The Selkie by Melanie Jackson Page A

a mouthful of teeth and a breath that were both malodorous and ominous in size. Whatever his care with his professional obligations, the joiner’s self-maintenance had not extended to dental hygiene. That was one thing she had noticed about Rory: He had perfect white teeth behind his odd smile.
    Before she was called upon to answer this unwholesome and impolite observation about chilblained bottoms, their ears were assaulted by the horrific clatter of pipes falling down stone stairs, and then the hollow sound of anger-begotten swearing.
    “Robertson,” Hexy said, looking uneasily toward the door, where the thankfully incomprehensible voice was berating someone or something with notable vigor. “I trust your judgment in this matter. You are the senior member of the staff. We’ll let this be your particular project. Please choose whatever—uh—fixtures you feel would be best and we’ll tell Miss Foxworthy about it later.”
    Robertson opened his mouth either to thankher for her trust or more likely to argue about whom was to be responsible for the costly decision, but the sound of the hammer being applied to the strike plate at the front door forestalled further argument. It was, after all, the butler’s primary duty to answer the summons, at least when eyes were upon him.
    Their last visitor of the day proved to be one of Mr. Campbell’s sons, sent up from the post office to say that Miss Foxworthy had telephoned and promised to send the missing coat back promptly. She also wanted Hexy to go back to the beach and see if her own coat were still somewhere about, though she was thinking now that perhaps she had left it down on the one sandy beachhead, or maybe at the hotel when she had gone there for tea. The boy added that his da said would Mistress Garrow be pleased to come visit the post office some afternoon for tea, as Mr. Campbell had some old books he wanted to share with her.
    Relieved at hearing that Rory’s fur would be returned, but also annoyed at the prospect of a further search for her careless employer’s missing sable, Hexy escaped from Fintry and the hovering Robertson as quickly as she was able. Pulling an old woolen shawl about her shoulders to ward off the evening mist that would soon fall, she allowed her footsteps to lead her down the narrow path that twisted towardthe second, smaller beach, whose tiny, sharp shoals lay between two deep sea caves.
    She couldn’t know for certain that this was the place, of course, because it was a peculiar place to visit when Rory said that he was going to meet someone with a boat; but her instincts insisted that this was where Rory had actually gone when he left the house rather than the more public beach. She couldn’t explain the origin of this odd certainty. It didn’t feel like something her imagination would invent, but its fanciful shape certainly did not fit properly in her orderly brain’s usual inventions.
    But where else could it come from, except her imagination?
    Hexy shrugged.
    Whatever its origin, it was as though something had forced a hole in the shield of good sense she kept around her mind and this idea had wormed its way inside to incubate and probably eventually hatch into some lunacy that would haunt her dreams.
    Yet in the meantime, it compelled. It wasn’t a reasonable impulse, but to the smaller beach she would go.
    Not that there was an urgent reason why she needed to see Rory again before dinner, she assured herself, but he would certainly be relieved to know that his fur was being returnedto him. And it was only polite of her to tell him at once and set his mind at ease.
    It was also a fact, she admitted to herself, that Rory elicited some sort of euphoria in her brain. She understood that she was getting involved in something—and with someone—beyond her previous experience, but the loss of life and love that had dimmed her world with grief was suddenly gone. In the space of a few hours, her soul’s winter had turned into