Her Selkie Harem

by Savannah Skye

  Somehow, these men did the same, consciously or not.

  Beyond that even, something from within me told me to trust them. So I did, and hoped that I would not come to regret it. There was something familiar about them that I attributed to their unquantifiable similarity to Saorise. I was sure I had not met them before, but I felt as if I had.

  On a less ethereal note, and one than I wasn't proud to admit, even to myself, I probably trusted them more because they were almost painfully good-looking. I always pride myself in not being one of those girls who puts a lot of stock in appearance but looks for the beautiful soul beneath - and then I date a man like Benny, because I am basically full of crap.

  More truthfully, I'm just like everyone else - a slave to some weird evolutionary impulse that makes me more trusting to handsome men than ugly ones. I think a lot of bad shit has gone down on account of that, and I would be quick to add that appearance is not my sole criteria for trusting someone, but there it is.

  I wasn't trusting Connor because his dark, rugged good looks made me a little weak in the knees.

  I wasn't trusting Patch because his eyes twinkled and his smile sparkled.

  I wasn't trusting Declan because he was boyishly beautiful, smooth skinned and exquisitely handsome.

  I wasn't trusting them as a group because the rolled up sleeves of their shirts revealed muscular forearms or because the fronts of those shirts were straining to conceal three broad chests. And I definitely wasn't trusting them because their jeans hugged their backsides in a way that made watching them walk an R-rated experience.

  But if pressed, I’d have to admit, none of that hurt, either.

  For the record, I also wasn't one hundred percent comfortable with the fact that I was mentally undressing the brothers of my missing friend, but sometimes your mind does things you can't control, and all you can do is go with it.

  "Make yourselves comfortable," I said as I entered and went straight to the kitchen - I still had not eaten, and after walking here with these three I also needed a glass of ice water.

  I saw Declan make straight for the couch and, instead of sitting on it, run a hand over the bed clothes neatly folded at one end, waiting for their vanished owner.

  "She was here this morning?" asked Connor, the eldest brother, who seemed to have appointed himself leader, as older brothers will.

  "How about I ask some questions first?" I suggested. Just because my gut told me to trust them didn’t mean that I wasn’t still feeling totally confused and rather terrified.

  "If you care about our sister, then I suggest you answer ours," said Connor, sharply.

  "Connor," Patch shot back, his face thunderous. "She has a right."

  Connor didn't look happy. "Any delay in looking..."

  "Will likely make no difference at all," continued Patch in his lilting brogue. "Sienna, here, has obviously been out looking for Saorise. Which means she doesn't know where she's gone."

  "You don't know either?" I had held out some slim hope they might have news of my friend.

  "We'd hardly have chased you down if we did," said Connor. He sighed, making an effort to control what was clearly a quick temper. "If you have questions then go ahead and ask them. But be quick. We're wasting time."

  "How did you know Saorise was with me?" I asked, determined not to be cowed by Connor's attitude but also determined not to judge him for it - he was probably just worried about his sister and I got that. I was worried, too.

  "We tracked her," said Connor. Which was not an answer that gave me much information.

  "From where? How?"

  The brothers looked at each other. It seemed as if members of this family could find my home without any trouble and yet I still did not know how. But while Saorise had seemed unable to explain how she tracked me to my door, I got the impression that her brothers just weren't saying.

  "We have ways of finding each other," said Declan, with unhelpful vagueness amplified by his sudden unwillingness to meet my gaze. "It's a twin thing."

  "If that's the case then why can't you find her now?" I followed up pointedly.

  Again, the looks between them.

  "Sometimes twin things don't work," Declan finally replied.

  "We're on the same side," I said. "We all want Saorise to be safe. How am I supposed to trust you - how am I supposed to trust that you want to help Saorise - when you won't trust me?"

  "Help her with what?" Connor jumped on my words.

  I took a deep breath. Though they hadn't given me any answers, I still felt the need to help them as much as I could. For reasons I couldn't understand, let alone explain, I did feel very strongly that they were trying to help Saorise.

  As briefly as possible, I recounted the last few days, starting with Saorise turning up unannounced at my door and ending with her going missing.

  "You said she was looking for something when you were by the river," said Connor, eyes narrowed. "Any idea what?"

  I shook my head. "Whatever it was that was bothering her, she couldn't tell me about it any more than she could tell me what brought her to my door. I'm sure she was running from something, she seemed unwell and fearful when she first came to me. I’m hoping you could tell me what that something was."

  The way the brothers looked at each other told me that they couldn't. Or wouldn’t?

  I shoved aside the niggling of mistrust and reminded myself that these were her brothers. If they thought there was something they could share that might help us find her, they’d have done it already.

  "We haven’t seen her for a couple of weeks," Patch began. "I wasn’t too concerned. She has a habit of going off on her own exploring, meeting people. She loved - that is; she loves getting to know strangers and seeing new places."

  He talked with such affection and I remembered the way Saorise had come up to me out of nowhere on that beach. I was just another new face, it was sheer chance that we had hit it off the way we did.

  "Because she was always doing it," Patch continued, "we didn't notice that anything was wrong until we didn’t hear from her."

  "She's always taking such foolish risks." Connor banged his fist down on the arm of my couch, his worry for his sister manifesting as anger.

  “Maybe she decided she’d had enough of the city and headed back to Ireland?” But even as I said the words, I knew in my heart they were false. Something was very wrong.

  And her brothers clearly thought so, too. Declan’s brow caved into a worried frown as he sucked in a breath.

  “She didn’t go home, Sienna. She’s missing. And we think someone took her.”

  “Why would someone take her? She’s the kindest, warmest soul I’ve ever met,” I asked, bewildered and afraid for my friend. “And where would they even take her? I don’t understand any of this.”

  "We can’t be sure of the whys and we have no leads. It was hard enough to find that she was in New York," Declan took up the story. "We still don't know why she didn’t contact us once she got here, or at least to check in.”

  "Well, there was no sign of any break-in here," I wanted to help any way I could, "so chances are, if someone had taken her, she knew them and had let them in or she was taken when she was out of the apartment. Does she have an ex-boyfriend who might have--”

  “No, it’s nothing like that,” Patch muttered, shaking his head.

  Then what was it like? I found myself wondering. Instead of pressing them, though, I ran through my time with Saorise in my mind.

  “I can give you a list of places we went together - places she liked?"

  "That would be helpful, thank you," said Patch.

  "If she is just out somewhere exploring, I’m going to kill her," grunted Connor morosely.

  The others grunted their agreement and I swallowed hard, feeling useless and hating it.

  "Is there anything else I can do to help?" I asked.

  Connor shook his head. "No. But thank you."

  I think it went against the grain for him to sa
y it but he clearly meant it.

  "And thank you for looking after her."

  "I'd do anything for Saorise."

  "I mean, I don't know if... But on the off-chance she comes back here - and if you think of anything else that might be helpful - can you let us know?"

  I nodded, grabbing my phone. "Sure, just put your number in--"

  "We don't have phones," said Connor, in a way that made questioning it impossible.

  "You can find us by the Hudson," smiled Patch. "Where Upper Bay meets the East River, on the west side near Battery Park."

  "In a hotel?"

  "If you stroll around the area, you’ll see us."

  I nodded slowly and rubbed at my aching temples. “Uh, yeah, okay.”

  It hardly seemed like the most foolproof method of getting in touch with a person, but I wasn’t about to argue. They were distraught and stressed and if Saorise did come back, she’d surely know how to find them.

  But even still, I didn't want to leave things like this. I was afraid that when they walked out of my door, that would be the end of my story with Saorise. And the thought of not knowing if she was all right or if I would ever see her again made me ill.

  “I’d really like to help--”

  "You can't," said Connor plainly. "I'm not trying to be hurtful but if we can't find her, then I promise, you can't either." He walked for the door. "Thanks again."

  "Sorry," said Patch as he went. "He's worried. We all are."

  "So am I."

  Declan nodded a quick goodbye. He had the same smile as his twin, but seemed to lack her ease with other people.

  As the door shut behind them, I ran to the window and watched them leave the building and head off together. It wasn’t until they were out of sight that tears began to stream down my face.

  What sort of trouble had my childhood friend gotten herself into?

  Chapter 4

  Regardless of what Connor had said, as I made and ate a late dinner, I wracked my brain for ways in which I could help with the hunt for Saorise. There had to be something I could do. Besides, based on what Patch had said, she could have gone anywhere to talk to anyone. I remembered our journey back to the apartment the first day, when she made friends with everyone on the bus.

  Perhaps she had been too trusting.

  But then again, when she had come to me, there was no question in my mind, she had been running from something.

  She had stayed with me to hide. And although we’d gone out together as a pair, she’d stayed indoors when I wasn’t with her. In someone as gregarious and inquisitive as Saorise, that suggested a caution born of fear.

  So why would she have chosen to leave the apartment alone today when she knew she might be still in danger?

  The thought niggled at me and I wondered if that was something worth pursuing. What if what I’d suggested to her brother was right? What if she hadn't left the apartment and someone had come to my door looking for her, and she had let them in for some reason? My door had no peephole so she might have unknowingly let in the wrong person - someone pretending to be me or a friend of mine, or even one of her brothers.

  It was enough of a possibility to follow up. Annoyingly, my building had no security system to regulate people coming in and out, but tomorrow morning I would ask my neighbors if they had seen anyone.

  The fact that I had a plan made me feel marginally better and, with a glance to the bed clothes that still sat folded up on the couch, waiting hopefully for Saorise's return, I picked up Jessie and went to bed.

  I tossed and turned for what felt like hours before I finally drifted off. My dreams were riddled with strange and curious images. Not scary, exactly, but somehow ominous just the same.

  I tried to grab hold of them, keep them from slipping away but they were like spun sugar, melting at my touch, until an icy cold washed over me.

  The bars in front of me were hazy, as if I was looking at them through water. Then I realized that I was, and that the bars were on a window beyond the limits of the tank in which I hung. I floated upwards to grab a breath of air from the narrow space between the surface of the water and the thick wire grill over the top of the tank. Turning about, I saw, through the water and glass, a dark world of strange faces and stranger creatures.

  Nothing was clear but it looked like a zoo re-imagined by Edgar Allan Poe, H. P. Lovecraft and Salvador Dali after a night of tequila and meth. More normal-looking people - the keepers, I supposed - were moving amongst the cages. I twisted away from them, a shock of fear running through me at their approach. As I turned, I caught sight of my hand - but it wasn't a hand, it was a flipper.

  Help me.

  I shot upright in bed, gasping for breath, shaking from head to foot and bathed in cold sweat. It was the most vivid dream I had ever had and I immediately connected it to Saorise. I wasn't sure why but it... the dream had felt like her. In the same way that I had been sure that Connor, Patch and Declan were her brothers, so I was sure this dream was more than just a dream, it was Saorise trying to tell me something.

  I stopped for a moment, calming my breathing and trying to focus on something normal - Jessie in the bed beside me. The softness of the blankets around me.

  A dream…sent to me by my missing friend.

  What was I thinking? I didn't believe in crap like this. Dreams were the brain's way of dumping all the nonsense that accumulated during the day. They did not contain hidden messages and they damn sure couldn't be used as a way of communicating with other people. It wasn't possible.

  And yet, while my logical brain knew this to be the case, I knew that this had been a message from Saorise as sure as I knew the sky was blue. It didn't matter that it didn't make sense, it was a fact.

  My friend had sent me a message.

  My heart pounded with the truth of that realization and I tried to fight my rising panic. The how of it all did not matter. What mattered was the content. And while it had been confusing and scattered and strange, she had known what she was doing. Because, as I ran through the dream in my mind, I realized with a start that, despite the strange creatures and surreal nature of most of the images in my brain, one thing had been clear. It floated to the forefront of my consciousness like a beacon.

  The image of a barred window, through which I could make out a garish neon sign flashing the words Cash For Gold in wince-inducing electric green.

  A sign that hung above the storefront in a row of buildings that I passed everyday on my way to work.

  If this really was a sign from Saorise, and not a sign that I was going crazy? Then I knew where she was.

  “And if not, it’s a white coat and padded walls for me,” I muttered under my breath.

  As soon as daylight broke, I headed for the bay and Battery Park. I wasn't exactly sure how I was going to find her brothers or what I was going to tell them when I found them, but I knew I had to try.

  Truth be told, I was still trying to justify it to myself, and the best I'd been able to do so far was that I didn't know how my phone worked either…or television…or radios or computers or space travel. But it did.

  It sounded flimsy at best but actually helped; I didn't know how Saorise had done this, but I knew she had. And that was enough for me.

  Battery Park was close to empty as I entered in search of the men I’d met the night before. Part of me didn't expect to find them given the vagueness of their directions, but as I approached the river in the early morning chill, sure enough, I saw three figures sitting on the rail above the water.

  From this distance, it looked as if they weren't wearing anything, but perhaps that was my overly active imagination. They hadn't seen me yet and, as I got closer, I saw Connor suddenly push himself forwards off the rail towards the river below him. I broke into a run, almost crying out in shock, but the other two just watched as if this was quite normal. I reached the rail in time to see Declan follow his eldest brother, throwing himself forward in an elegant dive. I noticed that he seemed to be carryi
ng something, possibly a coat of some kind, and as he dived he spiraled like an Olympic diver, wrapping himself in the coat and...

  This time I screamed, because I didn't know how else to respond to what I had just seen.

  As Declan spun into what I had taken to be a coat, it seemed to curl about his body like a living thing, melding itself to him, and suddenly I was not watching a man dive into the water of the East River, but a seal. He entered the water smoothly, leaving barely a ripple, then re-surfaced moments later, joining another seal that was already bobbing there - Connor, I could only assume.

  My cry had, of course, alerted them to my presence, and Patch, still seated on the rail, naked and holding what I now saw to be a seal skin in his hand, looked over at me.

  "Ah," he said. "Good morning, Sienna. You probably have some questions."

  Ten minutes and a violent dizzy spell later, I was blinking wide-eyed at Patch as he spoke in soothing tones.

  "There are pockets of magic in the world - leftover from when the earth was young and wild. That's usually something people struggle to believe in, but I get the sense that you've seen enough that I can probably breeze past it. Magical creatures - what you might term 'supernatural' - evolved alongside others, but found it necessary to keep their existence secret with the rise of organized religions, which have always taken a dim view - witch burnings and the like.”

  Connor slid in smoothly. “We are Selkie, a predominantly - though not exclusively - Irish species. We live part of our life in the water as seals, and the other on land, indistinguishable from humans from outward appearance. The one thing a Selkie cannot change is their skin, so we have to take it with us when we become human. The most important thing to a Selkie is their skin."