The Selkie

by Melanie Jackson

  Hexy shivered, considering how it was that the sin eater might have acquired his knowledge. She wanted to reject the notion that a sin eater could actually have absorbed the experiences of his predecessor by consuming the baked meats laid out on the corpse’s body, but she couldn’t dismiss the notion as easily and as entirely as she might have a month earlier.

  “I don’t want to know anything personal about Morag Campbell. I need some help locating someone else. I need to know—” Hexy swallowed, and then said bluntly, “I need to find a creature, a finman called Sevin who lives in a place called Wrathdrum. I thought that perhaps Morag had known someone who was familiar with this place.”

  It was the sin eater’s turn to be unbalanced. His smoldering pipe fell to the ground, scattering red embers as it landed awkwardly on the packed earth.

  “Och! Why dae you seek the sorcerous monster Sevin?” he asked harshly, bending to retrieve his pipe. The burning embers touched his withered flesh as he groped for the bowl, but he didn’t seem to feel them. “No good can come of it, mistress, I warn thee.”

  She agreed with the old man, but her options were all but gone. She was certain now that it was not family matters that detained Ruairidh. And this man seemed the only person who knew anything concrete about the other, invisible society that lived on the outskirts of the land. She didn’t want to risk endangering Ruairidh or herself by admitting to what would be seen by many as a blasphemous union, but she didn’t feel that she had much choice. She reminded herself that the sin eater had said he was like a priest, and that he had probably seen so much wickedness that he would not be shocked by anything she said. Besides that, he felt safe.

  But even with these rationalizations, it took Hexy a moment to answer. Admitting out loud, to a witness, what she believed was happening made it all real. After this there was no turning back, no possible denial of what she believed. She could not someday tell herself that she had had a brain fever that made her imagine wild things, for there would be another person who knew that she was not in the clutches of illness when she said them.

  Ruairidh had teased her that she was probably bad at sums and plussages, and it was true. So she calculated everything again, slowly and carefully. But no matter how she totaled up the facts, she still came up short of needed knowledge. Frankness, at least to a degree, was called for on both sides if she was to learn what she needed to know.

  Throwing away more caution, Hexy answered plainly.

  “I believe that this monster of Wrathdrum has stolen the soul of someone this friend of mine knows, and I fear that my friend—this person I love—has gone to retrieve it.” She stopped then, refusing to voice any more of her fears of what might have happened to Ruairidh. “Do you know where I could find the finman? Do you know where this place called Wrathdrum is?”

  “I don’t know Wrathdrum. It isn’t the concern of men, sae I do not search for knowledge of it. There’s wickedness enough in our world.” The reply was instant and emphatic.

  “Please. Help me. I sense that I have very little time.” Involuntarily, her hand settled on her stomach. “You must know something that can help me. I have to find my friend.”

  Padraig considered this, his blind eyes moving over her and settling on her shielding hand as though he could actually see inside her.

  “You are with twins? Children of a selkie?”

  Hexy swallowed.

  “I…Yes. I believe so. And I am afraid for them. They need something I can’t give them.”

  Padraig sighed and then relented. “I know nothing personally. But the sin eater before me met this Sevin once, long ago.” Padraig closed his eyes, his brows knitting as though he searched his memory for something obscure. His voice grew thin and light. “It was in the time of the harvest moon, when the sky was shadowed with smoke. Iain was walking by the shore one night when a blue horror rose out of the rocks and tried tae suck out his soul.”

  Padraig laughed suddenly. The sound was pleasant even if his words were not.

  “There are few benefits tae being what we are. The priests hate us for taking work from them, and the devil surely hates us for keeping true sinners from his toils. Aye, there are many dangers, not the least of which being that we shall not find a new sin eater tae take away our wickedness when it is our time tae die. But Iain’s tainted soul saved him that night. That horrid creature put his spiked teeth over Iain’s nose and tried tae suck the spirit out of him. But the meal was tae large, bloated by all those years of collecting sins, and he could not get it all down in one breath. The nasty creature started tae choke and vomited the soul back up—minus a particularly bad sin or twa—and while he was felled in a heaving heap, Iain was able tae flee him, his own burden of wickedness much lighter thereafter.”

  Padraig stopped smiling. When he spoke again his voice had returned to normal. “I should not make light of this. Sevin is an evil and dangerous creature, mistress, and doubtless grown more powerful over the years as he has consumed sinful soul after sinful soul. Look at me! Look at my face! And the body is the same. The wages of sin are terrible. And I am not malevolent by nature, nor do I traffic in evil magic.” He asked gently, “Are you certain that you must seek him out? You are an innocent, mistress. He’ll want your soul badly. He’ll want the babes’ souls even more. Is there no one else tae go tae Wrathdrum for you?”

  Hexy stroked her hand down her belly. “I don’t know if there is anyone else seeking him. No one may know that he has been called away.” She shook her head. “Perhaps his family is searching, but I don’t know where to find them and am certain that I must go regardless. If Ruairidh is in danger, then I must be there. We are tied together now and share the same fate. And I know that without me something dreadful will happen when he meets this monster.”

  Padraig again closed his eyes and communed with some internal voice or memory. After a moment, he nodded in agreement.

  “Very well, then; so mote it be.” He laid his pipe aside and sat up straight. Suddenly he seemed tall and strong. “There has been an accident. I was called last night tae the home of some lads who were bringing in some liquor from France. It is not uncommon in these parts. Duties are outrageous, and free trade without Sassenach interference is considered the right of every Scotsman,” he added blandly.

  He meant smuggling. Hexy was surprised that it still happened, now that the war was over, but merely nodded and said, “Go on.”

  “Well, the accident came about near the isle of the chapel of the fishermen. Do you know the place?”

  “Yes.”

  “A deal of cargo was left behind. Be there tomorrow morning as early as you may and watch the rocks on the north side of the isle carefully. It often happens that there are seafolk who visit these sad sites for a bit of looting. It may be that one of them can direct you to this monster’s home.” The blind eyes again turned her way. “Now, you have brought me a gift?”

  “Yes.” Hexy withdrew the pouch of tobacco from her shawl and placed it in Padraig’s lap. A brown hand quickly covered it, the fingers caressing.

  “The MacKenzie always did have the finest of smoke weed,” Padraig said happily. “Well, then, since this is such a fine gift, I will tell you something else. The creature you are likely to meet is called a merrow. He’s a sort of merman. Be careful not to ask his name. Be polite. And above all, do not let him think that you want his drink, for they do not at all care to share their liquor.”

  The old man cleared his throat and began a weak coughing. He seemed to shrink in upon himself, returning to his former, diminished stature.

  “Get along now, before you make yourself ill with yew poisoning. Eat some fish without salt before the babe sickens. Then go bathe in the sea. And if you can bear it, go later tae the kirk and say a prayer. I don’t cotton to the kirk myself, but you shall need as many blessings as you may get.”

  Hexy stood up. Her knees were weak, frightened by what she had set in motion, but they bore her because there was no choice. “Thank you
for talking to me. It was kind of you to let me invade your privacy.”

  “I need no thanks for this day’s work—and shall take none. If you survive, mistress, come see me again and we’ll talk of other, better things.”

  He didn’t offer a second time to cleanse her soul. Probably because he knew that if the finman captured her, there might be a body to lay out but there would be no soul in it to look after.

  Hexy straightened her spine against that thought.

  If that was to be the case then, as Padraig had said: so mote it be.

  She did not allow herself to think about the babies she was carrying. That would weaken her as surely as her own fears and doubts. The time for fear was past. Her course was resolved upon. Tomorrow she would go to the fisherman’s island.

  “Slainte mhath,” Hexy said, turning to leave, completing the ritual with wishes for Padraig’s health. She wouldn’t have worried about such niceties in the past, but now she did. Never again would she disdain rituals.

  “Slainte mhor,” Padraig answered, his returned wishes sounding like a blessing. “And may the hand of God shelter you on your journey, mistress.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  She was getting stronger and her sense of direction better. It was as though muscles and bones and senses were all finally being put to proper use after a long sleep. Hexy had no difficulty rowing the boat over to the fishermen’s deserted island and past the reef where she could now plainly see the jagged upthrusts of gray stone that lurked just below the surface. Nor was it any great effort to pull the watersaturated boat up on shore above the tidal line, though attempting such an act would not have been considered even the week before.

  There was a new acuity to her other senses as well that was sometimes actually painful. Sight, hearing and especially her sense of smell were all now particularly keen. The repairs continued at Fintry, but Hexy avoided the workmen as much as possible. Their curious gazes annoyed her. Also, her sense of smell had grown so profound that to be near them and their perspiration-soaked woolens was a battery on her olfactory nerves.

  The only thing worse than the smell of the workmen’s unwashed bodies was the open cesses being converted to modern sanitation systems. Since that was the case, Hexy wished the workmen all good speed and hoped that native bashfulness would continue to win out over curiosity, and that they would leave her unquestioned. It would be agony if she had to send them away before the conversion was done, but if she had to, she would dismiss them as well, and worry about explaining her actions to Jillian later.

  The other unpleasant thing about her situation was that she—or perhaps it was the babes inside her—were hungry all the time, and they filled her mind with clamoring. She found that drinking lemonade and eating uncooked fish somewhat appeased the cravings but knew that there had to be something else—something less dear to the purse than the precious lemons and something less repellent than raw fish—that would better suit their needs. Unfortunately, she had yet to find out what it was. Many of the shellfish she saw on the rocks were appealing, but she knew that some species were poisonous. In an act of madness, she had even tried eating seaweed, but that had been so disgusting that she had been unable to swallow it even after it was boiled into submission. The hunger was left ravening, eating up her reserves of strength and peace of mind.

  Her poor mind! It, like her belly, was oddly empty now. Fear had been banished. Occasional thoughts of the outside world and its worries would enter her brain, but perhaps these cares felt lonely with no other thought or worldly ambition to cling to, for they did not stay long.

  Perhaps it would be different if any of her family still lived. Then she would have some reason to cling to her old life and resist the course that she was taking. But she was quite alone in the world except for Ruairidh and her unborn children. She had no ambition now save to see Ruairidh again. And that ambition was with her day and night.

  Ruairidh cocked his head and tried to listen for something that most confoundedly could not be heard with the ear. It was a futile gesture, a ridiculous one, but there had been several times in the last four tides that he had been fairly certain that Hexy was speaking to him.

  It was ridiculous fancy, of course, but that morning he could almost hear her breaths of exertion as she performed some task—perhaps rowing a boat.

  But that was simply his own impatience and worry talking. Short of being magicked, Hexy would never willing take a boat out onto the sea. She was still nervous about being in the deep water, and possibly would be all of her life.

  He felt badly for being away so long, for as the child grew she would begin having cravings for fruit, and Hexy would start being uncomfortable without it. But a single, female babe would not truly require any special food for another moon’s phase. It was different in the cases where women bore twins, but those babes were always male. It made sense that their cravings would be stronger.

  It was fortunate for both of them that she was pregnant with a girl child. If it were otherwise, Ruairidh would have to choose between staying in Avocamor and persuading his people to preparedness for war with the finmen, and returning to Hexy and their babe.

  He would have been loath to leave now because the tide of argument had turned; he was sure the People were prepared now to defend themselves if given a plan and a leader to guide them.

  Ruairidh smiled. It had partially been his inspired argument that the finman’s magic could be used against the young selkie’s new human partners that had turned the battle in his favor. Enough of the young men were in the throes of mating protectiveness that they had been inspired to agree to go to the sometimes hated land dwellers’ defense.

  The People did not make war on women—any women—nor would they allow others to do so. They were too precious and too necessary for the selkies’ survival.

  It took Hexy no more than half an hour to walk the edge of the tiny islet to the windward side of the stony dome. She simply followed the sky trail of the rasp-voiced skuas, one of which trailed a bit of lace like a kite as it called her on. Like the avian messengers in the fairy tales of old, they led her directly to the creature the sin eater had told her to look for.

  The merrow sat atop a rock on the far side of the island, a safe distance out from the shore. Beside him was a broken crate filled with bottles, and the smell of brandy was thick in the air. It was a local lad’s smuggled cargo, no doubt.

  No longer surprised by the existence of things she had previously doubted, Hexy waded out into the surf and forced herself to smile up at the green-haired man fish.

  “Latha math, good merrow,” she said politely, suspecting that it was useless to rush things when dealing with magical creatures. Padraig and Ruairidh had both told her that most of the sea’s fae were very shy and apt to disappear if annoyed. Her brother’s faerie stories had all emphasized this point as well. It seemed odd to be relying upon the advice of fairy tales and people whom society would consider outcasts or insane, but those were all the reference points she had.

  As the merrow turned his large head to look down at her, she wished passionately that she had paid more attention to what she’d thought were her brother’s whimsical discussions of folklore. She couldn’t recall if he had ever said whether merrows were dangerous, even if you didn’t try to steal their drink. Their large green teeth and hair were certainly alarming.

  “And a slainte mhath tae ye, mistress,” the merrow finally answered, doffing his red cap of seaweed and revealing his eyes, which were black and obliquely set, and looked like they belonged on a giant pig. Not actually interested, he still asked politely, “What are ye about on this fine morning, NicnanRon?”

  NicnanRon meant daughter of a seal; she knew that much now. Hexy was uncertain if this was a completely accurate description of what she was, but she did not correct him.

  “I am seeking my love. He is a great-grandson of the King of Lochlann, grandson of Ardagh, son of Cathair,” she related, giving Rory’s selkie title in English b
ecause she still could not say Clann Righ Lochlainn fo gheasaibh without stuttering. Hoping that the ritual was nearly complete, she asked in return, “And what are you doing this fine morning to bring joy into your world?”

  “Why, I am doing what I maun dae on every morning, mistress. I am drinking my joy.” To illustrate his words, the merrow raised a bottle in his webbed hand and drank deeply. His already red nose flushed a shade darker. When he smiled she could see his sharp green teeth glinting in the sun.

  Knowing she shouldn’t do it, Hexy nevertheless asked, “And why must you drink in the morning, good merrow?”

  “Why, I maun drink in the morning for there’ll be nae drinkin’ when I am dead! And who know when this shall be?” The merrow began to laugh, beating his speckled tail against the rock.

  “Very true,” Hexy admitted.

  The merrow sobered suddenly and looked at her with a suspicious eye. “What do you want with me here on the eve of war?” he asked bluntly, pulling his bottle back as though he feared she might try to reach across the space between them and snatch it from him.

  War? Hexy almost asked what he meant, but, recalling from her stories that conversations with magical beings rarely lasted long and were apt to wander onto unrelated topics, she stayed firmly with the task at hand.

  “I need a guide, someone to show me how to reach Wrathdrum.” Her answer was equally blunt. She was careful not to look at the bottle, and tensed her legs in case she had to run back up the shore.

  The merrow’s black, pupilless eyes widened.

  “You’ll nae need a guide if you gae searching for the finmen, for they will surely find you if you speak loudly enough, daft one. Don’t ye ken that these are their hunting grounds, and the wind can drag your words across the sea directly tae their evil ears?”