Because the siren was slithering out of the water towards her.

Elsa grabbed a fist-sized stone, then dragged herself to her feet. The sudden rush of blood to the head nearly floored her, and it was all she could do not to lose consciousness. She braced herself against the rocks and waited for the inevitable.

I come! I come!

Minerva, no! Stay away! You can’t help! Stay a—

But it was too late. The magpie was already here, diving down with startling speed. She dashed one of the siren’s eyes out with her beak, then darted away again. The siren screeched in pain and surprise.

Minerva circled above, then launched herself at the creature once more. It snatched the bird out of the air before she had time to attack again and flung her against a rock, the impact making a sickening crunch.

Elsa drew in a series of sharp breaths, almost choking them back out.

I come… will… help… will… will…

Then nothing. The sudden cold, empty void where once a piece of Elsa’s soul had resided, the cerebral link with her animal familiar severed with cruel finality.

Elsa wailed, the sound primal in its grief, more animal than human.

The siren came at her, its dashed eye now nothing more than a dangling blob of bloody jelly. It scuttled across the rocks towards her like some monstrous scorpion.

“You fucking abomination!“ Elsa sobbed. “I’ll kill you! I’ll kill you! I’ll kill you! My bird! My Minerva! Yes, keep coming, monster! Closer! Closer!”

The siren was almost on top of her now. It bared its razor-sharp teeth, coiling its body to attack.

Elsa brandished her little rock in a gesture that spoke as much of defiance as it did futility.

I’ve nothing left to use. No more sorcery. Too weak. Too tired. Unless…

No, the very idea was insane. She couldn’t say for sure if she even had enough energy left to pull off something like that. Not when she’d exhausted all her power.

If you’re going to do it, do it now. There’s no time left.

In the very same moment the siren lunged at her, Elsa mustered everything she had left and shifted into the spectral realm.

The risk was enormous. To drag one’s physical self to this place was akin to being in outer space without a protective suit. Any more than a brief moment here would kill her. And if she didn’t have enough reserves left to teleport back…

Elsa passed through the creature, spun round to face its back, raised the rock aloft, then materialised back into the physical realm. She brought the crude weapon down onto the creature’s skull with all the force she could muster, again and again and again.

The siren fell to the ground, making a futile effort at protecting itself with its hands. Elsa collapsed to her knees and continued her assault, pummeling the creature in a relentless barrage of attacks.

This is what it comes down to, she thought. When the sorcery is done, this is what remains. Ape. Rock. Enemy.

Elsa threw the bloodied stone to one side and used both hands to heft a larger rock above her head. The raw stumps of her fingers screamed with pain, but she had no room for it. She loomed over the cowering siren, ready to end it once and for all. “I. Win. I. Always. Win. I’m. Elsa Hart! Elsa! Ha—”

Then the siren spoke.

“Fran-cess. Fran-cess.”

The sound was harsh and gutteral. The creature’s hair was matted with blood, red upon red.

Red hair like mine…

Red. Hair.

Elsa’s eyes went wide.

The creature drew a hand down to its belly, fixing Elsa with its one good eye. “Look ss-eee, Fran-cess. Look sss-eeee.“

Horrified, Elsa’s eyes travelled down to the thing’s distended stomach.

“Bay-bee, Fran-cess. Bay-bee. No hurt. No. Hurt.“

Oh, Gods. Reeta? And she’s… no… what is this?

Elsa let the rock slide from her grip. It toppled to the ground. She rocked back and forth on her haunches. “No… no, no, no…”

The siren made a sickening gurgling sound, blood oozing from its mouth. It crawled away towards the shoreline to pull itself into the water. Elsa let it go. The last she saw of the creature was its tail slithering down beneath the surface.

What sick joke had the Gods played on her this time?

Reeta. Little Reeta of the Selkie, twisted into the shape of a monster.

Her beloved Minerva gone, snuffed out like a candle.

The past returned to torment her.

Don’t try to make sense of it. Don’t try to understand what it all means. It’ll just drive you insane. This fucking place. Too much. Too much.

Elsa threw her head back and screamed.

Elsa/Old Friends

The bird was limp and lifeless; still warm to the touch, though growing colder by the second. Elsa cradled it in her hands.

“What trouble have you got yourself into this time, hmm?“ she cooed. “Silly Minerva. Such a brave little bird. What shall we do with you?“ She brought the bird to her cheek, seeking out the last of its warmth before it disappeared forever. “What shall we… Oh, my friend. Look at you.”

She fashioned a shroud from another piece of her torn shirt and folded it carefully around the magpie, then tied the two ends together to secure it, the task made more difficult with only one fully-functioning hand. Finally, she secured the package to one of the belt rings on her trousers.

Weak and delirious, Elsa found herself shuffling along the beach, unaware that she had even made the decision to move. Some part of her considered the best course of action might be to find a sheltered nook, somewhere she could curl into a ball and shut her body down, the way she had when the creature dragged her down into the depths.

And when Mother used to lock me in the cupboard under the stairs after one of the beatings.

She might heal faster than way. Or the poison might just kill her quicker. Hard to say. She’d never been in a situation this dire before.

She stumbled on something and fell to her knees. The bloodied stumps of her fingers scraped along the stony ground, the searing agony of it crashing into her like a white hot wave. With monumental effort, she pushed herself to her feet and continued on.

Her dead mother came to taunt her.

Serves you right, wicked girl! Did you think you could kill your own poor mother and get away with it? Shame on you. Shame!

The creature, too. Reeta-Siren.

Look sss-eeee. Fran-cess is all a-lone. Ha-ha-ha-ha.

Even Simon had come to cheer her on.

You must think me quite the fool, Elsa. Did you think I didn’t know you were manipulating me all this time? I knew. That’s all right, my dear. I didn’t love you any more than you loved me. I just needed a firm hand, someone to set me straight.

“Get out of my head. All of you!“

The sun traced a slow arc across a cloudless sky. Elsa walked, and when she could no longer walk, she crawled. She swatted at things that weren’t there. “Away! Not done. Not done…”

She was sitting on her haunches by the water’s edge, the tide lapping at her heels. How long she’d been there she had no idea. Her heart was beating too fast, rushing loudly in her ears. Woosh woosh. Woosh woosh. Woosh woosh.

“Pretty seashells… when… when did we… my bird… have you seen my…”

There was some kind of structure a short distance away, a small shack made of corrugated sheets. Elsa watched it carefully, expecting it to blink out of existence like all the other hallucinations.

Then someone was peering down at her, an old man with milky eyes.

“Oh, now. What’s this, then?“ he wheezed.

Teeth bared, she hissed, “Touch me and I’ll kill—”

Elsa passed out before she could finish the threat.

Elsa/Hermit

Her eyes fluttered open to the alarming sight of the old man looming over her, pale, bony fingers reaching out to touch her face.

Elsa’s hand shot out and clamped around his scrawny neck. Far from being alarmed, the old man gently prised her fingers from his throat and gave her hand a pat before letting it rest against her chest.

“Easy there. Won’t hurt you. Too old to hurt anyone, see? Rest. Safe now. As much as any of us is safe.“

Elsa’s hand slipped down to her hip, eyes going wide with alarm when she found nothing but the cotton of her trousers. “My bird! What’ve you done with her?! I’ll tear your heart out if—“

“Calm now. Put it in a little box for safekeeping. Could tell it was special to you.“

She closed her eyes and drifted away again.

***

When next she awoke, her senses were somewhat clearer, her body free of the siren’s poison, or at least receded to the point where it was no longer the concern it had been. The pain that had been so all-consuming had now retreated to a series of dull throbs and aches.

The old man was sitting up to a makeshift worktop comprised of two crates set adjacent to one another. He had his back to her, but turned when he heard her stir.

“Look who’s awake,” he said.

A thin, reedy squawk came from somewhere within the hut, and Elsa caught a brief flash of grey-white feathers. For one hopeful moment she had a bizarre notion that the old man had somehow revived Minerva, brought her beloved familiar back from the dead.

“Seagull,” he told her, showing her the bird. “A young’un, see? They crash into the rocks sometimes, learning to fly. Do themselves some terrible injuries. Broken wings and such. Help, if I can. If not… best to put them out of their misery. Reckon this one’ll live to fly again, eh?“

The old man picked up the bird with great care and took it outside. When he returned a few minutes later, he hobbled over to the stack of pallets where Elsa rested on a thin foam mattress.

She eyed him warily. “Where am I?“ she croaked, throat like dry parchment.

“Home,” the old man told her, before adding, “My home, that is. You’ve been drifting in and out for a couple of days now.“ He fetched her a bottle of water, bringing it to her lips. Elsa pushed herself up to a sitting position and took the bottle from his hand.

“I’m not one of your seagulls,” she told him, raising the bottle to her mouth to take several large gulps.

“Didn’t mean no offence. Bedside manner, is all. Used to be a medic in the army.“ He eyed Elsa sheepishly for several long moments, perhaps expecting her to ask how an army medic ended up living in a shack on a remote stretch of beach. When no questions were forthcoming, he seemed almost relieved. He gestured to her face. “Needed to stitch some of them cuts. The deeper ones. Had to shave some of your hair away to get at them, sorry to say. “

Elsa brought her only functioning hand up to feel for the old boy’s handiwork. Her fingers traced the harsh tracks that mapped her face and scalp. The other hand had been bandaged up neatly. She peered around the dirty-looking hut. “What did you stitch them with, a rusty fishing hook and a bit of old wire? I’d rather not die of sepsis after everything I’ve been through.“

“Have plenty of clean kit,” he told her, gesturing to several of the boxes scattered haphazardly around the hut. “The proper stuff. Know how to sterilise it, too. Lots of drinking water and first aid kit. Everything else takes care of itself. Get back to the mainland now and then, stock up on—“

“Yes, yes, I don’t need your life story. Fetch me a mirror.“

He did. Elsa stared back at herself. The stitching was neat enough, as stitching went, but Gods, she was a mess. The smaller cuts would fade to nothing eventually – her capacity for healing exceeded those of the average human – but the deeper ones would leave their mark. And exceptional healing abilities or not, she wouldn’t be growing new fingers or ears any time soon.

You really did a number on us, Reeta, old girl. Me and my Minerva.

“You didn’t think to get me to a hospital?“ she said to the old man.

He turned away from her, running fingers through the straggly filaments of his silver beard. “Should’ve, I know. Only has a small boat, though. It’s a fair old way to the mainland, and I don’t get back there too often. But I know how to heal the sick, see. Was a medic—”

Elsa impatiently waved him quiet. “Yes, a medic in the army. You mentioned it. Well, no matter. I can’t say a lengthy stay in a hospital ward holds much appeal anyway.“ Her eyes were feeling heavy. “I need to sleep.“

The old man gave Elsa a smile of such honest kindness, it caused a wave of inexplicable shame to wash over her.

“Shut up,” she told him before drifting into slumber.

“Didn’t say nothin’,” he replied to her sleeping form. “Glad you’re all right, though.“

***

Several days passed on the small stretch of beach. Elsa regained her strength quickly, and soon enough she was strong enough to leave the confines of the hut and venture outside. Often she would find the old man sitting out there with a penknife and various bits of driftwood, carving abstract shapes from them. At first, he would try to hide these creations from her, until she put his mind at ease.

“You don’t need to stop on my account.“

“Don’t even know what they’re meant to be,” he admitted. “Maybe it don’t matter. Just working on the wood keeps my mind off… you know, other things…”

“Mmm. That one looks a bit like a clock I used to play with.“

“Funny lookin’ clock, then.“

“It was. I wonder if it’s still there.“

The old man wouldn’t meet her eyes when he spoke. “Not gonna ask me why I live here?“

Elsa gazed out at the ocean. “Are you going to ask what happened to me?“

“None of my business.“

“Agreed. And yours is none of mine.“

Later that night Elsa was woken by the sound of the old man talking in his sleep, curled up in a nest of blankets on the floor of the shack.

“They’re killin’ the women and children, sir! Stop them! The women and children… they’re… the children…” He trailed off into an indistinct mumble.

You tried to run away, too, didn’t you, old man? But all you did was take it with you. That’s all we ever do, really.

She drifted back into sleep and dreamed her own monsters.

Elsa?/Frances?

Elsa cut the last tuft of her frizzy hair away, letting it fall to the floor with the rest. She set the scissors down, then moved the small shaving mirror around her head to inspect her barbery. She’d cropped it as short as the scissors would allow, and it was patchy and uneven, but now it looked a little more consistent, at least.

“Don’t look too bad,” the old man told her earnestly.

“I look like the Bride of Frankenstein, but it’ll do.“

“Ready to head out? Boat’s ready.“

“Mmm.“

The old man took them towards Morcant in his little dinghy, the outboard chugging out puffs of dirty black smoke. Elsa had little desire to be back here, but there was something she needed to do before she made the journey back to Derwold.

When they got nearer to the shore, the old boy could only flip the engine off and stare open-mouthed. “What on earth happened…?“

Morcant-On-Sea had apparently returned to its origin as a small fishing village, because nothing remained beyond the harbour except for the lighthouse, now teetering on the edge of the cliff above. Everything in between was a gaping maw of devastation.

Elsa took in the sight of her handiwork.

It looked more or less abandoned anyway, she told herself, then delved a little deeper for a more honest appraisal.

All right. Maybe I went too far. And whatever I was trying to destroy was never in that town in the first place, was it? No. I took it with me, just like the old man took his. My temper tantrum destroyed an entire town. Foolish. Childish.

“Set us down on the beach over there,” Elsa told the old man, pointing past the great natural arch that led to the henge.

“But Morcant… Maybe we should see if they need—”

“It happened days ago. I doubt there’s anyone left. The beach, if you please.“

The old man brought the bow up onto the sand and killed the motor. Elsa climbed from the boat.

“Wait for me. I won’t be long.“

“All right, then.“

She wasn’t sure she would recognise the lay of the land. It had been almost seventy years since she’d last set foot on this beach, and time had shaped its shores by whim or will. The tree henge hadn’t changed, of course. Elsa supposed that must have been where Sadie and Millie had reappeared after their unplanned escape from the manor.

A minute or two spent scanning the area up by the cliff and she found what she was looking for – two large rocks with a narrow recess between them. Elsa trudged up the bank, her limbs still weak enough to appreciate the effort it took.

She peered down at the small bundle in her hand. “Well, it’s a long shot, Minerva. But stranger things happen at sea.“

Setting the bird down on the ground, Elsa began scooping sand away from the small gap with her good hand. After several minutes of this rudimentary excavation, she was just about ready to give up when her fingers hit upon something solid. She redoubled her efforts, clearing sand from around the object.

A wooden box. The wooden box.

Elsa carefully prised the lid off and peered inside. “Will wonders never cease…”

She drew the clock out and held it up to inspect. It was smaller than she remembered, of course it was, but no less wondrous for that. It was heavy, the wood unnaturally dense, almost like stone or metal. When her fingernail scraped over the clock’s surface, leaving not so much as a single mark, Elsa wondered how it had been possible to carve such wood so delicately and precisely.

The clock’s numerals bore no resemblance to those of more modern timepieces, and decades after first laying eyes on them, Elsa now realised they were archaic runes, though of a variant she was unfamiliar with.

A line of verse came to her, something she’d picked up from a manuscript, scribed and rescribed until the original source had been long forgotten.

Back where the Ironwoods sleep beneath the ice

Waiting for Danu’s children to return

Was it possible the clock had been fashioned from those ironwoods of legend, the great towering trees that were said to be unique to the Tuatha homeland? If so, this was like discovering Noah’s Ark or the Grail.

The temptation to take the clock with her was hard to resist, but that wasn’t why she had come. And though she’d never shied away from taking things that did not belong to her, Elsa drew a line here. This clock represented something more than the object itself.

She put it back in its box, then found a small space in one corner to slot her dead bird.

“Géillim don Timthriall thú, mo chuid eolach. Bí ar son na síochána.“ I surrender you to the Cycle, my familiar. Be at peace.

She replaced the lid, then refilled the hole with sand. When the task was done, Elsa found her feet and turned to look out across the open water. It was calm and still; peaceful.

It wasn’t quite redemption. But a weight had been lifted. There had been some honour in the small ritual, and honour had been absent from Elsa’s life for far too long. She closed her eyes for a moment and breathed in the sea air. “Look see, Reeta of the Selkie,” she murmured. “Look see.“

***

A short while later, the small dinghy washed up on the mainland. Elsa could see her Porsche parked up a short distance away. Somehow, the car seemed a silly thing to her now, like so much window dressing. Indulgent; unnecessary.

She climbed from the boat and made for the carpark above, but came to an abrupt halt before she’d got more than a few feet. Feeling uncharacteristically awkward, she turned back to the old boy sitting in his dinghy. She supposed she owed him… something. 

“Yes, well… thank you,“ she told him with a curt nod.

Why is it so hard to acknowledge help?

She held up a cautionary finger. “If you give me one of those nauseating smiles, I’m probably going to drown you.“

The old man rattled out a laugh, then gave her a quick salute. He cranked the motor back to life, then began moving towards the lonely stretch of beach he called home. He turned his head back briefly and called out to her. “Name’s Len! What’s yours?“

Elsa thought about it as she watched his boat get smaller and smaller. “I’m not sure,” she told herself, because he was out of earshot by then. “Time will tell, I suppose.“

She climbed behind the wheel of her car and set the satnav for Derwold. There was work to do.

Afterword

Sometimes an idea won’t leave me alone until I write it down. 

Just when I thought The Beekeeper’s Lament was finished, two separate ideas kept nagging at me. One was a somewhat abstract image of a younger Rita sitting on a beach playing with a clock and hollering the words, “Look see!“ (Yes, that’s what passes for a story idea in my head). I didn’t quite know where it fit into the greater Beekeeper/Selkie narrative, thinking maybe it was going to be part of a prequel story I was writing.

The other idea was a more straightforward one: What exactly happened to Elsa after the siren flew off with her in Chapter Ten? 

As these two ideas began to merge and take shape, it occurred to me that Elsa and Rita (or Frances and Reeta as they were) might have met at some point in the past, seeing as they both called Morcant-On-Sea home. 

Eventually, I sat down and wrote the damn thing, and this additional chapter was born. It’s very much a part of the larger tale, though it takes a slightly different form than the other chapters – a subtitle, different chapter headings, the way it dips back and forth between past and present, and the past segments narrated by Elsa herself.

I hope you got some enjoyment out of it. At the very least, I think you might understand our villainous dark witch a little better now.

Soon to come: Chapter Thirteen!