Star Blessed

Dead Ends

Meribella

The spray from the waves was frigid, and the feeling in her feet had been gone for nearly thirty minutes. Lightning flashed across the black expanse of the horizon, the thunder clouds creeping closer to the waxing moon. And still Meribella remained. The sea was in her blood, and it calmed her to be so close.

And yet, unlike some of the land locked Selkies she'd met during her travels, she didn't have the urge to walk into the swells until the tides pulled her under. Sometimes she thought it was because she'd never had a skin; other times, she wondered if it was because she'd miss the moon.

Her turquoise eyes, glowing softly in the darkness, darted towards the pearlescent sphere. Most would think it nothing more than a rock that orbited the earth, but she knew its song almost as well as the ocean's. So different their music.The sea song quieted her emotions, bringing serenity, while the moon brought out something untamed- feral almost- inside of her.

When the first rain drop splattered against her cheek, she admitted defeat and walked inland, leaving her birthright behind her. Each step choked her. Her lungs strained as the panic set in, but years of walking away gave her the strength to wrestle the desolation into submission. She slipped into her car, parked within viewing distance of the beach, and pulled fuzzy socks over her cold, wet feet. The map in the passenger seat was unfolded and another dead end was marked.

How long she sat in the driver's seat, fingers wrapped 'round the steering wheel, eyes unseeing as she searched for the motivation to turn the key in the ignition, she couldn't say. Hot tears streaked down her face. Meribella had seen each failure as nothing more than a step closer to her goal. Now... now she wondered if she should've listened to her mother, as her mother had once wondered, and her grandmother before her. Generations of women who wanted to leave this mortal world behind but couldn't because of the betrayal of a man and the dangers of a silly human emotion called love.

"Stupid," she hissed, twisting the key and relishing the heat that blew from the vents. Susceptibility to cold was another weakness of her human skin. Her sisters and brothers could cut through waters well below freezing without feeling the effects and yet she sat there shivering from a little exposure to rain and chilly temperatures.

Backing out of the state park, she turned her car towards the seaside village of Camden. She'd found a house to rent on the outskirts of the town. It was close enough that she could enjoy easy access to the picturesque town but not feel as though she were being suffocated by the tourists and locals. Once the first snowfall would promise a little respite from the crowds, but the last few years, travel magazines and websites had promoted the delights of the seaside winters. She could count it amongst the pros of moving her search to another area.

Though her tears had stopped, she allowed her thoughts to stray from the task of driving. Instead, she thought of hidden coasts further north that no one had yet to try. Kai's diary spoke of more days of gray and cold than sunshine and summer. It had to be hidden somewhere on this side of the country. Charles was not a man of means when he met her, and it would make sense that he hid it here before taking her to the west coast.

Meribella slammed her fist on the steering wheel. Mother and Grandmother had exhausted the shores of the west coast, and to their knowledge, the family had never visited the southern shores of the U.S. He couldn't have destroyed it. Kai would've died the moment it perished. But she refused to consider the other two options before her: he'd shipped it a foreign land, or she was too human to recognize its presence now.

"What the hell!" she shouted as a dark shape darted across the road, making her jerk the wheel in reflex. The roads, slick from rain and falling temperatures, offered no purchase to her bare tires and the vehicle spun about the narrow lane until it toppled sideways into a ditch.

A metallic tang coated her tongue, and searing pain blossomed just below her hairline. Dazed, she tried to unbuckle her seatbelt, but her fingers were too uncoordinated. Another sound penetrated the haze of agony, and she managed to turn her head to the side of the car lying in the ditch. And realized she'd not come to a stop in a ditch at all; instead, the icy, frothing waters of a steady stream were rapidly filling the car, already high enough that the loose tendrils of her hair were submerged.

Frantic now, she tried again to free herself, but the latch wouldn't budge. "Help," she cried out, tugging hard and sobbing as she tried to lean closer to the driver side door and away from the rising waters. "Please!"

Her too fragile body was now half covered, and she knew she had less than fifteen minutes before hypothermia crippled her. The vehicle shifted as the water poured in. She had less time than that before she would drown.

When the water reached her nose, she couldn't stop the reflexive breath she took and held, but a hysterical giggle opened her lips as a funny thought filled her mind. The water gushed into her mouth, making her gag and choke. She would be the Selkie who drowned. A fitting end for a descendant of Kai. It was her last thought before the water and darkness swept her under.