The Selkie's Salt

She holds what she believes to be a fur cloak of sorts, sliding her thumbs across the velvety, brown surface as she pinches it between her fingers. There are imperfections speckling the length of it, splotches of black and gray in no particular pattern and scuffs of thick soot beneath a layer of dust. It is rather drab, peculiar, she thinks. And yet, she cannot look away from it.

Her eyes travel from top to bottom of the garment and then do so again. Over and over, she drinks in the sight of it as if to memorize its undulating curves, the delicate overlapping of each strand of fur. Her hands feel deliciously warm against its slick surface. Not in the way one feels the warmth of a coat or blanket, she realizes. Like the warmth of a lover’s breath in your hair or the heat rising from their skin as you touch their chest. Something alive. Familiar. Yours alone to cherish. It travels through her fingertips and arms and blooms in her chest, its tendrils reaching to send sparks across her blushing cheeks.

Put it on.

A jolt of surprise ripples through her, for the thought comes without warning. She shakes her head in silent admonishment, brows furrowed. Why would she place this grimy thing, found while clearing a nest of starlings from the chimney, of all places, on her body? She would have chuckled at the absurdity of the idea, except that the ferocity in which the thought now grips her mind leaves no room for humor. The more she tries to move beyond the thought, the more expansive it becomes. It crowds into every corner of her awareness. Inescapable.

Put it on. Put it on.

She thinks briefly to resist the urge, but the notion is almost immediately displaced by her deepening need to feel its smooth slickness against her arms, back, legs. Slowly, her hands lift to bring the cloak high above her head. Sunlight streaming through the cottage window dances across the fur as it raises, creating glistening patches of honey brown.

Put it on. Put it on. Put it on.

Her right hand circles her left. All it will take is a flick of her wrist and twist of her arm to flip the cloak onto her back. Yet, in this final act, she hesitates. Despite her surging desire, she feels something churning at the perimeter of her thoughts. Something powerful and all consuming, barely contained. As sublime and as awful as a starlit sea with no land in sight. She feels it, threatening to spill across her memories. She is both drawn to it and drowning in it.

The thud of hooves on earth reaches her ears, and the spell shatters. Air rushes into her lungs. She had not realized she was holding her breath. Though she swears she can feel the daze falling away from her mind in rivulets, she does not find clarity on the other side. Her heart feels heavy somehow as she lowers the skin.

Thady is back. He’ll be inside soon, and she knows she can’t let him see her with it, whatever it is. He will surely ridicule her impulsiveness in removing it from the chimney, seethe at her stupidity in dirtying the parlor or her skin. She knows he might direct the rage that simmers just beneath his thinly veiled pretense towards her. Knows it might happen no matter what she does or does not do. But it is not this vision that sends unexpected panic rocketing through her gut, but one of Thady taking her newfound skin and throwing it away, tearing it, burning it even. She cannot bear the thought. She does not know why.

In a rush, she stuffs the pelt into the pocket of her apron and places the thick, oak logs back on the grate. Her hands are trembling. When did her breath become so shallow and quick?

This is a terrible time of year. She loves many things that come with the drop in temperature: the crystalline glimmer of frosted grass, the earthy scents of parsnip soup, the crispness of the air. But less sunlight means less time on the water, means more Thady inside the cottage with her. She can always feel his presence looming over her like she is inside a bubble. A fragile, taut enclosure, invisible and ready to burst with the slightest wrong move.

Thady comes through the door, his broad figure hulking in the frame. She walks to him with her chin dipped slightly towards the floor and coos in a quiet voice, “Hello, love. How was it today?”

An unemphatic grunt answers her as she peels the coat from his shoulders. Behind him, their son waits with patient eyes for his father to move through the doorway. He beams up at his mother, and she leans down to kiss the top of his sandy hair. “I’ll get dinner started,” she says. She is grateful to avoid Thady’s scrutiny and hastens to the kitchen with long, efficient strides.

She brings her knife down deftly, cleaving potatoes and carrots into large chunks. A pot bubbles behind her. She scoops the cubed vegetable flesh and turns to the stove, dropping the pieces in. A splash follows that sends a steaming water droplet scorching across her skin.

She recoils her stinging hand, shaking it reflexively. But something is wrong. The momentary shock of pain, which should have eased quickly in the chilly, cottage air in combination with her quick withdrawal, has not gone away. She turns her palm away from her and stares in befuddlement at the spot that continues to pulsate angrily. She only has seconds to ponder, however, before the sensation erupts.

A jerk sends her head flinging backwards and her limbs vibrating with involuntary tension. The dull ache reverberates through her entire body as if the sensation is racing down the highway of her capillaries into the fiber of her being. Her mouth is agape, but no sound emerges from her clenched throat.

Her vision dims. She wonders briefly if she has fainted, but she does not think so. She imagines unconsciousness to be a place of cool emptiness, of absolute nothingness, and that place is not this place. Here, rich greens and blues ebb around the corners of the darkness. Foggy figures sway and dart across her vision. The scent of salt and brine fills her nostrils. Her hands move on their own, reaching into the abyss. She feels intoxicated as the words come to her again.

Put it on.

With a snap like that of a bow cracking, she is released and her head drops forward onto her chest. She is surprised to find she is still standing. Her chest rattles with the strain of gulping down air. Her eyes are wide, wild, and bewildered.

She does not know what just happened. Does not know how to even begin to articulate it. What she does know is when she wades through the thunderous hammering of the heart threatening to bust through her ribcage, she does not find the accustomed, ashen taste of fear. It is similar, yes. But the aftertaste is not the sourness of shame or the bitterness of fury. It is bracing and pungent like sweat beading off escaped prey, triumphant and proud. Exhilaration.

She glances around to ensure that Thady did not witness her episode. Sufficiently sure he did not and without knowing what else to do, she returns to making dinner. As she reaches for her knife, she notices her hand is in her apron, clutching the cloak.

This was not the last time that evening that the trance-like state would enfold her in its grasp. It happened again after collecting the dinner plates and as she plucked the laundry from the line. Every time she came back to herself, she glanced around with frantic eyes, followed by gushing relief to find Thady in another room. Her son saw it happen once when it overtook her as she swept his bedroom. But, gentle babe that he is, he did not cry or scream. She merely came to with his small arms wrapped around her legs and his curious face peering up at her. She smothered him in kisses.

With each happening, the liminal space becomes more vibrant and corporeal. The greens and blues had evolved into more complex combinations of themselves and were joined by light brushings of silvers and browns. The ambiguous shapes gained structure, and she could see the roundness of their cylindrical features. Where once there was vague openness, she now thought she could discern the beginnings of some sort of landscape. As if the snapshots in her mind were developing negatives and each visit revealed a clearer illustration.

Night has come in its entirety now. A thin crescent glows icy white where the moon splits the sky. The swooshing of the ocean’s waves reaches her ears with the softness of a child’s whisper. As she lays in bed replaying the visions in her mind, she becomes certain of one thing. She has been to this place before.

She is unsure where it is or why she can’t remember it exactly, but she is sure she has known it before. It is the ease of falling into arms that are known and loved and known to love. She fits into the space of it, belongs in this embrace. She feels it at the very core of her, a tug of awareness that aches for the closeness. She feels it even now. A liquid heat pooling in her abdomen and pulling to this familiar, forgotten place.

Put it on.

She turns her head with a small, silent twist. His eyes are shut and his snores rumble into the room.

Put it on.

She closes her eyes tightly and blows a shaky breath from her mouth. With delicate precision, she strips the blanket away from her body. Pauses to notice any changes in his breathing, presses on. Her legs slide free of the sheets. In one fluid movement, her bare feet meet the cool ground.

She leans forward. Her back is arched like the spine of rabbit poised to flee. Her arm reaches beneath the bed and withdraws the hidden pelt. She clutches it to her chest for a few heartbeats, and springs soundlessly from the bed. She does not look over her shoulder as she leaves.

What now? She draws her attention inward, searching for the bridled voice to ask it for the answer. It does not speak. But she realizes it does not have to. She feels it now, the magnetism buried deep in the makeup of her cells, her very biology tracing a path with invisible twine for her to follow. With this flicker of recognition, it feels as integral to her as the pulse in her neck. It must have always been there. Perhaps concealed just below the heavy blanket of terror that has encased her for all these years.

She senses the deep attraction towing her towards the door like an undercurrent. She will follow. She knows this. Before she moves, however, she understands there is something else she must do, something that this pull does not ask of her, but the one that radiates from her womb does. She fights against the now nearly crushing need to leave as she tiptoes into her son’s room.

She does not stay long. There is something tortuous about the uninhibited softness of his resting face. Staring at him, the most perfect thing she has ever made or will ever do, hurts in the way one slices their hand on a beautiful blade.

She gives herself only a few moments to commit the curve of his cheeks, the pink blushing of his ears, and the delicate smattering of sunspots to memory. Then she kisses his cheek and slips noiselessly out of the room. Tears run in salty tracks and drip from her jaw.

Before she can change her mind, she is standing outside in the frigid cold. She shivers uncontrollably. Her calf-length chemise and the pelt in her hands are the only pieces of clothing offering any amount of protection from the wind snapping at her skin. She had thought of grabbing at least a coat before leaving but was propelled forward by the undertow gripping her soul. She hopes the decision does not cost her. She prays vaguely to the stars glittering in the foreground of their unearthly backdrop that she has not gone insane.

She walks away from the cottage, Thady, and her son. Her feet move rapidly, and she delights in the burn of her straining muscles and the blood rushing beneath the skin of her cheeks. With the darkness swallowing her vision and following instead the intrinsic thread, she focuses on the low whining of the midges, the squeak of sand between her toes, and the sloshing of the ocean waves.

Then she hears something else. She stops walking. It is not the midges or the sand or the waves but seems to exist within those things or maybe in culmination of them. It edges out from beneath the wind’s howl, full and sweet as a late August blackberry. It is a song, she realizes. And it is one she has heard before. She feels the sounds sliding in and across her brain with sparks of electricity. They are not words she understands, but the translation reaches her anyways. She hears the soft swish of swaying kelp and sees the silver flash of a herring and feels rushing water whooshing down her spine.

This is not just a song. It is a call, and it is calling her, Eve, home.

“Honey?”

Eve’s breath catches in her throat. She turns to see a yellow light bobbing towards her.

“Honey? What are you doing out here?” Thady asks in that practiced, silken way of his. His eyes travel down the length of her and the thin chemise billowing in the gale. Then his eyes land on the cloak gripped in her hand. He smiles, but his eyes go flat and hard. Sheets of slate warning to revert into volcanic ash.

“That’s not enough to keep you warm. Come on, let’s go back inside.” He takes a step towards her. Eve takes one backwards. His smile faulters, his lips turning down slightly at the corners.

“Do not cause a fuss. Come back inside. Now.” He says the last word with slow deliberation. The threat of it echoes in the air between them like a gunshot.

In a flash, Eve is sprinting. Her hair flaps wildly behind her as she struggles to keep her footing on the shifting sand. She can hear his feet landing heavily behind her. He is bellowing something, but she is not listening anymore. She opens her mouth to release what feels like a horrified scream, but her voice does not come out jagged and sharp like she expects. It is rich and smooth and beautiful. She is singing. Something she has not done in a long, long time.

He is gaining on her, but she does not stop. Her feet pound to the rhythm of her heartbeat as she chants her ode to the sea. She barrels forward, unfurling her seal skin and slipping her right hand inside the sleeve. She slips her left hand in as her heels meet solid, unmoving sand with a wet slap. He is so close to her. She is so close to Her.

Beneath Thady’s indiscernible shouts, Eve hears the click of something distinctly metallic. She makes a final leap and dives. With a roaring splash, she plunges into the darkness. Liquid laps around her legs, back, arms. She is very, very warm.