[Dis]Connected by Michelle Halket

Author:Michelle Halket
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Central Avenue Publishing
Published: 2018-01-16T16:00:00+00:00

Gwenn had expected to search the roof until she found the hole, then put a pot or basin of appropriate size and depth underneath to collect the wet annoyance until the storm season ended. Then she would finally get to sleep as long and as deeply as a breastfeeding babe.

Gwenn had not expected to immediately stub her bare toes on the corner of an oversized trunk with seawater spilling over the lip. In it sat a strange, sapphire-haired woman, as if she had been taking a luxurious bath that Gwenn had rudely interrupted.

“Who the bloody seashell are you?” Gwenn whisper-yelled, huddled over one leg as she held her injured foot with both hands.

The stranger’s eyes grew large not just with surprise, but with, Gwenn realized, pure terror.

“Did he—did he send you here to do it?” she asked, shivering so forcefully her teeth chattered together. Whether it was due to the cold attic or fear, Gwenn couldn’t be sure.

“To do … what?” Gwenn asked, confused.

“You know …”

“No, I don’t.”

“To kill me.”

Standing straight, Gwenn peered down at the woman, brows knitted. “Kill you? Why would I want to kill you?” Gwenn paused. “I came to find out why there is water dripping onto my face each night. I guess I now know the reason!”

“The man. He said—he said if I tried to leave or made even the smallest sound, that he would ‘slit a new pair of gills into my pretty neck.’ And now you’re here, so I must have done something to make myself known.”

A new pair of gills?

Was Gwenn having some kind of fever dream?

“The only man here is my husband. Are you saying my husband said these things to you? Very tall? Very, very pale? Hair like summertime blackberries?”

The woman wavered.

Nodded.

Gwenn blinked.

Once. Twice. Thrice.

Gwenn looked closer at the woman—she felt she knew her but couldn’t quite recall. She was, after all, notoriously terrible with remembering things and recognizing faces. Everyone in the village knew it.

In the dim light of the attic, what Gwenn saw made her gasp so loudly she thought her husband might be able to hear it from below. She clapped a hand over her mouth.

The woman was not human.

From the waist up, her skin was a light, slippery gray, and she had breasts like some humans might. From the waist down, the woman widened to a thick coat of dark gray with splotches of black. The hind flippers met in a trident shape at the end of her body and hung over the edge of the trunk, dripping water.

Dripping water between the spaces of the floorboards.

There’s a selkie in my attic. Gwenn felt the room begin to spin. And my husband is the only one who could have brought her here.

“You’re not going to kill me, then?” the selkie-woman asked, breaking through the swirling cloud of Gwenn’s thoughts.

Gwenn looked to the roof as if she were deep in thought, holding up one of her index fingers. “Hold on a moment. I haven’t decided just yet.”

The selkie-woman whimpered, sliding deeper into her makeshift tub.

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