Page 44 of Kraken the Seal

“I do go out for nighttime swims,” he said. “Are you thinking about it?”

I shrugged. “Maybe. I'm not sure.”

“Nothing needs to happen right now. We could sit here and enjoy the view,” Delmar said. “Let me grab some stuff.”

He walked into the cabin and came back with some pads from the bench inside and blankets. He arranged them and soon we were lying in a comfy bed looking up at the night sky. The gentlerocking of the boat was comforting, and the heat of Delmar’s body made it even better.

“I took a camping trip to Bryce Canyon once,” I said. “A college friend talked me into going with her. It rained the first day, and the tent leaked. The air mattress wouldn't stay inflated, and I had the worst night of sleep of my life. Raccoons broke into my friend's car and got into our food. We ended up cutting the trip short because so many things went wrong.”

Delmar didn't ask me why I was telling him this story, only made a sympathetic sound. “That sounds like it was a rough trip.”

“It was, but it was also one of the best of my life,” I said.

“Yeah?”

“My friend had always wanted to go to Bryce Canyon because it's so high and the light pollution is minimal, so it's perfect for stargazing and astrophotography. That was what my friend did: take pictures of the stars. We got up in the middle of the night, drove to a spot specifically for stargazing, then set up her tripod and camera. We spent two hours taking pictures and gazing up at the stars. I'd grown up in Seattle and never seen anything like it. It was magical.”

“I can't give you Bryce Canyon, but I can give you the ocean,” he said.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“If we sail far enough away from the coast, you can see a lot of stars,” he explained.

“I might like that,” I said. “When this is all over, and I'm back to normal, we could spend some time alone together.”

My seal sent me a grumpy feeling at my use of the wordnormal. I ignored her and my guilt. I wasn't meant to be a selkie. I wasn't ending a life, my seal wasn't supposed to exist in the first place.

I felt a flash of anger and resentment, then she disappeared.

She didn’t simply go quiet, she completely vanished. No hum in the back of my head. No amused commentary about the human world. No eyeroll at my inner dialogue.

It wasn’t until now that I realized how she’d become a constant companion. A best friend in my head.

This was for the best, right?

I tried to sit with it and not care. Relief didn’t come. It felt odd to suddenly have an empty spot in my head where she'd been constantly sending thoughts and feelings.

My guilt and worry doubled. I pictured swimming again. I pushed images of chasing fish or playing with Delmar.

Nothing.

Sitting up, I put a hand to my chest, even though I couldn’t touch what was hurting. Delmar sat up also and put an arm around my shoulders.

“What's wrong?”

“She's gone,” I said, mentally prodding at her. Still nothing. Could she have left at any time, and I'd finally pissed her off enough that she had gone away and found someone else to inhabit?

“Your seal?” Delmar asked. Several of his tentacles wrapped around me, one of them petting my back.

“Yes.” My heartbeat kicked up.

“Hey, easy,” Delmar said. “Tell me what you’re feeling.”

I explained what I'd been thinking about, then my seal’s flash of anger and disappearance.

“Can it happen like that?” I asked. “Can your animal leave you?”

“I've never heard of anyone losing their animal,” he said. “But I've never heard of a spell that gave someone an animal, so maybe?”