Seals of Kinney

by C G Dalton

  “I thought of that actually. After seeing where you came from, I figured out why all you eat is seafood and oatmeal. You don’t want to go into that snake pit of a village for supplies.” Boyd opened the big duffel bag sitting on the floor beside him and displayed its contents. His luggage was half full of food. “I was limited by the lack of refrigeration here, but I think I got some decent stuff.”

  Fisk’s face lit up, and not just because it bought him time away from the sea. There were foods that he hadn’t had in weeks in Boyd’s stash. Among the goodies his eyes settled on pasta and sauce, cookies, and there were even some fresh apples. “You’re right. I don’t go into town if I can help it. A couple times a year I take a day trip to the mainland and stock up. I can’t go too often though or McMare gets paranoid. I’m due for a supply run soon. All I have left is a little bit of sugar, salt, flour, tea and oats. I’m really starting to miss coffee.”

  “McMare?” Boy draised an eyebrow, processing this new information.

  “The sheriff. I’m sure you remember him. He pretty much runs the town. Even though he made my life hell there, he hates me living out here, and he really hates that I go over to Maine sometimes.”

  “Are you kidding me? Fisk, that’s not acceptable,” Boyd complained, suddenly glad this time he’d also brought his sidearm. As comfortable as Fisk’s cottage felt to him, the rest of the area really gave him the creeps. He didn’t trust that sheriff, McMare, any farther than he could throw him.

  “It is what it is.” Fisk shrugged.

  Boyd let the topic drop for the moment. It was only his first day back and he wanted to re-establish the rapport he thought they had been building before the Coast Guard whisked him away. He helped Fisk pack the food away into his formerly bare cupboard, except a box of spaghetti and a jar of sauce which Boyd insisted on cooking for their dinner. He took the time while he made the meal to study his surroundings more. It occurred to his observant eye one thing was conspicuously absent.

  “Fisk, you live off seafood primarily, right?” Boyd asked blandly, not giving any warning this was the beginning of an interrogation of sorts.

  “Yes, that’s correct. Mostly fish, crabs and clams. The occasional lobster. Edible seaweeds and wild greens that grow on the island in season as well,” Fisk answered, leaning in to sniff the sauce, his stomach gurgling audibly. They both chuckled.

  “Where is your fishing gear?”

  “My what?” Fisk turned away from the hearth to look at Boyd quizzically.

  “You know, poles, hooks, lines, nets. There isn’t anything in this house or down in your boat that you would in fact use to catch a fish.” Boyd had no intention of making trouble for Fisk. If anything, it was just fodder for his growing list of why Fisk should leave the Kinney Archipelago with him. “The first time I was here you mentioned the villagers are territorial about their fishing grounds. I know you are stuck between the devil and the deep, so I’m not trying to bust you. But are you raiding other fisherman’s nets or crab pots? It would explain why Sheriff Asshole assumed you were up to no good when you brought me in.”

  “Do you ever leave off being a cop?” Fisk asked, making a show of huffing and looking disappointed as he fished for a plausible answer other than 'I catch them with me teeth'.

  “Tidal pools, Boyd. I’m not a thief. When the tide is low the other side of the island forms them, and I harvest by hand whatever is trapped in there. The rake next to the front door is for clam digging.” Fisk felt quite inventive and grinned at his guest. It was plausible, there really were tidal pools, and the part about the rake at least was the truth.

  “Oh... Okay. Sorry.” Boyd rubbed the back of his neck and then laughed nervously, thinking himself an idiot. Colwin flashed a quick smile as Boyd went back to minding the pots hanging inside the fireplace.

  When the meal was ready the pair sat down to enjoy Boyd’s cooking. He sat on the stool by the hearth, letting Fisk have his chair, and they filled their bellies while quietly studying one another.

  After they had eaten and Fisk washed up the dishes, they settled comfortably for the evening to talk. Fisk’s face flushed when Boyd slipped off the stool and sat on the floor by his feet, one arm across Fisk’s thigh, gazing up at his host.

  “Before my next visit, you need another chair,” Boyd observed out loud, while thinking... and a bigger bed. But what he really hoped was to get Fisk away from this place altogether. As homey as he had made the old fisherman’s shack, the rest of the environment was simply unwholesome.

  “There really can’t be another visit. It will cause grief, Boyd. Trust me. If you want to see me again maybe you can come to Maine and we can meet when I make my supply trips.” In truth he expected once Boyd had gone home and Fisk ignored his attempts at further contact, eventually he would give up just like Dalton had.

  As if on cue, before they could continue the conversation the door banged open, framing a man in the entrance.

  “Colwin. What in the hell are you up to? Freeman told me he saw another strange boat out here while trawling the northern channel,” the sheriff demanded, clearly agitated as his sight rested on Boyd. “... And now I see your flotsam is back.”

  Boyd rose to his feet. He watched the sheriff’s eyes dart to the seal skin lying across the bed. He was startled when Fisk darted across the room to snatch it up and clutched it to his chest, backing himself into a corner defensively. Instinctively Boyd moved to position himself between the men.

  “I’m here to visit my friend. And this time everyone knows exactly where I am,” Boyd answered for Fisk, feeling the tingle of the tiny hairs on the back of his neck rising. There was something about this McMare that unnerved him. Boyd was used to dealing with bullies both on and off the force, but this guy felt extra wrong. Subtly it reminded him of the unsettling feeling he’d gotten off Colwin when he had walked in wrapped in nothing but the seal skin, but without the attraction to mitigate the disquiet.

  “McMare, he just came to visit. To thank me again for saving him. He will only be with me a few days,” Fisk interjected, worried by the hostile stances and the fact both men hand their hands resting on their guns.

  “You got a permit for that?” the sheriff snarled.

  “I got better than a permit. I got a badge. Just like yours, except mine’s federal.” Boyd reached into his pocket and took out his credentials, flashing the ID that clearly identified him as a federal agent.

  “So, the feds are here to spy on us now?” McMare spat out, eyes narrowing to evil slits.

  “No. This particular agent is here to spend time with a friend. There ain’t nothing in this backwards ass place the feds care about except me,” Boyd retorted.

  “Really, McMare. Nothing nefarious is happening. I’ll stop into your office and let you know as soon as Officer Boyd leaves,” Fisk added, hoping to calm the blustering islander. Neither he nor Boyd seemed the type to back down and he could just see everything going horribly wrong right in front of him. “It would be best for the folk, McMare, if you just leave us be until he goes home.”

  “You’re pushing me, Colwin. Seriously. Why can’t you just not be a freak for a change. And you”—he pointed at Boyd— “once this little jaunt is over, unless you have a warrant, stay off my fucking islands,” the sheriff snapped, turning on his heel to leave.

  “Keep that shit up and I might get one,” Boyd retorted, his expression stern as the sheriff stopped in his tracks and turned back.

  “Don’t try me, boy,” McMare snarked.

  “Oh, you so did not...” Boyd found his progress halted before he could charge out the door by Fisk’s hand locked firmly on his wrist.

  “Cyril...” he hissed under his breath. “Stop... please.”

  “That’s right, Fisk. Call your boy off. And hide your hide well when he’s gone too,” McMare threatened as he turned and headed back to the beach.

  Only the surety in the sheriff's head that other federal agents would come looking if he shot Boyd down, and Fis
k’s grip on his guest, had prevented a battle.

  Stunned by the strength of that grip, Boyd jerked his hand away, but he did not pursue the supposed peace officer.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  “Fisk, what in the hell was that all about?” Boyd demanded, pacing back and forth across the room. “I know all that bullshit about isolated islanders hating outsiders but come on. That bastard wants to kill me… and you if given the chance.”

  “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” Fisk muttered as he got up. He folded the seal skin and shoved it underneath his mattress.

  “Why don’t you try me. Because this place is getting a real Wicker Man vibe, and I know how that story ended for the interloping cop.”

  “Do you know what a leopard seal is?” Fisk asked cryptically.

  Boyd stopped and stared at him, then shrugged. “I think I’ve seen them on National Geographic or Animal Planet. Really big seals, eating penguins. What’s that got to do with—”

  “Hydrurga leptonyx,” Fisk interrupted. “They are perhaps one of the few natural creatures that have a tendency towards casual cruelty, and some might even say a penchant for wickedness. McMare is a leopard seal, Boyd. It’s a strange occurrence even for here, given they are normally purely Antarctic creatures. I think one of his ancestors must have married off island. He has some distant South American ancestor maybe. Nevertheless, that is what he is.”

  Boyd’s face screwed up into a grimace. “Have you lost your damn mind, or is that some kind of elaborate metaphor?”

  “It was an honest assessment. You asked for the truth, but really you probably don’t want to know.” Fisk met Boyd’s eye, chin up.

  Two strides and Boyd was in Colwin’s personal space, fingers tangling in his wild locks, their lips crashing together.

  Fisk’s hands automatically curled around Boyd’s waist and he leaned into the kiss. When they finally came up for air, panting and searching each other’s eyes, Fisk gave in. He didn’t care to even try resisting anymore. He’d be lucky if McMaredidn’t kill him when Boyd left anyway, so if Boyd told anyone their secret so be it. He was done worrying about his kin, it wasn’t as if they returned the favour.

  “I pulled you out of the water,” Fisk told Boyd.

  “The seal...”

  “Is me.”

  “Fisk. Is this some sort of totem animal mumbo jumbo? Because you are sounding kind of cracked out.”

  Colwin pulled away, moved to grab the book of local lore Boyd had been reading. He flipped open the pages to a segment just past the middle and thrust it at Boyd.

  “The Selkies of Kinney,” Boyd read out loud. He skimmed the page, pausing to glance at Fisk skeptically every so often. When he got to the end of the chapter, which he read in its entirety out of respect to Fisk, he set down the book. He sat on the edge of Fisk’s bed and gave him an odd look, wondering just what exactly was wrong with his mother, and if it was genetic.

  “So, what you are trying to tell me is that you and that asshole are wereseals. That the seal skin under your bed is actually your skin and when you put it on you turn into a seal. Fisk, even the book says it’s nonsense invented by eighteenth century Irish settlers to the islands transplanting their home mythologies.”

  “I told you before that you would be surprised what myths were true,” Fisk murmured, falling into his chair with a feeling of defeat. He didn’t really expect Boyd to just believe him, but he had hoped. “And we are not wereseals, we are selkies. It’s not quite the same.”

  “Excuse me for not knowing the jargon. So, if I read right, if I have this in my possession...” And before Fisk could react, Boyd had pulled the hide out from under the bed and tucked it into the crook of his arm like a football. “...you have to listen to me?”

  “Give it back,” Fisk demanded, coming to stand over Boyd, shaking and staring at the skin he held tightly. “Cyril, please... give it to me,” he begged, meeting Boyd’s gaze with pleading eyes. If anyone else but Boyd had grabbed his hide, Fisk would have fought to get it back, but he had trusted Boyd, and hoped the man wouldn’t truly break that trust.

  Part of Boyd wanted to use the control the pelt gave him as leverage to get Fisk off the island. Even if it was crazy, he believed the skin gave Boyd power over him. He could take Fisk away, get him help. Preferably before that other lunatic hurt him. But he couldn't stand the look of pained panic in Fisk’s face. He handed the skin back to its owner. Frowning at the possessive way Colwin clutched it and shied away from him.

  Fisk stood for a moment with it pressed to his chest, breathing deeply. Then he set the skin on the floor at his feet and began to strip, launching into the rest of his explanation. “It’s not just McMare and I. About a third of the Kinney folk are full selkies with the ability to change. All the residents carry the gene so it can crop up in any family on the island. That’s the real reason they don’t want strangers out here.”

  “Come on. How they hell would you people hide something like that all this time?”Boydsaid.

  “There are always rumours. Tales from the early days before this community stopped mingling freely with the mainland. People saw and heard things they shouldn’t have back then. That’s how the truth found its way into that book. But historically we’ve pretty much kept to our own since about eighteen-eighty. By fostering a climate of hostility towards outsiders, and being largely self-sufficient, we have been able to maintain a sort of autonomy,” Fisk answered, dropping his shirt to the floor, then stepping out of his pants.

  Unable to take his eyes off the pale skin being borne to his view, Boyd licked his lips and cleared his throat. “Why are you taking off your clothes?” He knew it was a bad idea, but there was no denying it; crazy or not, Fisk floated his boat. He wouldn’t be able to say no if the younger man came on to him.

  “Relax, Boyd. I’m not getting naked for sex,” Fisk said gently, lowering himself to the floorboards.

  Boyd couldn’t help his disappointment, nor did he hide it well. “Then what exactly are you doing?” Head cocked and brow furrowed, he watched Fisk press his ankles together, slide his feet inside the seal skin and wiggle them down into the tail flippers.

  “You’ll see.” Fisk sadly pulled the skin up and around him much like he was climbing into a wetsuit.

  “Fisk...” Boyd started, but all logical thoughts drained away when Fisk pulled the seal skin’s face over his own... and began to change. The eyes that looked at him through the pelt now were Fisk’s, but also those of the seal.

  Fisk’s body stretched and his bones made horribly painful sounding pops as his body moulded itself to the shape of its new container and the skin melded itself to his form. Fifteen minutes later, Boyd sat on the far side of the bed, his back pressed against the wall, staring wide eyed at a large grey seal. There was nothing remotely human about him, nothing left of Fisk that Boyd could see. Except those eyes.

  Okay... so apparently the crazy here is catching. Or he slipped me something and I’m tripping, Boyd’s mind gibbered at him as a sort of terror he had not formerly experienced rippled through it.

  Fisk waited patiently for Boyd’s panic to wane and curiosity to set in.

  The seal’s dark stare was unnerving and after a few minutes Boyd could no longer stand the stalemate. “Can you talk?” he finally asked, voice cracking as he tried to be rational about the irrational thing he had just witnessed.

  Shaking his head, no, Fisk barked, the loud raucous noise normally associated with seals. The same cry Boyd had heard him make that first day before the storm hit. Fisk no longer had human vocal cords and his mouth was shaped wrong for making words.

  Boyd winced as the sound reverberated around the small room. “No inside voice either,” he muttered, laughing in spite of himself when the seal did make a very human-sounding raspberry noise and stuck his tongue out at him. Boyd uncoiled and crept off the bed. “We are friends, right?”

  Fisk nodded his head up and down in an emphatic yes motion.

  “So, you
aren’t going to bite me or anything like that, right?” The wide muzzled snout shook back and forth in a definite no.

  Crawling across the floor until he was kneeling in front of the seal, eye to eye with the creature, Boyd reached out and touched Fisk’s face. The seal tilted his head and pressed it into the caress. His fur felt like silk velvet under Boyd’s fingers.

  “So, am I hallucinating?” Boyd asked rhetorically, snorting when Fisk shook his head no. “This is the real deal, mythology come to life.”

  Fisk nodded yes, and Boyd stroked his sleek neck and down over his long smooth body. There was nothing he could find that cast doubt on the fact he was petting anything other than a real live seal. “Would you change back? Because I’m really pretty freaked out and I’d like to ask some non yes or no questions.”

  The seal snorted, his hot fishy breath ghosting over Boyd’s face before he backed away and stretched out across the floor.

  Wrinkling his nose at the smell, Boyd remained where he was, crouching on his haunches nearby for a close-up view of the transformation.

  First the skin split open bloodlessly under Fisk’s chin, his human face emerging from inside his seal one. He watched Boyd intently as he shrugged his shoulders out of the hide. It was a slow process, his emergence, and reminded Boyd of watching a snake shed its skin. Except snakes weren’t completely rearranging their skeletal structures as they went. He was surprised at how long it took and how vulnerable Fisk appeared during the process. Eventually the skin was separated entirely from Fisk, who lay there on the floor, damp and quiet. Boyd reached out and tentatively touched the empty hide.

  Fisk spoke, his voice sounding tired. It was a lot to switch back so quickly. “It’s a living part of me. When you touch it, I feel it.”

  “That’s how it gives the holder power over you. So, I couldn’t put it on and assume your powers I’m guessing.”