“I’m a Chester,” Daisy said. “Also left for dead.”
“Shh.”
“I swear to God, Mordie, if you elbow me one more time—”
“She’s not a Chester.” I cradled my head in my hand, suddenly exhausted. “She’s not nearly that ignorant. Or arrogant. But she is non-magical, and her situation, if she were to go back to the non-magical foster system, would be a nightmare. And no, we do not get the medicine at a discount.”
“Does a five-finger discount count?” I could hear the laughter in Daisy’s voice.
“Elbow her, Mordecai,” I said.
“I see.” The cards slid against each other in the stranger’s hands.
“Do you?” I wasn’t sure what prompted me to ask, but there it was, out in the world.
Silence dropped around us, then stretched. The heaviness of it competed with the shrieks and roars of the fair around us. Finally, when I was about ready to turn my head and look at him again, if only to see what danger clouds lurked on his expression, he said, “No. I’ve never known poverty. I’ve never watched a loved one suffer because I couldn’t afford the treatment she—or he—needed.”
That had been a slip, and now I did turn my head.
A shadow sliced across the stranger’s face, partially covering the simmering fury in his expression. One eye, catching the light of the fair, shone bright with viciousness.
But under it all existed pain. A hollowness he couldn’t seem to fill.
His magic rose around me, but this time it was different. Instead of the sexiness and passion I’d felt at the bar, which had nearly driven me to questionable life decisions, I felt a vast emptiness. The salty breeze took on a life of its own, its caress turning into a longing for the rise and fall of the waves. The song of the ocean drifted to me from the bay, mournful yet beautiful, blanketing my heart.
A tear slipped from my eye as I tucked into this feeling like I had the sexy-type magic. Its beauty captivated me. Its vitality invigorated me. But that sadness weaving within it broke my heart.
The presence came slowly, from a place I never would’ve thought to look.
Turning my head toward the bay, I saw it despite the darkness: arms swinging up and down, stroking a path through the water. The body attached to them rode a wave up, then sank into the swell. The person disappeared as he or she neared the edge of the large dock, only to float up again. This time she ascended the dock, revealing a long, white flowing dress and bare feet pointed elegantly like a ballerina’s.
The wind whipped her raven hair around her beautiful face, the breeze she was experiencing different than that of reality, her chosen place of un-rest wild and blustery. She hadn’t, or maybe wouldn’t, acclimate to her new surroundings. This wasn’t her home.
Her bare feet, still wet, touched down onto the dirty ground beside the dock, and spirit or not, I couldn’t help but grimace with the grime they’d be touching. Her movements were elegant as she drifted toward and then past me.
Slightly in awe, because I’d never seen anything like that—and I thought I’d seen it all—I rose and turned my chair to again face the stranger. The woman stopped beside him, staring down at him with adoration.
“You were expecting a woman, I take it,” I said, clasping my hands in my lap. I didn't notice the stranger’s reaction because I couldn’t take my eyes off her, she was so beautiful. “In life, was it like an ethereal glow radiated out from her? Like she was lit up from within?”
“Yes,” he said in a release of breath, and though I could tell he was trying to keep his voice flat, a slight tremor jiggled his words.
“She’s young. My age.” High, arching eyebrows sat above large blue eyes and a thin, dainty nose. Sharp cheekbones and a strong jaw defined her face, the look completed by lush, shapely lips. She was a soft, feminine version of the stranger. “Is she a sister, or is this her chosen age and not the age she was at death?”
“You see her?” His throat was tight, and I finally switched my focus.
He’d leaned forward, staring at me, not in the intent way from earlier, but hard, like he was willing words to come out of my mouth. Earnestness and longing clouded his expression, and the muscles on his sizable frame flexed.
“She’s here, yes. Beside you. Looking down on you. She loved you very much, and it transferred into death.” I scratched my chin. “So your mother, then, because I don’t think a sister would be that gushy about the situation.”
“Your age, you said?” he asked. “Twenty-five?”
“Around there, yes. I’m not a master at telling ages.”
“Before she met my father.” His jaw clenched.
“Hey, look.” I leaned forward as well, dropping my hands to my knees. “That doesn’t mean she loved you any less. It just means that she was happiest with her appearance at that age. When my mother died, she assumed the age of twenty-two. She told me I’d ruined her body beyond repair and she was happy to go back to a time when she didn’t grimace every time she looked in the mirror. So that’s probably all this is.”
“Can you speak to her?”
It didn’t seem like he’d heard anything I’d just said.
“Yes. What would you like me to say?”
“Just…speak to her. See if she can hear you.”
I frowned, because that was weird. Of course she could hear me. She could hear everyone in the living world, trapped here as she was.
“Her name?” I asked.
He shook his head.
“Look, I’m trying my best to be respectful of the situation, but you’re making things awfully difficult.” When he didn’t offer any more information, I sighed and went about things the way I normally did. “Hey, lady in the white dress…”
“She can be professional, it’s just that she usually doesn’t want to be,” Daisy said, always thinking about business. That would be good someday. If only she’d put it off until then.
The woman’s head turned slowly toward me.
“Yes, you. I can see you,” I said, suddenly showered in a kind of regal regard that made me want to sit up straight and comb my hair. The woman’s eyes drifted over my body and then back to my face before glancing back at the stranger.
“He can’t see or hear you. Only I can. Try me out. See how it goes.”
She adjusted her stance until she was facing me, her eyes soft and kind, but expectant. She was a woman who’d had support staff, but she hadn’t been a dick to them. That was at least nice.
“You can just…say anything you want. Anything at all. Maybe your name? We can start there.” She stared at me. To the stranger, I said, “She obviously passed that stare down along with the looks. My God, the two of you probably made people quail when you were in the same room.”
“What is this place?” she finally asked in a voice like a bell.
“Holy crap, this woman was a heartbreaker,” I murmured. “We’re in San Francisco. In America.”
“San Francisco…” A flash of soft anger pinched her expression. I’d never known anger could be soft, but she did it well. “My son is trying to free me. Even still.”
“Are you trying to free her?” I asked the stranger. His eyes hardened and his fists flexed.
“To admit it would be death,” she said in a harsh voice, and I felt like a whipped dog. “His father would never permit it.”
“How dumb of me,” I said quickly. “Stupid me. She said be her. Dress in skirts, that sort of thing.”
“Oh boy,” Daisy said.
“Forget it.” I waved the issue away. I was terrible at improv. “Why haven’t you crossed over?” I asked her.
“A selkie is trapped by the land without her skin,” the woman said. “And in death, trapped in the world of the living.”
I pushed back against my chair, sadness washing over me. That issue rang a bell in my memory.
If some asshole land-dweller stole a selkie’s seal skin, the selkie would be trapped on land until the skin was returned. In that time, the selkie, a very sexual, loving, and clearly forgiving creature, would marry said asshole and have kids with him or her.