Selkie, p.27
Selkie, page 27
THE SKY WAS REMARKABLY clear the next few days after the gloom that had instigated Maisie’s unplanned evening swim. Quinn used these days to finally get her foot fully recovered. There was a large scar where the wound had been, but she could finally walk normally, if slowly. She even managed to climb to the top of the lighthouse with Maisie one afternoon without needing to stop once. However, neither of them seemed to be in a hurry to share Quinn’s progress with Jamie or MacArthur.
She and Maisie spent every moment together. This was hardly different from how they had been before that night on the beach after Quinn pulled her from the water, but how they spent that time together certainly was.
Maisie touched her whenever she had the chance. She would take Quinn’s hand in hers and study her fingers like she’d never seen them before. She would rest her forehead against the back of Quinn’s neck when they slept, her breath soft and tempting against Quinn’s skin. When Maisie left Quinn in a room to go work outside, she would trail her fingers down Quinn’s cheek before gripping her chin and placing a kiss on her lips.
Of course, she only did this when they were alone. But she was taking chances, hooking her ankle around Quinn’s while they ate at the table with Jamie and MacArthur. She’d hastily thrown herself away from Quinn when Jamie had rounded the corner of the lighthouse unexpectedly. Quinn wasn’t completely sure that Jamie hadn’t seen them, but he hadn’t said anything beyond asking Maisie to come help him fix one of the windows.
Every moment felt stolen. Quinn could hardly believe that Maisie gave herself so willingly, on top of everything she had offered Quinn already. She tried to give as much in return.
After a quick breakfast on the third day of sunny skies, Maisie and Jamie went outside to fix the stone fence that ran along the back of the lighthouse, as the storm had knocked quite a few rocks loose and it needed patching. Quinn cautiously followed them out and found the driest bit of grass to sit on and observe.
While the sun was bright and glinted off the sea below like a winking, iridescent shell, Quinn shivered in her thick sweater and borrowed jacket. The sun could do its best, but winter had come.
She watched as Maisie and Jamie fussed over the fence. Quinn was glad Maisie was feeling well enough to work, like being thrown from the cliffs into the water was nothing more than a chill to be shaken off. She studied Maisie’s face for concealed wariness, or fear, but found none.
You saved me, Maisie had told Quinn. But Quinn hadn’t said that it was her storm that put Maisie in danger in the first place. It was Quinn’s fear that had nearly dragged Maisie beneath the waves. She had seen what her storm had done to MacArthur. She refused to let it hurt Maisie, too.
And MacArthur had thanked her.
Quinn pressed one hand to her mouth and fisted the other in the chill grass, the blades brittle beneath her fingers. MacArthur had thanked her for saving Maisie, Jamie had called them square, and Quinn had let it slide between her ribs and settle somewhere in her chest where it burned steadily like a candle. How long could she keep using their kindness before the candle burned out?
In all her years on land, she had scarcely seen the goodwill that the keepers had shown her in a few short weeks. Owen had been kind until it became clear that nothing would sway Quinn from her hatred. The townspeople had turned against her almost immediately. Even the few who came close to kindness, like Ronnie the pub owner, had done so from a distance. They would offer smiles and conversation, but nothing more.
How were the lighthouse keepers so different from the other humans she’d met? Maisie had quite literally given Quinn the shirt off her back and expected nothing in return. MacArthur accepted her into his home on Maisie’s word. Even before she pulled Maisie from the water, they had offered her safety simply because she needed it.
The candle in her chest flared, burning white hot. Quinn inhaled shakily and forced herself to take steady, calming breaths.
Maisie wanted Quinn to stay, so she had. With that choice, Quinn had put her freedom on the line. She hoped it was worth it.
“Quinn,” Maisie called suddenly, and Quinn looked up. Maisie was standing with a large, flat rock clutched in her hands. Jamie was half hidden by the wall. “You okay?”
“Fine,” Quinn called back, lowering her hand. “Just trying to warm up my fingers.”
Maisie’s brow furrowed. “Do you want to go back inside?”
“No,” Quinn said, “but maybe I’ll go on a walk. A slow one.” She added the last part with a put-upon sigh at the look Maisie gave her.
“Don’t push your foot,” Jamie warned curtly, the top of his head moving along the line of the fence. She made a noise of agreement. Even if Jamie had his reservations about her, he still cared about her injury. Perhaps it was only because he wanted her to heal faster and be on her way, but it was more than she could have expected. She walked slowly, as promised, and let her eyes skip from the ground in front of her to the ocean, to the horizon, and back. She wished the wind would lift her worries off her shoulders and carry them off into the distance.
As she rounded the other side of the lighthouse, her gaze trailed along the ragged cliffs and the winding path down to the beach. She missed her next step and nearly tripped on a clump of grass.
There was a boat pulling into the dock alongside Jamie’s.
In an instant, all her worries, all her fear, welled up like a geyser. Was it Owen’s boat? No, it was too small. But hadn’t Jamie said that the waters were too dangerous to cross from the mainland during winter? Who had traveled all the way here despite that?
Distant male voices calling out over the wind finally sent her hurrying back around the island.
Maisie must have seen her out of the corner of her eye, because she grumbled, “I thought you said you’d go slow.”
“Someone’s here,” Quinn said.
Both Maisie and Jamie jerked to their feet.
“It’s not…” Maisie asked, wide-eyed, and Quinn knew who she meant right away. It had been her first thought, too.
“It’s not my husband. At least, not his boat,” she said, gritting her teeth as she wheeled around to follow Jamie and Maisie back to the lighthouse. Jamie’s face was closed off, shoulders stiff.
They paused long enough for Maisie and Jamie to confirm what Quinn saw, and to see three men heading toward the path, before piling into the lighthouse. Jamie shouted for MacArthur.
“What?” came MacArthur’s reply from his office.
“Someone’s here!” Jamie repeated. There was a pause, and then MacArthur’s hurried footsteps descended the stairs, and they all gathered in the kitchen.
“Who?” was MacArthur’s first question, his eyes swinging to Quinn.
“It’s not my husband’s boat,” she told him. “I’d recognize it.”
“I didn’t recognize it, either,” Jamie said, rubbing a hand over his beard.
“Who would need to come here so bad they’d risk the water in winter? Especially after that last storm?” Maisie asked, voice a little higher than normal. Quinn flinched and tried to pass it off by sitting down as if her foot was hurting her when Jamie flicked a glance at her.
“Whoever it is,” MacArthur said, his spine straightening, “they can’t see Quinn. She’s not meant to be here.”
“Should she hide in my room?” Maisie asked.
Jamie shook his head. “Closed doors are more suspicious.”
MacArthur glanced around the sparse kitchen, then strode to the still open window. He leaned out a little and looked down.
“Here,” he said, waving Quinn over. The window was about three meters up from the grass, but there was a stack of crates settled against the wall.
“You want her to go out the window?” Maisie asked, incredulous.
“It’s the best option we have,” MacArthur decided. “Jamie, come help me. Maisie, you need to go get one of your hats. Your hair.”
Maisie cursed and dashed for her room. She hurried back in, stuffing her hair in the knit hat as MacArthur propped open the other windowpane, then gestured for Quinn to come forward. She leaned out and then turned back to MacArthur.
“I’m sure you’re strong, but you hired Maisie for laborious jobs. I’m no tiny thing.”
MacArthur’s jaw clicked, but he nodded. Stepping away from the window, Maisie and Jamie took their places behind Quinn. She swung one leg over the sill to straddle the window.
There was a knock at the front door. Quinn, Jamie, and Maisie all twisted their heads toward the sound. MacArthur stood in his best impression of a soldier, or perhaps a captain.
“Hurry,” he told them, and strode from the kitchen, shutting the door behind him.
Quinn brought her other leg out so that she was seated sideways on the sill, gripping the frame with both hands. Maisie laid her hands over one of Quinn’s.
It really wasn’t a far drop, Quinn reasoned to herself, but her heart refused to slow its beating despite this logic. Jamie’s fingers brushed her other hand. She met his eyes and felt that despite his hesitance about her, she could trust him with this. She had to.
Quinn twisted around so that she was facing the wall as she slid below the window. She unpeeled her fingers long enough for Maisie to grip her right hand with both of her own, and then did the same on the left with Jamie. They each had a double grip on her hand and wrists and slowly lowered her out of the window. The rough wall tugged at her clothing as she slipped down, and Quinn stretched her toes out, reaching for the crates. She gasped when she suddenly dropped, but she landed on her feet, the crates creaking beneath her.
“Sorry,” Maisie whispered, “they’re in the hallway.”
“I’m fine,” Quinn whispered back, and they released her. Jamie disappeared back into the kitchen, but Maisie lingered for a moment. Quinn met her gaze steadily, and then raised a hand to shoo her away.
Quinn turned and put her back to the wall as she heard Maisie close one of the windowpanes again, leaving the other open so Quinn could listen as the door to the kitchen creaked.
“These are my employees,” MacArthur said, his voice steady but tight. “Mr. Donovan and Mr. Murdoch.”
“Donovan and Murdoch?” a new male voice repeated.
“Yes.”
“Right,” the man said, and there was a pause. “Full names please, gentlemen.”
“James Donovan,” Jamie answered, gruff and wary. Quinn had never heard him sound like that, even when he’d been questioning her.
“Tavis Murdoch,” Maisie said, and she’d remembered to lower her voice, though she spoke slowly, as if uncertain.
“As I told you,” MacArthur said, in a tone that belonged to the uptight, controlling keeper that the town believed MacArthur to be. “And I’m Finn MacArthur. Would you mind explaining why you’ve come all this way now? We don’t often receive visitors this time of year. And you are not from the board.”
“No, we’re not,” another voice, again male, said. “We apologize for interrupting your work,” he said, not sounding apologetic at all, “but I’m afraid we couldn’t wait until the winter season was over.”
“What couldn’t wait?” MacArthur asked.
“We’re part of a task force,” the first man said. “Searching for a murderer.”
The wood floor of the kitchen creaked.
“Excuse me?” MacArthur said. He’d only heard Jamie mention the investigators on the mainland once, by accident, and Jamie hadn’t explained anything further. What would bring those men to their door?
“Really, George,” the second man said with a sigh. “They gave us a whole script. Listen,” he said to the keepers, “there’s been an ongoing manhunt spread across nearly the whole damn country, starting from Glasgow. They’ve hired men in nearly every town from coast to coast. Your village was too small to warrant its own force, so we’ve been sent to investigate since we were the closest jurisdiction.”
“A manhunt,” MacArthur repeated.
“Aye,” the second man said.
“Well, I’m not sure if we can make your trip worth it,” MacArthur said. “Hard to hide on an island this small.”
“Aye,” the second man said again, “but even so, we’re being paid to ask, so we’d better ask.”
The first man ran through a list of questions about how long MacArthur, Jamie, and Maisie had been working at the lighthouse, and where they’d been before that.
When they came to Maisie, she hesitated, and then said, “Edinburgh.”
“Long ways to travel for a job,” the second man observed.
“There aren’t many lighthouses hiring in Edinburgh,” Maisie responded.
When they turned the question on Jamie, he gave the name of a town that Quinn didn’t know. The men moved on without note.
MacArthur answered the questions readily, but both Jamie and Maisie remained cautious as the men continued. Quinn knew that Glasgow was a large human city, many times bigger than the little coastal town Owen called home, and she wondered how its problems could spread so far.
She was just beginning to relax when another voice called out from the hallway, “Excuse me, I hate to interrupt your investigation, but was that seal fur I saw in the other room?”
Quinn’s heart jumped into her throat, and she scrabbled for a grip on the wall, pressing herself flat as if she could disappear into it. That was Owen’s voice. He was here. He’d found her. She cursed silently, thinking of the pelt she’d left out in Maisie’s room when she’d been distracted by Maisie waking her up with warm, curious hands.
“Who are you?” Maisie asked, and Quinn’s legs trembled.
“This is a local fisherman, who volunteered to be our guide,” the first man said. “Owen?”
“Yes, sir,” Owen replied. Quinn had told Maisie Owen’s name during one of their story trades, and she heard Maisie make a muffled noise.
There was a pause. “In the other room,” Owen explained. “There was a pelt on the bed. Very fine looking.”
“Yes.” Maisie’s voice was strangled.
“Do you hunt?” Jamie asked quickly. Of course, he’d recognized Owen’s name, too.
“Only once,” Owen said, low. “But it was a fine catch.”
Dark clouds had begun gathering far off in the distance. They rolled and built just like the turmoil in Quinn’s chest, and she wondered if she should lean into it to summon a storm that would chase Owen and these men off the island. But such a drastic change would be too suspicious for MacArthur to ignore. She couldn’t reveal herself yet.
Quinn took a few slow breaths and forced herself to pay attention to the humans. The clouds remained but didn’t advance on the island.
“My grandfather was a fisherman and warned me to leave the seals alone,” the second man added cautiously. “Some superstition he had about bringing bad luck. Herds have thinned around here, though. Most of the seals moved up and around the coast to the east, according to the men he used to sail with.”
This caught Quinn’s attention through the panic. This man had provided Quinn the first real clue to where her herd may have gone.
“Fascinating,” MacArthur drawled.
“That pelt you have,” Owen continued, trying to regain control, “would you consider selling it?”
“No,” Maisie said flatly, before he’d even finished speaking.
The silence in the kitchen pressed on Quinn’s lungs.
“It has,” Maisie said roughly, “sentimental meaning to me.”
“Right,” Owen said, and Quinn’s heart dropped from her throat to her stomach. He knew it was Quinn’s pelt. Would he think that Maisie had taken it from Quinn and trapped her on this island, that Maisie would be able to claim the fortune Quinn had never brought to him? Now that he knew where it was, he would know Quinn wasn’t far off.
“Well,” the second man said, “thank you for answering our questions, gentlemen. We appreciate your cooperation.”
There was a shuffle of footsteps as MacArthur impressed on the men that it was important for them to return to their boat and the mainland before the weather turned.
“Owen,” one of the men called. Was Owen still in the kitchen trying to figure out how to ask where Quinn was without giving anything away to the two investigators? He must’ve been furious, knowing that she was so close but still out of reach. And his pride wouldn’t be able to stand the thought that Maisie was claiming the selkie luck and fortune that he himself had never obtained.
Finally, slow footsteps made the floors creak as Owen left, calling back to the men. Quinn worried that he would still try to take her pelt on his way out, but he couldn’t do anything with MacArthur watching.
Quinn stayed pressed against the wall even as their voices faded. If Jamie and Maisie were still in the kitchen, they didn’t make a sound either.
The bright, sunny day that Quinn had preserved seemed too cheerful, too far in opposition to the dread settling in Quinn’s belly. She didn’t want to move yet, for fear of Owen seeing her as the men left the island, but she was also frozen in place from what she’d heard.
How could she have been so careless to leave her pelt in plain view? Maisie’s room had become a safe place for it. This was only true so long as it was only the lighthouse keepers around. She’d leaned into the comfort and safety the keepers offered, and this is what her carelessness had cost her.
Hearing Maisie claim her pelt had made Quinn’s heart jump, but Quinn needed to be able to protect her pelt herself. Now Maisie was in danger because of Owen’s attention, too.
Still, she remembered what the man had said after. If the humans had noticed that the seal population that used to live in this area moved to the east, there was a good chance that her herd was a part of that migration. And perhaps her mother was among them. How long would it take her to travel all that way on her own?
