Don’t Look Back – Elise LeSage
At the gas pump, the selkie digs in her glovebox for change. She finds two punts and twenty-one cents. Still short, she pleads her case to the cashier.
“Aye, love, I’m sure you can make it up to me next time—one way or another.” He laughs, and it is the sound of thunder, of rusted rudders, of masts snapping in the wind.
Driving home, the selkie sees that her eyes in the rearview mirror are pinkish and wet.
“I do not miss being a seal,” she says.
#
Her husband is at work all day, fishing. The baby, Rowan, cries and cries, a daddy’s girl. The selkie sings lullabies. She dangles puppets and hand-purees yams. Doesn’t matter; Rowan cries anyway until the husband comes home. Too tired to play, he collapses on the sofa and pats Rowan’s head. She curls beside him, blissful, quiet.
The selkie regards them as she cleans up dinner. “How sweet,” she says.
The selkie does not miss being a seal.
#
The next day, the selkie and Rowan watch some other selkie mothers let their babes loose in the sea.
“In a few years, that’ll be you,” she says, pointing to a little girl who’s begun to grow flippers.
“Be safe!” a mother calls from the shoreline. “Come back when you’re good and ready to be wed.”
The little girls twirl in the water, eyes rounding, legs fusing, laughs sharpening to yips. They swim out, further and further, until their bodies are only small, grey dots on the horizon.
The selkie and Rowan linger to watch, even after the other mothers have left.
The selkie does not miss being a seal.
#
Years pass. The fish have been elusive for several seasons, so the selkie takes a job at the shopping mall’s perfume counter. For eight hours a day, she stands behind a small, tulle-draped desk, spritzing fragrances that make her eyes water.
“This will keep you warm in the winter,” she tells one woman, dabbing her wrist with a sugar-and-bourbon scent.
To another woman, she recommends a flowery fragrance whose bottle is shaped like a star. “This one,” she says, “will make him fall in love.”
The selkie’s manager tells her she’s being too whimsical. “Stick to the sales scripts,” he advises. “You can’t make those other promises, like, legally.”
The selkie nods. She does not miss being a seal.
#
Then, one day—and sooner than the selkie expected—Rowan begins complaining of cramps and aches. She’s been having strange dreams, she says.
“It’s time,” the selkie tells her husband.
He nods, tearful as he musses Rowan’s hair.
#
As per tradition, the selkie is the one to walk her daughter to the sea. The waves are green and startling, too rough to sail—and yet Rowan sprints in without fear, her laughter like a bell.
From the shore, the selkie waves. Come back soon, she is supposed to call. Come back beautiful, ready to shrug off your skin.
Instead, the selkie wades into the water and kneels down beside her daughter until her dress is ruined, drenched. “Don’t look back, my darling,” she says, kissing Rowan’s salty cheek. “Just swim, swim, swim.”
Elise LeSage is a writer and graduate student based in Greensboro, North Carolina. Her stories have appeared in UCLA’s Westwind, Portland’s Buckman Journal, the Pseudopod Podcast, and elsewhere. You can follow them on Instagram @lofiliterary or on Twitter @e_sages.
