Page 111 of 'Til All the Seas Run Dry

The backing was held to the frame with dozens of metal prongs.

“’Twill take me but a moment,” he whispered. “If you are ready.”

She nodded and said in a voice that was ragged and hoarse, “Please.”

38

Callum could have ripped the backing off with his bare hands. Or, barring that, he could have moved the hammer so fast that, within the span of a few blinks, the backing would have been gone and the sealskin in her hands. But he didn’t. He couldn’t.

Admittedly, part of him didn’t trust her not to bolt and disappear as soon as she had it, slipping through his fingers like saltwater, leaving nothing behind but the taste of herself. She had talked to him about new beginnings. She had told him that she wanted him. But did she want him enough to give it all up? Did she want him enough to stay? And so he moved with methodical slowness, sliding the hammer’s claw under each prong one at a time, prying them gently away from the particle board. He heard her ragged breathing over his shoulder.

Once, before he’d met her, he’d been impressed upon to help with the nailing of a coffin. The priest supervising the task had chanted “Mother of God, pray for us,” timing the words to follow each hammer’s blow. And they, the priest, Callum, and another man whose name he never learned fell into a rhythm of pounding the nails as percussion to the litany, like a timpani underscoring the symphony.

He hadn’t thought of that day in centuries, but his hands shook as the claw of the hammer bent back the prongs at a steady pace, punctuated by the staccato of Jory’s heartbeat, which he could hear as clearly as if it were his own.

If she ran, if she grabbed for the skin and disappeared, he may as well be nailing a coffin closed. His. Not in a literal sense, of course, but he couldn’t go back to the half-life he’d been living before. Before, his life had felt every bit like penance. Missing her, wishing she was there, but knowing she wasn’t. To go back to that life knowing she was in the world, somewhere, alive, and out of his reach? It would torment him until the end of time.

He slid the hammer’s claw under the last prong and pried it up. Jory gasped behind him. With trembling hands, he lifted up the frame’s back, setting it gently on the table next to the frame. He could feel her practically vibrating, her energy and raw desire radiating with nearly nuclear force, like she and the skin had been electrons pried apart, soon to be linked once more. The tangible chemistry made his knees go weak.

She had been caged, trapped in her human form. And regardless of what happened to him, this opportunity, this freedom? It was hers and hers alone. He had accidentally stolen it from her. So many mistakes born from one very important omission of truth. But even if she left him forever, even if he felt the agony of that leaving until the world blinked out of existence, he would not stand in her way.

With heavy steps and shaking hands, he stepped to the side, giving Jory room to approach the frame. She ran a reverent finger over the back of the skin, feeling the soft leather. And then she was gathering it into her arms, careful handfuls becoming greedy armfuls, the silky-smooth fur of the sealskin rustling as she brought it to her chest.

Her hands were shaking, her tears dry now, as she stared at him in wonder.

“At long last, mo ghraidh,” he said, despair and hope coursing through him with enough force to fell a redwood.

It appeared that speech was beyond her. He watched her in the warm light of the driftwood chandelier, the sealskin clutched tightly in her arms, her eyes wide and unfocused, her breath coming in stilted gasps.

She sucked in a deep, sustained inhale, her body going very, very still.

And then she ran.

“Fuck,” Callum cursed, following after her as she bolted out the door. The frosty earth was slick under the soles of his shoes as he raced after her, around the house and down the well-worn path to the shore. The sealskin trailed behind her like a cape and he chased her, the instinct to hunt, tocatch, so very strong. He hadn’t indulged those instincts in a long time.

But he slowed himself, running at a normal human pace, because hewasn’thunting her. He didn’t want tocatchher. He wanted tofollowher. He wanted to go with her, wherever that might be, wherever she might lead. And so he ran, close on her heels, feeling the draft from the sealskin whipping against his face.

She didn’t slow down when she reached the shore. Nor when her feet hit the water, sending splashes ricocheting back. And then, as the clouds parted, revealing a slice of bright moonlight as sharp as a sword’s edge, he saw her charge deeper into the icy water before diving under the surface and disappearing from his view.

“Fuck,” he cursed, his teeth clenched, arms pumping as he tried to follow.

Callum ran after her into the inky black water, until it closed over his shoulders and head, his clothes waterlogged. He swam in the direction he’d seen her go, but even with his night vision, he couldn’t see more than ten feet in front of his face in the murky darkness. Panic clawed at him, old fears from years at sea, a sailor’sjustified fears, about the creatures that lived beneath the surface.

He kicked hard until his head broke the surface, wanting to follow her, knowing he’d never find her in the huge expanse of open water, terrified of what might findhimif he tried. And so, with his fear clutching at his throat like a vice, he swam quickly back to shore, making as little splash as possible because he’d once read that sharks were attracted to splashing.

Callum crawled out of the ocean on hands and knees, saltwater pouring off of him in streams.

“Fuck,” he shouted, his voice catching. “Fuck.”

He’d spoken around a sob, the words feeling nearly gelatinous from his tears collecting, blood mixing with the saltwater and streaming down his face, back to the ocean, back to the womb of it all.

Without a goodbye, without a backwards glance, she was gone.

He’d built this house. He’d come back here year after year after year to be close to her. Not toher, but to be near to where he’d oncehadher. Where he’d once held her love in his arms with the same desperate clutching that she’d held her sealskin in the dining room. As if he hadn’t been able to believe she was real, that she was in his arms at all.

How many nights had he fallen asleep watching her sleep, watching the warm glow of the coals in the hearth cast shadows on the earth’s clay of her skin, making her freckles dance, her breath coming easily in and out of her nose? How many nights had he wondered to himself what he’d done to deserve such a gift as her? And how many days in the aftermath had he sat alone in the dark, staring at a ceiling in a vault in any number of places, with nothing to comfort him but the memory of her sleepy smiles upon waking, her bright laugh, her mischief, her life? All gone. Just like she was now.

Callum dropped to his ass on the sand, his knees bent and forearms resting atop them, head hanging. He had always been a believer that mistakes were an integral part of success. But there were some mistakes that could not be salvaged into lessons. As the bloody tears fell steadily from his eyes, dropping into the water below him like watercolors off a soaked brush, he counted those mistakes. The calculus was agonizing, as it always ended with the sum of him sitting in this exact spot, cradling her body against his chest and cursing the fates that had brought him such a beautiful gift only to use him as the weapon of its destruction.