Inspired by The Great Silkie of Suleskerry, an American version of the Orkney ballad.
*
The silkie be a creature strange He rises from the sea to change Into a man, a weird one he, When home it is in Suleskerry.
*
“Did you hear?” asked the woman in the chair to the right.
Nancy focused on the snipping blades clearing the veil of bangs before her tightly shut eyes, unaware the question was meant for her. Glancing down, she watched her bangs fall in tufts to the checkerboard apron around her neck. Her neighbor to the right with fifty curlers in her hair repeated the question, “Did you hear?”
“Hear what?” asked Nancy, with a sigh. She’d wanted a cute pixie cut but her reflection looked more like a thirteen-year-old boy.
“Another woman’s been found on the docks, the third in three days.”
“Lovely,” said Nancy, not about the murder, but in response to the stylist who asked her opinion on the result. A blatant lie, but what was she to do? Regarding the murder, she knew nothing about it, and this she replied to her gossipy friend.
“Same death, same place,” she said, then with a smirk, “and to be quite frank, they all looked a little bit like you.”
If that meant they looked like tomboys in ill-fitting blue dresses, then Nancy would have to agree. She shrugged aside the comment with a city-girl’s detachment, since crime and murder were part of the pulse of living in Orkney Isles.
The cost for butchering her hair was ridiculously overpriced, but she paid it anyway, then rushed outside into the rain to wave down a passing taxi.
“Where to?” asked the cabbie, a fine exotic man.
“Tide Street.”
“That’s an odd place for a woman like you to go.”
“Why’s that?”
“That’s where they found those three murdered broads. Haven’t you been reading the papers? Found ‘em right out there on the docks.”
She barely heard him, focusing more on her reflection in the window. “Well that’s where my date is waiting, so I’ve got no choice, do I? If you don’t mind stepping on it, I’m running a little late.”
*
When he be man, he takes a wife, When he be beast, he takes her life. Ladies, beware of him who be - A silkie come from Suleskerry.
*
Stepping out of the taxi, Nancy could not help but notice the police barricade around the dock. Waves splashed gently against the cement pillars, rocking a few weathered fishing boats like toys in the bathtub. Across the bay, through the fog, she could barely make out the skull-shaped island of Suleskerry.
“Be careful,” warned the cab driver. “Do not walk home alone.”
“I’ll do my best,” she said, paying him the fee.
As he drove away to catch another fare, Nancy noticed the homeless woman crouching low behind a row of empty newspaper stands, staring at her from across the street. Nancy had no change to spare, not after that botched haircut, so she flashed a weak smile to the woman in rags and hurried into the nearby restaurant.
Her date was there, sitting alone at a table for two near the window. Jonathan Dole, a handsome realtor who’d just moved to the city last month. Nancy bee-lined for the bathroom without him noticing to make the best of her hair, but still thought she looked like she belonged to a lesbian biker gang. Oh well. If he still liked her after this, then maybe that meant he was the one.
“You look absolutely adorable,” said Jonathan, standing to give her a hug and a kiss on the cheek. “Did you just get that done today?”
She blushed. “Ye--yes. Yes. I’m glad you like it.”
They sat and ordered wine and talked about their days. He had these ocean-blue eyes that looked like they could hold the Titanic, plus its box-office earnings. She wanted to swim in them. She wanted to swim in him. Luckily their food arrived in time that she didn’t have to explain her drooling.
“Do you have any family in the city?” he asked.
“No, not anymore. My father died last year.”
“You live alone here?”
“Yup. All by my lonesome.” The wine was making her silly. She twirled her new haircut with one finger while the others were busy twirling spaghetti noodles. “What about you? What brought you to Orkney?”
“The women,” he said, with a grin.
Nancy choked on a sip of wine. “Excuse me?”
“Don’t get me wrong, I’m a monogamous fellow, but if you want the truth then there it is: the women of Orkney Isles are renowned for their beauty. And you, Nancy, certainly exceed those expectations.”
“Thanks.”
“I’m quite fond of you.”
“Quite,” she repeated, caught off guard by the formality like spotting a cellphone in a 1950s film. She couldn’t even think of the last time she’d heard the word fond.
“I really like you,” he said.
She blushed. “I know.”
*
His love they willingly accept, But after they have loved and slept, Who is the monster that they see? 'Tis the silkie come from Suleskerry.
*
They finished their meals and he paid the bill, refusing to let her see. The rain had put its feud against the earth on hold and they walked out into the night with arms hooked and bellies full.
“Where would you like to go, if you could go anywhere in the world?” asked Jonathan, dreamily, leading her to the dock. Off to the right, the police tape around the barricaded area flapped in the breeze.
“Away from here,” said Nancy, feeling a chill.
“Is something the matter?”
“Didn’t you hear?” she asked. “Three women were murdered here.”
“Oh I doubt they were murdered here.”
Nancy turned to face him. “What makes you say that?”
“There are too many people here. Someone would have seen.”
“I guess so. Maybe he brought them here, after…”
“What makes you think it’s a he?” asked Jonathan, with a nudge. “In that case it might as well be me.”
It spooked her to joke like this and Nancy wished they’d just keep walking. She led him away from the splashing waves and to the lighted area beneath the street lamps. As soon as she felt as if she’d calmed, the homeless woman from before appeared from behind a staircase, startling her half to death.
“I must speak to you,” she said, her teeth the yellow of earwax.
“I don’t have any money.”
“It’s nothing that I want from you, it’s what I want to give.” The woman reached out a leathery hand and took Nancy from Jonathan’s grip. “We must speak in private,” she added, eyeing Jonathan the way you’d eye a buzzing wasp's nest.
Drunk off wine and full of food, Nancy cared not to object. She moved away from her lovely date at the homeless woman’s request. “What is it?” asked Nancy. “I’m kind of in the middle of something.”
“You’re the sort that he will seek, my dear. I’m afraid to say. The silkie likes your type,” she said, touching Nancy’s hair. She smelled of barnacles stuck on the beams of a pier. “I know his charms. I know his smile. I’ve seen them once before. Take this, dear, take this gift. You’ll need it soon enough. Rub it on his skin to kill him. That’s all, dear. Good luck.”
The woman gave Nancy a small plastic box, then vanished down the street. In a moment Jonathan joined her, equally confused, and they looked down at the box she’d been given.
“What’s in it?” he asked.
She opened the lid.
“Some blades of grass.”
He laughed. “I’ll bet it is. The kind you’d like to smoke. I’d throw that into the ocean if I were you, unless you want the cops to catch you with it.” Jonathan tried to take the box from her, but she yanked the gift away, and from the look of anger that flashed across his face, she sensed a bit of fear. “I really wouldn’t keep that around. You don’t know where it’s been.”
“It’s just some grass,” said Nancy. “It’s not a big deal.”
Jonathan shrugged and walked away, and in that moment it began to rain, and Nancy studied his behavior with suspicions rising. What was a ‘silkie’ and what was Jonathan hiding?
*
A maiden from the Orkney Isles, A target for his charm, his smiles, Eager for love, no fool was she, She knew the secret of Suleskerry.
*
She met up with him around the corner, where he was waiting for her beneath an awning. The rain pattered lightly on the fabric over their heads, like the beating of a thousand tiny drums. He apologized and said it was no business of his. Nancy could understand. You weren’t supposed to take gifts from strangers.
“Maybe we should go,” she said. “Let’s get out of the storm.”
“I kind of like it here,” he replied.
“It’s getting cold.”
“Here, have my coat.”
It helped, but she felt uneasy. The woman’s words echoed in her mind, and in her palm she hid the blades of grass, ludicrous as it seemed.
Jonathan held her tight and gave a squeeze. She felt him kiss her damp forehead. Then her nose, her cheek, her mouth, and for a while there was nothing. They kissed with passion, ignoring the rain, and Nancy felt at ease. Yet when his hands moved toward her neck, she panicked, and nearly screamed. She slapped his face with the blades of grass, smearing them down to his neck. Jonathan reared away with a holler, stumbling into the rain, and a passing taxi nearly struck him down, but honked, and veered away.
He glared at her, too shocked to speak, and dared not come any closer. It was obvious now that the grass had no effect, save for leaving a green smudge across his chin. She’d been mistaken, or perhaps the homeless woman was insane. Either way, Nancy knew she’d blown it, and she watched Jonathan walk away.
*
And so, while the silkie kissed the lass, She rubbed his neck with Orkney grass, This had the magic power, you see - To slay the beast from Suleskerry.
*
Nancy caught a taxi, the one that nearly killed her date, and asked to be taken home immediately. Outside her window, as they passed, the homeless woman emerged once more from behind the stairs, screaming something in the rain. Nancy did not care for her. She sank into the leather seat and wished the world away.
“Tough night?” asked the cabbie, an exotic looking man.
“You’re the same guy from before,” she said.
“That’s right, ma’am.”
“Small world.”
“How did your date go?”
“Not so good. I might’ve mistaken him for a murderer.”
“That bad, huh?”
“Honestly not my worst date ever, but yeah, pretty bad.”
“Well don’t worry about mistaking your man for the silkie. The silkie’s a crafty fellow, they say. He comes in from the water, a gnarly creature of the sea, and once on shore he turns into a man just like any other.”
Her heart ran cold and she felt a lump in her throat. Slowly she asked, “How did you know it was called the silkie?”
The doors locked.
“They say he comes from Suleskerry,” said the cabbie, pulling the car to the side of the road, turning to face her. His sharp teeth spread wide like the grin of a shark, and he flicked a serpent’s tongue. “When he be man, he takes a wife, when he be beast, he takes her life.”
No one heard her scream as the silkie killed another.
They found poor Nancy on the dock, gutted, like the others.