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Niamh Agreste was the happiest woman Nathalie Sancoeur had ever met. She positively beamed as Gabriel introduced her to Nathalie, and she immediately threw her arms around the woman. “Oh, I'm so glad you're here!” Niamh gushed, hugging Nathalie to her as tightly as her giant belly would allow. “I've been after Gabriel to get a good assistant for months, what with the baby coming and everything, but you're the first one that's met his standards.”
“Oh, um,” Nathalie was not particularly used to or comfortable with being touched, but she didn't want to upset her employer's wife on her first day, “it’s my honor to work for your husband, Mrs. Agreste.”
“Oh please, Nathalie, use my first name!” Niamh insisted, still not releasing her. “I just know we’re going to be friends.”
“Of course…” Nathalie hesitated, and shot her boss a helpless look before she could stop herself.
“It's pronounced ‘Neev’,” he said dryly.
“Of course, I'm so sorry-” Niamh cut her off with a laugh.
“Don't worry, nobody gets it right the first time. That's Celtic names for you, I'm afraid.” Niamh finally released Nathalie, who nodded.
“Yes, my grandfather’s family was Irish actually, so I'm a bit familiar with the more… creative pronunciations.”
“Oh!” Niamh’s green eyes lit up. “We have a common ancestry! Gabriel, did you know?”
“Shockingly, Miss Sancoeur’s ancestral lineage did not come up in the interview process. I assure you she's been hired for her merits alone.”
Niamh laughed as she looked at Nathalie. “Isn't he incorrigible?”
~~~
Nathalie never would have said anything about it, because working for Gabriel Agreste was the opportunity of a lifetime as far as she was concerned, but she’d been a little worried to find out his wife was eight months pregnant. She’d heard horror stories, after all, of personal assistants turned glorified babysitter, and Nathalie had never reacted to babies the way other women did. Her concern grew when Niamh mentioned offhand that they had no plans to hire a nanny. With people this rich, Nathalie had been expecting a fleet of them. But, as it turned out, she needn’t have worried.
Nathalie had never seen a woman dote on a baby like Niamh did on Adrien. The woman barely let the infant out of her sight for an instant. She nursed him, she changed him, she rocked him to sleep. It exhausted Nathalie just to watch, but Niamh couldn’t have been happier. She never seemed frazzled, she never spoke of wanting a moment to herself. It was downright unnatural, Nathalie felt.
The infant was unusual, too. Nathalie hadn’t spent much time around babies, but she knew they were supposed to cry. Adrien laughed. On the very rare occasion that Niamh wasn’t holding him, if Niamh needed to fetch something and asked Nathalie to hold him for a moment, only then might Adrien grow fussy, but he always quieted immediately once Niamh took him back.
Niamh sang to him constantly, too. The lullabies she knew were all in a different language, Nathalie never understood a word of them, but they had a powerful effect all the same. When Niamh was singing Adrien to sleep, Nathalie could feel her own eyelids grow heavy. When she was singing to entertain him, Nathalie felt her own heart lighten. It got to the point where Nathalie found herself making excuses to be closer to the woman whenever she sang. It embarrassed her, when she realized she was doing it, but she didn’t stop. Nathalie was drawn in despite herself.
One afternoon, the sound of her singing to Adrien out back drifted through the house. Nathalie made her way to the window of the office, opened it, and looked out. Adrien’s laughter carried up, and Nathalie squinted down at them, not sure if she could believe her own eyes. Perched on the top of Adrien’s bassinette were two birds, and they seemed to be listening to Niamh as closely as Adrien was.
Well, if the birds can’t resist her, Nathalie thought to herself wryly, I suppose I didn’t really have a chance.
~~~
It was many years before Nathalie began to notice the faraway look that would come into Niamh’s eyes. It wasn’t until Adrien was much older. Old enough to run ahead of her. Niamh was still happy around him, the two of them still had a deep bond, but sometimes. Sometimes Adrien would be playing on his own, and Niamh’s gaze would turn from him. She’d gaze at the sky, or the Seine. She’d sigh, and in those moments Nathalie swore the woman’s eyes got lighter. Normally they were a dark olive, but whenever Niamh got that faraway look in her eyes they seemed to be a light sea green.
One afternoon, when Mr. Agreste was away on business and Nathalie was running things for him in Paris, Nathalie came into his home office to drop off a document and found his wife looking through one of its drawers. Niamh looked up guiltily when Nathalie entered, as though Nathalie had caught her somewhere she oughtn’t be. “Nathalie!” Niamh put a hand to her heart. “You startled me.”
“I’m sorry,” Nathalie apologized immediately. “Is there anything I can help you with?”
Niamh looked down at the desk drawer for a moment before shutting it decisively. “No,” she said, “there’s nothing.”
“I know where everything is in this office, I’m sure I can help you find-”
“It’s not here.”
Nathalie raised an eyebrow. “What isn’t?”
Niamh hesitated. “I… I lost a pair of earrings. I thought they might have fallen off, and perhaps Gabriel or one of the cleaning women found them on the carpet and put them in a drawer for safekeeping. But they’re not here.”
Nathalie was one hundred percent convinced the woman was lying, but she saw no reason to acknowledge this. “I see,” Nathalie said. “What do they look like?” Niamh seemed confused by the question. “I’ll keep an eye out and let you know if I find them.”
“Oh… oh, of course. They were,” Niamh frowned for a second, as though she couldn’t remember, “diamond studs.”
Nathalie nodded. “I haven’t seen them, but I’ll look.”
“Don't trouble yourself,” Niamh said. “I don't need them. I don’t. Really. I'm fine without them.” She seemed to be mostly talking to herself at this point, and Nathalie left without another word.
A few days later, when her boss had returned, Nathalie remembered the incident, and she was seized with a sudden curiosity. “Oh, Mr. Agreste,” she said, “did your wife ever find those earrings she misplaced?”
“Hmm?” He didn’t look up from his work. “What earrings?”
“She was looking for them a couple of days ago? She seemed very focused on finding them.”
Gabriel Agreste went very still, and he was quiet for a few seconds. When he spoke, it was with the same affected casualness he used when dealing with important business partners, and he still didn’t meet Nathalie’s eyes. “Oh, yes,” he said. “Yes, she did.”
He knew Niamh hadn't lost any earrings, then. “The sapphire drop ones?” Nathalie asked, just to confirm.
“Yes, yes, the sapphire ones, she found them. There’s no need for you to keep worrying about them.”
“I’m glad to hear it,” Nathalie replied smoothly. “Thank you for letting me know.”
So whatever Niamh has been looking for-not earrings, obviously-Gabriel knew about it, and it scared him. Niamh wanted to keep it from Gabriel, and Gabriel wanted to keep it from Nathalie.
Curious.
~~~
When Nathalie was a girl, her grandfather warned her about the Fair Folk. “Be careful not to fall in love with any beautiful Irish boys, Nattie,” he’d told her, with a glint in his eye. Nathalie had been too polite to inform him that falling in love with any boys whatsoever would not be a problem. “They’ve green eyes and they can charm the birds right out of the trees. You ever meet a boy like that, Nattie, you run for the hills because he’ll break your heart six ways before sunrise.”
He didn’t warn her about selkies specifically, but Nathalie had looked up the myths when she was a little older. Seal wives, they were called. They shed their skins and became beautiful women, bewitching fishermen who would hide their skins away to keep them on land. Bound to them as mortal wives until they discovered what had been stolen from them. Then they’d be gone forever, leaving behind husbands and children who spent the rest of their lives gazing at the sea, never able to fill the emptiness of their absence.
Nathalie looked up plenty of myths, but she always liked the Irish ones best. They were sad and beautiful and somehow they fit Nathalie’s world in a way other mythologies did not. She hadn’t thought of them in years, but they must have buried themselves somewhere in her heart because one day it all just clicked together for her. It was almost a year later, and her boss was on yet another business trip. Nathalie had again walked in on Niamh digging through some random drawer in a random room of the mansion, and the thought simply popped into Nathalie’s head: She’s looking for her sealskin.
Once Nathalie saw it, she couldn’t unsee it.
Irish, green eyes, sharp features, a faraway look. Charming the birds from the trees. Always searching for something whenever her husband was absent.
Inhumanly beautiful.
~~~
Nathalie kept her conclusions to herself for months, until another business trip came and once again she heard rustling, more frantic than usual, this time coming from one of the random guest bedrooms in the east wing. Nathalie didn’t bother to knock before entering.
The room was a complete mess. Every drawer had been pulled out and overturned, the curtains had been pulled down, the cushions of the pillows pulled out, stripped of their covers and thrown aside. Niamh’s hair was askew and she was in the middle of digging through a hope chest when Nathalie entered. “Oh! Nathalie! I… I lost my…” She locked eyes with Nathalie for a moment, and then all the energy seemed to go out of Niamh all at once. Her legs crumpled under her as she sunk to the floor sobbing, incapable of finishing the lie.
Nathalie had never in her life comforted a crying person before. She wasn't at all sure where to start. But she gently approached Niamh, lowered herself to the ground so she was sitting next to the woman on the floor, and put an arm around her shoulders. Niamh kept sobbing, and she clung to Nathalie like a shipwrecked sailor clinging to a piece of flotsam. It was a while before she quieted down.
“He hid it, didn't he,” Nathalie said, not really asking. Niamh nodded, her head still buried in Nathalie’s shoulder. “Do you hate him?”
“No,” Niamh whispered.
“I would. I do. How could he do something like that to you?”
Niamh sighed. “I told him to.”
“What?”
“He-” Niamh’s voice caught in her throat. “Oh, we were so in love when we met, Nathalie! It was so beautiful, it really was. He was so young. It feels like lifetimes ago. I warned him, I told him I could only spend the night, that he wouldn't see me for seven years after if he didn't hide my skin before I woke up. But he didn't believe me, he knew I loved him, he was sure I'd stay.” Niamh sighed. “But that's just not how it works.”
“Oh,” Nathalie said. They’ll break your heart before dawn, her grandfather had warned her.
“He didn't make the same mistake the second time,” Niamh continued. “He hid my skin while I slept and, oh, I was so happy Nathalie, for so long. You remember, don't you?”
Nathalie nodded. “You were very happy for a long time,” she agreed. “What happened?”
Niamh shrugged. “It wasn't enough to make me belong here. Gabriel, Adrien, all this… I wish it had been but it wasn't. I just want to go home, Nathalie.” Her voice was so desperate, so raw. Nathalie pulled the woman closer without realizing.
“Why doesn't he give it back, now that you're unhappy?” Nathalie asked.
“Adrien,” Niamh said. “He says he'll return it when Adrien’s eighteen. I understand, he lost his parents when he was young, he doesn't want Adrien to go through that, too. I don't want him to go through it either, but… oh, Nathalie, I don't think I can make it that long. I'm dying every day on land.”
“If he wanted a mother who stays,” Nathalie said, her voice filled with a cold fury, “he shouldn't have fallen in love with a fae.”
“No mortal should fall in love with a fae,” Niamh said sadly. “We never bring your kind anything but sadness in the end.”
Nathalie looked into Niamh’s eyes. They were light, as though she'd wept the color right out of them. “I suppose it's not really optional,” Nathalie whispered. “Falling in love.”
Niamh blinked. “No,” she agreed, meeting Nathalie’s gaze, “not for my kind, either.”
There must have been something hypnotic in Niamh’s eyes, because one second Nathalie was looking into them and the next they were kissing, and Nathalie had no memory whatsoever of the transition.
Niamh broke away after a few moments, before moving to kiss Nathalie’s neck. She kept one hand on the floor for balance, but the other reached up, caressed Nathalie’s cheek, her shoulder, before drifting down and beginning to undo the buttons of Nathalie’s blouse one by one. Nathalie tried to steady her breathing as Niamh slid a hand along her waist, she was having trouble thinking clearly, she’d never felt so disoriented.
“Niamh,” she whispered, “we… we can’t-”
“Oh, Nathalie, Nathalie,” Niamh whispered into her neck, trailing her fingers along Nathalie’s bared collarbone, “you’re so beautiful, you have the sea inside you, did you know that? You’re all storms and life beneath the surface.” She leaned down and began to kiss along where her fingers had been, her hair brushing along Nathalie’s exposed torso as she went. Then Niamh was standing suddenly, pulling Nathalie up with her. She took a few steps backwards, towards the bed, and then she was falling back onto it, never letting go of Nathalie. And Nathalie was still falling, even after they landed, lying next to each other on the bed. She was still falling as she gazed into Niamh’s eyes, reached for her, ran her fingers through the woman’s hair, kissed her everywhere.
Nathalie was falling, Nathalie was drowning, and nothing had ever felt more right.
~~~
“Your schedule for the day, sir.”
“Thank you, Nathalie.” Nathalie’s boss looked over the itinerary for a few minutes before speaking. “I understand you learned a few things about my family while I was away last week.”
Nathalie kept her face a mask. “Sir?”
“Niamh,” Gabriel said, “has never been good at keeping secrets. Particularly her own. I asked her once, if that was a trait common to all selkies or unique to her, but I didn't get much of an answer.”
Nathalie paled. “I see.”
Gabriel placed the schedule on his desk and leaned back in his chair, looking up at Nathalie. “You must have a very low opinion of me,” he said matter-of-factly.
For a split second, Nathalie wondered to herself if she could reason with the man. She quickly dismissed the thought. If Niamh couldn't move him, there was no way Nathalie could.
“Not at all, sir,” she lied easily. “I understand from Niamh that you are simply following her own instructions.”
A little bit of the tension in Gabriel’s shoulders eased. “That's right,” he said. “I'm very pleased you understand.”
“Is that all, sir?”
“No.” Gabriel paused. “There's the matter of what occurred between the two of you. What came after the conversation.”
Nathalie’s cheeks turned slightly pink. “I see.” She closed her eyes for a moment, composing herself. “Should I gather my things and leave now, or would you like me to stay long enough to train a replacement?” Gabriel narrowed his eyes, confused. “I'm fired, aren't I?”
“God, no. What on Earth gave you that idea?”
“I…” It took real effort on Nathalie’s part to keep from stammering. “Well, I believe it's the standard consequence, sir, for sleeping with the wife of one’s employer.”
Gabriel raised an eyebrow. “Not a single thing about this situation is standard, Nathalie.” He leaned forward, interlocking his fingers as he did so. “Niamh is unhappy. It's getting worse. I'm not enough for her, not anymore. If you are what makes Niamh’s stay here bearable… well, I won't pretend to be happy about it, and I'd rather not hear the details if it’s all the same to you, but if you can ease Niamh’s burden you absolutely must do so.”
Nathalie nodded slowly. “Understood, sir.”
“She can’t be alone anymore,” he continued. “From now on, whenever I need to be away, you will stay here. Be with her every hour of the day.” Nathalie nodded. “She doesn't look for it when I'm home. You only need to distract her when I'm away. Keep her from looking, Nathalie.”
“Of course, sir.” Nathalie hesitated for half a second, unsure if she was tipping her hand or not. “Is there anywhere in particular I should keep her from looking?”
“Just keep her from looking at all,” Gabriel said impatiently.
Nathalie gave up. “Of course, sir.”
~~~
Another few months, another business trip. Niamh was out with Adrien when Gabriel departed, and Nathalie was in the middle of work when she returned. Nathalie continued working, but she kept an eye and an ear out for the usual signs. It wasn't more than a few hours before Niamh disappeared. Nathalie pulled out a folder from her satchel and set off in search of her.
She found Niamh in a small upstairs library, searching for hidden compartments behind the shelves, tossing the books to the floor as she went. Unlike the previous times, she didn't jump when Nathalie caught her. “Oh. Nathalie. Here to distract me?” Niamh smiled, as though she'd told a joke, but the smile didn't reach her eyes.
In response, Nathalie crossed the room to a small desk, pulled out the copies she'd made earlier that day, and began laying them out. Niamh’s curiosity quickly got the better of her and she walked over. “What are those?”
“Floor plans for the mansion. Your search methods are woefully lacking, Niamh. Do you just pick a random room to tear apart every time he leaves? Do you even remember where you've looked and where you haven't yet searched?”
Niamh’s eyes grew wide. “You… you're going to help me look?”
“Of course I am,” Nathalie replied.
“Oh!” Niamh threw her arms around Nathalie and hugged her tightly.
“You're not going to tell your husband everything again, are you?” Nathalie asked. “Because if so, I don't imagine he’ll let me stay once he comes back.”
Niamh bit her lip. “I can't lie to him,” she said.
“I thought the fae were all tricksters.”
“We are,” Niamh agreed, “but we don't lie outright. Mortals always see right through it.”
“So what are you going to tell him,” Nathalie asked, “when he asks what you did while he was gone?”
In response, Niamh kissed Nathalie, and for a brief, blissful few seconds Nathalie forgot the question entirely. “I’ll tell him I kissed you here,” Niamh whispered, before kissing Nathalie’s cheek, “and here.” She moved to kiss Nathalie’s neck. “And here,” Niamh murmured, “and here,” she kissed Nathalie’s shoulder, “and he’ll stop asking questions.”
~~~
“What about this room? Have you searched this one yet?” Nathalie asked.
Niamh walked to the center and slowly turned around, examining it. “I'm not sure,” she finally said.
Nathalie wrote a question mark over the room on the floor plan. “Alright. Well come back to it once we've searched the rooms we know you haven't looked in yet.” They made their way to the next room. “This one?”
Niamh nodded. “Yes, I've looked in here already.” Nathalie scrawled a big X over it.
A few rooms later, a thought occurred to Nathalie. “What if it isn't in the house at all?” she asked. “What if he bought a random safety deposit box halfway around the world?”
“It doesn't work like that,” Niamh said. “It's in the house somewhere. I'm certain of it.”
Nathalie nodded. “What if he moves it every time he leaves? What if he hides it in a room you've already searched?”
Niamh paused to consider this. “It's possible,” she finally said. Nathalie sighed.
“Well, we’ll proceed as though he doesn't for now,” she said, “and if we search every room without finding it we’ll re-evaluate.” Niamh didn't respond, she had that faraway look again, so Nathalie took her hand. “We’ll find it, Niamh, I promise.”
~~~
They didn't find it. Not during that business trip, or the next one, or the next. They searched every room twice over during the next few years, to no avail.
For a time, Nathalie thought it might be enough for Niamh that she had a friend, a lover, helping her search. Niamh seemed far less agitated, far less frantic, when searching alongside Nathalie. And she stole away to Nathalie’s bed every night Gabriel was away, without fail. She never seemed discontent then, when they were together like that. But after, when they were wrapped up in one another and falling asleep, Niamh would sigh and gaze out the window. Nathalie woke up to find tears on Niamh’s face more often than not after a while, and she could only kiss so many of them away.
“How is she?” Gabriel asked Nathalie one afternoon, upon returning from his latest trip. He still didn't suspect a thing, even after all this time, for all the good it did them.
“Getting worse,” Nathalie replied.
Gabriel paled. “Has she started looking again?”
Nathalie briefly considered how much of the truth she needed to tell to avoid raising suspicion. “Sometimes, sir,” she said. “I can’t be with her every second, after all. I’ve caught her once or twice, beginning to search. I… I don’t know if she’s ever come close to finding it, of course, since I don’t know where-”
“I assure you, she hasn’t come close,” Gabriel interrupted confidently. “You don’t need to worry about her actually finding it. But…” He frowned. “She wouldn’t look for it if she was happy. I thought you made her happy.”
Nathalie shrugged. “I make her less unhappy, perhaps. There's only one thing that will make her truly happy, sir, and it's not either of us. It's the sea.”
Gabriel sighed and closed his eyes. “Very well,” he said, and for a brief instant hope caught in Nathalie’s chest, though it was quickly extinguished. “Begin planning a family trip.”
Nathalie blinked. “A trip, sir?”
“As soon as possible. Rent a house on the seaside for all of us. A month, I think. It will be awkward, running the company from there instead of Paris, but I'm sure I'll manage.”
For a moment, Nathalie was speechless. “Are you sure that isn’t cruel, sir?”
Gabriel narrowed his eyes in confusion, as though the possibility honestly hadn’t occurred to him. He shrugged. “Run it by Niamh first,” he said. “If she doesn’t like the idea, that will be the end of it. If she does, I want us all there by the end of the week. Understood?”
Nathalie nodded. “Of course, sir.”
~~~
“Oh, yes,” Niamh breathed, “Yes, yes, thank you, Nathalie!” She hugged Nathalie and kissed her cheek.
“It wasn’t my idea,” Nathalie said, annoyed. “I’d hate it if it were me. Won’t it be agony for you?”
“Oh, certainly,” Niamh agreed, beaming. “That doesn’t matter, though.”
Niamh practically flew from the car the moment it parked in the driveway of the little cottage Nathalie had personally selected. She ran around the back, the rest of her family following behind, and her laughter carried back to them in the breeze. She kicked off her shoes and ran straight for the waves, paying no attention to the way the salt water soaked the hem of her skirt. After a moment Adrien ran after her, joining her in the water. Niamh hugged him as the waves crashed at their feet and kissed the top of his head.
Gabriel and Nathalie held back, watching from a distance. “Will it be enough?” Gabriel finally asked, after a few minutes of silent observation.
Nathalie shrugged. It was getting more and more difficult to mask her loathing of the man. “Perhaps, sir,” she said.
Nathalie awoke in the middle of the night, a few days later. She rose, made her way to the bedroom window, and looked out. It wasn't difficult to find Niamh in the dark, sitting on the bench that faced the sea. She was staring at her home, unmoving, but the wind and the moonlight caught in her hair and lit it up like a lighthouse beacon. Nathalie tore herself away from the window, pulled her coat out of her closet, and made her way outside.
“Niamh,” she whispered as she approached. She sat down beside the woman.
“Nathalie.”
“Are you alright?”
Niamh nodded. “I was just thinking about my daughter.”
“You have a daughter?” Nathalie asked, not bothering to keep the shock out of her voice.
“Had. It was a very long time ago. I haven't seen her in over a hundred years. She must have died by now.”
Nathalie blinked. “How old are you?” she asked. Niamh laughed.
“I don't know,” she said. “I barely understand the question.” Niamh scanned the waves. “I used to come back to see her. We played in the waves together. It probably wasn't enough, but it was all I could give her. She was much younger than Adrien, when I found where her father had hidden my skin. He wasn't as good at hiding it as Gabriel is.” Niamh sighed and leaned her head on Nathalie’s shoulder. Nathalie wrapped an arm around her, breathed in the scent of Niamh’s hair, kissed her gently, before resting her head atop Niamh’s and gazing out at the sea as well.
~~~
“Sir, I’ve just been informed that there’s been a break in the water main back at the manor,” Nathalie informed her boss at breakfast the next morning. “There’s extensive flooding. I think it would be best if I drove back to Paris to oversee the repairs personally.”
“You’re leaving?” Niamh asked, dismayed. Gabriel glanced at his wife before looking back at Nathalie.
“Is that necessary?” he asked. “Couldn’t you handle it over the phone?”
“I really don’t think so, sir. Not after the conversation I had with them this morning.” Nathalie looked at Niamh. “It should only be a day or two at most.”
“Well, alright,” Gabriel said, annoyed. “If you think that’s best.”
“I do, sir. I’ve already taken the liberty of packing an overnight bag, I’ll be leaving at once.”
“Very well.”
“Hurry back,” Niamh added, and Nathalie nodded at her.
“I will,” Nathalie promised.
“Goodbye, Nathalie!” Adrien called after her as she left. “Drive safe!” Nathalie had felt no guilt whatsoever during her lie, but she felt a twinge of remorse now at the boy’s well-wishes. Just a small one, though. Not nearly enough to deter her in her mission.
Nathalie thought hard during her drive back. Her suspicions, vague and unformed last night, began to clear and focus in her head.
Gabriel Agreste was not a man who took risks.
It had been easy for Nathalie and Niamh to lose sight of that. If he did move the skin every time he left, their task seemed almost impossible. There were almost a hundred rooms in the manor, and Nathalie and Niamh never managed to get through more than a handful per business trip. Their odds of success were at most five percent, and so they despaired.
For some reason it had only just occurred to Nathalie that Gabriel Agreste was also perfectly capable of doing this math. If he thought there was even a five percent chance his wife wouldn’t be home when he returned from a business trip, he would not take business trips. It was as simple as that.
Which meant the skin wasn’t in any of the hundred rooms.
Niamh was convinced the skin was in the house somewhere, and Nathalie had learned over the years not to bother questioning this. If Niamh said “that’s just how it works”, then that’s how it worked. If she said the skin had to be in the house, then it was in the house.
But Gabriel Agreste had personally had that house built, years before he and Niamh were reunited. He’d spared no expense, and he’d built it knowing that one day he’d be hiding a sealskin somewhere within its walls. Nathalie had wondered more than once over the years if he’d built such an ostentatious home just to make it near impossible to search. For the first time now, it occurred to her that he might have done more than that. He might have built a secret room, inaccessible by ordinary means. A room that didn’t show up on the official floor plan at all.
When she finally arrived back at the mansion Nathalie fetched her floor plans. They were the same ones she'd printed years ago, now worn, covered with Xs and check marks and notes she'd made during their years of searching. Once more, Nathalie examined the plans carefully. Then she brought them outside and carefully began to study the mansion. She circled around it slowly, looking back at her printouts frequently, matching each window to each room on the page.
And there it was.
Above the top floor, around the back. A circular window, corresponding to a room that did not exist. A room with a domed ceiling, clearly not connected to the rest of the house’s attic space. Nathalie triple-checked, and then she studied the area below it, making sure she could find it once she was inside.
Right below the room was a hallway, and several spare rooms. Nathalie and Niamh had been over those rooms several times, and they’d checked them quite thoroughly for any secret spaces. But now Nathalie examined the hallway, studied the floor plan, pulled out her measuring tape and checked everything. She easily found the spot that didn’t fit, the place along the wall between two of the rooms, the spot that was a full meter wider than it should have been.
Nathalie ran her fingers along the wall, then held her ear up to it and knocked. She stepped back, examining the spot. Then she cast her eyes around, and started experimentally pulling and prodding everything, every sconce, every nail, every knot in the wood. After a few minutes of this she leaned against the wall in defeat. She had no idea what might trigger the entrance to reveal itself. For all she knew, it wouldn’t open unless she sang Danny Boy backwards in C-minor. She let out an aggravated sigh before making her way back downstairs. Nathalie had always preferred the elegant solution over brute force, but she knew when brute force was called for.
Twenty minutes later, she returned with an axe.
Ten minutes after that, she was looking at a stairway through a doorway of splintered wood.
Careful not to hurt herself, Nathalie slowly made her way through the opening she’d created and started to climb the stairs.
The room above was open, dark, and almost completely empty. The only source of light was the large, circular window that Nathalie had observed outside. Nathalie stood at its center for a moment. No lights, no furniture. Nothing except a small chest pressed against the outer edge of the circular room, hidden deep in the shadows. Bracing herself, Nathalie made her way over to it and knelt down.
Locked. Of course.
Rolling her eyes, Nathalie reached up and grabbed one of her bobby pins before efficiently picking the lock. She took a deep breath before opening it.
For a moment, all Nathalie could do was stare. Then-slowly, reverently-she reached out a hand and gently touched the skin. It was warm and soft and so obviously Niamh’s. Nathalie gingerly slid her hands below the folded skin and lifted it up, pressed it to her cheek for a moment. It smelled like the salt air in Niamh’s hair.
Nathalie was suddenly struck with an overwhelming desire to hide the skin herself, to make Niamh hers completely. Sighing, she shook the impulse off, stood, and made her way back downstairs.
~~~
When Nathalie returned to the seaside cottage, she could see Gabriel and Adrien out back, reading on the porch. She made her way to the master bedroom, and saw Niamh leaning at the open window, gazing at the sea. She turned to Nathalie as Nathalie entered, and her face lit up. “You’re back!” She hurried over and kissed Nathalie passionately. Nathalie kissed her back, ran a hand through Niamh’s hair, wishing desperately that Niamh might never stop kissing her, might never give her the opening to tell Niamh what she’d found. But after a while Niamh broke the kiss off and hugged Nathalie. “I missed you,” she whispered.
Nathalie took a breath. “I found it,” she whispered back.
Niamh went very still. “Found what?” she asked, though it was obvious she knew. In response, Nathalie picked up the overnight bag she’d carried in with her and handed it to Niamh. Slowly, Niamh carried it over to the bed, dropped it, stared at it a moment before unzipping it and looking inside. Tears immediately began to fall from her eyes, and she covered her mouth with her hand in shock. “How… how… oh, Nathalie!” Now Niamh was openly weeping, and she grabbed the skin before running back to Nathalie and throwing her arms around the woman. “You’re a miracle, Nathalie, you-” she kissed Nathalie again, she covered Nathalie’s face in grateful kisses, put a hand to Nathalie’s cheek and pulled her close. “Watch over Adrien,” Niamh whispered.
“I will,” Nathalie promised. Nodding, Niamh kissed her one more time before running out the door.
Nathalie exhaled slowly once Niamh was gone. She briefly considered going to the window, but held herself back. She didn’t know if she could stand to watch Niamh run into the waves. Instead she sat on the edge of the bed, willed her heartbeat to slow, wondered if she’d ever see Niamh again. Wondered if she’d ever in her life stop looking to the waves.
Finally, Nathalie worked up the nerve to go to the window. She leaned out and scanned the waves. In the distance, she thought she saw what she was looking for, but it wasn’t until she overheard Adrien that she was sure.
“Is that a seal?” he asked his father, looking to the sea. Gabriel’s head shot up, he looked to the ocean and his gaze quickly locked onto the distant figure. He looked back at his bedroom window, to the last place he’d seen his wife, and saw Nathalie there instead. She looked back at him, and their eyes locked. In an instant, everything there was to say passed between them without a word.
They should have hated each other. Each had done something the other found unforgivable. But somehow, now that Niamh was gone, they understood one another. They’d both loved her so, and they’d each acted in accordance with that love.
In unison, they both looked back to the sea and watched silently, until the woman they loved disappeared in the waves.