Ghost

Pearl Diver - Mitski

The tide waited and saw the boy taken by an old man and a girl. Once they had fuzzed over the crest of the hill, the tide wrapped itself around the boys pelt and drew back, carrying it to sea. It found the boat, meandering along the water like a speck of dust, and spilled the pelt into the nets. There were shouts of joy, but they were tainted with a sick evil that made the tide boil with nausea. The net was drawn up, the pelt gripped in hard-working, vile hands. Then there came cries of disgust, and anger, worse even than the poisoned joy. The pelt was full of long slices, the labor of their own torturous bones. Someone tossed the pelt over-board, and the tide vindictively slapped it over the deck. It fell to the ground with a smack and the men stared at it in horror. 

The older men began to quake at the sight of it sitting restlessly in a pile of never healed scars on their deck. They were a superstitious lot, wakeful to the myths and the charms of ancient blood. It alarmed them, the emptiness of their stomachs no longer bearing such a pain as it had when the seal had fallen to their fish-hold. They hissed to the younger men "be rid of it, lest the ocean hide all her fish."

The younger were not as tender to the myths and curses. They were quiet to the spells of old. Yet, A seal who was white as snow. It's pelt before them, missing the carcass. Its pelt returned with the anger of the sea. They stood round it and fought. To throw it overboard till the water relented, to sell it, to throw it away on land, to bury it as penance for the seal's murder. No one dared say selkie, though they all were remembering days in childhood when their grandmother would pull them onto her lap and croon of a seal maiden who had lost her pelt, and therefore her memory, stranded on the island, starving for the sea with hunger so fierce the villagers had to tie her to a fence post so that she could not drown. 

The youngest among the men, not yet 21, took the pelt in his fist. He was a conqueror, blessed with a tongue of silver.

"I will take it to town and give it to the Moore Cafe. If the sea wishes us to keep it, we will keep it, so." He announced and wrung the pelt out. The water dripped down his hands, red with blood. The men gave a cry of fear as he dropped it upon the deck once more, a stricken look staining his face. His hands were now streaked with red, the white pelt laying upon the deck like spite. The old men began to moan of curses and sea gods, selkies, and witchcraft. 

The youngest picked up the now bone-dry pelt once more and grimly wrapped it in canvas. 

"It is my responsibility now." He said. "relieve yerselves of worry." 

The next morning, he took it to the Moore while he was getting his tea for the day. The Moore was a strange one, more like an antique shop that happened to have a little cafe at the back, and a bar beneath the floorboards than anything, but it was the only business in town that sold good coffee and tea, and so it thrived. 

"Is Roslyn here?" The fisherman asked. 

"She's not worked here for some time, like. What can I get for ye?" The boss, a woman called Bates, grinned at him in a fierce manner. The lore of the town was that she had been an infamous pirate before starting up the cafe and underground bar. 

"Just the usual... and Roslyn, Bates. I have a sealskin, so." He opened his satchel and showed her the pelt. There was no perceptible change in her face at the sight of its color, but her hand gripped the rag she'd been using.

Everyone knew about Roe's seal. They knew she called it Ghost, because he was supposedly the only white adult seal on the island, and he'd only ever appeared to Roslyn. 

The pelt meant that not only was he real, but he was also dead. 

"What happened, like?" She said this more as a statement than a question. He flinched.

"We caught the seal in our nets. I wanted to throw him back but he slipped out of the fish hold and called the whole boat's attention before I could get to him...They tore him up Bates." He felt a bit of anger fester in the back of his throat as he remembered the frenzied way they hunted him down. "Absolutely knifed the poor thing, like. He slipped from the deck and into the sea but yesterday morning, this pelt just splashes onto the deck, bristling white. When I rung it out, the-the water's-red. We didnae ken what to do with it, so's I thought I'd give it to Roslyn. He was hers after all." His story slipped like his understanding and then reformed into something new. Bates stared at him serenely. 

"Give it to her. Dinnae tell her where ye got that pelt. She's had enough death in her life. " Her face was stern, and set. He bit back the bitter taste in his mouth as he nodded. She turned at his assent and searched for her address.

He left the Cafe, forgetting his tea, and trekked up the hill to the looming home.

As he drew closer, he held the pelt protectively close to himself, the house sitting astride the hill like a watch tower. It knew his crime, it knew the fishermen's crime, it knew the moon and the tides crime. it had watched the seal boy wash ashore in the cove, it had seen the moon whisper the tide to steal the pelt away. Now it was watching the pelt return, hidden under a lie. 

He was now upon the walkway, skin scrunched into a ball in his fists. He walked to the door, peered through the stained glass as he rang the bell. The wind was blowing, angry creaking sounds coming from the house as it swooned. he swallowed, and the door swung open. She was short, looking up at him, curious frown hidden behind the cloud of brown hair. She was being swallowed alive by a paisley green sweater, and in her hand was a mug of tea. He was struck by how much she looked like her grandma in that moment, freckles dusting over her pale skin like carrot cake crumbs. He felt a flicker, an indescribable feeling in his bones when he made eye contact with her. She knew him. He had skipped class to sniff coke and had seen her in the overgrown garden behind the school, eyes red and green, face puffy from tears.

"Yes? what can I do for ye?" She asked.

"well..." He spluttered, and showed her the seal skin.

He could hear static electricity humming in the air. The wind screamed. She looked down at it, confused. She had beat the shit out of their classmate once. He had grabbed her hair in his fist and told her to fuck him. 

"Angus meant for Clyde to have that. Goatskin, apparently." He said. She smiled, nodded and took it in one hand, pressing it against her body. 

"Thank ye. Any idea what for?"

"No, Ah dinnae ken." He replied, and left, her uncanny gaze drifting after him.

The whole island resented her for leaving Clyde. It had been abandoning, plain and simple. She had run away like a pigeon released from a cage. She knew it too, and still she left him in that house, still she ran, as fast and as hard as she could go. The whole island knew it and they resented her. 

As he made his way down the hill, he looked at the red stripes on his hands. Murderer. Theif. They seemed to say. Liar. 

The wind screamed.

When Roe gave Granda the gift later that night, he became as frail as was possible for him. He took it to his room, and held the pelt in his fists with a darkness in his eyes. Alone in that room, standing on the hardwood floor, he thought about his wife, and then he thought about Roe, and the way she looked at the sleeping boy. She always seemed like a warm yellow when he saw her in that room, as though he was peering in through honey colored glass. He stared down at that white pelt, shimmering like silk in the dull lamplight.

The green quilt on the bed. Dina had made that quilt. She had told him that her memories were wrapped in that quilt. They had found her body yards away from that quilt. She had told him she would sleep under nothing else, so he kept it. Restlessly slept under it. He stared at it some more. Then he looked down at the white pelt in his hands. 

It was late in the night. He should be asleep. Roe was certainly slumbering in the room beside the boys. If it had not been improper, he was sure she would be in the room with him. He closed the door and locked it, then drew the curtains over the window, like he was trying to hide from the moon. As he opened the side of the quilt with a pocket knife, he was sickened. While he sewed the side up, he became resolved.

That boy was a key. He was a path. Clyde bricked up the entrance, and changed the lock.