Breach - of Contract

The fooking rat bastid booked us a fooking cruise for our tenth anniversary.

This from the wee bawbag who dinna take us tae seaside holiday, lest I get Ideas.

Faugh.

Yes, I have an accent. Don't remind me. I have grievances with the people I've been forced to live near, but not their manner of speaking. But it's not my original accent. It's not even my original language.

So here I am, on a large boat when I shouldn't be, in a part of the world too warm and stifling, with my kidnapper.

And I am incandescent with rage.

You've heard of my kind. Myth, legend, faugh. We exist. Dinna be so daft as ta think we be yer manic pixie dream girl or summat-

Faugh! Sorry. Ten years of habit.

Kidnapped? Oh, yes. It has been ever thus. We skinwalkers of the waterways are at our weakest when we sport on the sand. Hidden coves are no longer secret, and the old ways of hiding our skin no longer work.

And men are no longer to be trusted to keep their word.

He targeted me, and sullied my sisters' skins with his grubbing to get to mine. I should have known then, his word was not to be believed.

We have gotten wilier over the centuries. Now, there is a standard contract. You find and hide a skin, you get ten years. Two children, bed rights, no abuse. Cleaning and cooking are negotiable. Would you trust a sea creature with land food, things they'd never seen, never eaten, never cooked, never mind never cooked with? At the end of the decade, skin is returned in good condition, and the children may choose which parent calls to their blood.

My kidnapper dinna ken the memo.

Aye, we be sleekit, this hen's no bampot.

Faugh!

We sea folk are cleverer than the men around those parts.

Do ye ken the legends? There are many ways to take and put on a skin. If you've ever heard of the Wild Swans tale, or its many cousin stories, the shirts of nettles? That's another way. If you think of the skin as our clothing, the sympathetic magic makes more sense.

The skin is the easiest way to make the change. It isn't the only way.

Ten years and two children wasn't difficult. There are things I would get out of the deal besides children, if he didn't break his word.

Choosing to take us to the other side of the world in a large steel boat seemed like the biggest fook yew I had ever heard of in my long life.

So, he wants to play games with the mer folk, does he? Numpty.

As a human, I always wore my hair long. In the water, it only gets in the way and makes you slow, and slow means you're dead. Orcas and sharks prey on us, and there's no time for vanity unless you stay put on one of the islands. The other reason, of course, is for emergencies, like now.

I took the boys to the barber on board. All of us. I already felt lighter, with my short spiky hair.

And I saved the clippings. Scrapbooking, I said.

And then I bought a crochet hook, the finest gauge I could find. One can find amazing things in a port stop. Steel, of course, because the more difficult and painful the work, the better the magic.

And I sent the boys to play in the pool, pulled up a plastic deck chair, and started crocheting.

Have you ever noticed, that the skinwalkers of legends always correspond to the creature that culture fears the most? Usually the deadliest – wolves, bears, lions, dragons, panthers. We are an outlier to that thought, because sharks and orcas and even dolphins are more deadly than we are. But I also don't see many stories of a man hiding one of their skins to have a domestic slave. That story about the “study in scarlet” comes to mind, of what one might find after such a foolhardy foray.

No, I dinna have enow for a sark – er, shirt. Not even a kilt, even a short one. Nor a shawl, nor a scarf. A belt would have to do, and I could even make a tartan, with the various colors of our hair.

And I had very little time.

I should have known. I should have started sooner.

I became very secretive. I had my kidnapper pick up the children from their activities, and only joined them for meals. I ate ravenously, of course, and got chided for it. It would not show on my human form, but I would need to bulk up rather fast for what I was about to do. Buffets are useful things.

I also updated my will. It is amazing, what services can be found within international waters. I made all sorts of dark hints. Let them come for his hide, like he came for mine.

I had learned to read and write. I could cypher when needed.

Of course, my kidnapper was suspicious. I kept my precious bag and its contents on my person at all times. My kidnapper dinna ken, but I slept in deck chairs, in the shadows, at odd hours. When I woke, I'd crochet, then doze again. Then move, so I wasn't discovered by kidnapper or nosey deckhands.

Every once in a while, I'd play with my sons. I wanted them to have some good memories.

They weren't bad children, unless you think about how they were conceived.

Which I try very hard not to think about. My kidnapper was as imaginative in bed as you'd expect from someone who had to resort to extortion to create a semblence of family. But the boys? I believe I'd instilled enough good sense and kindness in them that they could live without me, and not turn into a monster like their sperm donor.

Like the whole town, really. Once I learned the local tongue, I was not shy in telling every single motherless whoreson there that I was being held against my will, and they were complicit. What did I get in return? Called names, shunned, told I had Resting Bitch Face and should use makeup and a better wardrobe. Only once did the granthers that collected at the general store tell me to smile more, and I gave them such a tongue lashing they never dared speak to me again. Yes, townspeople, I will make you as uncomfortable as I can, knowing you would not lift a finger to help me.

He caught me before I was ready.

Well, he always was all about the chase and catch. It was the release part that needed so much more work.

I could see him coming, and I was cornered in friendly shadows. I quietly put my work away and under my skirt so he couldn't take that from me either.

And he raged. He frothed. He screamed in my face, spittle flecking my face, about worthlessness and ungratefulness and likely finding a new mate on this cruise that his good money paid for. Not a word about what was owed to me after ten years suffering at his hands.

I took a step back, and slapped him. Hard.

That took the wind out of his sails.

Then it was my turn. Quietly, I hissed at him the terms of the contract, and how he'd missed his due date, and where was my skin? Or did he forget that this “anniversary trip” was also the anniversary of the day he ripped me away from kith and kin? My home? Not caring that I had a husband, and family, under the waves? That were waiting for my return? And where was my skin, anyway, and the other payments due to me for services rendered under extreme duress?

He blinked. He'd forgotten.

The wee bastid had forgotten.

I snarled, and grabbed him by the throat. We are strong, we sea folk. We must be, to survive. I demanded to know where he'd hidden my skin.

In the cave, he sputtered. Under a rock.

Where the waves would bash it twice daily, rotting it from all sides.

Ten years of wave wear!

I spit a curse that should not be uttered in the air.

And the winds came.

Suddenly we were being tossed in a violent storm, where before the ocean was calm and pleasant. The deck heaved, and I rolled with it, being so close to my element. He, on the other hand, was not used to violence he himself did not create.

He swung at me, but I could block and counter. I skelped him very hard. And he staggered – and went over the rail.

At last, at the very last moment, I saw fear in his eyes.

It was almost worth the decade of mistreatment I suffered.

I had borne his hits, his comments, his critique of all I had done. As long as it was not aimed at the children, or in front of them, I would take it. As soon as he tried to turn them into little versions of himself, I stepped in and put a stop to that.

But the contract was over.

And I was gripping a steel rail that bit into my hand, which was swollen and sore from all the little prickles of the crochet hook.

I closed my eyes, took deep breaths. Began an old chant that would bring calm to the waves. And eventually the clouds listened, and took their fury out to sea. I wondered idly what the human's radar would show.

I then thought of my children, and hurried back to the cabin.

They were still asleep. They'd slept through it.

They were truly my children. For so long, I had only thought of them as his.

I thought. Then I sat, and crocheted excitedly. With my kidnapper gone, there are ways I could use his clothing, my children's clothing, to hasten and bolster the work.

The next day, a sparkling glorious morning. Those who'd felt the change chattered about strange dreams, and rogue storms. I let my kids play in the pool, studying them.

They swam well.

Could I do this?

I studied what I'd created, and thought.

And that night, while they slept in a drugged sleep, I softly sang an auld, auld song, and took a knife I'd stolen from dinner, and did what I had to.

Then I studied maps.

I wondered how many old treaties I could rely upon. Would the others uphold their end of the bargain, and could I count on it? Or would they betray me like my kidnapper?

I went up to the deck, and breathed salt air, and called to the dark waters. And I got some answers.

My children had grown up on stories. Some real, some fantasy. Some are harder to pin down, and can only be discerned when layers of skepticism are peeled awa'. My kidnapper would gleefully show them the movie, and they'd eat tubs of that awful puffy corn food and sing along while I sobbed, rooms away, with a pillow stuffed over my face. Part of that world, indeed, that you took me from, to be your pet and maid.

I returned to our room, and woke my kids from their spelled slumber. I told them of a place. I talked of a castle under the sea that was real, like the movie, if they wished to visit. Of friends, and family there, related to me. Who would like us to visit. Did that sound nice? Would they like that? They were young, and still drugged a little. Reality stretches thin, and magic is believable at that age.

I took them to the deck.

It was moon dark. The only lights were from the ship itself, bright to my eyes. But when I pointed to the water, my kids could just pick out the glowing bodies waiting to escort us home.

I threw my clothing on the deck in disgust. With luck, I would never wear a stitch again. Around my waist was a belt made of tartan colors, woven in colors of hair and cloth threads.

I threw the skins over my children, said the words, and tossed their changed bodies to the allies waiting below. They would not swim well at first, but they were strong, and we had help.

I said the words, and the change rippled through me. My selkie eyes wept, but the sea took my tears away.

So far from home.

We began the journey.