No one is coming to find her.
Erin stands on the shore with her bare feet in the sand, her toes digging into the ground. A cool breeze makes its way along the beach, throwing a touch of salty spray against her skin. She doesn’t even have to look to know everyone is still around the turn in the cliff, laughing and tossing a volleyball in the fading light.
No, Erin’s eyes are on the horizon, catching the last sparkles of the setting sun. She clenches the bright neon straps of her flip-flops as their voices rise and fall. For the third or fourth time, she regrets coming on this trip. “One last hurrah,” as Mike’s sudden and unexpected text had stated, before they all go their separate ways.
But they had already gone their separate ways, hadn’t they? Them in one direction, her in the other. She has sensed it, slowly, over the last year or so. Sensed it in the way they talk around her when they’re all sitting on the couch; the way her picture never seems to appear on walls dedicated to friendship. The way she kept inviting them to stay with her during breaks and holidays and weekends, knowing she was only a couple hours’ drive up the interstate, and yet they never came. They were forgetting her—or maybe, she thinks, she was never all that memorable to begin with.
The light fades from golden-yellow to pink as the sun sinks lower behind the vast line of blue. She sighs, allowing an errant wave to brush over her toes, relieving her sun-soaked skin of the day’s heat. For a moment she considers taking a step or two further into the surf. But as she eyes the dark waters the first things that come to her mind are sharks and riptides and tentacles stretching up from the deep.
She sighs again; a longer, more purposeful breath to ground herself before she heads back to the group—back to the conversations she won’t be able to join and all the inside jokes she is no longer privy to.
One last glance at the horizon, and she sees it. The sight, at first, sends a startled jolt through her body: a round head, with large, black eyes, bobbing on the waves. Then her brain registers the twitching whiskers and the smooth, curved torso.
A seal.
It blinks at her and noses its way closer through the water. It’s white, with brown speckles dotting its puppy-dog face. As it moves, one flipper rises above the waves; there is a scar along its shoulder—a half-circle of pale flesh where it must have just narrowly escaped a disastrous encounter.
Watching it tread lightly on the waves sends another shiver up her spine. What if some great, yawning mouth erupts from the water and drags the poor thing under? She would never be able to look at the ocean the same way again.
But it doesn’t happen. The seal gives a thoughtful-sounding sniff and then dives, disappearing in a steady pattern of ripples. Erin waits for it to resurface, but the little bay remains empty, and after a long silence, broken only by the lapping waves, she makes another slow turn from the horizon and gets back to the others.
…
Saturday morning comes with a heavy fog and a low, salty breeze that whistles between the tents. Everyone decides it would be better to drive into Eureka for the day instead of trying to make the best of the weather. Maybe it’ll clear up later, Mike says, and they could go back to that secluded bay down the cliffs. They all agree, Erin mumbling her concurrence as the empty sandbar springs to mind. Maybe this time she will wade in a little further.
They have breakfast in a café just off the beach. Through the window, a group of teenage boys walks along the water. Suddenly one of the more brash individuals takes a run and a flying leap sideways into the nearest crashing wave. His friends appear to cheer him on as he emerges, soaked and grinning.
How did he make it look so easy? To be so confident—so charismatic.
So likeable.
“Erin?” Ana is leaning across the table toward her.
She starts. “Huh?”
“How’s school?”
Erin shrugs, searching for something to say that has any merit. “It’s keeping me busy.” Her default answer comes out with a helpless chuckle; the entire table is silent for too many seconds, so she tries again: “Just a lot of work, you know? Not much time to really have fun.”
“Wasn’t there some guy you just started dating, last time we talked?” Morgan is stacking the little cases of creamer. It tips and scatters across the table, and she curses quietly.
“Ryan?” Erin asks, and her fingers twist together in her lap. “We were kind of dating. It didn’t really work out.”
“Meh,” Morgan says. “Plenty of other fish in the sea.”
“The sea’s just so big,” the comment slips out before Erin can catch herself.
There it is: another heavy silence. Another awkward moment while everyone reflects on how to respond to the things Erin says.
She fiddles with the fork still resting on her folded napkin, and finally Mike says something that gets the conversation going again. So they talk, and they laugh, and Erin stares out the window, watching the icy waves roll in.
…
Sometimes she wonders if everything that still connects her to her friends is only a series of memories. Like that time when she and Mike, Daren and Ana spent an hour of playful frustration searching for a bookstore in a mall. It was a more high-end place, full of clothing and electronics stores and cosmetics that were way too expensive. They went around in circles, somehow getting their hopes up at the sight of “Brookstone” every time it caught their eye.
But there are plenty of bookstores in downtown Eureka. After breakfast, the group splits up. Morgan and Ana want to check out the game store up the street, and Daren quickly follows. But Mike makes a beeline for the nearest bookstore, and Erin automatically drifts after him.
They enter the little shop with a welcoming jingle of bells overhead. It’s a used bookstore, with rows upon rows of dusty shelves with barely one person’s width of space between them. Erin drifts to the back, her eyes travelling over old leather-bounds and first editions. One book in particular—light blue with gold lettering—catches her eye. When she pulls it from its place, a green snake with its tail wrapped around the earth hisses up at her from the cover: World Mythologies.
She flicks through it. Colored images of minotaurs and flying horses turn over each other. She’s quite familiar with Icarus and the Greek Pantheon, but as she moves to shut the book, the pages land on a rocky shore with naked men and women wandering along the sand. Slung over each person’s shoulder is a fur pelt; staring up at her from one of the nearby rocks is a seal.
Her eyes hover on the page. Under the illustration is the tag: Selkies were known to often shed their skins and come onto the land in human form.
“What are you looking at?”
Mike is standing at the end of the aisle, already balancing a stack of novels between his hands.
Erin shuts the book and scans the cover again. “Just an old mythology book,” she says.
“Hm. Cool.” He hovers a moment longer and then disappears into the next aisle.
Her fingertips linger over the soft blue cover before she flips back through, stopping once again on the page with the seals and the people on the beach. In the bottom right-hand corner of the page a seal pokes its head out of the water. Its fur is white, and its big dark eyes stare up at her knowingly.
Later that night, as the sudden, heavy rain continues to pound steadily against the roof of her tent, Erin pulls out her flashlight and reads. She reads about seals and ocean people; she reads about men and women staring longingly out to sea. She reads about seal skins, and she reads about tears.
…
Their last day on the coast comes with sunny weather. They decide to make a whole thing of it, buying a basket and loading it with pre-made sandwiches and bags of chips. They spend the whole afternoon on the beach in that secluded bay.
And for a few moments, Erin remembers what it was like to be a part of their lives. As they stop to eat lunch and play card games at the weathered picnic table she remembers several New Year’s Eves where they would play late into the night; as they make their way down the cliffs and hit the sand, running and screaming, chasing each other along the waves she remembers sunny days after school when they would walk to the nearest local park and play tag—even well into their teen years, because they never cared what the rest of the world thought about them.
They were always just having fun, it seemed. And for a moment she remembers what it was like to love them all so completely; to wish they could stay this way forever, to know this must be what heaven is like: always having this group; always being together, running along endless shores—not caring what the rest of the world thinks.
But then evening comes. Everything quiets as they prepare a fire further up on the sand and watch the sun inch closer to the blue-green horizon. They begin to talk, and she listens. Laughing when they laugh, pretending to give her undivided attention even as her mind slips away from them, to deeper conversations she wishes she could spark; secrets and thoughts she wishes she could share. Was their friendship always so surface-level? Had she only thought it ran deeper than this, than simply recounting old stories and getting so quickly left out of the new?
As the sun slowly fades, so does her contentment. Ana and Morgan get lost in their own conversation and take a walk along the shore; Daren and Mike break out the cookware and start prepping for dinner. Left in her spot on the sand, Erin rises and goes to them, asking if there is anything she can do to help. But when they wave her away this time, she is relieved. Without ceremony she slips away, heading toward her side of the beach.
As she plants her bare feet back into the smooth, wet sand her eyes scan the horizon. The sun leaves a sparkling trail behind as it continues to sink, and most of the sky is haloed in orange and pink clouds. A breeze cuts across the water, sending the soft spray into her face. She closes her eyes and breathes it in: the smells of the sand and sea; the last remnants of a fleeting summer.
When she opens her eyes again, she sees it. Once more its sudden appearance startles her, until she recognizes the harmless, dog-like face and twitching whiskers. Her breath catches in her throat as they look at each other, the young woman on the sand and the seal bobbing gently on the waves.
It’s the same seal as before: Erin can see the scar around its shoulder and the soft brown speckles dotting its skin. She glances back along the beach, willing the others to stay away; glad, for once, that no one will follow her.
When she looks back at the water, the seal is still there. Still watching her with its big, dark eyes as it lifts with another wave.
Plenty of other fish in the sea, Morgan said. But maybe, Erin thinks, it’s not a fish she has been searching for.
Her flip-flops slap onto the sand and she takes a few timid steps forward, into the surf. As a cold wave surges up and hits her knees she gasps, pausing as she once again considers sharks and riptides and other horrors waiting in the deep dark.
But her seal is there; calmly it watches her hesitation. They are still several yards apart, and Erin wonders just how close she could get before she scares it off. Yet a small part of her flickers with hope, with childish longing.
When the waves begin hitting her thighs she stops again and this time she stays. Any further and the waves might pull her off her feet entirely.
Briefly her eyes focus on the seal and then her mind is elsewhere. She remembered what happiness felt like, and now she remembers sadness. Days and days of eating lunch alone in the student center; awkward moments struggling to make new friends in class; young men circling her for sex, and not companionship. Nights shut away in her dorm room, her glance wavering over the pictures on her wall. Her wall dedicated to friendship—a wall they never got to see.
She blinks, willing the sadness to come. Praying silently for the tears to well up, as they had so frequently in recent months. All she needs is seven.
But even as that helpless, empty feeling builds within her, Erin’s eyes remain dry.
An unusually large wave crashes against her hips and she gasps again as the cold soaks into the front of her shorts and she totters briefly on one foot; she plants herself solidly back into the sand. And when she looks again at the horizon the seal is still out there, watching.
Then it dives, vanishing into the next wave.
For a moment Erin stares at the blank space where it had been. Then suddenly that empty feeling within her intensifies, finally bubbling over until it rises into her throat, making it tight.
“Wait,” she says, and takes a step forward before another large wave reminds her why she should stay put. “Wait. Come back!”
The tears come now, salty and warm as they spill from her eyes. A couple drops fall straight into the water, blending her soul with the sea for a flickering moment in time before dispersing. Furiously she swipes the rest away: why set herself up for disappointment yet again? It was only a seal.
It was just a seal.
Somehow that makes her cry harder, and she turns her back to the horizon, desperately brushing at the tears before they fall, before she feels even more like a fool. Blindly she stumbles through the waves, back to the shore.
And as she emerges from the water she looks up—and sees the person sitting on the sand.
Their skin is brown—hinting at long days spent lying in the sun—and wet, as if they too had just emerged from the waves. Their body is muscular, but their features are neither distinctly male nor female. And they are naked, except for a few lazily draped strings of sea kelp forming a kind of toga around them. Their hair is short and slicked back with water, but the coloring is a white blond—dotted with flecks of brown.
A large scar forms a half-circle around their shoulder.
And as if that wasn’t enough to make Erin suddenly halt at the edge of the waves, resting in their lap is a folded-over pelt.
White with brown speckles.
Erin sucks in a breath as they look at each other. The person’s eyes are dark and glistening, but the expression held within them is bright and warm as they meet hers. The person smiles knowingly, and one hand pats the sand beside them.
“Sit with me,” they say. Their voice is gentle and soothing.
Erin hesitates—but only for a moment. A final wave grazes her heels as she makes her way over and sits next to them on the sand. Her eyes never leave them.
For a moment they stare at each other, not speaking. Erin’s hands fidget in her lap, and occasionally she glances at the smooth, thick pelt draped over the stranger’s knee.
They follow her glance, and suddenly they raise the fur and hold it out to her. “Here.”
Her heart twists in her chest—from horror or amazement she cannot tell for sure—but instinctively she reaches for what is offered; her fingertips brush over a smooth, soft coat.
Tears spring to her eyes again. “Wh-what are you doing?”
Their dark gaze never wavers. “I’m trusting you.”
“But… Why?”
They cock their head at her, as if trying to decipher something in her expression. “Because I think you understand.”
“Understand what?” Her hands are shaking, so she lowers the coat onto her lap. The stranger doesn’t answer; they watch as she strokes the length of fur, hypnotized by its softness, by the gentle weight of it across her knees.
“Are you a…” the words hitch in her throat; that childish longing comes back to her, followed quickly by an adult embarrassment. Her cheeks grow red as she asks: “Are you a selkie?”
They smile again. “I am Finnlyn.”
“Finnlyn,” she says softly, and she hugs the fur to her chest. “I am Erin.”
She closes her eyes as her chin rests on the heavy pillow of fur, still damp with sea water. It smells like sand and ocean spray, but when she tucks her arms inside it is warm and welcoming.
“Why are you sad, Erin?”
Having the words spoken, her reality broken down into a single sentence, makes the tears well up again. She buries her face in the sanctuary of the pelt, not caring about the dampness or the sand.
“Why are you lonely?” Finnlyn asks, answering the first question as if they read her thoughts.
She doesn’t want to cry, but then again she never does; the tears come anyway. She squeezes the pelt tighter in her arms. “I don’t… fit in anywhere.”
The crash of ocean waves. Then, the stranger says: “Your toes fit with the sand. Your tears fit with the ocean. Your hair fits with the wind, and your eyes fit with the horizon.”
She looks up; Finnlyn is smiling gently at her, like she should know these things already. Then they rest their hand, palm facing up and fingers spread, on the sand between them.
“Your hand fits in mine, if you’d like.”
Erin stares at it. Then she pulls one hand out from the fur and places it in theirs. Fingers weave together and squeeze lightly, and Erin can feel the beat of her pulse between them. Or perhaps it is Finnlyn’s pulse she feels.
They hold on to each other. Out on the horizon, the sun is just beginning its descent into the sea. The sky is a dark red that fades to orange, to turquoise, and finally to blue. The first bright stars are blinking into existence overhead.
With her free hand, she continues to caress the coat of fur. “Would you stay with me,” she says softly, “even if I didn’t hide your seal skin?”
“No.” The word is gentle, but firm, and it jolts her. She looks up at them again; their eyes are on the horizon, much like hers were before. They stare with hope and longing, and the more she looks at them the more she sees a familiar furrow in their brow: behind it is that inexplicable tug on the heartstrings; that lingering need to belong somewhere.
“And if I did? If I took your skin and hid it away…”
Their eyes meet hers quickly, and now she sees a flicker of doubt; a shadow of fear.
She grips the coat and pulls it once more to her chest. As they hold each other’s gazes her heart sinks and her throat gets tight and constricted once more.
“You would never smile again,” she finishes. And as tears flood from her eyes she pushes the coat back at them and turns away. When the warm fur passes through her fingertips for the last time she sobs; she draws her knees to her chest and keeps herself turned, unable to meet their eyes anymore.
“I’m sorry,” she whispers. Her arms tighten around herself: so many days and nights have her own arms been the only available comfort. Her thoughts and her feelings the only company.
“I don’t want to be alone,” she sobs, “But I’m not good at this. I’m quiet. I’m uninteresting. I’m forgettable.”
“Those are a lot of heavy words to weigh yourself down with.”
Erin feels the slight pressure of Finnlyn’s hip against hers as they scoot closer along the sand. She doesn’t look up, but she takes in a deep, grounding breath. The crashing waves fade to a dull roar around her, and the light of the setting sun falls lower until she can barely feel the warmth of it on her skin.
She shakes her head. “Would you care,” she asks, and finally she turns her head to look up at them again. “If I sat here and told you about my day, about my hopes and fears, or what I ate for breakfast—if I talked to you about anything and nothing. Would you care?”
They smile at her. “Yes.”
“And then,” she sniffs, “what would you tell me?”
Finnlyn plucks at the sand between them, unearthing some colorful stones and a small, broken shell. “I would tell you about how sunlight cuts through the water and makes it deep blue. I would tell you about the peaceful songs of whales, or the rush of fear and adrenaline when you’ve dodged the awaiting jaws of a shark.”
“That sounds terrifying.”
Their grin broadens, and a sandy finger runs under the pale line of their scar. “But I survived.”
The flicker of a smile crosses Erin’s face. She raises her head from her knees and looks back out to sea. The horizon still burns with light and color even though the sun is halfway past it.
She sighs. “I’m losing them. I’m losing my friends.”
Finnlyn eyes her for a moment. Then they touch their fingertips to their chest, just over their heartbeat. “But they’re in here, aren’t they?”
Erin’s gaze flickers back up the empty beach. “I don’t think they care.”
“Perhaps they don’t. Then, perhaps, it’s time for you to let them go.”
She glances sharply at Finnlyn, their words resting heavily in her chest. “They mean everything to me.”
For the first time since they appeared on the sand, Finnlyn looks discouraged. They let out a short, shallow breath and turn their attention back to the waves lapping along the sandbar. “Then you will always be sad.”
The finality in their tone makes Erin flinch. She looks away again as her hands clench and unclench on her knees, already aching for the warm, soft blanket of fur. Another tear slips down her cheek and hits the wet sand with a lonely little crunch.
Her thoughts drift to tears—and to the old selkie legends. The stories within her mythology book varied on certain details, but one thing was always constant: the selkie’s unshakeable longing to return to the sea. In most versions of the myth, once they left you, they would never come back. But in others, they would reappear for a short period of time: once every seven years.
She looks up at Finnlyn, wondering which version is true. And when Finnlyn meets her gaze and holds it, their lips curving upward into an encouraging smile, she knows. And then she realizes: she never called Finnlyn to her. They just came. They saw she was in pain, and they came.
They found her.
Fresh tears prickle Erin’s eyes. She glances along the darkening beach, empty even of the footprints she made on her way over. Things are quiet this evening, but she suspects dinner is nearly ready; she will have to go soon—and she will have to say goodbye.
Once more she thinks of the selkie, of all those stories of selfish fishermen hoarding away their skins so they could never leave them. So the selkie would be trapped forever on land, spending the rest of their unhappy lives yearning for the sea.
How lonely for the selkie—and how lonely for the fisherman, holding on so hard to someone who would sooner dream of running away than of coming back to them someday.
That heavy weight sinks lower over her heart, and she takes a slow, grounding breath. “If they love me,” she says, “I will see them again. And if they don’t… then they were never mine to begin with.”
Once again Finnlyn’s fingers lace with hers, pressing their hands into the sand. The selkie’s dark eyes glisten as they look at her. “And you needn’t grieve,” they add softly.
Erin swallows, then she nods, letting her eyes close on the last of her tears before they patter to the ground.
“No one can truly love another,” she whispers, “if they are not free.”
Waves crash along the shoreline as the last lingering ray of the sun vanishes over the horizon. The cool air sinks into her skin, and she shivers.
“I knew you understood.”
Finnlyn’s voice drifts over her like the soft spray of the sea, and in another moment she feels the selkie’s cool lips brush her cheek; their hand slips away.
And when she opens her eyes again, they are gone. Only the final, ghostly shape that might be a drift of sea foam or might be a speckled tail disappearing into a wave leaves any indication of their existence.
Erin stares into the waves in silence. More stars twinkle low over the horizon as the final sliver of the sun’s orange throws long shadows over the sand.
After a moment she stands, brushing the sand from her legs as she turns back to the fire—back to her friends. Perhaps this is her last night with them. Or, perhaps, their paths will cross again, in a place where the shore meets the sea.
Either way, she will love, and she will live.
From the waves, the selkie watches Erin walk back up the beach and disappear around the turn in the cliff. Then they dive, cutting through the water like sunlight; dreaming of the day they will return to her.
