Body of Water

by Stuart Wakefield

  “Not much apart from he’s some sort of prisoner or slave and that Mackay has something of his that’s keeping him here.”

  “That’s as much as he can tell ye. Have ye pushed him for more information?”

  “Of course but he says that he can’t…”

  Maggs smiled triumphantly. “Ye see? He wants to tell ye but he can’t.”

  “But what Dom wants to tell me isn’t actually about me, is it?”

  “No, but the spell isn’t that specific. It’s designed to keep the truth about this place from you. Dom is a part of this place, that’s all. If I could punch a hole in the spell and let Dom’s truth be shared, would you believe me and leave the island?”

  “I think that you should answer a few more of my questions. How come I’ve been okay around water? You mentioned pools but I’ve been in swimming pools.”

  “It’s living water that ye have to be kept from; anything that’s connected to the sea. The continuous flow of river to ocean is forbidden for ye, even if ye’re upstream.”

  “But why?”

  “Something is waiting in the water for ye, beuy. Something ancient, something chaotic, something evil. Don’t ye feel it when ye’re here, so close to the sea?”

  I thought back to the sensation I’d had travelling here, and again when I stood on the beach with Dom. I had felt something on both of those occasions but written it off as motion sickness.

  “What happened to my mother?”

  Maggs shrugged. “I honestly don’t know. I left ye with her and went to find some clean water but when I returned only ye were there.”

  “So, you…?”

  She smiled thinly. “I looked after ye as best I could but I’m not the mothering type. I’m clumsy at best. The only reason I haven’t been fired from the pub for breaking so many glasses is that I own it myself.”

  “You gave me up for adoption?”

  “Eventually, yes. I travelled down to London to keep ye as far from this place as I could but still keep you safe.”

  “There’s a bloody great river in London, Maggs.”

  She chuckled then, the twinkle back in her eye. “I worried about that for a while but folk told me it was so dirty that no one in their right mind would ever dip their child’s toe in it, let alone take them swimming. Disgusting thing.”

  “And my mum? You said you’d led her to me.”

  Maggs’s smile turned sad then and she looked down at her hands as she spoke, her voice barely audible. “She was a good woman, Ruth. I’ve forgotten how many rituals I’d tried to see into yer future but nothing worked. All I could see was yer present and it broke my heart to see ye so alone and so angry at the world. As soon as I met her I knew she’d be the perfect mother for a young man like ye. She knew our folklore and customs, and longed for a baby from these islands, but the community was so small she soon realised that would never happen. She told me her story the night before she and Alex were due to move to London. They’d met and married while he’d been working here on one of those new-fangled energy-producing wave machines. I told her about ye, and where ye were.”

  My thoughts formed as I spoke them. “I know you think you saved me, and that you’re still protecting me, but my whole life has been filled with questions that no one could ever answer. I have terrible dreams. I can do things that ordinary people can’t do. I’ve grown up knowing that I’m different to everyone around me. No one could tell me why. But you knew. You could have told me-”

  “I couldn’t. It wasn’t safe.”

  “Safe? My life has been anything but safe. I’ve been farmed out to live with some despicable people, Maggs. I’d rather you’d brought me up and dropped me a few times than some of the things I’ve gone through at the hands of others.”

  She wrung her hands as she spoke. “I’m sorry, beuy. I thought it was for yer own good.”

  “And now I’m here anyway. Great plan, Maggs, really great plan.”

  “I see yer point. I’m sorry that I’ve interfered as I have. I thought I was doing the right thing. Ye didn’t answer my question. If I can allow Dom to tell ye the truth about him, why he’s really here, will ye leave?”

  “I’ll consider it.”

  She closed her eyes and her lips moved a little, as if rehearsing or recalling some half-remembered phrase. Then she opened her eyes and smiled at me. “It’s done. I’ll leave ye two to talk.”

  After gathering her things she left. I watched her shuffle off into the distance and then, confident the house was aired, closed the door and windows.

  My body still ached from my injuries but I climbed the stairs to rest and wait for Dom to rise.

  As I turned left to go into my room I noticed that Dom’s bedroom door was slightly ajar. I hesitated at my own door and listened. His deep, slow breathing was all I could hear. I guessed that he was asleep. Slowly, I pushed against his door hoping that the hinges wouldn’t squeak. I pushed a little too hard and to my horror the door swung inwards so fast that I was frightened it would bang against the wall and wake Dom.

  I leaped forward and caught the handle just in time. To do so I crossed the threshold into his room.

  Looking up my jaw slackened.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Fragments

  Pinned to every surface of each wall was a newspaper cutting. Dom hadn’t closed his curtains and enough light made it through the filthy nets that hung at his window to make those closest to me visible. Each one detailed the killing of one or more seals, the bodies of which had been washed, or in some cases dumped, onto the beach. In one story a naked man had been seen running from the scene. The police had investigated but found nothing to link the two incidents together.

  Almost all of the yellowed cuttings blamed fishermen for the killings. The sharp decline in fish stocks meant greater competition and seals could be stopped with a bullet no matter how unethical it was.

  There were too many articles to read. I made it across one half of the wall to my left when I heard a movement behind me. Startled, it turned to see Dom’s face swathed in shadow, only the glint of his eyes signalling that he was awake and watching me.

  “What is this?”

  He didn’t answer. I took a step towards him, to ask again, but he pulled his knees up and hugged them to his chest as if afraid of me. I’d seen that reaction before in the children’s home when a kid was scared to speak the truth. “Do ye remember being born?”

  “Of course I don’t.” It might have been a lie. My earliest memory was fragmented. I recalled a body of water, stillness, raised voices, a terrible, spinning wall of waves, but that was all. It might have been some half-remembered dream. “Are you telling me that you do?”

  He nodded, pulling his knees up tighter to his chest. It was the same position I had taken on the sofa an hour ago after emptying my stomach onto the kitchen floor. “Like my brothers and sisters before me, Ah had two births; the first in water, the second on land.”

  I stood, speechless. Whatever Maggs had tried to do, it seemed to have worked. Lowering myself to the floor, I mirrored Dom’s posture.

  He watched me settle down to listen before he continued. “Ah don’t remember ma first birth but ma second was… brutal. As Ah climbed out of the sea ma skin fell away. Ah became something else. A man. Ah couldn’t understand with the feelings that rushed in tae take the place of what Ah now know tae be instincts. Ah howled like an abandoned pup and dove back into the water tae escape them but the feelings followed me, crashing against my skull like waves on rock. My mother nudged me, eager that Ah return to the land if only to retrieve ma skin. Ah closed my throat tight and reached out of the water, feeling for ma skin but the prickle of rough stone on these,” he held out his right hand and flexed his fingers as if seeing them for the first time, “scared me.”

  For all his size and strength Dom looked like the most fragile of boys at the children’s home, haunted by the memory of losing their parents or some recent experience at the hands of foster parents th
at no child deserved. I fought back the urge to fling myself across the room and hug him, not knowing how he’d react.

  “Ah looked back at my mother. She waited patiently, her expression unreadable tae ma new eyes. Ah turned back and pulled ma body out of the water. Ah took a step, maybe two before I heard the sound of an engine behind me. Ah turned to see a boat off shore. Fishermen. Ah paid them no notice. The sun came oot, felt so good on this skin. As Ah turned my head up to the light Ah saw that the fishermen were almost upon us. The men warned me tae get away. Ah heard a shot and my youngest sister screamed, rolled over in the water, but then didn’t move again. Her blood clouded the water around her. It was too late for the rest of them, too. Before my family could dive to safety the rest of the men opened fire. All dead but me. Ah took a bullet meant for another but Ah lived.” He rubbed his side unconsciously. “It was the only time that being a man wasn’t a curse.”

  “What are you saying? You’re a seal?”

  “Ah’m a Selkie. When ma sealskin is removed I become a human of sorts.”

  “And Mackay, how did he come to take you?”

  “He found me on the rocks, naked save for ma mother’s blood. Ah’d pulled her body from the water. He got me clothes, food, but Ah wouldn’t go with him. Ah slept on the rocks every night and he visited me every day until…”

  I realised what had happened then. “He took your sealskin, didn’t he?” I had spent so long thinking that no one’s life was as bad as mine that I’d never considered that Dom’s aggressive behaviour might be caused by his own rage against something that he couldn’t control; the death of his family and the theft of his sealskin. I couldn’t help but scoot across the floor, as close to Dom as I could get, before reaching up and touching his face, my palm resting below his ear as I ran my thumb along his cheekbone.

  Dom’s head hung low, his face shrouded in the darkness. It was getting colder. We sat in silence for several minutes, our breathing the only movement.

  Eventually Dom spoke again. “When our sealskins are stolen, we can hear the sound of tearing in our souls. I can still hear it, feel it. It’s like dying withoot the peace after.”

  “Why do you stand out on the beach every night?”

  “Ah’m waiting.”

  “For what?”

  “For peace but it doesn’t come. Maybe if Ah wait long enough the sea will take me back before Ah forget ma old life.”

  “Do you have anyone left?”

  He didn’t speak and that was all the answer I needed. If there were more like him out there they weren’t his family and I knew exactly how that felt.

  He took my silence to mean something else. “Ye don’t believe me? Ah understand.” Taking me by the wrist he took my hand away from his face and turned away from me.

  “Dom, where did you go last night when you disappeared?”

  “Ah can’t tell ye.”

  He didn’t want to tell me. “You must be cold,” I said, “and I’m uncomfortable. Let’s go and find somewhere warmer. I don’t know about you but I think better with a drink inside me.”

  “What do ye need tae think about?”

  “How we’re going to get your sealskin back.”

  Dom pulled an empty bottle of whiskey out from under the pile of rugs and looked guilty. “Ah drank the place dry weeks ago.”

  “Then we’ll go to the pub. It’ll be nice to have some normal people about us, especially now.”

  The pub was indeed warm. The smell of wood-smoke greeted us as we stepped in out of the cold. Dom’s face glowed red and his hands looked stiff while he flexed them with a grimace, cupped them over his mouth, and blew hard.

  “You got company, Dom?” said an unfamiliar barmaid, looking surprised.

  “This is Leven. He’s Mackay’s beuy.”

  “Mackay has a son?!” She looked at me, unconvinced, and then remembered her job. “What will it be?”

  “Two ales please. Ah’ll be back in a moment,” Dom said, and he disappeared through the door at the end of the bar.

  She placed the glasses on a dog-eared bar towel and cast a look over me. “We haven’t seen Mackay in here for a while now.”

  “He isn’t well.”

  “Is that so?” She seemed suspicious now. “What’s wrong with him?”

  “I’m not sure. He doesn’t talk about it.”

  “Is it AIDS?” The question shocked me and I became aware of the general sense of quiet in the pub. All eyes rested on me. “My uncle in Stromness had AIDS. Withered away he did. All chicken legs and a pot belly. Said it was his meds.”

  Dom reappeared at my side. “What’s going on?”

  My face finally felt hot. “She was asking about Mackay.”

  “That’s kind of ye, Bessie. He sends his regards.”

  Dom tossed some coins on the bar, picked up the drinks, and steered me towards the fireplace.

  “That woman is a wicked old cow,” said Dom, falling into a chair that looked as old and fragile as Mackay himself. “She’s been spreading rumours that he has some sort of disease caused by laying with men.”

  If it hadn’t felt so awkward, I might have smiled at the quaint way Dom had put it.

  “Did Mackay come here much?”

  “He did once he got bored of me.”

  “Well you are pretty shitty company, Dom.”

  “Mind your language, boy,” said a sturdy voice from behind me, causing me to spill my drink and swear again.

  “Millie!” Dom stood and then lurched past me to hug an old woman so tightly that I thought she might disappear into his jumper entirely. I was surprised to feel jealousy towards her.

  “Let go of me you big oaf,” the old woman’s muffled voice said. “You’ll be the death of me.”

  “Ye’ve survived more than that,” Dom chuckled, but he let the old woman go.

  Millie staggered a little and then sat in a chair that Dom pulled up for her. She tugged her tatty woollen hat down over her ears, snatched my glass, and took a big swig, smacking her hairy lips together in satisfaction. “And you must be Leven. Maggs told me about you. She said you’ll be leaving us soon.”

  “Don’t believe everything you hear.”

  She winked at Dom. “I like this one already. He’s got spirit.”

  “He’s going tae help me, Millie.” There was a solemnity to his voice that sealed the agreement between us and Millie was witness to it.

  She raised her eyebrows and let out a long whistle. “You’ve got your work cut out for you, lad. Dom here has been waiting a long time. Let’s hope that what you’ve agreed to won’t end up being dangerous for your health.”

  “You know about him?”

  “Of course I do. I was the first one he asked for help.”

  “But you didn’t help him?”

  “I tried, but…”

  “But what?”

  “It nearly killed me.”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Tall Story

  “What do you mean, it nearly killed you?”

  Millie drained my glass and shuffled her chair closer to me. Dom leaned in to listen. “Mackay has friends in low places, if you catch my drift.”

  “Criminals?”

  She looked at Dom and chuckled. “Something like that. They’re undesirables but they’re of a,” she indicated Dom, “different variety.”

  “Selkies?”

  Dom made a choking sound.

  “Keep your voice down, boy. Not Selkies. Fin-men.”

  “What are they?”

  “Sorcerers, shape shifters, thieves. They usually take us mortals but if you need something to be concealed you go to them.”

  “And you think Mackay gave them Dom’s sealskin?”

  “I’m sure of it.”

  “How so?”

  “Because of what happened when I got close to it. It was last year, a few days before Christmas. A fine, clear night lit only by the stars as the moon was dark. I’d covered almost every square foot of the island and unless the
Fin-men had hidden the skin in the ocean itself I was sure that I was almost upon it. I was on the northern coastal road when I saw something moving towards me. It was big. Too big to be a man. When I realised what it was I knew it might be too late for me.”

  “You recognised it?”

  “Only from the stories I’d heard growing up. My mother was a spiteful woman who frightened me with stories of it when I was bad. Nothing scares me like the Nuck.”

  “The Nuck?”

  “An evil thing. You’d be forgiven for thinking it was a man on horseback but you’d be wrong. It’s an unholy combination of fiend and steed. It can’t be outrun and you’d be mad to turn your back on it.”

  “So what did you do?”

  “Through my terror I remembered the one dim light of hope in my mother’s stories. The Nuck can’t cross fresh water.”

  I laughed. I had barely come to terms with the concept that Dom was a Selkie and now they expected me to swallow this? Maggs said she had only allowed Dom to tell me the unusual truth about himself. Millie must have lost her marbles and Dom was naive enough to believe her.

  “Hang on, you’re telling me that a creature that evil can’t cross a puddle?”

  Millie’s expression turned thunderous. “This information might save your life, boy. If you’ve any hope of helping Dom you can be sure you’ll need to face the Nuck.”

  She needed humouring. “Go on.”

  “I changed direction as close as I could to the stream that ran to my right. The Nuck changed direction too and sped up. Seeing my chance slipping away, I tore towards the running water as fast as I could. As soon as I thought I might make it I jumped with all my strength. It bellowed as I left the ground and I felt its breath, hot as fire, on my back. Then the pain blossomed on the back of my neck. I don’t know if it caught a handful of my hair or set light to it but,” she turned her head away from me and pulled up her hat to reveal a raw swathe of skin, “it won’t heal.”

  I looked from Millie to Dom and back again. This felt like too much and the tenuous belief I had that Dom was a Selkie had been stretched tighter by this tale.