Tide

by Lacy Sheridan

  He turned to face me, a grim smile on his face. “Selkies are known for stirring up the worst storms when we’re angry.”

  I’d keep that in mind. I nodded and looked away again. “And the men who did it, they’re…” I couldn’t finish the question. He’d said the men who imprisoned him were long dead. I’d assumed for myself when Shiral had said they’d never returned. But the word wouldn’t come.

  Aven didn’t mind saying it. “Dead, yes. Not far from your feet, really. I never bothered to unbury them.”

  I jumped back, feet tripping over each other in my hurry and eyes pinned on the rubble. I saw nothing, no sign of corpses rotting away beneath it, but there was so much debris that I couldn’t be sure. My heart raced.

  “Don’t worry, they won’t be climbing out.” I wasn’t sure if it was a flat joke or a thinly veiled warning, so I nodded again. “Now, has whatever ridiculous purpose you had in asking to come here been satisfied?”

  “I…I don’t know, I thought…”

  “What, that it might be here? Did you think I haven’t scoured this entire village, high and low, in the last fifty years?”

  Of course. Of course he had—why would I think otherwise? I looked to the ruined building, avoiding him. “If you…killed them, the men who took your skin, then how did it end up hidden?”

  There was no small amount of irritation in his voice when he replied, “If I knew that I wouldn’t need you.”

  “I thought you needed me because I can leave the village.” The edge in my comment matched his own, reacting to his dark mood.

  I wondered if he’d hit me—that temper sparking in his eyes—but he shook his head and started away from the rubble and back the way we’d come. “Don’t wear out your welcome on the first day, Hania.” Despite the warning, I thought I caught the slightest touch of grudging appreciation in his voice. Maybe attitude wasn’t the worst thing. “Let’s go. There’s nothing here either of us needs.”

  I hurried to catch up to him. “Where do I start, then?”

  “There are plenty of nooks and crannies past the borders it might be stuffed in. Plenty of villages it might have been taken to. I don’t know. Take your pick.”

  “The map I have isn’t very detailed, and I don’t have the supplies to wander around hoping to make it to another village.”

  “That isn’t my problem.”

  “It’s your skin, it’s your problem.”

  He stopped, and we stared at each other. Danger and darkness pulsed from him, angry, restless, and I forced myself not to back down. “You came here asking for my help,” he said, a hidden growl in his voice. “And I’m not exactly inclined to help humans. If you want to get to my world without getting yourself killed, go start looking. And take your horse before I eat it.”

  He wouldn’t. But then I remembered the eerie lack of animals throughout the village. I didn’t want to know how long it’d been since he’d run out of meat. No wonder he was so thin.

  I swallowed my sharp response, turned, and clucked my tongue to beckon Inka over from where she looked on in the shade of a leaning building. I felt Aven watching me as I climbed atop her, but didn’t look back. It took effort not to flinch as I passed him, to keep my voice neutral. “I’ll be back before dark.” Spending a night in the forest might be more comfortable than another night in the village, but I knew it was more dangerous. Aven could kill me without a hint of effort if he chose, but as long as I was searching for his skin I didn’t think he would. His freedom was more valuable. I didn’t know what might stumble across me in the forest at night that didn’t have such inhibitions.

  “Do what you like.” And he continued, not giving me a glance in parting.

  I nudged Inka forward, and she set off, happy to be leaving the village. I didn’t blame her.

  The forest was just as it had been when we’d arrived, the strange effects of the magic imprisoning Aven weakening the deeper we went. Cool, stifling air gave way to a calm summer breeze, and the sun warmed me as it seeped between the thick leaves and branches. I had no idea where to begin, so I chose a direction at random and started. I stopped at every tiny shadow, burrow, and hole to search, but I knew within minutes it was pointless. I had to narrow down where to look if I wanted any hope of finding Aven’s skin. He was right; it could’ve been taken anywhere. And Tobin didn’t have time for me to search the entire forest and each village I could find.

  Still, because the alternative was returning to the village and listening to Aven’s snide remarks, I continued. Inka trudged along, weary from doing more work than she’d been made to in years, and I looked for anything, any strange spot or instinctive feeling that pushed in a certain direction. Any hint of magic in the air. Nothing, and when the sun had dipped low and turned the forest into a looming, foreign place, I turned Inka toward the village.

  A shuffling in the underbrush prompted me to pull her to a stop and I listened, every muscle stiffened. It was faint, cautious: the sound stopped when I did, and then continued slowly. I blinked, trying to get my bearings in the twilight, and a tiny shape of shadow edged its way into my vision.

  Only a hare. One of the few animals I’d seen all day.

  A gnawing in my stomach I hadn’t noticed before reached me, and without thinking I drew Tobin’s bow.

  I’d never used it without him beside me to supervise, to correct my position and aim and whisper encouragement. But his teachings kicked in and the arrow sailed through the air like lightning.

  I whispered a thanks to my brother, wishing he could hear it, as I went to collect my dinner.

  “I thought you said you’d be back before dark.”

  Aven had returned to the same spot I’d first found him in, long legs crossed and a yellowed book in one hand. He didn’t look up, speaking before I’d even stepped through the door. Damn selkie hearing.

  “I thought you said I could do what I liked,” I countered, shrugging off my pack and letting it drop into a corner across from him.

  “Sunset was over an hour ago. I thought you might have been killed by some wild animal.”

  “That’d be too bad, you might never get your skin back if I was.”

  “Exactly.”

  I slid down the wall to the floor, closing my eyes against the ache deep in my muscles. “What are you reading?” I didn’t know what drove me to ask—some creeping desire to see into the mind of a tidesperson? To understand the strange being that sat across from me?

  He closed the book and tossed it aside. “Nothing terribly interesting. There’s a real lack of things to do here.” His eyes skimmed up and down me—I wondered what he saw beyond the dirt streaked across my skin and old dress—and then settled on my catch, lying on the floor beside me. “You have a rabbit.”

  “It’s for you.” I tossed it across the empty room to him. “Eat that instead of Inka.”

  “Inka?”

  “The horse.”

  Amusement glittered in his eyes as he grabbed the hare and inspected it. It was the first hint of anything but annoyance I’d seen from him yet, and I looked twice to be sure it was there. “Inka. That’s not a human name.”

  “Humans use the name Inka.”

  “But you took it from us.”

  We had. I knew that, but I didn’t know what to say except, “I always liked the stories about…you.”

  That glint in his eyes came in full force, and one corner of his mouth lifted. “I figured your stories painted us as nameless monsters.”

  I busied myself with checking my bandaged arm to avoid looking at him when I answered. “Most do. But some tidespeople did help the humans. And there’s two sides to every story.”

  “That wasn’t an answer I expected from you.”

  “What answer did you expect?” But I knew how he saw me: young, nervous, fragile, mortal. Purely human. No different from the way I was aware of what he was.

  He paused, then shook his head. “I’m not sure.”

  I found nothing to say to that, so I ke
pt quiet. I felt his eyes on me and refrained from meeting them, focusing instead on untying the muddy bandage. My fingers were clumsy on the knot, half unsteady from nerves and half unused to the position. He spoke again. “What happened to your arm?”

  I winced at the thought of the creature’s fangs and claws, glinting like steel in the rain and lightning. “One of your people.”

  He was silent for another moment. “My people?”

  “A tidesperson.”

  “How do you know it was one of mine? We do have different lands and people, just like humans.”

  I shrugged. “Is one tidesperson so different from another? And does it matter where it came from? It’s dead now.”

  I thought I caught him wince from the corner of my eye, but I wasn’t sure. His voice was soft and tight when he asked, “You killed them?”

  “Not me. A watchman from my village. He saved my life.”

  “And where is he now?”

  “I don’t know. Dead, too, maybe. We lost too many that night to keep track.” He went quiet again but kept his gaze fixed on me. I looked to him, met those deep blue eyes, full of something I couldn’t name. “What?”

  “Is that why you’re here? To get revenge on us for attacking your village?”

  I let out a cold laugh and looked at my arm, yanking the loose bandage free. The gashes stung, red and jagged. “I don’t care about revenge, Aven.”

  “Then why?”

  “Because they took something from me.”

  “Nothing they took is worth trying to get back, trust me.”

  “This is.” I raised my gaze to his but cut it away when I found how closely he was watching me. How much curiosity was in his eyes. “I wouldn’t go after some jewels or gold they took, I’m not that stupid.”

  “So they took something worth more than jewels or gold, something you have to get back, but you won’t say what?”

  I lifted one shoulder in response. I’d have to tell him at some point, but not yet. I couldn’t yet. He may have been helping me, but I didn’t know if I could trust him beyond delivering his end of the deal. I wasn’t sure I could trust him that far. If he knew about Tobin, what would stop him from turning on me to keep me from saving him? What would stop him from laughing at the pitiful ignorance of a little human thinking she could save someone the tidespeople wanted for their own?

  “You’re making a mess of that,” Aven said as I struggled to secure the fresh bandage. “Here.” He stood and crossed the room, crouching before me and reaching for my arm. Though the movement was slow, careful, nothing like the rough and vicious swipes of the tidespeople who had attacked us, at the first brush of his fingers—so human, but so far from it—I flinched away. The spot he’d touched burned cold, and I fought off a quiver that tried to sweep down my spine.

  He didn’t try again.

  We didn’t speak the rest of the night.

  I wondered if sunrises in Aven’s world were the same.

  I wondered if Tobin could see the sun, wherever he was.

  Even the pale golden glow the sun cast as it climbed above the trees looked muted. The richness that spread through the sky at home was gone, replaced by a dulled rainbow—gray-red, gray-pink, gray-blue. There wasn’t a cloud in sight, so I knew it had nothing to do with another storm.

  “Shouldn’t you be off searching?” Aven asked as he emerged from the empty house. He tossed a few bones from the hare into the street.

  The last thing I wanted to do was go back into the forest. I didn’t want to spend another day searching in vain for any sign of where his skin might have ended up. He was right; there was no hope of me finding it as things were. Not in time. I needed a hint. I needed some idea. But there was no one to give me any except him, and he was out.

  I sighed, rolling my stiff shoulders. Two nights with little sleep were taking their toll. “I don’t know where else to look.”

  “I told you everything I know. I can’t help you any more than that.”

  I turned, following him inside. He took a seat in his usual spot, inspecting another bone like it might hold something interesting, and I watched him roll it between his fingers. I knew I needed to ask something, but I didn’t know what. He had to have more. I couldn’t lose that easily, but…if he insisted he didn’t, he didn’t. “I know you did,” I murmured, dropping to the floor beside my sparse belongings. I dug through my pack as if it would provide me with an answer, wishing I’d thought to bring Grandmama’s journal with me. I knew she hadn’t written anything about Aven in it, but there may have been some other clue buried in there. A faint idea, at least, that I could try.

  “Are you sure it didn’t get buried under the house?” I asked. As if I hadn’t asked it already. “With…them?”

  He didn’t even look at me. “I would know.”

  “Well, then, how did it get hidden? You said they died. While you were there.”

  “There must have been another,” he barked, glancing up. His blue eyes were ice. “One who escaped and took the skin with him. I don’t know.”

  I chewed on the train of thought forming in my head, following it. “Who were they?”

  “Why does it matter who they were? They were human, they were armed, and they knew how to win. I didn’t care to notice much beyond that.”

  “Because maybe who they were could give me an idea of what they might have done with it.”

  He paused, considering, but then shook his head. “I don’t know, Hania,” he said again. “They didn’t give me their names.”

  “Did anything…” I swallowed hard and forced the rest of the words out. I was breaching an unspoken, unacknowledged line between us, a topic neither of us brought up. “Did you do anything to them in particular?”

  I stopped my muscles from flinching at the look in his eyes, the silent, chilling reminder of what he was. “You don’t want to know the answer to that,” he said quietly.

  I didn’t want to, but I needed to. “You can’t scare me off. I need you as much as you need me. No matter what you are or what you did. And I know plenty of what you did.”

  “What do you think you know?” A dare. A test.

  My voice shook under the weight of his gaze. “You took some children. You killed the people who tried to help them. You raided the villages you went to before this one, probably killed plenty of people in them too.”

  He watched me, and I wasn’t sure if he’d speak. The silence stretched on for too long, but then he looked away. “I never took children.”

  I tried not to think about what he hadn’t denied. “You didn’t?” To believe or not to believe? Shiral’s story, or Aven’s?

  There were two sides to every story.

  “No. I like children, as difficult as that may be to believe. I try to be kind to them, even human children. I can’t help that they came to me.”

  “If they just came to you…” I couldn’t finish. I didn’t want to know. I didn’t want to hear the things he’d done, not while he was sitting across from me. Hearing the story of the terrible selkie who’d destroyed and killed and maimed from the familiarity of the village center, sitting beside Shiral, had been one thing. Hearing it from the lips of the selkie himself, while I sat alone with him miles from another living soul, was another.

  His answer was quieter than before, laced with a tired kind of bitterness. “You look at me and see a tidesperson. A threat. They were no different. They saw their children near me and acted to protect.”

  “So you didn’t line them up like cattle for slaughter?” I managed.

  His throat bobbed the slightest bit. “I never hurt the children.”

  That wasn’t a no, but it was better than a yes. I looked down at my hands, picking at the dirt beneath my fingernails. It would have been so easy for the story to be twisted over the years, changed by panic and time. Shiral had been young and afraid and only seen part of what had happened. But it would also be easy for Aven to change it to suit what he needed now, to turn those ocean eyes on m
e and paint himself as the misunderstood victim.

  Which version of Aven was the real one? Or did both have their turns to come out—the violent, restless creature and the quiet, ragged soul?

  Did it matter, in the end? I needed him either way.

  “Were any of them children of the men who took your skin?” I asked. To do that, to put in the kind of effort and dedication it took to rip a selkie’s skin from them and imprison them, there had to be anger. A drive for justice or revenge. Something personal.

  He knew what I was getting at and stopped the idea in its tracks. “I didn’t touch any children, Hania.”

  “Then anybody else? A wife of one, or a brother, or…anybody?”

  “I—” He broke off, on the verge of another denial, I was sure, and blinked. His gaze slid away from me, toward something I couldn’t name—maybe something, or sometime, only he could see. And when he continued his voice was hoarse. Strained. “There was a girl. A little girl, younger than you. Much younger. She fell into the river during one of my storms.”

  “She didn’t survive?” I guessed. He shook his head. “But that wasn’t your fault, was it?” But I knew it didn’t matter. If they’d saw it as his fault, it’d make no difference.

  “I created the storm. I knew she fell. I let her drown. I can’t control the water, but I could have settled the storm and given her a chance. I don’t know if her death had anything to do with what they did, but I’m sure it didn’t make them doubt themselves.”

  I closed my eyes against the image that assaulted me, a little girl’s head pushed below the surface of the water, a tiny body thrown about the rocks, rushing toward the waterfall. It didn’t go away. A little girl’s sudden and tragic death would rally any village into seeking justice on someone who’d failed to save her. Aven may not have killed her with his own two hands, but he’d stood by, and sometimes that was just as bad.

  That didn’t make it right. That didn’t make this—abandoned, starving, trapped—justice. But it made sense.

  “Did they find her body?” I didn’t know why the question burned in me, but I needed to ask. “Did they bury her?”