Page 67 of Salt Magic, Skin Magic
Then her gaze was back on Father.
“You,” she said. Her voice was low, melodious, the voice of a woman recognising a lover. “Do you have something that belongs to the sea? Will you show it to me?”
A flash of uncertainty crossed Father’s face.
“Come, show me, and we will be together.” Her accent was charming, lilting and soft.
Father fumbled the other sealskin—Mother’s sealskin—from a deep pocket of his great-coat. The cut edge fluttered in the breeze, but the woman’s smile only grew more tender. She reached for it—or maybe she was reaching for Father. Father reached for her; their hands were nearly touching.
Thornby felt, rather than saw, the sea rising in a grey wall behind her. It was taller than the high roofs of Raskelf, and coming faster than a runaway carriage. He could see dark figures caught in it, and broken bits of seaweed. With a thrill of fear, he had just time to think that even a seal could be dashed to death on a rocky shore. Then he was in the sea, injuries forgotten, a seal, swimming as fast as he could.
The wave grabbed at him as it passed, dragging him backwards, then letting go. For a moment all was still, and then the tremendous back-surge tumbled him out to sea. Something pale caught his eye and he looked down to see the naked woman, her arms around his father. Her face was pressed into Father’s neck as a woman might embrace her husband, and her sealskin covered them like a cloak. His arms had been around her too, but as Thornby watched they floated free. Mother’s sealskin left Father’s grip. Lord Dalton’s eyes were closed as he and the woman sank together, down into the darkness and the cold.
Now there were other seals swimming alongside. He swam with them, keeping pace. They wanted to race, to play in the last dim light, and then find a place to haul out and rest for the night. They’d saved him. And he could join them, if he wanted, and be happy. He wasn’t sure how he knew, but he knew.
But his heart wasn’t in it. There was no need to choose. John’s sand on the rock meant John needed help. He let the seals go. Two circled back, realised he wasn’t coming, and vanished in a trail of silver bubbles, leaving him alone in the black water. He turned and swam back to land.
It was a damned uncomfortable thing to walk along a beach at night naked, especially in Yorkshire in October. He found the nearest town, probably Scarborough, by the lights, and decided the best thing would be to go ashore and ask around. At first, he draped the skin around his shoulders like a rude cloak, but the fear that someone would take it dogged every step. Eventually he found a large rock, well above the high tide line, and buried it underneath. Not ideal, but in a strange way he felt much safer walking naked towards the houses.
Damned cold though. His teeth were chattering, and he couldn’t feel his toes. As he walked, he tried to come up with a story. Boating accident? Bathing disaster? What about John? What story might he have told someone?
And what about Father, who was now surely drowned along with Prout and Abbott? Might he have said anything to anyone before he died?
Father, drowned.
Thornby felt nothing beyond immediate relief. Perhaps he’d find the time to be really happy about it, once he’d found John and begged his forgiveness. And managed to get warm. Then a quick twist of memory showed him his father’s hands, holding a golden pocket watch out to him—and he was six years old, and allowed to hold that wonderful, magical thing, because Father trusted him, and his parents were looking at each other, smiling.
Damn it, why did it have to be so bloody cold? His eyes were streaming and his nose was running. And he’d stubbed his toes again, because these small towns were so damned dark. Eventually he got up to the town from the sands. There were fishing nets spread out along a low wall and he wrapped one around his waist. Then he went up to the first door he came to and banged on it with his fist. If Father had taught him anything, it was that clothes could tell a powerful story, but were not nearly as important as people thought.
If one’s a gentleman, one’s a gentleman, no matter what one wears.
***
John sat in the cell, ate the stale bread they gave him, and drank the mug of sour beer. Then he lay on the bare plank that was both bench and bed. The barred window wasn’t glazed and he asked the rowan twig to keep him warm. Tomorrow he’d demand lawyers and send for friends in high places. Paxton would speak for him, if necessary, and the Duke of Devonshire would probably take an interest if Paxton asked it of him. And Catterall, of course. For now, John was too heartsick to bother sending for anyone.
Lord Dalton’s words kept ringing in his ears.You’re doomed. You bloody sodomite. You’ll hang. Damn the man, the fool. He was probably still out looking for another seal-wife, and with that stinking curse on him, so they all swam a mile the moment he went near the sea. So, Lord Dalton and his selkie wife had loved one another. John imagined them meeting on a wild shore: the handsome young lord, thunderstruck, already falling in love. And the beautiful naked woman with a sealskin in her hands. Had she been afraid, or had she smiled, desiring him too? Had Dalton taken her skin then, or had she followed him willingly? The latter, John felt.
But then, the years had passed and things had changed. She’d had a son, and she’d wanted to show him his birthright; the sea, where Dalton could never follow. So, Dalton had taken her skin to stop her from leaving. And there, right there, was the seed of Dalton’s hatred for his son. If not for Soren, perhaps she’d never have wanted to go. And perhaps, too, if Soren had been a different kind of boy, Dalton might have loved him more. Instead, Dalton had found him a disappointment; a sissy, a bed-wetter, who had grown into an insolent and depraved young man.
Soren had told of arguments—his mother begging, his father implacable. No doubt, she’d begged for her skin. Then, with Soren gone to school, it had, perhaps, become too much for her to bear. Missing her son, desperate for the sea, she had gone to the lake at night. Had she meant to drown herself? Or in grief and desperation, perhaps, as the cold waters closed over her head, she had surrendered, because the dark lake was the closest she could come to the sea.
And even after her death, Dalton had not been able to give her up. He’d kept her body where he could visit. Kept her sealskin too. How had he learned that trick of cutting it? You’d have thought he’d let no harm come to it. But, perhaps, one day he had thought to end his obsession, to destroy the skin, had cut a piece and flung it away and realised it gave mastery of that foul spell wind.
Yet keeping the skin had also cursed him. Dalton had obviously hoped it would give him an advantage, and it had. The ability to raise a wind, even a foul one, would be no small thing for a man who spent his summers at sea, searching endlessly for another selkie wife. That spell wind had nearly done for John and his salt; had nearly been the end of Soren’s bid for freedom. Yet even if Dalton could not sense it himself, keeping the sealskin had done terrible things to him, and it had also ensured that no seal-woman between here and Greenland would ever come to him.
Soren. Oh, God, Soren. John had been trying not to think of him, but of course it was impossible. Where was he now? Did seals get cold at night? Were they prey to sharks? But Soren was no ordinary seal. Perhaps he had nothing to fear from the usual trials of life. Perhaps by now he was playing in a many-coloured sea with his own kind.
Or perhaps Soren was swimming back to London to reclaim his old life. Perhaps he’d put the skin in a bank vault and never touch it again; he had suggested as much at Raskelf. John had only the vaguest idea of the life Soren must have lived in London. But he supposed it was a glittering world of balls, clubs, private art shows, and rich lovers as handsome as Soren himself. In some ways, that world of privilege was even more removed; an ironmonger’s son could never belong there.
Either way, Soren would never come back.
John gritted his teeth, curling up against the pain. He should never have allowed himself to hope for anything beyond a night or two at Raskelf. He had triednotto hope, but somehow had been unable to help himself. Soren had given him hope—the way he’d smiled, the way he’d kissed, the things he’d said, the tone of his voice—it had all seemed so genuine. As if he’d felt something too.
What had John expected? That a lord, a devastatingly handsome,half-fairyearl, would fall in love with him? The idea was so preposterous it helped to clear his head. Soren had needed help and had given all he had in return. And since all he’d had was himself, that was what he’d given. Soren had been lucky. If Armstrong or Christie had gone to Raskelf, they’d have flung his first attempt at payment back with a punch and a curse. So would most men. It was as simple as that.
John had been lucky himself to get a few nights with a man like Soren. Of course, Soren had made himself charming. He’d had no choice.
That idea of going where the seals go, hoping he might recognise one? Looking for clues, like Dalton must have done; spending his summers afloat; giving himself the gnarled hands of a sailor; and searching, endlessly searching, for pearls on a rock in the middle of the sea, for footprints on a deserted beach—
