Chapter Five
They drifted with the current along the narrow ribbon of moon, shimmering on the water is if it were an avenue. There was no need of oars, or rudder. The little swan boat seemed alive, and knew the way. Originally, he thought the pool not to be very large, but they seemed to sail on and on. It made no sense, but he had given up trying to understand any of this. Cradled in the arms of the goddess, Garlon had eyes for nothing else but the copper-haired, beauty resting against him.
That contentment suddenly had an intrusion as another creature appeared.
Breaking the water’s surface, a seal bobbed on the current; its limpid, human-like eyes seemed strangely familiar. It let loose a mournful wail, melancholy and sad, and lumbered alongside the boat, resting its front flippers on the side rail. Poised there, it peeked in at them, its gaze intense.
Analee sat up. “What are you doing here?” she scolded the creature. “Your time is not yet. Get you back to your revelry and leave me to mine, little sister.”
The seal wailed mournfully. To Garlon’s great surprise, the Fae creature reached to pet him with its silky flipper, its adoring eyes taking him in with such interest. The creature’s touch was scintillating. Its body aura shimmered with iridescence in the moonlight, like a halo. An evocative scent of ambergris and salt drifted toward him from its pelt. It blinked and purred and shuddered, making little ripples on the breast of the dark water that spread out wide in waves. Oddly moved by the seal’s antics, Garlon reached to stroke the creature’s sleek, wet head. The poor thing closed its eyes and purred again, leaning into his caress.
Analee vaulted to her feet nearly upsetting the little boat. “Away, I said!” she commanded the seal. “This will not be borne! Get you gone!”
The seal pushed off then, spiraling into the water with another heart-wrenching moan. With a spectacular show of tail, it vanished beneath the reflection of the moon on the water.
A moon that was slowly descending. The time was growing short.
“Why did you chase the seal away?” Garlon asked. “She was doing no harm.”
Analee sank back down in the boat and reached for him. “She knows her place,” she said stiffly. “Right now, that is in your world. She has no business here now.”
“You called her your sister,” said Garlon, perplexed.
“I call all nymphs my sisters,” the goddess replied, evasive. “Otherworldly deities each have their place. They must remain in it. But we all have our counterpart…” she added, as if to herself. “And on Yule, many things are possible. You only have to give up thinking like a mortal man and accept the magic of this realm.”
The whole incident made little sense, as nearly all that happened to him since he made the wish by the pool. But, he could tell her words were borne of a dark jealousy. Still, he was intrigued by the sweet creature. “Then, she is a deity, that seal?” he asked.
“She is a Selkie. When the full Yuletide moon beams down, and the warm solstice currents and cold streams collide, then Selkies shed their skins in your world. If a mortal steal their skin they are forced to remain in the Mortal Realm. There are many wonders in our world, Garlon Trivelyan. We of the Fae World must choose with care those mortals we favor to know our secrets.”
“You picked me. Why? Why have you chosen me?” Garlon demanded. He had been dancing around asking that question since he met the Goddess of the Dream Well. What was truth? What was dream?
“Mortal men are too full of logic,” she responded. “Is it not enough that you have been chosen, Knight of the Realm? Must you have a reason? Are the whys more important that being gifted with so much?”
He could not define reasons, but the intrusion of the Selkie had shattered his acceptance of this strange night. It seemed that when the Fae creature touched him, his mind now harkened back to the world he left behind. With all her charms and beauty, his thoughts had been dulled into just accepting. Now, the questions were pushing in, and he wanted answers.
“I need to make sense of what is happening to me,” he insisted.
She said, playing with a lock of his hair, “It is not for you, a mere mortal, to question the will of the gods.” Her finger traced the scowl lines on his face. “Is it so important, really? Are you not pleased with the wonders you have seen here…with me?”
“Will I remember them when I return to my own world? Will I return to my world? What is there to say that I am not dying and this is merely a dream before all life leaves my mind?”
She hesitated, then said. “We have been granted this time, but it grows short, and we must not waste it...” Tightening her fingers in his hair she pulled his head down until his lips met hers, using her taste, her fragrance to cloud his mind.
Only, the questions would not be silenced. He slid out of her embrace and gently pushed away from her clinging hands.
“This night is beyond all dreams. You are beautiful. I feel things for you, but is it real? There is passion here, but is there love? It’s something that I never had in my life. Something I yearned for. Now, I do not know what is real, what is not. Yet, I still wish for love.”
Again, she hesitated. “Do not look too closely at the giver, Garlon Trivelyan. Simply take the gift. You asked not to die. I granted that. I saved you. I give you a rare present—to come into my world and to be with me. But you spoil this beautiful time with questions. And more questions. More demands. You are not happy with me?”
“’Tis not a matter of happiness. How can I be happy when I am unsure what is real and what is a dream? Now, since that seal touched me, I cannot stop these thoughts from troubling my mind. Things seem off, wrong.”
Her mouth pursed in petulance. “Forget that stupid seal. She is of no consequence. She shall pay for spoiling our short time together.”
“And so there is jealousy here. If there is jealousy, can there not be love and happiness?’
Analee laughed, but it was not filled with mirth. “Yes, there is jealousy,” she admitted, “and possessiveness, but not because of love. You are an intruder here. Man’s memory is weak, but not we of the astral. Our recollections go back to when mankind and the Fae coexisted side by side in one world—before the fall—before the Great War that rent our worlds in two.”
Garlon gave it thought, trying to hold on to what had pierced his heart. “That seal,” he said, “there was love in her, I sensed it—I felt it. I could see it in her eyes.”
“Bah! Selkies are a breed apart,” said Analee shortly. “That is because once shed of their skins they take on human traits, and sometimes actually become human—too human.”
Garlon uttered a guttural chuckle. “More jealousy. Odd, you seemed to dismiss the centaur’s emotion. Yet, I sense jealousy burns bright in you.” He sat up and rubbed his face, trying to fight this befuddlement of his thoughts.
“Rivalry perhaps is a more accurate term,” she snapped back. “Enough! Do you see that moon up there?” She extended her arm toward it. “The lower it sinks, the wider the swath,” she said, “the wider the swath, the closer the dawn—when we must part. Take the gift, Garlon Trivelyan. Silence the words. Come with me, be with me. Treasure the beauty I bestow upon you.
Clearly, he had pushed her to the limit, challenging her with his questions. But he couldn’t free himself of the Selkie’s touch. His skin still tingled from the caress of that satiny flipper, and her dark eyes with lashes that made them seem so human haunted him still.
Perhaps it was her wide-eyed innocence that had so captivated him, or the love he felt in her caress. It made him see the coldness within the goddess. She wanted pleasure, she wanted him, but there was no warmth of love. That sense of belonging, of wanting to stay here was fading with the moonlight. The enchantment was waning, destroyed by the entrance of the little seal into his world.
Analee reclined back upon the feather down quilts, her long, coppery hair fanned out about her on the bolster beneath her head. She looked her Otherworldly incarnation, as if she wasn’t real at all, but an illustration in a fine old tome of collected myths.
Suddenly, none of his was what he wanted. He didn’t belong here.
A shift propelled him sideways as the boat rocked. Water spilled over its edge, quickly swamping the small vessel. It spun to one side, pitching them both into the lake. The small swan boat spiraled down beneath the surface of the water, the swan’s neck shaped prow striking Garlon a blow on the head as it sank.
Darkness swirled around him, enfolded him in black wings, and dragged him down...down…