Page 61 of Soft Flannel Hank

“She loved him. But she wouldn’t leave with him because, as he told her, she couldn’t come back to her family if she did. But he had to return home. After all, the god of the sea has responsibilities.”

Jory’s voice began to burr with a soft accent that Esther couldn’t help but sense was one she hadn’t used in a very long time. Jory’s mouth wore the accent like an heirloom—precious, almost forgotten about, but so very familiar.

“A few years passed. The old god watched the woman weave her nets. He watched the men come to court her as she sat near the surf. Watched her turn them away because she’d already given her heart to the sea. Years passed like this. Suddenly, the woman fell ill.”

Esther was hypnotized by the trilled r’s and soft burr of Jory’s voice as she wove her story.

“She was dying and begged to be brought next to the sea and left there alone.”

“He came to her?” Esther asked, her heart in her throat.

“Aye. He begged her to come with him. He could save her. He could make her immortal. She could live in the sea, and he would hold her and her heart for all eternity. But she didn’t want to give up her family. Not yet. She told him she would rather die by fate than choose to abandon them. The god knew that a human life is little more than a flash compared to immortality. And so he gave her a gift. He turned her into a sleek, black seal.”

Esther gasped.

Jory went on, “She could shed her skin and return to the land as a woman. She could live with her family and weave her nets and sit in the sunshine. And when she wanted to come to him, when she wanted to rest in his arms, she could put on the sealskin and be his bride. She could live between both worlds until her family passed on. And then she could join him forever.”

“Did she?”

A smile flashed across Jory’s face. “She did. After she had buried her family and friends, she donned her skin and walked into the sea.”

Esther smiled, but the smile slid from her face as she saw Jory’s jaw clench.

“Were they not happy?”

“Och, aye. They were verra happy, Esther. They had hundreds of daughters because it’s all the sea god wanted. And the woman couldn’t deny him anything. But”—she swallowed—“but they didn’t warn their daughters to keep their skins safe. Without their seal skins, they would be trapped as women on land forever. Immortal creatures imprisoned in human bodies, denied their true home. He didn’t warn them, because he didn’t ken that men would take their skins to bind the women to them, to keep them as brides.”

“That’s terrible,” Esther whispered.

“Aye. We were curious. We’d never known life on land. And so when we saw men, with their strength and their power and their anger, our curiosity got the better of us.”

“We?”

Jory met her gaze quickly before looking away. “Aye. We.”

“You’re a selkie,” Esther said, stunned.

“Aye.”

“Are you trapped?”

Jory nodded with a wistful look on her face. “A selkie bride. Trapped for all eternity.”

“What happened?”

Jory sighed. “It’s a familiar enough tale. I fell in love with a man. He loved me, too. But then he left me for dead and took my seal skin with him.”

“I thought you were immortal.”

Jory shifted her head left to right. “Even the immortal can die if you do it properly.”

“So… why World’s End? Why not Scotland?”

Jory’s eyes shone with tears. “Because I still loved him. Even after what he did. I searched and searched, but he was gone. And I couldn’t stay. It’s been nine hundred years. I’ve lived everywhere, but I settled here about fifty years ago because it feels comforting here. The waves crash and the trees are thick and green and the water is cold.”

“Fifty years? Doesn’t anyone notice you don’t age?”

“I never let anyone get close enough to really notice. Until Magda, that is.”