A Hero's throne

He shrugged. “It’s your choice.”

At that moment a redheaded female came and pulled him playfully by the arm. He allowed himself to be tugged away, flashing Gretchen a devilish smile as he went.

She left the circle of dancers and warmth and crouched down against a rock that sheltered her against the cutting sea wind. The selkies continued dancing and singing, but the mood had changed-it was now quieter and more languorous. They were moving less complexly, and they were touching each other more. They were touching each other a lot, in fact.

“You’re not one of them, are you?” asked a voice beside her.

Gretchen turned and looked into the face of a girl about her age, but unclothed, like the rest of them.

“What did you say?” Gretchen asked.

“You’re not a selkie, are you? I can tell. They can go all night like this. I get tired after a while. They don’t seem to.”

“So you’re not a selkie either?”

“No. I’m Lucy. They brought me here. . Gosh, I don’t know how long ago now. I fell out of a boat. Feels like just a couple nights ago, but I think it was longer. It’s fun, isn’t it? Nothing to worry about. . long nights of fun and excitement. .”

Lucy was shorter than Gretchen and her eyes were big and brown, almost too big for her face, it seemed. She had matted, sandy-yellow hair and an eager manner. “Where did you get the skin from?” she asked.

“I was lent it.”

“You’re lucky. I wish I had one; then I could go swimming in the sea with them. They said they’d make me one. I’ve never seen any of them make anything, though. All they do is swim and dance. And sleep, in the daytime. I guess there’s no rush, though. I like dancing and sleeping too. Can I borrow your skin?”

“Are you cold?”

“No. I just want to go swimming.”

“What do you mean?”

“If I put it on, I would turn into one of them and I could go swimming with them. You think this dance is amazing, you should see what they do in the water!”

“Would it work for you?”

“Of course. I’ve seen them use one another’s. They don’t usually, they like to keep their own skins-I would if I were one of them, which I’d like to be. If you don’t want to be one of them, then they ignore you and stop feeding you and you die. I’ve seen that happen too.”

“You’ve seen other real people here?” Lucy was staring at the dancers again.

Lucy looked at Gretchen as if seeing her for the first time again. “Oh yes, lots. They’re always bringing people back here. They like the company. There’s always at least one new person at a dance, sometimes several. I’ve seen a lot of them arrive. How many, I wonder. .”

Her brow furrowed in concern, trying to work it out, and her eyes wandered and she looked at the dancers, and a smile gradually came back to her face.

“Lucy?” Gretchen asked.

Lucy turned fresh eyes on her once more and looked her up and down. “If the newcomers put up too much of a fuss, then they kill them. It’s not nice. They eat them, pick the bones clean, and throw them into the ocean.” She paused, shivering and gazing longingly at Gretchen’s skin. “Was that a no, then? About the skin?”

“Sorry,” Gretchen said. “It’s just that I’m really cold, and kind of wet. .”

“I understand. Let me know if you change your mind. I really want a skin of my own. And think about staying. If you don’t, I might eat you. Ha ha! It was nice talking to you.” Lucy pushed her way into the dancing circle again, soon lost in the shuffle, leaving Gretchen alone with her thoughts.

It was quite dark now, and some of the selkies had wandered off, alone or in pairs. Ron Glass didn’t come back for her, but she did catch sight of him as he waved to her from across the fire pit. He was very quickly led away again, this time by a short woman with long, kinky hair.

Gretchen shrugged the skin higher up on her shoulders. She knew now what she had to do, but it was going to take patience and courage to carry it out. She just needed to stay awake and pick her moment perfectly.

The singing had died off, gradually, becoming lost in the arrhythmic shush-ing of the water around the island. The selkies left by twos, threes, or fours into the night. The embers in the pit had ceased to spark and now only burned with a low, deep red, which would shortly be mirrored in the sky’s southeastern sunrise. There was just a single dancer left now: Lucy, who swayed in a vague, dreamy fashion in short steps around the fire pit. She held out arms that Gretchen suddenly noticed were very thin; her whole body was emaciated, in fact. It looked like she was starving.

Then even Lucy became tired and wandered off to find somewhere to spend the night. Gretchen waited for what she judged to be ten or fifteen minutes. She gathered her resolve and rose quietly. Moving around the rock, she picked up all of the seal skins that she could find lying on the rocks and among the forms of the selkies sleeping in their naked, human forms. Apparently they didn’t feel the cold or hardness of the rock.

The skins were littered here and there, like discarded clothes in an untidy teenager’s bedroom. Each one weighed an absolute tonne, though, and she could only carry two or three at a time. It was quite difficult to sneak around the small island with its uneven and wet surfaces, and she had to move quickly as well as quietly.

She brought the skins back to the centre of the island and lobbed them in a heap, close to the fire pit’s edge. After about forty-five minutes, she’d found all that she could and heaped them into a gigantic pile next to the fire. They looked like an enormous pile of fur coats.

Now came the moment of truth. Taking a breath, she lifted a foot and kicked at the pile until it gradually tilted forward, toward the fire pit, and then, by ones and threes, they fell into the hot embers below. There were so many, and they were so heavy, that for long, terrible minutes she thought she had smothered the heat by putting them all in at once, but then she spied a thin curl of smoke, illuminated by the sliver of a new moon. More of them started to smoulder and blacken, throwing off a stinky, oily smoke, and then a few tiny flames appeared.

It was coming along nicely. Pretty soon all of them would be burning merrily.

All of them, except for the one she had been given.

She hurried back to the shallow bay area where they had arrived. The tide had risen while she had been here but was ebbing now. She stood on a slippery outcropping of rock that hung above the modulating sea and wrapped the skin fully around herself, first making sure her feet were covered, and then tossing the flap that hung down her back up and over her head.

Her heart chilled.

It wasn’t working.

The suit completely covered her, but it didn’t join together where she pressed it. She kept it around her and wriggled about in it, but nothing happened-she just got tired holding up the heavy skin.

With a gasp, she threw back the hood. Realising that she’d based her escape plan solely on the information of a young and possibly very deluded young girl, Gretchen was about to sit down and await her fate at the judgement of the beasts. Her consolation was at least they’d all be marooned on this lifeless rock until they could make new skins for themselves-and she might be able to see how it was done. It was small consolation, however. She’d likely have been long-eaten before new skins were created.

It was hot and uncomfortable in the skin, so she tried to push it off of her. That was more difficult than she expected. It seemed to be sticking to her hands and face. She brought one hand up to her forehead to see what the problem was and found that she had raised a fin. Then it struck her-the selkies had all been naked-it would only work on her exposed skin.

Gretchen pulled her hand out of the skin and with a wet sucking sound it emerged. She laid it aside. Then she timidly started to peel off her school jumper. She felt ridiculous as she folded it and put it in a neat pile near her feet.

She had almost unbuttoned her shirt when she heard the first scream of anguish from the selkies who had discovered their burning skins.

Now she couldn’t claw her clothes off fast enough. They would kill her as soon as they found her, and it was a race against her stripping down completely and any one of them discovering her in the small cove with the only remaining selkie skin.

There were more screams now, rising in angry chorus. Everything became heightened, and her hands moved