The Seven Tears

By Jocelyn Beard

Ancient curses, magic, and creatures who step out of forgotten folklore don't exist for Teran Dee of Boston, Massachusetts. This sassy 16-year-old is dedicated to her dream of becoming an open water swimmer and someday tackling the English Channel.

 

When a boating disaster leaves Teran stranded on a small rock in the North Sea, she unknowingly triggers the Curse of the Seven Tears. Swept into the magical underwater realm of the Finfolk, deep in the Arctic Ocean, she is expected to become the wife of their prince, Luca, AND bear their child within a year.

Finfolkaheem is one of many underwater cities in which the Finfolk have prospered for thousands of years. Their world is a stunning accomplishment of magic and technology.

 

Teran rebels immediately and memorably upon arrival. She is determined to escape even though if she violates the curse of the Seven Tears, she and Luca—along with their families—will die.

 

As Teran struggles to find her way through the huge and magic-saturated world of the Finfolk, she's getting the feeling that something has awakened within her. And OMG, it feels like magic.

 

18-year-old Luca has dreaded becoming the victim of the curse of the Seven Tears since he was young enough to understand that the Finfolk's continued survival depends on their ability to capture human women. Now torn between duty to his people and doing the right thing by returning Teran to her family, his people's survival depends on him. He and his friends decide to try to break the curse, something that no Fin has been able to do. Ever.

 

Despite everything, Teran and Luca feel strangely drawn to one another. Is it Teran's magic, the curse, or something real? No way is she going to marry and have a baby! But, how does she escape and save everyone's lives?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jocelyn Beard
• Release date: Feb 27, 2024
• ISBN: 9798989233717

Book preview

1

TERAN

The Beach at Race Point, Cape Cod

Six Years Ago

Aperfect day.

Teran willed herself not to sing as she swam with long, powerful strokes along the beach at Race Point, reveling in the feel of the silky water as her body sped along her course parallel to shore. This was what she wanted. More than her best friend, Margo, wanted a pony and more than her brother wanted an electric guitar, she wanted—no she needed—to be in the sea. When she was in the chilly New England water, she was alive, and the feeling was electric. Swimming was the only thing that mattered, and oh, could she swim.

She was vaguely aware of her parents and Uncle Samuel following along on shore and felt a rush of pride that they had finally consented to her first solo practice without stupid flippers. Not many ten-year-olds could swim with such power in the ocean. Then again, as she’d been told repeatedly, she’d been swimming since she had first entered the world ten years ago in the birthing pool at Cambridge Hospital. She’d been forced to watch the majorly gross video of her birth about a million times, so the way she saw it, she’d spent the first nine months of her life submerged in water, had been born in water, and intended to spend as much of her life as possible in water. She was going to swim the English Channel someday. In fact, she planned to swim every single channel there was.

Someday she was going to enter the lottery for the Boston Harbor Swim—Eight Miles and Seven Islands—and she was going to win. And she was going to get the official tattoo, no matter what her mom said.

She smiled at the playful tug in the waves. She knew an undertow lurked just a bit further out in the darker water. She’d felt its pull many times when swimming with her parents.

Today, however, she was to keep strictly to the shallows, where she’d be safe from the undertow’s greedy embrace. The waves rocked her body, but she sped through them like a torpedo, ignoring seaweed and other debris that floated in her path. Any minute now, she’d hear her mom’s whistle that would signal her to reverse.

Teran failed to notice when the waves suddenly disappeared.

Rip! Teran, rip!

Teran was startled by her mother’s cry and screamed as the current grabbed her and began to drag her out to sea.

Rip current!

Her father’s steady voice sounded in her head: Keep calm, Tadpole. That’s the prime directive.

But she couldn’t force herself into a state anywhere near approaching calm. Desperately, she turned her body and began thrashing her way to shore, even though she knew that was exactly the wrong thing to do. She heard her mom urging her to swim across the deadly current to calmer water, but that just fueled the spark of her panic into a bonfire.

The unforgiving current pulled her under, filling her mouth with saltwater that she choked out as soon as she resurfaced. Gagging, she still tried to fight her way back, but the rip was too powerful.

The further out the current carried her, the harder she fought against it. She was vaguely aware that her parents were in the water now, calling to her to stop fighting. A flash of orange caught her eye, and she saw that a lifeguard had launched a rescue raft and was doing her best to navigate on the far side of the current in her direction.

Keep calm, Tadpole!

Finally, she knew that her body had given all it had, so she allowed herself to float on top of the racing water and turned her face to the endless blue sky, frustration clutching at her hammering heart. Gulls flew by overhead, unperturbed by her plight, their cries muffled by the water filling her ears.

Panting, she reached for the small golden locket she had worn every minute of every day since her Uncle Samuel had given it to her on her fifth birthday. She absently fingered the raised shape of the broken trident on the locket’s front and hoped he hadn’t been watching. Never take it off, he’d whispered in her ear when he’d fastened it around her neck. Powerful protection for a powerful little mite.

She’d believed him then and hoped now that he’d been right.

She watched the sky race by and wondered how far out she’d be by the time the rip was spent and then gasped when she felt something brush by her.

Shark! her mind screamed. And then something tugged gently at her hair, and she did scream.

She struggled to right herself as she felt a hand encircle her ankle pulled her under.

Down and down and down she was dragged, but weirdly, she didn’t panic, which would have made her dad proud. Why wasn’t she sucking in water? Why wasn’t she drowning?

Teran was only vaguely aware of the hand on her ankle that continued to pull her down until, finally, she found herself on the rocky seabed far beneath the surface and the world she understood.

Sunlight fell in weak shafts around her, and a school of small silver fish considered her for a moment before streaking away. She focused on the distant surface and tried with all her might to push towards it, but her body simply wouldn’t obey. Then, as if she were nothing more than a marionette, and unseen force turned her body in a slow circle until she faced an ancient-looking anchor covered with barnacles upon which sat a girl.

She wasn’t a mermaid or anything; she was just a girl, dressed in an old-fashioned tattered black dress that billowed around her like seaweed moving languidly in small eddies in the water. She wasn’t that old, maybe fifteen or even sixteen. She had long blond hair that floated around her head, giving her the appearance of a fairytale creature.

The girl in black was looking at her with such intensity that Teran reached again for her locket.

Hello, Tadpole.

She was startled by the sound of the strange, scratchy voice in her head and stared at the girl, who had cocked her head to one side and arched a dark eyebrow at her. She was pretty, but there was something about her that, well, seemed wrong somehow. Other than wearing an old black dress, sitting on an anchor at the bottom of the ocean, speaking in a strange scratchy voice without actually speaking, there was something else terribly wrong with this girl: Her eyes.

The girl’s luminous eyes glowed with the colors of an abalone shell. Her irises swirled with iridescent pinks, purples, and silvers, and shone in the murk like two mother-of-pearl buttons. Something about them was terrifying, and they whispered to Teran of things she couldn’t really understand. Her stomach clenched as those abalone eyes regarded her with a malice she had never seen or felt, and they provoked in her a dread so profound that she suddenly knew that every ghost story she’d ever heard was true.

Little Tadpole, sweet Tadpole

Tadpole lost at sea

Little Tadpole, sweet Tadpole

Seven Tears into the sea

O my sweet little Tadpole

Will ya be coming home to me?

Teran winced at the girl’s unsettling rhyme and reached for her locket with both hands, willing it to protect her from the girl in black.

Uh oh! Looks like I’ve gone and scared Tadpole, scratched the voice in her mind as Teran began to fight desperately to escape the invisible coils that held her fast on the seabed.

Naughty me. But, what a strange little Tadpole! I’ve half a mind to take you now, but a few more turnings of this wretched globe won’t make a difference, and you need to grow yourself a body, girl! One that will tempt a prince. Well, between you and me, I’ve had a look at your princeling and there’s not much happening there, trust me. Then again, his mommy and daddy are both lookers, so you never know—but Jeez Louise! Stars and cookies for Johnny! He was absolutely 100% right about you! But then again, Johnny is always right, so no cookies. Rewarding tedium seems counterproductive, don’t you think, Tadpole?

How did this creepy girl know her nickname? Only her dad called her…

Oh, I swear, I could watch you fight my magic all day, but there will be plenty of time for that later.

This was punctuated by a burst of laughter that sounded like millions of fingernails being dragged across millions of blackboards.

Millions, Teran? Seriously? Oh, little girlfriend, do you know what the best thing about you is? Of course you don’t. You’re just a stupid child, so I’ll tell you. The best thing about you is that Tallu will never see you coming! Never! That bitch’s ticket is officially punched, and she doesn’t even know it! Oh, the irony! I just adore irony. Don’t you just adore irony, Tadpole?

Nothing the girl said made any sense!

And how come I’m not drowning?

Or maybe she had drowned, and this was…

Teran looked up, but all she could see was a dark, churning mass of water. Desperately, she turned back to face the girl, who, along with the anchor, was gone.

Teran looked back to the surface and felt a jolt of panic because the darkness was descending rapidly toward her. And then the girl was right in front of her, and Teran shrank into herself as the girl’s awful eyes searched hers, and the strange scratchy voice sounded again in her mind: What are you clutching there, girl? She reached out with slender white fingers towards Teran’s hands, still gripping the locket. The girl jerked her head, and Teran’s hands flew away and pinned themselves to her sides, leaving the locket exposed.

When the girl saw the small golden disk, her mother-of-pearl eyes grew wide and Teran could almost feel her shock. She knew suddenly that this horribly wrong girl should never ever touch her locket.

Teran’s fear turned to anger, and as the girl brought a shaking hand to her neck, something in the locket, or was it something in her? Some force, some power traveled up from her gut along the chain and erupted from the locket like a thousand volts of electricity.

The girl snatched back her fingers and glared at Teran.

My, my, someone has given you a very special gift, Teran Anne Dee. Now who, I wonder, would have known to give you such a gift?

Teran fought the urge to scream.

This isn’t real, this isn’t real!

But the locket burning at her throat made it real. It had protected her, just as her godfather had promised.

Your godfather! rasped the girl triumphantly. A godfather. How awesomely interesting! Oh, no tears, whispered the scratchy voice as the girl in black began to drift away into the darkness of the water. You hate crying, don’t you, Tadpole? There will be time and enough for tears later. Fare thee well, Teran Anne Dee. You will forget meeting the witch beneath the waves until the time comes for you to remember. And I wish you naught but smooth seas and happiness…until I no longer wish these things for you.

The witch beneath the waves?

Aye, said the scratchy voice, sounding very far away now. Some call me that. I wonder what you will call me, Tadpole, when we’re properly introduced?

With a terrifying whoosh the darkness claimed her, and just before the world went black, she could have sworn she heard someone singing the saddest song in the world.

Her eyes flew open. She was vomiting up seawater in the sand while her dad held her and murmured words she couldn’t understand. When she’d choked out pretty much everything, including the granola she’d had for breakfast, he turned her around and held her close. His wire-framed glasses were completely fogged and dripping with saltwater. His t-shirt and shorts were soaked. She struggled to sit up.

Easy, Tadpole, he said in a shaky voice as he eased her hands from the locket. Had she been holding it all that time?

Dumb-pole.

That was her annoying little brother, Bor, who stood nearby in the sand making a series of exceptional faces at her that he punctuated with air power chords.

Bor! snapped her mother, and Teran was startled to hear fear in her voice. Your sister could have died!

No, she couldn’t! Bor shot back. Dying is stupid!

And then he turned and executed a belly flop on his lopsided sandcastle.

Her mom was gently wrapping her in a giant beach towel. And then she was hugging her and Teran knew that she was trying hard not to cry.

I’m okay, she whispered. Her throat hurt. Really, I’m fine. And I was making great time before the stupid rip, wasn’t I?

She watched her parents exchange a look that told her that it would be some time before she’d be allowed back in the ocean without them. They’d probably have her back in stupid flippers, too.

Well, I was making great time, she grumbled as she folded her arms. Where’s Uncle Samuel?

He’s gone to thank the lifeguard, said her mom. Then she bent low and whispered, "And you made excellent time before the stupid rip. Teran happily breathed in her mom’s scent of jasmine and the sea. You were swimming like a little blue fin."

Soon they were all piled back in their old Land Rover and heading back to Woods Hole, where her dad worked and where they spent as much time as they could when they didn’t have to be in Boston for things like school and her mom’s job with the Boston Police. Bor was singing a stupid song he’d made up on the spot in which he repeated the phrase, The rip tide came and Dumb-pole sank to the bottom of the sea about a million times before a plaintive Mom! from Teran put a temporary end to his budding singing career.

Besides, muttered Teran in the backseat holding her locket with her face pressed against the window, "it’s not a rip tide, it’s a rip current. Tides are made by the sun and the moon, everybody knows that."

Smart lass, said Uncle Samuel with a brilliant smile that you could barely see underneath his mess of black curly hair. Smart lass.

When she finally drifted off to sleep that night in her bed in Gull Cottage, which her parents had named after a seaside home in some old black and white movie, Teran thought she heard a girl’s weird scratchy voice singing Bor’s stupid song just as sleep claimed her and her dreams drifted, as they always did, back to the sea, where she was again as free and as fast as a blue fin. And as always, as she swam, she sang.

2

TERAN

Dunvegan Castle

on the Isle of Skye

Now

So, I’m finally staring at the highly touted Fairy Flag of Dunvegan Castle.

I’m not exactly sure what I was expecting, but the scrap of faded yellow silk that’s hanging on the wall above me in this castle isn’t it. I mean—let’s start with the color: yellow? Seriously?

Shouldn’t a fairy flag be…I don’t know…violet? Yes, it absolutely should be violet, and covered with stars. Wouldn’t that be more fairy-like? To be fair, I’m not exactly into the whole Dungeons and Dragons thing, but come on, yellow?

I dutifully snap a pic with my phone for Cassie, who’s stuck back home in Boston doing clerical work for her dad in his law office. She’s one hundred percent into the whole fantasy thing and probably won’t care that it’s yellow. When I told her that the Isle of Skye was on our vacation itinerary, she made a noise that sounded vaguely like an excited dolphin and began to babble incoherently about fairies and stones and kelpies and other things I’ve never heard of. In fact, if Cassie was standing here with me, right now, she’d shout, WICKED COOL! and we’d all be thrown out.

Here ya go, Cassie Calder, I mutter as I send the photo off into the ether. One genuine Fairy Flag.

After a moment I send the pic to Darius, my friend who is a boy. Cassie and Margo insist that he’s my boyfriend, and I guess he kinda is, but…

Not much left, is there?

Mom has managed to appear by my side without me noticing. Miriam Sanchez excels at stealth.

Nope, I agree while trying to make out the faint designs in the tattered silk that have managed to survive whatever this flag has been through in the past hojillion years.

How’s the arm today?

Just peachy, I reply with as much dignity as I can muster, which isn’t much.

Okay, it feels like someone branded me with a hot poker, but as much as I love Mom, I’m not going to give her the satisfaction of admitting my pain. Besides, she knows it’s killing me. Omniscience is another one of her many superpowers. It’s probably a miracle that I was able to get in and out of Red Rose Tattoos without Miriam bursting in dressed in full Boston Police Department riot gear shouting, Lower the machine and step away from my daughter!

Are you using the cream?

Yes, mom, I sigh. I’m using the cream.

Okay, I forgot to use the cream this morning, but Dad has us on a death march across Scotland! In the last three days…or is it four? Well, ever since our plane landed at Glasgow, it’s been a non-stop race from castle to cathedral to church to castle, and yes, it’s all been amazing, but between our formidable sightseeing schedule and jet lag, I may have forgotten to take proper care of my new tattoo.

Or, as my dearest brother has dubbed it: my slink ink.

As it happens, the clan motto of the MacLeods who have lived in this castle for a really long time is Hold Fast, and that’s what I’m going to do. It’s my body, and it was my decision to let some guy named Torvald attack my right arm with inked needles. Furthermore, I’m not the first 16-year-old to use fake ID to get a tattoo. Plus, I earned my ink! Sort of.

Just two weeks ago, I became the youngest person to finish the Boston Harbor Swim, and I did it in 1.8 hours, illegally, but still…

And suddenly, I’m back in Boston Harbor reliving the most amazing 1.8 hours of my life. My body’s moving through the water like a sailfish…okay nothing’s as fast as a sailfish in the ocean, but I’m booking. Bor, Margo and Cassie are keeping a respectful 20-foot distance from me in our borrowed escort boat and absolutely no one has noticed that we’ve totally crashed the race.

It only took Bor, like, five minutes to hack the race’s GPS coordinates, and then, well, sneaking in was so easy. Okay, it wasn’t that easy, but we made it happen, and the 1.8 hours that passed before I finally jogged up onto the L Street Beach are just a blur of pure pleasure.

I was the water, and the water was me. Kind of Zen, but whatever. I was on freaking fire, and I know I’m mixing my metaphors, but there’s always been something in the water that makes me feel absolutely 100% alive, and you can’t have life without fire.

I remember seeing the looks of surprise on the faces of the crew of another boat as I sailed past their guy. And by the time Moon Island was in my rearview, just about at the halfway point, I remember thinking that the English Channel will be cake.

The thing is, you must be at least eighteen to enter the Boston Harbor race, so okay, what I did was wrong, bad, and straight-up Voldemort evil (according to the Swim Commissioner). But it was also amazing! I’m probably banned from entering the Harbor Swim lottery for life, but it was still worth it to see the looks on everyone’s faces at the Curley Community Center at L Street when I came out of the water, dripping with illicit victory.

To be fair, the only rule I broke, besides not being an official contestant because of my age—so stupid—was not wearing an officially issued bathing cap. Beyond that, I did everything else that the official contestants did, and I did it faster.

The tattoo seemed like the best way to congratulate myself for having achieved outlaw status and totally killing the Boston Harbor Swim.

And, yeah, I’m still grounded.

Indeed, says my mind-reading mom, bringing me back to the here and now of Dunvegan Castle on the Isle of Skye in Scotland where being grounded means having to spend time with the people I love most while gawking at things like fairy flags.

Bor and Dad have gone to see if we have time for a boat ride to see a seal colony, she says thoughtfully as she considers the Fairy Flag.

I like seals, I say while taking in the rest of this ginormous room that contains an assortment of art, furniture, and knickknacks acquired by the MacLeods over the last eight hundred years.

This castle is really something, but I think these mementos would be more interesting if I actually knew someone in the family, and the only MacLeod I know is the guy from one of Dad’s favorite old movies, Highlander, you know, There can be only one! Probably a different branch of the clan.

"Of course, if we don’t have the time and you still want to see the seals, you could just swim out to the colony," says Mom, without taking her eyes from the flag.

Mom…

But she turns to me with one of her brilliant Miriam Sanchez smiles, and I offer a rueful grin in return.

Come on, Esther, she says, linking her arm through mine. I told the men we’d meet them in the gardens.

I happily allow myself to be led from the gallery and the yellow Fairy Flag while taking comfort in the fact that Mom has used her favorite nickname for me.

Esther Williams was a famous swimmer, like, a lifetime ago. She became a Hollywood star when World War II kept her from competing in the Olympics. Sort of like my age kept me from officially entering the Harbor race. When I read her Wikipedia page, I instantly felt a kinship with Esther, because she found a way to show the world that she was the best by bending the rules in her own way. Smart. One of her movies is called Million Dollar Mermaid, and since I collect mermaids, she’ll always occupy a special place in my heart.

Mom hasn’t called me Esther since I hijacked the Boston Harbor Swim and compounded my criminal activity with the tattoo last week. I allow myself a contented sigh as we descend the impressive castle stairs to the even more impressive castle entrance, because even though I know that all is not forgiven, it will be, eventually.

Once outside, I gasp because the sun is shining! I don’t think I’ve seen actual sunshine since we flew out of Logan. I was beginning to think that Scotland was the land of endless slate gray skies blanketed in layers of stratus clouds, but not today. The sky above Skye is a great periwinkle blue and the clouds are playfully cumulus. Wherever they are, I’m sure the fairies approve.

Mom and I follow signs pointing to the gardens, our boots making soft crunching sounds on the gravel pathway. A minute or two later, we’ve found ourselves in the middle of what must be one of the most amazing green spaces I’ve ever seen.

Okay, green is wrong. This place is filled with flowers of every imaginable color and shape. But to be fair, there’s a lot of green in this garden above the sea...or is it a loch that leads to the sea? Dunvegan was obviously built to defend attacks from the water, so I’m thinking the sea is out there. I can always seem to feel its pull.

But, wow, this garden!

Evidently, this is the Walled Garden, but I think it was probably the kitchen garden once, says Mom as she takes a few steps towards a pool of shining emerald green water.

I’ve never seen anything quite like this, and it occurs to me that if someone wanted to go searching for fairies, this would be the place. It looks more like a film set than a garden. Like some producer said, "I don’t care how much it costs, just make it look freaking