Children of the Sea 03 - Sea Lord

Webbed.
    Like Conn’s.
    She swayed, unsteady as a newborn foal or a hospital patient after surgery. Naked. Naked and cold, tired and hungry. Her sealskin washed in the retreating waves like seaweed caught in the tide.
    She raised her head, and the shore jumped out at her, etched in black and white, sharp and bright. Frost coated the rocks. Ice encrusted the frozen bladders of weed. The clouds, the same turbulent gray as the sea, were pregnant with snow.
    Pregnant.
    The word leaped in her mind like a flame, warming her, reigniting her sense of urgency.
    Maggie was pregnant.
    Lucy had to find . . . She had to warn her family.
    She stooped for her pelt.
    The fur rippled in the water. She hauled the heavy, wet pelt from the surf, streaming water. With trembling hands, she stroked the fur, a brindled silver gray, smaller and lighter than Conn’s in both weight Page 113
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    and color. In her arms, it felt no more than damp.
    Selkie magic? she wondered.
    Why not?
    She wrapped the pelt around her like a beach towel, over her breasts, under her arms. Her skin prickled with goose bumps. She was cold, but not intolerably so. She should be freezing . . .
    Her heartbeat quickened. And then she realized. She was different. Changed. Her journey through the sea had changed her. She wondered if, when night fell, she would be able to see in the dark.
    Her stomach growled.
    She stumbled over the rocks on long, awkward legs and tender feet, picking her way up the beach to the trees standing sentinel along the road. She needed shoes. Shoes and clothes and food.
    She could not remember the last time she had eaten. Days ago.
    As she stepped from under the trees, a light snow began to fall. The soft, wet flakes dissolved against the black asphalt, softening the outlines of the trees, blurring the boundaries between earth and sky. She trudged along the shoulder of the road. Going home.
    She didn’t want to be seen. Noticed. What would she say to a driver, a neighbor, the parent of a student, if they stopped and wanted to know why the teacher of the island’s first grade class was walking along the snowy road half-naked and wrapped in a fur?
    “ Think of it as wearing a fur coat, ” Conn had said.
    She smiled. Yes.
    But the memory of Conn hurt her chest. Like poking a bruise. Like picking a scab. Bowing her head, she concentrated on putting one cold, bare foot in front of the other. The gravel stung her soles. Her stomach cramped. She was dizzy with hunger, trembling with fatigue.
    Almost home.
    She would not need to worry about encountering her father. At this time of day, he was always at the inn.
    She spotted their rusting mailbox, lurching a little to one side ever since Bart Hunter swiped it in the truck one night. Staggering in exhaustion and relief, Lucy turned up the driveway and climbed the steps to the porch. The key was hidden under a lobster buoy by the door. But when she reached for the knob, it turned easily in her hand.
    Sick panic lurched to her throat.
    Gau’s voice played in her head. “ Do you know what I’ll do to them when I get there? Your pathetic excuse of a father. Your big brave brothers and their bitches. ”
    She whimpered and opened the door.
    Old smells, old memories rushed at her, must and mildew and old carpet. The house was cold and quiet.
    “Dad?” She croaked and cleared her throat. “Dad?”
    Silence.
    Heart thumping, she closed the door behind her. She should go upstairs. She needed warm clothes and a hot shower.
    She shivered. She needed to call Caleb.
    She went through the dark house to use the kitchen phone. A loaf of bread sat on the counter.
    Oh, God, she was so hungry .
    She seized the bread, ripping open the plastic sleeve, and jammed a slice into her mouth. It tasted so good . Her stomach demanded more. Still chewing, she grabbed a jar of peanut butter from the cabinet and slathered a second slice.
    She would call Caleb in a minute. In just a minute. She ate standing up, like a horse, tearing into the food like an animal, almost choking in her eagerness to replenish her body. Water. She needed water. Her hand shook as she reached for the kitchen tap.
    She heard the creak of the front door, felt a rush of cold air, and froze with her hand under the faucet.
    She blushed like a dieter caught on a midnight raid of the refrigerator, like a drunk with his hand in the liquor cabinet. Like her father.
    She swallowed