Selkie Island
Page 2
“Why are you crying in my dream?”
“I’m not,” she denied and scrubbed her face of the evidence before she lifted a hand towards him. At his flinch, she stopped in midair and waited till he got used to the fact she was going to touch him. She brought cool fingers to his face and looked reassured. “The fever has broken, Clay, and you’re awake, you’re lucid.”
No. I’m not. But instead of arguing the point, he first drank as much as he could, the effort tiring him. As he let out a shaky breath, he fixed his gaze on her once more. “I know it’s a dream because I’m nine years older and you’re exactly the same as you were when I was twenty-one. Also, you’re wearing the clothes I gave you nine years ago. That wouldn’t happen.” He almost felt proud of this logic, that he could present it to this mirage.
She simply blinked at him, her brown eyes beautiful in the candlelight. “I don’t grow old, Clay.”
His head fell onto the bedding. Nothing made sense and exhaustion was threatening him. He rolled back on the makeshift bed.
“Remember we used to hold hands when we slept?”
He did, but he just watched her warily.
She pulled the blanket that had been covering just her and it went over both of them. Then she blew out the candle so the darkness returned. Explaining her actions, she said, “I don’t want you to get chilled. Now that you’re healing, it’s important you stay warm.”
Did the dying normally have so many detailed delusions, or was he particularly blessed?
Rather tentatively, she placed her hand in his, under the blanket. He remembered that hand—long-fingered and fine-boned. What the hell. He clasped it tight. Right now this delusion was the only thing he could hold on to and take comfort from. So he did.
Slumber took him.
The next time, he woke alone and it was daylight.
He was naked, probably had been for a while but hadn’t thought to notice. Now a blanket kept him warm and he didn’t shiver. He shifted to see that the place looked like the one he’d seen in candlelight during his dream that was increasingly feeling like not-a-dream.
Though Morag was gone. Perhaps that part of his candlelit memory had been a hallucination. Gingerly he sat up and the rather musty blanket fell away from him.
The air was cool, and he stank of sweat and salt. But he didn’t want to get cold again, as he’d been cold so often lately. He wrapped the blanket tight around him and surveyed the place.
He recognized it then, and little had changed in the small, barely furnished shack beside the lighthouse. This was the place that Morag had liked to call home.
“Your home away from home, you mean,” he’d said at one point.
At her flat no, he’d decided her attachment to the place was charming. But now, nine years on and no longer in the throes of his first true lust, her reaction seemed almost odd.
He’d talked to Morag last night when she’d appeared unnervingly real. He’d obviously gotten a lot of details right in the dream, in that he was in this shack, on this bedding. Sooner or later, he’d figure out how he’d gotten here from the boat. Perhaps he’d been so feverish he’d been out of his mind.
Sun streamed in through the two small windows. The shack was surprisingly clear of cobwebs which suggested someone had been around, unless he’d been cleaning in his delirium. Okay, don’t think too hard. It was making his head hurt.
He gazed around his shelter again. Many decades ago, a family had lived here, when the lighthouse required a keeper. Morag had told him she was a descendant of one of the early lighthouse families and spent her summers on the island. It was too small and thin an island to interest people nowadays, and only the seals were its real visitors. He hadn’t noticed any seals on the way in but then, he’d been rather single-minded at the time, just trying to reach that small beach before his fever incapacitated him.
He’d come here looking for a sanctuary of sorts. A place where no one who was trying to kill him could find him. He hadn’t expected to find Morag.
Wait a minute. He hadn’t. Morag was a dream, he told himself firmly. Unwrapping the blanket enough to look down at his thigh, he inspected the wound that had been cleaned and bound. Tentatively he fingered the bandage to feel that the bullet was gone, extracted presumably. Then he eyed the makeshift bed someone had placed him on. He was pretty sure he hadn’t been taking care of himself these past few days.
He wrapped himself up once more because he was starting to shake. Thirsty, he snaked out an arm and reached for the bottle of water left for him. Yes, it was his bottle, but it was full, and he’d been drinking it for a while now.
Okay, think things through. If it wasn’t Morag, someone else had cared for him. But who? And why? Had he been so feverish he’d been unable to tell one redheaded woman from another? It wasn’t surprising Morag would be on his mind, given where he was. That a stranger had taken care of him was worrisome at some level, but he couldn’t complain since it had also been lifesaving. Now that he was lucid again, it was becoming clear just how badly off he’d been. He was surprised he’d managed to buy a boat and drive it out here.
He just wished the present situation made more sense. In the light of day, he couldn’t pass this off as a dream or as hell. So instead, he drank down his water and realized he had to piss, badly. On somewhat shaky legs he rose, still cocooned in the goddamn blanket, and headed for the door. The shack didn’t have plumbing.
He pushed the door open and squinted against the sun as he stepped outside. The wind was strong—it couldn’t be anything else on this island where the wind hardly ever died—but it wasn’t punishing, and he managed to walk far enough away from the shack that he felt he wasn’t pissing where he slept. Afterwards he stumbled back inside to warm up. He was trembling from exertion by the time he shut the door and leaned against it.
Food. He needed to eat. Scanning the one-room house, his gaze stopped at his waterproof pack. So his caretaker had brought that up from the shore. Because if memory served him correctly—not an entirely sure bet at the moment—he’d collapsed before he’d reached here.
He dragged the pack over to his bed and sat down to dig out another protein bar. With some trepidation, he ripped open the package. Last time he’d munched on one of these he’d blacked out. So this time he took a small bite and chewed a lot, and could barely keep it down. He wanted to vomit.
Shit, this wasn’t good. He’d been running on empty before he’d fled Toronto. Now he was edging towards skin and bones.
He found he wanted to lie down again and rest, and this also alarmed him. He’d never been this helpless in his life. As he tried to convince himself to take another bite, the door’s rusty handle turned. Though he tried not to, he flinched as the door opened.
It wasn’t Aaron. It wasn’t Steeles, Aaron’s hired gun. Clay tried to calm his galloping heart.
A woman stood in the light, holding a bucket. He couldn’t make out her expression because she was backlit by the sun’s rays, but it was Morag’s voice that declared with some satisfaction: “You’re up.”
He was gaping, he knew, but he couldn’t stop. She entered, shutting the door, and he observed her closely. She was dressed in the clothes he’d given her long ago and while they didn’t look new, they didn’t look much worn either. Her face had not aged, and where before she’d seemed to be the mysterious older woman—by perhaps four years, a significant number at the tender age of twenty-one—now her mid-twenties seemed young to his thirty. Nine years ago and here she was. He found it hard to fathom.
“How are you feeling?” A mundane question and it was beyond him to answer. Besides, he didn’t want to speak and have his voice crack. She approached him, face serious. “You need to eat, Clay, so I’m going to make you chowder.”
“Oh,” he managed.
“I know, you aren’t a fan of seafood. But you’ll remember there’s no choice here and we need to get you better, right?”
“I guess,” he said faintly.
She f
rowned at that. “Of course we need to get you better and fish will do that.”
He remembered they’d eaten a lot of fish that summer they were together. Though he’d also gone for supplies in town, back when he wasn’t worried about CSIS finding him. Given his fugitive status, it didn’t seem like the greatest idea, even if he’d had the energy for such a shopping trip.
He gave his head a sharp shake. While the idea that this was still a dream held some appeal, he really had to let it go. Morag was here. He was here. They were talking. The hows and whys he’d figure out. He cleared his throat. “I have some food.”
She crouched by the bucket where she was efficiently gutting the fish. “Those awful wrapped things of yours? I attempted to eat one earlier. It was hard to swallow.”
He shrugged, trying not to feel defensive. The protein bars had been plenty useful over the years.
“They’ll make you sick. You need something lighter after not eating for so long. My mother taught me how to make chowder, remember?”
“Yes.” He remembered all her stories that he’d lapped up at the time and only later realized made no sense whatsoever. If the situation were different, he might have been able to summon up anger at the way she had deceived him. But she had just saved his life, and now she was cooking for him. Even if she was a compulsive liar, she had obviously made a real effort to help him.
He lay back down, tired and confused. Later, when he had more energy, he would ask her questions.
“Clay,” she ventured, gazing at him, her expression turning shy the way it used to. “I’m so sorry you got hurt. You worried me a lot this past week.” Week? He’d been out a week? “But I’m very glad you came back to see me.”
He just stared until she looked disappointed by his lack of response and returned to the work of food preparation. But he didn’t know what to say. He’d come back to the island. Almost a decade later, he’d come back out of desperation and because he had nowhere else to run. He’d thought Morag would be long gone.
Chapter Three
It hurt her heart to see Clay like this—wounded, tense, older. The jump in age made her sad, as if she’d missed something important in the intervening years while she’d been mostly the ocean’s creature.
But what was really hard to see was how harmed he’d been by someone who had put a bullet into his leg. They’d drained him of energy—he was too thin—and something had filled him with doubt and fear.
So unlike the Clay she’d known. Though her mother had once said young men were the only people in the world to think they could conquer life and even they eventually learned they could not.
The last time she’d seen Clay, he’d been twenty-one and oozing self-confidence. He hadn’t known how to be scared and that had fascinated her, given her own approach to life.
Having drowned once scarred a person, even one who spent most of her time as a seal. Being a seal made it easy for her to catch fish though, which was important for Clay right now. The chowder took time to make, but he needed something broth-like and nourishing instead of those inedible dry bars he’d brought with him.
When it was cooked, she carried the chowder to him, and he roused himself, wrapping the blanket around him a little self-consciously. That hurt too. He’d had no self-consciousness about his body back then, showing it off to her when he had the chance and he’d been beautiful. The beauty was still there, but there had been damage and he needed to heal.
“Where’d you get the milk for the chowder?”
She grinned at the question. “You asked me that last time.”
“Yes.”
Her smile died at his serious expression.
“But at that time I believed everything you said.”
She blinked, unsure of his meaning, though clearly he was suggesting she lied. But he was too weary for any real confrontation, so she just said, “Clay, try to eat something. You need it.”
He bent his head over the banged-up pot, dipped in his spoon and drank in a tiny amount. Lifting his gaze in surprise, he laughed a little. Laughter had always come easily to him. “It doesn’t make me want to throw up.”
“That’s a start.”
He took another spoonful, more eager now. As he continued, he even ate a bit of fish.
“Don’t overdo it,” she warned. “Your stomach’s not used to eating.”
He just looked at her, spoon resting against the edge of the pot, and she shifted uneasily. “Why are you helping me?” he demanded.
The question and the suspicion behind it took her aback. She didn’t know what answer he was looking for, but she gave him the simple truth. “Because I want to.”
“Why?” he persisted. She frowned at his strange vehemence. Then he shrugged, trying to slough off his question, and looked down at the spoon he held. “Never mind. Perhaps you’d help anyone.”
She considered this. “Maybe,” she allowed. “But you’re special.”
His mouth twisted. “Because…?”
“Because you’re Clay and you told me you loved me.”
He stared and she tried not to squirm as his dark eyes grew bright with emotion. “Was that a joke to you?”
“No.” She didn’t understand his anger and hoped he would explain it to her. Maybe not now, he was too tired, but later.
“You didn’t say it back, Morag, if I recall.”
She ate some chowder to avoid his gaze. It was true. She’d held on to those words, kept “I love you” for herself, even though it wasn’t something you could keep for yourself. She’d learned that after he’d left. “I was waiting.”
He lifted his eyebrows. “For what?”
“For you to come back.”
“Right.” His tone was scoffing and he laid the spoon down. Settling himself on the bed again, he regarded her with heavy eyelids. She would make him eat more later. “Well, I’m back. Love me now?” His tone was flip and he didn’t expect an answer, didn’t want one.
She couldn’t understand his anger, his tired anger, although his exhaustion made total sense.
He looked at the ceiling as he continued. “I came back that autumn in early October, nine years ago, looking for you. I got laughed at for asking after you, for asking about Selkie Island. They wanted to know if I believed in fairy tales. They said you didn’t exist.”
“Very few people know about me. I told you that.”
“They said no one could live on the island, unless they were a selkie. Big joke. Ha-ha.” He sighed. “One asshole asked me if I believed in voodoo too.”
She wasn’t sure what voodoo was, but it evidently had offended him.
“That’s because I’m black, Morag.” The words came out clipped and she couldn’t understand the meaning behind them. He didn’t look at her, and it seemed that saying she was a selkie wasn’t going to work here and now.
“You made a fool of a black boy from Toronto.”
She shook her head. He’d been touchy about the color of his skin. People had judged him on it, he’d told her, though not everyone. From her childhood, she didn’t remember anything about skin color. The number of people she’d met had been limited. And later, her visitors too. All she knew was he’d been beautiful from the first time she’d set eyes on him, and generous with his smiles and laughter and affection.
“I’d be angry with you now except”—here he smiled but it was a ghost of his old warmth—“you saved my life and you’re giving me food to eat.”
She wanted to offer him something but she didn’t know where to begin. “I told you what I could.”
He closed his eyes. “What does that mean? You wouldn’t even give me your age. At the time, I thought you were being coy.”
That set her back on her heels. Did she strike him as coy? “I can’t tell you, Clay. I was born long ago. I don’t have a proper age.”
“Yeah, I remember you said that too. At the time I found it charming.” The anger was fading as his voice became slurred with sleep. “A strange way to tease.”
“Uh-huh.” He lifted heavy lids to look at her, eyes no longer feverish-bright, but alert. “I forgave you years ago. I figured it was more about you than me. But at first, I was quite angry.” His mouth quirked. “Wounded pride, I’ll admit it. I thought I was over my anger until I saw you again. But it doesn’t matter.”
She wanted to matter a little. Seeing him here, despite his fatigue, his damage, brought her joy. She wouldn’t think too hard on how this was going to end, though end it would. Just not yet.
Despite the risk of his rebuff, she lay down beside him. She, too, was tired after turning seal and fishing for them both. Looking after him was going to keep her busy, a notion that captivated her. She hadn’t been busy for such a long time.
He snaked his hand out of his blankets and grabbed hers. “You weren’t my first, but I fell quite hard for you.”
“I missed you, Clay.”
“I gave you my address.”
“I couldn’t—”
“—leave the island,” he finished for her. “I never believed that. After all, we first met on the shore, when you told me to come here.” And then she took two days to show herself here. He’d thought the cute redhead had tricked him, but he hadn’t cared, had liked the novelty of being by himself on the island in the middle of the ocean.
“The shore is close enough, in this small bay, but I cannot go farther,” she said sadly.
“And yet, you weren’t around in October.”
“I was around…” she held her breath, not ready to say the words, and yet it seemed important to speak them, “…as a seal.”
He let out a long exhale, closing his eyes. “When I am better, I’ll worry about you and your stories.”