The Selkie

by Melanie Jackson

  Chapter Nineteen

  Hexy was very relieved to find that it didn’t hurt when Ruairidh sewed up her skin. She had feared that she might have caused him terrible pain with her own meticulous sewing. Mostly the skin seemed able to heal itself once the edges were rejoined, perhaps because the wounds were not magically inflicted. It might also be that it healed quickly because she finally had the right food to eat. The babes had certainly settled into quiet contentment once she consumed sea fruit.

  She did not see Keir or Cathair again before the two left on their fishing trip, which suited Hexy. Ruairidh insisted that they understood what had happened with the finman, but Hexy was not so certain that their forgiveness was complete. She was not even certain if Ruairidh’s was, because even in the throes of blinding passion when they were sharing senses, he had never spoken of love.

  Perhaps, she thought, having no females—not wives or mothers or daughters—they did not know what the emotion could be. Some human cultures, like the Vikings, had no notion of romantic love. It would not be so surprising if the selkies had failed to develop one.

  If this was the case, then there was hope that in time Ruairidh could be exposed to this new idea and perhaps embrace it. If that happened, then there was reason to believe his promise to be with her when the year of the summoning was over.

  Time would provide answers.

  And in the meantime, there was the sea, and joyous euphoria that being in it brought to her body and soul. Or so she prayed. The moment of actually donning her skin and again entering the ocean was more difficult that she had expected.

  The cave was talking to them as they neared the great pool and prepared for the transformation. Ruairidh explained that normally this would be done at night, but that he wanted her first return visit to the ocean to be made during the day. And because they were in Avocamor, the change could be made from woman to seal even without the moon.

  Hexy paused with her legs only half inside her skin. Her mind was clear this time because neither Ruairidh nor the finmen were influencing her.

  She listened, felt and looked with her new rawer senses, taking in the details of the sea and cave that had previously eluded her.

  Ruairidh watched her carefully as she sampled the air, neither urging nor discouraging her chosen slow pace.

  Her heightened awareness told her many things, but the most important was that her fur was alive and well, and anxious to join itself to her body.

  Unable to resist its pleading, she pulled it up slowly, aware of a brief stinging like the swarm of a thousand bees where it touched her skin. But the invisible insects seemed to come with anesthetizing darts, and the pain vanished almost before it was truly formed and the fur pulled in tight against her.

  “Ruairidh?” She stopped with the skin gathered about her throat. “Why does it feel different this time?”

  “It is because it is still day, Hexy lass, and ye are not pain deadened with salt. There isnae pain when you change on the ninth day or under a full moon.” Ruairidh asked her, “Are ye ready, then?”

  Hexy nodded and pulled the hood over her head, sinking down to the floor as her body transformed. Fur snugged down over her ears, but instead of muffling her hearing, it suddenly grew more keen.

  “Remember, lass, ye willnae be able to talk until yer skin is away.”

  Hexy nodded again, but she was distracted. She was keenly aware of a distant and eerie ululation that might have been mistaken for the moaning of the damned lost at sea. The unearthly obbligato made her uneasy, and she wondered for the first time if she would be struck by panic—maybe even stricken with the feeling of suffocation that she had known on her last visit into the ocean.

  Fur in place, and therefore unable to speak, she turned her eyes to Ruairidh. His own gaze seemed to have lightened to the color of honey, and Hexy wondered if her eyes had changed, too, or if she was a seal marked as unnatural by green eyes. She would have to ask later, or else find a mirror.

  The cave gave one last moan and then the sepulchral threnody subsided.

  Hexy turned and faced the glowing blue pool. The water seemed less opaque today, and she could see a bright spot where the light of the tunnel leaked in through the blue. It twirled slowly, a kaleidoscope of sunlight that beckoned.

  Ruairidh was at her side, touching her gently. His presence was both an encouragement and a shield. She knew that he would understand if she pulled back from the expedition, but she didn’t want to disappoint him again.

  Taking a last breath, Hexy let herself fall into the deep. Liquid pressed against her eyes, nullifying earthly realities and making her body buoyant.

  And all at once everything was as it should be. In an instant, Ruairidh was again at her side. Together they made for the open sea, tails pumping hard, racing through the cool blueness for the sheer joy of it.

  Though Ruairidh was supposed to be teaching Hexy to catch fish, they ended up playing a game of tag, chasing in and out among the kelp and racing around the rock formations.

  Hexy knew that Ruairidh was allowing her to elude him when it was his turn to give chase. She recalled the speed with which he had attacked the finman and knew that she would never surpass it with her strange seal body that had tufts of long red hair floating at the crown.

  When she began to tire, Ruairidh slowed the pace and began leading her toward one of the islets. She wondered at first if they were returning to Wrathdrum, but he turned south before the fishermen’s isle and began following a stony ridge that rose higher and higher out of the sloping seabed. They did not swim deep because Hexy needed to rise to the surface every few minutes and replenish her air, but finally Ruairidh reached some destination that required they descend into the murk that swallowed up the bottom of the cliff wall.

  Hexy looked a question at him, frustrated that she didn’t know how to speak in the selkie tongue, which was all that her mouth and vocal chords could manage while wrapped in fur.

  Ruairidh smiled mysteriously, and gestured for her to descend.

  Puzzled but intrigued, Hexy took a deep breath and dove for the bottom. Pressure pushed against her tiny ears and wrapped itself about her chest as she descended into the twilight.

  The first thing she saw on the seafloor was the tip of an old jar protruding from the thick sedimentary sand. Near it were some halfburied plates and some columns shrouded in barnacles.

  Understanding where they were, she slowed her pace, allowing Ruairidh to take the lead. She wondered if he was taking her to see one of the many German ships that had been sunk during the war. The HMS Strathgarry and Hampshire had both perished in these same waters.

  Ruairidh was showing her some of the sea’s treasures that she had longed to visit as a child.

  As anticipated, a large shape loomed suddenly in the eerie stillness, as big as a small mountain, though its uniform lines proclaimed it as the work of humankind. The perfect symmetry of the vessel was marred on one side where the wooden ribs were stoved in, doubtlessly battered against the undersea cliffs whose cruel pinnacles rose almost to the surface of the water.

  Hexy swam closer to the ancient wreck, for some reason relieved that it was not one more recent.

  The scar that marked the fatal blow was visible because the ship listed to port, settled on its side in the thick sediment with its damaged belly turned partially toward the sky. The hole had weathered, worn smooth by the ocean’s cold hand, and did not seem so horrible now that the splinters were gone. It had about it a certain air of morbid grandeur, somehow managing dignity even in death.

  The inside of the hole was filled with dark shadows. There could be treasure inside.

  There could also be ghosts.

  Hexy shivered at the thought. She had had enough contact with lost spirits. No amount of gold would lure her inside that watery tomb.

  Giving Ruairidh a quick smile and a shake of her head, Hexy swam up over the ornamental railing and looked at the one cannon still protruding from the side of the ship. The cold
water had kept it from rusting, so she was careful to keep her distance. Her skin might protect her from the effects of cold iron, but she wasn’t willing to take the chance that it didn’t.

  She realized that while lost in timeless reverie, her body had been busy consuming air at its usual pace; it was time for her to head back for the surface. Still, there was one last thing she wanted to know before leaving the derelict to the sea.

  Carefully, she traveled the ship’s perimeter until she found what she was looking for.

  She pointed the name out to Ruairidh, who nodded.

  It was called The Yarmouth. She knew its history, too. It was one of the ships used by Oliver Cromwell when he attempted to subjugate the MacLeans of Duart back in the 1650s. The Yarmouth’s sometimes traveling companion had been The Swan, a ship that had been built by Charles I but whose captain had switched allegiance to Cromwell’s commonwealth government when it offered better pay. The Swan had been lost in the Sound of Mull while transporting soldiers, ammunition and provisions to Duart Castle. It went down during a storm along with The Margaret of Ipswich, The Marthe and The Speedwell of Lyn. The Yarmouth had also disappeared en route during the fearsome squall. No one on land was certain where the ship rested; but she knew.

  The wrecks had saved Clan MacLean and loosened Cromwell’s grip in Scotland.

  Ruairidh stayed close to her side until they broke the surface, when he drew her close and used his strong tail to keep them afloat, allowing her a moment to rest.

  Grateful, she relaxed into his heat and allowed her tired muscles to go slack. The sea rocked them in its watery cradle.

  Feeling more rested, Hexy lifted her head and forced her lips into the odd, curling smile of the seals. Ruairidh jerked his head toward land, asking if she was ready to return.

  Hexy looked up at the sky. The sun had wheeled past high noon and was heading for the west. They had about four hours of daylight left.

  She had agreed that she needed to go back to Fintry that evening and give some explanation for her sudden departure. Though part of her wanted simply to disappear, she knew that it would not be wise. The selkies did not need any more wild stories told about them. Instead, she would pack up her clothes and move them to the cottage that Ruairidh had arranged for her to live in until the autumn, when they would return to Avocamor.

  And packing was a sound notion with strong appeal, because she was heartily sick of the one dress she was wearing when not wrapped inside her skin. Shoes and underclothes were a must as well, her others having been ruined by their long exposure to the sea.

  Too, she was finding that she missed Jillian and wanted to say good-bye to her employer. Perhaps she would even agree to the kirk wedding that Ruairidh wanted. That would surely bring Jillian back from Italy, if for no other reason than to try and talk her out of marrying a local lad.

  Resigned that their play was over, Hexy nodded and gave a small sigh.

  Ruairidh laughed, apparently guessing her thoughts. Rolling her onto her stomach, he let go and started out toward the shore, threading his way between tiny upthrusts of stone.

  Hexy followed with less enthusiasm until he suddenly veered off course for Fintry, and set out toward another islet. The gray smudge soon resolved itself into a small outcropping of sheer granite that rose up some thirty feet into the air. It was not an inhabited island. It had no beach at all, no place for a boat to dock. There was only a narrow stone stair cut in the ragged cliff face, which was all but invisible until you were right upon it.

  Ruairidh pulled himself out onto the staircase and then tugged his skin down off his face. As soon as the hood was gone, he was able to speak.

  Still awkward on land, Hexy joined him on the stone stair and also pulled her fur back from her head. It parted only very reluctantly, and the salt wind on her skin stung like a hornet’s fury.

  “What is this place?” she asked through gritted teeth.

  “It is called Lilligarry and was built by monks of St. Ninian. They used it as a home for recluses. But is was tae inhospitable for most men, even holy ones, and was abandoned thousands of seasons ago. The People have used it since then when they had need of a place on shore. It shall be our home for a while, if ye like.”

  “Can we go see it?”

  “Well…” Ruairidh’s expression was doubtful. “Ye mayn’t put off yer skin until darkfall, not when we are away from Avocamor. The pain would be tae great.”

  Hexy looked up the steep stairs. It was wide enough to accommodate her body. She wouldn’t be graceful hauling herself up the narrow stairs, but it wasn’t all that far to the top, and she was terribly curious about what her new home would be like.

  “Let’s try it.”

  “As ye wish.” Ruairidh reached over and kissed her quickly, and then pulled her skin back in place. Only then did he see to his own fur.

  Turning easily, he started up the stairs.

  Hexy took note of his style of locomotion and did her best to copy him.

  They soon arrived at the top of the islet, and Hexy could see the stony abode that waited there. It was tiny and square, and had a steep pitched roof with very small windows and a narrow door that sat above the plain balustraded stair that served as a porch. The architecture was what you would expect of a recluse’s cell and was, in a word, bleak.

  Yet there was loveliness here as well, for some time in the past, some lover of beauty had brought flowers to the island, lilies and orchids and one wild, climbing honeysuckle that had rampaged over the building and smothered it with gay garlands that perfumed the air.

  There were also small statues in the garden, mermaids and a miniature Poseidon—or perhaps it was the Celtic sea god, Damnu.

  The venerable monks would have fainted in distress at such frivolous paganism, but Hexy found it lovely beyond all expectation.

  Hexy sighed, this time with happiness. She leaned over and touched noses with Ruairidh.

  “Thank you,” she tried to say, but the words wouldn’t form.

  Smiling, he tickled her with his whiskers, telling her that he understood and was glad that she liked her new home.

  Chapter Twenty

  Hexy looked back from the altar, prepared at last to say her vows, or receive blessings, or do whatever it was that Ruairidh and the People asked of her.

  The chapel of the fishnets was still austere, even with the boards pulled off the windows, but that did not come as any great surprise. The building was not a normal church. It had no decorative belfry. It had no bell. There was no cross or statues, no communion tokens, or wafers, or chalice.

  But somehow the square bulk was almost pretty today, a symbol of something eternal, though Hexy suspected that it would soon be a ruin if no one intervened to save it. Wood and sandstone did not weather well—not unless the stone was transformed into glass, as it had been at Avocamor.

  She sighed. Avocamor would have been her first choice for such a ceremony, but of course their non-selkie guests could not have attended. And that would have been a shame, for the assemblage was one worth seeing. The colorful guests that filled the church more than compensated for the gray of the plain wood and nude stone that made up the building.

  How it had been cleansed of the finman’s presence Hexy did not know, but all traces of that evil taint were gone. In its place was an equally strong feeling, one of bubbling magic that fizzed like champagne as the various creatures’ auras collided and refracted their special magics back into the room. So distracting was this rainbow of personalities that one hardly noticed the odd and sometimes ancient and illfitting human clothing that they had donned for the occasion.

  The finwoman, Syr—one of the last to arrive—had introduced herself to the assembly and was warmly received by the younger selkie males, especially by Ruairidh’s cousin, Domnach, who had finally healed from his fight with the finmen.

  Jillian, minus Donny, was also in attendance, and was—as ever—surrounded by handsome bodies, so thick in numbers that Hexy had had only one
brief glimpse of the stunning Worth creation she was wearing before it was obscured by a wall of muscled flesh.

  What had at first been most amusing to Hexy was that among Jillian’s many admirers was a smitten Keir, who was wandering around with her mink stole, looking a bit as if he had been sandbagged. She hoped that he had been hit hard enough that a good deal of the native arrogance had been knocked out of him. It would make her brother-in-law a better, or at least more pleasant, person if he finally were humbled by love—or at least intense longing.

  A truly unexpected but welcomed guest was Ruairidh’s mother, Irial. The lovely fey, with her ankle-length golden hair and silvered eyes, had been sought out immediately on her arrival by her stunned sons and her very pleased onetime lover. Her presence was Cathair’s gift to his son.

  Ruairidh and Keir had soon been pulled away by other obligations and distractions, but Cathair had firmly remained at her side, not touching, but his posture protective when anyone neared her.

  Yet caution seemed unnecessary. None of their guests were discomposed at having a faerie in their midst. The wonder of the occasion—of actually meeting a NicnanRon—was overwhelming. And perhaps some of the old prejudices had faded with the long peace among the sidhe.

  Hexy was more nervous than anyone about meeting Irial. Though as a NicnanRon she was supposedly an object of wonder in her own right, it seemed a small thing next to seeing a real faerie. Surely no one had ever had such a lovely or mysterious mama-in-law—and this woman would be her babies’ grandmother.

  “Ready, aroon?” Ruairidh asked, touching her sleeve and recalling her to the practical present.

  Hexy nodded, looking up at her husband-to-be and smiling at his serious face.

  “Ye look beautiful,” he whispered.

  “Jillian brought me the dress,” Hexy whispered, smoothing a hand down the almost nude chiffon confection made in a shade of blush and sewn over with icy crystals that captured and broke the sunlight into rainbow segments that shimmered around her.