“What if I could offer you something better?” I asked, ignoring Miranda’s small sound of protest.
“It wouldn’t matter,” said the sea witch. “That isn’t how my bargains work. I can sell to both sides of a conflict—and have, when they made me—but I can’t keep raising the price after something’s been agreed upon. Sometimes that’s unfortunate. Most of the time it’s a good thing. There have to be limits. Things have to stop getting worse, eventually, or they’ll all just fall apart. And hell, maybe that would be a good thing. It’s not for me to say.”
I leaned against the car door and looked at her thoughtfully.
“Why do you have to make bargains?” I asked.
“My father, Oberon—your great-grandfather, by the way—had two wives. My mother, Maeve, and her sister, Titania. Well, Titania decided I was too big for my britches, on account of how I didn’t actually give a shit about what she wanted, and she cursed me all that way from here to Mag Mell. No lies for me, unless they’re told to the blood of my blood, and no refusing a deal. If someone asks me for something within my power to give, I don’t have any choice.”
I frowned. “What does ‘blood of my blood’ mean, in this context?”
“It means that when I said I couldn’t lie, I wasn’t being one hundred percent absolutely accurate,” she said. “I can lie to the Selkies. Now that you’re one of them, I can lie to you. That skin you wear belonged to my daughter, and that makes you, magically speaking, my child, and a parent has to be able to lie to her children, for the sake of keeping the family from falling apart.”
“So when you said I could trust you . . . ”
“I meant it. I wasn’t lying. I just wasn’t being magically compelled to tell you the truth regardless of its possible danger to myself.” The sea witch turned her attention to the road. “Some lies are a kindness beyond measure. The Selkies are the only chance I have remaining to be kind.”
I didn’t say anything. Honestly, I didn’t know what to say. I was confused, I was exhausted, and everyone around me seemed to be carrying about thirty layers of secrets on their shoulders, which was at least twenty-nine layers too many.
“You all need therapy,” I muttered.
The sea witch laughed and kept on driving.
I’ve never been much of a beach girl. That would probably sound blasphemous to anyone who’s spent their life inland and dreaming of the sea, but it’s true. Sand gets in everything, sunburns are worse when you’re out on the water, and it’s hard to read when a wave could decide to hit your location at any moment. I’ve always been way more fond of a nice, climate-controlled library or shopping center. Malls may not have been born in California, but the odds are pretty good that they’re going to die here.
And yet.
The farther we traveled down the coast, the more the urban sprawl of San Francisco dropped away behind us, replaced first by low, rustic tourist towns and then by nothing but the thin line of eucalyptus and pine, the more the knot in my chest unclenched itself and the easier it became for me to breathe. I hadn’t been aware of how tense I’d been until my gut fully unclenched and I was able to sit up straight.
A hand touched my shoulder. I glanced back to find Miranda looking at me sympathetically.
“I’ve seen this before,” she said. “It was with a Hamadryad, not a Selkie, but still. She had been away from the forest for days, traveling on business for her Lord, and when she finally got back within sight of the green, she started to weep. I had never been so glad to be human, and not tied to one specific environment.”
I shrank slightly away from her hand, wondering whether she realized she had just implied that I was less than she was now. That my mother was less than she was.
Miranda kept speaking as if I hadn’t moved. “She danced with the trees for a day, and then she was right as rain, and we were able to continue on our way.”
“What a charming story,” said the sea witch, in a flat, emotionless voice. “Oh, look, we’re here.”
I looked forward.
We were on a small, apparently private road that curved around a grassy hill to reveal a sprawling Victorian house that bristled in all directions, like a starfish. Extensions had been constructed upon extensions that had been constructed upon extensions themselves, until the original foundation was lost behind the veil of new construction. It looked like the kind of place where entire multigenerational families could live in relative harmony, as long as they could all agree whose turn it was to wash the windows. It looked . . .
It looked like home.
The sea witch pulled off to the side of the road and turned off the engine before twisting in her seat to face me and Miranda. “All right,” she said. “Gillian, you’re with me: you’re the whole reason that we’re here. Until we leave, or until I say otherwise, my name is Annie. I’m a cousin of this family, and I’ve accepted the responsibility of bringing you home. Agree with everything I say, and you’ll be fine. You have my word that I won’t try to trap you in anything you don’t want. All right?”
“All right,” I said cautiously.
“Good.” She looked to Miranda. “You can come with us or you can stay in the car, but remember that you won’t be able to speak, and that as long as I’m not talking directly to you, I can lie for the duration of this visit. I will tell lies about the girl you consider to be your daughter. I will also tell truths you may not wish to hear. But I am speaking to you, right now, and I promise you that she will not be harmed if you leave her in my care.”
“Miranda didn’t come all this way just to sit in the car,” I protested.
Miranda looked guiltily away. I blinked.
“Mom?” I didn’t mean to sound so young, or so frightened.
“Go with her,” said Miranda. She looked back at me, forcing herself to smile. The corners of her mouth trembled with the strain. “She’ll keep you safe, and I’ll . . . I’ll wait here, so I don’t make things harder.”
“But you came.”
“Yes. I did, and I’ll be here when you come outside. I’ll always be here. I love you, Gillian. I do. I’m just . . . ” She stopped, taking a deep breath. “I’m not part of Faerie. I didn’t want you to be, either. I tried so hard to save you, sweetheart, I swear I did. I couldn’t. I’m sorry. Now you need to start learning what you’re going to become, and you need to do it without being afraid you’re going to hurt me by being happy.”
I stared at her. “Mom . . . ”
“You heard the lady.” The sea witch opened her door and slid out of the car. Somewhere in the middle of that motion, her clothes changed, becoming sturdy canvas pants and a dark gray cable-knit sweater. Her ponytails came undone, the tape disappearing as her hair tumbled down her back in a cascade of tangles and curls. She looked normal. She looked like someone I’d see in one of my classes, half-asleep and clutching a cup of coffee.
She was terrifying, because that was the moment where it all became real. Not just that my body was changing or that a dead woman’s skin was wrapped around my shoulders: that I had been riding in a car with someone who belonged in a fairy tale, that all of this was happening and none of it was going away. This was really happening.
The sea witch looked back over her shoulder, one eyebrow raised. “Well?” she said. “Come on.”
“Go, baby,” said Miranda. “I’ll be here when you get back.”
Don’t leave my mother waiting, whispered Firtha.
I got out of the car. We were finally at the end of the beginning, whatever that was going to mean, and there was no turning back now.
EIGHT
“Remember: while we’re here, my name is Annie,” repeated the sea witch as we approached the house. “I’m a distant cousin of this family. I’m bringing you to meet their current matriarch, because you’re a Selkie without a clan. Do you understand?”
It wasn’t far from the t
ruth. I nodded slowly. “I understood you the first time. Why lie? Why not tell them who you are?”
“I have my reasons, and they’re not for you to question. Just remember that I can stop your tongue as easily as I stopped hers.” She gestured back toward the car.
I frowned. “Why don’t you ever use her name?”
The sea witch ignored me and rang the doorbell. The sound of running footsteps drifted through from the other side, and then the door was wrenched open by a girl a few years younger than me. Her hair was brown streaked with silver, like she’d been experimenting with home dye jobs, and her eyes were the same vivid green as Firtha’s.
Her ears were pointed. Not as pointed as Toby’s but pointed. This was happening.
She looked between me and the sea witch, focusing on the skin tied around my shoulders. “Annie, what have you brought us?”
“This is Gillian.” The sea witch’s hand landed heavily on my shoulder, keeping me upright. I was obscurely grateful for it. “She’s new, and she doesn’t have a family to teach her what to do. Is your mother in?”
The girl gasped with theatric delight. “She’s wearing one of the Lost Skins? Annie, did you find one of the Lost Skins?”
I could hear the capital letters in her voice. Smiling wearily, the sea witch nodded.
“She’s the first to wear it in hundreds of years. Please, I need to see your mother, Diva.”
“Of course! Of course! Welcome to the family, cousin!” Then the girl—Diva—was yanking me into a hard hug, as shameless as a child. Her skin smelled like saltwater, and her clothes were faintly damp.
When she let me go, it was to bound deeper into the house, leaving the sea witch and me to follow. I looked at her, mouthing “Diva?”
She shrugged. “It used to mean ‘nature spirit.’ I think her father named her. I assume her father named her. Liz was never that kind of gooey romantic. I’ll be honest. I never asked. There’s a chance she’d tell me, and I don’t want her to think she’s been forgiven.”
“What did she do to you?”
“Only what people have been doing to me for centuries,” she said. “She disappointed me. Let’s go introduce you, shall we?” She stepped through the door, leaving me with little choice but to follow.
A man in an unzipped wetsuit was sleeping on the couch, snoring gently. Two women were sitting at a nearby table, deeply involved in a complicated card game I’d never seen before, and a group of children rushed by, giggling and grabbing at each other. The furniture was old but not shabby, mended and maintained for what looked to have been years. Every wall was at least half-obscured by bookshelves and framed pictures of people who looked nothing alike and everything alike at the same time. It was something in their eyes.
Diva was waiting for us halfway up the stairs. The sea witch smiled at her, and she ran on, leading us to a long hall and a closed door halfway down. She stopped there, an unsure look on her face.
“Mum’s having a bad day,” she said. “I don’t . . . ”
“It’s okay, hon,” said the sea witch, and pulled her into what seemed like a genuinely affectionate one-armed hug. “You run on ahead. I’ll deal with your mother.”
Diva flashed her a look filled with confused gratitude, hugged her back, and was gone, running back to the stairs. The sea witch watched her go.
“She was her mother’s apology to me, in part,” she said, once we were alone. “Liz tracked down one of the surviving Roane—there are still a few, living solitary lives as far from the rest of Faerie as possible—and gave him a child. Diva won’t ever have to take a Selkie skin for her own. She gets to stay clean. Better than flowers, anyway.”
She turned brusquely to the door, not giving me time to answer her. She didn’t knock, either, just turned the knob and pushed it open, revealing a small room lined with still more bookshelves and dominated by a mahogany desk. A woman was sitting behind it, head bent, hair a shade of ashy blonde that was sort of gray and sort of golden and sort of both at the same time. She didn’t look up, but her hand twitched toward the glass next to her, which was filled with a golden liquid that looked a lot like bourbon.
“Come to try me further, Annie?” she asked, voice tired.
“You know it,” said the sea witch. “Gillian, this is Elizabeth Ryan, the head of this clan of Selkies and, hopefully, your new mentor. Lizzy, this is Gillian Daye.” Her voice took on a hard edge. “October’s daughter.”
Now the woman raised her head, gray eyes going wide. “What?”
“It’s, um, Daye-Marks, actually,” I said. “Hi.”
“How is this . . . ?”
“She’s wearing one of the Lost Skins,” said the sea witch. “It was necessary to save her life. You’re the nearest clan, and the only one I trust with her education. Will you teach her what it means to be a Selkie?”
Elizabeth frowned. “Why should I bother, when we’ve got so little time left?”
“Way to make things all about you, Lizzy,” said the sea witch. “You should bother because October has been good to this family, and because Connor loved her. If that’s not enough, you should do it because I’m telling you to, and I have it on good authority that I’m fucking terrifying. But most of all, you should do it because if you agree, and if she tells me that you’ve done right by her, I’ll bring the remainder of the Lost Skins to you, to distribute as you see fit. Eighteen more Selkies, Liz. Eighteen more children you don’t have to choose between.”
Elizabeth put a hand over her mouth. “You’d . . . really?”
“Agree. Swear to me that you’ll teach her what she needs to know.”
“And that Miranda can be here,” I said quickly.
Both of them turned to look at me.
“What’s that?” asked Elizabeth.
“Her stepmother,” said the sea witch. “She’s already bound to silence; she won’t hurt anyone here. She knows about Faerie.”
“Human?”
“Utterly.”
“I see.” Elizabeth glanced at me again. “Not your father?”
“He’s human, and he, um, doesn’t know,” I said. “I don’t think he’d take it well if I tried to tell him.”
“Which you will not do,” said the sea witch. “She doesn’t know anything, Liz, and it’s not like Toby can teach her the sea.”
“Root and branch, no,” said Elizabeth. “Toby can barely stand to look at it. I won’t let her harm my family. If she endangers the clan—”
“If Gillian endangers the clan, you call me, and I call Toby, and together we make her understand why that behavior isn’t acceptable.”
“I’m right here,” I said.
“We know,” said the sea witch. “Just . . . be quiet a little longer and let me finish my part in this. Liz? Do we have a deal?”
“I shouldn’t, but—damn you, Annie. Damn you to hell. Yes, we have a deal.”
The sea witch grinned toothily. “Wonderful,” she said. “Let’s begin.”
NINE
I fell asleep on the couch in the living room with a belly full of crab chowder, listening to Miranda and Liz argue about the best way to handle my education. The sea witch—who everyone here called “Annie” without a lick of hesitation, and who almost seemed like another person when she was laughing and easy and not trying to be the scariest thing in the room—had been whisked away to help with the dishes. She hadn’t objected. Apparently here, that was normal.
It was safe. People were happy and comfortable and inhuman and that was okay, because it was safe. I was going to have to go home to my father, with a lie about a human kidnapping on my lips and an invisible sealskin tied around my shoulders, but I would be coming here until it felt like my home, too, until I knew how to be what I was now.
They said they could give me the sea. I was starting to think that I might want it.
So I sank
down into slumber, until I was standing on a rocky beach, not naked anymore, with the sound of the surf beating itself against the shore. Firtha was already there, and she smiled at the sight of me.
“So?” she asked. “Will this do?”
“I won’t pretend I’m happy not to be human anymore,” I said slowly. “I wish I’d had a choice. But . . . if this is what I have to be, I guess I could have done worse.”
“You could.” She stepped forward, offering me her hands. “Now come.”
“Where are we going?”
“Where every good daughter of the Roane begins her life in earnest,” said Firtha. “Let me take you to the sea.”
I slipped my hands into hers, and she backed slowly into the surf, leading me into the ocean of my dreams. One day soon, I’d be going into real waves, into real water, in a very similar way. I was surprised to realize that I wasn’t scared. Maybe it was the skin changing me more from what I’d been, but if it was, I didn’t mind. I couldn’t be scared all the time, and if this was what it took to stay alive, I’d learn to live with it.
In the meanwhile, I was going to the water.
I was going home.
About the Author
Seanan McGuire lives and works in Washington State, where she shares her somewhat idiosyncratic home with her collection of books, creepy dolls, and enormous blue cats. When not writing--which is fairly rare--she enjoys travel, and can regularly be found any place where there are cornfields, haunted houses, or frogs. A Campbell, Hugo, and Nebula Award-winning author, Seanan's first book (Rosemary and Rue, the beginning of the October Daye series) was released in 2009, with more than twenty books across various series following since. Seanan doesn't sleep much.
You can visit her at www.seananmcguire.com.
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