by J. Holland
Nerissa headed along the road out of town and then made a sharp turn when the road curved away from the shore. She scampered down the large rocks sheltering her beach, and made her way towards a large rock, which marked the spot where she always buried her trunk. As soon as she rounded the other side, her stomach plummeted.
"No, no, no," she muttered to herself, falling to her knees next to a sizable hole in the sand. She started to dig, desperately widening the hole outward from the place she remembered burying her skin. She kept digging until she realized the ground was swimming in front of her.
Tears, she realized. I'm crying.
The human emotion jolted her out of her panic for a few seconds as she raised a hand to her wet cheek. Tears were salty, she remembered. Like the sea. The thought only made her want to cry harder, but she jumped to her feet and looked around. If someone had taken her skin, then they might know about Nerissa's true nature. Someone could be out there right now, crouched behind a rock and ready to reach out and grab her. She knew it was a ridiculous thought as soon as it popped into her head, but she couldn't shake the feeling of eyes watching her from the growing shadows. For once, both her human and selkie sides were in sync, horrified at the thought of being trapped.
She wanted to go home. She wanted to sit on the beach and cry her eyes out. She wanted her mother. She wanted a lot of things.
The chill of the wind coming off the water cut through her sweaters and interrupted her bout of self-pity. Without her thick seal skin and layer of blubber, Nerissa almost always felt cold, even indoors. She began to shiver. Her missing trunk contained not only her seal skin, but most of her human money and her extra pairs of clothes. She suddenly recalled a human phrase about eggs in baskets. Without money, she couldn't even pay for a place to stay the night. She briefly considered trying to find Greta's house and begging for a place to stay, but she didn't even know where Greta lived and it was already dark. She pulled her extra sweater from her satchel and tugged it over her head. Resigned, Nerissa crawled to the other side of the large rock, which provided at least some shelter from the sharp breeze blowing off the water. She curled up on her side and tucked her bag beneath her head. It was going to be a long night.
By morning, Nerissa not only felt cold, but her body was sore and stiff from sleeping on the hard ground all night. She had tossed and turned, unable to get comfortable. As a seal, she had enough padding that sleeping on rocks and beaches never bothered her at all and the wind and rain merely rolled off her thick skin. Her human bones felt too close to the surface and her long limbs lacked padding, which meant she could feel every pebble and gust of wind as if she were naked. Sighing, she forced herself to her feet, stretching her aching muscles as she brushed sand from her clothes.
In the middle of the night, it occurred to her that since no one had been lying in wait for her on the beach at sunset, it seemed unlikely that whoever took her chest realized what they had discovered. If anyone had discovered it at all. Nerissa had been in a terrible rush the morning before. Maybe she buried the trunk somewhere else, in too big of a hurry to realize it. She knew it was a long shot, but that didn't make it impossible. Now, with the sun up and starting to warm her up, she could get to work.
Nerissa skirted around the hole she had discovered and enlarged the night before and aimed a glare at it. Unfortunately, it was still right where she remembered burying her chest. Where she always buried her chest. Desperate times called for desperation, however, another human phrase she remembered. She knelt down and started digging. Her small human hands couldn't move nearly as much sand as her flippers, but she persevered. She fell into a rhythm as the time slipped by, soon stripping down to a grungy tank top, sweat sliding down her skin as she continued to dig. The beach was not terribly large, and soon Nerissa had no choice but to concede defeat. Her trunk was not there, no matter how many holes she dug.
She looked down at her filthy hands and sweaty skin, covered with a thin layer of sand, and made a face. She pulled the thin top over her head and shimmied out of her undergarments, before wading into the waves. The sun was overhead now and she closed her eyes, enjoying the contrast of the cold ocean and the warm rays on her face. She floated on the water, hoping that she could just will her seal skin back to her and disappear beneath the surface.
Legend said that a selkie's skin would always find its way back to its owner eventually, although in some legends it took years and years. She really hoped hers would find its way back sooner rather than later. She had been floating for only about ten minutes when she became aware she wasn't alone. She felt eyes on her skin and jerked to her feet, suddenly afraid that whoever had taken her skin had returned to capture her as well. A young blond woman about her age stood on the shore, her mouth agape and a blush on her cheeks. The two women stared at each other for a moment, before the blond suddenly turned and ran back up the beach, disappearing over the rocks as fast as she had appeared.
*~*~*
Lorelei could feel her heart pounding again, but not from exercise this time. Well, not only from the exercise. She had scrambled up the rocks lining the beach and run most of the way back to town faster than she had even known she could move. She finally convinced herself to go back to her favorite beach to run and for the first time since she discovered the hidden cove, she found someone else there first.
Stupid, she berated herself. So stupid!
She should have left as soon as she noticed someone lazily swimming out in the water. She definitely should have left when she saw the pile of clothes on the beach and realized the someone was naked. Instead, she had stood there like a moron until the other girl had come out of the water and noticed her staring. And then she kept staring like a creeper, unable to look away. The other woman had been like a painting come to life, ethereal and otherworldly with the water streaming over her bare breasts and her long black hair blowing in the wind.
Like the goddess Venus rising from the waves, Lorelei thought, then immediately rolled her eyes at such fanciful thinking. It wasn't like she had never seen a naked woman before. Being a lesbian in a small town meant that there were not a lot of dating options, but she had had several girlfriends in college, and she had definitely seen them naked. None of them looked quite like the mystery woman from the beach, though. She was way out of Lorelei's league. She was probably straight, and even if she wasn't, Lorelei figured that spying on her and then leering at her naked body before running away pretty much ruined any chance of coming across as a decent human being. Lorelei was a lot of things, but smooth was clearly not one of them.
As Lorelei turned onto her street, she realized why the woman looked so familiar. Lorelei remembered seeing her working at the library, which meant she could never go back there ever again. She thought she may have also come into the bakery for coffee a few times, but other than literally hiding behind the counter, Lorelei wasn't sure what she could do to avoid her there. As she walked up the steps to her apartment building, it occurred to her that she now had some time to kill as a result of her aborted exercise plans. Lorelei called Walter, the local locksmith, one more time and got his voicemail, just like the day before. She left him another message about the chest she had found on the beach, hoping he would get back to her soon. It was safely stowed in the trunk of her car and she couldn't wait to discover its secrets. She spent the rest of the early afternoon tidying up her small place, amazed at how much clutter she could create in just four small rooms. She stripped the bed and changed the sheets, cleaned out her refrigerator, and was in the middle of dusting the living room ceiling fan when her phone beeped to remind her to head back to the bakery.
As the sole owner and baker at Sweet Treats, Lorelei was able to set her own hours. She came in long before anyone else and stayed after everyone had gone home to prepare for the next day, but she had given herself the best part of each day off. She worked from four to eight in the mornings, then headed back in to work from two to six in the afternoons. She took a quick shower and ch
anged into work clothes, then set off down the street to her shop.
"Good afternoon. Can I help you?" Marie asked in a monotone without looking up from her phone.
"Can I help you?" Lorelei responded wryly.
"Oh. It's you. It's a slow day."
"Remind me what I pay you for again," Lorelei joked. Marie had graduated from high school last year, but hadn't been sure if she wanted to go to college. After witnessing one too many coffee fueled melt-down over applications and career questionnaires, Lorelei had hired her to work the six-hour shift in the middle of the day. So far, it seemed to be going perfectly. Marie spent too much time on her phone and had a tendency to come in wearing black nail polish or cat ears without warning, but she did her job and got on very well with the customers.
Since Marie hadn't answered her, not that she had expected her to, Lorelei came around the corner and gently nudged her off her stool.
"Two o'clock and all's well. Time for you to go home."
Marie absently gathered her purse and jacket without taking her eyes off of whatever book she was reading on her Kindle app today. "See ya," she muttered.
Lorelei walked around the small shop, but Marie had wiped down the tables, swept the floor, and taken care of the restocking before sitting down, which left Lorelei with no work to drown out her thoughts. Her thoughts were currently not cooperating with her decision to forget about her earlier adventure in voyeurism. She straightened the trays, pleased to see that most of the baked goods had sold during the day. It wasn't easy keeping a business open in the struggling economy. She had had her share of people tell her it was a fool's hope, but so far her business was in the clear. She knew she was lucky to have a chance to earn a living doing what she loved.
The afternoon shift never stayed boring for long, with teenagers stopping by after school, then their parents coming in after work. By the time six o'clock rolled around, she breathed a sigh of relief as she flipped the sign on the door from opened to closed. Before she could turn away from the door, she noticed someone curled up on the bench outside her door, wrapped in sweaters. There weren't many homeless in Bar Harbor, but Lorelei had made sure to get the word around when she opened her doors that she would hand out the day-old pastries at closing time to those in need.
"Excuse me? Are you okay?" she asked as she opened the door and stepped outside. Lorelei couldn't help but gasp and turn bright red as she recognized the girl from the beach.
*~*~*
Nerissa was having a bad day. Well, she was having two bad days in a row, to be followed by what was shaping up to be a long string of bad days, but this was number two. She had always thought of her favorite beach as a place for her alone, but now it had been encroached on twice, once by whoever took her trunk, and once by the woman who saw her bathing. It clearly wasn't as secluded as she had believed it to be and it didn't feel safe anymore. Besides, she couldn't just stay on the beach and hope her skin would return to her. It was cold and damp and they would never let her in the library smelling like sweat and fish. She was also starving. Raw fish might be okay for her seal form, but the idea made her human stomach twist unpleasantly. She waded out of the waves and pulled her clothes back on, which were now full of sand. Her neck and shoulders seemed even more sensitive than usual and the salt and sand were causing her skin to itch and burn. She peered into her satchel, taking stock of what she had left. It wasn't much, but she was relieved to find the envelope holding a twenty and an extra sweater, along with a few books and some other debris.
She hiked back up the road into town, not sure what she would do once she got there. She didn't have anywhere to spend the night, but she knew staying on the beach would get her nowhere. Once she reached the center of town, she headed directly to the water fountain in the small park next to the library. She drank her fill, before filling up an empty bottle she dug out of her satchel. She had been meaning to drop it off in the recycling bin and was glad she had forgotten. One less thing she needed to buy. The library was closed by the time she reached it, but she stopped in the tourist information center that had just opened for the season. After collecting a few brochures, she realized she would never be able to afford a room at any of the beautiful places listed, and she put them all back where she found them.
Without any real plan in mind, she found a place to sit shielded from the wind and warmed by the afternoon sun. She curled up to rest, exhaustion catching up with her from the spotty night of sleep and the day spent digging, swimming, and walking. The next thing she knew, Nerissa was abruptly woken by a low voice close to her ear.
"Excuse me? Are you okay?" She heard a loud gasp as she raised her head and realized the woman before her was the same human who had startled her on the beach earlier. She was a bit confused by the woman's blushing and obvious awkwardness, before realizing it likely had to do with having seen her topless. Humans were so funny that way. Selkies were always naked in their human skins, and Nerissa hadn't thought twice about rising from the water when she realized she had company. She had probably embarrassed the poor girl to death.
Names. Humans exchange names as greetings.
"Nerissa," she blurted out. "My name is Nerissa."
"I'm Lorelei. Lorelei Jones. I've seen you around before. You work at the library, right?"
"Sometimes, I mean, just a few hours in the afternoon. I don't work there for real."
Nerissa could feel Lorelei's eyes on her, assessing the baggy sweaters streaked with dirt and probably getting a lungful of her terrible body odor at the same time. Lorelei seemed to reach a decision just as Nerissa thought she might be regretting talking to such an obvious weirdo.
"It looks like you've got a pretty bad sunburn. Did you put on sunscreen today?"
"Sunscreen? No. I guess I must have forgotten."
"Why don't you come inside?" Lorelei suggested.
"Oh, but the bakery is closed."
"One of the perks of being the owner. It's never closed to me," Lorelei joked. "Come on in."
She grabbed Nerissa's hand and pulled her from the bench, guiding her into the warm shop. She hadn't had a chance to finish closing up, and there was still a pot of coffee on the burner. She settled Nerissa on a stool at the counter, then passed her a mug of coffee, sweetened with cocoa and cinnamon. This felt like a situation that required her personal bad-day recipe. She quirked a grin and tried her best to imitate a sympathetic bartender from across the counter.
"What seems to be the trouble?" Nerissa's face crumpled.
"I, uh... I can't go home. Something happened, something bad, and I can't go home until I fix it, but I don't know how to fix it so now I'm stuck here and..." Nerissa sucked in a deep breath and tried to fight back the tears welling up in her eyes. As she swallowed hard, Lorelei's hand came up to rest on her shoulder.
"It's okay. You don't have to tell me anything that you don't want to," she soothed. "Do you have a place to stay tonight?"
"No. Not yet. I don't have very much money," Nerissa admitted. Having someone who seemed to care about what happened to her was breaking down her walls and making her realize just how tired and alone she felt. Another shiver went through her, even as the mug warmed her chilly hands. Before she knew it, Lorelei had whipped together a sandwich and placed the plate in front of her.
"This is on the house. You look like you need a good meal and the bread is just going to go to waste."
Nerissa wasn't quite sure Lorelei was being truthful, but since the alternative was going hungry she decided she didn't care. As she ate, she took her time observing her new friend as she wiped down the tables. Lorelei looked just a few inches taller than her own 5'4" and wider as well, but not in a bad way. Nerissa could see the muscles of Lorelei's arms moving as she worked and knew that she was stronger than she appeared. Sandy blond hair and blue-gray eyes were complemented by skin a few shades darker than Nerissa's own alabaster tone. When Lorelei turned around and caught her curious stare, Nerissa smiled at her and Lorelei blushed once again.
"All done with the sandwich?" she called from across the room.
"I'm finished. Thank you so much for the kindness. I guess I should let you go. I just realized I'm keeping you late at work."
"You don't have to go," Lorelei blurted out, before taking a deep breath. "You could stay. With me, if you wanted. I mean, you said you didn't have anywhere to do and I've got space in my apartment. I couldn't just leave you stranded like this. And besides, you should probably get some cream on that sunburn before it gets any worse and..."
"You're rambling."
"Sorry. Would you like a place to stay tonight?"
"Yes, please."
*~*~*
Lorelei tugged Nerissa through her tidy apartment and into the bathroom.
"First things first. We need to get you out of those clothes."
"Why?" Nerissa questioned. Blue walls. Wooden Floors. Large Windows. Her eyes darted around the small space as they passed through, trying to absorb as many impressions as she could in case Lorelei changed her mind and kicked her out.
"No offense, but how long has it been exactly since you washed them?"
Nerissa blushed. After all the activity, her clothes were covered in muck and smelled like sweat and fish. She knew that these were not exactly acceptable human things.
"Don't worry," Lorelei said after it was clear Nerissa wasn't going to answer. "There is a washer and dryer downstairs in the basement. We can get them washed up and you can borrow some of my clothes to sleep in for tonight."