Mr. Hardstark’s Thunderbird ground to a stop next to Hemery’s truck. The drunk was slamming the door behind him before Hemery could be sure the car was in park.
Caught now in the Thunderbird’s headlights, Elliot and his mother could be seen struggling with their coats. Elliot didn’t know what he was doing, and his mother was clearly trying to explain, but even from this distance, it was obvious both of them had trembling hands.
It was a fear that was all-too-familiar. Hemery had seen it on them before; the black eyes and the bloody lips, the bruises in the shapes of fists and feet.
There was a gun in his waistband. Hemery knew better than to assume it wasn’t loaded.
“Make sure they’re safe,” his dad’s note had read. Hemery didn’t want these people who loved and cared for him to spend one more second afraid. He grabbed the baseball bat from behind the passenger’s seat, one of the few ways Mr. Dyllan was willing to protect himself since black men with guns didn’t fare well in northern Michigan. The slugger wasn’t much, but Hemery had the batting average to back up his solid swing.
Elliot’s fingers were broken. That was the only explanation he could think of as he fumbled to get his jeans unzipped and down his legs, his boots already kicked off, laying next to him on the sand. His coat glimmered next to him in the sand, dangerous but welcoming. A beacon home, he thought.
“Hey! Hey, I’m talking to you!” Elliot’s dad’s voice carried over the beach, the stillness of the night helping the sound travel.
“Shit,” Elliot had his pants down to his ankles, his ass hanging out in the cold, skin prickling into goosebumps. He stepped out of the jeans and pulled his jacket and shirts over his head as one entity, leaving him completely naked.
“Your coat, you need to hurry!” His mother was already naked and pulling on her own coat, the shimmery material seeming to close over her as if it were swallowing her whole.
Elliot picked up his coat and shook it out, like he would a towel, and despite not feeling like it had any kind of mass at all, it spread out and flowed, revealing an animal-like shape. There was a fine seam along the edge, he saw, so he pulled the material apart and stepped into it.
It was warm once it was on his skin, and with that first contact, he had the deepest, purest sense of home that he’d ever had in his life. He looked up at his mother, eyes wide, and she grinned at him, the first true smile he’d seen on her face in years.
“It gets better. Let me show you.” She pulled the rest of her coat over her head, and then there was a golden seal in the spot where his mother had been just a second before.
“You son of a bitch, you stop right there! I’m talking to you!”
Elliot scrambled, but his fumbling fingers just weren’t getting any better and the silky coat slipped out of his hands. As he bent forward to pick it back up, he heard a gunshot, then two more. He fell forward as something hit him, a burning across his bicep. Down on his knees now, he struggled to take in breath, shock wriggling its way into his body.
“Fuck!” He reached up and touched the spot where the bullet had hit, fingers coming away coated in blood. His father had fucking shot him. His mother, almost to the water, had stopped, turning back to see what had happened. “Go! Keep going! I’ll be right behind you!”
Ignoring the wound and the blood, he gripped the coat again, fingers slippery with his own blood, and pulled the rest of it up and over his head.
It didn’t hurt as he shifted, his body compacting itself into the smaller space his seal-self took up, reforming him into the other creature that lived under his skin. He could hear yelling behind him, could hear an argument, but all he wanted, all his body needed was to get to the water. He could see the trail of his mother’s path, so he followed her with a singular focus.
Just get to the water. Just get to the water. To the water.
Beneath the whiskey-glaze, Mr. Hardstark’s eyes burned with insane, wild rage., And his target was Elliot. He drew the pistol and fired—bam! Bam! Bam!—in staccato report.
A muffled cry and the sight of Elliot falling forward onto the beach made Hemery’s vision go white around the edges, all the air rushing out of his lungs as though he’d been punched.
When Hardstark raised the gun to fire again, that was more than Hemery could take. The weight of the bat was comfortable in his hands, and years of practice translated into a moment of zen-like clarity.
He screamed wordlessly, hefted the bat and ran towards Hardstark. A swing connected with Hardstark’s elbow. He let out a garbled roar of pain, but more importantly he dropped the gun.
Hemery stepped back, feet dimpling in the cold sand, in an attempt to lure Hardstark away, to buy Elliot and his mother more time. Elliot’s father turned and regarded Hemery, as if only now noticing that he was even there. Lurching toward Hem, Hardstark answered the younger man’s yell with an animal growl. Drunkenness and deep-seated anger combined to turn Mr. Hardstark into an inhuman predator, a rabid dog that needed to be put down.
Elliot stood up from the beach, bleeding from his arm but still moving, still alive. He took one fleeting glance towards the scrum but he clearly wasn’t paying any attention to what was happening with Hemery. A strange glow flared near the shore, illuminating the beach. Hemery blinked from the brightness, and when he looked again, Elliot was gone, only a sleek brown seal sitting on the beach in his place.
Hemery waited, calculating as he did for any pitch that had come his way since Little League.
When Mr. Hardstark lunged for Hemery’s throat with pincer-like fists, the young man swung with every erg of strength.
The sound was unlike any homerun Hemery had ever scored. The crack of the bat against Hardstark’s skull was harsh and sickening. Wood crunched against bone. Then the wet, slick squelch of brain matter compressing under the force of the blow.
Harkstark’s limp corpse fell to the ground with a dense thud.
When Hemery looked back towards the shoreline, Elliot and his mother were gone. The night quivered as Hemery’s pulse beat out a terrified rhythm that shook his eyes and thrummed in his ears. Breath quaking, fingers trembling, he reached for his phone and dialed his dad.
Elliot could tell the lake water was cold, but he didn’t feel cold. His coat surrounded him, warming him despite the chill. It took him a minute to find the right rhythm, the right movements to push himself forward through the water. Flippers were quite different than hands and feet, but it felt right.
Just like riding a bike, he thought.
Exactly, my love. His mother’s voice was in his head, as though she were standing right next to him. He spun around in place trying to find her, catching sight of her a distance away. She flipped a gentle summersault and flapped her fins at him.
What now? He thought at her, enjoying the newness of selkiedom but when that wore off, what would be left?
Now we find your grandfather and introduce the two of you. There was a joy in her words Elliot had never heard from her before. Her sorrow and despair became more and more apparent the more he saw her without the weight of those emotions. He hesitated to ask his next question but couldn’t avoid it. His heart, while happy for his mother, called for Hemery with each beat.
When can I go back?
Why would you want to go back? She seemed stunned that he would even ask, which made Elliot’s stomach drop. He knew nothing of this world, of the rules or the boundaries. She held all the cards. Had he jumped from one prison to another, just with a different coat of paint?
Mom. Hemery is there. I can’t just leave him. Not forever.
Sweetheart. You might find someone here that you- She was so dismissive, so sure that if he just tried, he’d be able to push Hemery away.
Mom. Please.
We can change from one form to another once a year. The spring solstice, the week before Easter. Whatever form you are when the sun rises, that’s what you will remain for the next year. Unless someone steals your coat. Then you’ll stay that way until they retur
n it. Does that answer your questions?
Yes. He responded, not sure what else he could say. Once a year? That was it?
Let’s get going! I’ve waited for this for a long, long time. She performed a little flip and swam out towards the darker, deeper water. Elliot followed, slowly, no longer sure that he wanted to follow.
He’d held on to the bat, his fingers clenched white around it, even after he knew Mr. Hardstark was dead.
He’d rolled the corpse, and tried pushing breath and blood as he’d been trained, but it hadn’t done a thing. Hemery’d crushed the man’s skull into his brain, and that was that.
Paramedics had also tried resuscitating him but had no better luck. That was when the police had started hassling him, asking him questions with a tone that said they were sure everything was his fault.
He’d done his best while he waited for his dad, who eventually arrived on his Harley, the only vehicle left at the farm. While he kept his voice calm but firm as he spoke with officers on his son[‘t behalf, Hemery’d taken it as the opportunity to retreat into the broad shadow of his father. Papa don’t take no mess, he thought to himself, somewhat hysterically.
They’d still taken him in, recording his finger prints and a mug shot. His face burned at the thought that he’d become a statistic, and how ashamed his father must be.
It took a few more hours for his father to post his bail, and take him home.
Hemery sat in the passenger seat of the truck, his shoulders rounded, his face hidden behind the dreads he’d let out of their band.
“What’s this now?” His father had asked, gentle and slow. When Hemery didn’t answer, his father had reached over with two fingers and lifted Hemery’s chin, connecting their stares.
“I just- I can’t imagine how mad you are. At me.”
“I am mad,” he said, “but not at you.” Hemery focused on his father’s face, trying to interpret what he saw there and failing. “Elliot’s father was… not a good man. He had issues that he took out on his family, and that’s just not right. You did what you had to do to protect Elliot, and that will never be wrong in my book. Family is family, even when it’s not blood. Simple as that.”
And with that, his dad climbed out of the truck and headed to the house. Hemery sat for a few minutes more, soaking it all in. There was still a weight on him, still danger ahead for him, but there was a chunk that had been removed just by hearing that his father understood.
It was only the fact that the town they lived in was so small that Hemery was saved from serving any hard time. There was plenty of evidence regarding Mr. Hardstark’s abuse, including 911 calls, a restraining order, and a criminal record detailing a laundry list of misdemeanors.
Despite the litany of proof that Hemery had acted in self-defense against a vile excuse of a man, a contingent of Hardstark’s friends fought to get him thrown into jail for life. It was terrifying to think that he might never see his father outside of prison visitation. And Elliot….
His father hired a powerful lawyer, and that combined with Mr. Hardstark’s known behavior and deviance, Hemery was saved.
Technically.
He was painted, though, with a certain brush, and his life around town was different. Different enough that he dreamt about leaving, about going away to school and becoming something bigger.
But he couldn’t forget about Elliot, and he couldn’t go somewhere Elliot couldn’t find him.
Elliot had disappeared into Lake Michigan, so Hemery needed to work on or near the lake. Simple. He began researching jobs on the lake, protecting the lake, sailing it, fishing it, and eventually he found the path that he felt he could take and still be close enough for Elliot to find him again.
It took Hemery a few tries to get his search terms even close to the correct spelling of Selkie. Once he did, pages and pages about Ireland and seals, and legends of the finfolk popped up in his browser. What was harder to find, though, was documentation on fresh water selkies.
Hard, but not impossible.
Lakes and rivers were known to be homes to selkies, and Lake Michigan was definitely one where selkies had been documented, according to the various websites focused on “real” supernatural creatures.
Hemery felt like he was in some kind of episode of The X-Files, but he knew what he’d seen. Elliot had changed into another creature, another ANIMAL, and that was enough to take those sites a bit more seriously.
Selkies couldn’t just turn into a human whenever they wanted, all willy-nilly. There were specific times when the change could occur but outside of that, it wasn’t possible to change from one form to the other.
Everything related to Lake Michigan talked about a yearly window for change, on the spring equinox. A few additional Google clicks and Hemery confirmed the night Elliot and his mother slipped into the water, was, in fact, the spring equinox.
He wanted to puke. Once a year? What if something happened? What if Elliot got hurt, or trapped? Would he be stuck in a zoo as a seal? What if some overzealous hunter (it was Michigan, it was totally possible) shot and killed him, or caught him in a net?
Hemery’s father walked in to his room in the middle of Hemery’s panic attack. He’d curled up into a ball in the middle of the floor, breath coming so fast that it didn’t feel like Hemery was bring in any oxygen at all.
“Hem? Hemery?” His father sank to his knees, gentle hands reaching out to press against Hemery’s forehead and cheek. “Baby, I need you to breathe, okay? Whatever it is, we can handle it. Together. You and me. You know we can. Come on, take my hand and breathe.”
They sat there, the two of them, for over an hour as Hemery fought for every breath and for every ounce of control he could muster. It felt like someone had pulled the plug from the drain, water slowly receding around him, until he was free from the all-encompassing pressure, letting him finally relax.
His dad could feel the shift as well, and sank to the floor next to Hemery, pillowing his head on his arms.
“Not sure what’s going on with you, Bud.” Hem wanted to say something then, wanted to confess everything, but it wasn’t his secret to tell. And a part of him worried that this would be the thing, the final straw that made his father see him as the crazy son that wasn’t worth all the effort.
“What did you do when Mama died? How did you get through it?”
“Not entirely sure I did, kid. But if anything, it was being with you.” He reached out with one hand, bumping Hemery’s shoulder lightly with his fist.
“That the real answer or are you just playing to the crowd?” Hemery let out a weak laugh and turned his head to see if his father was at least smiling. He was, but it was a sad little thing.
“You have to find a thing,” his dad said, rolling to lay on his back, face pointed at the ceiling. “A thing that you can focus on, put all that energy into, or else you’re going to eat yourself up from the inside and wind up no good to anyone. Especially yourself.”
“I’m not exactly the town hero, dad. I don’t know what I can focus on.”
“I think Elliot’d disagree with you. You did something pretty heroic. Just because not everyone can understand that doesn’t make it any less true.”
“I don’t really know what Elliot would think about all of this,” Hem whispered, flashes of Mr. Hardstark’s bloody face floating across his vision.
“If he was willing to do what you claim he did, then I know he’d be proud of you.” When Hemery didn’t respond, his dad raised himself up on his elbow and poked Hemery in the side. “You don’t sneak away in the middle of the night, on Lake Michigan in March unless you have a damn good reason. And you don’t come after your own kid with a gun unless you care so little for their wellbeing that you’d rather kill them than let them be happy someplace without you. So, Hem, I’m only going to say this once and pray your grandmama doesn’t smite me from her grave. Fuck Adam Hardstark. He deserved what he got and I hope he burns in Hell.” With that, he gently patted Hemery’s face, and sto
od up.
“Dad, I-“
“There isn’t anything you could tell me that would make me stop loving you, so stop trying.”
“I’m not-“
“You are. But it’s alright. I’m gonna order us some pizza.” And with that, he was out the door.
One year to the day after Elliot had left, Hemery had a dream. It was murky, like he was under water at dusk, and his skin felt cool but not cold, damp but not wet. It should have been claustrophobic, not being able to see very far, feeling the oppressive weight of what he was sure was water, but somehow it wasn’t.
For the longest time he was alone there, in the quiet, until suddenly he wasn’t.
A dark-eyed seal appeared in front of him. It should have been frightening or at least startling, but seeing the seal, Hemery felt the deepest sense of peace and home that he’d ever felt. And without any prompting, him mind told him: Elliot. This is Elliot.
He reached out a hand, to stoke along the seal’s back and shoulder, and the animal swam in closer, eyes closing under Hemery’s hand. After a minute, it pulled away and Hemery felt the deepest disappointment, worried the seal was going to leave. Sure, it was a dream, but even five minutes with Elliot in seal form was better than nothing, and if Hemery could have thirty minutes, an hour, forever, it would never be enough.
But the seal didn’t leave. Instead, he was twisting gently in the water, a soft light emanating from under his skin, and suddenly, the seal form was being unzipped like a winter coat, and there was Elliot. Beautiful, very naked, Elliot.
Two thoughts hit Hemery at the same time: How can I breathe under all this water?, and I want to touch every inch of him with every inch of me.
Go for it. Elliot’s voice was in his head. He hadn’t moved his mouth at all, but it was Elliot’s voice, as clear as day.
Hemery tried to talk, but his mouth wouldn’t make noise. Elliot made a face at him that in other circumstances would have pissed Hemery off but instead made him try again, this time with his mind.
A Paranormal Easter: 14 Paranormal & Fantasy Romance Novellas Page 65
