Seacliff

Chapter thirty-five: Suspension of disbelief

2019

"Aidan!" Fiona made a move to chase after her lover, except Saoirse reached out and stopped her.

"Give him ten minutes, tops. He will return."

Fiona's eyes were drawn to the woman's ring. "Who are you?"

Saoirse hid her hands in her coat pockets. "You'll know soon enough."

Fiona worried her lip as she watched the sea. Ten minutes passed, then fifteen. The American stood like a statue, immovable in the wind. The restless Highlander tapped her foot, checking her watch every minute.

"You said ten minutes," she snapped. "It's been twenty, almost."

Saoirse made no reply. Fiona kept her eyes on the horizon and soon, something emerged from the waves. Aidan. First his head, then his torso, then he was walking upright towards the shore, dragging something behind him.

"Is that..." The bartender narrowed her eyes. "Is that a seal? A dead seal?"

As Aidan got nearer, the load he hauled did look suspiciously like the carcass of a seal. He brought it up to a few feet away from the women. Fiona ran up to him, but her hand leapt from his skin as if scalded when she touched him. She tried again, more carefully. From his chest, to his shoulder, down his arm.

"How... in bleedin' hell... are ye still warm?"

"It's because I'm a selkie."

She blinked. "A... what?"

"A selkie. Here, look."

Fiona tried to look, but she could hardly bear the sight of the sealskin, which perfectly resembled a dead seal, gutted from top to tail. Aidan stepped inside the carcass and sat down. The hair on his head stood on end when he lowered his upper body into the folds of flesh and fat. As if charged with static, before it became one with the sealskin.

The carcass began to meld itself shut, from Aidan's feet to his face, until any and all trace that it had ever been cut open disappeared. Afterwards, the grey seal lying on its back flopped to life, startling Fiona, and rolled on its front. Aidan's glasses fell from her numb hand. Unfazed, Saoirse stooped to pick them up.

"Aidan?" Fiona croaked.

The seal bobbed its head. Its big, round eyes fixated on hers. It arched on its flippers to stare straight at her and attempted to crawl closer. Fiona backed away and it halted, its head tilted to one side. The excitement faded from its onyx eyes, reminiscent of Aidan's pouty expression.

"Aidan?..."

She took a step forward and crouched down, holding out a trembling hand to touch the seal. The spark returned to its eyes. Tears streamed down Fiona's cheeks.

"Aidan?"

She cradled the seal's head and it seemed to smile, raising one of its flippers as if to hug her back. It obviously couldn't, so its snout nuzzled at her nose instead, much like a dog trying to sniff her. Its whiskers tickled her skin.

Awed laughter mingled with the tears and Fiona fell to her knees, stretching to embrace as much of the seal as she could. His head rested on one of her shoulders, while hers pressed into his warm flesh. He cried out after a minute and Fiona pulled away.

"What... what is it? I don't – "

"He's coming out," Saoirse said.

Fiona watched her, sniffling. "What?"

"He's coming out of his skin," Saoirse elaborated.

The Highlander stood up. "You can understand that?"

A shadow of a smirk on the American woman's lips.

"How?"

The seal rolled over in the meantime and human fingers broke through the skin, like zombie hands shooting out of a grave. A slick, wet sound as the fingers parted the seal's flesh, then the opening stretched on its own from the head to the feet, and Aidan sat up, covered in foul-smelling goo.

"I'm going to take the skin back to the cave," he told Fiona, "then I'm all yours for any questions you might have. Of which I'm certain there are a lot."

"Yeah, can I just start now?"

"You want to do this here? I don't mind, but... you'll get cold, and tired."

"No, I'd like us to go and sit somewhere inside with plenty of Scotch at my disposal, but there is one thing I need to know now."

"Okay," Aidan nodded.

Fiona pointed to Saoirse. "Who is she? Why is she wearing your mother's ring?"

"I see..." Aidan scratched the top of his head, his goo-drenched hair sticking to his skull. "Well, it's a bloody long story, but the short answer is that... Saoirse is my daughter."

Fiona looked stunned, then relieved, then incredulous.

"Yes, I know, a lot to unpack," Aidan hurried to add. "But I promise I'll tell you everything over a nice hot whiskey, okay?"

He retreated into his sealskin before Fiona had a chance to respond and the animal tumbled into the sea. The dumbstruck bartender gawked at the American woman who looked the same age as the man claiming to be her father. But then again, that very same man had just waddled into the waves while wearing a seal.

"What's next," Fiona mumbled to herself, "playdate with Nessie?"