This is a short story of separation, and reunification. Of heartache and heroism. A tale of fiction woven among truth.
It begins with a woman on the edge of despair.
The cliff she stood on howled and bayed, the wind whipping her hair into a tornado as riotous as her own emotions. How had she gotten here?
She couldn’t remember the way, only the pained steps that brought her closer and closer to the brink.
And now she was alone, standing at the edge of a cliff, wondering if she took another step if she would fall or fly.
For there was magic in her veins. It was long hidden, long lost to the path she’d chosen. A sacrifice, necessary, it seemed, but one she now regretted with every fiber of her being.
The woman pulled her arms closer around her chest. “Quiet, you fool!” she screamed at the wind.
The wind threw the words back in her face and continued its tirade.
“Just as well,” the woman said, the wind eating her words this time.
The woman sighed.
Perhaps she would’ve carried on this way, waiting or screaming or falling to her death, but something strange happened.
A bird flew upward, fighting against the wind.
The woman knew what it was to struggle, and she cast out her shawl, momentarily blocking the buffeting wind from reaching the bird.
The bird dove, landed on the woman’s shoulder, and squawked sharply in her ear.
The wind didn’t even protest the sound.
The woman glared at the cliffs, the wind having nothing tangible to direct her ire at, and then tried to glare at the bird, but she found her eyes going cross and her neck beginning to hurt to even try.
“What do you want with an old, useless woman like me?” she asked the bird.
The bird’s head tilted to the side, and it watched her with beady eyes. “Useless?” it said, it’s voice strange and bird-like and raspy.
The woman blinked. But she hadn’t heard wrong. The bird had answered her. And with a question of its own.
“You know, I sacrificed my magic long ago. I can hardly remember why. Only that I thought it would make me happy.”
“Happy?”
The bird’s feathers ruffled, and his head cocked to the other side, as if the first one didn’t make sense and it was trying a different angle to see if it made sense. The bird’s feathers ruffled again, and its head came up straight. Perhaps it had given up on making sense of her.
The woman understood. She could hardly make sense of herself, anymore.
At least the wind had decided to die down. Her hair fell in tangled clumps on her shoulder.
She sighed again. “The dream came with beautiful eyes and a kind of faith that I’d never be alone again. I was always feared for my magic, you know. I was never quite what anyone expected, and I wasn’t sure how to fix it.
“But this… oh, this promised so much. I was so certain that I’d be happy if I just followed the path. And at first, I was. I had sacrificed my magic to travel, but I was the happiest I’d ever been. No one could take that away from me.”
The bird flapped its wings, and adjusted on its feet, but otherwise made no move to leave.
Just as well. Now that the story was coming out, the woman wasn’t sure she could stop. Having a willing ear at least eased the sense that she was going crazy—even if it wasn’t far from the truth.
“The steps grew steadily harder, though, the path taking a long, slow turn, until I was far too far to turn back. I had sacrificed my magic, but I was still paying for the journey with every burdened footfall.
“You see, I had taken a bad deal. A very bad deal.”
Her frown deepened—when had she even begun frowning? Then again, she couldn’t remember the last time she hadn’t frowned.
The one she’d trusted so firmly, had given her magic away to, had turned that magic back on her. She was harassed day in and day out, punished for her every move, punished if she refused to keep going.
“Have you ever found yourself in a situation where the only way out of it is to endure more pain?”
The bird rapidly shook its head, then began to preen its feathers.
“Of course you haven’t. Anyone else would’ve known better than to become trapped by their own choice, their own magic.”
The bird squawked and took to the air.
“Of course you’d leave me too.”
The woman stared as the bird disappeared, the wind taking up its restless gale once more, though this time it felt perhaps a little gentler. But only a little.
The woman took a deep breath and stared over the cliff, at the water frothing and foaming at its base, as if it could propel itself upward and carry her away into its depths.
“I’d have to choose you, too, old fool,” the woman said, and spat at the water. The droplet carried down for a while before the wind slammed it into the cliff.
Bah. That water would get what it deserved in time enough.
Still, curiosity drew her gaze downward, as if something familiar beckoned to her.
She sighed, and seeing nowhere else to turn, found a small path that led to the bottom of the cliff.
“I’ll show that water,” the woman muttered, taking her first tentative step.
The cliff was steep, and the path narrow. She moved slowly, certain that she’d tumble over the side at any moment.
On more than one occasion she would wobble and tilt, but the wind came to her rescue, pressing her against the cliff—none too gently.
She found herself grateful for the wind she had so recently scorned, even as her hands became scraped and rocks poked at her feet and legs until she was certain she’d be nothing but black and blue by the time she arrived at the bottom.
It was at that moment that the bird decided to come back, landing on her shoulder, its talons digging into her skin.
“I thought you were done with me,” the woman complained.
“Done?” the bird squawked, and shook it’s head.
The woman sighed. “I think I’m done. Here I am, climbing down a cliff on this barely-there trail. I should’ve been in the water a hundred times by now, but no. The wind keeps kicking me. I’m bloody and bruised, but I’m still here. Still miserably here.”
The bird took off again, but this time it landed on the trail in front of her, hopping, hopping, then hopping off and gliding to the shore.
There, the foam kissed the sand before retreating, again and again. Or was the sand throwing the foam back?
It didn’t matter. The bird had shown the woman, and she gingerly sat on the trail and slid the rest of the way down.
She landed, not too far, but with a hmph as the air escaped her old lungs.
She glared at the bird, who had let out a delight caw. “Easy for you. Not so easy for an old, useless woman like me.”
It was then that she noticed all the other old women standing at the shore, staring at the sea. She hadn’t seen them before, pressed up against the cliff like they were.
The women looked like stone, only a blink here or a wisp of breath there showing that they were still alive.
One woman, who looked far less gray than the others, took a step forward. “I see it!” she cried, and she flung herself at the sea.
The old woman watched with horror as the sea swallowed the former statue up and carried her out in its arms, far from shore, from safety.
The old woman bowed her head. She’d be next, she was sure of it. She was so tired from her journey, so spent from the one before.
She’d given everything, and lost it all. Perhaps now there was nothing more to do than to surrender herself to the insistent foam.
“Are you sure of that?” came a voice all too familiar, all too beautiful.
The woman turned to find a man she’d never seen, yet one that she was sure she knew. He was so beautiful, as beautiful as the first one she’d given her magic to.
“I can make you happy,” he said, holding out his hand.
“Happy?” the woman echoed.
His laughter tinkled across the cliff face, and the eyes of the statue women watched keenly, almost knowingly.
“Of course,” the man said. “You just have to give me your magic.”
The woman shook her head. “But I have no magic left. I gave it all away.”
His laughter rang out again. “Oh, but I’ve felt you tugging on it, trying to reclaim it.”
The woman scrunched her face. “It’s not possible.”
“Has the ocean not called your name? Has the wind not held you tight to the cliff? Has the bird not led you here?”
The woman shook her head. “Yes, but that was not my magic.”
“It was, once upon a time. You’ll never be able to reclaim it fully, I’m afraid, only find it in the friends that have led you here. But if you give it to me, I can make it whole, and you can finally be happy.”
The woman stared in the man’s eyes, as cold and grey as the one who had come before. He’d said much the same things. She could have it all with him, if she just gave him her magic, she’d be happy.
But this time, she would not be fooled. She hadn’t come all this way to give her magic to another.
Sure, her magic might be broken, angry and swirling, but she’d rather have broken magic than to let another take her magic again.
“No,” the woman said, standing up straighter.
The stone women along the cliff took in a collective gasp.
“You cannot have my magic. I will never give it to another.”
The man screamed at her now, his face turning ugly. He lunged, but the wind buffeted him, sending him sideways.
The bird descended on him as well, crying and scraping, clawing and flapping.
The man thrashed until he finally threw the bird off. He lay on the sandy shore panting, glaring, growling.
And he was no more a man, but a beast, a terrible, frightening thing. One thing remained, however. Those cold, gray eyes pinned the woman to where she stood, watching, trembling.
Because this was the very same man. Oh, he was different on the outside, but he was the same as the one who she’d given her magic away to the first time.
She knew this man, her body knew this man. And it knew fear.
She couldn’t move, terrified of what the man would do next.
He stood, still growling, and stalked forward.
The woman shrank against the cliff. “Eat me, if you must, but I won’t do it! I won’t give you my magic!”
She closed her eyes, and a strange crashing sound came.
Suddenly, she was beneath the water, the man pressed up against her.
She screamed, and her lungs filled with water…
But the water didn’t choke her.
The man, though he struggled and buffeted her, wasn’t trying to pin her to the cliff face, she realized, but to get away.
From her.
And now she knew why.
For the water had absorbed the bird and the wind, and had reunited her with her magic. She could feel it swirling across her skin, flowing through her veins. She felt it deep in her soul, to the very depth of her being.
I. Am. Selkie.
The realization hit her harder than the weight of the man pressed against her, slowly losing his life.
Selkie’s youth returned, her vitality, her hope. Where before she’d given it all away and languished on land, a fish out of water, now she was whole again, wholly herself.
For though she’d given her magic away, it was always hers, and she’d found it, little by little, through every struggle, every tear, every scrape of her palm and stab at her feet.
The pain she’d so hated was the conduit with which she had found herself again.
She turned her gaze on the man, whose eyes were beginning to close, his movements becoming languid, and she pitied him.
The man had been so desperate for her magic that he demanded she give it to him. But she knew better now. They could’ve shared it.
For the man had magic too, but he’d given his own magic away long before he took hers, and again and again whenever he tried to use hers.
For her magic was hers, alone. Giving it away would only destroy her and those who tried to use it.
Selkie commanded the sea, it spat the man out.
She watched him from the depths as he coughed on shore, shaking and raging. “We could’ve been happy!” he spat.
“We never would’ve been happy,” Selkie said, and the wind carried her words.
The man shook his head in disbelief, but she was out of his reach now, and she was in her power.
He, and those like him, would never hurt Selkie again.
And Selkie would never again take for granted the magic she held. She would embrace everything it made her, even when others made fun of her, even when it made her feel different.
She was different, and that’s what made her powerful.