Aurabel

by Laura Dockrill

  I know those beasts, don’t I? And my heart begins to squeeze.

  AURABEL’S NET

  ‘Bastards!’ she roars and, before I know it, she’s gone. Whipping away, following the rush of steady ripples pattering behind the cluster of rocks. She must have seen a good hunt. Dinner.

  ‘AURABEL!’ I shout after her. ‘Aurabel! Wait!’ I scoop and duck after her but she’s going so fast and the water is so murky it’s hard to see.

  I follow the silver spark of her tail. A shooting star. Weaving and scooting, buzzing in and out, and as I get closer I see the wisps of the turquoise hairnet, blending in with the curves of ocean. I whip my tail up quicker as the push of Aurabel’s heavy tail thrusts against me like a tidal wave; giant folds of water flush towards me, kicking and shoving me back, making it hard to catch up. I push again, harder, like the water is a wall, and engine myself to a steady speed. I see the frothing of bubbles and can make her out, charging ahead, close now, Aurabel, aggressively tearing through her own choppy current, hunter head, gritted teeth, growl, net, sharp blade of a knife in her left hand.

  Then I see the beasts. Sea serpents. Long eels. Stretched toads. Hissing swirls with clenched jaws stuffed with dagger-like twisted teeth that split the mouth like the thorns of a rose.

  She wants them.

  But I see they are not alone. They are not free creatures. No, they are connected to black ropes. And I realise whose serpents they are.

  Sienna’s. That’s why she wants them. I want them too … just not like this. Not yet.

  ‘AURABEL!’ I roar, almost angry this time. This wasn’t the plan. But it’s too late; she is already bundling them up into her net made of hair. Her tail whipping up the sand into a storm, foggy; I can’t see through the billions of grey particles.

  REVENGE

  So fucking angry I don’t see a thing. Nothing except the acid raw blind rage of revenge steaming through me, blowing down my bloody veins I’m so angry. I’m gonna catch these fucking beasts so fucking quick. Got them off guard – basically asleep on the job, these creatures. I dig my knife into their throats, not enough to kill them but to threaten them, to make the steal real nice and easy. I hear Aurabel scream for me, even in the rough of it. I know it wasn’t part of the plan but I’ve got to concentrate on not slashing the faces of these beasts that have haunted me every day and night. I might never get this moment again and I’m not gonna lose that. I’m not gonna cheat myself the way life cheated me. The way it cheated Lorali. But there’s grit everywhere, dots of sand and fog all whizzing in my eyes and mouth, hard to see through the greyness of it. Still, I’m too mad to care. I feel the tug. The beasts aren’t alone.

  And then I make out the black ropes of the chariot. Fucking great, this is it. This is it. NOW! COME ON! COME ON, SIENNA! Lorali is still shouting my name but I’m deaf to her now. I know it’s not how it was meant to be but just give me that wicked witch; let me kill her.

  But it’s not Sienna steering.

  It’s a male. A … male … and no, that’s not Sienna neither. Not the council member of the Whirl … No, that’s my …

  It’s Murray.

  In Sienna’s chariot. Wearing Sienna’s fucking pin. SIENNA’S FUCKING PIN. Where’s her Murray badge gone? Where’s her … And I lose sight. I can’t. I shrink away. I am weak. I dwindle into soup. I don’t want her to see my hard metal tail. My bald head. My ugliness. My bleakness. Pathetic. Small. I hide my face. Turn away. So they can’t see me. But it’s too late. I’m sure they’ve seen me.

  I shrink. Too wasteful and weak to see my girl. For all that strength I had. For all that work I did. The weakest fucking muscle of all lives inside my chest, wasting away like a diseased liver. I am gutted. Backstabbed. The monsters, the serpents, slip free. My net opens like a blue flower and then spills apart in tears, lets go like a waterfall into the endless bounds, and the chariot darts away.

  SAVING A HERO

  I know my breathing is slowing. As I stop to catch what murmur of breath I have, I hear my sore lungs beating for me but the sound patters away like footsteps running in the distance. My body is thundering with fear. Rioting inside, I feel vulnerable and lost in the density of this place I don’t know any more.

  Aurabel.

  I feel so weak. Delirious. Like I have been spinning around to Iris’s records, tripping and spinning. Sick and weary. My head feather-light as I dip and dunk and I … see Aurabel, sinking, losing herself and her net, a rain of blue strands melting away like an aspirin in water. I gulp in the misery. Take her body over mine.

  She is limp, her eyes closed in sadness. ‘No, leave me,’ she says, ‘leave me here.’ She is drunk on the blueness of it all. Her eyes dull and faded. Her edge, now just crumbling debris.

  ‘What happened? Aurabel? Who was that? Tell me, what happened?’

  But she doesn’t answer me, only collapses into my open arms. She’s heavy. Like a hero. I realise how much more I care about Aurabel than I do about destroying Sienna.

  ‘I’ve got you,’ I whisper as my chest crackles, like it has water in it, a foggy sound that swallows. ‘I’m not leaving you anywhere.’ My lungs stagger, fighting for air, collapsing, like I’ve got the world sitting on my front. But I won’t let that show, not to Aurabel. And with my last remaining strength I do what I know I can do: take Aurabel home. Back to our rusty home, where even the little fire of our spirit seems to have been blown out in one small ironic breath.

  ‘Murray,’ she whimpers. ‘That was Murray.’

  THE MYSTERIOUS MALE

  ‘Who did this?’ Sienna booms, her voice rattling off the walls of the Sabre Tower, her serpents on her lap, sore heads sulking on her hips as she strokes them. ‘Do you know why I named you Victor? It’s for victory. Did these idiots think they could kill you? MY boy? Before your resolution? HA! Fat chance!’ She shakes her head, jolting walrus milk in her bony hand.

  Murray and Victor sit side by side on the stone wall in her drawing room, glaring at the yellow-eyed beasts. Do they know their secret? That they kissed? Will they tell? No. Both know Sienna wouldn’t like it. Why is that so?

  ‘Mer. I mean, this is the sort of work I expect of monsters, sure – Walkers, even – but not Mer! Who would do such a thing? And you’re sure they saw the black ropes? They knew you were in my chariot?’

  Victor nods. ‘We think so.’

  ‘Did you not even get a look at them? Can you not remember anything?’

  ‘Just the one Mer – a male. But only from behind. Shaved head and muscly, strong. He wore armour.’

  ‘Armour?’ Sienna racks her brain.

  ‘Yes, his tapestry was hidden in a shield,’ Murray adds.

  ‘He could be anybody!’ Sienna snaps.

  So Murray did not recognise her love, not without her teal hair, not with her new strength and ripe anger. Aurabel is big now, built and hard. Who was this mysterious male with the metal tail? The colours masked. Unreadable.

  Sienna slits her eyes. This isn’t looking good. She thought the Tips were coming round to her; they seem to adore Victor. But now this … They must’ve followed them home. Or some new conspiracy. Why, this is treason! She was being attacked! Somebody wanted her dead. They weren’t to know she wasn’t in her chariot.

  Victor has begun to notice the anxiety in Sienna, when she is agitated or nervous. Grinding her teeth. Her jaw clenched tight like a knotted ball of elastic.

  ‘It was the monsters he seemed to want,’ Victor says reassuringly, not wanting to lose sight of the campaign. ‘I think he was hunting. I don’t think he initially knew the serpents were yours. He was angry, hungry, this Mer. I don’t think he cared who the beasts belonged to.’

  ‘In fact, he stopped attacking when he saw the serpents were attached to the chariot,’ Murray adds. ‘He let the beasts go!’

  Sienna isn’t buying it. ‘Of course he wanted to kill the monsters first, because then I’d be vulnerable, without protection, and of course he stopped attacking because he di
dn’t want to kill you … He wanted to kill me!’

  Sienna isn’t one to sit back and let the dust settle. No, retaliation is her forte. She has no choice but to take matters into her own hands. The beasts will be sent back, in a pack, to kill this strange hunter in his armour. Whoever he is.

  BACK ON THE WHEEL

  One. Two. Bang. One. Two. Bang. The boxing arms punch my chest. Murray turns it. Not saying a word. The earth crashing on her shoulders. Her eyebrows in a frown. So that was Murray then – the Mer that left Aurabel in a spin.

  One. Two. Bang. One. Two. Bang. The pain doesn’t hurt. I wander in and out of sleep, dreaming. I go through every thought, every frame of mind.

  One. Two. Bang. Regret that I came back here. Regret that I ever left. Blame that I’m here. Guilt for Rory. Guilt for Aurabel; my injury holds her back. That I suggested even leaving to hunt. Guilt for Cheryl, Rory’s mum. Flynn. Iris. I miss my mother and father but I’m nervous to face them too.

  One. Two. Bang. What if I feel as disheartened as Aurabel when I see Rory again?

  I see the golden beams of sun bake the broken stars of sea shells, tickling the arms of weeds, touching the broken vehicles of our broken fairground. There’s beauty in the way the sea dances, surrounds you like a friend, supports and hears you. As though it’s alive. This deep, hidden world of mystery that I once called home fascinates me still. And it crosses my mind that perhaps he is happy here. Rory might not want to ever go back to Hastings. And even if he did … I wouldn’t be able to follow him home anyway.

  A TAIL BETWEEN THE LEGS

  In a blacked-out Range Rover Opal sits in the back seat, rivers of black mascara running down her cheeks. She swigs neat vodka from a bottle. Her eyes jolt behind her Miu Miu sunglasses with the speed of the vehicle, clicking at the passing buildings and the way the space seems to grow when they get out of London. She can already taste the recognisable smell of me as they get closer to the coast. Not even the car air freshener in the shape of a green tree can mask a familiar smell like that.

  The lighthouse stands like a vase on a tablecloth, as though you could pull the strip of pebbles out from beneath it and risk the whole thing toppling over. There are so many things she wants to say to Lorali. She could start with an apology.

  ‘Do you want me to come in with you?’ her security asks.

  ‘No, no, nobody can hold my hand through this one.’ She smiles briefly. Another swig of drink. Pop an upper. A chewing gum to hide the sour fog of booze. And in the pocket mirror, lipstick. Running her tongue along her whitened teeth. Her wheelchair won’t work on the pebbles; she’ll have to be carried.

  Security lifts Opal to the threshold. In her fur coat she looks like shot game in the arms of a hunter. Opal leans forward and bangs on the door. Bang. Bang. Bang. Over and over. Bang. Bang. ‘I’ll wait.’

  But she will be waiting a long time. Nobody is home. Flynn and Cheryl are sitting in a hospital waiting room, sipping coffee from plastic cups, waiting to hear if Iris’s heart is still beating or not.

  SILVER PLATTER

  I woke up in a fucking rage, didn’t I? I’m not sad about it. Can’t be sad about it. Have to get over it, don’t I? Already resigned myself to the fact that I’ve lost her anyway … Murray.

  FUCK. Why didn’t I say anything? Why did I just … Why now? I wasn’t ready. I knew I wasn’t strong. Should have listened to my instinct. I just have to train more. Do more time on the ladders, the wheel, tracks, sweat it out. Get strong.

  Still my knuckles tighten as I relive the feeling of having their necks in my palms. I could bite the air. Squeeze the life out of any … breathe.

  ‘I’m sorry, Aurabel.’

  ‘Why you sorry? Don’t be sorry.’

  ‘I was the one who suggested we leave.’

  ‘It was my choice, Lorali, and I’m glad I saw what I saw. I was meant to see that.’

  ‘What does it even mean?’

  ‘Means she’s sided with that bitch.’

  ‘She probably thinks you’re dead.’

  ‘Yeah, well, she’s right. To Murray, I am. Clearly.’

  But wait …

  What was that … Don’t tell me …

  I tumble down, quick as I can. Got to do a couple more paces to get the momentum of my tail going. The tail starts moving on its own eventually. Can’t get there quick enough. I curve down, past the ‘dodgems’, as Lorali calls them. Whatever they are.

  Stay low.

  Over to her, quick, quick, quick. Psst. Shhh.

  I put my finger to my mouth, shhhhh. My heart.

  Bang. Bang. I clap a hand around Lorali’s mouth.

  It’s me. Don’t wriggle. Don’t scream.

  I slide her body so her back is lying on top of mine, like when a Walker saves another Walker’s life from water – it’s how they go about it; I’ve seen it. She doesn’t fight it. She trusts me.

  I feel my line of hair in her skin. I feel her metal lungs, bulky under my arms. Her heart Frisbee-ing about inside that cage.

  Keeping low, we crouch in the control box. It’s where Lorali showed me a Walker would stand to make the rides go round. There are all these controls and buttons and a microphone. When we’re there I whisper all quiet to her: ‘Stay here. Don’t come out. All right. Stay here. Do not move until I come back to get you.’

  ‘What is it? Please don’t leave me, Aurabel. I can do whatever you need to do.’

  ‘Keep your voice down,’ I bite, almost angry – but I fucking am, though not at her; that’s just my demeanour these days. I’m defensive as hell. I see her eyes look scared and I remember that she’s told me how she’s been left before. In the past. And that was when bad things happened. When she was left. So I grab her. I’m not emotional. That’s not me. But I say it because I never ever say what I need to say and that’s always how I manage to fuck everything up. I say, ‘Listen you, Lorali – I know it probably isn’t the same the other way around because you’re a princess and that, but you … are actually my only friend. And at first, with all this, I had reason to kill, even if it meant killing myself too. But now –’

  My voice breaks; I swallow the fear away and begin again. ‘Now that I’ve got you, things are different. Things have changed for me. Now I want to kill but I want to be alive too. Because I want to be alive so I can still be friends with you afterwards.’ I feel embarrassed so I say something to make myself look less like a wimp: ‘Do I make myself clear?’ I point to her and she nods.

  She gets the point.

  And I swim out of the control box and into the tilted sunken burial ground of adventure. Where Sienna’s monsters have come back to say hello. And this time, they ain’t going anywhere.

  SAS – Selkie Appreciation Society

  <3 <3 <3

  YOOOOO!!!! MERMAIDS ARE SOOOO LAST YEAR! WE R THE FIRST EVA ORIGINAL SELKIE/SILKIE APPRECIATION SOCIETY. THS SITE IS EVEYTHNG U ND 2 NO ABT THE WONDRFUL MYTHICAL CREATURES THT R SELKIES. IF U DNT NO WOT SELKIES R THEN U PROBABLY SHUDNT B ON THS PGE AS A LOT OF THS WILL PROBS MST LIKELY GO OVER UR HEAD. BUT BASICALLY … PUT IT THIS WAY … U CUD KNOW A SELKIE. U CUD EVN B 1!

  LetMeTakeASelkie: OMG! OMG! I think my neighbour is a Selkie. She is really hot and always wears a roll-neck polo top. What should I do?

  SecretSelkie7: @LetMeTakeASelkie Why don’t you ask her, politely, in private?

  Zombierudeboy: @LetMeTakeASelkie Throw a beach ball at her head and see if she catches it on her nose.

  MySelkieNightie: @Zombierudeboy MEGA LOLS!

  SecretSelkie7: @Zombierudeboy PRICK

  IMissZayn1D: How do we know if we are a Selkie?

  RIP.OPAL: @IMissZayn1D If you’re literally a 10/10 stunning hot ting that is sensitive and listens to opera and can cook really good and you never feel the need to trim your pubes.

  A LITTLE TOO LATE

  The sky begins to get blacker and the stinging chill clamps at bones. Fireworks smatter in the sky. Blossoming rounds of violent colours; scoring shrills that
whisk up the sky and sprinkle the air with rust, fire, dust, smoky burnt ends. Opal asks her security to walk her to the sea. She wants a better view of the fireworks.

  ‘It’s freezing, Ms Zeal.’

  ‘I can’t feel it. I’m numb!’ She grins, her eyes rolling in her head, and she shakes her bottle.

  ‘Ms Zeal, if we take you to the sea we are putting you in danger. It’s our job to protect you.’

  ‘Who employs you?’ Opal leaves the question hanging in the air. ‘Well then, take me down to the shore, thank you very much. If you wouldn’t mind getting another bottle of vodka from the boot of the car too?’

  ‘Ms Zeal, we really don’t –’

  ‘I didn’t ask you. Now you can watch me from the car if you must, but drive home for all I care. I want to wait here.’

  Opal, head on the stones, her washed-out pink hair trawling the confetti shells. She peels off her fluffy fake eyelashes clumsily, murmuring to herself, swigging from the bottle as she wipes them off her fingers like dead bugs. As the fireworks pop and crack overhead, the colours repeat in her pupils, and she sees herself. More drink. A little song maybe. And now she faces me. Finally.

  You act as though I never existed, old friend. Why the silence? Did you think you could forget me? Did you think that sitting in baths of me would be the same as it is now? Sell me at a water park to pacify your loss? That you could do without me? Burn me out with bright city lights? It never makes you as breathless as you are now, does it?