Hide and Seek

Do you believe the superstition?

We can see you. We can hear you. We are at the edge of your sight, always.

Can you see us?

What are you willing to wager?

***

Liz sat on top of her suitcase and tugged on the zipper, which gave half a centimeter and then refused to move any further. She huffed in exasperation, sweaty from the exertion and the June heat.

Her phone hummed in her pocket for the sixth time, and she paused in her attempt to wrest the zipper closed to dig it out of her pocket.

I'm parked outside. ETA?

Hey Lizzie where are you?

I'm leaving without you if you don't reply in the next fifteen minutes.

Listen the only music in this car is stuff from the 80s and there's only so much David Bowie I can handle before I go nuts. Get out here.

No that's fine, I can just idle here for twenty minutes while people give me weird looks. No biggie.

Elizabeth I swear to god.

Liz sighed and fumbled with her phone to text her brother back:

B ther in a sec :) :) :) 

She turned off her phone and returned her attention to her luggage, determined to get her suitcase to cooperate.

She and Jesse were heading home for the summer, to their father's house on the coast. Liz had spent the past year at boarding school, hoping to meet non-human creatures like herself, maybe even other Selkies. Her friends back home were all human, and her mother, the only other Selkie in her family, had left home when Liz was very young. Jesse was ten at the time and remembered their mother better than Liz did, but he didn't like to talk about her, especially in front of their father.

Classes had ended the day before, and students were swarming the dorms and the grounds, packing and saying goodbye and soaking up a last few rays of sunlight with their friends. Liz had gotten all of her goodbyes out of the way the day before; she and her friends had snuck out to the lake after hours, as was tradition. After being out all night, Liz felt the exhaustion weighing down on her as she lugged her bags out to the parking lot. She weaved through scattered groups of teenagers, waving to a few people as she passed by them, and staggered towards Jesse, who was waiting for her beside his shiny new car.

Once they'd exchanged hugs and greetings and started off, it became clear that Jesse was relieved to have someone to talk to. During the first hour of the drive, he entertained Liz with thrilling tales from college such as "The Disastrous Party in the Woods" and "The Worst Professor on Earth" and "The Blind Date".

"Do you think you'll go out with him again?" Liz asked as Jesse finished telling her about the date.

"Maybe," Jesse said. "Except for spilling wine on my shirt, it went pretty well."

Liz laughed. She could listen to her brother's stories all day. When they were kids, she would sit next to him on the couch all evening and they would make up stories together, losing themselves in tales of warriors and princesses and Fairies, turning ordinary into extraordinary.

"Have you decided on a major yet?" Liz asked.

"I don't need to declare until next year," Jesse said. "It's still between music and English."