Chapter Text
Alina swims blithely in the frigid North Sea, her seal’s skin safely hidden away in an alcove of rocks along the shore. Water sluices over her body and languid waves buffet her as she dives and flips with Nina and Genya, and plays a competitive game of tag with Zoya.
It’s not often that they take their skins off, that they indulge in the sensation of mother ocean on their human bodies; cool and severe, a cradling, soothing embrace. They are well aware of the dangers leaving their skins ashore may bring — Nadia was stolen from them a few months ago, Marie the year before that, both gone without a trace, never to be seen again.
Smaller than the others, Alina tires quickly of their play and allows the tide to bring her back to the shoreline, already dreaming of the fish she will hunt for her supper once she is a seal again — maybe if she is lucky she will catch an octopus, her favorite — before drifting off into sleep surrounded by the sea’s gentle rocking.
She is almost to the beach when she sees him, a human man near the rocks where she had painstakingly hidden her skin hours before. Panic is an anchor around her ankle, slowing her movements making them uncoordinated and sluggish as she struggles to reach the shore. In her chest, her heart’s pounding keeps time; every beat a second closer to his discovery of the most sacred part of herself.
By the time she is pulling herself up the sandy beach, racing on two legs, long hair flying behind her, unabashed of her nakedness, it is too late — her precious skin, white speckled and velvety smooth, is held tightly in his hands, fingers stroking over it as he observes it closely.
At her distressed cry he turns to face her, his hair and eyes and thick beard as black as an oil slick floating over the surf, poisonous and inauspicious, astonishment at her sudden appearance is written into the furrow of his brow and the tautness in which he holds his body. She freezes, afraid, turning back towards the sea, already missing its vastness and familiarity, already filled with yearning as though she has already been wrenched from it.
“You’re a selkie,” he breathes, taking a step forward, but halting when she takes a hasty step back, ready to bolt. Her eyes scan the ocean, searching for Genya’s bobbing head — her bright hair stands out like a buoy when she is above the break, but she sees only the rolling slate blue waves. No one can help her, she is alone.
“Don’t be afraid. I won’t hurt you.” His voice is gentle, but he doesn’t relinquish her skin, and Alina whimpers, anguished. Now that he has caught her, he will take her away from her beloved home; he will hide her skin and marry her. She will never swim freely in the sea again, never see her friends again. The pit of despair yawns wider in her stomach, greedily swallowing every drop of hope it encounters.
“I’m Aleksander.” He places the hand not wrapped around her skin to his chest. “What’s your name?”
Wide-eyed, she stares at him, tears falling as quickly as raindrops, glazing her cheeks. “Alina,” she sniffles, wrapping her arms around her, doing her best to comfort herself.
He — Aleksander, approaches her and slowly reaches his big hand to her face, brushing away her tears. “Don’t cry, m’eudail, I’ll take good care of you.” His palm is soft where he cups her cheek and she looks up at him, intently examining the terrain of his countenance. There are crinkles at the corners of his eyes, the ghost of all his past smiles are kind.
When he holds out his hand to her, tentatively she places hers in his and permits him to lead her further inland, over crags and rocks, and up the ridge's steep face. With her seal skin still protectively held by Aleksander, she has no choice but to follow. At the top of the cliff she looks back at the sea one last time and whispers a quiet goodbye.
﹌
The clothes he insists she wear — old faded trousers, rolled over a few times at the waist in an attempt to fit, a creased knit sweater that swamps her, both a bit musty from being buried in a box in the trunk of his car — are an itchy irritant over her delicate skin as he holds her trembling hands in his and pledges himself to her before a man in a tweed suit, officiating their marriage.
Aleksander’s face is earnest as he speaks, but Alina feels nothing but stupefied numbness under the stark artificial light of the courthouse. Shock, maybe, or complete disbelief — she isn’t meant to be here in this drab building, being tied to a stranger she has just met; she is meant to be snug in her skin, dozing with a belly full of seafood, without a care in the world. This sudden shift in her reality is jarring and she finds it difficult to wrap her mind around.
When prompted she repeated after the officiant, promises to have and to hold, for better or for worse, in sickness and in health, until death. Sweet words of love and devotion that taste of acid on her tongue.
﹌
“You’ll like it,” he says as he drives them deeper into this new country — Scotland, he had told her. “In the spring we can go for walks in the heath or hike up the mountain, if that’s what you'd like.” Alina only gazes out at the unfamiliar landscape; bound to the sea as she had been, she had never gone more than a few yards inland. This world he’s brought her in to is alien and strange.
“Is it always so brown?” she asks, interrupting whatever he had been talking about — something about buying her some clothes and shoes, she thinks, turning towards him.
“Brown?” His eyes flick to her for a moment, before returning them to the road.
She nods, “And — and,” searches for the word, not sure how best to explain. “And lifeless?” The ocean was nothing but life, in constant dynamic motion, teeming with creatures, big and small, always bursting with energy. The land past the window is so still; swarthy rippling hills against an ashen sky, harsh and unappealing.
“Ah,” his mouth tugs up in amusement. “It’s winter. Come spring the highlands will be alive again.” Spring is several moon cycles away, its eventual transformative appearance does nothing to console her. Pillows her head on her arm and watches the scenery blur past dejectedly.
“Sometimes if you’re lucky, you’ll see a herd of red deer. Their fur blends into the surroundings, but if you’re discerning, you might spot them.” Intrigued, Alina perks up, squinting her eyes into the rapidly darkening gloom, and only stops when she realizes she doesn't know what a deer looks like. Unless Aleksander pointed them out to her, she would not be able to name them if they were right in front of her.
﹌
The house when they get to it, is secluded and sprawling; an old mill converted into a home, nestled in a copse of trees at the banks of a lethargic river. The stone facade is cracked and worn in places and the great wooden wheel is covered in springy moss. Curiosity for this strange building seeps past the wall of numbness she still feels, tickling her.
“It used to be a mill — to grind wheat.” Aleksander explains when he sees her interest. “It hasn’t been operational in a few decades, though.” Instantly more questions spring forward — what is wheat? Why would anyone want to grind it? How does the wheel work?” — but he’s already walking ahead of her into the house and all of her questions fizzle unasked in the space between them.
“You can swim in the river, if you want.” He tousles a hand in his hair sheepishly, turning back to her, something almost like discomfort abashing him. “The water will be cold, but the ocean would have been colder.”
At this reminder of where she came from and all she is now missing she curls inward, feeling brittle and wounded and Aleksander, noticing her returned discomfort, looks like he would very much like to swallow the words and take them back, but is unable to.
Quickly, he attempts to distract her by giving her a brief tour of the house, but Alina doesn't absorb anything, feels overcome and a bit out of her head, it has been a long day. He shows her a few rooms: a kitchen, a living room, his study, the door that leads to a flight of stairs to the attic, his bedroom briefly and then stops at a closed door down the hall.
“This can be your room. It was a guest room, but I can get you whatever you want to make it feel like yours.” Selkies never returned to the sea once they had been taken, no one knew for certain what happened to them, but the rumors that circulated, depicting countless horrors were enough. It is a relief that she will have her own space, that she will not have to give up more of herself, that she can at least have that.
The room is small and plain, walls painted a pleasant cream, a picture window framed in gauzy pale green, a wooden bed centered against the far wall, covered in a thick, patchwork quilt, a photograph of two peculiar animals she doesn’t recognize — long russet fur and great horns on either side of their proud heads.
Aleksander stays by the door as she ventures inside, taking it all in. “Do you need anything?” She shakes her head, mutely. All she wants is to sleep, her fatigue is so acute she is confident if given the chance she could slumber for days without waking. Maybe when she wakes, she will find that this had all been a nightmare, some terrifying figment of her own making. He hovers by the door for a few more minutes, but eventually he leaves, shutting the door softly behind him.
The bed, when she lies in it, is too soft and foreign and so she sleeps curled in a ball on the hard floor under the window, moonlight washing over her as she stifles her sobs into her fist.
﹌
The house, when she searches it, yields her nothing. Spends the first few days of her new life exploring every nook and cranny she can reach; running her fingers along wall panes and floorboards, seeking any hiding spots. Finds nothing but dust and old boxes, which when opened, reveal old clothes, photographs yellowing with age, stacks and stacks of scribbled over notebooks.
Aleksander grants her space; lets her wander the house uninterrupted for hours as he works in his study. He tells her he is a storyteller, an author, that he writes sweeping fantastical tales on the clicky silver thing he calls a laptop, and people buy his words. Or something; she is not quite sure. In the ocean, stories are freely given between the selkies and the other sea creatures. Money confounds her, she cannot understand why humans have created such a strange system.
Stacks upon stacks of books litter almost every room of the house — bookshelves lining every wall in the living room, full of carefully alphabetized paper and clothbound spines, unorganized books piled on top of one another against the wall in the corridors, forgotten books lying face down or haphazardly placed in strange places — on a chair, on top of the refrigerator, on a windowsill — neon sticky notes inserted between the pages.
It is fitting, she supposes, that Aleksander’s home would be filled with books. If he had chosen to tell stories as a career, it fits in her worldview that he would want to keep other stories close to his chest, hoarding books as a dragon would collect and protect priceless treasures.
When she was young she had always found it strange that they were taught the curves and swoops of letters and numbers, that they were taught to read. There are no books under the ocean, there is no paper, there really is no use for the skill, but now as she trails her fingers over the bound paper, she understands why the elders insisted the children be taught — if they were to be abducted some day, they at least would not be trapped by their own ignorance and would perhaps, if lucky, be able to engineer their escape.
Upon the eve of her first full day in Aleksander’s home, Alina had promised herself that she would stay away from him, but there are so many new things in this world, and she is boundlessly, rapaciously, curious. It is inevitable that she seek him out so that he may answer her unending stream of questions.
At first she had approached him cautiously, unsure if he would appreciate her interruption of his ceaseless typing, but in the attic she had found an odd metal contraption — small and boxy and fit in the palm of her hand, buttons on one side that, when pushed, opened the front so a small space with spokes were revealed — and was compelled to find out what it did.
Hesitantly she had knocked on the door of his study and held out the object for Aleksander to inspect and without a hint of displeasure for being disturbed, he had told her patiently that the item in question was a walkman.
“This one is broken, but when it worked cassette tapes would fit inside and music would play.” From his desk drawer he pulled out a smaller box, clear black plastic with two holes punched through the middle, reams and reams of tape wound around them. Transfixed, she watches as he fits the cassette into the walkman and closes the lid. “If it worked, when you pressed this, the music on the tape would play through headphones.”
For the rest of the afternoon he answered all of her barrage of queries as well as he could and Alina had settled into his company, unafraid for the first time in days.
From then, she found herself constantly in his study at random intervals during the day. Always with a new curiosity — “Do you know the person who wrote this? Have you met her?” and “How do televisions work? Electricity?” and “Why am I not allowed to use the stove?” Aleksander would always answer before sending her on her way, always with a fond smile on his face — “No that was written by Jane Austen, she lived two hundred years ago. Did you like Emma? I can read you a few chapters of Persuasion before bed.” and “Not sure actually. Let’s look it up — have I told you about the internet?” and “Because it’s not safe, but if you want you can help me cook dinner later. Would that be alright?”
Over the course of weeks, Alina slowly gets used to life on land with this quiet, gentle man. The comforts she never knew she was missing are a revelation — once she gets used to it, her bed is as comfortable as she would expect a fluffy cumulus cloud would be, the fire Aleksander lights in the den for her each morning soaks into her skin and melts away the chill that has always sat, unnoticed, in her bones, hot baths are extraordinary, and there is something to be said about eating cooked food. She will always prefer her fish raw, but the runny eggs and butter toast and creamy soups and all of the cakes and cookies he bakes for her are luscious and decadent and delicious.
Despite the ease in which she has adapted, still she misses the ocean. Misses it almost viscerally, as if every molecule of salt water bleeding through her veins longs to return where it came from. This new life is nice enough, but it is absent of something she can’t quite place. Perhaps familiarity, perhaps the intimacy of close friends, of community, perhaps the suredness she once held that as long as she was ensconced within the sea’s waves, she was safe.
Alina finds that she likes this house by a calm river on a wintery hillside, that she likes the coziness of blankets and the comfort of not needing to hunt her food and maybe, even, Aleksander, but she misses her home.
Misses the endless sound of waves crashing against the shore and misses the ocean’s dark, unknowable depths; misses Genya’s soft caresses and Nina’s playfulness and, even, Zoya’s teasing. Often when the sun has begun to dip past the hills and the still countryside is plunged into darkness anew, she thinks of her friends and wishes, fervently, that they are well.
The reality that she may never see them again is too painful to bear, so instead she dreams of their happy reunion, of their welcoming embrace, and of their squeals of joy when she finds them again, as improbable as it may be. If her little delusions get her through each day, then she will keep each shiny, luminous thought, as iridescent and opaline as the pearls she used to pry from the jaws of tightly clamped oysters, close to her heart.
﹌
He’s affectionate, Aleksander. Nothing that makes her uncomfortable, nothing suggestive or obtrusive, but when he has left the confines of his study he is invariable drawn to her, small touches — arms around her shoulders, her hands carefully held in his as he shows her how to dice an onion, his chest a hot brand against her back; a gentle kiss brushed across her forehead before he sends her off to bed; his legs tangled with hers when they sit at the table for dinner, winding around her until they’re tangled like seaweed; lingering fingers over her calves and the arches of her feet when he kneels down to slip a pair of socks over her wiggling toes.
To her bemusement, Alina had quickly learned that Aleksander could not bear to see her unclothed, he worried that she would catch cold in his drafty house. He is always overly concerned when he catches her in bare feet or without a sweater or once, memorably, completely nude, and rushes to find suitable clothes for her, to help her into them while gently admonishing her. Alina lets him dress her without complaining; doesn’t have the heart to tell him that she is more resistant to the cold than he is. In his heated home, she is warm no matter what she is or is not wearing; she used to swim in the North Sea at the height of winter in just her thin human skin after all.
There’s an inevitability about the way he touches her, and she knows that it is only a matter of time before they fall into each other like two stars bound for a stellar collision. And she is lonely, so lonely, but still she resists, stubbornly holding out because a part of her is still fearfully angry with him for all he has taken from her and she won’t allow herself to give in just yet.
Holds out until she can’t anymore, anyway.
﹌
Alina has been in Aleksander’s care for the completion of one moon cycle, the first time it snows.
The morning had been typical enough — she had eaten her breakfast: something beige and gloopy called oatmeal Aleksander had insisted she have because “It’s heart healthy, sweetheart. Don’t you want your heart to be strong?” In her chest her heart beat its usual steady rhythm and felt perfectly healthy to her, but she hadn’t complained because he let her top it with as much cinnamon as she wanted and crunchy peanut butter, which she had come to love.
Satisfied from her hearty meal, she settles in the den, a blanket over her lap, a fire crackling merrily in the wood stove, the scent of pine and cedar perfuming the air, a nature documentary on the television. Aleksander had shown her how to use the remote a few days previous and she had found a new obsession in watching nature documentaries. The one she had settled on today was on the blue whale which although fascinating, she was disappointed to learn that humans couldn’t communicate with the sea creatures as she could. There was so much they missed.
It is nearing noon when her movie ends and she stretches on the couch and looks out the window. She shoots out of her comfortable nest and to the window, presses her face against the cool glass and stares. Snow. The usually brown moorlands covered in a blanket of white. Millions of flurries raining down from rolling gray clouds. She has never witnessed snow while on land, has only seen it while bobbing in the ocean’s grasp, watching it melt into the salt water, flake by flake.
“It is snowing!” she shouts, excitedly as she races through the house towards Aleksander’s study and practically crashes through the door in her exuberance. He glances up, an amused upturn to his lips and looks out his window out at the wintery wonderland.
“The first snow of the season. It’s late this year.” He says quietly, almost as though he is speaking to himself and then he turns back to her, an impish grin on his face. “Would you like to go out and play?”
“Can I?” Alina bounces on her toes, excited by the prospect.
“Of course. The snow suit and boots I ordered for you came in last week. They’re in the coat closet.” He hasn’t finished his sentence when Alina’s bolting out the door and down the hall, eager to get dressed and go. She has never played in the snow before, it is a tantalizing prospect. From the window it looks soft and powdery, she wants to bury her nose in it. “Bundle up,” Aleksander calls, laughter ringing through his voice.
The snow suit he had bought for her is the bright, clear blue of shallow ocean water over a white sand beach. She slips it over the leggings and knit sweater she had changed into that morning and takes a deep breath before pulling the puffy boots over her feet — she still hasn’t gotten used to shoes yet, they always leave her feeling a little trapped, but the snow is calling and Aleksander would forbid her from leaving the house without her feet protected, so she stuffs them on. Grabs a hat from the cupboard on the way out the door and jams it over the tangle of her hair.
Evidently, it had been snowing for a long time. Several inches cover the ground and her boots sink into it with every step. When she gathers a pile of snow in her hands she discovers that it is just as powdery and soft and magical as she had imagined, and when she scoops some onto her tongue, it tastes of freshly melted water of a glacier.
The rest of the afternoon passes in a blur of rolling around in snow drifts and making snow angels and trying to build a snowman before giving up because the snow isn’t sticky enough to hold. At some point Aleksander comes out with a cup of tea warming his hands and watches as she frolics around. He doesn’t come out to play with her, but it is nice to have his quiet company for a half hour before he gets cold and retreats back into the house.
The sky darkening to night is the only thing that calls Alina back into the house — she could have spent hours more rolling down the hills and laying in the deep snow banks, but when the sun disappears she begins to feel the cold in her ungloved hands and the tip of her nose and decides it is time to warm up.
Exhausted, she collapses onto the couch in a sodden mess, feeling fully content for the first time since she had arrived. Aleksander helps her shrug out of her suit and pull off her boots, the nylon beaded with millions of drops of moisture, and hands her a steaming bowl of spaghetti. All at once her stomach gurgles and she digs in, smiling into her bowl as she tastes the sweet acidity of homemade tomato sauce.
“What is this herb thing called again?” she mumbles around a mouthful of noodles.
“Parsley,” Aleksander answers, sitting beside her on the couch with his own bowl. “And some oregano.”
They are both quiet as they eat and clean up, Alina drying as Aleksander washes the dishes in a sink full of lathery soap water. She's tired, but something unnameable is pulsing in her bones, energizing her. It is getting late, but she doesn’t want to go to sleep just yet; it has been a good day, maybe even the best day, she doesn’t want it to end.
Instead of laying under the quilt in her room after a scorching shower and waiting for sleep to take her as she normally would, she goes and finds Aleksander, her hair still damp and sticking to an old shirt of his she had been wearing to go to bed.
He is back in the den, sitting on the couch, reading a book, looking soft in his flannel trousers and worn navy crewneck. She can tell he is bewildered by her presence when she unceremoniously sits beside him on the couch — Alina is a creature of habit, he has gotten used to the precise routine she has been following lately. Dinner, help clean up, shower, bed. Her presence beside him is a deviation from the norm. A small smile emerges, but otherwise, he says nothing.
Slowly, imperceptibly, she moves closer and closer to his side until she is pressed against him, watching languidly as he turns the yellowed pages of the book every so often, the ruffling is soothing and she closes her eyes, comforted by his even breathing and the warmth of the sparking fire.
“Time for bed, I think, honey,” he says after a time, a hand carding through the now dry wavy strands of her hair.
Shakes her head, pushes her face into the side of his arm, doesn’t want the night to end. “Can I sleep with you tonight?” Her voice is soft, plaintive and she looks up at him through her lashes. Maybe she can let herself have this, have him for a time. She is so tired of being alone.
He stills. “Are you sure?” His expression is carefully neutral, but she can detect a glimmer of hope in his eyes and nods, snuggling closer.
“Yes. I don’t want to be by myself.”
From his bed she watches as he gets ready for sleep, changes into a plain cotton t-shirt and brushes his teeth at the sink of his bathroom. The overhead light shuts off and then he lays on the bed with her, watching her as she watches him, their positions mirrors of each other; on their sides, hands tucked under cheeks.
Moves closer again slowly and reaches for him, strokes his face, grips the soft bristles of his beard with her fingers, her belly clenches when his eyes smolder into hers as she leans in, closes her own eyes before brushing her lips against his, sighing into his mouth.
It’s like a switch has been flipped, he’s motionless and then he’s surging into her, kissing her hungrily, arms wrapped around her as he rolls her onto her back, his larger body heavy against hers.
He kisses her like he’s starving, like he can’t get enough of her, tongue licking into her mouth, deep groans from the back of his throat, her moans in harmony with his. Alina kisses him back with everything she’s worth. She has never been kissed this way, all consuming and avaricious — Genya used to kiss her when she asked, gentle and sweet — but this. This. She has never felt so alive, blazing heat bubbles from her body like she is a hydrothermal vent at the bottom of the ocean.
It’s not long before she is rocking against him, losing focus when the friction gets better and better until she is gasping against his mouth, lips going clumsy and graceless.
“Please,” she whines, “please, please.” She doesn’t even know what she’s asking for but she needs it, needs him.
Aleksander pulls away slightly, searching her face, “Are you sure, Alina?” Cradles her cheek in the palm of his hand. “We don’t have to.”
Hooks an arm around his neck and drags herself closer to him. “I want to, I want to. Please, please.”
“Shhhh, okay, okay, mo leannan. I know what you need. I’ll take care of you.” He helps her out of her shirt, pushes down her pants and underwear. Plants kisses down her chest, sucks a breast almost entirely into his mouth and she gasps when his hot tongue laves over a pert nipple. He only releases her when she wiggles and whines and spreads her legs, growing impatient with expanding arousal.
He moves down the bed, parts the curls that cover her and presses a fingertip in when she squeezes around him. Wet, wet, wet, she’s never been this wet before, never been so close.
“God, you’re tight,” he breathes, awed. Pushes in a little more and Alina whimpers, discomfited by the pressure. “Have you done this before?”
“N-n-no,” she cries and somehow he only looks hungrier, spreads her legs wider, drawing closer. “I’ll eat you right up, baby, don’t worry.”
The sounds he wrings from her as he kisses and sucks her drippy cunt, hollowing her out with one finger, then two, then three, are indecent and filthy and lewd. Had she been in her right mind she would feel embarrassed, maybe even a little ashamed at her wantonness, but as it is she's barely clinging to the small thread that tethers her to reality. Can do nothing but keen and cry out, twisting her hips in time until she loses her grip and she’s tumbling over some nebulous precipice.
Her chest heaves as she struggles for air, stars litter her vision as she comes back down, feeling foggy and a little otherworldly. And then Aleksander’s over her again, kissing her on the mouth and she can taste herself on his tongue, but she doesn’t care, would gladly suck her musk out of his mouth for as long as he would let her.
She is like putty in his hands, limp and boneless as he positions her the way he wants, as the blunt head of his cock brushes against her entrance and pushes in, relentlessly, until he’s bottomed out and she swears she can feel him in her throat and tears are falling down her cheeks — not from hurt, but because he feels so good inside of her and she doesn’t think she will survive this, survive him.
He rocks into her as slowly as the waves used to lap over her body and she can feel it. The ocean. It’s in him too. Her orgasm hits her with the force of a monsoon and all she can do is clench and hold on to him as her eyes roll into the back of her head and she knows nothing but euphoric pleasure and sweet oblivion.
Aleksander is tending to her when she comes back to herself. A soft cloth between her legs, a gentle hand kneading the curve of her waist, grounding her. She squirms under his touch and he looks up at her; the expression on his face is so open, so solemn, so much raw emotion evident in the dark depths of his eyes that it triggers a swirl of confusion and anxiety and she turns her head away, aware of each nervous beat of her heart.
“You were so good, sweetheart. The best,” he tells her right before he falls asleep, his head pillowed on her chest, light from the full moon streams over them through the open window, Aleksander’s quiet breathing filling the muffled silence.
Still hazy, Alina gazes up at the moon, it is so close to earth she can make out each scar and crater across its surface. Tonight the tides will be full with the moon at its peak and suddenly she begins to feel claustrophobic — the room too stuffy and warm, unable to expand and contract her lungs properly with Aleksander’s heavy weight on top of her.
Disjointed thoughts cloud her mind; hurt, fear, regret, the harrowing feeling that she has made a mistake. What have I done? What have I done? What have I done?
She has gotten too comfortable, she needs to leave — this isn’t her home, she has to go.
Shaking, she squeezes out from under Aleksander and stumbles out the door. The world spins around her as she rushes through the house. Go, go, go. Get out, get out, get out.
In the entrance hall she shrugs on her coat and then she is outside, running, running, running, as fast as her feet can take her through the snow.
With every step, she feels relief. With every step, she feels a little more free. She wishes she could have found her seal skin, but it is no matter — once she is back in the ocean and has found her friends, they will help her figure out what to do. Everything will be resolved once she is home again, all she needs to do is get there.
In her haste to leave, she had forgotten shoes and completely naked underneath her down-filled jacket she soon begins to feel the cold. Still she trudges on through the snow, arms wrapped around her to conserve her body heat, determined to keep moving even though she is unsure if she is headed in the right direction.
Her toes have long since gone numb and blue when she trips over a hole in the ground and falls face first in the snow, unable to gather the strength to rise again.
﹌
Aleksander finds her as the sun is rising in the east, the sky changing from black to shimmery pink and blue and orange. Alina is freezing, colder than she has ever been, teeth chattering so hard her jaw aches with it, curled into a tight ball with her coat wrapped around her, a crust of icy snow cloaking her.
Her exhaustion is so profound that she doesn’t react when he appears in front of her. A part of her determines that he is nothing but a hallucination until he scoops her up against his chest and she feels the wool of his knit sweater against her fingertips, her painfully frozen nose tucked into the hollow of his throat.
The twenty minutes it takes for Aleksander to walk them back to his house are completely silent. He says nothing, though Alina can feel the tenseness of his muscles beneath her. It is disheartening to discover that she hadn’t even run a kilometer — pitiful.
Once back in the house he deposits her on the rim of the bathtub and fills it with lukewarm water so as not to shock her numbed limbs — still she winces when he lowers her into the tub, pins and needles tingle down her legs like the unpleasant pinch of multitudinous nematocysts released by a defensive anemone as she slowly regains feeling.
After has washed her hair and run a sudsy washcloth over her body and rubbed her in a fluffy towel and helped her into fresh pajamas and tucked her into bed he leaves to fetch her a bowl of rich, filling soup. Feeds her spoonful after spoonful and soon she is no longer hungry.
From heavy lidded eyes she watches him as he feeds her, observes the worn plains of his face, the stressed furrow between his brow, and tamps down the abrupt rush of guilt she feels for having worried him. Because no, that wasn’t right, was it? Running had been her only option, he had stolen her. She just wanted to go home.
“Why did you come after me?” she asks as he rises from the side of her bed, empty bowl in hand. Why won’t you let me go, lingers between them unspoken.
He swallows hard, looks away for a moment and then meets her gaze, black eyes flickering with some indecipherable emotion, she can’t identify. Possession and something else, something deeper.
“Because you’re my responsibility now, Alina. I will always come for you.” Voice soft, but tone firm, unyielding. When she says nothing more, he leaves her room, shutting the door behind him with a resounding click.
﹌
Patiently she bides her time and waits for the right opportunity to slip away, unnoticed. The next few weeks are much like the first few days when the house and the hills and Aleksander were all new and overwhelming to her. She goes back to avoiding him the best that she can; secludes herself in her room and only emerges to scrounge for food.
Aleksander is cautious in the rare moments they are both in the same room, only asks that she has eaten, but otherwise leaves her alone. Every night before he heads to his own room to sleep, he opens Alina’s door and looks at the lump she makes underneath the covers — reassuring himself that she's still there, right where he thinks she should be.
She plans her departure carefully this time — packs a bag with some granola bars, remembers to wear thick socks inside her boots, times her escape just as Aleksander’s begun a meeting with his editor, can hear his voice through the closed door of his office as she creeps past.
The ground is wet and boggy as she races over the hills, paying attention to her feet so as not to slip over the mud until she reaches the hard asphalt of the main road. Aleksander’s meetings usually last an hour and, as is his habit, he would come check on her after he had finished, maybe ask her what she wanted to eat for dinner. It won’t be long before he realizes she’s gone and he comes after her again.
At a fork in the road, Alina dithers, unsure what direction will lead her to the ocean. There is no one to ask and she doesn’t want to risk traveling further inland. She’s squinting into the distance, a hand shading her eyes, trying to find even the smallest hint indicating which direction she should continue on in — the muted sparkle of light refracting off of ocean water, the call of a seagull, the smell of salt carried in through the breeze, anything — and is so preoccupied that she is taken by surprise when Aleksander’s car comes speeding down the winding road and halts with a screech in front of her.
Her heart plummets immediately and she takes a cautious step back, debates running, debates screaming, but there’s no one she can see for miles, it would be useless. Rooted where she stands, she watches as he gets out of the car and approaches her slowly, as though she is a skittish octopus ready to obscure his vision with ink and swim frantically away.
He extends his hand towards her and waits. “No more running. Come now, time to go home.” She glares at him, furious at being thwarted once again, and pushes past him towards the car, quietly seething. There is no point in trying to break free of him, she knows when she has been caught, knows when to surrender.
Mutinously, she sulks the entire drive back to his house and slams the door to her bedroom as hard as she can before she flops onto her bed, defeat and despair competing whirlpools in her gut.
The atmosphere in the house is so thick with tension a knife could cut through it. Aleksander attempts to bring things back to the wavering equilibrium they had once achieved before she had attempted to run away the first time, but Alina is unwilling. Looks away every time Aleksander tries to catch her eye, shies away from his touch. A part of her misses the easy camaraderie they had once had, misses being able to come to him with her every question, but she is so consumed by her rage that she won’t allow herself to get close to him again.
He corners her in the kitchen once, a few weeks later. Outside it is snowing again, the flakes fat and wet and sticky, falling in fast clumps until all that can be seen is spiraling gray. Once the snow had made her happy, but now she finds little joy in it. It is only another reminder of how long she must wait before running for home again.
He crowds her against the counter, his hair is disheveled falling into his face, unkept beard, face weary from too little sleep. She refuses to care. “What?”
“Will you ever forgive me?” he asks beseechingly, sadness a miserable overlay over his countenance. For a moment she stares up at him, feels a brief flutter of her heart but she doesn’t allow herself to be swayed by his pleading. He did this, it is only fair that he is as miserable as he has made her.
“No,” she rasps as she pushes past him, her words hoarse over the lump in her throat. It’s his fault. It’s his fault. Don’t give in.
﹌
The last time she runs it is spring; the sloping hills in full technicolor bloom, the air crisp and cool, high up branches studded with new buds, the earth green and verdant and alive again. Slips out the door as Aleksander’s car backs out of the driveway — off to the village for their weekly groceries.
Using Aleksander’s laptop she had found walking directions to the coast — she had been pleased to discover that it wasn’t far, a half day of walking if she moves at a brisk pace. She would walk for days if she needed to, a few hours won’t kill her.
The sun is high in the sky as she walks just off of the main road, the sky a limpid blue, devoid of any clouds. Munches on the bag of trail mix she had packed, digging through the ziplock for dark chocolate m&ms. Savors each bite – she will miss all the sweet things she had eaten over the last few months; there is no sugar under the ocean, there are no cookies or cakes or anyone to bake for her — and daydreams of the sea.
Wonders if it is still the same after months apart. If she will feel different without the home of her skin. The ache she feels for that missing essential part of her is debilitating, and the thought of leaving it behind, to collect dust in some hidden spot in the house is excruciating. But she has little choice — Aleksander can keep her skin, but he cannot have her. She belongs only to the sea.
For hours she walks, her feet sore and blistering in her boots, a little painful but she forgets how sore she is when she gets to the top of a steep hill and sees the deep glistening blue of the sea. Elation fills her and she practically floats the next hour it takes to get to the shore.
She breaks into a run when she hears the surf break across the waterfront, an inhale and an exhale more ancient than any landform. Home, home, home, she is home. Dumps her backpack unceremoniously, takes her boots and socks off as she races to the lapping water, tripping over herself — she doesn’t need them anymore.
The sand is damp beneath her toes and she’s so close she can practically feel the chill of salt water beading on her skin, inches away, centimeters away, so close she can taste it. She hurtles towards the ocean as fast as she can, her surroundings imprecise and bleary around her, exhilaration fueling her every step when she crashes into an invisible force and falls to the sand dazed and confused.
Stunned, she lays gasping for minutes, clutching her aching head in her hands, the world tilting and spinning, a dizzying rush of vertigo. Forces herself to even her breathing until she’s able to scramble up without feeling like she may vomit.
Tentatively she extends her hand until she comes across the strange unseen presence again, presses her palm flush against it, and pushes with all of her strength. It doesn’t budge.
Desperate, she races down the beach — surely whatever this was it couldn’t extend the entire length of the shore — she runs until she's winded, tries again and again and again, but it’s useless. She can’t reach the ocean, it rushes in and out, just out of reach.
Slowly, she sinks to the damp ground, and cries then, bitterly. The realization that she has been too long without her skin, that she can’t return without it, that she has been reduced to no more than a land creature is devastating. Her sobs echo over the empty beach, shoulders shaking as she tries to soothe herself, rocking back and forth where she sits, hands clutched over her aching heart.
The sun is a bright orange sphere, low in the horizon, the sky the deep blue of dying day when he finds her again. Briefly she wonders how he always manages to find her, but she is too disconsolate to speak.
He sits beside her as she weeps, hovers a hand over her as if to comfort her before thinking better of it and pulls it back.
“I hate to see you this way,” he murmurs, a despairing note in his hushed voice. Perhaps it should console her, but it only angers her. What right does he have to be upset by her grief?
“You did this to me,” she cries, dolorously. “You made me this way. It is because of you I can never go home.”
He nods, resigned, and looks out at the frothing sea. “Give me until this fall,” he says finally. “I think I can make you happy, Alina. Just give me a few more months and if I can’t, if you still want to return to the sea, I’ll give you back your seal skin, and I’ll escort you home. I promise.”
Buries her toes in the sand and props her head on her knees. Four months until the leaves start to change with the coming of a new season. Four months is what he is asking of her. She traces a finger absentmindedly through the moist granules — four months is not so long.
Turns to look at him, gazes directly into his eyes, searches his expression for any shred of deception, but finds only warmth and affection and yearning.
“Do you swear it?” she whispers. “You’ll give me back my skin?”
“I swear, Alina. But let me try first. Give me that chance.” Takes her hand in his, interlaces their fingers, thumb rubbing over her soft skin. Accepts his meager offer of comfort and squeezes back, reflexively. Despite herself she believes him; despite herself she trusts him.
“Okay.” She wipes at her cheeks. “Until the fall.”
His smile is blinding, eyes crinkling into slits, nose scrunching and abruptly he draws her to him, embracing her, kisses her forehead and presses her face into his neck. “Thank you, Alina. Thank you.”
﹌
He sets on wooing her immediately. Plans a host of activities for them to do together a few times a week — “We call them dates. They’ll help us get to know each other better.” Takes off work so he can devote himself to her completely.
In the face of Aleksander’s steady, never-ending, unwavering attention, initially Alina retreats into herself, but he bribes her with her with the sweet treats she loves and buys her the prettiest baubles, and she has never been the strongest willed person and the honest truth is that she has missed him, no matter how much she denies it to herself, and it is inevitable that she allows her walls to crumble and lets him in again.
Their first date, a pottery class Aleksander had signed them up for in town, goes well. He manages to throw a misshapen vase and Alina shapes a wobbly bowl that collapses into itself five minutes before the class ends. She lacks artistry, but she finds herself enjoying laughing at Aleksander’s serious look of concentration as he spins the wheel, hands messy with chalky clay and water.
After that first date, she doesn’t require coaxing to go on more with him, surprisingly she looks forward to them, wonders what new activity he has planned for them.
The weeks pass quickly in a steady stream of time together — a reservation at a seafood restaurant where she feels pretty in the flouncy dress Aleksander had bought for her and leaves contented with a belly full of fresh sturgeon and mackerel and yellowfish tuna. An afternoon spent swimming in the river that surrounds the house, teasing Aleksander for yelping with cold as she dives and flips around him, splashing him. A street market in the next village over where she spends the day dragging him to each stall and makes him buy at least one thing from each for her, to his amusement.
A picnic filled with the foods that she adores — champagne soaked strawberries and fresh lemonade and crackers with a tin of sardines and a little jar of peanut butter just for her and a pile of cornichons and black olives and miniature raspberry tarts that are just the right balance of sweet and tart. He reads her poetry as they laze on a blanket laid on a springy bed of bright emerald grass, dragonflies and butterflies flitting about, distinct against the blue sky on a rare cloudless day. Reads her Neruda and Byron and Cummings and Rumi.
There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,
There is a rapture on the lonely shore,
There is society where none intrudes,
By the deep Sea, and music in its roar
I love not Man the less, but Nature More
The meanings of some of the poems allude her, but listening to the cadence of his voice as he speaks while laying in the sunshine, his fingers gently stroking her wavy hair, is the most peace she has felt since he found her.
He plans a weekend trip down to Edinburgh where they ride a great metal eel called a train. Alina spends the hours long ride with her face pressed to the window, delighted by the speeding landscape. And then, the city — all old cobblestone streets, and ancient castles, and colorful buildings and all the goodies she wants thanks to Aleksander’s indulgence. Calls her “hedonistic” with a fond grin as he buys her the sparkling charm bracelet, tiny seashells and starfishes and oysters and seahorses and a single, gleaming, Akoya pearl, she insisted she couldn't live without.
And then a night at a drive in theater, an old horror movie called Alien broadcasted on an enormous screen, rows upon rows of cars parked to watch the spectacle unfold. She discovers quite quickly that she detests horror movies, finds them horrifying, which in hindsight, is probably the point.
Ends up clambering into Aleksander’s lap half way through and clutches him to her, pressing her face against the side of his head, eyes squeezed tight, fingers curled into his shirt, yelping whenever the music gets too loud. She can’t see it but she just knows someone is getting eaten. Aleksander rubs her back in soothing circles and offers to drive them back home early, but Alina quite likes being so close to him and insists that they stay through to the end. She never tells him, but it is her favorite date.
He woos her and she can feel it working. It is not just that he dotes on her and gives her everything she wants, but he is funny and he is patient and he wants to show the whole world to her, wants everything for her.
Each time he smiles at her with crinkled eyes, or touches her lightly — fingers pushing her hair out of her face; soft lips brushing against her cheeks as he kisses her; his strong arms wrapped around her, tucking her in close, making her feel safe — she feels herself slip-slide-sliding towards some ill-defined and mystifying abyss. Now that she has started her descent it is impossible to stop.
﹌
It is midsummer — the sun is high in the sky and the birds are chirping happily as they fly between the rowan trees, the sweet smell of sugar and flour baking in the oven fills the entire house. Alina had requested Aleksander make a lemon and blueberry cake and he had complied with an easy grin and a hand briefly pressed to the curve of one dimpled cheek — with how often he brushes a hand across her cheeks, holding her there briefly, sometimes she thinks it is his favorite spot to rest.
The kitchen is warm with summer heat, windows flung open to let in as much of the scant breeze, and she is sticky and covered in flour from trying to help. Aleksander looks comfortable and something almost like home in his loose tracksuit and shirt and she is suddenly filled with such an intense desire to kiss him that she just does, without thinking, without hesitation.
Drags him closer by his shirt, pushes up on her tip-toes, and brushes her lips against his. He stills for a second and then he is crowding her against the counter and then he is lifting her onto the counter and she can’t get enough of him, could have his taste at the back of her throat forever and never grow tired of it. Wraps her legs around his waist and tangles her hands in his hair, satisfied moans traveling from the cavern of his chest to hers, warming her heart.
Clothed one minute and naked the next. Sitting on the counter one moment and leaning over it the next, face pressed against the cool quartz, Aleksander’s fingers pressing in quickly, stretching and rotating and then his thick length is sliding in, and her cunt is fluttering and her eyes are squeezed tightly shut, trying to reach the floor with the tips of her toes, but just missing it, powerless to do anything but whine and squeal without the leverage to move in counter-motion with every jerk of his hips.
“God I missed this. I missed you, Alya.” His hand is a hot brand against her waist as he pulls her towards him each time he bottoms out.
“Your little cunt is the tightest thing. Could fuck it every day and never get tired of it. It’s the sweetest I’ll ever have. I lo —” chocks off, wraps her long hair around his fist, tugging until her scalp prickles with it, but despite her eyes filling with overwhelmed tears, she loves the pain that comes with this pleasure. Loves the feeling of the counter hitting her hip bones with each thrust, his cock spearing her wide, the friction of him inside of her is so good she can't help drooling onto the counter a little bit.
Fingers find her clit, circling once, twice, and she’s gone, shivering and gasping and shooting up into space. It’s unfair how transcendent she feels while under him.
He bites into her shoulder when he comes, all but collapsing on top of her, his forehead pressed against the back of her head, his breath hot against her nape. “Don’t disappear again. Please. Please.” She is too incapable of speech to tell him that she won't; that at least for the next few months, she can be his.
﹌
Alina thinks that she has become addicted to him, it is the only reason she can come up with for her insatiable need for him. She has seen addiction before in some selkies — purposefully ingesting urchins and poisonous jellyfish, the toxins making them hazy and out of their minds. Seeking a greater high over and over until they are nothing but delirious numbed ecstasy.
She knows she shouldn’t, knows she should fight her rising attraction to him, but she can’t she can’t. Nothing fills the void she never knew existed before she met him like his cock and his fingers and his tongue and his whispered words of adoration. It is ruination. He has ruined her. She is ruined, but she can’t be upset, she’s too consumed by the bliss he drags out of her to care.
Every morning now, she wakes the same way. The weak forenoon sun seeping slowly through the curtains, unyielding pressure where she is soft and wet and so willing, heaving arousal in her stomach, a sleepy smile on her face. Elation, rapture, heaven.
﹌
She falls in love like she is drowning — fights it every step of the way, and then relaxes into it when she realizes that there is no escape. Allows it to swallow her whole.
The happiness she finds in him is boundless; she is so giddy with it it practically oozes out of her pores, filling the house with her joy. She glues herself to him like a barnacle on the back of a great whale, follows him everywhere, wants to know everything about him — about his family, about his quiet, solitary life before he had found her, about his love for storytelling.
And he flourishes under all of the attention she inundated him in, welcomes her clinginess and all of her questions, answers everyone no matter how invasive. “I’m an only child. My mother and I don't speak, it's just me.” and “I suppose I’ve never been a people person, I’ve always kept to myself. It’s a bit lonely, but I’m not lonely anymore.” and “I always knew I wanted to be a writer. I used to love the old folk tales I read when I was small. It’s what I studied in university.” and “Yes, Alya, it would hurt if you bit it. Let’s not do that, okay? Come back up here.”
It is clear to her that he takes so much enjoyment in her company and she loves him, she loves him. It feels like she is bathed in the hottest starfire, like she is invincible, like nothing can touch her save for her eternal longing for the ocean. A conflict wars within her. Come autumn she doesn’t know what she will do, though she is confident that whatever she chooses will break her heart.
﹌
He takes her to a cèilidh one sticky late summer night. The heather is in full bloom, fat bumble bees fly slowly back to their hives, heavy with sweet nectar.
On the moors colorful tents have been erected, glowing with amber light, raucous with so much noise — people laughing and shrieking, a massive bonfire spitting and crackling, the whine of bagpipes, the sweet harmony of flutes and fiddles and bouzoukis and the atmosphere crackles with light hearted exuberance.
She whirls with Aleksander on the dance floor, dancing very badly, but uncaring. Giggling into each other as they attempt to follow the other revelers steps as they dance in lines and circles and in their couple and then in a group of three and four. They dance until their feet are sore and Alina’s sides are aching from all of her laughter.
When she gets tired and begs off between songs, Aleksander leaves to buy her a drink as she melts onto a bench, feeling boneless, but satisfied. He hands her a plastic cup that tastes of flowers and honey and sits beside her.
“Having fun?”
“Mmm. So much. Thank you for bringing me.”
He smiles and looks out at the dance floor, crammed full of people, fingers twitching in time with the music. “It’s been a long time since I’ve come to one of these. Forgot how freeing it can be.”
“What can be?” she asks, distracted, peering down at the light yellow liquid, trying to identify what flowers they had used to make the punch. Not roses or lavender. Heather, maybe? It was in season after all. “Dancing?”
“Being in love.” Cup unexpectedly forgotten, she looks at him, staring. Feels her heart skip in her chest. Did he? “Wha—?”
Before she can finish her question, ask him to clarify, he has pulled her back into the sea of bodies, a mischievous smile he can’t hide plastered on his dear, beautiful face. She mulls over what he said as they are swept up into a new dance the caller had announced as The Dashing White Sergeant.
“Did you mean it?” She asks at the end of the night when they are swaying together at the edge of the crowd, the dance floor slowly emptying as the gathering ends.
“Mean what,” he hums into her hair. She breathes him in, smells sea foam and eryngos and oud. Breathes out.
“About being in love?” Her arms tighten around his waist and she presses impossibly closer, needs to hear what he will say, needs to know.
“I meant it, mo chridhe, I love you.” Slowly, carefully he deposits each word into the shell of her ear, nose nuzzling the wisps of hair at her temple. His voice is thick with emotion and his arms tighten around hers and then she is pulling away so she can look up at him, tears sparkling in her eyes, but she is happy, she is happy.
Surges up and kisses him, laughing into his mouth. “I love you, I love you. Take me home?”
﹌
The trees have started to turn from a deep green to dappled orange and yellow and red, the landscape transformed into a fiery, untamed wilderness. They lay together in tangled sheets, brisk air blowing in through the window, rapidly cooling their tacky post-coital skin.
He cradles her to him like she is a baby, on their sides, her knees tucked into his chest, an arm underneath, supporting her, her arms stretched over his shoulders, fingers playing with his hair.
“It’s time to go, isn’t it,” he murmurs in the tranquil silence.
Alina’s fingers keep moving despite the wave of sadness she feels begin to close over her head. “How did you know?”
“You’ve been quieter lately. Introspective.” He smiles sadly, wide hand cupping the side of her face, fingers tangling in her hair. She nods, smiling softly, it is no surprise that he has known, he had always been attuned with her.
The last few days she had retreated into herself, thinking, unsure of what to do. Alina had thought of staying, had imagined it, had wanted it, but the agitated tides that lived inside her body were no longer what they used to be, they had turned and rolled and made room for something else, something new. She knows what that means — she can't stay, time to go.
Kisses his lip, kisses his cheek, buries her head in his neck. “I love you, Aleksander. I’ll love you forever, but I need to go. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t be, Alina. I never should have taken your skin, it was wrong. You belong in the sea — you never belonged to me.” He is quick to reassure her, to try and absolve her of her guilt, but his voice is trembling at the edges and she knows she is hurting him by asking him to let her go.
“I will always be happy it was you that found my skin. I will never regret it. I could never regret knowing you.” She rests her forehead against his, thinks: I will always love you. I will miss you. I am sorry.
﹌
The day he takes her home to the sea it rains. The clouds open and weep and weep and weep and she feels the same deep melancholy they must be experiencing to cry so openly. In her lap, her skin rests, soft and so familiar her soul had sung when Aleksander had given it back to her that morning. He had hidden it under a floorboard in his study under his desk. It was the only room Alina had never searched in those early days together. She looks out the window unseeing as Aleksander drives, takes in the valleys and hills of the highlands, and says a quiet goodbye.
He had tried to be jovial that morning, to lighten the mood, to keep her spirits up, but she can see clearly that he is heartbroken, that he is forcing himself to smile and talk as though it were a normal day. The closer they get to the sea, the quieter and more tense he becomes and if Alina wasn’t convinced in her choice, she would hate herself for being the source of his pain. Hates herself a little bit, anyway.
It takes less than an hour to drive to the coast and before she knows it they are standing on the waterlogged sand, Aleksander hugging her, his cheek pressed onto the top of her head. For a long time they stand like that together, two entwined figures savoring these last moments together.
“Forget about me, Alina. Be happy. Be free.”
A flare of pique; he’s stupid, he’s so stupid. She pulls away from him, meets his eyes fiercely, “I will never forget you. I will think of you everyday. I love you.” Kisses him one last time and wrenches herself away, heart aching already though she has only just left the warmth of his arms.
Turns towards the churning sea and disrobes quickly, leaves her clothes where they fall on the beach and walks slowly towards the open water, her selkie skin gripped tightly in one fist.
Closes her eyes as she walks, and lets out a gasp when a playful wave laps at her toes. She can feel it again, she is home. Laughs a little and then cries as she keeps walking, her tears mixing with rain water and salt water, disappearing in all the wet. She wonders if Aleksander is still watching on the shore, but she forces herself to keep moving. When she is waist deep, she dives in a perfect arch, and then she is swimming, swimming, swimming further into the choppy ocean, slipping on her skin and transforming back into a seal as she goes.
She does not look back.