Issue #7 - July 2021

Alice Pow
Andi C. Buchanan
Benny Kim
Cherry Potts
Cislyn Smith
Elsa Sjunneson
Eefje Savelkoul
Jennifer Bushroe
Jennifer Mace
Julia Jeffrey
Phoebe Farrell-Sherman
Priya Sridhar
Rhys Hughes
oops! all selkies!
Tehnuka
Vicky Bowes
Wilda Morris
 Mermaids Monthly, P.O. Box 748, 9245 State Route 22, Hillsdale, NY, 12529

mermaidsmonthly.com [email protected]

Editor and Publisher - Julia Rios

Assistant Editor - Ashley Deng
Designer and Publisher - Meg Frank
Logistics Wizard - Lis Hulin Wheeler

Mermaids Monthly is a magazine all about mermaids.

Happy mermaids, murderous mermaids; mermaids,
merdudes, mermxs – maybe even a few highly confused
manatees. Any cool aquatic chimeras that you could
ever possibly think of with any and every fin color and
combination. To subscribe, visit mermaidsmonthly.com.

As soon as we opened up to submissions idea, but it also comes with a price, and
in January, we received a number of that price is vulnerability.
questions about whether we would
accept mermaid-adjacent stories. Lots of In this issue you’ll find six poems, six short
people find the Selkie resonant: a woman stories, a comic, and two illustrations 
who can be a seal in the ocean and then that range from rage to whimsy. There
literally shed her skin to take a human are space selkies, heist selkies, and of
form on land is a powerful transformation course, a number of queer selkies.
 Jennifer Mace Cherry Potts

Elsa Sjunneson
Priya Sridhar

Jennifer Bushroe
Phoebe Farrell-Sherman

Cislyn Smith
Tehnuka

Andi C. Buchanan
Rhys Hughes

Benny Kim
Alice Pow

Wilda Morris
 by Priya Sridhar

1. Screen social media posts for potential customers. Selkies often post ads online,
seeking someone to replace the skin their no-good husbands stole, or worse,
burned. Other times, college fraternities steal them from stone beaches as
part of their initiation. If you have photo evidence, report these men to their
admissions department. Selkies are a protected species.

2. Set your prices upfront, and ask for a deposit. You can do charity if you like—and
I will not judge you if you do—but never accept a life debt from a selkie. It won’t
pay the rent, and they can twist the deal so that it’s your great-granddaughter
that ends up receiving the favor. In the time of global climate change, cash is
more useful.

3. Never ask a selkie to prove her identity. There are human women who want to
know what it’s like to dive into the Atlantic, but one must not presume. Many
boys and men also have dust-covered skins hidden under their mattresses,
taking them for a dive. Obviously, warn other coat makers about habitual liars if
the liars don’t pay.

4. Don’t let anyone guilt you into making a selkie skin for them. Guilt means
imperfect skins, and being invited on hunts. Make them out of compassion, or
even pity.

5. Never repair a torn or burned selkie coat. That requires an expert, and no one is
an expert. Not even you.

6. Use a simple cloak pattern; kids’ Halloween books have examples. Don’t waste
your money by buying a pattern. You already have more important expenses.
7. Go with straight stitches for the seam, and zigzags for the collar. If you have to
make allowances for disabilities, then plan the seams ahead of time.

8. Ask for measurements. The tail size is especially important.

9. If using a sewing machine, set it to high tension, tiny stitches, and “heavy
upholstery” mode. Your sewing machine will hate you for months. Sew on the
reverse side. If the stitches show, the seal will not be very happy. You may lose a
hand, and they won’t drive you to the ER.

10. Material may vary. Sealskin is not readily available; faux leather will do, provided
you treat it for water. If a selkie offers to provide the material, make sure it’s not
her damaged coat.

11. Test how the coat fits on her. A drowning selkie is a bad omen.

12. Never accept an invitation from a selkie for a swim. They dive deep, and into the
coldest waters. When they hunt, they are fast and graceful, cornering their prey.

13. Never dance with a selkie, even if you are friends. See above.

14. Not all selkies are hunters. Even so, the ocean will finish the job. So don’t. Just
don’t.

15. When going to meet a selkie in person, wear a wetsuit under your clothes.
Hypothermia isn’t a joke.

16. If a selkie curses you for assuming they will hunt the coat maker, show them
your left arm. The one missing a hand. Then ask them how their coat fits.

Sridhar
 by Phoebe Farrell-Sherman
Content Note: This poem depicts an abusive relationship

There’s hell at the top of the world

and it’s as bright as gold and colder
than the sea in the heart of winter.

I’ve been there, and I remember the smell

of land-beasts, the dust on everything,
washing every night before sleeping and never feeling clean.

I remember how her skin gathered sweat in the sun,

licking her arms, her cheek.
Every meal was bread as dry and bland as gravel, and sticky
animal flesh.

When I complained, her hand would make circles on my

back,
and comb through my hair,
and she’d tell me how deeply she loved me.

I stayed because I loved her too.

What hell could be worse than loving a land wife?

When we first started dating,

she asked if she could borrow my jacket, and I didn’t think
much of it.
Her hair was so brown, her body so warm,

that the white jacket looked cream-colored like foam on her.

We danced on the beach together,
my legs so new that walking felt like sinking.
Hell could be charming – for a month
I did not miss home at all.
I sang for her friends and they laughed. I learned to cook white fish

from her father, and in the evenings, after she ate,

she would listen to my poems with her eyes closed.
She told me she wanted to know me inside and out.

Everything was so still

on land, and it pricked me and wore on me.
When I began to cry at night

she held me and I could see how it hurt her,

her eyes round with worry, begging me to love her world,
to show her I was happy to belong to her.

I took to walking alone while she was working,

crying a little when the sun stung my eyes.
I would go by the cliffs where the spray could touch me.

She saw me once walking into the waves,

invasive, feeling heavier than before, wanting to put my head under.
Her shouting tugged me back again, her grasp on the back of my shirt,

and I was sorry to see her cry, and so annoyed to be held as before, so
still.
She said she had always known I would leave her.
I said I never wanted that, it’s what I needed to do—

She said I hope you will never need to do that again,

and my heart sank out of sight.

Suddenly every breath I took was gritty like mud, hellish.

I tasted her tears on my face. Her tears felt like my tears,
saltless, bitter. I dreaded everything in existence.

Farrell-Sherman
 by Tehnuka

There’s a story about the truck with an manager. Mr McEwan lent us the rest
empty driver’s seat that they say patrols in a charitable mood after a few beers.
the East Coast. Even before Alli could walk, we threw
everything we owned in the pickup
and moved far inland to our little high-
country farm — to dusty dry summer days
My Alli was born on a new moon night, where the hills were scorched gold, and to
on the soft sealskin in the back of the icy winters that left feathery frosts on the
black pickup truck, right where she was truck windows. The two of us shared the
conceived. We’d barely made it halfway work, and we’d find a couple of boys from
down the rough farm track before I the township to help during lambing.
stopped and clambered into the back to Alli’s mother yearned for the ocean, but
help deliver her. here we could make a proper living and,
one day, repay our debts.
She was held tight in her mother’s arms
while I navigated bumps and turned onto
the highway to reach the city hospital.
Next morning, when they sent us home, Alli did her part too, once she was old
we parked by the grey-sand beach where enough, but she was restless. On the bus
we’d met, watching the waves while our to see her friends in town. Riding the
daughter slept in her second-hand car seat farm bike, mustering the sheep and taking
between us. them across to the far paddocks with her
collie Sooran. Up the mountain for a run.
After Alli came, we needed more of a In the water, too, whenever she could,
future than mustering sheep for Mr though there was little enough of it in
McEwan. I borrowed money from my the high country: collecting pebbles from
brothers overseas. Her mother found a rocky braided rivers or long hikes up in
suit in a charity shop, combed her hair the Southern Alps to find a tarn. When
into a neat bun, and sweet-talked a bank she turned sixteen, we started teaching
her to drive. She itched for her full Clutch
license, to get out on her own, on the
open roads. One morning, the winter after Alli
turned sixteen, the three of us rose early
If I worried about others blasting their and drove all the way to the beach. Her
horns and speeding past, it was she who mother kissed us both in the blowing
reassured me. “It’s a Pavlovian response sand, put on her dark, sleek, sealskin, and
to the learners’ plates, Appa. But they vanished into the tingling cold ocean. I
don’t care if you drive badly, as long as still see, in my mind’s eye, Alli clinging
you don’t drive slowly.” And she never tight, pleading in hiccupy sobs for her to
drove slowly. stay.

We offered to buy a small automatic, Stick

less of a petrol guzzler, but our daughter
was never more at home than when she I could understand why she returned
slid into the drivers’ seat of the battered to the sea. But for all that they seemed
pickup. Its grinding transmission gentled, identical in temperament and nature, Alli
the gearstick moved smoothly only for could not.
her. And she reciprocated — she was
always in good humour behind the wheel. “Mama loves you. She’ll come back one
day,” was poor consolation for a girl
I remember once, with her mother leaning whose mother had left her. Alli had never
out the passenger side window as I half- been a stereotypical teenager until then.
dozed in the back, Alli said playfully, She began to sulk in her room, sleep late,
“Stick your hand out like you’re waving, forget her chores — or claim to. It was
Mama. Now bend down your fingers. First weeks before she could be coaxed out for
the little one, now the ring finger, the a driving lesson. For the next months,
thumb, the forefinger.” those were the only times I saw her smile,
and so I took her out whenever I could.
Alli’s mother complied. The car tailgating
us dropped back with a furious honk
before she realised she was flipping them That’s why she got her license that spring.
off. Because even after eighteen years, I baked a soggy carrot cake to celebrate,
ours was a foreign world to her. and we stayed up remembering family
stories. I told her about her uncles across
the Tasman, how we’d left our parents to
flee the war to find refuge in colonies of
the Empire we’d only read about in

Tehnuka
 by Rhys Hughes

With a Loving Kiss

The bottle
contained a message
but the message wasn’t a letter.
No, this message was a drawing
rather better
than one might expect.

It depicted a seal in a bikini

blowing a kiss
and underneath this
a caption said ‘self portrait’.

And I gazed awhile

with a wistful smile
before replacing it in the bottle.
Clearly it wasn’t intended for me
so I returned it
to the deep blue sea.

Sea
Seal
Sealed
with a loving kiss.
 The Bedroom Seal

I think of my bed
as a raft adrift on the ocean
and in the starlight
I wait for you to join me.
The splash of your flippers
in the depths of the carpet
means you are surfacing
and soon will climb
onto the mattress next to me
and be mine again.

Then I will tickle you

and in mock fright that
is more than half delight
we will play-fight with each other
using the bed as a trampoline
(a trampoline of dreams)
until at last you jump so high
you catch a blade of the ceiling fan
and spin round and round
shouting, “wheeeeee” before
letting go and flying out the window
into the pond below…

Yes, you are a bedroom seal,

slippery as an eel,
and I’m an indoors sailor.

Hughes
 I Feel

They have
no knees, if you please.
Therefore I feel
that to see a seal kneel
will mean
it’s the silly season again.

by Alice Pow

Hughes & Pow

 by Wilda Morris

This poem originally appeared in Prairie Light Review

. . . Whether it was a reality or a dream, I could never

entirely settle. ~ Ishmael in Moby-Dick, by Herman Melville

I never know for sure if it was real

or did I dream I swam once with a seal
whose half-articulated wailing cry
was ghost-like, haunting all the Pequod’s crew.
She sought the pup she lost in days gone by.
Is this a memory I can’t construe
or did I dream I swam once with a seal?
I never know for sure if it was real.

Author’s Note: “It Wasn’t a Mermaid” is a Lil Ann poem,

a form created by Carrie Quick. Although the epigraph is
from Chapter 4 of Moby-Dick, the poem responds more
directly to Chapter 126, in which the crew of the Pequod
hears a plaintive, unearthly sound which many of them
believe are mermaids.
 by Cherry Potts

Content Note: This story features a widower and refers to the death of a spouse and a stillborn
child

She has a small cloche hat pulled down

so tight it’s a wonder she hasn’t ripped Joel finds himself struggling to breathe,
the rim. He has his hair plastered to his excitement crushing his lungs. They
head so smoothly that Joel half expects are not beautiful, not in the accepted
beads of Brilliantine in the crease at the way, they both carry too much blubber
back of his neck, but despite this, they for that, but they are smooth and shiny
are immaculate, both wearing some and look about themselves with such
fabric between velvet and moleskin that eagerness, when they come up for air.
shimmers and tempts the fingertip to There is unquestionably something illicit
explore its textures. about the relationship – they are on an
adventure.
Joel shows them to a booth at the back
of the room, with a mirror behind them, Joel brings them menus, which they do
which will allow him to keep an eye on not look at. She turns her round eyes up
them without quite staring. He cannot to him and whispers
fathom what it is that draws him. They
could be sister and brother they look so Fish.
alike, round-eyed, broad-cheeked, flat-
nosed; his wonderful whiskers the only Fish, fish, he barks, with more confidence
feature that truly distinguishes them one than she.
from the other, but the way they behave
with each other is not sibling-like. She Fish, Joel responds, and is about to list the
gazes and gazes, her round eyes drinking cod, herring, plaice, but they continue,
him in with something like awe, and he their voices almost overlapping, Fish-
caresses her with his glance. It is barely fish and he finds himself turning away
decent. nodding awkwardly.
He brings them Bouillabaisse, and is only has been anchored within the harbour
slightly startled when they pick up the wall since he first saw her, and the flukes
bowls between their awkward fat-fingered are driven further in by the small stone
hands and drain the soup in great gulps. cross in the graveyard on the headland,
and he cannot bear the thought of the sea
He takes back the bowls and brings them anymore.
sprats fried in salt on a base of samphire,
his personal favourite. She claps her He looks at the odd couple, paddling at
hands in glee, flat-palmed, noisy, and each other’s fingers and giggling together.
he watches as she hesitates with a hand This is a dry town, and he wonders
over the fork, then picks up one fish after momentarily if they have smuggled in a
another and puts them head-first into flask of something, but his offer of drinks
her gaping mouth. Her companion does (ginger beer, lemonade, dandelion and
likewise. burdock, tea…) had been waved away
with a shake of the head; and if they have
Joel returns to the kitchen and brings something, he has not seen it. No, they
them dish after dish, every fish dish are drunk on their adventure, on each
on the menu. They eat everything, other, on the appetite that has them gaze
murmuring to each other, never touching at each other and gaze and gaze.
the vegetables, not a scrap of bone or fin
or skin left on the side of the plate; the When they leave, the bill is weighed down
shrimps eaten whole, the aioli untouched. by an enormous gold coin. Joel stares.
He has seen one of these before. He has
What appetites, he thinks jealously. Joel owned one of these coins, and knows its
has hardly eaten, it seems to him, since worth. They could eat the restaurant out
he came to this little port over three of fish every day for a month for this coin.
years ago. He has lost much weight, and
recently his hair has thinned alarmingly. His coin lies in the cold little grave up on
His landlady has urged him to see a the headland, with his lost girl and the
doctor, but it is out of the question. child who could not thrive.

He came here for love. He left the sea, and Joel goes to the door and watches as
his roving of its stranger climes, to settle they pick their clumsy way down the
here, enamoured of a girl born on this shingle beach away from the esplanade.
shore. A girl who had died giving birth to He imagines they will make for the dark
their child, a poor sorry creature that had under the pier. He imagines they will
not thrived. None of them have thrived. furtively shuck enough clothes to get at
A mistake, he thinks now, but his heart each other and

Potts
He imagines a lot of things. He hears the noise again, and again, then
catches sight of them, humped together
against a faint light cast through the
wrought ironwork. He tries to disapprove,
It is late and there is no one left in the but all he can think of is her round, dark,
restaurant. He turns the sign to closed, glistening eyes, looking up at him, as she
locks the door and wipes down the whispers her desires. Fish, Fish, Fish-fish.
surfaces, upends the chairs onto tables,
leaving the floor free for the girl who will As he watches they rise awkwardly,
swab it in the morning, and goes through and he sees that there has been no
to the kitchen to share a cup of tea with furtiveness. Their bodies gleam in the
the cook and count the takings. He does moonlight, rounded and smooth and
not show her the gold coin. He turns perfect. They walk carefully across the
it over and over in his deep pocket and shingle, and he knows that hobbling, the
wonders. tiny steps, the bare feet flinching from
sharp stones and splintered shell and
It is late and there is no one left on the shifting, rolling pebbles. But they do not
esplanade. He puts his hands into his touch each other; he does not reach out to
deep pockets and strolls across the road help, and she doesn’t squeal as the girls
to gaze at the sea, to listen, in the near- here tend to as they wince their way into
silence, to the hush and rush of the waves the sea. They walk confidently into the
sorting the pebbles. It is a sound that water, and almost at once they dive, and
he can hardly bear, since the loss of his are swimming. His mind jolts from his
dearest girl. pleasure in the sight of them to what he is
actually seeing. The water rolls over and
There is another sound, a sort of gasping, around them, and he find his tongue and
guttural bark. It makes him shudder calls out –
suddenly. He knows what it is, and his
eyes search the dark under the pier, where Wait!
he and his girl first knew each other
completely. He resents the usurping of Not the warning he had meant when he
their first place. Ridiculous, he knows, opened his mouth, but a plea:
when most nights there is some couple
or other fumbling their way through the Don’t go without me.
discomfort of sex on shingle in that dark
damp almost-privacy with the creaking They are just heads bobbing in the
boards above them. troughs of the waves –

Potts
Wait! Please! weeping up the shingle to the high tide
mark, and sat trembling in the moonlight.
He is running now, down the beach, He followed slowly, dreaded her questions
casting clothes this way and that, kicking – her what are you? But that was not what
his shoes off on the water’s edge. had her stammering and shaking.

We can never, she said, shaking her head,

I can’t – with you – like that – here… and he
He came here with his darling girl, on an had taken his pelt and rolled it tight and
incoming tide – he knew his tides, how put it into her hands.
not? – and explored each other in the
glimmering knife-light that came through No, she said, angry now, I’ll not keep you
the gaps in the planks of the pier, golden here by trickery or force. You stay because you
and sharp. She laughed at the touch of want to, or you go. Who do you think I am?
his whiskers on her naked skin, and wept
suddenly and without explanation, and And he had stayed, the pelt buried deep
they stayed longer than they should. And in the shingle under the pier, and his
a wave tendrilled around his feet, and memories of the sea buried deeper, in
without thinking he shrugged his pelt domesticity and sorrow.
over himself, and he felt rather than heard
her gasp, as another wave crept further
and the water ran off his pelt onto her
naked skin, and he realised what he had How could he have forgotten? How could
done – and he wrapped the pelt around he have been so beguiled as to forget this?
her too and waited for the next wave,
the seventh, to wash them off the beach, He pushes through the resistance of the
between the striding metal of the pier and water, the cold caress of floating weed,
out into the harbour. terrified by the speed with which they
are swimming away, but then she turns
Two hearts within the same skin – he was back to him, and he hears, faintly, a call –
aware that poets use that as a metaphor, harsh, deep, irresistible – and he reaches
but the reality was horrifying, hers the sloping shelf where the water deepens
beating three times the rate of his, the suddenly, and plunges into the water, and
panic that clutched his lungs with hers lets a wave pull him out towards them.
– he half expected to drown, but they
were out there no time, and the next Wait, he says, again, softly now, confident
seventh wave carried them safe to shore that they can hear, and he dives deeper,
and he untangled them and she stumbled filled with a simple joy that has not been

Potts
 by Elsa Sjunneson

I dream of oceans. supposed to be romantic. All salt kisses

and windswept hair. It’s supposed to be
The gray green water of the Irish Sea is about trust, and love, and the act of giving
cold. It’s the frozen waters of home, the the skin back and then she forgives him.
cold means nothing to me, personally - That’s what all you humans think anyway.
welcoming instead of a brush with death. That our skins are merely a metaphor for
The Baltic is a steel blue that will freeze a the act of giving trust.
human in seconds. The cold still doesn’t
fuss me, but it’s less welcoming. The But it is my very real sealskin. My very
Mediterranean is an aquamarine blue that physical connection to the ocean that is
feels more like bath water than the ocean. my home.

I awaken drenched in sweat, not the And that motherfucker took it.
sheen of salt water that drips off your
skin when getting out of the sea. My legs You might be asking: why didn’t you
ache to transform, stretching and twisting leave it locked up, instead of wrapped in
into muscle spasms in my sleep, trying to a wool blanket, gently placed in a lingerie
swim in the ocean of my dreams. It has drawer?
become a nightmare to dream of the lacy
fringes of the surf, because each time I I never wanted to be in a position where
wake, instead of my delicate fore-flippers I had to place my soul behind a key and
slipping gracefully under the waves, I see a lock. I wanted it accessible whenever
pedicured toes. I needed it, so that I could slip out the
door at a moment’s notice, whenever the
I can’t go home because that ocean called from just beyond the cracked
motherfucker stole my skin, and I will window in my bedroom facing the sea.
never forgive him.

I know, I know. Stealing selkie skins is

Have you ever been to the British to more than one person, you’d literally
Museum? They have a fetish for objects split yourself in two.) He was seeking
that don’t belong to them. Collecting a connection with a woman who didn’t
objects that belong to other people was mind his long travels (the time I spend
his habit - long before he discovered in the sea is not insignificant) and who
that he could date a cryptid, the man wanted to learn more about the world and
had spent his days working for those its history.
old colonialists who kept relics of other
cultures behind ivory tower walls. A curator at the British Museum. Back
then I assumed he would share more
Yes. about the fascinating history of the world,
the mysteries that ancient artifacts unlock
The man who stole my skin was a about humanity’s past, not stealing things
museum director. that don’t belong to him from cultures
that didn’t consent.
Like most of living kind, I seek
connections. It is not only a human
thing to want to be loved and cared for, My profile doesn’t mention that I’m a
but something that all living creatures selkie, of course.
do. Whether a selkie, or a werewolf, a
Labrador or a human woman, we all crave It just says that I love the sea, that I spend
caring beyond the bounds of our own more time on it than I do on land. I didn’t
souls. expect that anyone would read between
the lines, but Jeston did. He wooed me,
And, as a millennial living on the coast of he bedded me, and one day he asked me
Scotland, I found myself like everybody the question that I assumed no one would
else: swiping right and left on one of the be smart enough to ask:
many available apps, seeking out the
connections I wanted to make. “Are you something more than human?”

His profile was charming. He liked to We were tangled up in the sheets of his
travel: pictures of him on some kind Bloomsbury flat, overlooking a busy tree
of expedition in Egypt, on a sailboat studded corner of London. A short walk
somewhere in the Southern Pacific (if you for him to work, a long swim and a train
don’t like water, we can’t date.) He didn’t ride for me to visit but not an unpleasant
have any attachments (Selkies are many one. I remember glancing out the window
things, but non-monogamous we are away from him, hoping that I could shield
not, you can’t give your skin away freely my reaction from him.

Sjunneson
My skin pulled to me from my leather we are. Each skin is a gift from family -
valise. A warning klaxon that I would blood or chosen.
ignore. I liked him, after all. The gentle
prickle of his sometimes shaven face, the Selkies are made by being loved so much
way that he always smelled vaguely of that we are given the ocean as our home.
dust and pipe smoke. Our mothers, our aunts, they want to
keep us safe from those who would do us
I opened my mouth to speak and harm.
hesitated, the skin insisting on my silence
even though I thought he ought to know. But there is a cost to the safe haven of the
ocean: what brings us into the ocean can
“Whatever gave you that idea?” be taken from us. Our skins can be taken
- the people we love are able to part us
“There are signs” he said, pulling me from the very thing that makes us whole.
closer to him, nuzzling his nose and
chin against my shoulder, pushing my I had always been careful about who I
nightgown strap out of the way to drop a love. I was not careful enough.
kiss on my shoulder. “I just can’t figure
out how you’re otherworldly, but I don’t After six months, I decided it was time
think you’re human…” to invite him up to the countryside for a
weekend.
I stuck with silence, pulling him beneath
the ocean blue sheets that reminded me Mine is a small cottage. An old one.
of home. The woman who gifted me this house
wrapped me in her skin when I was born.
We shared the skin until she died, and
when the will was read this little home
To say that a selkie is not human is part came to me. It is mere steps from the
fallacy. waters of the small isles, and if you have
very good eyes you can see the shores of
A selkie is not born. We are made. We are Ulst in the distance.
crafted from the skins of our ancestors,
wrapped as infants in the sealskins He came in the spring. When the moss
that become ours, handed down from was bright and the sea was inviting. But
generation to generation by the women not to him. When he approached the
who love us. It doesn’t matter if it is a shore, it roared at him, and I should have
biological parent or a stepmother or a known then.
woman who loves us because we are who

Sjunneson
But like any living creature, I do not listen Every time I cry the salt of my tears
to the warning signs sometimes in search reminds me too much of the ocean.
of things I want.
No one knows why I am so sad, because
That night the sea called to me as it the secrets that I keep are for all selkie-
often does on a full moon. The feeling of kind.
swimming in a moonlit ocean is one of
the best - it recharges the skin, giving it So I stop crying. And I start thinking. I’m
the ability to live for another generation. going to need to tell some truths in order
to get help. I’m going to need to find
He must have felt me slip out of the allies. Because there is no way for one
bed, he must have heard which drawer I woman alone to get that skin back from
opened. He must have watched me slip whatever creepy vault he keeps it in.
out the door and crunch my way to the
ocean, stark naked until I wrapped my It’s time to start socializing.
skin around my shoulders and became a
grey dappled seal. As I walk into the cèilidh, a woman at the
bar says: “It’s such an interesting choice
If he had confronted me, I would have for the British Museum don’t you think?
been able to tell him to leave. Can the artifacts possibly be real?”

But instead he kept his smug silence. What artifacts…

He waited until morning and while I I whip my phone out of my purse and
slept he crept into my lingerie drawer and google the British Museum at speed.
snatched what was most precious to me.
And there he is, in his best suit, smiling
And then the bastard ghosted me. next to a case in which a grey dappled
sealskin hangs on a mannequin, and
is labeled “a true selkie skin.” The
exhibition description lists it alongside
The absence of my skin is not something artifacts of other creatures whose
I will survive. The longer that I stay out identities should never be known.
of the water, the more I wither. Yes, I was Vampire. Werewolf. Lamia. He has gone
born human, but I am not human any on a spree, stealing from the women he
longer. The ocean calls to me, and every beds, I think.
time I cannot answer a part of me dies.

Sjunneson
Turning from the bar with a gin & tonic dance hall toward the beach.
in hand I note the band is starting up a Our hands touch, reaching out over the
reel. I like reels. I knock back the last of rocky beach and finding each other in the
my drink and slide into formation. But moonlight.
instead of facing a man, I am eye to eye
with a woman. “You’re beautiful,” I mutter as our
fingertips fully entangle, a smile edging
She’s wearing her family tartan, and its way onto my lips. “I just got out of…
spins into my arms with a wild cackle as well… a situation. And he took something
she flies from partner to partner in the precious from me.”
dance. The spark of joy that I feel when
she slides her hands into mine is enough Her eyes widen.
for me to ask her name after the dance is
done. “... and you’re not ready…” She starts to
finish my sentence for me but I stop her
She brushes her curls out of her face as with a squeeze of my hand.
the band pauses to turn the sheets of
their music, and between breaths she “It’s not that. It’s just that I’m not whole.
introduces herself. He took something from me that can’t be
replaced.”
“I’m Elin. It’s a joy to meet a partner like
you.” I hesitate, but the ocean is calm.
Encouraging. The ocean tells me it’s all
“Lyall Gray,” I reply. “Would you like to right to tell her.
dance some more?” I ask, keeping her
hand in mine. “I’m a selkie and he took my skin.”

Her smile is all the answer I need, and Instead of shock, or revulsion, or horror,
we go through another reel, a waltz and or inherent curiosity, I am enveloped
a Blind Scotsman before we both collapse in an embrace that can only come from
into bar stools to get water and fresh someone who knows.
cocktails.

“Want to nip outside for some air?” She

asks conspiratorially as we clutch whisky The grand opening of Unseen Worlds is
glasses in our hands. chaos. People who want to get in the
door but can’t swarm every entrance like
I nod and we go out the doors of the locusts. I don’t know how Elin got us

Sjunneson
tickets - the woman is clever - but we
arrive in style. Me in a navy evening gown The first thing that we see makes a wave
wrapped in my family tartan, her in the of nausea roll through my whole body.
kind of gown that you’d call subdued, A pair of fangs, I don’t know how he got
except it wraps her body like a glove. them. I cannot even imagine. But the
small sign next to the gruesome display
I hide my face in her shoulder as my ex says they are real vampire fangs. I wonder
walks past in his tux with a white bow tie. who he took them from. Did she consent?
Her hand presses against the small of my I can’t imagine a vampire consenting to
back, and she whispers in my ear: the removal of what she uses to eat.

“He doesn’t get to keep it. Neither do I. We move through the throngs of humans
It’s yours. You choose where it lives, and gawking at wolf footprints and pressed
it belongs with you. We’ll get it.” pixie wings, and all the while a thread
pulls me through the crowd. I can feel
I lean against her, breathing in the scent my skin, feel it calling out to me, feel it
of her, remembering that this is a person pulling me closer to the display case.
I can trust with my truth and my soul and
my ocean. It lies on a deep blue pillow that reminds
me of the Baltic, stretched out over a faux
Because she is a selkie too. seal body shape so that the skin (which
does not look like a seal when it is not
wrapped around me) still mimics a shape
that a human would recognize.

The entrance to the special collection is The label is what pushes me over the
covered in illustrations of creatures from edge:
everywhere. Faery, vampire, werewolf,
lamia, witch… and selkie. Selkie Skin, origin unspecified, acquired by
Jeston Pierre in Scotland.
An exhibit intended to unmask a hidden
world known only by those who live in it. A A moan escapes my lips. My skin is
perspective breaking installation by Jeston practically screaming at me through the
Pierre. glass. It wants to be in my hands and I
need it in mine.
Just seeing his name makes me feel a
frisson of rage. Elin squeezes my hand Elin’s soft touch pries me away from the
and we move through the open doorway. glass, and when I turn around I see that

Sjunneson
I’ve made enough of a scene to gather are predictable. GenuisCurator105,
attention from the crowd. GeniusCurat0r, BetterThanDarwin69.

“Why don’t we find a bathroom, Lyall?” How did I ever find this man attractive?
Elin says, her eyes filled with concern.
The crowd parts, eyes following us with I don’t realize I’ve said it out loud until
curiosity. Elin’s giggle registers with me.

When we reach the bathroom I run cold “Well he did have nice pictures.” She
water over my wrists and splash some on says, turning her tablet around to face
my face. I’m hoping that activating the me. On the screen, all of Jeston’s matches
diving reflex will help me think. are lined up. We scroll through, reading
through profiles and chat histories until
“It can’t stay,” I say after a moment. our eyes ache, trying to find clues to the
cryptids’ identities.
“No.”
The first one we find is a witch. She’s a
“We have to take it back.” librarian in Oxford. Her profile describes
her lifelong interest in occult history, a
“Yes, love.” vast library of “interesting books” and
a cat who she jokes is her familiar. The
“He must be stopped.” I continue to focus clues are all there. I note her name and
on the running water over my knuckles, start hunting for a librarian at Oxford
reminding me of home. named Hess. An unusual name, easily
found doing archival work at Magdalen
“Bet the other… subjects” she says that College.
word with distaste “Might want their
parts back too.”

A smile crosses my face. Two selkies Hess responds instantly when I suggest
aren’t an army. But a couple werewolves, we have an ex in common named Jeston.
a vampire, a Lamia, and whomever else he
stole those other artifacts from would be. The cafe she invites us to is close to the
Radcliffe Camera. It looks out on cobbled
streets filled with stressed undergraduates
in robes and bow ties. Exams are afoot.
It’s not hard for Elin to break into Hess is a prim looking woman in her early
his dating profiles. His passwords thirties. I don’t know how she got a head

Sjunneson
librarian job at Oxford at such a young And just like that, we have a Face. Elin is
age, but based on the way that she the Hacker. I’m the Mastermind.
talks about the occult, it shouldn’t be a
surprise. We still need people to do some sneaking
and fighting. Fortunately I know where to
“Yes, he came and courted me and then look.
stole some of my tools when I was out
getting us croissants.” she sips her coffee
and eyeballs me. “So what did you come
here for?” Chloe the vampire is lurking in a
burlesque bar as a bar back. How did we
“We know where your cauldron and know she was a vampire? The lack of legs
books are.” Elin says, sliding the bright on her “red wine” was a clue. She tries
purple Unseen Worlds At the British Museum not to smile when we tell her what we’re
brochure across the metal cafe table. planning, but she says her fangs will settle
back into her mouth once she has them.
“That bastard put my Book of Shadows on
display?” she snarls, after flipping through Olivia (a pissed off werewolf) is working
the glossy pages for a moment. “He took out her anger at a boxing gym, beating the
a selkie’s skin for profit?” pus out of a hapless human who doesn’t
know he’s fighting the Big Bad Wolf.
I nod. “It’s mine.”

“So how are we getting our things back? There’s another witch named Ora leading
I can do spells, glamours, possibly a hex? tours at Stourhead, making flowers grow
Though those can get a bit messy.” with her fingertips.

“I have a slightly more mundane question As we speak to each woman, we discover

than that…” I say as she sets down her that Jeston took not just what’s on
coffee cup. “Do you have access to the display, but dozens of sacred objects,
British Museum as a researcher?” jewels, and body parts all of which he’s
stashed away at the museum, waiting for
There’s a quiet pause. the accolades.

“You don’t want me for my magic? You And we make a plan.

just want me for my badge?” She cackles
“I think that’s a first.”

Sjunneson
We arrive at the museum at opening. terrifying girlfriend comes in. She pulls
out a small device from her purse, and
We buy tickets to the museum like presses a button. The room goes dark.
everyone else. We wait in the long line,
spaced out so that we don’t look like “We don’t have long. Go, get your stuff.”
a group. Ora, the flower witch cast Elin says with a smile.
glamours on all of us before we walked
in. I don’t look like myself at all, we don’t There is a second of complete silence,
want any security guards to remember before Olivia smashes the glass
me. surrounding her wolf pelt and grabs it in a
vicious hug.
Only once we’re inside the entrance to
Unseen Worlds do we gather up close. Hess systematically places each of her
Other museum attendees grumble about books and cauldrons into a massive
our pushing and shoving, but even in tote bag, double checking a list on her
non-wolf form Olivia is imposing enough smartphone to be sure everything is hers.
to quell most overt arguments. We make The vampire gleefully shoves her fangs
sure that we step over the threshold into back into her mouth with a sickening
the exhibit as a group, and as soon as we noise I wish I hadn’t heard.
do, it’s go time.
And me?
Hess drops a sachet on the ground, a
purple fabric wrapped package of herbs I walk slowly, deliberately, forward toward
that explodes in dust, slamming a ward my skin. I lift the case off carefully, not
down over the entrance to the exhibit. wanting to damage it in my rush to get it
Just like that the horde of tourists stops back. I pick the dappled grey fur up off the
in its tracks. seal form, my fingers sparking with magic
as I reconnect with my skin once again. It
Do you know what it feels like inside a feels like the ocean rolling over me.
museum exhibit before it’s open to the
public? The energy is electric. A quiet But there’s no time to spend on this
hum of anticipation, the artifacts waiting moment now. The plan still has to move.
to greet their adoring and curious public. I stash my skin in the bag I brought for it,
The quiet settles on my skin, I turn to see and follow the other women out the door.
the tourists all frowning at the entrance,
unsure why they cannot follow us. We leave, not by the exhibit entrance for
guests, but by the exit for staff.
This is where my gorgeous, slightly

Sjunneson
Hess removes her disguise, swaps says, smirking.
an Oxford University badge onto her
natty blazer, and leads us forward, our “I’ll just find new subjects.” he says, his
glamours already wearing off as we step face darkening with rage. “You can’t stop
through Hess’ magical barrier. me from showing the world what you
are.”
The alarms going off in the distance urge
me to move faster. But I hold Elin’s hand I step forward.
and remember that we have a plan, and
that plan relies upon us being clever, and “I think you’ll find we can. Do you really
slow, and deliberate. The plan relies on us want to be in a dark alley and run across
looking like we belong here. any one of us?”

And when we turn a corner in the “You’re a selkie, you can’t possibly do
labyrinthine back-end of the British anything to me.” he says, smugness
Museum, we see Jeston running down the rolling off of him like fog over a deep bay.
hall. Clearly the wards have broken.
“She might not be able to, but I will.”
Jeston stops in his tracks - shocked Hess says, with a smile. “I can curse you
to discover that the subjects of his until you beg for mercy”
“research” and his relationships have
come together. Elin steps forward next.

“Hess. I’m surprised to see you here…” “And if you think about harming a hair
he says, tentatively.“With these other on her head, just know I have the skills
women… how did you meet?” terror to make your life very complicated.” she
threads through his voice. He knows he’s smiles and wriggles a tablet. “I know
been caught. where all your digital skeletons are
buried.”
“University business.” She replies tartly.
“Re-acquiring artifacts that didn’t belong A growl comes out of Olivia’s throat,
to the museum.” unbidden.

“You can’t do that!” he says with the air We don’t wait for an answer, but brush
of a man who has never been told no in past him. As Hess leads us out through
his lifetime. the exit, I expect the security guards to
arrive, but no one does.
“I think you’ll find we already did.” Hess

Sjunneson
 Fluke by Jennifer Bushroe
all the all the selkie wants is to be
merrow wants is a elsewhere forever cursed with
human soul love marriage discontent she longs for land when
yet seamen row away from at sea yearns for the sea when on land
her storm-foretelling visage so her sealskin gifted to the man she chose
she transforms walks on land but mated with but her belly does not swell
port merchants hide behind their fast enough to overtake homesickness
wares her dripping apron and red she walks the docks that realm of in
cap giving her away such beauty between she cannot cross and
not tempting enough for them wonders if motherhood
to risk abduction or death will be worth it
the merrow & the selkie
meet at the
fishmonger’s
market stall both
frowning over the
“fresh” catch of the
day dead in baskets
stiff glassy-eyed and
putrefying under the
sun they recognize a
fellow fey the merrow
desiring the drowned
sailor’s soul that gave
the selkie life she in turn
envious of the ease with
which the merrow returns
to sea at will still possessing
her cap the selkie tries it on but
the only shift in her body is the
pup swirling inside her womb the
sea-maid and -matron both fathom-
crushed between the wantings of her
wild heart and the wantings she has been
taught unspoken they meet at the shore daily
the merrow sharing braided seaweed crowns
and thirdhand cetacean gossip the selkie gifting
soft dappled feathers and tales of human folly
both realizing it is not a soul or a child they need
but kinship because not every transformation is
running away or running toward some are simply
an attempt at evolution revolution of a body that
once was for others but has been repossessed by
she who will no longer obey anyone but herself
I know a great white girl by Cislyn Smith
and she’s happy on land
shed her skin and stashed it safe
and went for blood in the banking world
but you know
she never stops moving
some things never change
under the waves or on land
that’s not me
I like the still waters
the silt
the light filtered down sparkling and soft
through mangrove roots
and I like you
it’s true
and I’ll give you a tooth
or two
I can spare a few
but
I’m not staying
it’s too bright
dry land makes me itchy
and I am tired of the way
things unexpectedly bite
mosquitos
and overdraft charges
and too-long pauses between texts
listen though
you figure out how to shed your skin
the way I did for you
and maybe
just maybe
we can work something out
 by Andi C. Buchanan

In the blue-tinted nights, I pull on my reach out for the rope handrail and follow
heavy boots and my warm coat, loop it down to the heavy sea.
the bag of emergency supplies over my
shoulders, and walk down to the shore. The waves are crashing gently on the
My wife knows I’ve been doing this for shore. To my right is the beach, all blue
months, but we never speak of it; the and silver sand, where we walk, where
children wouldn’t understand. I step our children play, where we barbeque and
carefully down the metal staircase on eat together. Where we stood, all of us
the outside of our basic shared building, together, that night when the last of us
the one that still houses eight families of arrived, shuttled down from the ship in
settlers, each of us in a little collection orbit, and took in our new home.
of interconnecting rooms, and onto the
footpath below. To the right are the metal circles of
the desalination pools. Even in the
The tramlines glint in the light of Kolga, moonlight I can see their spectrum of
largest of our nine moons, which hangs, pinks and turquoises. This is our planet’s
potato-shaped and cratered, above my wealth; so many salts, different chemical
head. Dufa and Unn are just-visible glows compositions, just awaiting extraction
on the horizon, out across the water. from the sea, and from there broken down
There are no trams yet, nor any need into their elements. Water sucked from
for them, but the tracks are part of our one to another, evaporated to leave its
sustainability planning for the new city, precious salts behind.
installed right from the start. I follow
them. It’s not my sea. I’m not going to walk into
it and become my other self, not going
We’ve cut steps into the cliff, one of the to leave my life here behind. I would not
first things we did after erecting our have even if we had stayed, not while I
shelters, more than five years ago now. I still had family who depended on me.
I just wish I had the option. construction; we’ll be moved in by winter,
all going well. I won’t miss these cramped
quarters, the noise, the ramshackle
construction, but I’ll miss times like this,
After work I hurry to the beach to call seated at last, dipping hot chips in sauce
the kids in for dinner; keeping track of and chatting with the others.
time is not one of their strong points.
Now thirteen and fifteen their days are These are good times for us: I work, I
busy; mornings in school and afternoons take care of the family, I build a future for
in work placements, but as soon as that’s others.
over they run and tumble shrieking down
to the sea, smearing the barrier gel on I don’t have a speciality like my wife,
their bodies as they go, hoping to get in whose engineering skillset was specialised
an hour or so in the sun. enough to get the whole family passage,
and I’m not really cut out for the heavy
From the top of the steps I see them work. Before we were here I taught
and their classmates messing around on university entrance prep; now I teach
the heavy water, their bodies buoyant a few classes and help out with the
and unbreakable, their voices care-free construction project management.
and high pitched. I no longer notice They’re training me up bit by bit, Gantt
the changes to their bodies - to all our charts and risk assessments. I’m happy to
bodies - to allow us to live in this new do anything really. I know it’s a privilege
world. They barely remember looking any to live here. And the children may whine
different. It’s the childhood I dreamed of for all the flavours of ice-cream they can’t
for them, untroubled and safe, part of a have and that the media we brought with
community. us is so old and doesn’t reflect their lives,
but on balance? They’re happy here. More
Back in the communal kitchen, one of importantly, they’re safe.
our neighbours - the only other one
with children still in this block - fries The seas out here are not the seas of
up bean burgers. I pick lettuce from the Earth, not the seas of my home. It makes
hydroponics glasshouse next door, slice no sense that I should be drawn to them.
up bread, open a new jar of chutney. Five
young people round the table, ravenous
as always, and I’m surprised to find I am
as well. We often cook meals together - if I hear my wife’s footsteps on the rocky
not all of us, then in groups. The house ground behind me, rock smoothed to a
that will be ours is next on the list to start pathway, see her uneasy shadow in the

Buchanan
moonlight. I don’t turn round, but I don’t “I miss our old home,” I say at last.
walk down the steps either. I find myself
a place to sit amid the rocks and she sits “I do too sometimes,” she says, but we
beside me. both know it’s not the same. She’s a
creature of the firm ground, a childhood
“You’re not happy,” she says. spent running in woods and small-town
I look at the moonlit sky. I remember streets, used to hearing her movements
when just one moon waxed and waned echo back at her, rubber soles on
in the sky; now there’s a complex series concrete. We all have dreams of building
of irregular orbits, moons shuffling in a better world here, but it’s a better world
and out of view like an intricate dance, all for human needs, and people like me are
factoring into a series of calculations to only part of it so long as we are in human
predict the rising and falling tides. I don’t form.
know how I can put this into words as
simple as happy and sad. Not that I can be anything else, with my
skin burned and scattered, and light years
In some ways this is a shared loss. We away.
all had things we had to leave behind
on earth. My children left their friends,
their hopes of seeing so many cities, the
chance of leaving their parents behind I am good at compartmentalising
for noise and crowds and anonymity. My whatever it is that draws me to the sea -
wife left an elderly father. We left family grief, or hope, or longing. Our seas here
heirlooms, works of art, religious relics. may be dead, but they hold riches for us
My loss is no more significant in the and bit by bit we are desalinating them.
scheme of things. There’s talk of future ships bringing algae
which can tolerate heavy metals; one day
We burned my skin - my seal skin - before there may be small fish zipping backwards
we left, scattered the ashes over the rocks and forwards on the incoming tides. I
where I first came ashore. There was a can’t imagine that being in my lifetime,
temptation to use it one last time, but I but I can at least feel things are a little
knew it would make everything harder. better for our presence. On earth the seas
I could have brought it, but it would have are terminally sick and broken; everything
taken up the sentimental items allowance is dying. Most of my people have come
for our whole family. I could not have ashore, with so little hope of return they
agreed to that. Not for something I cannot did not even bother to hide their skins.
imagine using here, on this dead planet
with its beautiful dead seas. Things may still be tough out here; hard

Buchanan
work, and the dust in our eyes, and even in human form. I remember cold
nowhere to go if you fall out with waters and craggy rocks; the salt in my
someone, but we are thriving, growing, fur, the fronds of seaweed parting in the
thinking about the implications of current like forests in wind. I take long,
everything we create. We are building easy strokes out, the buoyancy of these
and we are coming to life. We are making waters making my movements easy.
things better. We are making things better
for our children - our smooth-skinned, The land grows far in the distance. I
human, land-dwelling children - which is realise how small our settlement - of just
all I ever wanted. a few thousand people, and three like it
elsewhere on the planet - is among the
The seasons shift fast here. Summer vast, grey-blue, cliffs, the shoreline that
is replaced by winter with little of a seems to grow out with every stroke
shoulder season, and the children spend I take. This planet has been mapped
their free time huddled in communal and surveyed yet there is so much still
lounges with computer games and old unknown.
movies. On the shortest, coldest day of
the year we light a fire on the beach and I wait in deep seas, floating, not even
watch the splinters of orange shatter into needing to tread water. And then I see
the air. There are three moons visible them, lights below the water. I look up,
tonight, three moons and our fire, and wondering if they’re reflections of the
their reflections make patterns out over lights of one of our drones, or some
the crashing sea. phenomenon of the refraction of sunlight
through water.
It is then I know that I am going to swim.
Not parallel with the beach, for morning The sky is empty and the sun behind
exercise, or crashing and leaping playfully cloud. And yet more lights are growing,
with the kids, but deep into whatever lighting up and spreading out in patterns.
secrets this water holds. Yellows and greens and turquoises,
changing.

I know, deep down, that this is what has

I wait for summer; I am not a total fool been calling me out. Not my restlessness
even if my decision is foolish. I smear or guilt, not my memories of a faraway
my skin with protective gel; though the planet.
modifications made to us before and
during our long journey provide the I hear words; not ones that can be broken
greater protection. I am a good swimmer, to syllables, maybe not sound exactly, but

Buchanan
enough to leave no doubt in my mind. files for comparable examples, analyse
This is no dead world. the exact wording of the protocols. Our
building work halts, restricted only to
I swim back, fast strokes one after the completing in-progress projects where
other, not allowing myself to feel the it would do more harm to leave them
tiredness in all my limbs. unfinished, shedding insulation foam out
into the mind. Our already small lives
grow even tinier; the optimism we built
our lives on is thinly spread.
When I breathlessly report my experience,
and then retell it once, twice, three This is what we come up with: to try and
times, to a growing committee of leaders make contact. Learn from them. Hear
and experts, it’s clear our whole lives what they have to say and what their
are about to be thrown into disarray. concerns are.
Anything that could be sentient
life requires careful consideration, This isn’t my role at all. I’m a long way
negotiation, a common understanding from a diplomat, as either of my children
of terminology before we can even begin would tell you. And yet all eyes fall on
that negotiation. It is best done before me.
anyone encroaches on their space, even
a landing party, but certainly long before And I swim.
settlement is made. Even non-sentient
life needs protection - and there are
many forms, on other planets, that test
the boundaries of the two, forcing us to In the deepening waters I curse myself. I
constantly redefine them. made a decision; to leave the seas, to burn
my skin, for the good of our children.
The long term plan for this planet is based If I could just have stuck to a decision,
on desalination of its seas and eventually one way or the other, it might have been
the export of the components that make okay, but now I’ve ruined the lives of
up those salts. The change to the seas is thousands. I swim angrily, tearfully, but I
fractional, barely measurable when you swim. Because I may have transgressed,
take into account their size and depth, but but I am not a coward, will not shirk my
life survives on the narrowest of margins. duties.

We send messages seeking advice, but Outside the seas seem dead, buoyant and
it will be months before a reply can be dead. I wonder if I hallucinated with the
received. In the meantime we scour our cold, wonder if it was all a figment of my

Buchanan
homesick imagination. I’m not sure I I swim with them through the seas.
could face anyone, having caused such I stand on the rocks and I talk softly,
disruption, were that true, but I see none knowing the more I talk the more they
of the bioluminescence here, receive no will understand my language. Gradually
feedback, nothing I recognise as life. I realise the truth. I have not come
to a place where there are others like
I let myself float on the water. Maybe me; I have created others out of some
I need to swim further. But then a form of proto life, waiting in the ocean.
movement, out of the corner of my eye. Something that didn’t quite meet enough
Not a light, but something heavy and yet definitions of alive to be detected on our
graceful, moving through the water. Then scans, maybe something outside our
another, brown fur slicked back. They scanning criteria altogether. Something
surround me, not with hostility but with another might call magic.
curiosity - no, more recognition, because
they know I am one of them. I spin in the I don’t use that word. When your whole
salty sea and watch them congregate all being is magic it becomes meaningless.
around me.
We will debate, later, and perhaps others
Seals. will debate long after us, where that proto
life came from - whether it lay dormant
here for thousands or millions of years,
whether it came on an asteroid. Others
I choose to believe, just for a moment, will talk about what this means for our
that fate has brought me here; a place understandings of evolution, whether it
where others of my kind wait, those who was the fact I am something not-quite-
swim in cold waters with their thick, oily human that meant I could activate it.
skins, layers of fat upon them, salt heavy
upon the rocks, and who cast off that That will be then. This is now: I am
layer to walk among the people, upon shivering a little seated on the rocks. I am
two legs, who become human, who fall alone - it has agreed I will be left, for now,
in love. Statistically it may be unlikely, to find out what I can.
but we were always creatures of magic
and folklore more than we ever were of I have done more than find out. I have
science and finely calculated statistics. disrupted this planet, its development,
the life that lives upon it, in such a
I allow myself a moment to believe I’ve fundamental way I am not sure it could
come home. ever be excused; and yet the very nature
of these people is to be malleable, flexible,
change.

Buchanan
 by Benny Kim

I wake up in a cave, wearing Bos’ coat. “Bos,” I say. “You’re in my body.”

Most humans would be concerned about
the cave part, but as a selkie, I was Bos moans and flaps her (my) flippers in
befuddled that I was wearing my best the air, protesting the rousing touch. Too
friend’s skin instead of my own. bad, Bos! My body, my rules. I nudge her,
and my snout crunches before relaxing.
The first thing selkies are taught as pups It’s weird to see myself like this.
is to never let anybody take your coat.
Rather, you should avoid shedding your Finally, Bos yawns. She blinks at the sight
sealskin at all lest a besotted lover entrap of me in her sealskin, then takes stock of
you in marriage. Bos and I never listened the body she wears.
to the outdated fables. Playing human was
our favorite game, especially on weekends “So I am,” she says. “You have so much
when La Jolla’s nightclubs blasted their blubber. It’s much nicer than my own.”
songs and drinks poured freely. We even
named ourselves after the drinks. Bos “I’m flattered.”
had misread the 805 on the beer bottle as
English letters, the silly girl. Bos barks out a laugh. My face has never
looked so mischievous. “What do you
That silly girl’s namesake is likely the say we stay like this a bit longer? We can
reason for my current headache and out- prank my brothers.”
of-body experience.
The fact that I consider it surprises me.
I raise myself (Bos’ self?) up and scan our The maxim had been all but tattooed into
secret hideout for my better half. Partly my brain: Don’t let anybody take your
in the water lay my unconscious form. coat. It’s one thing if a human steals my
I gently slap whom I assume to be Bos skin, but Bos and I took our first steps
awake. on land together and used to sleep with
clutched hands like otters.
 Nowadays, she holds my hair as I puke
after an intoxicating night out.

Bos isn’t anybody. I trust her. Bos smiles at

me, and I know she feels the same.

There’s no need for traps when we always

choose each other.

“All right,” I say, and I feel Bos’ heart

swell with love. “Which one should we
get first?”

Kim Art by Vicky Bowes

Alice Pow is not secretly a water spirit (wink). She is the creator of Kaiju Cuties, a
webcomic about giant gay and trans monsters. She makes all kinds of things and her
work also appears in Dragon Bike and Geek Out II. Find her on Twitter and elsewhere as
@SummerTimeAlice.

Andi C. Buchanan lives and writes just outside Wellington, New Zealand. Winner
of Sir Julius Vogel Awards for From a Shadow Grave (Paper Road Press, 2019) and their
short story “Girls Who Do Not Drown” (Apex, 2018), their fiction is also published
in Fireside, Kaleidotrope, Glittership, and more. Most recently they’ve been writing witchy
stories, starting with the novella Succulents and Spells. You can find them at https://
andicbuchanan.org or @andicbuchanan on Twitter.

Benny Kim is a nonbinary Asian writer who has previously been published in the Case
Reserve Review. They had the pleasure of seeing the La Jolla cove seals in person back
in 2019. Currently, they work as a freelance translator and editor with aspirations of
writing a serial novel.

Cherry Potts is the published author of a lesbian fantasy epic, The Dowry Blade,
two collections of short stories, Mosaic of Air and Tales Told Before Cockcrow, and a
Photographic Diary of a Community Opera, The Blackheath Onegin. She also has many
short stories (and one poem) published in anthologies and magazines in print and
on-line. Her stories have been performed in London, Leeds, Leicester and Hong Kong
through Liars’ League, and she has performed her own work at the Towersey festival,
Story Fridays in Bath, and numerous other London events.

Cherry’s story “Medusa Wonders” was shortlisted for the Bridport Flash Fiction Prize
2020.

She has completed her second novel, The Bog Mermaid, and a novella, A Fish in a Desert,
and is currently working on a young adult timeslip novel, and a space opera.

Cherry teaches creative writing at City, University of London as a visiting lecturer and
owns and runs Arachne Press for whom she edits short stories, novels and poetry, and
sometimes designs covers and animated book trailers; and is the founder and curator
of the annual literature and music festival, Solstice Shorts, now in its seventh year.
Cherry cont. Cherry sings in choirs for fun (online at the moment which isn’t
anything like as much fun) and lives in London with her wife and an adored and very
spoilt cat.

Cislyn Smith (she/her) likes playing pretend, playing games, and playing with words.
She calls Madison, Wisconsin her home. She has been known to crochet tentacles,
write stories at odd hours, and study stone dead languages. She is occasionally
dismayed by the lack of secret passages in her house. Her poems and stories have
appeared in Strange Horizons, Diabolical Plots, and Daily Science Fiction, among other
places. She is a first reader for Uncanny Magazine and Giganotosaurus, a graduate of the
Viable Paradise Workshop, and one of the founding members of the Dream Foundry.
Twitter: @Cislyn

Eefje Savelkoul (she/her) is a Dutch artist, illustrator, and graphic designer who
specializes in editorial work. She loves painting with watercolors and spends a lot of
her free time knitting or playing Dungeons & Dragons with her friends. Stories of all
types are her jam. You can find more of her work on her website, instagram and etsy
store.

https://www.eefjesavelkoul.com
https://www.instagram.com/eefjesart/
https://www.etsy.com/shop/eefjesart

Elsa Sjunneson is a Deafblind author and editor living in Seattle, Washington.

Her fiction and nonfiction writing has been praised as “eloquence and activism in
lockstep” and has been published in dozens of venues around the world. She has been
a Hugo Award finalist seven times, and has won Hugo, Aurora, and BFA awards for
her editorial work. When she isn’t writing, Sjunneson works to dismantle structural
ableism and rebuild community support for disabled people everywhere. Her debut
memoir, Being Seen: One Deafblind Woman’s Fight to End Ableism, releases in October of
2021 from Tiller Press.

Jennifer Bushroe once swore on a statue of Peter Pan that she’d never grow up. She
fulfills this oath daily by dancing like nobody’s watching, eating dessert before dinner,
and writing speculative fiction and poetry. You can find Jennifer on Twitter, and her
work in On Spec, Polu Texni, DreamForge Magazine, and more.
Jennifer Mace is a queer Brit who roams the Pacific Northwest in search of tea and
interesting plant life. A three-time Hugo-finalist podcaster for her work with Be The
Serpent, she writes about strange magic and the cracks that form in society. Her short
fiction has appeared in Cast of Wonders and Baffling, while her poetry may be found in
Reckoning and Uncanny. Her anthology Silk & Steel: An Adventure Anthology of Queer Ladies,
with co-editors Janine Southard and Django Wexler, may be found through Cantina
Press. Find her online at www.englishmace.com.

Phoebe Farrell-Sherman is a poet from Seattle WA, living in Northampton MA.

Some of her recent inspirations include Celtic folktales, Joni Mitchell, and the return
of spring to Massachusetts.

A 2016 MBA graduate and published author, Priya Sridhar has been writing fantasy
and science fiction for fifteen years, and counting. Capstone published the Powered
series, and Alban Lake published her works Carousel and Neo-Mecha Mayhem. Priya lives
in Miami, Florida with her family.

Rhys Hughes was born in Wales but has lived in many countries in Europe and
Africa. He graduated as an engineer but currently works as a tutor of mathematics.
In his spare time he keeps writing. He is nearing the end of a thirty year project to
write exactly one thousand linked short stories. He has also written plays, poems,
articles and puzzles for a variety of international publications, and his work has been
translated into ten languages.

Tehnuka is a Tamil tauiwi writer and volcanologist from Aotearoa-New Zealand.

She likes to find herself up volcanoes, down caves, and in unexpected places; others,
however, can find her on Twitter as @tehnuka, and her words in Apparition Lit,
Memento Vitae, and the Daily Drunk Mag. She was a finalist in the 2020 Dream Foundry
contest and highly commended in the 2020 NZ Sunday Star-Times short story
competition. This is her first speculative story publication.
Vicky Bowes, Spring Tide Creations: I am an artist fortunate enough to spend my
days drawing and painting what inspires me the most - the natural world.

I grew up in the UK countryside and have always been enthralled by the worlds of
other animals and plants - wondering about their lives, how they feel, what they’re
thinking, and I’m never happier than when outdoors - immersed in the wild - be
it out on the water or deep in the forest.I draw and paint representations of these
worlds in an effort to share the experience with others. My work has been described
as ‘realistic with just the right amount of whimsy’ which is an observation I enjoy. I
love whimsical storytelling through my work. Stories linked to nature occur in every
culture throughout history.

The whimsy gives us a connection to the character and emotions of the other
beings portrayed - a glimpse at the world from another point of view. This builds a
relationship of love with the wild world that many humans feel disassociated with in
modern times.

I hope my work brings a renewed sense of kinship with nature and helps in some way
to preserve, protect and respect what is left of this beautiful planet’s wild places.

And if nothing else, I hope it brings you a sense of joy.

Wilda Morris, Workshop Chair of Poets and Patrons of Chicago and a past President
of the Illinois State Poetry Society, has published over 700 poems in anthologies,
webzines, and print publications, including The Ocotillo Review, Pangolin Review, Modern
Haiku, Brass Bell, and Journal of Modern Poetry. She has won awards for formal and free
verse and haiku, including the 2019 Founders’ Award from the National Federation of
State Poetry Societies. Much of the work on her second poetry book, W (Kelsay Books,
2019), was written during a Writer’s Residency on Martha’s Vineyard. Her poetry is
featured on YouTube videos from the P2 Collective. She is working on a book of poetry
inspired by books and articles on scientific topics. Her poetry blog at wildamorris.
blogspot.com features a monthly poetry contest.
Julia Rios (they/them) is a queer, Latinx writer, editor, podcaster, and narrator
whose fiction, non-fiction, and poetry have appeared in Latin American Literature Today,
Lightspeed, and Goblin Fruit, among other places. Their editing work has won multiple
awards including the Hugo Award. Julia is a co-host of This is Why We’re Like This,
a podcast about the movies we watch in childhood that shape our lives, for better or
for worse. They’ve narrated stories for Escape Pod, Podcastle, Pseudopod, and Cast of
Wonders. They’re @omgjulia on Twitter.

Ashley Deng (she/her) is a Canadian-born Chinese-Jamaican writer with a love of

fantasy and all things Gothic. She studied biochemistry with a particular interest in
making accessible the often-cryptic world of science and medicine. When not writing,
she spends her spare time overthinking society and culture and genre fiction. Her
work has appeared at Nightmare Magazine, Fireside Magazine, and Queen of Swords Press
and you can find her at aedeng.wordpress.com or on Twitter at
@ashesandmochi.

Meg Frank (they/them) is a Hugo-nominated artist based in New York. In the before
times they traveled a lot and spent a lot of time looking up in museums. Currently
they are keeping themselves busy with art school, two cats, knitting for their family,
and this magazine. They’re @peripateticmeg on Twitter.

Lis Hulin Wheeler (she/her) lives outside Boston with her spouse and child and
spends her days chasing mail carriers and citing obscure postal regulations.

Find her on Twitter or Goodreads and her work at Ninestar Press and The Future Fire.
She also serves as Fiction Editor and Logistics Manager for Wizards in Space Literary
Magazine (check them out!) and slushreads for various genre publications.