Archive of Our Own

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Connie could recognize some of the faces easily. The way that Pearl was fuming was as contemptuous as it was expected, her eyes boring into Connie in unspoken blame. Across from Pearl, Garnet was eyeing the circle of selkies, cross-legged with a furrowed brow. The girl couldn’t be sure, but she had a feeling that Rosa was looking the same way, kneeling behind Connie with a firm hand on either shoulder. Her grip was almost as warm as Stephen’s.

One selkie Connie didn’t recognize sat between herself and Pearl, a skinny man in a tattered sleeveless shirt and long pants that made him look like a mechanic. His wild straw-blonde hair was stuck into points with salt, and he covered his mouth with a pale hand, as if he was covering up a smirk. She could hazard a guess, based on Stephen’s descriptors, that that was Perry. Amelia looked more uncomfortable than anything, deliberately leaning away from the selkie across from Connie, and Connie was grateful for the fact that that particular selkie was farthest from her. 

If the slender man was Perry, then the other stranger must have been Jasper. He was crouching, not sitting, and kept his face down. A tangle of white covered his face and shoulders. Next to him in the sand was something that Connie could swear was just a chunk of bone. He wore his sealskin like a cape, as most of the clan did, but he was shirtless, and Connie could see how his naked torso was covered in scars.

“I tried calling him,” she whispered.

“Did he answer?” Rosa said calmly.

“No. Well—not the first time, but the second time, it went to his voicemail, so he must’ve swiped and he knows that I was calling. So.”

“Did you persist?” said Pearl.

“I…I don’t think he would have picked up. So I came here and met Rosa.”

“That was the right choice, Connie,” Rosa said. “But now we need to make a decision.”

Perry lowered his hand and glanced at Amelia, then his mouth opened, but Connie couldn’t hear any sound at first. Her ears started to whine, almost like they were about to pop, and she clenched her hands into tight fists as her temples began to ache. Amelia snarled at whatever Perry said, and the man sneered before looking up. Whatever expression Rosa was making was enough to make him drop it for the moment. Garnet clicked her tongue in frustration.

“Use your words, Perry,” she said curtly. “You’re going to hurt her.”

“Tsk, hurt,” he muttered. “Not mad yet.”

The meeting, Connie felt, had been called in part to determine the exact punishment for this inexact crime. The events of the last morning and afternoon hadn’t filled her with confidence.

It had started like a nightmare, a feeling in her chest as she woke as if there was an unopened door in the world she had to unlock, a word she had to define, a memory on the tip of her tongue. When she had composed herself, her first thought was to call and talk to Stephen. Ever since she had seen Mr. Universe’s eyes, she knew something was wrong, but she couldn’t tell what. He wasn’t the same man he had been mere weeks before. Exhaustion could change a person, and Connie knew that well from when her mother had been run ragged on call. Over the past years, though, Mr. Universe hadn’t changed anything about his schedule or his duties at the wash. All the changes were centered around that boy, that selkie, the creature that had ventured out to talk to Connie.

She knew exactly when the car wash was supposed to open, and her parents didn’t object to her donning her clothes to go get some early bike exercise. Her legs had pumped all the way to where Greg’s van was supposed to have been parked, and its absence was the first sign. Calling Rosa had been unsuccessful, considering the service range of wherever the selkies were hiding, but Connie had slogged down to the beach and leaned over the high tide; the tears came naturally, and thankfully, it hadn’t taken long before Rosa broke the waves. Here in the circle, Connie wondered how close Stephen had been when she had cried on that one afternoon. Obviously, selkies couldn’t teleport. It seemed he had just been waiting, watching, anticipating the right time to risk it.

So here they were in a circle, and they were no farther along than they had been before. Jasper was almost completely motionless. Everyone else was fidgeting in their own ways.

“Do you know where this man took him, Connie?” Garnet said.

“No, I have no idea. But he wouldn’t take him too far away. He knows that my mom would call someone if she found out.”

“Do you know his purpose?” Pearl asked.

“His… Like, why Mr. Universe took him? Yes! Because he thinks Stephen’s not safe! And Stephen trusts him, so they—I don’t know, he took him on a road trip. But he wouldn’t just kidnap him out of the blue! He’s not that kind of impulsive person.”

“Humans are not normally of the kidnapping, hm?” Perry said. “This is unusual?”

Despite the articulation, Connie could tell the odd tempo in the selkie man’s voice was a result of him parsing out the words differently, just like how Stephen was used to talking. Maybe that was just the language barrier. Either way, she shifted uncomfortably in Rosa’s hands. The woman steadied Connie’s body.

“Definitely not usual, but… It’s not like that” she muttered. “Not with Greg. He cares about Stephen.”

“If he cared, he wouldn’t have stolen him,” Amelia snapped.

“But he doesn’t know that Stephen’s safe! He’s still in the dark!”

“He’s wrong! And he still needs to pay!”

“You can’t say that when—”

“ Enough. ” Rosa’s grip tightened. The circle quieted. “Enough. What we need is to get Stephen back to us. When he comes, we’ll decide what to do with Greg Universe.”

Connie shuddered. “Please don’t call the cops or anything,” she said after a moment. “I don’t know why he took Stephen but I know for a fact he isn’t gonna hurt him.”

“Your human authorities are just that—human,” Pearl sighed. “Revealing anything to them endangers us all. Stephen must be returned quietly.”

“Mr. Universe doesn’t know that you’re not human. I’m worried that if you try to do anything, that he’ll… Well, he might call someone, too. I guess I get it. But I don’t know how to reach him without him saying anything.”

Pearl narrowed her eyes. “And this someone would understand him stealing a child?”

“Oh. Yeah, I guess that’s—mhm.”

There weren’t too many ways out of this, but Connie found herself more baffled by the fact that Mr. Universe had done this without the caution she was used to. There would have been no problem with him asking to take Stephen out of state for a little coastal drive, maybe a more inland excursion where they could go to a water park or a movie. Obviously, the answer would have been no, but Stephen could have begged and pleaded on his own before he went out. Wearing down his guardians wasn’t easy. It was still possible, still something that got easier with time. Maybe it would take until the summer for that to become a reality, but it could have happened if they had just asked. Kidnapping was something else entirely.

But it wasn’t kidnapping, was it. That was the fact that really made Connie furrow her brow. Mr. Universe wouldn’t have forced Stephen to go anywhere, and even though there was no evidence for that, she knew there was no way he could have forced the kid into a van. Her friend talked about Mr. Universe like he was a bastion. Any seeds of distrust would have shattered that. The man was not a coercive or subversive person by nature. Tricking Stephen wouldn’t have been hard, but why would he have needed to when Stephen clearly liked him so much?

“He wasn’t kidnapped, though,” Connie said quietly.

Perry laughed. Pearl and Amelia glared at Connie, and she felt Rosa’s hands grip just a little tighter. Even Garnet turned her head to bore into Connie’s eyes.

“He wasn’t! I-I know that’s what’s on the surface, but Stephen likes Mr. Universe. He trusts him. And he knows that there are too many dangers in the world—like, on land. I don’t think Mr. Universe stole him. Stephen just wanted to go.”

Before anyone could jump down her throat, Rosa sighed and raised one hand, quelling the inevitable. Amelia still curled her lips back, teeth almost bared. Connie shrank. She wished that the selkie’s hand on her was more comfort and less confinement.

“Constance.”

Garnet’s voice still made her shudder; whether it was because of or despite its burnished tone, Connie couldn’t tell. The selkie woman was perfectly tense in her stillness. She took one deep breath before raising her gaze.

“The selkie folk may have traveled inland generations ago, but those times are no more. These shores are hostile—and what lies on land does bode even worse,” Garnet said. “To you, the deep ocean is dark and inhospitable. To us, the land is the same way. We have been pushed farther away from your earth more than ever. Stephen’s desires are nothing compared to the danger that awaits him. Some of us have known what happens even on the shoreline. Some of us know the trouble with humans more than others.”

Rosa inhaled quickly and quietly through her nose. Amelia seemed to shrink into the sand. Out of all the selkies, they were the ones who, through their own various exploration, knew more about that aspect than anyone. Connie wished she understood more, but she wished the selkies had some kind of history, even oral history. The songs could only do so much.

But singing was better than keeping all knowledge hidden, that was certain. Stephen’s songs had been so soft and wonderful, and maybe one day he could sing this memory to her underwater again, when he came back. If he came back. Connie tried not to think about what might happen to them on the road. At the same time, Mr. Universe was his guide, in a way, and how could he ever put the boy in danger? Mr. Universe was one of the most resourceful people she had met in her life, and Stephen would stick with him through whatever they were doing. ‘Danger’ was an undefined term that ignored the risks of daily life. Surely, all these selkies knew that.

“I know these past couple weeks have been super weird, but if I know Mr. Universe, Stephen’s not gonna be in any danger. Nobody knows he’s a selkie. He left his skin behind. Even my mom just thinks he’s different.”

“The danger comes from within, Connie.”

When Connie turned to look up at Rosa, the woman just seemed pained. She avoided everyone’s eyes. Amelia cleared her throat, brushing a black lock of hair from her face.

“There’s a problem. When we stay out of the sea for too long, there’s…a problem,” she muttered.

“I read some stuff about that. Just how, um, when selkies stay with humans, they always have to go back to the ocean,” Connie said. “But that’s going to happen just fine. Stephen’s coming back. He wouldn’t let Mr. Universe just take him away from the water forever.”

“It’s not just that. He’s too young. It’s…”

“It’s going to be hurting a lot,” Perry interjected. “The farther inland he goes, the farther he is from the ocean and his skin, the more it will take over.”

He seemed serious. There was no subtle smirk on his face this time, and when he looked up at Connie, he barely raised his eyebrows. Perry couldn’t have known exactly, but maybe none of them did, none of them except for Amelia. Right? Connie looked around the circle again. The pressing issue was that Stephen might be in more danger than she had anticipated. At the same time the reluctance to share any details of life was going to make this process so much harder than it had to be. No history, no past, only stories, possibly only exaggeration—Connie felt a brief pang of annoyance at the thought that she was basically half-researcher, half-vet. These creatures had survived without her for so long on paranoia that helping them was like trying to break a brick wall with her tiny fists.

“Wait, take over how? What’s going to happen to him? Is it physically harmful, or magical? Is it going to force him to come back, like, with some kind of wind or current?” Connie asked.

“Fever,” Pearl said.

Jasper twitched. Connie tried not to jump at the motion, but the man had been so still that Connie had almost forgotten he was crouching there. He breathed steadily, eyes closed, fingers curling. Connie looked back at Pearl, all further questions drying on her tongue.

“The fever tears you apart if you can’t fight it. It will come in waves. Water cools the body, but it won’t leave you until you return to the ocean again,” she finished.

“Oh,” Connie mumbled. “But…how long until it starts? Does it happen immediately? When Stephen came with us to the hospital, he hadn’t had any kind of fever, and that was a few hours out of the water. And we weren’t too close to the ocean either.”

“He’s so young. We don’t know,” Rosa said.

Connie opened her mouth, but Perry was already waving a hand at her; whether it was to get her attention or to get her to stop talking, she had no idea.

“We do know the truth of it. Because it is inside us all. The ocean sings in her own voice and gives us the love and sickness,” Perry said. “It is known.”

There were so many frustrating things about that statement, but all Connie could do was sit back against Rosa and feel the shared pain. If she was taking the worst interpretation, then all the selkies were lying to her about having a history. Frankly they were probably just mistaken in their terminology. An oral history, passed down through songs, was just as much a history as something in a book. Maybe there weren’t family chronologies or anything, but it counted as a retelling of the past.

All things considered, Connie knew that they might also be talking about instinct. Selkies were driven through means that she knew she would never be able to understand. The biology of being a human being was all thrown out of focus now that she knew there was magic in the world. Were selkies a product of evolution? Was their transformation just a way of breaking physics, or was there something supernatural? How did their existence change the world? Connie felt herself getting sick as her brain worked overtime. The metaphysical questions were always the worst ones. Diving into this just wasn’t possible, and if she dedicated her life to figuring it out, that would definitely make her a supervillain down the line. The selkies didn’t care either way.

And none of this helped Stephen. Connie bit her lip and forced herself to focus again. The concerns were valid, but at the same time, the facts were there. She heaved a tiny sigh.

“If you don’t know how long it takes, but it doesn’t happen immediately, then, well, there’s nothing to worry about, right? Mr. Universe will bring Stephen back when he wants to come back, and then we can talk to them about…communication?” Connie said.

“Can you prove that he’ll bring Stephen back?” Pearl snapped.

“No, but it doesn’t make sense otherwise! His skin is here! You’re here! I’m here! Would Stephen just leave without saying goodbye?”

As soon as the words left her mouth, Connie felt all eyes glaring at her. Heat ran through her stomach in shame as silence filled the circle. She had almost forgotten that Stephen had indeed left without a goodbye. Maybe he knew he was coming back, so what need was there? But the recklessness wasn’t like him. He must have known this same feeling. Every selkie’s eyes were glowing with frustration, bitterness, condescension, all the things Connie knew from her human counterparts but with magical, animal fury. The girl bit her lip to try and hold the tears back for one second. It was selfish. She couldn’t be so selfish when she thought about Stephen like this. He might be her friend, but that was all. She shouldn’t have said anything.

“He’ll come back,” she mumbled. “He has to come back.”

“And if he doesn’t?” said Garnet.

“I don’t know. I don’t know.”

This time, Jasper shifted. Connie looked up. Through tear-stained eyes, she could see the glare, and it withered her even more. More than that, there was that familiar alien feeling, the one that she loved and feared whenever she looked deeply into Stephen’s eyes. Jasper’s stare was viciously yellow, like the sun through wildfire smoke. Black tendrils seemed to wriggle from the edge of the irises to his pupils. His scars seemed to glister in anticipation. Connie knew instantly what would happen if Mr. Universe didn’t bring Stephen back.

Stephen had hunted that crab for her on their playdate, but that was easy. Surely in his times underwater he had caught a fish or two, getting food for himself, delicately tearing at the salty meat. Did the selkies cook at home? Connie couldn’t imagine they had the luxury, but stranger things had happened. They knew about fire. They knew about clothing. They knew enough about sharp teeth and how they could pierce flesh. Someone like Jasper certainly knew enough about hunting. For a brief moment, Connie even wondered if she should feel pity for the hulking man. It was entirely possible that the scars had come from saving his fellow seals from predators, or from whatever that land-fever was, tearing at his body. But it could just as easily have been a set of wounds from scraps and clashes of his own making. Maybe Stephen had made some of those marks himself. Jasper wasn’t about to tell.

Rosa breathed deeply as she looked over at Jasper herself. The man deferred to her as far as Connie knew; she didn’t know the limits of that deference and she didn’t want to find out. Connie settled herself back as Rosa began to stroke her shoulders.

“Amelia, um, didn’t you meet Mr. Universe? Don’t you take Stephen down to the car wash?” the girl said. “I know you don’t like him but you could at least vouch for him a little.”

The wave of animosity from Amelia’s eyes was probably because Connie had just put her on the spot, and, well, Connie understood. At this point it was just important to get as many allies as possible on Mr. Universe’s side before the selkies banded against him. Amelia sneered, but turned her face down.

“He doesn’t trust any of us. Doesn’t know any of us. Thinks we’re going to turn on him. But…”

She shook her head. Connie tried not to yell out of frustration again. Obviously, as she had seen on the video calls and in the hospital, Greg Universe cared for Stephen immensely, and Amelia was a witness. The bare minimum was all that Connie could ask for, and apparently even that was too much.

The selkie curled her lip. “He acts like he’s songstruck,” she muttered.

“Like…what?”

“Taken. Taken by the song,” said Pearl. “The human sickness of hearing. The inevitable. You remember.”

Connie remembered a minute ago when Perry had said something to Amelia wordlessly, and it had made her ears ring. Was that a song? Was singing a language? Whatever it was, it made Connie want to just recoil whenever she thought about it. Songs couldn’t be stopped and couldn’t be ignored. The call of the selkie might be directed or it might be random, and perhaps it affected humans either way. She hated the notion that her brain could be taken over by thoughts beyond her. Stephen wouldn’t have wanted her to feel that way and he wouldn’t do anything to make her think things she didn’t want to think. Perry probably hadn’t sung anything to her, but the singing itself seemed to wrack her nervous system. It could be merely her knowledge of it that ensured she wasn’t going to fall under the spell immediately.

But then there was Mr. Universe. She had tried to forget, but there it was, that one final piece, and it had been there the whole time. Connie couldn’t hide her discomfort enough, that was certain, and it was only a matter of time. The girl took a quick, staggered breath.

“What do the songs do to your eyes?” she asked quietly.

To her chagrin, everyone looked up. Perry sucked air through his teeth, just too serious to smile at whatever Connie had just given away. Garnet and Pearl exchanged glances before Garnet looked at Rosa in worry. Amelia was shaking. Connie had to look closely, but in the silence, she could see how Amelia was clutching at the sand and at her pants, a tiny bit of vibration in her knuckles, somewhere between violent and terrified.

“Connie, have you seen it?” Rosa said.

“Yes ma’am.”

“In Mr. Universe. What happened to his eyes.”

“They’re…changing. They were solid brown, um, kind of like mine but a little lighter, but he had these pieces of blue when I last saw him, and it…looked like magic.”

“And so, you know what that means.”

“Y-yes ma’am.”

Spilling the secret was bad enough. The fact that it meant more than just the obvious was painful, shameful, enough to make Connie actually worry this time around. Greg Universe was under some kind of spell, and the only weird part was that, to the best of Connie’s knowledge, Stephen had never sung to him. Clearly he had sung enough, though, or sung about one specific thing, just like he had done underwater that one fateful day. None of this was his fault. He couldn’t have envisioned that Mr. Universe would do something so drastic. As dire as it was, too, Connie couldn’t imagine that the enchantment of a selkie’s song would be enough to cause Stephen to be overtaken or kidnapped. He had such sharp teeth and he knew well enough to go back home; he had started by swimming to the mainland without his skin or sealform, after all.

Stephen was strong. He was apparently strong enough to make a grown man fall under his control, like it or not. What had he made Mr. Universe do, or what had he compelled the man to do? No, it wasn’t like hypnosis. Was it? Connie forced her hands to stick by her knees so that she wouldn’t draw them up and bite her nails.

“Would Stephen know what it means? I-I mean, why wouldn’t he?” Connie blurted out. “So he has to know that something’s wrong. That must mean he’s more cautious. Right?”

“The…color is… It is hard to describe,” Garnet said slowly. “The selkie who sings often cannot see the effect of their song.”

“What do you mean? His eyes are getting bright blue.”

Perry grunted. “Stephen sees what he sees—a trusted man, apparently,” he grunted. “The eyes are as they were. Illusions outside the proper light.”

“How do any of you know this?”

“Warnings. Songs of warning, of course.”

“I—I really don’t want to be rude about this, but what does everyone actually know about this?” Connie said. It was hard not to be snappy. “Sometimes there’s no history, but there’s these stories about specific warnings, and things that you wouldn’t know otherwise, and if we don’t know everything then—”

“They know because of me!”

Amelia’s shout was enough to put Connie back in her place. The girl shrunk up against Rosa and felt all the words trapped in her throat, lodged like sticks in a drain. The selkie across from them glared, every muscle in her body tensed and ready to jump across. She was the picture of confrontation. Amelia trembled, her lip twitching arhythmically, and Connie wondered once more how she would ever stand up to her parents when even this important piece left her weak and wilted inside. Strains of discomfort slithered down her arms, forcing Connie to cross them in front of her with her knees sliding up to her chest.

“I found all the things I wanted to on land. I left the water, and I trusted a human, too,” Amelia spat. “And I was older than Stephen, but I was still too young. We ate, we played, all the others came over, until he shut them out, one at a time. His madness…”

Her hands were balled into fists. She wasn’t looking at Connie any more, which was probably for the best. Connie could already feel her stomach sinking with realization. Garnet cleared her throat.

“He shut them out one by one. Amelia found her freedom, but this human only wanted her, and he tried to keep her from going back. She had to return from time to time to ease the fever, and he was blinded, angry, disruptive.”

“But…you’re here now,” Connie offered after a moment of quiet. “And you’re safe now. Right?”

Garnet turned her face. When Connie looked in the same direction, she saw the yellow eyes of Jasper boring into her, and she looked down immediately. There was no shame in turning away from his stare. She knew what had happened to Amelia’s human acquaintance without even asking. Everyone knew. A low, hot, visceral rumble echoed across the circle, the sound of Jasper’s throat clearing itself. His mouth had started to open, and Connie only had to glimpse the first row of teeth before she could feel their pressure, hear the way they could snap a grown man’s femur in two.

“Safe,” Jasper rasped.

Greg Universe was in danger. If Connie didn’t get Stephen back soon, then he might not come back at all, and if Mr. Universe didn’t know how to treat him with the fever, then the distance might hurt or even kill the young Selkie. If Stephen didn’t know what was happening to his body, how could he express that? And beyond that, if Stephen did come back safe, then Mr. Universe might face the punishment brought on by the selkies, and at that point it didn’t matter how much he knew about this magical world, because they would ensure the secret was buried with him, maybe even in their stomachs. Connie took her hand out of her mouth; she didn’t realize she had been chewing her nails until a sharp pain dug into her skin.

What could she do, though? Even if she had a car, the two boys had traveled an unknown distance to an unknown location. The best bet was to have faith, and Connie hated that. Faith was what ensured that the sneering boy from her social studies class would be at a different spot in the lunch line than her, saving her from unwarranted comments. Faith was what had been running through her mind whenever she picked up a library book based on the cover, having run through every horrible thought of the day already, desperate for comfort. Faith was what had allowed her to come back down and see Stephen again, and again, journeying to the magical beach weeks after her first encounter—and it still dazed her, the fact that this was real, that the consequences were real. Doing nothing wasn’t an option. But she couldn’t do it all. Her best would have to get them through.

“I…know that we’ll have to wait for them to get back, but…I still believe in Mr. Universe. And I believe in Stephen,” Connie said at last. “Because they want to be happy. They want to keep each other happy. Mr. Universe is never going to hurt him. If anything, he…he might hurt me. But he wouldn’t do that. Stephen wouldn’t let that happen, either.”

The rousing interruptions that began to emerge around her were almost too much to bear, but Connie struggled to her feet regardless. Her jellied joints brought her upright, and she took one of the hands that had been on her shoulder, whirling to face Rosa. The selkie narrowed her eyes, but her mouth was sealed shut, even as the others shifted in distrust. Connie couldn’t look at them right now. She swallowed, squeezing Rosa’s hand.

“You know that’s true! You know how he feels around me!” She turned again, pointing at Garnet. “You were there when he first came up! Stephen’s going to come back. He’ll come back to you, too, because you’re his family! He’s safe here no matter what. Even when it’s hard.”

Platitudes were all she had at the moment, but Connie had to keep that amount of faith herself. And it was all true, so what could they argue about it? Stephen was young and reckless, more reckless than Connie would have been herself. He was an adventure. She felt admiration for it, for all the things he shouldn’t have done. The selkies weren’t going to lie about the dangers, and they weren’t going to trick her into untruths. They had nothing to hide but themselves. As much as it hurt to keep the secrets, there was no deception past that. They provided for Stephen and wanted him to be safe. Teaching him about the world was difficult; Connie knew first-hand how strange the world could be, and she barely knew half of it herself. She opened her mouth to say something, anything more, when Jasper stood.

Whatever comments Garnet and Rosa were going to add were put to the side. Garnet stood quickly, stepping into the circle, between Jasper’s line of sight and Connie’s slowly shrinking body. The selkie man picked up the object that had been next to him in the sand. It was definitely bone, Connie could tell, part of a skull. The teeth were massive, as massive as Garnet’s had been when she first burst out of the sea. If it was a seal skull of any kind, Connie didn’t want to know. Jasper lifted it to his head. The dried twine made scratching sounds as the selkie affixed it in place. His yellow eyes were almost glowing—no, they were glowing, filling up the darkness, Connie was sure of it. He was the tallest selkie by far. Connie couldn’t imagine how big he would be once he shifted.

Rosa stood, still looming, still curt. “Connie, we can’t trust what we don’t know. It pains me to say this, but there are many, many things we are still learning,” she muttered. “But if you trust me at all, trust this: you have many things to learn, too.”

They would do all they could. Jasper was ready to hunt, and there was nothing Connie could say to stop him. They could cover up a disappearance. No more human beings. Only the seals of the coast would know what happened if Connie got in their way. The girl held on to Rosa’s arm even though she didn’t want to. She didn’t know these creatures, either, not really. Distrust filled her like she was drowning again. This wasn’t supposed to end like this. They were just supposed to wait, to see, to be there for when Stephen came back.

But Jasper’s sealskin cape just swayed in the ocean breeze. When Rosa gave the word, he would go hunting. Connie swallowed. There was no way to tell where Stephen had gone, but Jasper would track, the girl was sure of it. He was going to bring the boy back. All the other selkies stood as well. The meeting was over.

“Please don’t hurt Mr. Universe,” Connie whimpered.

“Anything that happens to him,” Pearl said, “he will have brought upon himself.”

“Please don’t. Please .”

Everyone heard her. Perry narrowed his eyes, almost curiously. Amelia was looking away, as was Pearl. Garnet and Rosa glanced at each other, and Connie could feel that horrible animal tension, where the only logic was survival, the ends justified the means, and her words were powerless. Jasper was as still as a statue. Once again, Connie felt human, and it made her feel very, very small.

❖

❖

The drain gurgled, and so did Greg’s stomach.

“Yeah, yeah,” he muttered. In a bit.

There was a lot of hair to dry, and there wasn’t a whole lot of time to do it. But that wasn’t entirely true, not considering the hiatus. Greg cleared his throat and kept his balance in the shower, trying not to rock back and forth as he thought about rent. He was doing fine, all things considered. What had he been doing with his money? That’s right, he was saving up, considering his options. He had only been out of the country once. It would be nice to go somewhere just to travel for a bit, somewhere with mountains, perhaps.

This was the next best thing. Campground registration was only a few bucks for the van, thank goodness, and there was basically nobody here while school was still in session. Greg was eternally thankful for the fact that he knew where to find these little traveling places. Not everywhere was safe to spend the night on the cheap. Rest stops for trucks were always so loud and filled with bright lights. Hideaways were all private property, where nobody could just rest any more. Campgrounds like this were the next best thing. There had to be places to just pull over in the woods, but they could never be sure. The feeling was awful. Being, just being, was hard these days.

But Greg wasn’t alone. And he was on a horrible timetable. The man’s stomach turned. Stephen was still asleep in the van as far as he knew. Of course he was. They were far away from whoever had trapped him there. It wasn’t as though Amelia was going to come running up from the asphalt and drag him back. As far as Greg knew, none of them had cars, whoever they were. They would have to wait until Greg came back. Hopefully, by that point, they wouldn’t even know the boy had been gone.

Greg shoved his hands in his face as the shower’s silence dripped around him. It was going to be warmer out, but it had been drizzling when Greg stumbled in, and there weren’t going to be any concerts, not unless they went to some city with a back-alley basement club, and there was no way that he’d take poor Stephen down there. The stories that Stephen needed to bring back were stories about freedom, memories about freedom, memories that would take him out of this place and into the world. Stephen needed more. Even if Greg never saw him for a while, he would be back and he would be safe. It will have mattered.

The first thing they needed, though, was breakfast, a late breakfast. Greg had to towel his hair, and maybe Stephen would have a nice time brushing it again. First things first, though, Stephen had to shower. He had been a salt-encrusted mess when they had laid down; Greg didn’t want to think about what that sheet looked like now. The ocean had done a number on him from wherever they had swam from. Greg rubbed at his eyes before finally turning towards the half-closed curtain. These stalls weren’t the kind of place he could exactly wait for Stephen, considering the open toilet and generally cramped space. The kid deserved privacy. Greg could change in the van in the interim. With a sigh, he pushed the curtain back, revealing a tired Stephen staring straight back at him.

“Mis’r Universe,” the boy mumbled with a grin.

“G a AH—!”

It was a faster wake-up than coffee could be. Greg snatched the plastic curtain and rattled the metal rings above him as he pulled it around his body. How had Stephen come in so silently? The shower had been running, sure, but Greg knew he couldn’t have been that totally unaware of the noises around him. Or, well, how would he have known if he was unaware. It hardly mattered. Stephen was here in his slightly sea-crusted sweatclothes and no shoes, looking very comfortable indeed despite it all. He had rested well. Briefly, Greg felt relief knowing that the kid had actually slept, which had been one of his main concerns earlier. His current concern was the fact that Stephen wasn’t moving.

“Did, um…did you sleep well, buddy?”

“Yessir.”

Stephen opened his mouth and yawned wide, before bringing both besleeved hands up to rub at his face. Greg held the curtain tighter to his bare waist.

“Good. Morning,” he muttered. “So…”

“Mhm.”

The fact that Stephen was looking at him expectantly didn’t sit right, but there wasn’t anything he was asking for directly. The boy looked mildly perturbed, somewhat confused, and still kind of out of it. That was all fine for the moment, so long as he eventually understood what was supposed to be happening.

Greg paused. That wasn’t going to happen, was it.

“Stephen? I need to get my towel,” Greg said, nodding towards the wall just outside the stall.

Stephen turned to look with the man at the white towel hanging on the hook just out of reach. He blinked, then looked back at Greg, then at the towel, and back again. He almost raised an eyebrow. It seemed obvious, in a way—there was the towel, there was Greg. What wasn’t clicking? Greg opened his mouth. His heart was still pounding from the surprise. Even with the hint, Stephen didn’t have a full understanding—right?

This was one of those investigative moments that Greg hated. Priyanka Maheswaran would have loved to hear about a heartfelt conversation between the two, some journalistic exposé on where Stephen had been held his whole life, and then they would have a police raid take him off the grid and get him into a good college later in life or something. She would not be happy to hear that he was now sopping wet, standing in front of Stephen miles away from Beach City, as the boy was practically encouraging him to be his best naked self. Of course, it was a learning experience. Greg wracked his brain, trying to think until he remembered something that could help him here. What did Stephen know? What did Stephen understand?

“Oh. Oh, okay, so do you remember when I asked about you changing clothes in front of Connie?”

There went the notion. Tired as his brain was, Stephen hesitated, just a little more tense before he nodded.

“And you said that it wasn’t ‘proper,’ right?”

“Yeh?”

“Well, since I’m…not related to you, and since I’m an adult, it’s also not proper for me to change and stuff in front of you. So can you hand me the towel, please?”

“Why is it not proper?” Stephen asked.

“When you’re at home, Stephen, do you change in front of other guys? Other adults?”

“Yes? We are males. Together, it is...”

The nonchalant nature of Stephen’s response was promising, in a way. He didn’t consider it weird and he didn’t consider it inappropriate for whatever reason. Maybe it was because of his parents or maybe it was just the atmosphere of the high school locker room carried over, but Greg found himself embarrassed to confront his own conceptions here. Part of the personal bond he had with Stephen would be broken. Why? That was a question that he didn’t have an answer to but it hardly mattered, did it. The puzzle was coming together, though, as it always did, one piece at a time. Perhaps there was a bohemian slant to Stephen’s living conditions, communal showers and whatnot, a free-nature world. Or not. Wait. There, a possibility.

“So—do you usually wear clothes? In front of your, uh, ‘allmothers’ and other folks?”

Stephen hesitated, but nodded. That ruled out a nudist colony. Greg sighed with relief. Was that even a thing, or just some urban legend that stuck-up suburbanites passed around to shame the imagined outsider and strike fear in the hearts of the innocent? There was a lot that Greg had to reconsider over the years, but now wasn’t the moment.

“Alright. I know you’re very comfortable with yourself, and you’re all chill and nonconformist and all that. That’s good! Genuinely,” Greg said softly. “But I’m not exactly used to having a travel companion and I’m…well, not as comfortable. Could I please, please just have my towel, Stephen?”

When the boy reached back and passed the towel over, Greg refrained from sighing with relief. As Greg took the towel and closed the curtain again, he thought about the look on Stephen’s face, studied the downturned gaze, rolled those thick and uncertain eyebrows around in his head. Stephen wasn’t ashamed because of his behavior or because of the nudity—he was ashamed for not understanding. He certainly hadn’t apologized. It was possible that he was lying about his clothes at home as well.

It was possible that he was lying about so many things. Greg didn’t want to think about that. Cinching the towel, Greg opened the curtain again with free hands and a sopping wet mass of hair behind him. Stephen had both hands on his face again, rubbing at his eyes. The man wiped his hands on the towel and pushed them up into Stephen’s cheeks, cupping the boy’s face and studying him. Greg shuddered. Every time, whenever he stopped Stephen from rubbing and picking and twitching, he could feel all that tension leave the child’s body, and the energy discharge was harrowing. He couldn’t explain it at all.

“You’re still kinda salty. Like a little brine shrimp. You’re definitely…old enough to get yourself all set in there, right? Did you…”

Greg looked down. No shoes on those tiny feet. He glanced down at the bench across from the sink, where a green papery insect had just landed on his crumpled shirt. This wasn’t the end of the world. A little grass and dew couldn’t go amiss.

“Don’t worry about a thing,” Greg murmured, “don’t you worry. I’m going to get on my shorts and get a towel for you from the car. Then, I’m gonna change, get you a change of clothes and a towel, and we’ll see what’s happening after that. How does that sound, Stephen?”

“And the sixty diners,” Stephen said through squished cheeks.

“That—is exactly right. Yeah, sorry we couldn’t get to a rest stop. I might have overshot it a little bit.”

“But we stopped and rested here?”

“It’s more like the…you know what, you’re right, this is a much better rest stop. We can take our time. We have the whole day!”

Stephen rose up on his toes, then rocked back to the heels of his feet, making that odd little chirrup of joy before yawning widely. Greg tried not to stare at his teeth.

“Concert! Cleaning. With the soaps,” the boy mumbled. “I want to smell like Connie.”

“Er, I think Dr. Maheswaran has some kind of tea tree oil thing she keeps in the house, which is a little out of my price range. They got a soap dispenser in there, though, and I think it’s kinda ocean-lemon. You’ll smell just fine. Anything’s better than slept-in-boy.”

Truth be told, ocean was pretty overpowering; Stephen always kind of smelled like salt. That didn’t dull the boy’s edge in any way, and it certainly didn’t stop him from blowing a tiny raspberry as he grabbed Greg’s wrists, rotating their bodies until his back was to the bench. He let go of the man and stepped back before retreating into his sweatshirt and pulling it over his head. Greg knew that was as much a cue as any.

They were lucky that this was a small facility, with next to nobody around. As Greg scooped up his clothes, he saw the sweatshirt whump onto the bench heavily, and he glanced over. Stephen’s eyes—those miraculous, shimmering eyes—bored into him expectantly as the kid thumbed his sweatpants. He wasn’t teasing Greg for his insecurities, probably, but it was close. Greg chuffed and hefted his laundry before he ruffled Stephen’s thick hair with his free hand. They could both hear the sound of salt crunching around. Slipping his sandals on, Greg hoped that Stephen actually did know how to work a shower.

“Be right back, kiddo. Get cleaned up.”

Nobody could fault him for walking around with a towel on, not when he was decent and when he had a kid who had wandered in. As Greg stepped out under the awning, it dawned on him that he actually hadn’t seen another human being, just tents and cars. The sound of hikers laughing behind the trees had sounded off once earlier, hadn’t it? The world was just quiet today, and there was nothing wrong with that. He wandered down the ramp around the building and stared out over the clearing.

This particular camp was wooded, sheltered, with a small river that ran through the middle of the tangled paths. The arch of trees that had sheltered them was barely visible, not just because of the distance here at the back of the grounds, but also because of the fog that had settled over the meadow. It was drizzling today—no, misting, breaking up the fog with a crystalline coating in the air that settled on every leaf and plank and piece of metal. The droplets seemed to highlight the greenery and turn the tall, unkempt grass around the sparse buildings an even deeper green. Every oak was still and budding. Greg’s van sat a few paces down from the shower building, and he walked slowly, drinking in the morning. Nothing was locked, no need. Larksong drifted through the air as his shoes scraped on the pebbles that made up the roads and paths here. Only concrete barriers and rusted signs kept the campers and their belongings separate from nature, at least until the road began just outside the stone wall. The night had been darker because of these woods, blocking out the moon with only furtive glances between the trees, a moon made less visible from the clouds that had apparently signaled this mist. Dew and condensation grayed out the windows and reflected where the sun was fighting to get through from above.

Greg stepped back as he opened up the van door as the water that had accumulated in the cracks around the door was released, splattering to the mud. He tossed his clothes inside, then pulled out the comforter. The two of them hasn’t even gotten under the covers when they had slept last night, curled up in strange and separate dreams. The blanket was still damp, covered in flecks and crystals. Greg shook it vigorously away from him before throwing it on top as well. They could wash it somewhere if he scrounged up a few quarters from the seats and cupholders. For now, it would have to protect the mattress as he changed. He climbed back in, leaving his sandals as he shut the door.

He had to trust that Stephen was inside and that he wouldn’t once again barge in. Greg sat quietly, listening to a lack of rain whispering on the windows. It was dark in here. As he fumbled for his underwear, he wondered how he had managed before. Unexpected visitors came to the car wash plenty of times, but never when he was vulnerable, human, never when he was dressing or using the bathroom or doing all those embarrassing necessary tasks. He hadn’t thought about it; most people who lived alone never thought about it either, he assumed.

Drying didn’t take too long considering how much he had drip-dried in the stall. When he had finished wrangling his bottoms on after, Greg took his towel and his hair, wrapping it up tightly. It would dry on the road. Presentation was never his strong suit unless he was getting up on stage, and that hadn’t been the case for over a decade. A diner wouldn’t care much about their looks anyway. He could brush Stephen’s hair out, and the boy could do the same for him. Easy peasey.

Greg paused. Their little vacation was a single meal, with dinner later, of course, and a concert if they drove around. It was nothing. Greg’s ears tingled briefly as a headache threatened to set it. He squeezed his eyes shut and pawed at the sides of his head, rubbing and stretching his ears to try and get some momentary relief. There was the chance he was developing tinnitus from his concert days, and that was a scary thought. But that couldn’t be it. This was a swing, an attack, a brief interlude of pain whenever he felt uncertain. Maybe it was an anxiety attack. No, he had had those before in high school, before he had known the term for it. He couldn’t place this. It hardly mattered. Stephen would be gone and he would have to face it alone.

He fumbled for his phone in his pocket, then dialed Dr. Maheswaran. His eyes were glued on the shower house as it rang. Nobody was going to go in there, not for as long as he was here, nobody was going to try and hurt his—

“Hello?”

“Hey! Hey, doc, hey.”

“Greg, what’s happening? Are you alright? Is Connie with you?”

“Connie? Well, no, not at the moment. Was she supposed to come down?”

“I assumed that this was—forget it.”

“No, Priyanka, I’m not at the car wash right now,” Greg sighed. “Kind of why I’m calling. I’m on the road for a bit. I’ve got Stephen with me.”

There was a long, pregnant pause on the line. Greg inched the phone away from his ear and grit his teeth in anticipation of the explosion to follow, whatever it was. There were no true parallels between his own mother and Dr. Maheswaran’s goodness, but the ‘mom mood,’ as Connie might have put it, was as real as it was squirm-inducing.

“Once more, I am assuming…I am hoping that this was arranged?” the woman said.

“Well, in a way.”

“Greg, you didn’t—!”

“He wanted to come along! It’s just a little overnight and a music outing! I’m getting him some culture, that’s all! I asked, he showed up—”

“But you didn’t actually ask his guardians for permission.”

“I didn’t ask face-to-face, no. Better to ask forgiveness and all that.”

The groan on the other end was pained enough that Greg actually felt guilty for a moment. The good doctor didn’t know the half of it, which was probably for the best.

“Legally, it is absolutely not,” Priyanka said. “Look, you need to cancel this trip and get him back immediately. Connie’s made me well aware how protective they are, and if they see that you’ve taken him away, then that’s over!”

“He needs to get out of the house, doc! You know this experience is going to benefit him more than being with those people ever will!”

“I don’t know that, Greg. You don’t know that either.”

“There are some things I do know and I don’t really appreciate being told my experiences are—”

“This has nothing to do with you! This is about what’s going to happen to that child if, God forbid, his guardians decide to be confrontational and point to the fact that you kidnapped him to go to a rock-and-roll sleepover!”

“At least I’ve got…you know, that thing, when it’s an actual reasonable excuse, because of the—the circumstances.”

“Plausible deniability? Greg, you—”

“He wants to be with me!” Greg snapped. “Priyanka! He came in the dead of night of his own free will to experience something he’s never had! Stephen gets to feel joy! He gets freedom! Because of me! He wants this and you cannot possibly tell me that he doesn’t need to escape from them!”

Briefly, in the ensuing quiet, Greg felt his head ringing. His own shouts had echoed around the van, pinpointed right at his own ears, it seemed. There was silence on the other end. When Dr. Maheswaran sighed, Greg couldn’t be sure if her voice was trembling or if there was just wobbliness in their connection. He slumped.

“What’s happened, Greg?” she said.

“Nothing’s happened.”

“This isn’t like you. I know it’s not like you.”

“I’m fine. Stephen and I are fine.”

“You’re not fine. Mr. Universe, what’s gotten into you? You know this is a bad idea. You know this isn’t going to turn out the way you want it to.”

“I don’t care, doc. I don’t care right now,” he said hoarsely.

“Greg. Bring Stephen back, please,” Priyanka murmured. “I can’t make you come back, but I can encourage you to do the right thing. We can all talk about this together. You two can still be…whatever you are.”

“I love this kid. And he loves me. Okay?”

“He still needs to know what’s right and what’s wrong. His family’s almost too far gone, but I’m worried that you’re too close.”

“What’s that supposed to mean, Dr. Maheswaran.”

“It means that you’re so…so focused that you can’t see down the road. Wherever this is going to end up.”

“Hey, that’s why I called you in the first place. I wanted to update you on how things are going,” Greg sighed. “Stephen slept well, he’s showering, we’re going to get a big brunch, and I’m learning about those personal space issues of his.”

“Greg.”

“Snuck up on me when I was in there, but he wasn’t trying anything. Pretty, I dunno, European, doesn’t care about changing and showering. Locker room atmosphere. But I’m setting boundaries for him. He’s got to learn about this.”

“Greg…”

“I have socks, shirts, underwear, I hope it’ll fit, but he’s just a little bigger than me when I was his age. Sweatpants are a blessing, though, y’know? Anyway, I don’t think he has any allergies but I looked up how to do the emergency injections, and St. Joseph’s is right down the way, I’ve got it marked.”

“Greg!”

She wasn’t listening. Greg had to force his fingers to stop gripping his phone before it broke. They needed some form of communication, after all. Navigation could be done with maps, and he had a first aid kit as always, plus a fire blanket and extinguisher for the van. He was prepared, and Dr. Maheswaran wasn’t listening. But she was just doing her job. Despite his misgivings, Greg had to accept that. He had to trust her in some capacity, or he wouldn’t be calling her. Right?

“When Rosa brought Stephen over to the beach,” Priyanka muttered, “she mentioned that their family didn’t have… They think the laws don’t apply to them. I don’t know exactly what she meant by that, but it extends to Stephen’s safety, absolutely, and I worry that it’ll extend to you as well.”

“So they won’t listen to cops. That doesn’t matter when we’re doing everything to get Stephen to a safe place in life. I…I’m willing to do whatever it takes.”

“So are they.”

The threat lingered in the air until Greg realized how much of a threat it was. That didn’t make sense, entirely. Without transportation and money and resources, there was no way that these allmothers would be able to track him down and hurt him. Greg’s hand tightened in a fist. He was not a violent person, but if they were going to fight him for Stephen tooth and nail, maybe he would have to learn. No. That just wasn’t possible, and it just wasn’t reasonable.

“They don’t know where we are right now. Only way they would find out is if I told you, and you told them,” Greg said. “Would you do that, Priyanka?”

A breath broke the silence on the other side of the phone.

“Priyanka.”

“I’m not asking, Greg. You need to bring Stephen back.”

“I will. Okay? I will.”

“You need—”

Greg hung up. He pulled the phone away from his face to stare briefly at the PM icon before it faded into his call history. One missed call had come from Connie, no voicemail. There was another, but he had remembered that. It was for Stephen’s sake, and it was what had woken Greg up briefly earlier this morning. The boy would have wanted to talk to Connie, but he would have been too tired. And she would have been worried, wondering what they were doing together. They could talk later, though, once they had gotten back from their venue, once Stephen was ready to gush about what a wonderful time he had had with breakfast and music and seeing the world with someone who loved him.

Greg didn’t question it. His love was absolutely selfish in a way. The things he didn’t know and could never know about Stephen far outweighed what he understood on the surface. It felt in a way that Stephen was a blank slate. What did he know? Stephen had lost his parents long ago. He had nightmares about them. He was a musician, or at least he understood how music worked better than Greg could have ever guessed. He loved pizza. He lived with people who weren’t related to him off the grid. They didn’t trust anyone. He had amazing, steely eyes unlike anything Greg had seen. He loved hugs. He was unashamed. He was uncertain.

After getting a change of clothes for Stephen, Greg pulled on a shirt himself before opening up the van again. The drizzle was coming in small waves now, not quite raining but needling down all the same.

“Uh—oh, crud—”

Stephen still needed a towel. How could Greg have forgotten? He turned himself around and grabbed the dry, slightly gritty towel from the pile before wrapping up the clothes. Hopefully Stephen didn’t mind being a little damp, but nobody really wanted that, certainly not in the car ride. They were on a mission now. Greg pushed the door open and tossed his sandals to the ground before sliding in. As soon as he stood up, he looked out, and there was Stephen.

He had finished his shower, apparently. He was still soaking wet, but that might have been because of the rain. Greg closed the van door slowly, not quite shutting it. Stephen hadn’t noticed him yet. The boy held the crumpled sweatshirt in his hands. His torso was covered in a veil of water; it looked like he had been preserved in glass.

Of course, the sweatpants were soaked. It didn’t seem to matter. Greg quietly opened the van and threw the towel and clean clothes in. Stephen could change there. The drizzle wasn’t as cold now, not like how it had been earlier. The sun was still fighting to get through, glimmering off the trees around them, sending waves of pure white rippling where the droplets battered the grass. Stephen’s hair ate the light, and even as he crept closer, Greg couldn’t tell whether the base was more brown or more raven. The man took a shuddering breath.

He hated to think it, but Stephen didn’t seem human in the moment, not with his stillness, his odd beauty, his placement in the world. He reminded Greg of a deer, but without the skittish nature, almost more like a young wolf or bison. Stephen’s face was tilted up, and his eyes were closed. He was barely breathing. It was as if he was meditating. Perhaps it was a form of meditation, something he practiced at home, a way to get through the day. His bare feet had made a trail in the grass where he had stumbled outwards. Where was the fear that usually followed him down to the car wash? Greg closed his mouth. He hadn’t known it had fallen open until he forced himself to swallow.

“Stephen.”

The boy turned his head slowly and opened one eye. His smile broke the path of a water drop that was falling down his face. Greg’s feet prickled with the iciness of the grass as he stepped up and took the sweatshirt from Stephen’s hands. With tiny, damp arms, Stephen hugged Greg and sighed deeply, almost a purr. He didn’t have to ask what they were doing. He didn’t even know. Had he ever eaten out before? Greg hugged the boy tightly to him and rocked gently. There was no reason he couldn’t adapt to this. Stephen could learn at home. This could be a home, perhaps, a little place in the van where Greg could put some books and a ukulele and a stack of fresh laundry and some snacks. They could be happy. Greg knew he was crying, but Stephen didn’t, and he had a moment until the hug broke.

Planning was impossible. The only thing Greg knew for sure was that he would keep Stephen away from that beach for as long as he could. Maybe he could put them on the phone, and Stephen could say himself that he wanted to stay. The drizzle began to let up. It was only a morning storm, nothing more, nothing that could change anything, nothing that could stop them. Greg gulped and turned his head upwards to the dissipating clouds. Stephen had felt something out here in the rain. All the shelter was here in his father’s arms.

“Let’s get you dry, little man,” Greg said. His voice felt steady. “Get yourself changed in the back. I’ll pick out some tunes for the road.”

❖