Nicole Peeler - [Jane True 01] (7 page)

When the bubble popped, there stood a weird gray pony, with a seaweed
mane and tail. Its small black hooves were the same color as Trill’s toenails,
and Trill’s muddy brown eyes were staring out at me from the pony’s face. I
could see the faintest hint of gills ribbing the beast’s short neck.

I’d never fainted before today, but I had the distinct impression I was
going to make it a two-for-one deal here in the hysterical woman department.

Anyan had crept closer, maybe to keep me from running if I had actually
made it upright or maybe to break my fall if I fainted again. Whatever the
reason, I was grateful when the hand I put out to steady myself met with a
solidly muscled, very furry, and surprisingly high shoulder. The dog’s broad back
came up to well over my waist. I was only five foot one, but that was still a
whole lotta dog.

I sat back down, heavily, and Anyan parked himself next to me, propping
me up. I watched, deliriously, as the bubble once more extended out from Trill
and, with another pop, she was humanish again.

Unless Stuart’s or Linda’s plot involved slipping me hallucinogens or
plugging me into some
Matrix
-style virtual reality computer program,
what was happening before me was
real
. I felt a chill of fear work its
way down my spine as I took more than my fair share of deep breaths.

Okay, Jane
, I told myself firmly,
get a grip
.
Whatever
these things are, hellhound here could have killed you at any point and he
hasn’t, so you have to assume they want you alive
.
And you may not like
what they have to say, but they’re going to tell you about your mother
.
This thought seemed to fortify me, and so I honed in on it.
For the first
time in your life, someone is going to tell you the truth about your own mother
.
I got my breathing under control, and if I didn’t feel fantastic, I did feel
like I could face what was happening.

Anyan’s soft tongue grazed my cheek and I couldn’t help but smile at
him. It’s funny how sensitive dogs are to people’s moods. You’d think he
understood how hard this was for me.

“All right,” I said, looking Nell in the eye and trying to avoid looking
at Trill. After her little performance, if I looked at Trill I’d need more than
just a few deep breaths. Maybe a few deep breaths alongside of a few shots of Jack
Daniels. “You’ve made your point. You’re not… human. And you weren’t sent by
anybody to fool me. So what are you, and why are you here? What do you have to
do with me and my family?”

My voice sounded strong. I was proud of myself.

Nell, damn her, was still beaming away like the figure on a syrup
bottle. “You’re taking this very well, Jane,” she said, and I only just managed
to keep from giving her the finger. “As I was saying, your mother is a selkie:
a two-formed who can take either the shape of a seal or of a human. But she’s
not really human
or
seal; she is, for want of a better human word,
supernatural.”

I grunted. It wasn’t particularly erudite, but it was all I could manage
to summarize the maelstrom of emotions flooding through me. On the one hand, I
wanted to scream that none of this was true. That my mother wasn’t some monster
from legends. Despite that loud, angry voice, there was another whispering
echo, more profound for its restraint, that acknowledged that what Nell said
made
sense
.

My memories of my mother—the swimming, her happiness in the water, the
way she plunged me into the ocean as if she were taking me home—weren’t normal
memories. They weren’t natural, at least not by human standards.

Supernatural
, I thought, letting my mind sink into the
curves of the word. I was surprised to discover it felt good. Or, maybe it just
felt like
something
where once there had been nothing.

“Supernatural creatures are all around you, and have been throughout
history, as you can tell from the impact we’ve had on human myths and legends.
You know us, all of us, but not necessarily in our true forms. For example, I’m
a gnome. Humans have made us into little clay sculptures that protect their
gardens. That’s not entirely false. We gnomes are earthbound and we protect our
territories to the death—usually the death of the intruder. Selkies, like your
mother, are known in stories throughout the world. But they don’t shed their
skin, nor are they the captive of whoever steals their skin. They come of their
own free will to mortal men and women, usually with the intention of begetting
a child.” Here, Nell paused, and I could see she spoke her next few sentences
with some discomfort despite the fact that she never stopped smiling. “We
supernaturals find it difficult to… procreate successfully with each other, but
we seem to have fewer problems when we liaise with humans. You, Jane, are the
result of one such union.”

I was trying not to look too scornful of her words, but this was
ridiculous. I was Jane True from Rockabill, Maine. I was not the
half-supernatural love child of a seal woman and a mortal man. If I was, surely
I’d be taller… more statuesque.

Eyeballing Nell, however, I realized that was an entirely illogical
train of thought.

I also thought about how my mother had appeared, out of the middle of
nowhere, and how she’d disappeared as mysteriously. I again thought about my
swimming, and my tolerance for cold. I shivered, a knot in my throat, as my
still resistant brain slowly started to accept that this woman might be telling
the truth.

“We’ve been watching over you since your mother left. She had to return
to the sea, and you did not inherit her two-formed nature, so she was forced to
leave you behind. If you had been almost entirely human, we would have let you
live out your life without revealing ourselves to you. But your power is
strong, and we would have come to you when you were more mature. Your actions
the other night, however, made our meeting more precipitate.”

My power?
I thought, confused. “What did I do?”

Nell’s smile faltered. “The body you found in the sea was a halfling,
like yourself. Part supernatural and part human. Peter Jakes was apparently in
the service of… of some very powerful beings. His presence here in these parts
appears to have been on their orders. His murder needs to be investigated by
our community and, as the person who found the body, you must be interviewed as
part of that investigation.”

This was far more prosaic a reason for “first contact” than I had
expected, and also rather galling.

My irritation came through in my voice. “So, if I hadn’t been the one to
find Peter’s body, you guys would have just let me bumble along for a few more
years, not knowing who—or what—I was? I’m twenty-six years old; would you have
told me before or after I was retirement age?”

Nell’s smile returned, full blast. “Child, and you are yet a child to
me, human years mean nothing to us. Nor will they mean much to you. Your
manipulation of the elements is strong; although you are not two-formed, your
mother’s powers are as potent in you as if you were. Age will not affect you as
it does humans. You have only lived for the briefest moment of the life
stretching before you.”

I could tell Nell thought this was supposed to be good news, but my whole
being rebelled at what she was saying.

“Look, you’re crazy. I’ve been in the hospital. And I mean I’ve
really
been in the hospital. I’ve had about every test done to me that can be done,
and nothing ever came out saying, ‘Oh, good heart and lungs coupled with seal
blood means she’ll live forever.’ This is crazy. I can’t live forever; I don’t
want to live forever. My life sucks enough as it is…” In saying these last
words the true horror of what Nell had so blithely told me began to descend
upon me. Would entire generations of Rockabillians know me as Crazy Jane?

At least you’ll get your chance to dance on Stuart’s and Linda’s graves
, my
brain chipped in, unhelpfully.

Nell interrupted my malicious fantasies. “Don’t worry, child,” she said.
“You won’t live forever. Just a long time. And you’re certainly not immortal;
you can be killed. But human concerns—such as years, age, birthdays, and the
like—will cease to mean much to you after a few centuries.”

“Oh, great. I’m sure they will,” I said, sarcastically. “Right around
the time I go mental with loneliness from living in my recluse shack where no
one can find the lady who doesn’t die. That’s going to be a great life. Maybe I
should invest in the property market now, while it’s on the downturn? I wonder
what a hermit’s cave is going for these days. I’ll obviously only need the one
bedroom.”

Nell shook her head. “You won’t be alone, child.” With these words she
looked me full in the face, all traces of her smile gone. “Your life has only
just begun.”

I didn’t know whether her words were a promise or a warning. Or both.

I watched, mute, as she climbed down from her rocking chair. She wrapped
it up inside the quilt and laid her little bundle over Trill’s back.
Disconcertingly, the kelpie had turned back into a pony and I hadn’t even
noticed.

“Take a swim, Jane,” she said. “You need it. Recharge your batteries.
Tomorrow, an investigator will be in touch. Jakes was important, although I
don’t know why, and events are moving quickly. I don’t know who they will send,
but expect someone. And don’t worry, we will be here to answer your questions.
There is no hurry. You are in my territory.”

As Nell said those final words the air crackled around her with energy,
and I suspect she had granted me the merest glimpse of the power that lay
within her plump little form.

Before I could protest, she was trundling along beside the pearly gray
pony as they walked toward the solid face of the rock wall… and disappeared.
Nell took her light with her, and it took my eyes a minute to adjust to the
soft glimmering of the night’s sky.

I sat in silence, absently scratching at a furry belly. With a start I
realized that at some point during Nell’s Revelation Hour I’d thrown an arm
around Anyan and was scratching away at his densely haired hide distractedly.
For his part, he didn’t look like he minded.

I couldn’t begin to wrap my head around everything I had learned
tonight. It made no sense, yet it made every sense. And Nell’s words, if I was
honest, scared the shit out of me. I may have hated the fact that I had been so
defined by the events of my life; how I was trapped in a place that never let
me be anything but one version of what they wanted to see. But I also knew my
role, my place. There were no questions or insecurities about what I’d do, day
to day. Suddenly, everything had changed. And I couldn’t begin to understand
how.

Part of me, however, was quite certain that I’d wake up tomorrow and
realize it had been a dream. But for right now, Nell was right. I needed a swim
the way Joel Irving, our town drunk, needed that first shot of vodka in his
morning coffee.

I stood up, stretching my still-aching legs. I was going to feel
tonight’s run something awful tomorrow morning. I kicked off my shoes and
pulled off my jeans and socks. I was just starting to pull my shirt over my
head when I realized that Anyan had slipped away. I let my shirt fall and
turned around to find him looking back at me as he headed toward the breach in
the cove walls.

No teleporting for the pooch
, I thought,
smiling, as I pulled my shirt over my head. Anyan jerked his head around so
quickly he smacked his muzzle against the break’s rough walls. My head throbbed
in sympathy.

That is one odd dog
, I thought, as I pulled off my bra and
panties and ran toward the ocean, plunging in gratefully.

And what exactly
had
Nell meant when she said he’d told her all
about me?

CHAPTER FIVE

M
y walk
back into town the next morning was a strangely surreal experience.
Surprisingly, I’d slept well that night, which meant I hadn’t really had time
to process what I’d seen. But throughout breakfast I kept going over the
previous evening’s events. I’d gotten a glimpse into a whole other reality and
I had no idea what it all meant. The thing that most caught my imagination was
when Nell had said that her kind were all around us. Granted, Nell or Trill
would stand out in a crowd, but my mother had looked totally normal. Were there
other supernatural creatures running around Rockabill?