The Selkie’s Skin

I can hear her searching for me downstairs. Utensils and jewelry clang against the floor as she tosses them out of every drawer imaginable. The drawers themselves land with a thud against the hardwood floor as she throws them out of their slots, desperate to find my hiding place. I can imagine her flinging her husband’s clothes through the air as she ravages his closet, hoping to find some secret compartment concealed within.

I sing out for her, as desperate to be reunited as she is. Can she hear me? The legends always said that we had an inseparable bond, but it had yet to be tested with us—until he tore us apart.

If only I could I actually speak, then I would scream to her that I am in the attic, snugly tucked into a chest behind her wedding dress. The chest has begun to gather dust, both inside and out, and I would do anything to see the light of day again…to feel the coolness of the ocean running over me once more…

Oh no, he has returned with the pups. Of course, he has started to yell at her for the mess.

If he would only tell her where I am, she argues, then she would not have to go to these lengths.

Why could she not just be normal?—his response.

Because she was never normal, Jamie. You knew that when you took me from her, but you did it anyway, just so that you could have her all to yourself.

Has it been worth it, Jamie?

*

There they are again, the little footsteps. The youngest pup must be coming up here to play with me again. I don’t know how long it has been since she first found me or since her mother gave up searching for me, but I have not stopped sending out my signal in the hopes that my true owner will find me.

The youngest pup has decided to use me as a cape today. This is not the way to treat a second skin. If only she would grow her own, then she would know the sanctity of one such as I. Alas, due to her father, I don’t think that she ever will. Perhaps, one day, she will look at me with the reverence that I deserve.

What are those pounding footsteps that I hear? They sound so familiar, and yet they can’t—

Yes, it is her!

She rips me from her youngest pup’s shoulders, wide-eyed and teary. She runs a hand over me, and I sing out so loudly that I glow in her presence.

Without an explanation to her pup, she clings me tightly to her breast and runs from the house. We run and run and run until we reach the nearest shoreline. She sheds the fake skin that the humans call clothes and dawns me without hesitation. Before her transformation is complete—before the distant calls of Jamie and her pups can reach us—we jump into the ocean, together once more.