Linksshifter II

A Path Between The Waves - ~~~~~

Colleen looked down, holding her bottle by the mouth and slowly swinging it around, tracing circles with the base. "Him, yeah. I had a feeling you were getting to him – he was the first, and I didn't mean it, but I had to. If I didn't, it would've been all up, aye?"

"What happened?" Sonali was quiet, holding still; if Colleen was starting, without needing to specifically ask, then she was ready to talk about this, and perhaps, everything was about to become clear.

"It was my fault – I wasn't careful enough. I thought it was early enough, that the water was still cold enough that time of year, there wouldn't be anyone else in the cave, and he saw me change my skin before I saw him or knew he was there. He was scared, and tried to run away, but I caught him, and then what could I do? He knew my face; he knew about a seal-girl right at the start of the silly season between the end of the football season and the start of the fall term. This cave would be no good any more, and there wasn't another one close enough to school and secure; I'd have to change schools, I'd have to leave my pelt on the beach where anyone could just come and grab it and end up married to some spotty anorak with a metal detector who knew what a seal pelt was and what it meant before I could finish changing. It would be all up, so I had to take him away.

"At first he was scared, but he rallied quick as; he stayed with us, and my mum was all over him. She hadn't had a wee pup since I was small, and this one, she had to teach him everything. It took a bit to come out, but he didn't have that kind of doting at home: his mum was busy and didn't care for him much, like, and her husband was worse. I think his da was in jail, or in London, or 'in London' meaning in jail; he certainly didn't know for sure. And if he was afraid in the first week, in the second, he was in his pomp, always cuddling up to mum's belly, calling out for her 'mummy, mummy' across the bottoms when he dug out a good clam, our Liam and everyone's Liam. This was home for him – it was more home than that house he'd run away from in the start to go hide out in my cave.

"It was good for him – and it was good for us, good for my mum, and I could see that there were others. I started seeing other weans while I was walking to school – you've seen them, even when you don't think you're seeing them. I'd seen them the whole time I'd been on the land, but until Liam, I'd never seen them proper. It's like you just miss them – their spirit's so small they're not even there. The one who's always looking at her shoes. The one who's smaller and thinner than small and thin for his age; the one who keeps pulling down her sleeves, the one who doesn't talk to anyone, even when he's spoken to. Not every kid, and not even most kids, but once you start seeing them, you can't stop: at near every turn, somewhere, there's a child who's being kept more than raised, abused, neglected, just disregarded. These kids need a real family, a family who can let them be the child they've always wanted, where they can be the child they've always wanted to be – and down by us, there were others who'd pet Liam when we were all up basking on the rocks, talking on what a good pup he was, so full of life, and you could hear it in their voices, how they wanted to have another pup, but something wasn't right for them, and you can't well go into Child Services to start an adoption wearing sealskins, no fixed address.

"I was trying to help; to do what I could to put people back together the way they should've been from the start. I talked a little with Liam when I could, about what kids like him liked and did on the land, and I started the rumors; I had to get into this Pokemon thing so I could know all the patter – did you know there's like eight thousand of these Pokemons the now, all different? Gies peace, aye?" Colleen dug her phone out from a jacket pocket and waved it around. "It wasn't all at once, and I wasn't snatching kids, but I'd watch out, and when one of them that had problems was close enough, and I knew I wouldn't be caught, I'd use a glamour spell to give them a show, tell them about the life under the sea, and ask them if they wanted to come with. Near on all of them did; the one who didn't, I put her to sleep, carried her away a piece, and called the police to pick her up. If she didn't think it was a dream, everyone else does."