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His jaw ticked, and I knew he did not like my prying question, but he answered.
“I lured a fair maiden to the edge of the sea, and she fell so deep in love with me, she died from longing. The fair maiden was a fairy queen, and when I left the safety of my sea, her people came for me. They stole my sealskin, and I wandered the land in search of it until I came to a cottage where a witch lived. I told her my woes, and she promised to help if I labored for her for seven years. So I did, and at the end, she offered a red-tipped thorn and said, ‘Speak your wish to the thorn, and bury it beneath the full moon.’”
She gave no other instruction, and I did as she said.
“The next morning, I woke up beside my sealskin, which had grown from the ground. I had not felt such joy in seven years, but as I plucked it from the ground, the elven prince appeared—the one you call Casamir. ‘Your sealskin belongs to me for it was made with my thorn,’ he said. And I have lived in this pond since.”
I remained silent following the selkie’s story. It reminded me of the cruelty of the Enchanted Forest and renewed my wish to escape my own looming imprisonment, not that I lacked desperation.
“And if you were set free? What would you do?”
“Return to my home,” he said. “Return to what is left.”
I squeezed my knees tighter to my chest as I thought about what I would return home to—my empty cottage, the full well, the geese who wandered in and out of the Enchanted Forest.
There was nothing else, no one else.
“And what if there is nothing left?”
“Then I suppose I will die,” he said.
A gurgling caw caught my attention, and I tilted my head to the sky, finding a large black bird circling overhead. He swooped down and landed near me, sweeping into a bow.
“Thing, meet Wolf the Raven.”
“Wolf is an odd name for a bird.”
“Thing is an odd name for a human.”
“Thing is not my name,” I said.
“Wolf is not my name,” the raven said.
We stared at one another, and a smirk curled the corner of my lips.
“It is nice to meet you, Wolf.”
The raven’s eyes glittered. “It is nice to meet you, Thing.”
“Wolf will take you to the Glass Mountains,” said the selkie.
I looked from the selkie to Wolf. “How are you going to take me to the Glass Mountains?”
“You will climb on my back, and I will fly you there.”
“But I am far too large to ride on your back.”
“Drink from the selkie’s pond, and you will become small.”
I hesitated. “And when I return, will I drink again and return to normal?”
“What is normal?” asked the selkie.
I glared, and he answered, “Yes, you have my word.”
His word was binding, so I knelt by the pond, dipped my hands into the water, and drank.
I stood to my full height and then felt the world grow larger and larger around me. The pond was now a vast ocean, the flora now a dark and deep forest, and the raven a monster. My feet did not hurt, and when I lifted my foot, I found that they had healed.
