The Maid and The Selkie

Part 25

Months later, Macrae woke slowly. The slow coming of her mind back to life was the only thing that kept her from shock everytime she woke up to find there was a person in the house that she had lived in alone for years.

    Elspeth was asleep, her bare skin pressed by gravity to the exposed wood of the table, as always. A candle, it's flame only dead when the wick ran out, lay in a gathering of wax in the middle of the table, as always.

    In a half-awake stupor, Macrae cleared the table of wax. She was getting very good at that. She made herself a small breakfast, and sat at the table across from Elspeth.

    The Selkie was shivering again. Macrae wished she could help, but she had learned that the chill Elspeth felt wasn't physical. There was nothing she could do, except -

    Macrae tried to force the thought out of her mind. She could take Elspeth's cloak. She'd learned from her sailor friend how he had kept his wife, when Macrae kept losing her friend. A human could take - steal - a selkie's one possession. If the selkie couldn't find it, they wouldn't go home. They couldn't.

It was a stupid, selfish thought. Unfortunately, it was one Macrae found herself having more and more often. More and more since the time she had seen where Elspeth hid it.

It was disturbingly close to her home, Macrae thought. Just inside the tree line, there was a boulder that had a burrow. As a child, Macrae had fed the badgers that made it. Elspeth didn't even block the entrance.