The Selkie

by Melanie Jackson

  “Ach, laddie!” Mr. Campbell answered, setting down his walking stick. He rubbed a hand over his bald pate and limped forward. “As well to ask how the sea works. In principal ’tis simple enough. Think of this wire as being a very long horse wi’ his head in me shop and his arse in Edinburgh. The lassie shouts her message into this end and it’s delivered out the other a short time later.”

  Hexy picked up the handset, ignoring Mr. Campbell’s vulgar explanation.

  “Well, it’s right glad I am that we hae the head end of the horse here,” Ruairidh finally said, watching intently as Hexy began cranking the handle on the side of the wooden box. “I’d nae like to see the other when the message arrives.”

  Mr. Campbell laughed, but he eyed Ruairidh curiously.

  The shouted conversation with the Edinburgh hotel manager that followed was confused, and Ruairidh suspected not likely to lead to the prompt return of his skin. The most he could hope for was that Miss Foxworthy would discover that there was an urgent message from her secretary—whatever that was—and somehow contact Hexy at Fintry.

  “Well, that is all I can do for now,” she said, hanging up the thing she had held to her ear. “As a precaution I’ll post a letter to Wales straightaway if Mr. Campbell…?”

  “Certainly, lass. I have some paper to spare.” The postmaster began rummaging through his desk. His gaze was curious as it rested on Ruairidh, but he asked no impolite questions.

  “Thank you. As you have gathered, the matter is an urgent one.”

  “Aye, I gathered so.” He handed her a paper, a quill and a pot of ink. He added rather pointedly, “Missing furs are always a problem in these parts.”

  Hexy nodded absently as she seated herself and began writing. Ruairidh knew that she found his presence to be a distraction, but she didn’t ask him to step away. His kind were comforting in their warmth. And he knew that his attention made her feel beautiful and important, in spite of her red nose and apparently domestic position. It was a gift that the People had, and he was happy to share it with her.

  “So this is about poaching, or whatever you call it? I am relieved to find that you are actually a savory character and not here for some nefarious purpose. I had my doubts about you in the beginning,” Hexy told Rory happily, as they left the small cottage where the postmaster lived. She had left some money on the desk to pay for the call and the postage for the letter. “I even wondered for a moment if you were maybe a little mad.”

  Rory blinked, a slow closing of the lids, that showed off his lashes and that Hexy suspected was habitual. It was also quite alluring.

  “Savory, am I? Surely that is what ye call yer meat pasties made frae these balls o’ fur?” He gestured at the black-faced sheep nearby.

  Hexy laughed. “It is also the name of an herb.”

  “So now I’m a plant. Are ye by chance having a game with me? Playing with Sassenach words and such?” he asked, looking down at her from his superior height. His lips made their odd curl.

  “Perhaps a small game,” she admitted. “The language is still rather new to me. It all sounds very strange and even funny. I’ve only just gotten accustomed to English English, and now you speak Gaelic and Scots at me. You must remember that I am but a simpleminded female.”

  “Aye? Then allow me tae tell ye in yer English English that yer one of the least simple women I’ve ever met—and it has been my luck tae not avoid an acquaintance with ye.” He added on a mutter, “And tae think that it was all brought about by the drowning.”

  Hexy blinked and sorted out his periods. She smiled slowly.

  “I am not especially good at puzzles or mathematics, but I do believe that that was a compliment. Except maybe the drowning part. What does that mean?”

  “You must be very bad with sums and plussages. But mayhap you should be forgiven this once, since it was all said in the confused Sassenach tongue,” Rory answered. He shook his head, but he said it with a small smile. He did not answer her question about drowning.

  “Rory, would you perhaps like to come back to Fintry and have some tea with me?” Hexy heard herself asking.

  The question shocked her a bit. She knew that they were being observed out of every door and window. The village was the repository of all the castle gossip. The inhabitants were a high-minded, moral people in all respects save one: They were inquisitive. Of course, that was universal. In a small village, rumor-mongering was almost compulsory.

  Hexy realized that she was holding her breath, waiting for an answer—though whether she hoped for a reply in the affirmative, she truly could not say.

  “Aye, that I would. As long as ye put nae salt in the brew,” he added, his tone suddenly warning. “I cannae abide land salt.”

  Hexy stared at him, trying to decide if he was making a joke. She thought he must be. Who had ever heard of putting salt in tea?

  “Well, that’s what we’ll do, then.” She confided, “I was a little afraid that you would hurry straight off again.”

  “Oh, I shan’t be doing that,” he assured her. “We shall be quite close until my fur is returned tae me.”

  Hexy again turned to stare at him.

  “Of course, I am certain that Jillian would like to offer the hospitality of Fintry to any of the late Mr. MacKenzie’s friends, but—” A sudden sneeze interrupted her. Two fat tears rolled out of her eyes.

  “Guid. I shall be happy to accept your offer. Best we get on tae the castle now, before ye get bad again. Something here has ye weeping like a banshee.”

  Rory leaned over, and for one minute she thought he meant to again lick the tears from her cheeks. But instead he brushed them away with his thumbs. The touch seemed to make him tremble.

  “I think I’m allergic to Scotland,” she complained, unable to find the words to contradict Rory’s self-invitation, and not truly wanting to, in spite of the potential for the sort of gossip that would make her notorious. She added with an air of thoughtfulness, “Or maybe it’s just you.”

  “Nay, it isn’t me that has set you tae weepin’.” He added under his breath, “At least, not yet.”

  “What?”

  “I said that I like ye.”

  “We’ll see how you feel after I put pepper in your tea,” Hexy muttered. She bent down and picked up a stone to hurl into the sea.

  “What are ye about, lass?” Rory asked her as she threw her rock with special vehemence.

  “Oh.” Hexy blushed as she realized what she had done. “It’s just a local custom. It’s supposed to keep the sea monsters away. I thought I’d make sure that none were creeping up on us. I’d hate to lose you so soon.”

  Rory shook his head, his tone serious as he answered. “Those gray rocks willnae keep any monsters away—unless they are wee, timid beasties. What ye need is one of those red stones filled wi’ iron. Even then, ye’d best hit what yer aiming at, fer casting rocks will only make the monsters wroth wi’ ye.”

  Hexy smiled and shook her head. “It isn’t nice of you to tease the Sassenach, you know.”

  “It isnae nice of the Sassenach tae be teasing me,” he pointed out. “But ye dae it anyway.”

  “You have a point,” Hexy admitted.

  Chapter Three

  It was after four when they returned to Fintry. The sky was nowhere near dark yet, but the sunlight was definitely on the ebb, and Helios’s fiery chariot was descending toward the ocean. The tide had turned and with it the breeze, bringing inland both the salt tang of the cold gray water and the murmur of the tidal lullaby.

  Hexy’s footsteps slowed as they mounted the uphill drive to the castle. Here the wild ocean could be heard plainly as it threw itself on the granite shore.

  Yesterday, the sound of the waves had seemed an unhappy one, haunting even her dreams. But for some reason, the shushing water and seabirds’ cries no longer made her feel cold and lonely. The sound was, in fact, alluring. She had an urge to slip off her shoes and go back down to the rocky beach and wade in the cold surf. The froth
would tickle her skin as it inched higher. If she went out far enough, the waves would pick her up in salty arms and rock her—

  “Are ye coming, lass, or hae I lost ye tae the sea?” Rory asked, his voice as gentle as the ocean but deeper than the shallow waters that whispered on the sand. He watched her with his bottomless eyes, looking oddly sympathetic to her abstraction.

  “Yes, of course I’m coming.” Hexy shook her head, scolding herself for letting her mind wander. “The sound of the ocean is hypnotic though, isn’t it?”

  “Aye, that it is.” Still smiling at her air of pensiveness, Rory held out his hand to her, pretending once she took it that it required great effort to tow her up the steep hill.

  “I wonder why others here don’t seem to feel it,” she puzzled, happy to have her fist tucked into Rory’s palm. “And the people inland don’t seem to like it at all. Many are even afraid.”

  Rory smiled, obviously pleased with something, but Hexy couldn’t guess what.

  “Ye maun be here in the awakening season to appreciate it.”

  “Awakening season? Oh—spring!”

  Rory nodded.

  “Most people willnae come here because this isnae a great city, and it is these sheltered inlanders who are used as a country’s eyes and mouth. And they use their inlanders’ beliefs and impressions tae judge the rest of the world, and tae tell the world of us. But what they hae forgotten is that it wasnae always sae. Once, before man had the way of growing the crops, all lived near the sea, because it was here that there was the bounty needed tae live.”

  Hexy had a sudden vision of an ancient people huddled around a giant fire as they pried open black mussels.

  “They forget—or choose tae ignore—that we of the sea are the first tae see all wha come tae this island. We are the first tae know when change comes frae the sea.” Rory laughed, a strange but joyous noise that rose from the back of his throat. “And mayhap a passage on a rough sea gives some arrogant outsiders an incurable dislike of the coast, and they never again try tae embrace the deep and her mysteries…and mayhap we prefer it that way.”

  Much of what Rory said seemed to be non sequiturs or even nonsensical, and yet it appealed to Hexy on some subconscious level. He conjured up more visions of bearded men, sitting by a watch fire as they looked toward the water for invaders, some human, some not. The image stayed with Hexy until the sound of the ocean faded completely.

  Fintry Castle was waiting for them at the edge of the plateau, and though Rory was with her still holding her hand, and she felt a sort of unfamiliar inner happiness, the building appeared no more welcoming than it ever was.

  The castle was not some pretty pleasure palace that left one feeling enchanted or bemused. The emotions it engendered were closer to grim foreboding, for it had about it an air of ancient misfortune that colored the nearby land like a northern winter even on a fine spring day. Those ancient men hadn’t huddled on this beach indefinitely. Soon they’d learned the art of building walls of stone to keep themselves safe.

  Hexy recovered from her odd reverie once the spell of the ocean was pulled from her ears and the sun’s rays taken from her dazzled eyes. She quickly showed Rory into one of the less disgraceful parlors the derelict castle had to offer and bade him make himself at home.

  After fetching her guest one of Mr. MacKenzie’s shirts to replace the one that had been purloined, she hurried for the kitchen to put together a tea tray.

  She shivered as she worked. It wasn’t that the castle’s interior was especially cold, but away from Rory, it felt dead, as if she was standing inside the rotting stone heart of an earthly corpse. The whole castle smelled of age and perpetual damp, and the atmosphere sometimes affected her with its air of dank oppression. It was as far from paradisiacal as she could imagine any place to be.

  However, she did not complain aloud. Mistress Maggie, the cook, in a rare showing of leniency, had kept the kettle on for her, and it took Hexy only a moment to arrange the tea things on a tray. She wished that it was acceptable to serve tea in the kitchen, where the room was warm and full of the scent of scones, but Rory was company, a friend of the late Mr. Mackenzie’s, and as such was entitled to crisp linens, silver spoons and tea in the best parlor.

  Inexplicably uneasy about leaving her unusual guest for too long, Hexy quickly added a small bowl of sugar and a pitcher of milk to the waiting cups and teapot and then hefted the silver tray. Charles II was said to have thought tea capable of vanquishing heavy dreams, easing the brain and strengthening the memory.

  “All consummations devoutly to be wished for,” she thought with a smile for the Bard of Avon who, like tea, was useful in almost any situation.

  Humming under her breath, and quite forgetting to check that she was in her most kempt state, Hexy carried the tray in front of her and started cautiously for the shallow stairs.

  “Here we are, then,” she said, pushing open the door of the parlor with her hip and easing the tray onto the tiny table near the room’s empty hearth. Rory stood there, one foot propped against the tender where he examined his crude shoe with a sort of horrified fascination. “It isn’t the most sumptuous tea ever, but the cream scones and marmalade bitters are very good.”

  “Ye’ve come tae gruntle me up?” Rory turned from his pedal examination and inhaled. His dark eyes gazed into hers and he asked solemnly, “There isnae salt in it? In this brew or in the bread?”

  Hexy blinked and thought back to earlier in the day, when she had watched Maggie mixing the dough. She had used flour and sugar and heavy cream. And there must have been baking soda, though she didn’t recall seeing her add it or salt into the dry mixture.

  It seemed a silly, pointless thing to worry about, yet under the force of that dark gaze she found that she could not lie. Especially not after he reached out and ran a finger along her neck.

  “Tell me true now, lass.” His voice seemed to come at her from a long distance and she felt momentarily dizzy.

  “I am not certain if there is salt in the scones,” she answered finally as the room righted itself and stopped quivering. “But I am quite certain that there is none in the tea, for I have just made it.”

  Rory nodded. “I will join ye, then, in a cup of yer brew.”

  Still feeling somewhat off balance, Hexy reached carefully for the squat pot.

  “Are you chilled? If you like I could light the fire,” she said, glancing at the narrow window, which let in only a small amount of light.

  “Nay. We’ve nae need of fire.” His tone suggested distaste. Perhaps he was one of those Scots who saw concern for the comforts of the flesh as a form of moral weakness.

  “Cream?” she asked.

  “Frae a cow?” He sounded horrified. “Nay! I’ll not drink the milk of some stupid, lumbering animal.”

  “Hm—I hadn’t thought of it that way.”

  Hexy handed him the cup and saucer, watching the way he examined the cup, turning it about carefully, as though it were a completely alien thing.

  Seeing her eye upon him, he said easily, “ ’Tis much like a shell. I’ve nae seen a thing so delicate upon the land—unless it be yerself. Yer skin has the same glow.”

  Hexy blushed, not so much at the compliment but because, without giving any sign of interest in a standard flirtation, he still seemed to mean it.

  “The porcelain is very fine. It is Limoges, in fact,” she said to hide her discomfort. The subtle inlay covered in gold twinkled in the late afternoon light. Ridiculously, she heard herself add, “It was one of the first hard porcelains manufactured in Europe.”

  “Aye?”

  “The first porcelains came from China. In the East.”

  He nodded, but she had the oddest feeling that her words didn’t mean anything more to him than her description of the telephone before he had seen it used.

  Vaguely baffled but unable to follow the meaning of these thoughts, she poured out her own tea.

  “Sae, ye were born across the ocean?”
r />   “In America, yes. My family comes from Philadelphia, the City of Brotherly Love.”

  “Ah, a city of love? That maun be a nice change frae the usual city. Ye liked it there?”

  His eyes were calm, beautiful. And they made for disjunctive thought.

  “I think it must be less affectionate than in the days of yore. I did not find the people there particularly loving. Or lovable,” she answered, more or less at random. “I moved closer to the coast when I could. Then my brother died.”

  “Ah. And then ye came here.” Rory inhaled the steam from his cup. “Tell me now, lass, dae ye ken the words tae the tune ye were humming?”

  Rory’s eyes snagged her as he asked this, his gaze soft but oddly compelling as it rested on her face.

  “Humming?” Hexy thought about the question. “Oh! You mean just now? No, I don’t. I am not even certain I know the name of the song, though it seems as if I should. It has been in my head for a day or two now. It’s strange, isn’t it, how something can be so familiar and yet so elusive? Do you know it?”

  Rory lowered his eyes to his teacup and said casually, “ ’Tis called ‘The Great Silkie.’ It is about the selkie of Sule Skerry. It is a special song sung on the coast, made up of what we call a humpbacked rhythm.”

  “The great silkie?”

  “Aye. ’Tis about the seal man and his human love.” He lifted his eyes, studying her face for a reaction.

  “I think I heard something about the seal people of Scotland many years ago. My granddad was always telling us wild stories. He said we had to leave Scotland because the women of our family were followed by a bane that stole them away, and that any fate that was corrigible should be avoided. Imagine being that superstitious! And he was a doctor too.”

  Hexy shook her head, but even as she did it, a voice reminded her that her brother, also a doctor—and not raised in a small village—had not thought the family legends so outrageous. Nor had the late Mr. MacKenzie, if she now understood Jillian’s cryptic warning about lovers rather than monsters coming from the sea.