Original Stories Fan Fiction ❯ Secret of the Seal skin ❯ Chapter five: Crimson tide ( Chapter 5 )

[ Y - Young Adult: Not suitable for readers under 16 ]

The Secret of the Seal Skin

What would happen if an old myth, a fairytale often told by the fire, came true? After times full of misery Rowan returns to the Orkney Islands after the death
of her father, in hope to find peace for something she thinks she could not be forgiven for. In the end however, she finds quite something else in a mysterious man,
passionated by the sea, and by her?

DISCLAIMER: All the characters in this story are mine, and mine completly, meaning that I was the one who created them.
They are my property and cannot be used in other stories with my consent.

---

"We used to swim the same moonlight waters,
Oceans away from the wakeful day."
~ Nightwish, Ghost Love Score


---
The new and revised version of chapter five. I'm happier with the way this one turned out. It gives me more time to work some things out.
Please review! They make me happy and encourage me to carry on! XD

No review = no new chapter...

*blackmails readers* mwahaha!
---

Chapter five: Crimson tide

The wind had stopped howling. That was the first thing she noticed when she awoke from a deep, dreamless sleep. She was lying alone in her bed, that was the second
thing she noticed.
The storm had ended, leaving an almost serence silence as Rowan sat up in the bed, looking around, searching for something that had been in her bed the very night.
Only to find the little living room completly empty. There was no sound, no movement indicating there was someone in the house.
It was utterly, and completly silent.

The first thing she did was jumping out of her bed, her warm feet landing on the cold stone floor. She flinched for a moment, but continued racing through the living room
to a far corner of the room, grabbing an old leather backpack which she had laid on one of the many shelves. Opening it quickly she quickly sought three things;
Het wallet, which was present, her ID, which was also there, and her mobile phone. The three most important things which she had taken along were still there. Of
course, there was no electricity in the old little house so her mobile phone was empty; something she thought as incredibly stupid now since a complete stranger
had suddenly knocked on her door, but things simply weren't different.
She had left her mercedes in one of the bigger towns of Eday, having walked to here by foot, so her car wasn't so stolen either.

So if everything was still here, where was the mysterious man she had saved last night? Everything was still here, everything seemed untouched, as if nothing had
happened. She frowned, placing the backpack back on the shelf before she quickly found her warm boots. It was then that she noticed the hearth burning softly,
spreading a satisfying warmth through the living room. Now that she thought about it, the living had never been so warm in the morning.
She looked at the hearth, studying it closely, and noticed that small patches of heather had been added to the fire.
Rowan did not know how to burn heather, she had burned the whole heap which had lain besides the house completly the very first night.
It could only mean that her strange visitor, Cian, had helped the fire a little to burn better.

She stared into the flames, remembering more and more of last night. She had given him clothes, they had eaten some soup, and they had slept. She remembered the
membrane between his fingers the moment he had taken the plate from her, his strange brown eyes and well... his nakedness.
It was odd, and she felt as if she had stumbled upon a little fairytale of her own. Cian, he was a strange man, and somehow he did not seem quite... human.
She shook her head, laughing at herself. She hadn't changed a bit since she was a little girl, she still wanted to live in fairytales. Of course, she couldn't explain why
he had membranes between his fingers, but she remembered an illness which caused membranes between the fingers, making them looked webbed.
It seemed of course more logical to her that he, Cian, was suffering from what she had seen on television than too think that he was indeed, something... mythical.

She shook her head, laughing at herself because of her own imagination and looked out of the window, pondering about something else.
If Cian had awoken before her, then where had he gone too?
She glanced into the sink, and counted two plates. At least she had some evidence that there had been someone here from last night. The rocking chair still stood
by the fire, and the bed looked as if it had been slept in by two persons.
Well, so Cian had been real, she pondered, then where had he gone off too. He was not inside, the small house was not big enough to hide in, having only an old, leaking
bedroom, and the living room she was standing in the very moment.
So he was either outside, somewhere, or gone completly. Which seemed unlikely to her the moment her eye fell upon the grey jumper she had given to the lost man
the other night, lying on the ground in a heap. He had walked out of the door with a naked torso, he had not taken her waxcoat along, and no other jumped had been
taken off the shelve.

Apparently he had not learned from his previous adventure, and she felt a twinge of irritation. He had been half frozen the other night, and she had shared house and
bed with him to make sure that he would be allright, and now he had left the house without a word, or a note, or anything indicating where he had gone too.
Feeling the irritation built she quickly got into her boots and grabbed the waxcoat from the hook; pulling it on as she kicked opne the door to get out.
The rain had done it job well, the whole enviroment was completly wet, even the sand underneath her feet seemed soggy. The rain would be good for the flora
of the island, but it left an unwelcome chill which hit her in the face.
Perhaps it was because the living room had been nicely warm and cosy, that the cold seemed colder now, but she shivered involuntarily and hugged herself as
she looked around, scanning her inviroment.

The sea wasn't far away, and there was a path leading the beach right in front of the house, the other option was the small path to the main road, leading to the town.
Somehow she thought Cian was not the man who would simply go without saying a thank you or goodbye, so she guessed he had taken the path to the beach.
Her guess seemed correct, as she wandered on the path she could see footprints in the moist sand. The footprints were not from last night, the rain would
have washed them away before she could have ever noticed them, and they were leading her towards the beach, and not towards her house.
but it still made her irritated, because it did tell her that Cian had left the house without any shoes on. He could have taken the old boots of her father, if he had wanted
to take a walk, but now he was walking around with a bare chest, and bare feet.
Perhaps he had gotten a fever from last night, and wasn't thinking straight. She certainly hoped he had a fever, at least he would be just ill, and not some lunatic she
had to take after now.

Her father's house did not lay far from the sea, in fact, all she had to do is walk through the dunes, and then a broad beach would appear with only a few rocks. In
summer the beach was a populair place to ride with the ponies of the islands, and many children had ridden into the ocean and back to the beach not far from her house.
She remembered those little ponies well, showing resemblence to the small but strong Shetland Ponies from the Shetland Islands. Sometimes, when she had been little,
some of the children had allowed her to ride one of the ponies they had. They had been the better riders, but they had always tried to make her understand
the little ponies and how to ride them. She had begged her father to buy a pony, but he had patiently told her that they did not have the money to maintain the pony,
or give it a proper home. She had asked a few times after, but soon forgot about the whole idea as her mother often send her new toys from the United States,
which other children seemed to adore.

Rowan had walked past the three major dunes, walking past the dune grass and the now empty rabbit holes, and finally maneged to reach the broadest beach Eday was
rich. Her father had always loved the beach, and often organised little picknicks. They would often eat, sitting on the sand, enjoying the sandwiches her father had
made for the both of them. She still remembered the feeling of sand between her teeth, but it had never mattered. The time she had spend with her father had always
been far more important.
And now she was overlooking the same beach, and she was alone.
She was standing on one of the dunes, and overlooked a panaroma of sea and sand, searching for one little figure among the waves. Unless he had gone for a walk,
he had to be near. The footsteps indicated that he had walked towards the water, and she followed the footsteps with her gaze, only to find a lonesome figure standing
in the water.
He was standing there with his face towards the water, his back towards her. He didn't notive her, so she placed her hands at her mouth and shouted his name.
He did not react, so she sighed, placing her hands on her hips. At least he had not wandered far. She could of course turn around and get some breakfast.
Despite the late soup she was still hungry, but she she wasn't quite sure what to think of the man standing in the water with a bare torso, and apparently bare feet.

So Rowan quickly found her way down the dune, her boots sinking deep into the sand before she found sturdier ground to stand upon. She kept her gaze at the man
standing in the water, at least sixhundred steps before her, and followed the footsteps on the sand. They were the only footsteps on the entire beach, so it didn't
prove to be difficult.
"Cian!" She called out as she got close enough to be in hearing range. He was standing only a few steps away from the shore, in knee high water. His trousers were
soaked, and his hair appeared to be wet. She called again, but he did not turn around, nor did he reply to her calling.
She stopped for a moment, frowning at his reaction of lack there of.
He was just.. standing there, so she did the same. Standing on the shore she stood there, hugging herself to keep herself warm. Even with the thick waxcoat the wind
was still freezing, although it did not blow as viscious anymore as it had last night.

She waited a few moments before she tried again, hoping for some kind of reaction from him. She took a few steps forward, her boots nearly touching the waves coming
ashore.
"Cian, why are you standing in the water?" She asked, tilting her head for a bt as she watched the standing in the water. It was perhaps the right question to ask, for
the man turned his head around so that she could hear his voice, even though he was talking softly.
"Because it is the sea,"
Not quite knowing what to think of that answer she frowned, shivering for a moment as the cold wind blew past her. It was freezing still, and he was standing there like
that. He was quite insane, she was become more sure of it by the minute.
"I know it is the sea Cian, I was born here on Orkney, I also know that the water is freezing cold around this time of the year. Why won't you come out?" She tried to be
reasonable, she had no idea why she even bothered to get him out of the water. He had run around stark naked in the middle of a cold winterstorm, so he probably
thought it was normal to dip his feet in icecold water.
"The water is fine," he replied, bending down as a wave rolled past his knees, dipping a hand in the water to feel it flow past his webbed hand.
"No, the water isn't fine," She said, a bit more impatient as she got annoyed by the cold wind and the wet sand beneath her feet, consequently freezing her feet.

He did not reply to her comment, but instead stared ahead, staring at the horizon, or perhaps the sea spreading as far as they could see. She sighed behind his back,
looking around the beach for a moment as if she was afraid anyone would see her standing there, together with this man who stood in freezing water, bare chested
while an icy wind was blowing.
She trampled her feet to keep them warm, hiding her chin in the scarf she wore before she turned back to Cian again, staring at the back of his head.
"If you don't come out I'm going in, and drag you out. And then I'll force you to heat water for my frozen feet!" She warned him, longingly looking back at the little house.
"I can't go back," He suddenly said, and she snapped back her head to look at him, wondering what he was talking about. "The sea I mean," He explained.
"Why can't you go back?" She blurted out before she could quite think about the question she asked.
"I lost something," He said, carefully picking his words, before his gaze followed another wave rolling by.
"You lost your job at sea? Is that it?" She couldn't help but fill in the empty spaces herself. She would love to talk about it, but just not on
the open beach while her nose seemed to freeze off.
"Aye... Yes, that's it.." He mumbled, a sad tone in his voice which she did not miss. She frowned at hearing the sad voice, wondering whether she had asked the wrong
question, but before she could ask what he had meant he turned around, and walked towards her.

She let him come to her, noticing the forlorn look in his eyes as he got nearer. He did not look at her, not directly, rather past her as if she had said something wrong.
She shrugged it off, explaining to herself that he simply was an odd man.
"Come on," She said, lacing his arm in hers before she walked away with him, not surprised that his skin was icecold. "I think I still have noodles in the kitchen, they
will do as breakfast."
He did not reply, but stayed utterly silent the entire way, down the path to the small house, avoiding to make eyecontact while she tried to evoke some sort of
conversation. She talked about the weather, a bird that flew by, the color of the heather around the house, but he remained silent, only nodding now and then. Soon
she stopped her attempts at conversation altogether.

The walk to the little house never seemed longer, at least, it seemed so to her as Cian maintained almost a painful silence. She wanted to talk about.. anything,
concerning him, but he seemed rather unwilling to talk. He had made clear the other night that he knew her, or had known her, yet she had no memories whatsoever
concerning him.
She wanted to know where he came from, where he lived, his age perhaps, everything that made her a little wiser.
But she held her tongue, knowign that if he wanted to speak, he would begin talking himself. It was just utterly hard for her to not ask questions. She had never been
patient if it came to things she wanted to know, but it seemed that he did not gave her a choice.
She nearly jumped as he suddenly spoke up, his voice carrying a strange uncertain tone as he asked: "If you would loose everything you had in the world, would you
still carry on?"
It was a strange question to ask, but she thought about it nontheless, wondering for a moment what he meant by it. She did not quite know what she would do if
she would loose everything, so she thought about her answer before she said.
"I don't know, it depends on what the next day would bring,"
"What if the next day would bring back an old promise you made long ago, a promise you had almost forgot?" He said it in a hopeful way, as if her answer would
be crucial to him.
"I think I would carry on, if I had a goal in life. I would fullfill that promise, even if I had lost everything." She said, looking at his face only to see him nod, tension
in his shoulders fading as he heard her answer.
"Aye, I think I would too," He mumbled, looking at her for a split secong to show her a weak smile. "Thank you."

She smiled back at him, pushing open the door to let him into the warm living room. It was a change she did not mind at all, and she let out a satisfied sigh.
"The heather you put on the fire certainly helped," She said, "Thank you for that."
He turned around to look at her for a moment, a frown indicating that he did not quite understand what she was talking about. "I did not put heather on the fire,"
He softly said, glancing at the hearth.
The heather was burning softly, but suddenly the whole room seemed icecold as Rowan realised what he was saying. "You didn't? Then who did?"
The thought of someone she did not know sneaking into her home without her knowing so, with her vast asleep, was a thought she did not like at all. She instantly
looked at her backpack, but it still lay on the shelf where she had placed it the very morning.
Cian merely smiled for a moment, a mysterious little smile which made her even more unnerved.
"Do you have cream?"
Rowan blinked, staring at him as if he had said something utterly stupid. "Yes, I think I have."
"Just place a bowl with cream in the corner next to the little cooker, it is utmost rude to not thank the brownie for the work he had done. He will appreciate it." Cian said
softly, seemingly amused by her reaction.
"A brownie?" She stammered, resisting the urge to blink at him.
"This house has been the house of a brownie ever since your father was a small boy, it seems he has accepted the fact that your father is gone, and now he is helping
you with the house instead." Cian calmly explained, looking at her with a patient look in his eyes.
brownies, she thought, small fairies often helping people with their households. Fairies weren't real, at least, she had always thought they weren't.
"So you expect me to place abowl with cream in the corner of my house?"
Cian merely nodded, studying the shelf above the little cooker as if he was looking for a bowl himself.
"Oh fine," She muttered, "It's not like my life has been normal lately, why not add a bowl of cream in the corner of my house too."

Only minutes later a bowl of cream stood in the far end of the little house, awaiting the brownie which had helped maintaining the fire in the hearth. Rowan still
didn't quite know what to think about it, but it seemed to please Cian, who had sat down in the rocking chair before the fire, letting his frozen limbs warm and his
wet hair dry. At least she thought he was letting his hair dry, it almost seemed as if it was not drying at all. It looked like it had a permanent wetlook.
Rowan knew plenty guys who would be seeing green if they saw Cian's hair, but Cian himself seemed utterly careless about his locks.
"Here," She said, forcing the grey jumper over his head again, "You're not going to walk around bare chested in this kind of weather while I'm still around."
He pulled on the jumper without protest, looking at her with a strange glance in his eyes as his brown orbs followed her movements up and around the house. It made
her nervous, but she tried to ignore the intense gaze as well as she could.

"I want to go back to the town today, I need to buy something to eat for the upcoming week. Perhaps some batteries if the shopkeeper has them, and an oil-lamp,
or perhaps just oil; I accidentally broke the glass of the old oillamp I had." She said, trying to sound casually as she prepared some instant noodles for the both of them.
"Perhaps you can arrange something, I don't know, call someone to pick you up?"
"There is no one to pick me up," He said, not taking his gaze off her, which made her even more nervous.
"If you say it like that you almost convince me that you don't want to go back," She muttered, grabbing two bowles of the shelf, pouring the hot noodles into the bowls.
"I cannot go back," He replied insrantly, without a moment of hesitation. His voice did sounded sad for a second, but he added nothing to explain his words.
"You cannot go back? Why can't you go back?" She asked, completly confused by his choice of words.
"I cannot tell you," He said calmly, shrugging lightly.
"You're not some sort of criminal like in those movies are you? As soon as I find out you are some sort of criminal I'm going to kick you out of this house, you
realise that?" If he does not kill me before that, perhaps he is a serial killer, she thought sourly, she knew nothing about him but his name, he could be a serial killer
for all she knew.
He smiled at her, his eyes shining for a moment as if she had something that made him glad. She had no idea what it could be, she had just practically called him
a murderer, but he seemed glad about something she said. She handed him the bowl, noticing his webbed hands again. Her curiousity rising again she nodded at his
hands, asking:
"What happened to your hands? Why are they... webbed like that?"
He froze for a second, glacing down at his hands, before he quickly closed his fingers; hiding the thin membrane. "A family trait," He mumbled, quickly picking up
the fork she had given him.
A family trait, it didn't tell her anything, and she sighed, sitting down on the bed, realising that it was practically the same situation at the moment, as they had been in
the previous night.

That strange, strange night, where a strange, strange man had knocked on her door. If she did not know better she would've thought that she had ended up in
the middle of a fairytale.
"So you're going with me to the town?" She asked, looking up from her steamy noodles to see his reaction. He nodded, taking a bite before he spoke.
"I would like that, I've never seen the town." Apparently he had realised his error, for he instantly froze, glancing at her with a nervous look in his eyes.
he had never seen the town, he had no where to go, he had ended up at her doorstep completly naked. He was a strange man indeed, and she frowned at him
accusingly.
"I would like to hear some answers soon, you know that Cian?"
"Yes, I know." He mumbled, almost sounding like a kid caught with his hand in the cookeyjar. "There will be answers, some day soon."
She wasn't completly satisfied with his answer, but it would do for now. She studied him for a moment, before she spoke again.
"We'll go to the town after I cleaned the dishes, you may use the boots of my father. I think you have the same shoesize."
He nodded.
"We're going by foot, I left my car in the town, it's not made for rough terrain."
He nodded again, she sighed.
"You know, you would make me very happy and less nervous if you would just talk." How in the world did she ever end up with him, fate had brought her some
sour surprises this year.
"I will Rowan," He replied, sending a shiver up her spine as he spoke her name. He had an odd way of saying her name, it made her somewhat uncomfortable. "Just not now."
"Fine," She muttered. "Have it your way,"
He nodded again, before he turned his attention back on the steamy noodles, spreading a nice odour through the small living room, the heather cracking softly while it burned.
She had not quite expected that her little vacation to Orkney to be like this, and although that man sitting there on her father's chair definitly made her almost go insane
with his own seeming insanity, she silently thanked whoever was responsible for his presence, that she was not alone.

tbc.