Water: Selkies, Sirens, & Sea Monsters: Elemental Anthology, #4

By Rhonda Parrish, Catherine MacLeod, Chadwick Ginther and 4 more

Water is the most yielding of all elements, changing to fit its container, whether that be a thimble or a lake bed. At the same time, anyone who has ever watched the unrelenting progression of a tsunami understands its raw power. Associated with mutability and the subconscious, Water is both the tranquil azure of a tropical sea and the tumultuous waves and whitecaps of an embroiled ocean. As many faces as Water may wear, the creatures within and associated with it have even more.

 

Discover the transforming power of Water and the creatures that thrive on it in these twenty-four stories and poems, including: a selkie seeking divorce in Reno; a kitchen witch trying to save her small town; and a professional acquisitionist hired to steal a mermaid from a sideshow exhibit.

 

Featuring: Catherine MacLeod; Kevin Cockle; Greta Starling; Elise Forier Edie; Kate Shannon; Sara Rauch; Katie Marie; Rebecca Brae; Colleen Anderson; L. T. Waterson; Chadwick Ginther; Julia Heller; Marshall J. Moore; Joel McKay; Elizabeth R. McClellan; Eric M. Borsage; Laura VanArendonk Baugh; Josh Reynolds; Liam Hogan; Mari Ness; Davide Mana; Sarah Van Goethem; Valerie Hunter; and Kelly Sandoval.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tyche Books
• Release date: Aug 10, 2021
• ISBN: 9798201160395

Book preview

Table of Contents

Water: Selkies, Sisrens, & Sea Monsters

Introduction

Rhonda Parrish

The Diviner

Catherine MacLeod

Hidden Depths

Kevin Cockle

Creatures of Water and Salt

Greta Starling

After Ariel

Elise Forier Edie

in the bog where we are walking cautiously

Kate Shannon

Blazing Stars

Sara Rauch

There’s Something in the Water

Katie Marie

The Witch’s Diary: Adventures in Hut-sitting

Rebecca Brae

Siren’s Song

Colleen Anderson

Sarah McKenzie

L. T. Waterson

Midnight Man versus Carrie Cthulhu

Chadwick Ginther

Treasure of the Sea

Julia Heller

Nure-Onna

Marshall J. Moore

Number Hunnerd

Joel McKay

Amphitrite Finds A Confidante

Elizabeth R. McClellan

In the Arms of Oceana

Eric M. Bosarge

Depth Charge

Laura VanArendonk Baugh

Bruno J. Lampini and the Song of the Sea

Josh Reynolds

Mano Kanaka: The Eater of Lost Souls

Liam Hogan

And the Wind Steal Her Vibrant Call

Mari Ness

The Man Who Speared Octopodes

Davide Mana

A Knot of Sea Wives

Sarah Van Goethem

Going Home

Valerie Hunter

Love is a Locked Box and the Ocean on Her Lips

Kelly Sandoval

Biographies

Back Matter

Water:

Selkies, Sirens,

& Sea Monsters

Edited by

Rhonda Parrish

For Jo

Introduction

Rhonda Parrish

I’M NOT SURE if I’m ready for this to be over, to be honest. I always procrastinate when it comes time to write an Introduction because I struggle with them (which may be why they always end up more like an Editor’s Note than an Introduction), but for this one the procrastination levels were epic. And I think, in part, it’s because this is the fourth and final book for this anthology series. And I’m going to be quite sad to see it end.

But it’s ending on a really high note.

I’m biased, of course, and not just because I’m the editor, but also because water is without question my absolute favourite element. When I was very young, if I was being fussy or annoying, my mother used to fill up the kitchen sink and plonk me down in it and let me splash and play. It never failed to calm me down. And that relationship with water remains to this day, all these many years later. The sharp smell of chlorinated water always makes me smile, as does the scent of the ocean. And both call to me.

That connection to the water makes me understand the yearning of selkies and the beckoning power of sirens.

When the publisher and I decided to put a selkie in mid-transformation on the cover, I don’t think either of us realized how perfect a cover that would be for this collection, but it is. Perfect, I mean. Not because there is a preponderance of selkie stories here—there aren’t. Really, there are only a few pure selkie stories and poems within these pages, but there are a lot of transformational ones.

Which really fits with the water theme. Even single drops of water, over time, can erode away stone—shifting and transforming it—and large bodies of water take no time at all to change landscapes. Or people.

Water shifts to take the shape of whatever contains it, so how can it be surprising that those things it contains also transform?

In some of these stories water is the siren, the shapeshifter, the monster. In others it’s less a character and more a setting. Or a force. Or a mystery.

What kind of wonders might oceans and swamps, lakes and rivers contain? What kind of creatures? What kind of magic?

The stories and poems in this collection don’t have all the answers to that question, but they do pose a variety of intriguing possibilities.

Rhonda

Edmonton, Alberta

1/28/21

The Diviner

Catherine MacLeod

MELLY TOOK THE lid off the stock pot and drew a slow breath. The broth was dark and fragrant, just beginning to boil. She stirred in salt and rosemary as the phone rang.

The caller ID said Shay Lumber. Her husband said, I’m bringing Gary and the new guy home for supper.

There’s a new guy? Parsley, bay leaf, lemon zest.

Archie Dennis retired last week.

Chives, pepper, roofing nails. When will you be home?

We’ll be there by six. It was five-thirty.

There was a soft crack as her wooden spoon splintered. No problem.

(Rule: The correct answer was always No problem.)

He said, Good, and hung up. Jon Shay wasn’t the kind of man who asked if you needed anything from the store. Melly liked the company tradition of inviting the new hire to supper, but she’d learned early in the marriage to keep ingredients for a fast meal on hand.

She put a pot of water on to boil. She had spaghetti, homemade sauce, and Parmesan. She had garlic bread, green peppers, and the sure knowledge that Jon’s brother Gary would eat bruschetta until he passed out. There was orange sherbet if they wanted dessert, and a half-dozen beer in the fridge.

She set the stock pot in the sink, added a broken locket, and stirred the broth with Jon’s hammer. One more deep sniff. A drop of blood slid out of her nose.

Perfect.

THE NEW GUY’S name was Christopher Graham. He said, This is for you, and held out a small potted plant. Three mauve flowers on long stems swayed gently with the motion.

They’re beautiful.

To be honest, I don’t know what they are.

Cyclamen, she said. They’re a kind of African violet.

Thank you for having me to dinner, Mrs. Shay.

Everyone calls me Melly. She kissed her husband’s cheek and said, Supper’s ready, dear. Gary, will you take in the beer, please?

When they’d gone into the dining room, she hung up their coats. She plucked a hair from Gary’s collar and dropped it in the cooling broth, then took the pasta to the table.

Jon said, Chris lives just a mile up the road, by the bridge.

You’re renting the old Winston place? Have you met your neighbours yet?

I met Bob Lyle.

Did he warn you about the Miller house burning down?

No.

Jon said, He usually starts talking about it in August. You saw that old hulk of a house between your place and here, right? It’s sagged like that for the last eighty years. Every Halloween Bob worries that teenagers will torch it. But it’s so rickety the craziest of them wouldn’t go in there. And it’s full of rats. He grinned as Melly shuddered. My wife doesn’t like rats.

Melly shook her head, embarrassed. She hated them almost as much as Jon did, but would never say so.

(Rule: Don’t embarrass the husband, even in jest.)

I hope you’ll like Kemper’s Bend, she said.

I’m sure I will. I came from a place like this, called Andersville. Chris looked down at his plate. It’s not really there anymore. I worked at the mill there, too. But it burned down a couple of years ago, and that was it for half the town.

And the other half? she asked.

"A company called Whycorp Gas and Oil found natural gas. You know about hydraulic fracturing?"

Fracking, she said faintly.

Yeah. They said there wouldn’t be any damage to our wells, but there was. They brought us bottled water for a while, but then they stopped.

Jon said, No one told you?

What?

"Whycorp’s been here for almost a year."

It was the first time Melly had ever actually seen the colour drain from someone’s face. She almost reached out to take Chris’s hand, then caught herself—she barely knew him, and Jon wouldn’t like it.

Gary said, Can I get seconds, Mel?

Sure.

He was clueless as ever, she thought, but at least he’d changed the subject. He rattled on about Jon’s new truck, Jon’s new generator, and Jon’s new big-screen TV. When the conversation moved on to work and hockey, Chris joined in politely but was sparing with his opinions.

Definitely a small-town boy, she thought. (Rule: The new boy speaks only when spoken to.)

Gary said, That was delicious, Mel.

Thanks.

Could you give Charlene the recipe?

I don’t have one, she admitted. I just cook by feel. You know—pinch of this, dash of that. Mostly it turns out okay.

Too bad Charlene can’t do that.

She doesn’t have time because she’s too busy icing her latest black eye, Melly thought. And it wouldn’t matter if I had a recipe because you don’t want her talking to anyone. And stop calling me Mel, you ass.

Chris rose when she did and picked up his plate. She said, Guests don’t do that. And you have a movie to watch.

I do?

You do, Jon said. "I got Batman. The original, with Michael Keaton."

She cleared the table as they went into the den, then checked the pot in the sink. She opened three more beers, poured a spoonful of broth into one, and dumped a bag of pretzels into a bowl.

Should we wait for your wife? she heard Chris ask.

No, she likes those black-and-white movies on the late show. She’s not into masked vigilantes.

Ha! she said, handing Gary the doctored beer. For all you know I could have a secret identity of my own.

Yeah, right—The Diviner, finding new wells and vanishing into the night.

Melly laughed along with the men. Movie music cued up as she left.

She strained the stock into a half-dozen plastic bottles, labelled them neatly—Agony-in-Waiting—and carried them into her pantry. She lined them up on the shelf with Non-Fatal Paralysis, This-is-War, and Get-Over-It.

Jon was wrong: she did like Batman, and she knew a bit about vigilantes. The Diviner wasn’t the most dashing alias, but it was what most people in the Bend called her. Most of them had seen her pacing a construction site, carrying a willow branch they were half-convinced she didn’t need. They’d seen her go still, feeling for deep-running water. She was never sure if it pulled her toward it, or if she pulled it up, but when she felt the branch start to tug, she said, Dig here. She’d never been wrong.

She washed and dried Jon’s hammer and put it back where he’d left it. Tonight’s potion was a concentrated mix; Gary would shatter every bone in his hand the next time he hit his wife. He’d smash his feet if he kicked her. And if he bit her it was going to be all kinds of ugly.

Melly studied her reflection in the kitchen window as she washed the dishes. She had on her homebody smile, the look of a devoted and compassionate wife.

Jon was wrong about that, too. She knew all about masks.

THE NEXT MORNING’S brew was a gift for Emma Reese, excruciatingly respectable widow and town gossip. Her house was across the street from both the laundromat and the coffee shop, giving her a good view of the town’s comings and goings. Her gossip was getting nastier, and Melly had become her favourite subject: She’s too good to go to church like the rest of us. She thinks all water is holy.

Melly knew Emma was probably just lonely, but there were better ways of getting attention. And I dowsed your well, remember?

Melly mixed a batch of Silence-or-Else: one part wood rot, one part horse manure, one part common dirt, and a lot of peppermint, stirred with a very sharp knife and chilled.

A few cheerful words to Emma in the coffee shop, a little misdirection, and the potion was in her cup. From now on any malicious lies would burn her tongue like a mouthful of wasps. The pain would fade to a three-alarm chili burn after an hour and be gone an hour after that. Melly doubted she’d ever realize what caused it. No doctor ever would.

Did you hear what happened to Ivy Patterson? Emma asked. Somebody threw a rock through her bedroom window last night.

What? Who?

Probably a jealous wife, Emma said, and clapped a hand over her mouth. Melly checked another job off her mental to-do list.

The next time she saw Ivy in the grocery store she said, I heard about your window. Are you okay?

No. Ivy’s hands shook as she paid her bill. Angela Mackie threw the rock. I can’t prove it, but I know. I started dating Shaun last week.

But she dumped him a year ago.

Yeah, I thought it would be okay. But as soon as another woman wanted him, she was interested again. She hasn’t mellowed, you know?

Melly did. Twenty years after graduation Angela was still known for her dark beauty and spiteful temper—and her appetite for chocolate and other women’s men.

Ivy said, I’m scared.

Melly drove her home. Ivy’s cat was dead on the doorstep. Melly called Shaun and the police, and discreetly collected a claw from the cat and bits of the broken window before they arrived.

Tomorrow is Angela’s birthday, Shaun said. This must be a present to herself.

When she told Jon about it that night, he said, That’s crazy, even for Angela. Smashing the window, you’d expect that from her. But killing the cat is a whole different kettle of fish.

Interesting way of putting it, Melly thought, and started her potion with a fish chowder. She simmered a cup of the milky broth with the cat’s claw, slivers of glass, and a capful of vanilla. She strained it, then added sugar, cocoa, and butter. After a night in the fridge the fudge would be silky and tempting.

She’d wrap it in waxed paper and leave it in Angela’s mailbox with a birthday card signed, You know who. It would leave Angela terrified of going anywhere near Ivy, or anything that belonged to her. Which, for now at least, included Shaun.

Melly served the rest of the chowder for supper. Jon wiped his bowl out with a slice of bread and said, You’re a damned fine cook, Mel.

She was. The first thing she’d ever learned in her mother’s kitchen was, Cook with intent. Know exactly what you want to make. Your intentions are as much an ingredient as the salt.

Melly had understood that immediately, though not on a level her mother would have recognized. She doubted her mother would have approved of some of the things Melly had intended in her kitchen. But she was pleased that Melly had taken on a share of her workload, and equally pleased by Jonathan Shay’s growing interest in her daughter. The oldest son of the mill-owner, and a little too handsome, he was considered a good catch.

Melly hadn’t expected him to come calling, but apparently a good batch of biscuits was a powerful draw.

His interest in her had cooled over the years, but familiarity would do that, she thought. Familiarity and a potion in his coffee every morning for a month. It hadn’t made him lose interest in other women, but she was fine with that—maybe some of them liked it rough.

Still, she thought he was fond of her in his own way, even if that way called for caution on her part. She kept his house clean and his clothes well-mended; she fed him well and flirted with him in public.

And kept her mask firmly in place.

JON WAS A rarity among the Shay men, though. As long as her work was done and appearances were maintained, he didn’t mind if Melly had a social life.

(Unspoken rule: Don’t enjoy it too much.)

It consisted mainly of having a library card and going for coffee after doing the laundry. She repeated most of the news she thought would interest him, but not all. It would be unseemly to be too well-informed. She thought he wouldn’t want her knowing as much about fracking as she did.

She’d read hundreds of articles about it, but the look on Chris Graham’s face when he’d heard about Whycorp had told her more than any of them.

The sight of two Whycorp employees in the library just rubbed her nose in it.

Who are they? Chris asked.

"Whycorp researchers. I’ve seen them using the computers here before. Maybe low-ranking minions don’t get their own laptops."

A group of little kids skipped between them clutching Doctor Seuss books. Members of the local book club chattered in the corner. Angela Mackie stalked past with a new murder mystery, wearing a heavy gold cuff bracelet and a smug expression. Melly guessed both were probably courtesy of a new boyfriend. She hoped the book wasn’t research.

This is a pretty town, Chris said. It’s too bad.

Don’t count us out yet.

He shrugged. Some people will fight back. Most won’t. It’s too easy to look away and believe things will work out somehow. They won’t understand what they’re up against until it has its teeth in their throats.

Where did the rest of your family go?

There’s only me left.

I’m sorry. She glanced at the book in his hand. Peter Straub?

Yeah, I’ve always liked the scary stuff. Melly passed him a book from the shelf behind her. Lovecraft? I’ve never read him.

He bumps in the night like you wouldn’t believe.

Where’s Jon?

Out in the parking lot. It’s our Saturday morning ritual—I buy groceries and get new books, and he complains to his friends about having to wait for me.

I’ll go say hello, then.

Melly checked out her books. The Whycorp men were still there. They thought the town didn’t know what it was up against.

She whispered, Neither do you.

HER SATURDAY NIGHT mask was made of lipstick and mascara. She donned it after braiding her hair, and wore it with new jeans, a silk shirt, and the silver earrings Jon had given her for Christmas.

The local tavern was the go-to place for date night in the Bend. Melly chatted with the wives of the mill workers, nursed a glass of Chardonnay, and, when the band started a ballad she recognized, interrupted Jon’s dart game with his friends.

Sorry, guys, I like this song. You can have him back when I’m done with him.

There was a chorus of hoots as she led him onto the dance floor. Jon rolled his eyes and grinned back at them. Melly danced a little closer than necessary, knowing it would be commented on later.

He said, There’s Chris. She looked over to where Chris had taken Jon’s place in the game. He glanced at her, as if he’d known exactly where she was, then turned away.

Shouldn’t you tell him what a hustler Gary is? she asked.

Don’t think so. Some things a man has to learn for himself.

THE NEXT MORNING Jon said, This might be your last hiking day.

Melly said, You’re right. Partly because he was, and partly because he liked hearing it.

I’ll pick you up around one.

No problem.

The maple leaves looked as if King Midas had gone on a bender. In another day or two they’d fall all at once, and the sky would fade from this joyful blue to a mauvish-grey. The fall rains would be hard and steady. Jon parked the truck a quarter-mile past Bob Lyle’s house, and Melly got out, dragging her backpack with her.

When he was gone, she stepped over the smallest of the No Trespassing signs and pulled an oversized garbage bag out of the culvert. She hefted it over her shoulder and headed into the woods.

On Sundays she hiked the mountains while Jon visited friends. She’d been tramping the woods since she was old enough to go out alone. She’d been tramping these woods since the sign for Whycorp Gas and Oil had been staked at the corner of the property.

It would take time for them to set their drills, she knew. They were probably still looking for underground mapping data. If the research showed the hoped-for results, they’d find a suitable site and drill a test well.

Each stage of exploration required a specific permit; obtaining each one could take up to six months. But Whycorp was patient. They’d move in eventually.

Melly smiled as a bluejay sailed overhead. A deer stepped out of the brush and looked at her, unconcerned. Except for a few ATV enthusiasts, and teenagers looking for a place to party, hardly anyone ever came up here. Which made it perfect for Whycorp. She’d read the literature until she almost had it memorized—they couldn’t drill within one hundred metres of any building, road, power line, or water well, unless they could prove the operation wouldn’t cause any damage. The mountain was hell-and-gone away from pretty much everything.

She’d accidentally found her first well here when she was fourteen. She remembered walking behind her parents, swinging a green branch, and yelping as it suddenly tried to yank itself out of her hand.

Her father yelled, Let go before you get hurt!

Too late. The branch shot three feet and jabbed into the ground, leaving her with a palm full of splinters. She still had scars, but what she remembered most was her parents whispering, Water witch.

She didn’t know what that was. Apparently, it was her. She checked out books on dowsing, and stole library books on witchcraft, not wanting anyone to ask questions. No one commented when she started divining, but she thought it best to keep quiet about what else she’d taught herself.

It was basically just more cooking with intent.

From the mountain she could see almost all of the Bend, a place where church still summoned the faithful and yard sales were an event. And the best thing Charlene Shay could say about her marriage was that she’d never needed stitches.

Best friends in high school, they might’ve spoken one hundred words to each other since graduation, half on the day they’d married the Shay brothers in a double ceremony, the rest at their mother-in-law’s funeral the week before. They’d stood together watching their husbands work the crowd, Charlene’s eye makeup not quite hiding the bruise.

Melly whispered, What happened?

Charlene rummaged in her pocket and found the locket Gary had given her as a wedding present. I broke the chain, she said sadly. They turned as Gary approached, and Melly saw the red weal across the back of Charlene’s neck.

What are you girls talking about? he said pleasantly.

I was just asking how your dad’s getting along, Melly said.

He’s coping, Gary said, and squeezed Charlene’s hand. She dropped the locket. As he led her away, Melly heard him growl, What did you tell her?

Melly collected the locket and went to pay her respects. I’m sorry, Bert. This must be an awful shock for you.

She knew her heart would give out if she didn’t slow down. She got what she asked for.

And if I had to live with you, I’d ask for it, too.

Melly turned her back on the view and went to a spruce with a red ribbon on its lowest branch, marking where she’d ended her last hike. She took a plastic bottle from the garbage bag and opened it, a tiny sound escaping, like distant thunder. She swung her arm in a wide arc, splashing the potion. Water always travelled. By now it would have carried her brew over almost every inch of Whycorp property.

She called the recipe Cease-and-Desist.

She’d watered the property every Sunday since the Whycorp sign had gone up. Soon she’d have their land magicked and the edges sealed. And her teeth in their throat.

THERE THEY GO, Bob Lyle said. A black half-ton with the Whycorp logo on the door rolled past the coffee shop. His fingers twitched as if itching to make the sign of the evil eye. Like most people in the Bend, he was worried about the damage fracking could do to their wells.

Melly had heard the conversation so many times she knew it by heart, but she kept collecting ingredients for the next batch of potion: cinnamon crumbs sprayed from cursing mouths, napkins crumpled in anger. She gathered words and wants and anxiety the same way she scraped paint from their roadside protest signs—carefully. Whycorp didn’t understand care, and it never hurt to confuse the enemy.

Have you heard about the reward? Grace Tanton asked. On November first they’re going to start offering one thousand dollars to anyone who reports a trespasser on their land. Melly, don’t you still hike up there?

Sure. It’s one of the prettiest places around.

Of course, Bob grumbled. That’s why they’re ruining it.

Melly shrugged. I guess I’ll get one more look at the view before Halloween. She’d have to—somebody would report her for that much money.

Grace said, Bob, did you ever find out who your grandfather sold that land to?

Nope. He’s been dead a year and I’m still sorting his papers. Half the ones I expected to find are gone. Could be he burned them. I should’ve kept a closer eye on him—if he was tottery enough to fall and split his head open, maybe he shouldn’t have been handling his own money. Bob scrubbed his hand over his face. "I found the price of the land marked in his bank book, but not the property transfer. So, no, I don’t know who leased the land to Whycorp."

Melly drained her mug and said, See you later, guys. I have to put my wash on the line.

Bob said, Yeah, I heard it’s supposed to rain tomorrow.

Somehow the conversation always came back to water.

THE RULES OF conduct in a small town mostly boiled down to Live and let live. The rules of marriage, Melly thought, were harder to understand. Love, honour, and obey was a minefield. When she’d married Jon, she’d been too young to know how dangerous some words were.

The words she’d been thinking lately were nothing she’d share with her husband.

She considered them as she made a new batch of Cease-and-Desist, throwing in tear-stained napkins, chewed fingernails, hair pulled out in frustration, and a cup of dirt from the mountain. She murmured them as she folded the laundry and cooked a casserole for supper. Sighed them as she watered her plants and caught herself caressing the cyclamen.

Chris Graham had blind-sided her. He’d changed everything, simply by speaking to her politely. By treating her as something more than an appendage. By reminding her that it was easy to look the other way and believe things would just work themselves out.

It was easy to look away with a mask obstructing her vision. She could still tell herself Jon was the pick of the Shay men, but that wasn’t saying much. He’d never raised his hand to her, but she’d spent half her life making sure he didn’t have a reason to and knowing he would decide what might be considered a reason.

He was the first man she’d dated who’d seemed steady. She’d