Sword and Sorceress XXVII by Unknown

brown
bundle.
    Elused laughed aloud. “She’s daughter of
your heart if not your body, Feidlimid! Guessed right off that your man would’ve
hid your skin on this wee skerry, in his sight but not ready to your hand. Did
you never think to look there?”
    “Did you never think that I might not
want to? That I might want to finish the life I chose?”
    Elused looked wounded. “Come, put it on.”
    Grandma Seeley shook her head. “How’d
Kim get out there? And where’s her father, who should have been here long
since?”
    Elused shrugged. “I carried her—as
tenderly as though she were a babe, don’t you worry! And her father, well, I
asked the waves to rock him gently for a while, so the lass could say her
farewells to us.”
    “It’s so soft,” Kim said wonderingly.
She unfolded Grandma Seeley’s sealskin. It tumbled nearly to her ankles in
folds of silvered golden-brown.
    Grandma Seeley shivered. “No. It’s been
too long.”
    A glint came into Elused’s dark eye. “Then
the lass should wear it. A pity it should be lost because its owner died
mortal.”
    Kim’s eyes got wide. “I could? I could
be a selkie like you, and be immortal and beautiful, and not have to worry
about mortal stuff anymore?”
    “Try it,” said Elused. “Just wrap it
about you and jump in the water, there where it deepens.”
    “No!” Grandma Seeley cried, but Kim
swathed herself in the skin, closed her eyes, and jumped.
    The skin tangled about her mortal limbs,
as Grandma Seeley had known it would. The old woman kicked off her shoes, dove.
and swam to the thrashing, choking girl’s side.
    “I’ve got you, Kim. Relax.”
    The dragging weight on her arms lifted.
Elused was holding Kim up on the other side, and he actually looked frightened.
    “I thought it would work. Truly. I meant
her no harm.”
    “Just take Kim back to shore.”
    Kim wrenched away from him, throwing her
arms around Grandma Seeley and nearly sinking them both. “No! I’m not letting
that liar touch me again.”
    Grandma Seeley glared at Elused, who
looked abashed. The sealskin twined about her ankles, caressing.
    “For the love of the Lady! You’ll all be
the death of me. Kim, sweetheart, can you tread water for just a minute? When I
come up, put your arms around my neck and hold on.”
    She dove, shedding her housedress. The
sealskin wrapped itself around her, but she pushed it away from her face. Let
the seal’s body carry Kim to shore, but her face, her mind, herself- that would
remain human.
    Ah, but the water was gentle, welcoming.
And in the skin’s embrace, her old bones no longer ached.
    She shook the alluring thoughts away and
surfaced to pull Kim ashore. Elused followed, more subdued than she’d ever seen
him.
    “Make yourself useful,” she said once
Kim was shivering on the beach. “Go inside and get us both some dry clothes. I
can’t manage the steps in this shape, and well-mannered humans don’t traipse
about in the altogether.”
    Elused took the hint and wrapped his
sealskin about his waist before he left the water. Grandma Seeley noted with
envy and admiration that he was as young and spry as ever. He returned with a
motley assortment of human clothing, and turned his back while Kim dressed
herself in a pair of Armel’s old trousers and a sweater. Grandma Seeley looked
at the raincoat he’d brought her, shook her head, and wrapped her sealskin,
warmer than anything a human could knit, snugly about her shoulders.
    “I meant you no ill, Miss,” Elused said
to Kim, staring at his feet. “I only thought that if Feidlimid refused her skin
it might pass to you. I’ve been a long time alone, and pining for company.
Loneliness is a terrible thing for an immortal.”
    “Forever’s a long time,” Kim agreed,
looking at Grandma Seeley.
    “Elused, tell the waters to bring Kim’s father
here,” Grandma Seeley said. “He must be nearly frantic.” She pulled on her
sealskin, all the way.
    “Your muzzle is gray,” said