by Darby Carroll
The water no longer felt like needles to Paxton. It lingered in his feet, the cold. It would crawl up to his shoulders, into his bloodstream, to be released with a shudder hours later. He had started bringing a heavier jacket with him, but mostly, he had gotten used to the icy waters.
He tried not to wear shoes when he visited the ocean, worried that the saltwater would soak into them and break down the material. His greatest worry was that his mother would find out—then she would take him somewhere and he’d have to tug on his disintegrating shoes that were embellished with long strands of kelp. He would go barefoot whenever he could.
He was eight when he first snuck out and saw the boy. He couldn’t sleep, and under plaid covers his eyes squinted at the glow-in-the-dark stars on his ceiling, and he wished he could be seeing the real thing. It was four in the morning and cold enough that he had to get dressed in his warmest coat and zip it all the way to his chin. He slipped out the door and walked all the way down to the water. It was dark and compelling, like a pit of tar, and it glistened under the light of the moon. It was colder by the water, and every once in a while the wind would spray cold flecks of the sea onto his nose and cheeks and he would shudder. Nobody was by the sea at this time, not before daybreak. He sat by the rocks and tipped his face upwards and squinted into the inky darkness, searching for constellations.
The splashing he heard was different from the gentle, constant crashing of the waves. It broke the near silence of the night and made him jerk upright from his position, as if he expected his mother to be in the water, ready to drag him home and yell at him for sneaking out. Instead, he saw damp, light blonde hair flopping in and out of the waves. Someone was drowning.
Something overcame Paxton then, blood rushing up to his ears in the moment of a quick decision. He ran to the water and waded in, hissing at the iciness of it, and got in up to his navel before reaching the body. His hands grasped for anything—eyes blurry with tears he hadn’t realized were there—before finally grabbing onto the soft hair of whoever it was and tugging upwards, then towards a flat, slippery rock. Somehow, Paxton managed to drag the boy up with him, grabbing desperately at a shoulder before returning to the hair, making sure he was fully up.
“Ow!” the owner of the hair barked, sharp and high pitched. It was a boy who looked up at Paxton, eyes shining angrily. He had the largest pair of eyes Paxton had ever seen, like tapioca pearls, round and glinting. He looked like he was around Paxton’s age, maybe a little younger.
Teeth chattering, Paxton let go of the boy’s hair. “Your skin is warm,” he choked out, paralyzed from the suddenness of the cold. He was freezing. His lips might be blue. He could feel the fabric of his pants plastered to his thighs.
“Well, it’s not very cold out,” the boy frowned. “Why did you yank on my hair?”
“You were drowning.” Paxton tilted his head, eyes narrowing in confusion. It was hard to see the boy, especially because it was so dark out. His blond hair was already beginning to dry, and in Paxton’s vision it was blurred around his head, a golden halo. Paxton’s skin was prickled from both goosebumps and unease.
“I was playing,” the boy responded, as if Paxton was the stupid one for wanting to save his life. His breath smelled gross, like fish, and his teeth were jagged and uneven. His big eyes, almost extraterrestrial with their void of color, like twin black holes, unsettled Paxton.
Paxton looked at the shore where he had been unwinding only minutes ago. It wasn’t far from their space on the rock, but it seemed miles away. The boy he’d saved was watching him with his unblinking, dark eyes. “You like to play?”
“Not in freezing water at four in the morning,” Paxton responded, gauging how long it would take him to dive gracefully into the water and swim back to shore. Probably a bit, since he didn’t know how to dive, but at least he knew the water wasn’t that deep.
“I’m Everett,” the boy said, dipping his shoe into the water. He was fully clothed, not in a swimsuit of any type, wearing a big white jacket and dark pants that seemed to have fully dried already. He turned to Paxton, eyes glinting. “And you are Paxton, yeah?”
Paxton felt a shiver run through him at the fact this odd boy knew his name without it being told to him. “How do you know my name?”
“It says on your coat,” Everett had switched from sitting up to laying on his stomach, fingers instead of his shoe skimming the water. “P-A-X-T-O-N. It was upside-down, but I could still read it because I am very good at reading.” As he spoke, he traced the letters into the water, arm moving jerkily as if he was just learning his alphabet.
Paxton’s hand reached towards his neck, where the tag of his coat stuck out of the collar, and tucked it back in with a flustered face. Good, now the weird boy knows my name.
“Do you need to be taken home?” He turned to Everett, then squinted back out across the water.
“This is my home,” Everett smiled dopily, letting his head roll up to the stars. “You should come visit me tomorrow. I’ll give you a present.”
Paxton didn’t quite want to return, but he couldn’t argue with the appeal of a present.
This time, Paxton slipped out of the door at half past three. It was slightly warmer out, but he could smell the salt of the ocean in the air. He clutched a tuna sandwich, divided into two halves and shoved into a small baggie, close to his chest. Everett was waiting for him on the rocky shores of the beach, knees drawn to his chest, hands tucked into his white coat.
“You’re here!” his voice was too loud for the time of morning. He instantly bounced onto his feet, producing something tannish from his coat. “It’s a conch shell. It’ll protect you.”
The inside of the shell was a smooth, pearlescent pink, with delicate bumps along the whorls.
Paxton ran his fingers over it, and with his other hand he brought out the sandwich.
“I brought you something, too,” he said, giving him one of the halves. Everett inhaled it without even chewing. Hungrily, he eyed the other half, which Paxton reluctantly handed over.
“You like tuna?”
“Mfh. Love it, when I can catch it. Tuna is the only fish that tastes any different to me. I like it when it’s salty like—” Everett broke off, pointing vehemently at the last bite of the sandwich, “this kind.”
Paxton’s face screwed up at that. “When you can catch it? Do you catch all of your fish?”
“Sometimes I get them from fishing nets. They’re easier to eat that way, too, as long as I don’t get tangled up.”
“It kind of confuses me,” Paxton began slowly, choosing his words very carefully. “That you always seem to be in the water, especially when it’s freezing cold. Then all of your clothes almost instantly dry, every time. How d’you manage to do that?”
“I come out here just to play,” Everett responded, but his voice was uncharacteristically quiet, almost hoarse. “And I don’t mind the cold.” His dark eyes blinked quickly.
Paxton didn’t ask any more questions after that, unsettled by the solemnity that seemed to wash over the both of them. “I’ll see you tomorrow, and I’ll bring more tuna.”
Paxton left the house at sunrise the next day, patting the conch shell on his nightstand as he left, for good luck. He was out of his element in the light, being able to see every step he took without a flashlight. His mom was talking about getting him glasses, with the way everything looked blurry to him. But he was able to see just fine this morning, and he took his time on the walk to the beach. It was nice when it was like this, he decided, and sat lazily, watching the water lap at the coast as he waited.
He heard splashing from the distance, and like the first night, he squinted into the distance. It was something small and white, similar to Everett’s large coat, and it made Paxton smile, even though he couldn’t quite determine what it was. That day was the warmest of any of the times he’d snuck out, and he had made up his mind that he would try swimming with the odd boy. He was wearing his only swimsuit beneath his clothes, but he thought he’d just try wading a bit first.
The splashing continued, but Paxton couldn’t tell if it was Everett or just sea-foam. He sloshed into the cold, yelping at the cold and holding his arms up like weak wings, as if that’d help him adjust better.
The water was strong that day, pushing against his legs and dragging him farther into the cold, dark ocean. It got choppier, too, slicing over his torso, pulling him under, tumbling him like a rock. Paxton tried to breathe and was only able to swallow mouthfuls of briny seawater. The salt stung his nostrils, and he found himself panicked each time he tried to gasp a shallow breath but was instead tossed back under. He realized with a sudden sense of anxiety that he wasn’t able to breathe. His swimming was too weak, his feet rarely brushing against the underwater bank. He squeezed his eyes shut and pleaded that the current would wash him back to shore.
He felt warm hands suddenly grasp around his armpits, carrying him somewhere, and for a second he was certain that he had died, that this was what comes after everything. But the contact was too familiar, the strength too desperate, the little gasps too recognizable for it to be any type of deity. It was Everett, somehow, swimming unnaturally fast. He hauled Paxton onto the shore with a grunt and glared at him.
“Bad,” he said, eyes narrowed. His expression still managed to look silly, because Everett wasn’t a very intimidating person. Paxton almost laughed, but instead he coughed, heaving onto the wet rocks and spitting up saltwater. He glanced up at Everett, starting to thank him for miraculously getting to him on time, when he noticed something horrific that he hadn’t been close enough to notice earlier. Everett wasn’t wearing his signature coat, and the pants he had worn over no longer were there. In their place were two hind flippers of a seal, barely visible under the water.
“I had to save you—” Everett choked out in a panic.
“What the hell?” Paxton wasn’t supposed to say bad words, he’d get in trouble, but he couldn’t help it, he was just so confused.
“I’m something called a selkie,” Everett began, voice shaky as he slowly crawled out of the water. The flippers morphed into his skin, transforming into pants before Paxton’s eyes. “I can become a seal when I have different pieces of my pelt on. I left my coat off, because I hoped you wouldn’t notice, but I just wasn’t thinking—” he kept cutting himself off by taking sharp, jerky, nervous breaths.
Paxton wanted to tell him to calm down, to put a hand on his shoulder and tell him everything would be okay. But, if he was being honest with himself, he wasn’t sure if that would be the truth.