Skin Deep by Marissa Doyle Page A

his wounds and could hardly be convinced to let her go. Alasdair tried yet again to talk to him after she left, to ask what he was feeling and why he was so drawn to her. And as he had every other time, Conn only stared at him in silence. The boy had rarely spoken even before the attack—hiding from Mahtahdou, he’d learned silence early. It was no life for a small child and Alasdair had known that. Several times in the last few seasons he had come close to sending Conn out to foster among the selkies scattered across the waters north of here, but had never had the courage to do so. And his cowardice had nearly killed his son.
    Was that why Conn clung to Garland? Because he knew she could protect him when his own father could not? And wasn’t he doing the same thing, hiding behind this human who had no idea of what power she wielded?
    He shifted in his bed, straining to look out the narrow gap between the coverings on the window. With all the lights in the room on it was hard to see anything in the darkness outside, and the various hums and rumbles that a human house made drowned any sounds as well. He glanced over at Conn and saw that he slept, clinging to the stuffed figure with large ears Garland had sewn for him from some soft brown cloth. Good.
    He put aside the covering on his bed and set his feet on the floor. They throbbed and shot needles of pain up his calves as they always did when he’d tried to walk this week, but he knew about living with pain. Carefully, so that he did not stumble and fall and wake Conn, he shuffled over to the window where Garland had placed a chair and knelt stiffly on it, then peered around the edge of the curtain, cupping his hand to block out the light. He might not be in any shape to defend himself or his son, but he could at least keep vigil until Garland returned.
    Outside, a fog had begun to roll in off the water. Alasdair stared at it suspiciously; it was early in the season for fog though the day had been warm. It crept in long tendrils up from the beach, feeling its way along the ground, and he stiffened. Though there was not much wind tonight, what little there was blew off the land, toward the sea. Nevertheless the fog progressed steadily against it, creeping crab-like toward the houses along the shore. As it swirled it seemed to shimmer with a faint, sickly-green phosphorescence.
    The back of Alasdair’s neck prickled as if the cold mist had touched it.
    He squinted into the darkness and saw the mist pause, then race up the beach toward the house nearest Garland’s. For a moment the house was obscured, and he heard a strange tinkling, crashing noise come from it. The sound happened several times more, then stopped.
    Alasdair turned away from the window and tottered over to Garland’s work table, where the cloth picture she’d made waited to be completed with more stitching. He snatched it up and moved as quickly as his feet would let him to Conn’s bed. He draped it over him, then staggered back to the window and peered outside again.
    There was nothing to see. Fog swirled over the clear material of the window, casting a faint greenish glow. It seemed to be probing it, as if trying to get inside, and he realized what the sound he’d heard from the other house had been. The fog had smashed the windows, and he could guess why.
    It was looking for something.
    He clutched Garland’s robe tighter at his throat and watched in horrified fascination as the fog thickened into an opaque mass and pressed against the window. The frame creaked in protest, but the glass did not break. He heard a flurry of sounds from around the house and knew that the fog assailed the other windows and doors, but no crashes followed. For some reason, the fog could not penetrate Garland’s house.
    It drew back a little and hovered outside the window. Was it thinking about what to do? Did it even think? Could it harm him and Conn if it managed to break the window? Or was it just a scout, searching