Tides Read online

  Noah flexed his wrists, raw with rope burn. “Thank you.” He craned his head around, trying to look at the wound on his back. His eyes fluttered and almost closed again. “Okay,” he said. “I’m sorry, but I’m going to need your help.” He breathed in, pressing one hand against the floor. He turned toward Lir. “Are you okay? Think you can help us?”

  Lir blinked and opened his mouth, but no sound came out. His lips trembled.

  “He cannot speak,” Aine said. “I could not, either, until tonight.”

  Noah nodded. “Of course. Professor Foster still has his skin. I’d forgotten that part of the story.”

  “Story?” Aine wanted to hear what Noah knew about her kind, but as soon as she spoke, a realization came over her. “He—he doesn’t have mine?”

  “Not anymore.” Noah’s smile lit his tired face like daybreak. “Lo must have found it at the Center. I think you’re free, Aine, or you will be, once we get out.”

  A thudding started between her ears, and it was several seconds before she recognized it as her own heartbeat. She took Noah’s hand, once again feeling that echo of familiarity. “I am free,” she said. “I feel it. I could feel it when it happened.”

  She hadn’t held her sealskin yet, but no one was stopping her anymore. Even if she died trying to escape tonight—and well she might, she thought, remembering the fisherman’s knife and the strength in his arms when he held her down—nonetheless, she was free.

  Something crashed against the door.

  “No!” A voice—a painfully familiar voice—screamed, and there was another crash. The wood on the much-abused door groaned, and its rusty hinges screeched.

  “Mara?” Noah called, scrambling to his feet. He was shaking from blood loss, but he pulled hard on the door, bringing it a little closer to breaking open. He used his good arm, but his face still contorted with pain, and fresh blood pulsed from his shoulder—but only a little. Aine knew this kind of wound. She’d had hundreds of them, long and shallow and viciously bloody, the ones she gave herself on the windowsill or that appeared on their own when the fisherman did whatever-he-did with her faraway skin. They hurt and they certainly bled, but they stopped doing both soon enough. Those shallow wounds never kept her asleep as long as she wished they would.

  But now her cuts were gone; she had only scars. Now she wanted to be awake.

  They heard the fisherman yell. With a third crash, the lock broke and the door fell open.

  The fisherman tumbled backwards into the room, howling and clutching his face. White liquid frothed out between his fingers.

  Two women rushed through the doorway. The first had long, straight black hair, and at first Aine thought she was a selkie too. She ran to Noah right away, embracing him and crying out when she saw the gash in his back. She dropped the small black canister in her hand, and it spurted more whitish foam when it hit the floor.

  Then Aine saw the second woman, and the first no longer mattered. She had black hair and eyes and the near-white skin of a selkie. She was older than she’d been when Aine had last seen her, but she knew her right away.

  “Mara!” She tried to move but could not.

  Mara knelt down in front of her and opened her arms, pulling Aine and Lir against her chest.

  “Goddess,” she whispered. “You’re here; you’re whole.” She pulled back to look at them, and her face changed. She touched one of the ridged scars on Aine’s face.

  Aine flinched away.

  “Oh, Aine,” said Mara. “I’m not going to hurt you. I won’t let anyone hurt you now.” She reached toward another scar but stopped when she saw the way Aine looked at her.

  “I’m sorry.” Aine’s fingers shook. She wrapped her arms tight around her torso and squeezed her hands into fists, but then her whole body began to shake. “I let him take me. I stayed here with him. It was my fault.”

  Mara stared at her. She shook her head. “No,” she said, but Aine knew she was just trying to comfort her.

  The other woman screamed, and Mara spun around to help her. The fisherman had found his knife again and had driven it into her ankle. She lay curled on the floor, clutching at her foot.

  The fisherman rose, swiping the foam from his streaming eyes.

  Mara pushed Aine and Lir back toward the wall. She sprang forward, jumping over the woman on the floor, and her hands closed over the fisherman’s throat. She pinned him against the door frame.

  “You won’t hurt them again,” she hissed. Her grip tightened and he gasped, his face darkening.

  Mara bared her teeth and leaned toward his neck.

  The fisherman choked and sputtered, but he still held the knife. He kept it out of Mara’s sightline as he raised it over her back.

  “Stop!” Noah pushed the dark-haired girl to the wall and lunged toward Mara. He hissed in pain and his shoulder jerked back, but he reached out and twisted the knife from the fisherman’s fist. He clutched it by the blade, and when it dropped to the floor, it was slick with his blood.

  Noah stood and braced his hands on the fisherman’s chest, helping Mara keep him trapped against the door frame. His green eyes were dark with pain.

  “You bastard,” he growled. “I trusted you. I—Christ, I wanted to be you. How could you—how could you think any part of this was—” He stopped, shaking from loss of blood, and from anger, too. “They’re people, Professor Foster. They’re children.”

  The fisherman opened his mouth, but the only sound he could make was a strangled gurgle.

  Aine met his eyes, watching him gulp hopelessly for air. It was good, seeing his voice stripped away as he’d stripped hers.

  Mara loosened her fingers. For a moment Aine thought she wanted to let the fisherman speak, but then she opened her mouth, her teeth glinting white and sharp. She was going to tear out his throat.

  “Mara.” Aine slowly walked toward them. Her stomach revolted, remembering all the times he’d hurt her, but she could see how well Mara and Noah held him down. She knew he couldn’t hurt her now.

  Mara looked at her, still poised to attack. “He doesn’t deserve your mercy, Aine.” Her eyes followed the pattern of scars from Aine’s hairline to her waist.

  “I feel no mercy.” Aine stared up at the fisherman, his face, as always, too high above her. She narrowed her eyes. “Sit.”

  Mara shoved him onto the floor. Noah knelt behind him and pinned the fisherman’s hands to his back, leaving the red print of his palm on the older man’s shirt. Mara moved in front of them, blocking them from Aine.

  “Do not worry, Mara,” she said. “You were right. He will never hurt me again.”

  Mara looked down at her for a long moment. Then she nodded reluctantly and joined Noah behind the fisherman, gripping the sides of his head between her hands.

  “Try anything,” she murmured in his ear, “and I’ll snap your neck.”

  He nodded weakly. He stared up at Aine, waiting for the blow.

  She ran her tongue along her closed teeth, imagining them slicing through his windpipe. But the idea of touching him repulsed her. He had never left her untouched, in all these years. Her scars were proof of that. She never wanted to feel his skin on hers again.

  She inhaled deeply. She’d wished for speech for so long, to tell him to set her free, to tell him to stop. What could she possibly say to him now that would do justice to all that forced silence?

  “Hope,” he wheezed, his face growing pale. “My Hope. I’m so sorry.”

  She met his eyes. She knew what to say to him now.

  “My name is not Hope.” She ran her hands up over her face, the lines of scarring like fish scales under her fingers, and pushed back the long weight of her hair. “And I am not yours.”

  She crouched and clutched the bloody knife that lay beside Noah. He looked at her doubtfully, but he didn’t stop her.

  She held the point of the knife to the fisherman’s face. He swallowed.

  “Every time you cut me”—she pressed the point closer to his cheek
, not quite hard enough to break his skin—“I watched the wounds grow. I felt your blade.” She shivered, then pushed in the point of the knife. A drop of red grew at the fisherman’s cheekbone. “I felt your tongue and your teeth.”

  Mara let out a low bark, and her hands jerked. Noah sent her a steadying look, and she nodded and grew still. Her eyes shone wet.

  Aine adjusted her grip on the knife. She pulled the blade up, drawing a circle of split flesh that matched her oldest scar.

  His jaw tightened as she cut. He flinched, but he made no sound. His eyes were swollen and red.

  Aine pulled the knife away. “I will not kill you,” she said. She ignored Mara’s growl of protest. “You could have killed me, I think, and kept my skin, but you did not.” She finished the circle and stepped back. “But I will not leave you unmarked.”

  She dropped the knife and watched him bleed.

  The room was silent.

  She looked behind her, to where Lir stood in the corner. The circle mark on his cheek stood out darkly in the moonlight brimming in from the window. He touched a hand to his slim throat.

  The dark-haired human moved toward the door, wincing after every hobbling step. She turned and looked back at them. “I think—I’m just going to bandage this up.”

  Noah nodded. “I’ll help you, Lo.”

  Lo shook her head. “I can do this myself. Help them.” She looked at Aine. “I can manage.” She limped down the stairs.

  Aine waited for Mara and Noah to exit next, but Mara shook her head.

  “I want to see you walk outside,” she said. “I know how long you’ve waited.”

  Aine stared into the hall. She stepped forward, and her heartbeat sped up, careening through her body. The fisherman’s legs were sprawled between her and the doorway.

  She glanced at him, at the only room she had known for five years. The chipped, worn-down windowsill, the stained walls—they were so familiar. She could hardly remember anything else.

  She told her feet to keep moving, but they would not.

  “It’s okay,” Mara said. She turned toward Noah. “Have you got him?”

  He nodded, his face still pale and his jaw tight.

  Mara stood, releasing the fisherman’s head. She gathered Lir up from his corner, holding him against her hip and letting his head rest on her shoulder. She reached out to Aine. “I can carry you.”

  Aine shook her head fiercely. She stared at the doorway. To have wanted it for so long, not to have wanted anything else . . . and then to get it, the impossible thing . . . To have it simply handed to her like this felt wrong, somehow. She hadn’t earned the right to walk out that door.

  She looked back at the fisherman, at his bloodied face, and a shudder spread from the base of her spine all through her body. She could feel her hair quivering against her back, the shaky hold of her toes on the floor. Her knees locked, her legs cramped, and she felt herself starting to fall.

  She spread out her arms and hands, the tips of her fingers jerking, and steadied herself. She sensed the pod’s links in her, pulling her toward freedom, toward their love, and they helped her stand. She closed her eyes, and in that moment she could feel the rhythm of the sea.

  When she opened them again, she was a step closer to the door. Mara came up behind her, still carrying Lir, and held out her hand.

  Aine grasped it, and her sense of the links strengthened. Together, they walked out into the hallway.

  She looked back one more time, and saw Noah pick up the knife and stand over the fisherman, the man he’d called Foster.

  “You didn’t deserve that,” Noah told him. “You deserved so much worse. I know you won’t tell anyone about this, since you’ve kept Aine a secret for so long. But if you do, if you ever tell anyone,” he said, his voice cold, “I will kill you.”

  The fisherman dropped his head, staring between his knees. Aine thought she heard him mumble yes.

  “And Lir’s skin?”

  “The boy?” Foster took another ragged breath. “Basement. Behind the stairs. You’ll find it.”

  He dug the key chain out of his pocket and held it out, his hand trembling like that of a much older man.

  Noah took it, pulling off the two circles of sealskin, one worn smooth, the other still bloody, before stuffing the key chain in his pocket. Aine felt the pull at her cheek, and she knew Lir would feel it too.

  He stared at the circles in his hand, and the fisherman stayed still, watching him. Noah’s voice, when he spoke again, was quiet and sad. “Don’t you know how much I admired you—how good I thought you were?”

  The fisherman took a shaky breath. “You don’t understand.”

  Noah’s head jerked up and his eyes flashed. “Don’t under— Of course I don’t.”

  “The skin. It does things. It did things to me. It can make you well, make you younger. It’s worth so much more this way.”

  Noah looked at Aine, then back at the fisherman. “Worth?” He put the circles in his pocket, but Aine could feel that he claimed no ownership of them. He tossed the knife into the corner of the room. He balled his hand into a fist, pulled back, and punched the fisherman so hard, he fell sideways to the floor. His eyes rolled back, showing only white, and then they closed.

  “In case he wanted to follow us,” Noah said casually. He joined them in the hallway.

  Downstairs, the girl named Lo waited for them in the kitchen. She had tied a ragged strip of fabric, torn from her shirt, around her ankle to stanch the bleeding.

  “You need a doctor,” said Noah, his face tight with worry again.

  Lo nodded reluctantly. “I’ll call an ambulance,” she said. “You need to get them home while it’s still dark, so no one sees.”

  Noah started to protest, but Lo went on. “I have this whole story worked out for them. Professor Foster invited me here, like he invited you a while ago.” She looked at Noah. “And then he attacked me, locked me up in that room. I just barely managed to get away.” She touched her ankle, then looked up at Aine. “He could use some jail time, if you ask me.”

  She took something small and black out of her pocket. She touched it, and it blinked into glowing life. “The GPS says the hospital’s just a few minutes from here. I’ll be fine.”

  Noah frowned. “How’d you get this address, anyway?”

  Lo rolled her eyes. “We have his forwarding address in the filing room’s server. You’re a little dumb sometimes, you know.”

  He sighed. “I don’t want to leave you here alone.”

  “Yeah, well. Too bad.”

  They stared at each other for a long moment. Finally he shrugged and chuckled a little. “Christ, you’re stubborn. Call from the hospital, okay?”

  “Okay.” Lo hugged Noah, squeezing her arms tight around him. She looked up at him and smiled. “I’m glad you’re not dead.”

  Noah laughed, the sound hollow. “Yeah. Me, too.”

  He left for a few minutes, and came back holding Lir’s skin. It had a circle cut from it, just like the circle of Aine’s skin the fisherman—Foster, Noah had called him—had first taken from her. She reached up and stroked the round scar on her cheek.

  They left just as Lo called for the ambulance, so they wouldn’t be there to contradict her story. Aine could smell the ocean as soon as they opened the door. She heard the hushed breaths of the waves, and her pounding heart matched their rhythm.

  Noah led them down the road from the fisherman’s house to the docks. The boat was there waiting for them, but when Aine saw the water, she could think of nothing but how it would feel on her skin.

  She didn’t realize she’d tried to jump from the dock until she felt Mara’s hands restraining her. “Wait,” she said. “Wait until we get home. It’s too dangerous here.”

  Aine let out a wail, an uncontrolled babyish sound that embarrassed her even as she made it. She needed the water. She needed it.

  Mara’s arms encircled her. “Soon,” she said. “So soon, I promise.”

 
Aine made herself nod, though her skin still ached with desire for cold and salt and sea. She leaned back in Mara’s arms and took in a deep, shaky breath.

  Noah waited for them in the boat. Mara lifted first Aine and then Lir over the side, and Noah nestled them each into white seats with thin, soft cushions.

  Mara leapt in after them. She and Noah unhitched the ropes that held the boat to the docks. She stood behind Aine and Lir, one hand on each of their shoulders, and they watched Noah maneuver the boat out of its berth and into the harbor. The engine purred softly under Aine’s seat, and the boat shot fast and smooth through the deepening water.

  Noah stared ahead, his back straight and his hands firm on the wheel, despite the wound that still dampened the back of his shirt with blood.

  Mara moved forward and joined him. For several minutes she just stood there, looking out to the horizon with him. Her hand, though, inched toward his.

  He winced when her littlest finger brushed the side of his palm. He looked at her, his eyes bright and questioning, and then back at the ocean ahead.

  “I knew nothing,” he said quietly. “I would never have done that to you.”

  “I know.” Mara’s fingers twined over his. “I’m sorry.”

  He leaned into her, keeping one hand on the wheel.

  Aine felt her link with Mara grow warmer.

  A gray smudge appeared on the horizon, followed by another, and then another. Aine pushed herself up in her seat, trying to see them better. Soon she could make out buildings: an old chapel, a hotel, the white pillar of the lighthouse.

  The Isles of Shoals grew before her, dark and rocky, calling her home.

  thirty-five

  CHANGE

  MAEBH and Gemm were waiting for them on the shore of White Island. As soon as Noah pulled up to the dock, Maebh ran to the Minke, tears streaming over her face.

  “Aine, Lir—” She jumped into the boat. Lir embraced her eagerly, but Aine shied away, wrapping her hair over her chest like a shield. The scars on her arms glinted gray in the fading moonlight.

  Maebh nodded and backed away, but Mara hated the unfulfilled longing that welled in their link. She offered Maebh her own embrace, though she knew it would not be enough.