Page 58 of Odder Still
Her finger holds firmly to the trigger. “A wealthy selkie.” Her eyes narrow, slipping across my face and down my neck. “But you are not. Are you human?”
Part of me yearns to agree—I am human, human enough; I have to be. But peace floods from my parasite, saturating me until no more protests remain. Together, we form the commitment behind the worlds, even if it’s my mouth alone they slip from. “No. Not anymore.” The statement comes out too strong, too accepting, but I can’t help it. I can’t stop it. “I’d like to talk to your scientist about that.”
The elder finfolk stills, a single wrinkle appearing between her eyebrows. In the silence, my gaze latches to her pistol, to the way it still tracks Tavish’s slow bobbing as he basks within the ignit’s glow. He walked here at my side, not a single protest, all while understanding this was the fate most of his people met upon entering. How many selkies must have died while staring at that ignit—died by the bullets of a desperate town, a town Maraheem would have long since wiped off the map if the retribution for trying were not so harsh.
It isn’t right. None of it is.
“Please, we need sanctuary.” I hear the crack in my own voice, but I don’t care. “Both of us. We’ll do whatever we can to earn it.”
She tips her head toward Tavish. “His coat still holds ignation?”
“Yes. But that’s not mine to offer. You’d have to let him past the ignit’s energy, ask him instead.” My gaze hops back to the stone, catching on the speck of grey polluting its brilliant yellow. “Please, just let him speak for himself. If you intend to kill him, you should know who you’re murdering.”
She watches me like a statue surveying the ways of the living. Beneath the fins and the leathery skin, I wonder how old she is, if she might be like the elders of the Murk, ancient and seemingly immortal. “Go get him, then.”
The buzz of the ignit’s energy reappears as I step over the line of cylinders. I wrap an arm around Tavish’s back. He releases a happy sigh and leans against me. My heart wants to snap in two. I could grab him and flee, hope for the best. But with the way my parasite still trembles from its own repressed panic, and how I have to dig deep into my bones to find the strength to put one step in front of the other, paired with the multiple rounds in the elder finfolk’s pistol, I know that hope would be miniscule.
As I lead Tavish away from the ignit, he plants his heels. “No—no, where are we going—I have to—I’m missing—I’m missing—”
“I know,” I whisper, and I scoop him up, cursing at the ridiculous amount of weight he manages to pack into his short form. As we walk, I wrap my arms tighter around him, so instinctual that I don’t realize I’ve done it until I’m burying my fingers into his soft overcoat.
The instant I step past the line of cylinders, Tavish’s whimpers turn into a grunt. Pink crests his cheeks, and he lets himself out of my arms, flowing right back into his poise as though he’d never lost it. He fixes his outfit, scowling at everything and nothing.
The elder finfolk clears her throat. “Selkie—”
“Tavish.” He brushes his curls out of his face. “Tavish K. Findlay.”
She accepts the name without comment. “Our ignit is failing, but with the ignation in your coat, we could maintain it a little longer. Would you give it to us?” Behind her words, I feel a promise, not in her tone but in her entire town’s history. Tavish can hand over the ignation now, in life, or his death can leave it to be pillaged.
But Tavish, dear, pampered, princeling Tavish, for all his wit and cunning, can’t sense it. This is still bureaucracy to him. He has not grown up arguing his worth with a gun to his head, has not had to prove at every turn that he is enough of a person to be judged equally. He can’t comprehend the kind of rage that comes to a boil over an entire lifetime of being demanded proof of a right to exist.
“It’s mycoat.” His cutting words catch at the end, as though his knife-edged voice has gone dull. “This is all I have of my home, of who I am.”
It hurts not to immediately tell him that he must keep it, must fight to remain himself even as I slowly lose pieces of me in the process. But I can’t, despite the pain. I’ll make it up to him before I go home.
And if you can’t because you’re dead?It’s my thought, but it twists the way my parasite does, weaving into me, bubbling against my hollowed core.
“Then will you not let us have it?” The finfolk’s face droops, her expression turning sad. No, not sad. Tired. Exhausted. Like all her pain and rage have eaten her from the inside out, leaving room for nothing else. She looks like me.
Tavish doesn’t see it, nor the way her pistol begins to lift once more or the panic that sears through me. I step in front of him.
“There must be another option,” I say, as though options are things that can be hunted down without the cruelty of the universe towering over them, pulling them constantly from the reach of some and placing them like gems beneath the feet of others.
“You need this ignation to protect your town, aye?” Tavish asks, his voice thoughtful. “To prevent those from Maraheem taking their tax?”
The barrel levels with his head, his head through the center of my neck, from where I stand between them, my palms outstretched. But she doesn’t shoot. “Aye. To keep what little we have.”
From somewhere beyond the nearest buildings, behind the tense scattering of adults, comes a child’s laughter.
Tavish tips an ear toward it. His pain is palpable. “Take the ignation, then, please.”
He tucks his cane under one arm and reaches for his brooch with both hands. His trembling fingers slip, catching on the clips. Carefully, I remove the device for him. He lets me take it, his fingers trailing across mine as he gives it up. The moment it leaves his custody, he pulls away, pressing both palms to his cane and directing his attention everywhere but toward me.
I offer it to the finfolk woman, my voice low. “May we have the brooch back when you’re done?”
“It will be returned in the morning.” She closes her fingers around it until the silver glow vanishes. With her other hand, she tucks away her pistol. “I assume you’re seeking the ignit cycle physicist Dr. Elspeth Coineagan? They’re only a part-time resident, but they should be here to inspect our ignit sometime tomorrow.” Her lips peel back, just a little. “We will put you in the lodge for the night. You’ll have what hospitality we afford all who seek aid from us, but if you prove my allowance misplaced, I will float your bodies toward Maraheem myself.”
Tavish nearly drops his cane as he transfers it back into his hand. “Thank you.” But he sounds a little distant, a little desolate. “May I ask, what is your name?”
