Selkie, page 9
She remembered when another seal in the herd had been injured, when she was only a few seasons old. A large male seal had been attacked and nearly caught by a pod of orcas, and there were long tears and teeth marks in the seal’s hide. He had been swimming alone in open water but had managed to escape the pod and rejoin the herd, trailing blood. Older seals in the herd had scolded the hurt seal. He should have known better than to swim alone when the orcas were passing through their waters. He could have endangered the rest of the herd by leading the pod straight to them with the smell of his blood in the water.
The herd had immediately shepherded themselves to the coast and hauled themselves onto the closest beach for the night. Quinn, tucked in close to her mother’s side, had watched the injured seal as he whimpered in pain while dragging himself across the rocky shore. Out of the water, his wounds bled heavily, the red color brighter and thicker without the ocean diluting it. Quinn’s mother had nudged her away from the hurt seal, a look of concern staining her dark eyes.
“Will he be all right?” Quinn had asked her.
“I don’t know,” her mother said honestly. “He’s lucky to be alive. We’ve lost many strong seals to orcas before.”
“But his wounds,” Quinn pressed.
“There’s nothing we can do about them,” her mother insisted. Quinn had seen smaller wounds from sharp rocks or too forceful bites heal among the herd, but this seal’s injuries were much deeper. Her mother’s nose twitched as the blood began to pool in the rocks where the seal had collapsed, his energy gone. “He may heal, but it’s not up to him. He can only hope that the sea is kind and the herd is patient.”
Quinn spent that night listening to the normal snores of the herd, broken up by the injured seal’s pained grunts as he shifted on the beach. The herd had remained onshore, with only a few strong, fast adults risking the water to go catch fish, while they waited for the pod of orcas to move on. When the adults decided it was safe to begin their journey up the coast once more, the injured seal’s wounds had stopped bleeding, but still looked raw and painful. Nevertheless, he limped after the herd when they entered the water. He made it through another season, but his wounds made him slow, and he was finally caught by another orca when the herd was moving down the coast.
Quinn didn’t think her wound was nearly as bad as that seal’s injuries, but as her mother had said, she had no way to treat her tail as a seal.
The island’s beach was dark, the stones glistening with salt water and rain. She could make out the shape of the keepers’ boat bobbing in the waves beside the dock and knew that the keepers had made it back to their island and already returned to their lighthouse. Quinn squinted at the path leading up over the cliffs and couldn’t spot anyone coming back down to the beach.
She spent a moment hanging before the break in the tide, considering where she should try to haul herself out of the water. She eventually decided that the safest place would be the far side of the beach, away from the keepers’ dock and boat.
Bracing herself, Quinn swam until her fins touched the ground and then began to haul herself out of the tumbling waves. There was a sharp, stabbing pain in her tail with every movement, and it made her clumsy as she crawled out of the water while keeping the spear tip from catching on the rocks. She tucked herself against the side of the cliff and lay still, panting.
When she’d caught her breath, Quinn gritted her teeth against the pain and shifted onto her side so she could lift her head and tail and get a better look at the wound. The spear had pierced her left tail fin, and Quinn’s attempts to escape had widened the injury. It bled sluggishly.
Wincing, Quinn laid her tail back down.
In her seal body, there was nothing she could do to try to treat the wound. Her mother had led her to believe that injuries only healed over time and with luck. But Quinn had not been a seal for seven years.
Quinn had treated many small injuries in her time on land. Owen had taught her how to patch and bind wounds, how to stem blood flow, and how to treat against infection. He had done so for his own benefit, as he often came home with fishing hooks stuck in his skin and preferred her first aid over the brusque attention of his fellow fishermen. Quinn had been revolted at the sight of the barbed hooks piercing through Owen’s fingers or arms, but she had learned to stiffen her jaw through it and eventually became very practiced at prying out hooks and patching the wounds.
She had no medicine or wrappings to treat her tail wound, but she couldn’t leave the spear tip lodged as it was.
Quinn shifted to look over at the path that led up the island to the lighthouse. With the rainstorm, she figured the keepers would be busy with the beacon for the rest of the evening.
She gave herself a moment to breathe. She hadn’t thought she would be parting with her pelt so soon, and her heart was pounding at the thought. But she couldn’t leave her wound untreated. Quinn shuffled on to her back, blood flicking onto the rocks as she moved, though it was quickly washed away by the rain.
It had been seven years since Quinn had done this for the first, and only, time. The memory was still sharp in her mind. She started with her flippers like she did before, freeing her hands from the thick skin and regaining the use of her dexterous fingers. Her arms and chest came easily, and she pushed the pelt over her nose and eyes, gasping when her head was free.
Her hair fell down her back in a loose, wet tangle. She sat up, her pelt gathered around her hips like a rumpled skirt. Quinn pushed the pelt down over her thighs and then pulled her right leg free. Her right foot was uninjured, and she braced it against the rocky beach as she came to the worst part. Carefully freeing her shin, then ankle, and then her left foot, Quinn gasped as the pelt pulled free around the spear, and then the fur fell away, limp and lifeless beneath her.
Again, Quinn had to stop and catch her breath, the sound seemingly louder coming from her human lungs. Her bare skin had pebbled against the chilly rain. She drew her foot closer to her so she could peer down at the wound.
The spear was now lodged through her foot, the broken end of the spear sticking out from the top and the hooked tip pierced through the bottom. It looked worse this way. Perhaps because her tailfin didn’t have bones to break, but Quinn thought that the wound was a clean slice through, even if the skin was ragged at the points of entry and exit.
Gritting her teeth, Quinn leaned forward and cautiously touched the exposed end of the spear. Even that light touch had her gasping in pain. She had her fingers and hands to grip the spear, but she wasn’t sure if she would be able to pull it out on her own, knowing how much it would hurt.
A distant rumble of thunder matched the temperamental beat of her heart. Quinn had to pull the spear free before treating the wound. She could not let herself succumb to Owen’s violence after surviving it for seven long years. She let the hatred she felt for him steel her nerves and wrapped her fingers around the hooked tip, which was slick with blood and rain.
“Uh,” someone said behind her.
A cold hand seized Quinn’s heart as she whipped around, releasing the spear and biting back the groan of pain. The smaller keeper stood behind her on the beach. She was wrapped in the large, oilskin coat, her damp knit hat pulled low over her forehead, and she was watching Quinn with wide eyes.
Quinn cursed her recklessness. It was too late for her to run. She could pull on the pelt and crawl back into the ocean, but it wouldn’t change the fact that the keeper had seen her. Had she been here when Quinn was taking off her pelt?
“Uh,” the keeper said again in a low, hesitant voice. She took a step forward but stopped immediately when Quinn flinched back. “Are you injured?”
Quinn gaped at the keeper. That was her question? She didn’t ask who Quinn was, or what she was? Even if the keeper hadn’t seen Quinn peel off her pelt, she had to be wondering what a naked woman was doing on the beach.
The keeper was waiting for Quinn’s answer. Quinn tried to tuck her injured foot with its obvious bloody intrusion behind her, out of view, but that only resulted in a wince. She glared at the keeper, but the woman remained where she was.
Eventually, Quinn attempted a lie. “I’m fine.”
“Are you in trouble?”
The keeper’s face was serious, the skin between her eyebrows wrinkling as she looked down at Quinn. Her hands were loose at her sides, but there was a line of tension in her shoulders like she was waiting for a signal that it was safe to approach. Quinn was careful not to give her one.
“Trouble?” Quinn parroted back.
“Do you need help?” the keeper clarified. Her fingers twitched, the movement catching Quinn’s eye before she focused back on the keeper’s face.
Night had set in while Quinn had been struggling out of her pelt and dealing with the spear, and the layer of clouds let in only a sparse amount of light from the moon. The beach was spared the flashing glow of the beacon, and with her human eyes Quinn could only make out so much. The keeper was looking intently at Quinn’s face, her gaze staying respectfully above her shoulders, not even glancing at the pelt beneath her. Quinn wasn’t sure if the keeper had seen her remove her pelt, but her line of questioning was tinged with concern, rather than fear.
However, the keeper was still human.
“Not from you,” Quinn said darkly, fisting one hand in the thick fur of her pelt.
The keeper cocked her head, a movement that reminded Quinn of a spaniel that one of the town’s fishermen owned.
They stared at each other for a few moments. Quinn couldn’t back down since she had no way to escape, and the keeper seemed too intrigued by Quinn to leave her alone. Quinn should have been more careful, but her struggle with Owen and resulting injury had stripped her of her common sense, and she had just wanted the comfort of a beach she had once claimed with her family.
Finally, the keeper moved. Not away from Quinn, but instead she raised her hands like a surrender and began to lower herself down. Quinn watched silently as the keeper crouched. When the keeper was level with Quinn, she paused, eyebrows raised as she waited for Quinn to react.
While Quinn didn’t appreciate being treated like a wild animal that would lunge at any sudden movements, she couldn’t deny that it was fitting for how she felt. She was trapped in a corner. If the keeper had rushed to her side, as she very obviously wanted to do, Quinn would have lashed out with everything her exhausted human body had left.
Now that they were face-to-face, the keeper lowered her hands. She tucked one into the space between her thighs and chest and used the other to brace her fingers against the rocky beach. Quinn was astonished by the number of freckles covering the keeper’s face. They reached across her wide cheeks and pointed nose, even trailing up her forehead past fair eyebrows.
“You don’t have to be afraid of me,” the keeper told her. She was still using that low, masculine-sounding voice that Quinn had first heard her use when speaking with the other keepers. It was softer now, barely louder than the gentle rush of the waves on the beach, but still a lie.
Quinn narrowed her eyes. “I’m not afraid,” she said. This was both true and not. She wasn’t afraid that this keeper would hurt her. She was afraid of what it would mean if this keeper told others of what she had seen.
It didn’t look like the keeper believed Quinn, so she blurted out, “I saw you crying.”
Realization washed over the keeper’s face slowly, in the way the moon pulled at the tides; gradually, until the shores were overcome. The keeper’s green eyes darted between Quinn’s face and the pelt beneath her, to the ocean where Quinn had floated as a seal and watched the keeper cry as the water crept up on her. With her chest rising and falling quickly, the keeper leaned into her braced hand, balancing on the tips of her toes as she stared at Quinn.
“Then it’s real? You’re real?” she whispered, as if worried someone would overhear. In her excitement, she let the low tones of her voice slip. “I mean, you’re really a… a shapeshifter?”
Again, it wasn’t fear that colored the keeper’s voice. This time, it sounded more like wonder.
“A selkie,” Quinn corrected her. If the keeper already knew about her, she might as well use the right name.
“A selkie,” the keeper repeated, trailing off as she stared wide-eyed at Quinn.
Quinn knew she should have been more frightened. The last time a human had caught her with her pelt separated from her body, it had been stolen from her and left her trapped on land for seven years. Her memories of that night were sharp as urchins, and she remembered the look of awe that had shone from Owen’s face when he had her pelt clutched in his hands. But the keeper made no move toward Quinn or her pelt. She wasn’t leaving Quinn alone, but her attention didn’t feel the same as Owen’s possessive focus.
Quinn shifted, releasing her tight grip on the pelt and rearranging her injured foot.
This seemed to remind the keeper of her original questions.
“Are you sure you don’t need help?” she pressed. “That looks pretty painful. I could help you get it out, and bring some bandages for the wound, and maybe some clothes?”
“Why?” Quinn barked, tucking her leg in close to her again.
The keeper seemed baffled by her question. “Because you need help, and I can give it.”
But Quinn had learned quickly that nothing was so easy when she was human. The keeper could help her with the spear to distract her while stealing the pelt when she wasn’t looking. She could offer to get bandages to bind Quinn’s wound, but return with the other keepers in tow. Quinn already doubted her ability to fight off one human, let alone three.
Quinn had also learned what the humans considered “help,” in that the wives had tried helping her fit in by humiliating her into submission. They, like Owen, had only wanted to trap and confine her.
She kept these memories sharp in her mind as she stared the keeper down. But even as she did so, Quinn also remembered the feeling in her gut when the keeper’s seven tears had fallen into the sea. She would have recognized the grief and pain in those tears even if she had been kilometers away. The keeper’s weeping had drawn her in then and continued to do so now.
A sharp twinge in her foot reminded Quinn of the danger of getting too close to a human. But she could not deny that she doubted her ability to get the spear out on her own.
Quinn let out a pained sigh and met the keeper’s gaze reluctantly. “If I let you help me, you’ll do everything I say, when I say it. No quick movements. No questions. If you try anything, you’ll regret it.”
The keeper perked up like Quinn had offered her a great favor. With her hands raised, she stood and took careful steps toward Quinn until she was at her side. Quinn’s grip on her pelt was turning her knuckles white, but the keeper was only looking at her injury, her expression twisting with pity.
Quinn didn’t want her pity. “I can’t pull it out myself,” she said roughly. “And I’ll need something to stem the bleeding.”
The keeper nodded and reached into her coat. She pulled out a slightly stained square of cloth from a pocket and Quinn said, “No. Gather some of that seaweed.”
Looking as if she wanted to argue with Quinn’s choice of bandage, the keeper pressed her lips together and put her cloth away. She scraped a few long pieces of seaweed off the surrounding rocks before returning to Quinn’s side.
Quinn had turned so that she was facing away with the bottom of her foot and the pointed end of the spear angled toward the keeper. She twisted her head to maintain a line of sight on the keeper’s hands.
“Pull it out all at once,” Quinn told her.
The keeper, for her part, didn’t grimace when she carefully wrapped her fingers around the bloody spear point. Her other hand hovered over Quinn’s ankle.
“It’ll be easier if I can apply a counterpressure,” she told Quinn.
Bracing herself, Quinn nodded, and the keeper set her hand down. The feel of a human’s hand on her skin made Quinn bristle, but she forced her muscles to relax as the keeper began to count down. The keeper met her eyes in the last moment, and the green of them was all Quinn saw before the keeper pulled and Quinn’s vision went black.
She must have screamed or shouted, because her throat was raw when she came back to herself. The keeper still had one hand on her ankle to keep her still, but in the other she held the spear, free of Quinn’s foot and dripping blood onto the rocks.
“The seaweed,” Quinn said weakly.
“Right.” The keeper jerked, dropping the spear and reaching for the pile of seaweed by her knee. Her wrapping was clumsy, but Quinn didn’t have the energy to do anything but watch as the ragged hole in her foot was bound up in strips of seaweed.
“You really should put some bandages on this, real ones,” the keeper muttered, her gaze flicking between Quinn’s wound and her face. “And medicine. There’s some in the lighthouse. I could bring it to you—”
“No,” Quinn told the keeper. She struggled up onto her hands and shifted her foot away. The keeper’s fingers fell away from her skin and the wrapping she had just finished. “I can’t trust you.”
This response made the keeper grin for some reason, and perhaps it was a foolish thing for Quinn to say after the keeper had just helped her, though there was a flicker in the keeper’s eye that didn’t seem to match her smile. She was looking at Quinn with too much understanding.
“You’ve nothing to fear from me,” she reminded Quinn.
“Because you’re a woman?” Quinn asked.
Immediately, the keeper’s face shuttered and closed. She swayed, as if she was going to tip over onto the rocky shore but caught herself just in time. Her eyes, still wide, were now tight at the corners.
Quinn stared back at her, unabashed. The keeper may have fooled the two men working at the lighthouse, and even the people in the town, but Quinn had seen past the illusion. This keeper knew Quinn’s secret, but Quinn had stolen one right back.
“How,” the keeper started, but then closed her mouth with a click of teeth. She stood sharply, legs unsteady as the blood rushed back in. Quinn raised her face to hold the keeper’s gaze.
