Current Impressions by Kelly Risser

he
chose to walk instead. The light breeze and warm sun caressed his
skin. He already spent too much time cooped inside the lab. Summer
break was a month in, and what did he have to show for it? Pale
skin and no social life. It didn’t matter; it was worth it if he
was going to see Meara in two weeks.
    Meara. He couldn’t stop thinking about her.
Did she miss him as much as he missed her? She promised to come and
find him when he arrived. She knew he was staying in Aberdeen and
that he was arriving on July 7. He knew nothing about where she was
except that she was near Scotland. He wished he could call her, but
she didn’t have her phone. David told her not to bring it. She had
to be somewhere remote if there was no cell phone service.
    He crossed the street to the path that lead
down to a popular stretch of shoreline. It was a small park, made
up of a long strip of grass and two picnic tables. Not much, but
the dogs liked it. He threw the tennis balls and commanded them to
fetch. They took off.
    The salty air misted his skin and calmed
him. He felt closer to Meara. He couldn’t explain it, but if he
closed his eyes, he could picture her clearer here—her brown, wavy
hair blowing in the wind, the light splatter of freckles across her
nose, and her stormy, blue eyes.
    He thought about the first time he saw her.
It was late June last year. Since their mothers were best friends,
Meara came with her mom to the house for a visit. While the older
women went inside, Meara wandered into the backyard and introduced
herself.
    He wasn’t looking for a relationship—his
last girlfriend had been a piece of work—but when Meara smiled, he
couldn’t help it. He wanted to make her smile more. She hooked him
that very first day.
    The dogs made impatient noises at his feet.
He picked up the balls, now damp with their drool, and threw them
again. They repeated this pattern while the sun sank, large and
glowing, over the churning gray sea.
    Just two more weeks , he thought.

 

    A month passed and life at Ronac fell into a
pattern of sorts, training followed by recovery. The physical
nature of it surprised me. By the end of the day, I crawled into
bed and crashed. I tried to read, but my eyes shut before I
finished the page.
    Most mornings, my dad attempted to eat
breakfast with me. After that, he got caught up in the day-to-day
running of Ronac. A few days after Kieran’s arrival, I confronted
my dad about him. My dad didn’t budge.
    “He’s the most powerful, after Brigid and
me,” Dad explained. Brag much? I thought, but I wisely kept
my mouth closed. “And I need to see what you are capable of.”
    “Why?” I was genuinely curious. Why did it
matter if I was powerful or not?
    I caught him with a mouth full of toast. He
held up a finger, and I waited. He swallowed and then said, “We
have enemies, Meara.”
    “Humans, I know.” Brigid hammered that into
my head every chance she got. At least I only had lessons with her
twice a week. The rest were with Kieran.
    Dad shook his head. “Humans are not our
worst enemy.”
    “Then, who? Sharks?” I thought of the shark
I encountered with Ula. We didn’t tell my dad, and I knew Kieran
kept it secret, too. If Dad knew, he’d probably never let me swim
again.
    He laughed. “No, not sharks. Sharks can kill
us, but they are not our enemies. That’s just nature, and we can
avoid them.”
    I pushed pieces of omelet around my plate,
as I grew annoyed. “You’re not answering my question,” I pointed
out. My dad was good at avoiding answers. It took me months to get
him to tell me about what we were—Selkies, and even then, Ula told
me first.
    Dad sipped his coffee. When he set his mug
down, he sighed. “To start, there’s the Blue Men,” he said as
though that explained it all.
    The first image that popped into my head was
that percussion group that painted themselves blue, and I almost
laughed until I saw the look on my dad’s face. He was serious.
“Blue men?