Selkie

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Sixteen

"What were you thinking?"

I was sitting in the back of Maria's weird, square car with my backpack on my lap like some naughty sixth grader.

"Did the Rev not make it clear to you that you're in hiding? Do you want to be caught? You have no idea what that man is capable of." She talked like she didn't need to breathe. A stream of consciousness that would put James Joyce to shame. "Your sorry excuse for a biological father killed my brother because he wouldn't tell him where Mom had gone, and then we went to some fancy fundraiser. The man bloodied his hands with my Hamish's blood the same night and got his ugly mug into the society pages. There is no viler creature on the planet than Theodore Selwyn. You're not in Kansas anymore Edie, shape up!"

"I'm not from Kansas, and I don't think that man was a bad guy! He was my Border agent coming through Canada. I didn't even get his name! Just that he's from Stro-something or other but grew up in British Columbia Canada and has a very nice smile."

"He wouldn't have given you a real name anyway. You really need to get smarter. Do you not think its suspicious that a Canadian border agent would be in Glasgow?"

"The Rev told me to stand out and be noticed as Meg. He seemed to think people would be looking for some short brunette in a hoodie and sunglasses, avoiding eye contact. Maybe its not suspicious maybe its fate and he's going to be the father of my little Scottish bairns. It isn't fair to change the rules on me now."

"The rules?" She cursed in some other language that sounded like music on her lips, "You need to learn that Selwyn doesn't play by any rules except his own and those are constantly changing. You aren't safe. You could have been killed for being so reckless."

"Look, if you had your eyes set on the border agent you could have just called dibs."

A beat passed in silence before we both burst out laughing.

"Okay, I get it. You're young. You're new to magic. Heck, you're new to this whole world. I understand you wanting to flirt a little. I get it; I do. But, even you have to know how dangerous it is for you to flirt. You have Selkie blood!"

"What?"

"Do you not know?"

"That my Mom is a 'Selkie' and my Dad is a million-year-old abusive billionaire? Where was this gold back when I was applying for College? What reputable institution would reject me with a pedigree like that? I'd be Ivy league for sure. Full scholarship."

"You really don't know."

Maria pulled up in front of a small yellow house with white trim and a wrap-around porch and parked. A sign stencilled on the front window in old-timey font read: "Between the Wee Margins."

"Know what?"

"Sush now - I'll grab your suitcase, and once we're inside, I'll make you a cup of tea."