Epilogue
Orvik
I hate public speaking.
I have made this clear to Sylvie, to Callum, to Jackie, to Dr. Enid, to every member of the gala planning committee. I also told the bartender at the Siren's Call who made the mistake of asking me how my week was going. I have made this clear repeatedly, at volume.
I am still standing behind a podium in front of two hundred people.
The Flippers and Feathers annual fundraising gala has taken over the center's outdoor grounds.
String lights crisscross between the buildings and the dock.
Tables are draped in white linen, the centerpieces made of sea glass and driftwood that Sylvie assembled with the ferocious attention to detail of a pixie who has been planning this event since January.
A jazz trio plays near the makeshift bar.
The evening is warm, the kind of late August warmth that sits on the skin and smells like salt.
The crowd is a mix of locals, sponsors, wealthy donors, and the usual collection of Saltford Bay residents who will attend any event that promises free food.
Old Man Thatcher is at a corner table, eating shrimp with both hands.
The satyr bartender from the Siren's Call is working the event bar.
A family of trolls has claimed the table nearest the dessert station and appears to be settling in for the long haul.
Behind the dessert station, in a Flippers and Feathers polo shirt and a catering apron, Chase is running the food service with the focus of a man who has found his calling. Sylvie catches his eye from across the grounds and he smiles at her.
I look down at my notes. Jackie wrote them for me because my idea of a speech was four sentences about harbor safety regulations and a reminder to secure your mooring lines before storm season. Jackie suggested, gently, that the donors might appreciate something with a wider scope.
I clear my throat. The microphone whines. Two hundred faces look up at me from their tables.
Time to go.
"I am not a man who is good with words," I begin, and a small ripple of laughter moves through the crowd because apparently this is already obvious. "But some of you already know that."
I look at the notes. I look at the crowd. I put the notes down.
"A year ago, I stood in this harbor and I believed I knew what order looked like.
Everything in its place. Everything under control.
I had lived in Saltford Bay for seven years and I had never once asked myself whether the order I built was keeping me safe or keeping me trapped. " I pause. "It was doing both."
The crowd is quiet. I don't know if this is good or bad. I keep going.
"Flippers and Feathers taught me something I did not expect to learn from a wildlife rehabilitation center.
It taught me that the whole point of rescue is release.
You find something wounded. You give it what it needs.
You put in the work, the hours, the patience.
And then, when it's ready, you open the gate.
You let it go. Not because you don't care, but because holding on to something that's meant to be free is not protection. It's a cage."
I find Jackie in the front row and she holds my gaze.
She's wearing a blue dress that she bought for the occasion.
She looks stunning in it, although she told me this morning that she looks like a whale in formalwear.
She does not look like a whale. She looks like a woman who is seven months pregnant and incandescent with it, her skin glowing with more than bioluminescence, her hand resting on her round belly.
The pearl sits at her collarbone, warm and quiet and luminous.
"I was the wounded thing," I say, still looking at her. "And the people in this room, the people at this center, are the ones who did the work. Who put in the hours and the patience. Who showed me that home is not a place you defend. It's a place you choose."
I pick up my glass.
"To Flippers and Feathers. To the animals we rescue and the ones who rescue us. And to Saltford Bay."
The crowd raises their glasses. The applause begins and I step away from the podium before anyone can ask me to say more. I have used approximately four hundred percent more words in public than I am comfortable with and my tentacle hair is wound so tight against my scalp they may never uncoil.
Callum intercepts me at the bottom of the stage steps.
"That was perfect," he says. “Pretty sure the Thornwoods will be taking out their checkbooks in the next thirty minutes, if I may judge by the way Agatha wiped her eyes with a tissue. You did it, my friend.”
"Don't get used to it."
He grins and claps me on the shoulder and goes to work the crowd. I watch him go, a bit jealous of the ease with which he navigates this sea of people. After all, Callum has never met a stranger and selkies are physically incapable of not being charming at social events.
I make my way toward Jackie. She's still in her chair, one hand on her belly, Mira beside her with a glass of sparkling water. Mira sees me coming and stands.
"Beautiful speech," she says. "I didn't know you had it in you."
"That’s because I don't," I protest, casting a pointed glare toward Sylvie, who waves cheerfully at me from her position next to the catering table. “I was forced to be here, remember?”
"Clearly." She pats my arm as she passes on her way to find Callum. “You still nailed it. We’ll have even bigger expectations next year. Who knows, you could even end up doing stand-up comedy.”
I growl at her as she leaves, but there’s no real bite in it. It wasn’t that bad in the end.
I sit beside Jackie and she takes my hand, then puts it on her belly.
“Your son is getting restless,” she says and I feel the movement underneath. A roll, a push, something turning in the warm dark. Our child, half-kraken and half-human, growing in the space between two worlds.
"That was a good speech," Jackie says.
"I hated every second of it."
"I know. That's what made it good."
She leans her head against my shoulder and squeezes my hand. We sit there for a moment while the crowd moves around us.
I've grown fond of being part of this community.
Then something shifts at the edge of my awareness. My gills twitch under my collar. My tentacle hair lifts, just slightly, reading a change in the salt air that no one else in this crowd can feel.
I look toward the water.
Past the harbor, past the dock lights, past the gentle swell of Saltford Bay, where the ocean meets the darkening sky, a shape is rising.
Far enough that no one at the gala would notice unless they knew what to look for.
Close enough that I can see the bioluminescent patterns cascading down the hull in waves of blue and green and gold, the ancient living wood breaking the surface, the water parting around it like a welcome.
The Nautilus.
My father, keeping his promise. Visiting when the currents allow.
Jackie follows my gaze. She sees it and her hand tightens on mine. She's quiet for a moment. The pearl pulses once at her throat, bright and warm.
"Do you think your father will be happy for us?"
She means the baby. We didn’t know Jackie was pregnant at his last visit.
"Yes," I answer without hesitation. “He will be overjoyed to have a grandchild.”
The Nautilus glows at the edge of Saltford Bay as the gala plays on behind us. Jackie is warm against my side with our child slowly growing inside her.
And I am here.
I press my lips to Jackie's hair and kiss her head.
"I love you," I tell her, because no matter how often I say it, it will never be enough.
"I love you too," she says. "Even though you hate public speaking."
"Especially because I hate public speaking."
She laughs. The sound carries across the water toward the Nautilus, toward the deep, toward the world I came from and the world I chose, and I hold her close, letting it go where it wants to go.
The ocean will carry it.
The ocean carries everything home.
THE END