Selkie Island

by Jorrie Spencer

  The next second, a light had shone where she’d stood, only to transform into a seal. Before he could process what he’d seen, it dived under and was gone.

  No, not gone, for its sleek head surfaced almost immediately where Morag had stood. It stared at him with enormous dark eyes. No blinking, though perhaps seals didn’t have eyelids to blink with.

  His legs were shaking so he crouched down and put out an arm to steady himself, all without taking his eyes off the creature. He couldn’t really believe it was Morag, but he couldn’t really believe it wasn’t her either. Because she was gone, completely, and after the light it had taken her place.

  It was treading water, in a distinctly seal-like way. Naturally, it was seal-shaped. It—she—barked at him. Clay tried to find his voice, but all he could manage was to wave her towards him.

  She barked again, a turn of her head, no. Couldn’t seals come onto land? He was pretty sure they could, though he should have watched more National Geographic or something.

  “Come here,” he called. If she came, he would know it was Morag. And if it didn’t, he’d be second-guessing himself forever. “Morag!” he said more loudly, demanding a sign that she recognized her name.

  She swam closer, till her belly or flippers or whatever were touching the bottom. A third time she barked and he didn’t know if she was warning him or what. Then just like before she was gone.

  The light made him close his eyes momentarily, a bit longer than a blink, and there was Morag rising out of the knee-deep water. She shook her head once and ran a hand over her thick mop of hair, squeezing water out.

  Her gaze was defiant as she stalked past him to her pile of clothing and started dressing. He stayed where he was, staring out at the water, not knowing how to put these new pieces of Morag’s life together with what he knew of the world. He almost wished he didn’t know. But last time, when he’d wished he didn’t know something, Aaron had been dirty, and that denial had almost got Clay killed. He refused to deny knowledge this time. He had to work on accepting this.

  After a moment, she came and sat beside him, which helped him to face the fact that the light and the seal had not been a hallucination or a misunderstanding, that he was not still somehow fevered and didn’t know what he could have seen.

  She was here, solid, and like it or not, that demonstration answered a lot of questions, even while it led to many more.

  He cleared his throat. “So that’s how you catch all that fish.”

  She’d been staring straight ahead at the water, like him, but at his words, she glanced over warily. “That’s how.”

  He picked up her hand and felt a slight resistance from her, but not much. Her skin was warm to touch. “Why aren’t you cold?”

  “I never am when I’m a seal, or right after.”

  “Something to do with the light?” Christ, this conversation was surreal.

  “What light?”

  “The light that shines when you…change.”

  This interested her. “I don’t know. I don’t see the light myself.”

  “Oh.” He guessed that made sense. It was part of her transformation. She was, for a moment, the light. Eyeing her, he admitted, “I have too many questions.”

  She surprised him by leaning against him, and he wrapped an arm around her shoulders. Their first embrace, really, despite the hand-holding. “What would you have done if I’d showed you this the summer we met?” she asked.

  “Run like hell.”

  “Well,” she said, her voice wry, “I’m glad I waited.”

  “So am I, Morag.” He couldn’t see, but he thought she might be smiling.

  “We have to hide your boat.”

  He looked up at the green boat that lay above them on the shore. It was turned over. Morag had probably done that. “No one’s going to see it out here.” But her statement gave him pause. He’d always thought this was the most isolated place on Earth and you couldn’t see the boat from the mainland, even with high-powered binoculars. “Are they?”

  “What if your boss comes looking for you?”

  “He doesn’t know about this place.” But even as he argued, Clay feared Aaron could find it, if he really put his mind to it. “I thought coming here would be enough.”

  “You’d be surprised how many people pass by. Soon the fishing season will be upon us.”

  He frowned at her statement. “The fish are all gone, Morag.” Perhaps she wasn’t aware of how that industry had collapsed.

  “I see them setting out lobster traps every year.”

  “Oh.” Lobster. He hadn’t thought of that and he pulled in a breath. It was good to know this information. Perhaps she was more social than he’d realized. “Do you…greet these lobster fishermen? Do you they greet you?”

  She snorted. “No. They largely stay away from this island. It’s considered haunted. If they do land, I watch, observe. Listen. They’re not all good people.”

  Her body had stiffened under his arm and he squeezed her protectively. “Did someone threaten you?”

  “I can take care of myself.” Which wasn’t really an answer, but she continued, “People may notice the boat and wonder, come to investigate. No sense inviting trouble. I want to put the motor under the house, in the cellar, and carry the boat to the woods. Maybe we can do that tomorrow.”

  Clay stood. “Let’s do it now.”

  “I don’t think you’re strong enough.”

  “You’ve got me worried. I don’t want to bring these men to you. They’ll hurt you if they can.”

  She gazed up at him and her mouth twisted, not with bitterness, but a kind of secretiveness. “I’m hard to find if I want to be. Let’s make you hard to find too.”

  Chapter Five

  Maybe she shouldn’t have mentioned the boat and its visibility today. Moving it had almost done Clay in. He had to lean on her walking back to the house and collapsed once they got inside. She gathered the bedding they’d been airing out and helped make him comfortable.

  “I’m a weakling,” he muttered, and she had to laugh at him.

  “You got shot, you’ve been very sick, and we just carried a boat across the island.”

  “A small island.”

  “Don’t be so hard on yourself.”

  He turned on his side, propping himself up on an elbow, and she noticed that his eyes had darkened again, like they had when she’d stripped on the beach, even though she was clothed now. “I owe you, Morag. A lot.”

  Gratitude wasn’t really what she wanted, but she’d take it and maybe that wasn’t all he was offering. Not that it mattered at the moment, because he was wiped out and needed to sleep, recover from his exertions.

  “Come here,” he said, like he’d said on the shore when he’d called to her seal-self, but this was different. There he’d been incredulous, intense. Here there was a teasing and a lightness in his expression. It recalled to her their times of making love.

  She walked over and crouched beside him and he sat up, placing a hand deep in her hair. Only he could touch her, she thought, just as he leaned over and kissed her on the cheek, then lightly on the mouth.

  “Soon, I’ll be less weak.” He smiled and it was a promise that warmed her. She kissed him back, once, a chaste kiss, and he lay down again.

  As he slept, she did chores. That included fetching fresh water from the spring that ran regularly but slowly out of the cliff on the south side. She also collected more driftwood and salted the fish she’d laid out to dry in the sun. She’d forgotten how busy being human was. It wasn’t easy living on this island and providing for two, but it was rewarding, and a fitting way to end this existence.

  Once Clay was better and safe, she would leave humanity for good. It had been difficult all those years ago to be taken from her family and become a seal, only visiting in the summer until they’d been forced off the island by the needs of a growing family. But she’d been a young girl then, twelve years of age, and the will to survive had been strong. One hun
dred years on, well, that will had weakened. All that was left of her family was the occasional visit she made to her niece Morag. Her sister’s baby girl was growing infirm, and it pained Morag to see her namesake fading into old age.

  The blessing and the curse had allowed Morag to survive her drowning, but it had not come without a cost. She would become completely seal and die as one. She was too old for a seal, so when she stopped shifting, she’d be able to stop living.

  The problem was, she didn’t want to die as a seal. She wanted to end as she’d begun. But it was difficult to accomplish such a thing. As Clay continued to sleep, she went to crouch by his bag. She’d smelled the gun a while back but hadn’t investigated it. Curiosity got the better of her and she dug into the pack to find the weapon, pick it up, weigh it in her palm.

  So different from the rifles her father had owned.

  In truth, she was frightened of dying as a seal. Of cold, of starvation, of old age. Drowning again, she could not withstand. The gun in her hand was almost beguiling. Sharp and quick. Over in a moment.

  “Morag!”

  She jumped, dropping the gun to the floor guiltily.

  Despite his fatigue, Clay was up and striding across the small room to grab the gun off the floor. “What the hell are you doing? The goddamned thing is loaded.”

  She looked down at her hands. “Sorry.”

  “What are you doing?” he repeated.

  “Just curious.”

  That alarmed look of his grew more intense. “Curious about what?”

  “How it works.”

  “Why?”

  She shrugged. She could feel the weight of his concerned gaze on her, but she didn’t lift her eyes and let him see what was on her face. He wouldn’t like it.

  “Morag,” he said, quieter now, struggling to get himself under control. “What do you know about guns?”

  “Nothing. My dad used to own rifles.”

  “Well, don’t touch this one.” He made a noise, metallic, like he was shifting something in the gun. “I’m emptying it, okay? But it’s dangerous. You know that, right?”

  “I’m not stupid.”

  “I understand you’re not stupid, believe me. You’re very resourceful. But you also have these…holes in your knowledge.”

  “We never looked at your books,” she said, more to divert him than because she actually wanted to look. She was scared she’d forgotten how to read.

  He pulled the bag away from her and put the gun in it, zipping up a pocket. “We can look at books,” he said gruffly, still upset with her handling his gun.

  She could almost feel his regard, his puzzlement. He wanted her to look at him, so she shot him a smile as she moved away. “Just let me check the fish.”

  He’d awakened feeling content, which sure as hell was a real change. He wasn’t entirely certain he was in his right mind, believing that Morag was a selkie and all. Though if nothing else, he could see that the island had been named for a reason.

  But as he opened his eyes and Morag had come into focus, his happiness had collapsed. She’d been holding his goddamn gun in her hands, examining it with an expression that had alarmed him. As if she was weighing her options.

  He’d startled her and she dropped it, but before he could question her further she’d disappeared outside, something about fish. Well, half her time seemed to be spent on fish, but he didn’t plan on complaining about that since she was keeping them fed.

  He didn’t think he’d met someone so capable in his life.

  But her holding the gun had scared him… Maybe he was just a little too on edge, given the events of the last month. Maybe he’d read too much in her expression, and she was only speculating on how it worked, nothing more. It’s not like he knew her well.

  He wanted to hide the bullets, but that would leave them at a disadvantage if Aaron somehow found this island. If nothing else, Morag seemed very bent on Clay’s survival. So as long as he was at risk, he didn’t think Morag was likely to use the gun to hurt herself. If indeed he’d read her expression correctly. Something that seemed less likely when he thought about Morag and her practicality.

  No need to panic then. It was good to think this through, and by the time Clay was safe, he hoped to have no reason to believe Morag was interested in the gun for the wrong reasons. He hoped to realize he’d misunderstood her curiosity.

  Curiosity. Yeah, that was it.

  He forced himself to stand, body aching from carrying that boat, but it felt good to have done that kind of work. Then he went outside into the late-afternoon sun to find Morag, his erstwhile lover, current friend and sometime seal creature.

  Selkie.

  He spied her easily enough, given the size of the island and that most of it was clearing, aside from the small copse of salt-stunted trees that resembled bushes but that she called the woods.

  As he approached her, she continued her work and didn’t look at him as she asked, “What are you doing up? You should be resting.”

  While she turned over the last of the fish, he gazed down. “I’m trying not to be an invalid. It’s not my favorite occupation. What are you doing?”

  “It’s a little early in the season, but I’m drying fish for us.”

  “Yum.”

  Rising, she planted hands on her hips and eyed him.

  With deference, he held up a palm. “I know, I know. I’m not complaining. Exactly.”

  She looked at the westering sun. “Another hour, then I’ll bring them in. But it’s been a good day, sunny enough to dry fish and hang out bedding.”

  “It’s been an eventful day.” He knew these details of housekeeping were extremely important, were keeping him alive, but in truth, he was a little stuck on her revelation this morning. Even if he recognized it was no revelation for her.

  She smiled suddenly and he asked, “What?”

  “It’s good to see you out and about. I’d gotten used to you…”

  “Always lying down.”

  “Well, staying in the house.”

  “Your house is about the size of a toolshed.”

  She tilted her head. “It’s been rebuilt since my time when it was two stories high, but my sister and parents used to live there throughout the year.”

  Scratching his jaw, he tried to take in this information. Because, yeah, being a selkie hadn’t entirely explained where she came from or why she didn’t age. “And when was that?”

  “I was born in 1901.”

  “Jesus Christ.” He turned away. The wind seemed to pick up, making him shiver. He needed more clothing out here but he’d left his jacket inside.

  “In 1913, I drowned. Went over the side of the boat in November. By the time they found me it was too late.” With this matter-of-fact recounting, her voice had gone higher, like a child’s, as if she had last spoken of this when she was twelve. “My mother begged the island to save me.”

  He rounded on her, settling his hands on her shoulders. “The island?”

  “There has been a history of selkies here. My mother believed the myth and she begged the island’s magic and it answered her prayer.” Her gaze was open, clear, as if what she said made perfect sense.

  Clay shook his head. “Morag, you’ve got to explain more than that. I wasn’t here in 1913. I know nothing about selkies apart from what you’ve shown me today. Are you…immortal?” He could barely get the word out. He didn’t want her to be so set apart from him.

  She stared at him, eyes bright, shining in the sun, so beautiful and he longed to kiss her, but first he needed to hear this explanation. “The island passed its gift to me so I could live if I remain close.”

  She trembled under his hands and he pulled her to him.

  “It was a great gift and yet, I have not managed to be very happy. It’s too lonely. The seals themselves are little company for me, although we sometimes play and I have a fondness for them. And my family has left me.” She was speaking into his shoulder. “It was not so terrible in the beginning
when I could visit with my mother and sister.”

  “Not your father?”

  “He did not want to acknowledge me after I drowned. He called it a curse and was angry with my mother for what I had become, for what she had asked me to be.” She paused and her voice grew quiet. “Later I came to understand that he blamed himself for my drowning. He believed he should have handled the boat better. Seeing me only caused him pain.”

  Clay stroked her hair.

  “But the years passed and my family grew older and eventually they left. I was alone. Being alone makes me tired.” She pulled back. “I haven’t liked to see you so sick and hurt, but I have loved being busy. I have had nothing to do for so long.”

  He couldn’t even fathom her life and he stared at her, as if that would cause her words to make sense to him. Instead, he felt stumped. She was expecting a reaction so he said, “It’s a lot for me to take in.”

  She nodded.

  “Let me think on this for a while, and then I will have questions.”

  Again, she nodded.

  “Will you promise me something?”

  She looked wary but said, “Yes.”

  “Never use my gun. Promise me that. A gunshot wound is a terrible way to die, Morag. I have seen it.”

  Gazing back, her face revealed nothing, but she gave him the promise he wanted. “I will never use your gun, Clay.”

  Chapter Six

  She was happy and she grabbed that happiness to her. She knew how rare and fleeting it was. Clay was healing and she no longer feared he would die. Following that, Clay had not rejected her after she’d shown herself to him. Instead, he’d come outside, searching her out, and hugged her when she’d talked of her past.

  Their time together was limited, as it had been the summer they’d met. Right now, she felt like she had lived out the last few long decades all for this moment, in order to save Clay and spend time with him. Love him. The meaninglessness of the previous years fell away in the here and now.