Tomorrow

The seal was gone.

Daniel stood at the bottom of the eastern steps and looked down at the skin it had left behind. At least, that was what he assumed had happened.

The morning tide had been rough. Even from inside the lighthouse he'd heard the Atlantic throwing itself against the rocks before dawn, booming beneath the wind like someone striking the island with a hammer. It had left the usual offerings along the shore: splintered driftwood, half a yellow lobster buoy, and enough plastic rubbish to fill the sack he'd tucked beneath one arm before starting his rounds.

The sealskin didn't belong among any of it.

It lay beyond the reach of the retreating water, draped across a shelf of black rock as neatly as a coat left over the back of a chair.

Daniel stopped. Wind tugged at his jacket. Above him, gulls wheeled around the tower, screaming insults at one another.

He looked toward the water... nothing. A hundred yards offshore, grey waves rolled beneath a greyer sky. Farther out, sea and cloud blurred together until there wasn't much difference between them.

Daniel climbed down.

The skin was beautiful. That surprised him. He'd seen dead seals before. Everyone who lived along the coast had. Sometimes the sea brought them back bloated and battered against the rocks, and there was nothing particularly beautiful about that.

This was different.

No blood. No flesh. No stink of rot. Just... fur. He crouched and touched it. Soft, softer than he'd expected. Daniel drew his hand back.

For a moment, he was eight years old again, sitting cross-legged beside the woodstove while rain rattled against the windows of his father's house.

Never touch what the sea leaves behind, Danny.

Pa had been three whiskies deep and in one of his storytelling moods.

There'd been women beneath the waves in those stories. Women with dark eyes and seal skins who came ashore when the moon was high. They'd shed their pelts on lonely beaches and danced naked beneath the stars.

Beautiful women, lonely men, and skins hidden where their owners could never find them.

Daniel had loved those stories.

His mother hated them.

"They're not stories you tell children, Patrick."

"Ah, Annie. They're only stories."

Daniel looked down at the pelt.

A gust came off the Atlantic hard enough to make him brace a hand against the rock.

"Only stories," he murmured.

He picked it up.

The thing was heavier than it looked. Damp underneath, though the fur on top was almost dry. He folded it once, then again, and tucked it beneath his arm.

He didn't put it in the rubbish sack.

Daniel climbed back toward the lighthouse.

He told himself he'd bring it into town on Thursday.

Someone would know what it was. Someone would know what ought to be done with it. Thursday was only three days away.

By four that afternoon the fog had swallowed the island.

By five, Daniel could no longer see the water from the kitchen window.

At six seventeen, someone knocked on the door.

Daniel slowly pulled his eyes away from the book in his lap and waited. After three years alone, his ears liked to play tricks on him. The knock came again. He sat the book down spine up and pulled on his jacket. Probably a lost hiker; not common, but not unheard of.

In theory.

The wind nearly pulled the door off its hinges as he heaved it open. A woman stood on the other side. Her dark hair whipped around her face, wet and tangled from the gale. She was barefoot, wrapped in little more than a ragged blue tarp clutched closed beneath her throat.

"God almighty --"

The wind stole the rest.

Daniel caught her by the arm and ushered her inside, throwing his weight against the door until the latch caught behind them.

"Are you all right?" He turned to her. Water gleamed on her bare legs and dripped from the ends of her hair onto the floorboards.

She wasn't shivering.

"Where did you even come from?"

The woman looked toward the door.

Daniel followed her gaze. "The beach?"

She nodded.

"Right." He scrubbed a hand over his jaw. "Stay there."

Her eyes snapped back to him.

"I'm getting you a towel."

He found one in the cupboard beside the stairs, along with a wool blanket that had seen better decades. When he returned, she hadn't moved. She stood exactly where he'd left her, water pooling around her bare feet.

Daniel held out the towel. She stared at it. "For your hair."

"Oh."

Daniel watched her rub the towel awkwardly over the ends of her hair before apparently deciding she'd done enough and wrapping the blanket around herself instead.

"Better?"

"Yes."

"You have a name?"

A pause. "Mara."

The hesitation was slight. Daniel noticed it anyway.

"Mara," he repeated. "I'm Daniel." He glanced toward the kitchen. "Tea?"

She followed him into the kitchen.

Daniel was suddenly aware of how small the place was.

It had never seemed small when there was only one person inside it. Kitchen, sitting room, narrow staircase curling upward through the tower. His raincoat over the back of one chair. Yesterday's mug beside the sink. A pair of boots drying near the stove.

Three years of one man's life arranged precisely where he'd left it.

Mara stood in the middle of it and looked at everything.

Not curiously -- carefully.

Daniel filled the kettle. "Were you out walking?"

"Yes."

"Barefoot?"

Her gaze dropped to her feet. "No."

He waited.

Mara's mouth tightened. "I lost my shoes."

"Both of them?"

"Yes."

"Bad luck."

Her eyes narrowed.

Daniel turned away before she could catch his smile.

The kettle went onto the stove.

"You staying in the village?"

"No."

"Camping?"

"No."

He looked over his shoulder.

She was watching the doorway now.

"Mara."

"Yes?"

"How did you get here?"

Her fingers tightened around the blanket.

"I told you."

"You told me you came from the beach."

"Yes."

"We're on the beach. Where are you from?."

Silence. Outside, the wind struck the lighthouse hard enough to rattle the glass in the cupboards.

Daniel waited.

"I was with friends," she said finally.

"What friends?"

"They left."

"In this?"

"Yes."

"Charming people."

"You ask many questions."

He scoffed. "You turned up half naked on my doorstep in October."

"I am not half naked."

"You're wearing a tarp."

She drew herself up. "I am also wearing a blanket."

Daniel laughed. He couldn't help it. For one startled second she simply stared at him, then the corner of her mouth twitched.

The kettle began to whistle.

Daniel turned to it, strangely pleased with himself. He poured two mugs despite her earlier reluctance and set one on the table. Mara approached it cautiously, lowering herself into the chair opposite him. "You keep looking at me."

"A strange woman appeared at my door wearing marine debris. There's not much else going on tonight."

This time she definitely smiled.

Daniel looked down at his tea. "So," he said. "Your friends."

The smile disappeared. "Yes?"

"They took your clothes?"

"No."

"Your shoes?"

"No."

"Left you here anyway?"

Mara wrapped both hands around the mug. Daniel let the silence stretch. Three years alone taught a man not to fear silence. Mara broke first. "I lost something."

There it was. Daniel took a drink. "What?"

She hesitated. "A coat."

His mug stopped halfway to the table. He lowered it carefully. "A coat?"

"Yes."

"What sort?"

"Does it matter?"

"Might help me recognize it."

Her gaze flicked toward him. "Fur."

Something stirred at the back of Daniel's mind. Rain against windows. Whisky on Pa's breath. Women dancing where the waves met the shore. He leaned back. "What kind of fur?"

"I don't know."

"You own a fur coat and don't know what kind?"

"It belonged to my mother."

"And you brought your mother's fur coat walking on the beach."

"Yes."

"Then lost your shoes."

Mara's jaw tightened.

"And your clothes."

"I didn't lose my clothes."

Daniel waited. She closed her eyes. Just briefly.

"Right," he said.

"Have you seen it?" There was nothing playful in her voice now.

Daniel looked at her.

Her damp hair had begun to curl as it dried. The blanket had slipped from one shoulder, exposing the edge of the blue tarp beneath. She seemed to have forgotten both.

"Seen what?"

"My coat."

"I found plenty washed up this morning."

Her attention sharpened. "Did you?"

"Driftwood. Buoy. Rubbish."

"And?"

Daniel ran his thumb along the handle of his mug.

Mara leaned forward. "Anything else?"

There was the question. The one she'd been trying to ask since he opened the door.

Daniel thought of the folded pelt upstairs. He'd moved it after bringing it inside without quite knowing why. At first he'd laid it beside the stove to dry. Then he'd imagined someone coming through the door and seeing it there.

Ridiculous. No one came through his door.

Still, he'd carried it upstairs.

Put it in the cedar chest at the foot of his bed.

Only stories.

"Mara." Her eyes met his. "What does your coat look like?"

She didn't answer.

"Grey?" he pushed. Nothing. He kept going. "Dark along the back?"

The colour drained from her face.

Daniel's heart began to beat harder. He should stop. He knew that. Instead he heard his father's voice as clearly as if the old man were sitting beside the stove.

They'll come looking, Danny.

Daniel had always assumed that part of the story was meant to frighten him. Now he wondered.

Mara pushed back from the table. "Where is it?"

No more story about her mother. No more friends.

Daniel remained seated.

"Where is it?" she repeated.

He looked toward the window. There was nothing beyond the glass but his own reflection and hers behind him.

"Pa said your kind only came ashore in moonlight."

Mara went utterly still.

For several seconds, the only sound in the kitchen was the wind. When she spoke again, her voice was quiet. "Your father was wrong."

Daniel turned back to her. Those dark eyes were fixed on him now. Not confused. Not pleading.

Afraid.

Something tightened low in his chest.

He'd known. Standing on those rocks that morning with the pelt beneath his hand, some part of him had known. He simply hadn't expected the stories to knock on his door.

"Selkie," he said.

Mara flinched. "Then you know what it is."

"I know the stories."

She leaned back in the chair. "Give it back."

Daniel exhaled. "I..." His eyes fell to the mug in his hands.

Mara waited.

When he said nothing, her gaze moved slowly around the kitchen. The single plate drying beside the sink. One coat hanging by the door. One pair of boots beside the stove.

Then she looked at him again.

"How long have you been here, Daniel?"

He frowned at the change in subject. "Three years."

"Three years," she repeated.

Her eyes lingered on him, thoughtful rather than frightened.

"That's a long time." She took a sip of tea. "What stories did your father tell you?"

Daniel scoffed. "I never thought they were real. They couldn't be." He looked up at her. "I mean, really, hide a sealskin and then what... poof? A stunning woman marries you?" He laughed.

"You think I'm stunning?"

His face burned. "Oh, well --"

Mara laughed and the lighthouse felt brighter than it ever had. "Oh Daniel." She tipped her head, her drying curls slipping over one bare shoulder. "Your father wasn't quite right," she said. "But he wasn't entirely wrong. There's no --" she waved her hand "-- poof, wedding." Mara laughed again and Daniel found himself laughing alongside her. Her voice softened, lashes fluttering. "But unless you give it back, I can't go home. I'm trapped here."

Daniel sputtered. "No, oh god, no no, I would never..."

She reached across the table and took his hand. "Of course you wouldn't." Her thumb traced slow circles on his palm.

"Then give it back now."

His fingers tightened around hers. "It's terrible out."

"The sea doesn't frighten me, Daniel."

Of course it didn't. "Tomorrow," he said.

Mara pressed a smile onto her face. "Tomorrow."

She withdrew her hand. Daniel immediately missed the warmth of it. "I have whisky."

Her brow lifted. It wasn't exactly an answer, but Daniel stood anyway and retrieved the bottle from the cupboard above the stove. Pa would have called it sacrilege to serve Irish whisky in chipped kitchen glasses, but Pa wasn't there to complain.

Mara sniffed hers suspiciously.

"Never had whisky?" Daniel asked.

"I've had whisky."

"That's not the face of someone who's had whisky."

She took a defiant swallow. Her entire face tightened.

Daniel laughed. "That," he said, "is the face."

"It tastes like fire."

"That's generally considered one of its virtues."

"By humans?"

He shrugged. "Mostly Irish ones."

She took another, smaller sip.

Daniel carried his glass into the sitting room. After a moment, Mara followed.

The fire had burned low. He crouched to add another split log, stirring the embers until sparks climbed the chimney. When he turned around, Mara stood beside the sofa, fighting with the tarp beneath her blanket.

"What are you doing?"

"This thing is awful."

"It wasn't designed as clothing."

"I had noticed."

She pulled one corner loose and the entire arrangement threatened to collapse. Daniel looked very deliberately at the fire. Behind him came a muttered curse, followed by the rustle of plastic.

Daniel shook his head. "I've got something you can wear."

He returned from upstairs with an old flannel shirt and a pair of drawstring pyjama bottoms. Both would drown her, but they were better than marine salvage.

When Mara emerged from the bathroom, she'd abandoned the trousers. The shirt reached halfway down her thighs anyway. She'd rolled the sleeves several times, though they still swallowed her hands. Daniel recognized it as one he'd stopped wearing years ago. It had never looked particularly interesting before.

Mara caught him staring. "Better than the tarp?"

He cleared his throat. "Marginally."

Her mouth curved as she settled onto the sofa. Daniel took the armchair. For a while, neither spoke. Rain whipped against the windows. The fire cracked softly between gusts, and somewhere overhead the lighthouse mechanism continued its familiar rotation.

"You said you've been here three years." Mara turned her glass between both hands.

Daniel looked over. "Just over."

"Alone?"

"Mostly."

"What does mostly mean?"

"Supply boat. Maintenance crew sometimes. Tourists in summer."

"No wife?"

Daniel nearly inhaled his whisky.

Mara smiled into her glass.

"No."

She cocked her head. "Girlfriend?"

"No."

"Boyfriend?"

He blinked.

Her smile widened.

"No."

"Family?"

"My mother calls Sundays."

"And your father?"

Daniel looked into the fire. "Been gone eleven years."

"I'm sorry." Mara's expression changed.

He shrugged, although there wasn't much about it that felt like a shrug. "He would've gotten a kick out of tonight."

"Finding out he was right?"

"Finding out he was right about anything."

Mara laughed softly.

Daniel smiled.

She had shifted while they talked. He hadn't noticed when. She'd started at the far end of the sofa, curled beneath the wool blanket with her feet tucked underneath her. Now she sat nearer the arm closest to him, one bare knee showing below the hem of his shirt. Near enough that he could have reached across the space between them.

Not that he would.

Mara took another sip. "You like being alone?"

"I used to." The answer escaped before Daniel could consider it.

Her gaze lifted to his. "And now?"

He rolled the whisky around his glass. "Three years is a long time."

"Yes," she said quietly. "It is."

Something in the way she said it made him look at her.

Mara stood.

Daniel's body tensed before his mind had caught up.

She crossed the little space between them and stopped beside his chair.

"What?"

"You look uncomfortable," she said.

"I'm fine."

"You're gripping your glass."

Daniel looked down. He was.

Mara gently took it from him and placed it beside hers on the table. Then, rather than returning to the sofa, she perched on the arm of his chair. Daniel stared determinedly ahead.

"You're doing that again," she said.

"Doing what?"

"Pretending not to look at me."

"I gave you a shirt for a reason."

"Yes. And I've thanked you."

Her fingers found his hand again. Daniel looked at them. She traced the same slow circle across his palm as before.

Once.

Twice.

His pulse climbed.

"Mara."

"Yes?"

He finally looked at her.

She was very close now. Close enough that he could smell salt beneath the whisky. Close enough that a damp curl brushed his shoulder when she tipped her head.

Daniel swallowed.

"Do all selkies flirt with men holding their skins?"

Her thumb stopped.

"Would you rather I hated you?"

The fire cracked, wind shook the panes, and somehow the loudest sound was Daniel's pulse in his ear. "I don't know," he whispered.

She hummed. "We can try that later, if you like."

Then she slipped from the armrest.

Daniel had just enough time to realize she was moving before her knees settled on either side of his hips. Her hands cradled his face.

"Mara --"

She kissed him.

Daniel focused very hard on breathing for a moment, because he was certain if he didn't consciously think about it, he might forget how.

For several seconds Daniel did nothing. He couldn't. Mara's mouth was warm against his, softer than he'd imagined. And apparently, at some point in the last few hours, he had imagined it. The reality collided with every thought he'd been carefully refusing to acknowledge since she stepped through the door.

She drew back barely an inch and her lips curved. "Still breathing?"

"Working on it."

Mara laughed against his mouth when she kissed him again.

This time, Daniel managed to respond, tentatively at first. His hand lifted, hovered uselessly beside her, then settled against her waist. He could feel the warmth of her through the flannel, the curve of her body beneath his palm.

Mara shifted closer.

His other hand found her hip.

And just like that, something in Daniel remembered how this worked.

He kissed her harder.

She made a soft sound against his mouth, and three years of empty rooms, solitary dinners and climbing into a cold bed alone seemed to gather themselves inside his chest all at once.

His fingers tightened.

Mara's hands slipped into his hair.

Daniel forgot about the storm.

Forgot about Thursday.

Almost forgot about everything.

Then his eyes opened.

Over Mara's shoulder, the narrow staircase disappeared into darkness.

Upstairs.

The cedar chest.

The skin.

His hands went still.

Mara noticed.

She drew back.

For one terrible second they simply looked at each other.

Her breathing had quickened. So had his. A flush warmed her cheeks, but something watchful had returned to her eyes.

She followed his gaze toward the stairs.

Daniel swallowed.

"Mara--"

She kissed him.

Not like before.

Her fingers tightened in his hair and she pulled him back to her, swallowing whatever he'd been about to say. The teasing softness vanished. She kissed him with an urgency that knocked the thought clean from his head.

Daniel groaned and pulled her closer.

There was no cautious wondering where his hands belonged now. Mara answered every uncertain touch by pressing nearer, until the chair suddenly seemed far too small for two people.

She broke the kiss only long enough to catch her breath.

"Daniel."

Hearing his name like that nearly undid him.

He pressed his forehead to hers. "Are you sure?"

Her eyes flickered toward his. Then toward the stairs. So quickly he might have imagined it.

Mara took his face between her hands.

"Take me somewhere that isn't this chair."

Daniel's heart slammed against his ribs. He stood with her still wrapped around him.

She laughed, startled, catching herself against his shoulders.

His gaze lifted toward the stairs.

The bedroom was up there.

So was the chest.

For one absurd moment, that fact seemed important.

Then Mara kissed him again.

By the time Daniel shouldered open the bedroom door, he had forgotten why.

Mara lifted her head. Her gaze moved past him.

Daniel followed it.

The cedar chest sat at the foot of the bed.

Something changed in her expression. Only for an instant.

He crossed the room and deposited Mara onto the bed with considerably less grace than he'd imagined.

She bounced once against the mattress. A startled laugh escaped her.

"Sorry."

"Don't be."

That didn't help. Daniel nearly fell over getting one boot off.

Mara propped herself on her elbows, watching him struggle with the other. "Three years?"

He stopped.

Her gaze travelled slowly over him. "You must be very lonely."

Daniel forgot about the boot.

Mara smiled. "Come here."

Daniel did. There was probably a more dignified way to cross the distance between them. Daniel didn't find it. Mara caught the front of his shirt as soon as he was close enough and pulled him down beside her.

"Not quite what I meant," she murmured.

"I've had an unusual evening."

"So have I."

Daniel laughed, and Mara kissed the sound from his mouth. Whatever hesitation had followed him upstairs didn't last long. She rolled toward him, hands sliding beneath the back of his shirt and pulling it over his head.

Her fingers traced up his chest. Daniel caught her wrist. "Mara..."

He wasn't sure what he meant to ask. Whether this was real. Whether she wanted him. Whether he'd wake tomorrow and realize this had all been a dream.

Instead he said, "You don't have to."

Something flickered behind her eyes. "Don't I?" And she pressed another kiss to his lips.

Maybe it made him a monster. But he kissed her back.

###

Whatever happened after that, neither of them spoke of the cedar chest again.

Not until the room had gone quiet.

Beside him, Mara sat up. For one awful second Daniel thought she was going for it. Instead she reached down, gathered his discarded shirt from the floor, and threw it over her shoulders.

Daniel watched her do up the buttons.

One.

Two.

Three.

"Mara."

She glanced at him.

He didn't know what he'd meant to say. 'I'm sorry' seemed ridiculous now. 'Tomorrow' sounded worse.

Mara finished with the buttons and settled against the headboard, drawing her knees up beneath the shirt.

Quietly, Daniel asked, "Do you hate me?"

Her eyebrows rose.

He almost laughed. Of all the things he could have said.

Then Mara smiled. It wasn't the teasing smile she'd worn downstairs. It wasn't the one she'd given him from his bed when she'd told him to come closer.

This one he couldn't read at all.

"Not yet."

Daniel's stomach tightened. "What does that mean?"

Mara turned her head toward the window.

Beyond the glass there was only fog.

"Your father told you how to keep a selkie."

Daniel followed her gaze. "I suppose."

"Did he ever tell you what happens to the men who do?"

He looked at her.

Mara was still watching the window.

"No."

"I didn't think so."

"What happens?"

At that, she looked back at him. For several seconds she said nothing. Then she slipped beneath the blankets. "You should sleep, Daniel."

A laugh escaped him, thin and humourless. "That's it?"

"For tonight."

Daniel remained sitting.

Mara rolled onto her side, facing away from him.

"Mara."

"Goodnight, Daniel."

He stared at the back of her head.

Outside, the storm had almost passed. The old tower creaked around them, settling into the spaces between gusts.

Then, somewhere below, a seal cried.

Daniel went still.

He'd heard them thousands of times. There was nothing unusual about seals gathering on the rocks.

Another answered.

Then another.

Farther down the shore came a fourth.

Daniel turned toward the window.

The fog pressed white against the glass.

Another call rose from below.

Closer this time.

Beside him, Mara shifted beneath the blankets.

Daniel looked down.

Her eyes were closed.

She was smiling.