The Misadventures of Anna Cabbot

Sealskin

Anna was doing one last look around in her lab before she went home when her phone buzzed in her pocket.

[Stevie]
Please tell me you know the mostly naked person in our yard.

She tapped the photo accompanying Stevie's text to make it bigger. Carson was sprawled out on the grass of her and Stevie's backyard, legs stretched out in front of him and his torso propped up on his elbows. His face turned like a flower to the sun, and he wore only a pair of shorts, so there was a lot of skin on display.

Lord Almighty that man had some muscles.

Even better was that he looked relaxed and content, a smile playing at the corners of his mouth.

[Anna]
That's my friend Carson. He's from Canada and he got unexpectedly stranded on this side of the river a couple nights ago.

[Stevie]
Oh. Okay.

Anna looked at that last text in the parking lot. She snorted, and didn't bother to respond.

When she got home, she followed the driveway back to the yard and found Carson in much the same position as earlier, though closer to Stevie's porch so he could comfortably talk to her.

He tipped his head back. "Hey, you. Good timing."

"Why's that?" She dropped her tote bag on the porch then sat by Carson's shin so she could see him and Stevie at the same time.

"Your mostly naked friend here is telling me magic doesn't exist," Stevie said dryly.

Anna looked sharply at Carson. His eyebrows rose.

"Oh, shit," she muttered. "Stevie knows. She knows I'm a witch." She drew her knees to her chest and looped her arms around her shins, adding, "I'm sorry. I didn't tell him you knew."

"I gave him my best glare and he didn't so much as flinch," Stevie said. "Though you need to be a little better about deflecting without being obvious about it. A first year at UB could have figured out you were hiding something relevant."

Stevie, currently looking inocuous in yoga pants and a faded University at Buffalo tee, her natural curls held back from her medium brown eyes with a wide headband, was an intellectual property lawyer at a firm downtown. She didn't seem to have an ounce of magic on her that Anna could feel, though Anna hadn't put a lot of effort into looking.

Anna had been upfront with her, too, about being a witch. A couple of previous tenants had left some awful reviews about the property due to, Anna discovered on accident the first time she visited, a rather rogue poltergeist. She sent it packing, toured what would be her side of the duplex, and by the end of the afternoon had written Stevie two checks for the security deposit and first month's rent, respectively.

"I will take that under advisement, counselor," he said witha grin.

Those dimples of his were goddamn deadly. Judging by the look she got, Stevie agreed.

"Are you a witch, too, then?"

"No," he said, "I'm a selkie."

Stevie leaned against the porch support post. "I'm a little rusty on my magical persons."

"I turn into a gray seal."

"Ah."

Anna watched his grin widen just a touch and fortified herself.

"Yeah," he drawled. "Just add water."

She buried her face in her hands; Stevie threw her head back and laughed.


"Is there somewhere I can take you?" Anna asked a little more bluntly than she'd meant to later that evening over sushi and dumplings. "I'm not saying you have to leave right now but can I help you get home?"

She couldn't exactly put him in her car and take him back across the Peace Bridge without proper ID. They'd both end up in jail if they tried that.

"I was going to ask you about that," he said. "There's a hidden access road near some state land that leads to Lake Ontario. If you drop me there so I could swim home that would be great."

She gaped inelegantly. "You're going to swim that whole distance?"

"It's not far. I haven't been for a longish swim in a while, too, so that'll feel good."

Anna bit into another dumpling. "How far is it?"

"Thirty-something miles. Thirty-two, I think." Carson grinned. "A nice, brisk swim, really."

"Different strokes for different folks," she muttered, gratified when he choked on his own spit trying to simultaneously laugh and breathe. "You, um...you don't have to be a stranger, you know."

His smile was soft and small, almost what she'd classify as intimate. "I'll hold you to that."

Warmth bloomed behind her sternum.

She shoved the rest of the dumpling in her mouth to avoid an awkward moment, and needn't have worried as a comfortable quiet settled between them. She left what few dishes there were in the sink to deal with when she got back, and shoved the leftovers in the fridge.

Carson took the Not Coat from her downstairs closet and disappeared into the bathroom. She leaned against the front door until he reappeared, the Not Coat tied around his hips to drape in the front and back. He'd worn it that way the night they'd met.

The same calm quiet continued in the car. Anna pulled easily onto the 190 North, her fingers tightening around the steering wheel when they passed what was left of the marina.

"Can I ask you something?" She glanced at him. "I wanted to ask you earlier, but there never seemed to be a right time."

"Sure." He folded his hands in his lap.

"Last night, when we met by the river," she said, the green lights on the South Grand Island Bridges stark against the blackening backdrop of night. "You said someone had tried to kidnap you. Do you know why?"

"I assumed they wanted my sealskin, but I could be wrong." Carson looked over at her. "I honestly don't think it was for money. I'm not worth that much."

"But your magic is," she said slowly. "Magic in the wrong hands is dangerous."

"Jesus," he muttered, catching on. "People actually do that?"

"They try to." She stared out the windshield.

It was a dirty business to try to separate magic from someone who wielded it considering it was a literal part of a person's genetic makeup. There was a cost to even attempt it: if it failed, whoever had tried it died in the backwash. If it worked, well, the unwilling second participant didn't last long after.

Anna had been only fifteen when the Moorhead house exploded. There had been two casualties - seventeen-year-old Audrey Moorhead and a man the state police hadn't ever identified — and the papers had reported it as a meth lab catastrophe. Audrey's parents were later cleared of any charges, as there wasn't any physical evidence of a lab left, though the real story circulated through the magical Community within days.

Audrey hadn't wanted her magic, and she'd been desperate to get rid of it. The small town rumor mill went into overdrive; a friend of a friend knew a guy who had done it — successfully — before. Audrey paid him an untold amount of money, waited until her parents had gone on a weekend trip to see extended family, and then something had gone very, very wrong.

The Community had very few cut and dry absolute laws across the breadth of the magical world. Taking someone's magic was at the top of the list.

Carson shuddered again, swearing under his breath.

"Do I want the Robert Moses?" Anna asked.

"Yeah. You want to run that all the way to the end where it connects with eighteen."

"Okay."

He turned the radio on; it played softly in the background, some pop song Anna heard every day on the radio. She ignored it in favor of watching the edges of the road for wildlife. Western New York had finally turned for spring, and with a full moon in a matter of days the deer were going to be on the move. The last thing she needed was to have to call her dad because she'd dented her front bumper or cracked a headlight.

At his direction, she pulled into the mouth of the access road and immediately shut the car off. They were close to, if not on, state land, though the park wasn't open yet.

Anna locked her Toyota and followed Carson deeper into the woods. He reached a hand back for her; she let him lead her rather than stumble through the underbrush on her own. A witchlight for extra visibility was tempting, but tripping over a log or some shit while temporarily blinded by a flash wasn't on her to do list.

"Don't your feet hurt?" she asked, a stick cracking loudly beneath her sneakers.

"Not really."

The road widened briefly into a tiny, rocky beach and ended abruptly at the water. Carson waded in and Anna came to an awkward stop at the edge, the two of them still tethered by the fingertips.

"Can you keep yourself warm in the water?" he asked, glancing over his shoulder.

Anna met his eyes in the moonlight. "You want me to get in?"

"Just for a couple of minutes. I won't splash you. Promise." He let go and held his hands up. "I won't look, either." He turned his back to her completely and walked in until the water was mid-thigh.

With a bravery she hadn't felt in a long time, she toed off her shoes and, in the interest of not trashing another pair of pants so soon, took her jeans off. Wearing only her sweatshirt and underwear, she slogged in.

The water was cold but not unbearable, and she trailed her fingertips in it by her knee to warm her immediate area by magic.

Carson unwrapped his sealskin from his hips and only turned to face her again when the water was up to his navel.

His pelt shimmered like an oil slick.

Anna gestured between them. "This whole situation is innuendo fodder right now."

"Seriously?" He wrapped his sealskin around his shoulders.

"I have no pants on and you're naked, about to turn back into a seal." She pulled the hem of her sweatshirt further over her hips.

"True." Carson grinned; she could barely make out his dimples in the dark. "Innuendo fodder. Okay."

She waited.

"I'm pretty big, but I'm gentle. I promise."

"Oh, my God," she groaned. "That's fucking awful, Carson."

Cackling, he threw himself backward and sank beneath the still surface of the lake. Everything went deathly quiet.

Anna shuffled forward another few steps. Her eyes skimmed over the rippling water for any sort of Carson-induced movement. There were bubbles out and to the right; she took an involuntary step in that direction.

A dark gray head emerged just out of reach of her fingertips. It had a large snout, its nostrils set well apart. Big black eyes stared at her.

"Carson?" she murmured.

He bobbed higher, and raised a flipper in an approximation of a wave.

She waded out further until the water was mid-thigh. He swam closer and nudged her palm with his nose. She couldn't see him, exactly, though she knew he was big — bigger than she'd thought he'd be, for sure. Then again, the one and only time she'd seen a real seal had been at the Baltimore Aquarium.

Shit. Were any of them selkies? The idea made her stomach turn.

Carson butted his nose against her palm again, and she rubbed the top of his head. His fur was slick, and she kept her touch as light as possible, worried about accidentally hurting him.

He tilted his head to the side.

"I'm okay." Anna smiled, and booped him gently on the snout. "Let me know when you get home? Just look me up on Facebook."

He rolled over, his pale belly almost luminescent. He dove under again, surfacing some fifteen feet out to wave at her once more.

She watched and waited until she was sure he was gone. Sighing, she waded back to shore. She hadn't anticipated a swim and didn't have a towel, so she slipped her shoes on, picked up her pants, and started for the car, still dripping.