Selkie Island

by Jorrie Spencer

  She didn’t say more, simply brought his hand to her mouth and kissed each of his knuckles. He smiled at that and shortly afterwards fell back asleep.

  They didn’t really talk again till the next day. He was too tired to think clearly, and Morag was too busy cooking, cleaning or going off to collect firewood from the driftwood that reached the island.

  They were eating fish chowder again. He’d have to get used to that, just like that summer when they were together he got used to eating a lot of fish. Morag certainly seemed to thrive on it.

  He still couldn’t believe she was here. When she glanced at him, her face seemed to light up. That’s what had made him fall so hard for her the first time. Before or since, no one had ever looked at him like that, like he was all-important. And it hadn’t mattered that he knew nothing about her, or that her explanations made no sense. He’d thought she was quirky.

  Only later, when they had parted and his mind was no longer hazed by lust and supposed first love, did he realize it was more than quirky. Her version of her life was nonsensical.

  I don’t get older, really. At least, I age very, very slowly.

  I was born here.

  I only eat fish. I have for years.

  I talked to someone two years ago.

  All nonsense, though perhaps one could only eat fish.

  One question bothered him at the moment, and it struck him that he was not exactly firing on all cylinders for it to occur to him only now. Clay looked over to where she was cleaning out the pot and cleared his throat. “Where’s your boat, Morag?” How did you get here?

  She flicked him a glance and if he hadn’t been watching carefully he wouldn’t have seen her body stiffen. Okay, so she didn’t like being questioned. He didn’t think this was a game for her though. Perhaps there were mental-health issues he wasn’t going to understand.

  She applied extra vigor to scrubbing the pot. “I don’t have a boat. Never have.”

  “Did someone drop you off here then?”

  “I swam.”

  He sighed.

  “I’ll show you later, if you want. When you’re better.”

  “Okay,” he said for want of anything else to say. He sounded ungracious, he knew, given what she was doing for him.

  “I have some questions too.” Her words were quiet.

  He sat up, tired of lying down. “Go ahead.”

  Her gaze dropped to his leg. “Who hurt you?”

  He felt a tremor run through him but tried to suppress it, not wanting her to see his weakness. He swallowed before he said, “My boss.”

  “Boss in what?”

  “I work for CSIS.”

  Her eyebrows dipped together. “See…suss?”

  “Canadian Security Intelligence Service. C-S-I-S. Kinda the equivalent of the FBI in the States or MI-5 in the UK.”

  Her face looked completely blank, and he remembered she had strange holes in her knowledge. For some reason, that made him nervous, as if there might be more to her background than he could possibly understand. “A service?” she ventured.

  “It’s like a police force, but…we look into national security issues. I was working undercover, pretending to be someone I wasn’t.”

  She nodded, appearing to find herself on firmer ground. “You were acting.”

  “That’s part of it,” he acknowledged. She should know this and it scared him a bit that she didn’t. He didn’t think she was acting. Who had left her here? Where the hell was her family, because she shouldn’t be all alone. Did she not have anyone to depend on? She’d talked vaguely about her relations before, but as if they were distant and unsupportive. Indignation on her behalf rose within him. No matter what, he’d always had his mom and his cousins.

  Morag seemed isolated and a little lost, despite being so at home on this island. “Why were you doing this acting?”

  “To keep an eye on potential terrorists.” At her puzzled expression, he added, “People who want to hurt or threaten other people.”

  “And your boss?”

  “He’s been collecting money from the bad guys,” he said flatly. “I found out. He tried to kill me so I wouldn’t be able to tell anyone.”

  She tilted her head, looking at him solemnly, and he wondered if perhaps she was a bit dim and he’d been too stupid to realize it. Had he taken advantage of her back then? Being twenty-one and sex-focused, had he decided an older woman meant experience and not recognized she was something else? The idea made him feel ashamed.

  “You were betrayed.” It was a statement.

  Well, she got that right, so Clay hoped she wasn’t too naive. He nodded.

  “Sometimes it’s dangerous to be too trusting.” She wrapped her arms around herself. “But we can trust each other, right?”

  For whatever reason her words made his throat tighten and all he could do was nod again, though he wasn’t being entirely truthful. He trusted her to take care of him right now, he didn’t have much choice. But she made him wary too.

  That night as they lay down to sleep in the candlelight, he recognized he wasn’t nearly as exhausted as the day before. There was a restlessness in him that gave him hope. He spoke into the darkness. “I think, tomorrow, I’d like to walk around a bit.”

  She took his hand, as she seemed to do every night. The skin was drier than it had been, from all her cooking and cleaning. “Okay. Though the sky isn’t promising.”

  “You can forecast the weather?”

  “Some,” she said cautiously. “The ocean is rather unpredictable though.”

  Like you. But he wasn’t going to tell her she was like the ocean, no matter how poetic that might sound. He had another question. “Can you read, Morag?” he asked abruptly.

  She didn’t answer right away and when she did, she sounded sad. “I used to. My mother taught me. But I haven’t seen a book for so long, I think I may have forgotten.”

  Could people forget to read? Only Morag would raise the possibility. He’d been reading all his life and was no judge of the matter. “I brought a couple of books. Just grabbed them on my way out as I thought I might need something to distract me. We can look tomorrow and see how you find it. If you like.”

  She squeezed his hand. He liked it in his. For the first time since they’d reunited, his body stirred thinking of hers. Nine years ago, their time together had been mostly about sex and they’d been wild for each other. But now everything had changed and he didn’t know if he had it in him to make love to her under these circumstances—if she even wanted him to.

  He didn’t really trust her, was part of it, but also he feared she had fewer resources than he realized. At the very least she’d had a strange upbringing and didn’t know some basic facts about life. He swallowed as he recalled that she’d claimed she couldn’t get pregnant, and he’d accepted that statement back then without a second thought—twenty-one and happy as hell to not think about condoms.

  “I’d like to see the books,” she whispered.

  “Morag?”

  “Yes.”

  “You…” He blew out a breath. He wanted to put it more delicately but then she might misunderstand. “You didn’t get pregnant after I left, did you?”

  “No.” Her tone said of course not. “I told you. I can’t get pregnant.”

  He’d thought she meant she couldn’t get pregnant because she was on the pill or something. But this sounded different. “Why not?”

  She was silent for a while. “Because of my curse and my blessing.”

  He waited, hoping she’d say more, something less cryptic. Besides, he didn’t know how to ask the next question. It took him a few minutes before he realized her breathing had evened out and she’d fallen asleep. Probably for the best as he didn’t really expect she would have said anything that he could make sense of.

  Well, tomorrow. He’d get outside and they’d look at books and he’d try to better understand the mystery that was Morag. It was a wonder that she’d been here. He recognized that even
if she didn’t. Yet she talked as if she’d been waiting for him.

  He exhaled slowly and shifted to his side to get more comfortable, still not releasing her hand. It gave him comfort and that was a fact. He had to smile at that little confession to himself and then he let sleep take him.

  Chapter Four

  Despite his intentions, the next day was not the right one for him to venture outside. The wind blew hard and the rain fell. Maritime weather. Clay tried not to feel depressed though the walls seemed to close in around him. It was a small room.

  Morag had slipped out earlier. Of course she had. Freezing wind and rain didn’t faze her.

  Okay, he wasn’t going to think too deeply about Morag right now or else his head would explode. He was a little worried he was beginning to believe she was a mythical creature and that wasn’t a good sign. Did Stockholm syndrome include buying into your sole companion’s delusions as she fed you good food and kept you warm?

  Well, no matter what she was, Morag was also kind. She’d set up the fire, heated water, allowed him the privacy to wash. Not that she hadn’t seen him naked before, and not that he cared. But it was a nice touch, and the fact was, he felt a little self-conscious about his ragged body. The past nine years had affected him much more strongly than her. She was virtually unchanged, if a little…faded, not so much in color, but there was a tiredness in her expression. He’d have called it world-weariness, but she was too unworldly to be described that way.

  He’d remarked sometime yesterday that she was exactly the same and she’d looked away, her expression turning forlorn. “I am tired of being the same, year after year.”

  Well, he hadn’t known what to say to that.

  By the time he finished washing himself as well as he could with a cloth and a bucket of warm water, he was shivering. So he sat on his bedding that needed airing out—maybe tomorrow would be sunny—and munched on one of the protein bars that Morag so disdained. Now that he’d been eating for a couple of days it was easier to digest the prepackaged food.

  Next he rebandaged the wound, something she’d been doing. It was on his inner right thigh, and it was healing nicely. The pus had stopped leaking out and the edges were pink rather than flaming red. He rinsed it with salt water and put on a clean cloth—one of those she’d boiled and hung. The effort and the pain had him breaking out in a sweat, so he lay down and fell asleep.

  He woke as Morag stepped inside, wet and naked. She didn’t look at him as she put down the pail, no doubt filled with fish, and crossed to the small chest to pick up a blanket and wrap it around herself.

  Perhaps it was wrong to not have averted his gaze, but he couldn’t help note a few things. She was thinner than he remembered. Certainly not the ghastly skin and bones of himself, nevertheless, she hadn’t needed to lose weight. Her breasts remained high and her limbs dusted with freckles, and he found his chest ached with longing. Part of it was lust, yes. They’d bonded back then, and the comfort and familiarity they’d had in each other’s arms had been a homecoming of sorts he’d never found again. However, they were now strangers. Nine years on, it was hardly surprising. But he’d like it to be different between them.

  Her brown eyes found his, guarded, the blanket wrapped around her as if it were a way to protect her from his questions.

  “Cold?” he asked to break the silence.

  “No. But I will be if I don’t stay by the fire.”

  He sat up and opened his knapsack. The first time he’d dug for clothes since he’d arrived here. He dressed himself in sweats and a sweatshirt then looked at Morag. She’d been wearing his old clothes from a decade ago almost constantly. He gestured towards his bag. “Would you like to wear something from here for a change?”

  He was not going to ask where her own clothes were. Just like he wasn’t going to ask how she could come in from the outside after hours in cold if not freezing weather and not be chilled. She had said she had something to show him when he was better, and he would wait for that.

  “There’s only jeans for pants, but how about a sweater?” He held the latter up as an offering. “The jeans will fall off you. I’d wear them myself, but not with my nice bullet hole. I’m afraid the seam will rub the wound raw.”

  She walked over and picked up the sweater from him.

  “What about a T-shirt?” he offered.

  “Okay.”

  He pulled one out and she reached for it but instead of handing it to her, he encircled her wrist with his hand.

  She stiffened, and he rubbed the tendons on the underside of her wrist in reassurance before letting go.

  “You’re thinner,” he observed.

  “So are you.”

  “I definitely am. But a lot of that was the last couple of weeks when, you know, I got shot, stole a car, caught a fever… All that fun stuff. What’s your excuse?”

  She offered him a small smile as she retreated. “You won’t like to hear it.”

  “Try me.” He braced himself and he could feel her observe him doing so.

  She shook her head but he wouldn’t look away so she said, “I haven’t been human enough. And I’m tired of living here.”

  He just gazed at her.

  “See. You don’t want to hear my explanations.”

  Because they’re not explanations. But he just gritted his teeth. “Never mind.”

  “I’m a selkie,” she blurted out and the color on her face rose.

  He knew the meaning of selkie because he’d looked up the word after he’d left Selkie Island at twenty-one. “Okay.” You think you’re part seal, part human. He wanted to shrug it off, but it was an explanation, however unreal, of how she survived the elements when she ventured out each day. He’d been hoping for her to describe something more mundane.

  Gazing into the fire, she continued, “I can be a human or I can be a seal. Mostly I live as a seal. That’s how I’m catching the fish. I know you don’t believe me, but I avoided telling you the truth last time and you were angry with me for lying when there were no lies. Now you get the unvarnished version.” What energy it had taken to deliver this bout of “truth-telling” dissipated and her shoulders slumped. “I didn’t tell you I was selkie years ago because you would have left right away.”

  Would he have left if he’d thought she was crazy? If she’d scared him enough, maybe, though he liked to think he wouldn’t have just abandoned her. Admittedly, this talk of hers made him uneasy but he’d already been scared for the last three months, once he realized what Aaron was doing, once he realized he had a dirty boss. This weirdness wasn’t nearly as alarming. Perhaps her talk was a way of speaking in metaphor, and he would come to understand her better as they spent more time together. He would leave the topic alone for right now.

  “I was planning on hiding here for a while, Morag. It was the one place where I didn’t think they could trace me.”

  He’d kept his youthful journey and summer fling secret for some reason. Partly because once it was over, it had felt almost unreal and partly because it seemed almost too important to talk about. Deciding to travel by himself, he’d chosen to drive out to the east coast in his mother’s old car, wanting to see the ocean, experience it, after his childhood and youth in the city. He’d experienced more than he’d expected, lured to the island and falling in love with Morag. Now he was back and ready to stay.

  “I hope that’s all right with you.” If they hadn’t traced him yet, he thought they might never find him here.

  Her face softened. “Of course it’s all right with me. I’ve missed you.”

  The next day they stood outside to see that the winds had blown away the storm, leaving clear sky with only the odd wisp of thin cloud here and there. Clay breathed in the fresh air and turned to smile at her. Which was a relief to Morag. His smiles had been few and far between, whereas just his presence made her happy and she wasn’t able, or willing, to hide it.

  He liked the smell of the ocean, Clay had said before, as if it was new and amazing
. She’d known nothing else, of course.

  His smile faded, his face becoming solemn. She worried him, she could see that, despite the fact he was the one hurting most.

  “You said you had something to show me, Morag.”

  If he’d been stronger, she’d have dreaded what was coming next. But he was in no shape to leave here yet. He was stuck with her for a while longer, so it was easier to keep her promise.

  She’d only ever shown her mother and sister before today.

  He limped down to the little beach since that was the easiest path to take to the water, though she usually clambered up and down the other side, preferring to leave and enter the water on the big rocks.

  As she took off her clothes, he frowned in disapproval but did not speak until she was naked. He assessed her, and if it wasn’t with the frank admiration and eagerness of their earlier times, there was something to be read in his face. His eyes had darkened.

  “Still beautiful,” he murmured, and she flushed despite the cold wind. He stepped closer to catch a lock of her hair. “Remember when we were together?”

  How could she forget? But she just nodded, lost in his deep brown gaze.

  He stepped back. “I missed you too.” It was an admission for him. Then he lifted his chin. “Do whatever you must do. Before you freeze.”

  Wading out into the water, she had to admit she preferred plunging in. She began to shiver, and when she was waist high she turned to see consternation darken Clay’s face.

  “Morag. The water is too cold. Come back.” He’d decided she was acting foolishly. “That’s enough.” There was fear in his voice, fear of what she was doing to herself, she supposed.

  She lifted her arms, more to silence him than anything else, and felt the shimmer that presaged change. Her body wanted it. Wanted the heft and weight and warmth of the seal’s body.

  For a moment she was gone, and then she plunged into water.

  Clay almost fell over. As it was he lurched and had to regain his footing. The water closed over Morag, or what had been Morag, and he wondered if he’d been mistaken. It had happened so quickly, instantaneously. One second she’d been standing there, arms raised, skin turning white from the frigid water, and he’d been angry with himself for encouraging her in her delusions.