Page 42 of Between Salt and Serenades
“Are you sure this is the place?” Breena said. I nodded and handed her the parchment my grandfather had scribbled the man’s address onto, wondering the same thing myself. My eyes trailed over to the corner of the room, where a rocking chair padded with a round tweed pillow sat under an oil painting of a rabbit in a rolling meadow. A copper kettle sat on the wood-burning stove, and next to it were two hearty mugs dipped in a frosty glaze.
The scent of lavender and dried orange peel hit my nose as we made our way past the kitchen into the first bedchamber of the surprisingly cozy cottage. Twine draped from one side of the room to the next, and bundles of lavender and other dried herbs were hung across it with clothing pins. Paintings of rabbits, dried herbs, and tea… The man lived with his mother, surely.
Breena’s vision flicked back and forth along the floor, not paying any mind to what hung on the ceiling. She threw open the closet door and just about dove inside when she noticed a chest pushed to the back under a pile of tartan blankets.
The blankets were tossed aside, but before she could break the lock on the box, her head perked up. “He’s here.”
“He’s what?” I hissed and spun around. Sure enough, the front door of the cottage clicked open. I could barely hear the sound of his shoes tapping along the wooden floors over the sound of my heart. Tucking myself behind the bedchamber door, I threw my back against the wall. Breena closed the closet door with herself inside, leaving only a tiny crack to see out of.
My head tilted back as his steps grew closer and closer, and I sucked in oxygen like it was my first time breathing.
What do I do? What do I do?
Think, Sidra!
Should I jump out and attack the man? Demand he give up the pelt? Wait for him to leave and tear this place apart until we found it on our own? The passing seconds felt like an eternity, yet not nearly enough time all at once.
The last thing I needed was for him to find Breena, right here in his very home, but could I really let him get away?
The footsteps grew louder, closer.
I promised Breena I wouldn’t let anyone take her. I promised her so many things… including killing the man who took her pelt. But more recently, I promised I wouldn’t spill his blood, and the latter sat better with me. I was not who I was in the sea. I was not my family’s killer, not here.
I sucked in a breath, squeezed my eyes together, and let my mind fall still. When the fisherman rounded the corner, he pushed open the door with a loud creak. The door squeezed me closer to the wall so the knob was pressing into my tense belly. Igripped on to it, and in one sweeping motion, I pushed it out in front of me and slammed the door shut.
Breena yelped from within the closet, and the young fisherman yowled like a street cat. His hands were thrown up over his head, and his knee rose up in front of him like he aimed to kick me but couldn’t commit.
“Where is it?” I yelled at the man. His shaggy copper hair fell into his eyes, and he was too stunned to push it back. All he could do was blink, and he did so rapidly. “Where is the selkie skin?”
“The what?” the man yelled back, but not as loud as I had been. His voice was weak, shaking, nothing like what I heard from him on the Indigo Tide. This man was a fisherman, a captain, and he cowered before me like he had seen the Sea Goddess herself.
I blinked away my slitted pupils and straightened my spine before the man soiled himself.
Great waves, this is the captain I’ve been preparing myself for?
“The pelt. Where is it?” I asked again, losing my patience but not my edge. My eyes flicked to the closet door still ajar. I noticed a piece of curly brown hair poking through the crack, and I willed Breena through our hypnotic link to stay inside and away from the man in front of me. “Give it to me now, and no harm will come to you.”
“And my mother? Will you spare her like you promised?” His voice wobbled as he clutched the hem of his shirt with white knuckles.
“Your mother? I don’t give a shit about your mother,” I barked. When I saw the tears rimming his soft green eyes, I cleared my throat and let my scowl fall. Fish didn’t beg. Fish didn’t cry for their family and plead for their safety.
What am I doing?
I stared into his watery eyes, trying to find a lick of malice to keep the fire in me going, but all I felt from him was sorrow and pain. The single tear rolling down his freckled cheek was enough to wash away the rage in my gut and put out the fire within me for good.
“Yes, I will spare her. I’m not here to hurt you,” I admitted, realizing this man wasn’t here to hurt us either. I called for Breena, who hesitantly crawled out of his closet on all fours. When she lifted her head, her glowing eyes made the fisherman flinch. He reached for the candlestick on the table next to him, but he didn’t take his eyes off the selkie as he lit it.
“It’s yours, isn’t it?” He held the lit flame above Breena so the light cascaded down upon her. The glow of her irises was drowned out by the candlelight, and all that remained were her large, friendly eyes, brown and full of warmth.
She stood, straightened her black sweater, and said with cool, even words, “It is. And I’d like it back.”
“I thought it was a rag at first. I thought nothing of it when I found it at the bottom of the trunk, but when I touched it, I saw you,” he said. He cleared his throat and continued. “I saw flashes, bits and pieces of your life, but I didn’t know what it all meant, except that I was meant to find you. I just didn’t expect to find you in my closet, or with a siren.”
“Do you have it here, in this cottage?” Breena asked, eyeing the trunk in the closet. I didn’t blame her for disregarding everything else he’d said. I’d do the same if the man held the only thing keeping me from the sea.
“It’s in the trunk in the closet, the one you presumably already found. Here…” He dug around in his pocket before stretching his arm out toward her, not moving his legs, as if he didn’t want to be anywhere near Breena. “Go ahead. I don’t want to touch it again. Those memories are your own.”
Breena took the metal key into her hand with a cocked head and then turned back to the trunk. She knelt by it, tracing her hands along the metal caps on the corners before she stuck the key into the slot and turned it. When she dug around through the rags and pulled out her pelt, tears fell freely from her eyes.
