*So, I’m doing what I said I wouldn’t do and posting a longer piece. I wrote this one for a historical fiction workshop, and since I don’t have much other stuff to post, what with my semester starting up again so soon, I thought I’d just post this novella in short installments.

Liscannor, Ireland, 1816.

Jenny O’Brien strolled along the ocean’s edge, breathing in salt and sea air, her hands clasping a skirt full of seashells.  There were striped, spiked, cylindrical, fan-waved, and all that is misshapen and in-between.  They clinked with each step, scratching against one another, the little ones chipping into littler pieces, the big ones sharpening into spikes.  She tried to ignore the wintery chill in the summer air. 

Jenny only ever collected seashells when she was particularly anxious.  The constant tide, and the rhythmic dipping down to grasp a new sandy white shell all colluded to calm her, allowing her mind to dwell on better things, like sirens and selkies, invisible monsters just beyond the graying horizon.  This was much preferable to agonizing over her cousin’s impending arrival.

Jenny had only met Elizabeth Pineghast once, when she was five and Elizabeth was eight, and a single meeting years ago was hardly enough to know a person by.  Elizabeth was coming all the way from London, that shadowy place where the rich were richer and the poor were somehow poorer.  She lived in such a wonderful, ghastly place because she had had the enormously good fortune of her well-to-do father getting her maid mother with child.  They had subsequently eloped, and the first ever wealthy O’Brien was born.  The story of Aunt Hannah’s triumph had always been a favorite of Jenny and her sisters.  They found it very romantic.  Jenny found it very pragmatic.

But, Jenny reminded herself, as she traced a snake in the sand with her boot, Elizabeth didn’t have all the luck in the world.  Her mother’s death several years ago had absolutely devastated her, and she had to be sent to some sort of special place for the mad.  At least, that was what Jenny had gathered from her parents’ whispered arguments.  Even though Jenny had just turned sixteen years old, she was still being treated like a child, which irked her to no end.

She scrubbed the sand off another shell and tossed it in with the others.

What she did know was that Elizabeth had sent a letter to her father, asking if she “might be granted the pleasure” of spending the summer with them, in the hopes of learning more about who her mother had been.  She would, of course, be accompanied by her physician, Dr. Frederick Larson.  Despite Mrs. O’Brien’s protestations about having two extra mouths to feed, and one of them mad, Mr. O’Brien had replied in the affirmative.  Mrs. O’Brien had informed him that he would do no such thing, but Elizabeth was family, and that had to be the final word on the matter.  It was.

A seagull squawked overhead and landed on the rugged gray-green cliffside, ruffling its feathers.  Jenny paused to watch.  She had always had a special place in her heart for soaring things.  If it were possible, she would have been one herself.

Though Jenny usually appreciated a little chaos, she found no enjoyment in the frantic preparations for Elizabeth’s arrival, which had sent the O’Brien household into a tailspin.  But Jenny was too preoccupied with how truly strange her cousin must be to revel in the whirlwind. 

Mad was something she could understand a little, Jenny conceded as she fiddled with her dress’ wool trim, but wealthy was utterly beyond her comprehension.  She couldn’t imagine all the things Elizabeth would be used to that her family would be unable to provide.  Proper tea, for one.  She had heard that the wealthy never used the same tea leaves twice.

What was more, there was little doubt in Jenny’s mind that her cousin would dislike her.  Like any good seagull, Jenny was what was generously called mischievous, and plainly called wild.  This was due to her tragically poor aptitude for sewing.  If one could not sew, they had little choice but to be wicked.  Elizabeth would be polite and well-mannered, Mrs. O’Brien had reminded Jenny in between washing extra sheets and scrubbing the floors of the boarders’ room.  She would not appreciate her cousin’s predilections while she was completing her needlepoints.  Hence, Jenny was quite nervous about the summer.  Hence, seashells.

Scooping her hand into the wet, grainy sand, Jenny felt the monotony just beginning to wear on her.  But this new shell was interesting enough to give her some pause.  It was ghost-white, shaped like the horn an angel might use, slender and curved.  Jenny turned it over in her calloused hands, and noticed strange knobs on each end, as if the shell had been attached to a joint.

The realization nearly made Jenny drop the little bone.  Excited and nervous, she scanned the surrounding beach, searching for some sign of the decaying creature to which it belonged.  But there was nothing to be seen, save the yellow-white expanse of the shore, and the puffy white waves that crashed and slid against it.  Whatever little creature had contained the bone must have been washed away.  But why leave one measly little bone behind?

Jenny’s quick mind took off racing, searching for a story good enough to solve her quaint mystery.  A kelpie, perhaps, had torn a fairy limb from limb and spit back out the one bone that lacked the proper marrow.  Or maybe a dragon, a young one most likely, had been belching out flames—still unable to produce enough fire to reduce a single bone to ash, poor thing.

Of course, Jenny didn’t really believe any of those delightful things.  But she certainly wished she did.

Her fingers twisting her new pearl-toned treasure, Jenny smiled slyly.  She dropped it in among the innocent little seashells she had found.  It would be her secret.

The sun sat in the center of the sky, a foggy halo of light.  It must have been near noon, meaning Jenny had only a few hours to prepare for Elizabeth’s arrival, and hopefully to get a late breakfast as well.  Her anxiety had made her skip it, and now she was half-starved, even more so than usual. 

Still holding the shells and bone securely within her skirts, Jenny hiked her way up the beach, trekking along the rock-laden road to home.  Cold sweat slid from her brow, but she was unable to wipe it away, lest she lose her seashells and bone of indeterminate origin.  She just had to let the salty water slide into her eyes and trickle down her nose. 

Jenny sighed at this little frustration.  At least it was something to distract her.  As she left the shore, the calming sounds of waves and gulls died away, to be replaced by chickens and mindless chatter.  And though the sun beat down, the air was bitter and biting.