“Miss Agatha will be in directly,” Mason announced, as Celian lowered himself onto the silken sofa. “Shall I send for some tea?”
Celian almost didn’t hear him. He wasn’t sure what to say in this situation. Agatha had said she didn’t want them to be disturbed—did that include tea?
“No tea, thank you, Mason,” Agatha swept in behind him. “That will be all.”
Mason clapped his heels together, gave a stiff bow, and stalked away.
Celian’s gaze dropped to his hands, resting on his knees. He could feel Agatha staring at him. All the words he wanted to say—all the right words to say—left his head completely, or muddled all together in his mind. After a long minute’s pause, he decided that it was best to start with whatever came to mind first.
“Agatha—“ He began, looking up at her.
“No,” she cut him off tersely. “Listen closely: I don’t know what you intend to prove by coming here and accosting me, but I want the only things you say to be the absolute truth. I don’t care how strange or how impossible they might be; I swear, Celian,” her chin trembled, betraying the terror she harbored, “if you try to lie to me or tell me that what I saw on that beach was a figment of a drowning girl’s imagination or some trick of the light, I will have the servants throw you out and I would never want to see you again!” Tears sprang to her eyes, and she pressed her lips shut tightly in a concentrated effort.
Celian sighed. “What you saw…” he said slowly, “it was real. It is--it was--my natural form.”
He saw it again in her eyes: the unquenchable fear, the revulsion she could not help feeling. “Natural?” she whispered, faltering as her knees buckled. She stumbled to a chair across from him and sat down to avoid collapsing on the rug. "W-what do you mean?"
Celian faced the confession without hesitation. “I am a Leonie, a creature from the sea capable of changing its form to become anything it touches.”
Agatha blinked. “Anything?” she repeated.
He nodded. “If I can touch it, I become the thing. I take on its memories, its personality—its psyche, I mean.” He slipped off the suit jacket and laid it aside. ""If it hadn't been for Madi Grove, I would not have been able to speak to you now."
The horror faded at the fond memories of the innocent schoolgirl who had befriended her so easily. "What does that mean?" Agatha asked. "What's she done?"
Taking a deep breath, Celian began. "I have been visiting this town for a very long time, using various forms to be able to travel over the land, instead of remaining in the water. Thanks to animals such as pets and gulls, I could visit often, though I could never take the form I wanted most--to be human. And no matter what form I took, I would always have to return to the ocean, because a Leonie cannot take another form without first reverting to their natural form." He still felt the uneasiness, a little bit of the old fear came creeping back as he spoke. “This is the truth about what I am, Agatha.”
She sat as if her whole body had been paralyzed. “So you're a shapeshifter,” she said slowly. “A trickster.” In the next moment, she stood and turned toward the door. “Well, at least I now know I wasn’t going mad or anything. If that is all—“
"Wait, Agatha, please!" Celian begged. "It's not a trick, what I can do... I did it--" he faltered.
She revolved to face him again, ire rising in her eyes. "Why?" she challenged. "Why did you want to be human so badly, and why could you never do it before? Why did you use this... this ability you have to visit a backwater little town like Afton-by-the-Sea so often?"
Thud-thud-thud. Celian felt his heart racing in his chest, and his throat became very dry. "I did it.." he forced the words out of his lips. "I did it to see you."
Agatha stared at him with the same expression she had worn when he changed forms right in front of her. "Me?" she gasped. "Why... when?"
Celian tilted his head bashfully. "Ever since I first saw you running on the beach as a little girl--I was fascinated by you. I began to search out the animals that you would let close to you, so that I could take their place and visit you away from the water."
Agatha's knees buckled and she collapsed into the armchair beside her, still staring at Celian. "But..." she spluttered, "I never... you never..."
The dark-haired man allowed himself a small smile. “Do you remember Major, the black hound who would visit you so often?”
Agatha drew her mouth closed, squinting at him. “I never told you about…” she stammered. “How did you—“
He took a deep breath. “That was not Major; it was me.”
Agatha’s eyebrows elevated so far, her eyes nearly popped out of her head. “You?” she gasped.
Celian nodded. “Every time it would seem that Major had somehow escaped his owners to visit you—I visited you.”
The young woman wagged her head, blinking furiously as she tried to comprehend the idea. “Every time?” she repeated. “But you—but if you wanted to—“ she shuddered and gestured to him, “change like that because of me, why choose a dog, and not a man?”
Celian shrugged his narrow shoulders. "As I told you before, no human would ever get close enough to me. After I saw you for the first time, I waited for the next land-creature I could see enter the water—a large black dog—and I took his form, giving me also some of his memories and habits. I knew he must be near you, because I found you in his mind.”
Agatha’s expression softened, becoming more pensive than afraid. “So you became a dog and waited for me every year…”
Celian
