The Selkie Bride by Melanie Jackson Page B

the case, because the cot in that room was actually smaller than the bed I slept in and the space should have felt more spacious instead of less.
    Eventually, to satisfy my nagging brain, I paced off the two rooms and discovered that the smaller-seeming room was smaller. By two large paces. Once the anomaly was identified, it took little effort to discover the loose stone in the back fireplace chimney that hid the latch that released the false wall. The reason for the paneling in the cottage was then clear; secrets and not warmth or ornamentation had been the cause of its installation. Someone, perhaps several someones, had wanted to conceal something from their neighbors.
    The air that puffed into the bedroom from the dark hole was not unpleasant, though a bit stale. It reminded me of the lending library back home, and I felt a degree of lessening in my trepidation as musty air and nothing else rushed out at me. Fetching the lamp, I ducked into the secret cupboard and let my eyes adjust to the greater dark. Herman followed reluctantly, sneezing from time to time.
    There were dust and cobwebs in abundance, telling me the narrow room had not been cleaned for some while. If the cottage had been grander and more on the beaten path of Europe’s traditional religious turmoil—or on any pathat all—I would have suspectedthe hidden room was a priest hole. But of holy relics there were no signs. Nor were there any secret staircases leading to hidden passages used by so many smugglers in Robert Louis Stevenson’s stories. This sudden idea of smugglers was fostered by the discovery of a heavy keg of brandy in the far corner of the closet, which was mostly full. How old it was, I could not say, but it smelled potent when uncorked and the oak of the cask was quite dark, suggesting that some liquor had seeped through.
    Though I saw no place in the walls, floor or ceiling where another secret door might be, I did take the time to tap the panels and pound the floorboards. I had not forgotten Lachlan’s insistence that Fergus Culbin had been murdered in the cottage by a rogue finman who must have found some way inside. The lack of secret passages was therefore doubly reassuring. Since the chimney was barred and all the windows too small to admit a human, the only place the creature could enter the cottage was the front door, and I had a heavy bar and sturdy lock to take care of that.
    What the tiny room lacked in religious icons, it made up for in books and folios. Most were written in Latin and Greek—the second, a language for which I had little facility—but one handwritten journal was done in some form of Gaelic, which Fergus (I assumed) had glossed extensively in English, and another was penned in an older form of border English. These I put aside, though I hadn’t any reason to assume that I would be able to translate the villainous handwriting that was faded, had some water damage and was blithely unconcerned aboutconforming to any of the grammatical rules with which I was familiar.
    That was all of the room’s contents, except for the one chair—taken from the dining room, I assumed, since it matched the others, though it brought the total to thirteen, an unlucky and odd number of seats—and a small table with a dusty lamp, a pot of dried ink and a broken pen. Taking the two books with me, I closed the panel back up and decided to wash and then retire to bed. I also retrieved the yew carpet beater and iron shackles from the linen basket and put them beneath my pillow. Perhaps my faith was misplaced, but I felt better having them near at hand.
    I feared that my mind would keep me awake, but fear is exhausting. After reading for a short while, I put the disquieting books aside and fell into a deep sleep that was disturbed only once, when Herman jumped on the bed and insisted on wiggling his way under the covers. I patted him once in sympathy: The journal had revealed something nasty that I hadn’t previously suspected of