Tales of Folk & Fey

by Melissa Marr

  I want to weep; I want to run from him. I can’t do either. All I can do is wait and hope that he will slip, that he will do one of the two things that will set me free. If he strikes me three times in anger or if he allows me to have possession of my other-skin, I can return to the sea. I hope that he does not know the truths, that his ignorance will lead to my escape, that I will be whole again one day, that I will not lose myself in captivity. I know my history, but most of the land-dwellers have forgotten that we are here. Their ignorance is our safety.

  But I am following a boy who owns me now, and I think that he was watching for me tonight. Those of us who live in the waters look much like the land-dwelling—at least when we are wearing only this skin. He glances at me, and I know that he sees only the part of me that looks like I belong on land. Other men have looked at me that way. I’ve walked on shore, and I’ve known men. None of them knew that there was another shape to me. They saw only this skin.

  Leo knows more, and so I am trapped. The sea calls out, beckoning as waves do, but Leo leads me away. There is nothing more I can do.

  Yet.

  He says nothing more as he takes me to his home, a house that sits on an otherwise empty stretch of beach. It’s a large squatting thing, a building of so many rooms that I become lost and sit weeping in the darkness until Leo finds me. After he chides me for foolishness, he leads me back to the room that he’s assigned me. He does not want me to share his room. This, I think, is for his own reasons, not as a kindness to me.

  As he stands just inside the doorway, he kisses me. It’s a soft peck upon the top of my salt-heavy hair. “Silly girl,” he says, but there is affection in his words.

  Perhaps all will be well. Perhaps I will be able to convince him to free me.

  Over the next few days, I realize that Leo can be kind. I am grateful for this. There are moments when I don’t feel as if the world around me is too bright, too harsh, too alien. They are few, but they are present. He tries to make me smile, and sometimes I do.

  Leo’s home is comfortable in a way that invites silence: the carpets are thick; the counters are polished; the furniture is heavy with age and importance; and the staff is ever-present with mute efficiency. I am lonely here, but before I am allowed to be out among Leo’s friends, I must learn the right words—as well as the right forks.

  Time passes as I learn all I must in order to be what Leo wants. He’d already told me that the two most important qualities—beauty and obedience—are well met. He tells me that he’d watched for me, selected me especially because of my looks. I understand from the way he stares at me so intently that I am expected to be pleased by his words, and because of what he’s stolen, I cannot disobey him. I murmur, “Thank you.”

  “You’ll be perfect, Eden.” He beams at me. “Once you learn, you’ll be the wife I should have, and you’ll never leave me. Everything will be perfect. We’ll be happy, you’ll see.”

  I dip my head meekly as he likes. I have already learned quickly that he is happiest when I show him modesty and obedience. “I will try.”

  “My father never uses this house,” Leo says. “He’s away in Europe all the time. No one will know about you until we’re ready. You can stay here and keep up your lessons when I go back to university, and then in a couple of years we’ll be married. I’ll come to you on every break.”

  I keep my gaze down to hide my fear of such a life. I want passion, true love with a man some day in the distant future who is so overcome with love that he’ll accept me for who and what I am. I want a man who did not trap me, who will not keep me in a cage. There is no happiness inside a cage, no matter how gilded.

  The man in front of me breaks my heart as he stares happily at me. When he grows tired of smiling at me, Leo motions to the table. “Which one would you use for the salad?”

  I select a fork. I know this answer, have learned these useless things because it is his desire that I do so. His desire is all that matters now.

  “For lobster?” he prompts.

  I stare at the utensils arranged in front of me. Nothing seems right, and this question hadn’t been in the last drill. It is a trick. I look at him, hoping my anger is better hidden than it feels. “The staff will bring that . . . utensil.”

  Leo nods, and at first, I think that he hasn’t heard the pause in my words or the fury in my mouth. Then he frowns, and I see that even if he doesn’t know what it was, he has heard something. He gives me a tight smile that already I am coming to understand means that I will be punished, and he asks, “Did you practice the phrases in the folder?”

  “Yes, Leo.”

  He watches me for a moment, and then he sighs and tells me, “I don’t think there will be enough time to walk tonight, Eden. You’ll need to practice more. We can try again when I get back from my swim.”

  “Yes, Leo,” I say quietly, careful not to let him see my envy that he still swims in the sea every day while I am trapped on the shore. Even when we walk on the beach, I am not allowed to swim. I am permitted to watch him, but I am not allowed to touch the sea without his hand holding me fast.

  And so the days pass. We practice all the things I am to learn. Leo explains my new life, what I should and—more importantly—should not do. I learn how to appear as if I belong in his world, how to eat at his table and sit at his side. I dress in the clothes he’s brought for me (because I am not yet allowed to go to stores with him), and I try very hard not to cry as he cuts off all of my hair. The thick twisted locks fall to the floor with soft thumps, and I am left with close shorn hair.

  “It’ll grow longer,” Leo assures me. “You’ll brush it every morning and night, so you don’t have nasty dreadlocks. Nice girls have long, shiny hair.”

  As I have done from the first moment he lifted my soul in his hands, I again keep my anger in silence. I know that my silences and downcast gazes please him, so too do the words “What do you think?” I have learned already to use these as I have learned to use the right utensils and phrases.

  And he rewards me with smiles and soft kisses on my cheek or forehead. He tells me that he loves me, and I smile at him. He wants me to say the words, but he does not demand it. I will say them one day. I will lie to him, and he will trust me then. He is a child in this, wanting love so desperately that he has caged me here and trains me like a pet. I will bide my time.

  Already I can find the magic combination of words and gazes that result in walks at the edge of the water. It’s a bittersweet temptation to be so close to the waves, but Leo holds tightly to my hands. I wonder if he knows, too, that there is a third choice for my freedom. I am not yet so desperate that I will ask the sea to consume me, but even if I were, I’d have to escape his grasp to do so, and as the weeks pass, my strength fades. The tight muscles I had from diving and swimming are softer now. I worry that even if I had my other-skin, I wouldn’t have the strength to reach deep enough waters for the current to pull me under.

  Leo kisses my eyes when they start to fill with tears and promises, “You’ll be happy with me, Eden. I’ll make you happy.”

  And I smile at him and lie, “Yes, Leo.”

  Weeks passed in that way, but I can’t tell how many. I know only that the summer is ending, and that Leo will soon leave me. He seems nervous, repeating the orders to the staff as if he hasn’t told them the self-same words every day of late. They know that I am not to cross the threshold without supervision, that the doors must be kept locked, and that—although I am allowed to spend hours on the wide deck overlooking the sea—I must not be allowed to be there alone.

  It is the last night before Leo leaves. We are both barefoot on the sand tonight, and Leo allows me to walk in the water. It is only as deep as my ankles, but it is my home and he is allowing me to be caressed by the waves. For that, I am grateful.

  “I will only be gone a few weeks,” he repeats yet again. “I’ll call you every night.”

  We have practiced using the telephone, so I know how to take his calls when
he is gone. I will answer and listen; I will tell him of what I read while he is away.

  “Maybe in the spring, you could visit me,” he offers.

  He seems to think this will please me so I smile and say, “Thank you.”

  Leo likes that. He seems happy, and as we stand on the beach, he leans closer and kisses me. His lips don’t part, and I am not sure if I’m grateful for that or not. I know well what happens between a man and a woman. One cannot avoid such knowledge in the sea, and I think I would take comfort in that here on the beach. I don’t want Leo, but I want to be happier.

  I open my lips and wrap my arms around him. He is my jailer, but he is often kind . . . and I am lonely.

  The way he looks as he leans in to kiss me is new, and I know that I could make him love me enough to escape him. He is desperate, afraid of what will happen when he returns to his university, and I suspect that he means only to kiss me chastely. In all of these weeks, he’s never been anything other than distantly affectionate. He is not a passionate man with me, and it is passion that I need in order to escape him.

  I press my hips to his and wrap my arms tightly around his neck so my breasts are pushed against his chest. Leo has not parted his lips for me, but he has not pulled away yet.

  Then words come between us, tugging Leo away as surely as a hand on his shoulder. A man asks, “Who’s the tart?”

  And Leo pulls away from me.

  I look past him to the man standing on the beach between us and the house. He is an older version of Leo, still fit but with the marks of age and bad choices etched upon his face.

  “Father,” Leo says, as he turns to face the man and tucks me behind him. He still holds on to my hand; even now, he does not let go of me.

  “She’s a pretty enough piece,” the man says. “What’s your name, darling?”

  I don’t know what I am to do, so I whisper, “Leo?”

  “Go inside, Eden, and stay in your room.” Leo sounds angrier than I’d known him capable of becoming. He leads me around the man before he releases my hand. “I’ll be in soon.”

  “Afraid of a little competition?” Leo’s father asks.

  “She’s younger than me, younger than your son.” Leo steps closer to his father. “You should be ashamed of yourself.”

  He laughs. “You sound like your mother.”

  “I’m not afraid of you.” Leo squares his shoulders. “If you hit me like you hit—”

  “Don’t,” Leo’s father interrupts.

  They are quiet then, standing staring at each other like two animals about to clash. Neither man moves, creating the illusion of the present and the future remembering themselves. Leo is determined not to become his father; he’d said as much to me one afternoon. The servants swear he was nothing like the man . . . except when he is.

  “Go to your room, Eden,” the man repeats his son’s order and then adds, “Lock the door.”

  And so I do.

  When Leo comes to my door late that night, his eye is blackened, and his lip is split. He’s never come to my room at night, but I know that he has thought about it. I’ve heard his steps stop there many nights, heard his hand on the knob, but he’s always walked away. Until tonight.

  He is not weeping, but he is shaking.

  “I hate him,” Leo whispers, the words feeling somehow more real here in the dark. “I won’t be him.”

  I don’t answer because I can’t.

  Leo clutches me to him. “That’s why I picked you. If you know what I like, what I want, you won’t make me angry. I won’t ever have to hurt you like he did with my mother and me. You’ll be perfect, and we’ll be happy.”

  When I don’t reply, his hands tighten on my arms, and I know I’ll need to wear a long-sleeved shirt tomorrow. It is not the first time he’s left his mark on my skin, but I know now that I shouldn’t cry out yet. He doesn’t want to hear my cries until his mood has passed.

  “I can’t hurt you,” Leo says. “Those are the rules, Eden. A selchie maiden cannot leave unless you strike her three times in anger. That’s the truth, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, Leo,” I agree.

  “I haven’t,” he says. In all fairness, he isn’t lying: neither fist not foot has touched me in anger. He is careful even when his temper is unsettled.

  “I know.” I don’t bow my head or shudder. I want to cringe from him even as I consider feeding the rage that simmers so close to the surface tonight. I think I could make him strike me in anger, but I am afraid of the pain. “You have never struck me.”

  “I hurt her, though,” Leo confesses. “She left me because of it, just like my mother left him.” Leo pauses and stares at me. “If I hit you when I’m not angry with you, is it the same?”

  I shiver. There is something in his voice that I’ve never heard before. It’s colder than the seas in winter, and I am afraid. Gently, I touch his unbruised cheek. “Why would you ever need to? I’m yours, Leo. I’m not able to leave you.”

  He stares at me, and I try not to flinch away.

  “I love you,” he says, and this time it is a question and an order.

  So I answer without looking away from him, “I love you.”

  He lifts his hands to the arms he just bruised and strokes. I hide my pain easier under a smile and ask, “Will you sleep in here tonight? I’d feel safer with you beside me.”

  Leo nods. “Only sleep, Eden. We’re not married or even engaged yet. Until then, there are other girls I can . . . ” His words fade, and then he caresses my face. “I like that you are pure, Eden. Our first night will be special.”

  Meekly, I look down, as if I am as shy and innocent as he believes.

  “Maybe I’ll get you a ring for Christmas. We could be married on Valentine’s Day then. Would that make you happy?”

  “Yes, Leo,” I lie.

  The house is silent the next day. Leo’s father took him to university. The visit had been a surprise, one the man thought would please his son. At Leo’s insistence, I stayed in my room until after they’d gone.

  I decide that afternoon that I will not wear a long-sleeved shirt. Leo isn’t here to see my disobedience, and the staff all knows that he has his father’s temper. They’ve whispered that I’m fortunate that he only grabs me. I smile and say nothing. Leo has ordered me not to speak to them, and I don’t know how to do otherwise.

  Days pass in a quiet blur. I spend most of my time reading or staring out the window. Leo has allowed me to paint, so I do that when the mood strikes me. I speak to him every day, although it is not so much speaking as it is listening.

  It is night that is different now. Leo had said that I am not to cross the threshold alone, but he did not say I couldn’t climb out of windows. I obey the orders he spoke, but this was not forbidden.

  I walk along the water. Sometimes, I stretch my body on the sand and let the waves wash over me. I take pleasure in the sand and salt, and I hope that the brine on my skin does not give me away when I return to my cage. I am sure the staff suspects, but they do not accuse me. They do not bar my window.

  Nights here are growing colder, and I miss my other-self. The thick fur of my selchie form would allow me to be warm in the water. Without the skin that he has stolen from me, I am trapped in this human shape. Soon it will be too cold to enter the sea for even these few stolen hours.

  Tonight, I think of what has been stolen from me, and I scream. My voice is almost lost under the crash of waves, but I hear other selchie-kin in the waves echo my cries. They know I am here, have known for months. I’ve seen them as they dart away, trying to hide themselves to spare me the pain. Tonight they answer, and I scream until my throat feels like it might bleed.

  “Are you hurt?”

  I open my eyes. A man, one I’ve seen walking on the beach when I was hidden inside the house, is bending over me. He looks so different from Leo—tan where Leo is pale, clothes tattered rather than pristine, gaze concerned instead of possessive.

  “Do you need me to help you
stand or . . . something?” He holds out a hand, but when I simply stare at him, he says, “Or I could call someone if you want.” He pulls a phone out of one of his trouser pockets. “Here.”

  “No.”

  I stand up, and he looks away quickly. My clothes are wet and clinging. I laugh, and he glances back at me. His gaze is steadily fixed on my face.

  “I don’t need a phone,” I say. “I was calling to them when you arrived, but they can’t come to me. They can’t help me.”

  He stares at me like he thinks I might be mad, and I know that he has no idea that I am selchie. He thinks I am a girl, one perhaps crazier than those he knows. He does not know I am Leo’s.

  And I decide then that I will not tell him.

  “I do need some things,” I say firmly, not needing to whisper or speak meekly since he is not Leo.

  “What?”

  “Your name, a friend, a kiss.” I step back, forcing him to look at me. “Someone to talk to at night.”

  He swallows before saying, “Robert.”

  “And the rest?” I prompt.

  When he simply stares at me, I decide that I am beyond tired of silence. Selchies have always come on land to lie down with human men. Leo may not know that, but I do. I am no more innocent than any other creature with appetites. I strip off my wet clothes as Robert stares at me.

  “I am lonely here,” I admit.

  Robert looks around like he expects to see someone watching him or perhaps someone to tell him what to do. There is no one on the beach at this hour. Tonight is the first night I haven’t been here alone, and I think this man is a gift of sorts, that the universe has decided that I deserve some happiness.