The Selkie Sorceress (Seal Island Trilogy, Book 3) by Sophie Moss Page A

we had such a heated debate about it.”
    Sam’s gaze lifted to the back of the row house edging up to Eileen’s back garden, at the long electrical wires hanging out the windows. “But why would she re-shelve only that one? And not the rest of the selkie books?”
    “Believe me, I asked the same thing. But she wouldn’t tell me. She never had an explanation. But she warned that if I tried to put it back, she’d move it again. After a few days, I gave up. A week later, she was gone and we never heard from her again.”
    Sam stared at a curved groove in the surface of the rusted table. “Did you put the story back?”
    Eileen shook her head. “No.”
    Sam glanced up. “Why not?”
    “I’m not sure,” Eileen admitted. “But something about Brigid’s sudden disappearance has always haunted me. I’ve always felt that something bad must have happened to her. And I guess I hoped that maybe one day she would show up again.” She looked down, into her tea. “I think I left it there in case she ever came back. So she would know that I…believed her.”
    “Do you?” Sam said slowly. “Believe her?”
    Eileen looked up, her green eyes filled with concern. “I think there’s a reason Brigid put that book there. I only wish I knew what it was.”
     

     
    “BRIGID,” SISTER EVELYN called softly through the door as she knocked. “We’re having a last minute visit from Father McAllister. I wondered if you could put together a flower basket for the dining room?”
    Sister Evelyn heard a faint scuffing noise and she put her ear to the door, tapping again. When she didn’t get an answer, she sighed and let herself in. A small shaft of light illuminated Brigid’s sparse furnishings. Her small single bed was already made—the corners tucked in, not a wrinkle in the material. The pens on her desk were lined up neatly in a row. Her stationery was stacked in a single corner, the edges aligned with the desk.
    But the woman on the floor was only half-dressed, her long hair a tangled mess of black waves and knotted river grasses. “Oh, Brigid,” Sister Evelyn closed the door and sank to the floor beside her friend. “Not again.”
    “I thought I heard him,” Brigid whispered, her eyes focused on the book beneath her palm. Slowly, she shifted it into a different position. “I thought I heard his voice in the river.”
    Sister Evelyn brushed Brigid’s heavy hair back from her face. The grasses broke off, crackling to the floor. Her friend had gone down to the river last night…again. “But he wasn’t there?”
    Brigid shook her head, reaching for another book and sliding it behind the last one in the second row. Twelve books on gardening. All hardbacks on loan from the local library. Sister Evelyn had left them in the common room for everyone to look at. She’d been surprised when she walked through the room this morning and noticed they were gone. “What are you doing with the books, Brigid?”
    “I need to put them in order.”
    “How about alphabetically?” Sister Evelyn suggested gently.
    Brigid shook her head. “No.”
    “How about by variety? Or blooming times? Earliest to latest?”
    “No.”
    “Tallest to smallest?”
    “No.” Brigid shifted another book around. The back cover scraped against the floorboards. A warm wind ruffled the curtains and Brigid paused, lifting her eyes to the rolling green hills outside. “Something’s wrong.”
    “There’s nothing wrong.” Sister Evelyn picked the river grasses out of her friend’s hair. The rest of the nuns might think Brigid was crazy. But they hadn’t known her when she was in that hospital. They hadn’t seen what those people had done to her. They didn’t understand that Brigid’s obsession with organization was the only shred of sanity she could claim in a life that had spun wildly out of control.
    “The gardens are starting to bloom,” Sister Evelyn said cheerfully, shaking more grasses out of her hair while Brigid continued to stare