The Wraith of Selkie Island

Cece Gray had been on the island for two days and two nights before her life was changed forever.

She had arrived by local fishing boat to the isolated rock, with its tiny cabin nestled into the rugged cliffside, where she planned to make her home for the next two weeks. Her intention was to focus on her painting; the Red Rou Gallery expected eight new pieces from her by the end of August—next month—and Cece was in need of inspiration.

When she'd first heard of Selkie Island, she was intrigued. It was a very small piece of land about three kilometres off the shore of mainland Scotland, and had been formerly owned by a local woman who vanished one summer, without explanation. Her small rowboat had been found floating adrift a few hundred metres away from her island, and this had prompted a missing persons investigation.

The disappearance of Marta McAllistair—for that was the hermit-woman's name—had been the centre of gossip in the nearest coastal villages for several weeks. Some of the locals believed she had moved to Iceland, or Norway, or Finland—nobody knew for sure—because several maps with marked water-routes had been found strewn across her kitchen table. But why hadn't she taken the maps? And what about her boat? She was probably murdered, they felt certain, and the maps were meant to lure the authorities away from the truth.

The romantic folks, the ones with more melodramatic inclinations, insisted Marta must have had a terminal illness, or she was irrevocably depressed, and had committed herself to the final embrace of the sea she was so fond of.

Some of the oldest villagers believed she'd never been a normal human woman in the first place, but rather a selkie—a seal-woman—who had simply rejoined her kin in the sea. They recalled their childhoods, told of their own selkie encounters to anyone who was willing to sit for a cup of tea, and listen.

"The selkies used to gather on that island, you know. On a full-moon night you could row out a-ways, if you were quiet enough, and watch the women swimming, and hear them singing their haunting harmonies, more beautiful than you could ever imagine. Then they would slip back into their skins and disappear without a splash, down into the dark water that sparkled in the moonlight."

Children's eyes grew wide, because they could feel that these tales were true. If their parents overheard, they'd quickly shuffle the children off the porch, or out of the café, and tell the old ones to stop filling up their heads with such nonsense.

As time wore on, the mystery of the Marta's disappearance remained unsolved, and the colourful speculations from the locals eventually ceased. The island passed into the ownership of the hermit-woman's distant cousin—who nobody had even known existed—and he had recently decided to rent it out to holiday-goers, from the comfort of his London flat. He'd never once visited the island in person, which some of the locals took as a personal affront.

Cece found the stories fascinating, and had been delighted to find that the island was available for a two-week period mid-summer. In fact, she would be the first person to stay on the island since Marta's disappearance.

She'd arrived with only the essentials, and now, on the third day, Cece finally set up her easel and paints. She sat on a simple wooden stool, which she furnished with the old seal skin that she'd found lying on the floor of the cabin, for comfort and as an extra layer of insulation against the damp chill in the air.

Before her lay a view of the jagged shoreline, rough waves, and a scattering of rugged trees whose limbs had been twisted and shaped by the harsh climate. They grew with gnarly persistence, resilient and strong, their stunted branches clinging to disfigured trunks, roots forcing their way through crevices in the rocks.

Cece found their grotesque shapes beautiful, a sign of their ability to adapt and thrive amidst hardship.

She was enjoying her solitude. The island was isolated in such a way that she wasn't expecting to see another living human soul until Ernie—her fisherman escort—came to retrieve her in twelve days' time.

"Sure you'll be okay? I can check on you mid-way through your stay if you'd like," he'd spoken the offer through an enormous beard which completely buried the lower half of his face, and Cece observed with fascination that it obscured his lips entirely even as he spoke. She made a mental note to do a pencil sketch of him later.

"No, I'll be fine. Thanks."

She watched him depart, his yellow rain slicker shrinking to a dot on the horizon as the drone of the boat motor faded into the roaring wind.

Now Cece picked up her brush and mixed a greyish-blue paint base for the water and sky, and lay her first stroke on the canvas.

It was then she first heard the moaning, initially so quiet that she couldn't tell it apart from the persistent breeze. After a moment it became louder and changed pitched, turning into a high, wavering wail.

As the piercing sound grew in intensity, the air temperature seemed to plummet several degrees. Cece shivered as goosebumps traveled down the length of her arms and legs. The wind rose suddenly, bringing with it a spray of cold mist from the roiling sea.

Strangely, even as the air dropped to what felt like near freezing, Cece's seat became unexpectedly warm beneath her.

The sky turned a dark looming grey, and the billowing clouds overhead became suddenly heavy with the promise of a pending downpour. The stormed seemed to come out of nowhere. It started to rain. With another full-body shudder, Cece abruptly stood, gathered up her things in a rushed armload, and wrapped the seal skin around herself for warmth as she hurried back to the cabin.

She shut the door hard against the raging wind, and slammed her back on the solid wood, breathing hard after her unexpected run. Once her heart rate returned to normal, she removed the seal skin from around her shoulders and draped it over a chair. Without the pelt she felt suddenly cold, and she rubbed her hands together and filled the kettle for tea.

Standing at the stove, Cece caught a movement out of the corner of her eye through the window, and she looked to see the figure of a woman standing down at the water's edge. She blinked in disbelief, then looked again. The figure remained and Cece stared at the woman, standing stark naked and stock still except for her strikingly white hair, which flailed madly around her head in the raging wind, obscuring the woman's face. She just stood there, pale against the stormy grey of her surroundings.

Cece's first thought was that she should go outside and offer the woman shelter. But her mind was at odds with her body's wisdom; every single hair was standing at attention, and a knot of fear had taken hold in her gut, rooting her in place.

Cece realized the kettle was screaming, and in the moment she turned her head to switch off the stove and then look back out the window, the woman had vanished.

She shook her head.

A trick of the light, she tried to convince herself. But the knot in her stomach remained.

After a dinner of warmed-up pea soup eaten straight from the pot, Cece lit a few candles and the small wood stove that was tucked into the back corner of the one-room cabin. She picked up the novel she'd been reading, planning to settle in to the rocker for a few minutes before heading to bed. As an afterthought, she picked up the seal pelt to line the old chair, laying it skin-side up for the softness.

As soon as she sat upon it, two things happened at once: all the candles went out in a sudden gust of impossible wind, and the wailing began again. This time, Cece could make out a single, drawn-out word.

Mmmmmmiiiiiiiinnnnnnnnne!

The voice—for it occurred to Cece that's what it was—seemed very close. Her heart thumped loudly in her chest, threatening to burst.

MMMMMIIIIIIIINNNNNNNNEE!

The ear-piercing wail was louder this time, penetrating to Cece's core. Her hands flew up over her ears in a desperate attempt to block it out. She squeezed her eyes shut.

There came a slow tapping on the window just a foot away from the rocking chair, the sound like a tree branch knocking thickly against glass. But Cece couldn't remember seeing a tree outside that window.

She opened her eyes a crack and ever-so-slowly turned her head to look.

Her eyes flew open then, and her mouth dropped open in a frozen, soundless scream.

There was a woman at the window. That same woman as before, pale white, naked, long hair falling around her face in streaky disarray. This time though, Cece could see the woman's features. Her eyes.

Her solid black eyes, open wide, stared straight into Cece's.

A cold wave of fear moved down Cece's tingling spine, and she was completely immobilized by it. In disbelief, she felt the seal pelt getting warm again, as if it was coming to life, like she was sitting on a living thing.

Then the pelt began to move, curling itself up around Cece's thighs in a smooth and steady, constricting embrace. The sensation reminded Cece of the time she'd held a king snake at a travelling petting zoo, the way the creature's entire muscular body had wrapped and squeezed around her arms with relaxed coordination and seemingly little effort. Despite there having been no harmful intent on the part of the snake, Cece could feel the animal's power and strength, coiled just under the surface, lying in wait.

Now this seal skin pelt was wrapping itself around her; she watched dumbstruck as it tightened around her thighs, enclosing them completely.

MMMIIIIIIIIINNNNNNNEE!

The wail came again. This time there was a note of desperation in the woman's voice. Cece watched her mouth, round and black, open wide with her lightless eyes as the words came out:

Let goooooo! You belong to meeeeeeeee!

The woman in the window appeared to be staring at the pelt as she screamed the command.

Then she disappeared, and a few seconds later Cece heard the handle of the cabin door being jostled. The pale woman was trying to come in.

Cece finally snapped out of her frozen state, and struggled to free herself. The seal skin seemed to be growing in size, and now began to engulf her midsection, her back, then moved up to her shoulders and now around her arms, pressing them hard against her sides. It was as if she was being swallowed, eaten alive by this living pelt.

NNNNNOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!

She heard the woman bellow at the same time as the door flew open with a loud crash against the wall.

Cece was completely helpless now, held by the constraints of the seal pelt which by now had enveloped her entire body. She felt herself begin to relax, almost as if she was melting. She began to lose the grip on her mind, and slipped into a sleepy state of vague awareness.

Her fear was gone now. Instead, she simply observed as though from afar, new sensations happening in her body. She felt warm. She felt... like a butterfly in a cocoon, dissolving, transforming.

She could hear the continued wailing of the white-haired woman, but now her agonized pleas seemed to be coming from a distance away.

NNOOOOO! You are MMMMIIIIIINNNNE! Let GOOOOOOO!

Cece could feel Marta's hands on the pelt, and watched her desperately pulling, pulling, even as the seal skin wrapped itself around Cece's face, covering the last inches of her human skin.