Chapter 1 #2
"Consider the selkie," Vince continued, walking between the rows now.
"She sheds her skin, lives as a human, takes a husband, bears children.
By all appearances, she has successfully transitioned from one state to another.
" He stopped two rows ahead of me. "But the skin remains.
Hidden, perhaps. Locked away. And the moment she finds it—"
"She leaves," someone said. A boy near the front, eager to impress.
Vince smiled faintly. Not unkind.
"She returns," Vince corrected. "There's a difference. Leaving implies abandonment. Returning implies that the human life was the interruption, not the other way around."
He resumed pacing, slower now. Thoughtful.
“The question isn’t whether transformation is possible. Clearly it is — every culture we’ve studied says so. The question is whether integration is possible.” He glanced around the room. “Can you be both things at once? Can you carry the change with you without being consumed by it?”
My pen had stopped moving.
I stared at the half-finished sentence on my page and couldn’t remember how long I’d been stuck there.
“Lumi.”
My head came up.
Vince was looking at me — not sharply, not expectantly. Just… openly. Like he’d been waiting, not watching.
“You’ve spent more time than most thinking about this question,” he said. “When you’re ready — no rush — would you like to weigh in?”
The room went very still.
I felt it then — not pressure from him, but attention from everyone else. The shift in the air as faces turned, curiosity sharpening into focus.
The girl with the ponytail twisted halfway around in her seat. The boy near the front straightened, like he expected something to go wrong.
Vince didn’t move. Didn’t rescue me. Didn’t push.
He just waited — the way you wait for someone you trust to find their footing.
The room held its breath.
I could feel them—every set of eyes, every held inhale, every person waiting to see if I'd crack. The girl with the ponytail had turned around again. The boy near the front was smirking slightly, like he expected me to fail.
My throat was dry. My hands wanted to shake.
I didn't let them.
"Sometimes the original state wasn't better," I said. My voice came out steadier than I expected. "We assume the selkie wants to be human because that's the form we recognize. But the story never says she was unhappy in the sea. Just that her life was changed, her timeline interrupted."
Vince tilted his head. "Go on."
"The restoration arc assumes there's something to restore to. That the 'before' was complete." I thought about cold. About hunger. About a man who had forgotten he had hands. "But what if it wasn't? What if the transformation isn't a loss at all—just a different kind of becoming?"
The room was very quiet.
Vince studied me for a moment. Something flickered across his expression—interest, maybe, or recognition.
"That's a generous reading," he said finally. "Most scholars focus on the tragedy of the husband. The children left behind."
"Most scholars aren't selkies," I said.
Someone in the back laughed—startled, quickly suppressed. Vince's mouth twitched.
"Indeed they are not." He turned back to the room at large. "Consider that for your papers. Whose perspective does the narrative serve? Whose definition of 'restoration' are we accepting, and why?"
He moved on. Something about werewolf mythology and the lunar cycle. I wrote down words without processing them.
My heart was pounding like I'd run a mile.
For the rest of the hour, I kept my head down. Took notes that might or might not be coherent. Focused on the scratch of pen against paper, the weight of the desk under my elbows, the solid reality of the chair beneath me.
Normal things. Anchoring things.
When Vince dismissed the class, I stayed where I was until most of the room had emptied. Chairs scraped. Bags zipped. Voices returned to normal volume, like the tension had been a held breath everyone was eager to release.
I didn’t want to be pressed into the flow of bodies. Didn’t want to explain myself with my face.
When I finally stood, Vince was stacking papers at the front of the room.
He glanced up as I approached.
“Lumi,” he said, warmth threading through my name.
I stopped a few feet from his desk. Close enough to speak quietly. Far enough to feel like myself.
“Your lecture,” I said. “About return.”
His hands stilled. Not dramatically — just enough that I noticed.
“Yes?”
“The selkie,” I continued. “The way you framed it.” I hesitated, searching for the right words. “It sounded less like a warning and more like… permission.”
Vince studied me for a long moment. Not like a professor evaluating a student — like someone deciding how much truth a person could carry.
“Stories rarely warn us,” he said gently. “They explain us.”
I swallowed.
“Does it always feel like you’re losing something,” I asked, “even when you aren’t?”
Something softened in his expression. Not pity. Understanding.
“Yes,” he said without hesitation. “Because change asks us to grieve the version of ourselves that no longer fits — even when the new one is stronger.”
That landed somewhere deep. Somewhere I hadn’t put words to yet.
“And the return?” I asked quietly.
Vince smiled, just a little. “Return isn’t about going back, Lumi. It’s about learning how to stand where you are now without apology.”
I nodded. The tightness in my chest eased — not gone, but manageable.
“Your perspective in class,” he added, gathering his papers again, “was thoughtful. Honest. Don’t sand it down for the sake of comfort. Yours or anyone else’s.”
“I won’t,” I said.
“I know.” His gaze held mine for a beat longer. “Rae sends her love.”
That did it. That small tether back to family, to safety.
“Thank you,” I said.
He inclined his head — a dismissal that wasn’t a dismissal.
I turned and walked out before the room could feel heavy again.
James was waiting for me in the corridor.
His large, warm hand settling at the small of my back like it had always lived there.
“Good talk with Tomlinson?” he asked.
“Yeah. He…” I searched for it. “He reminded me I don’t have to put myself back the way I was.”
James nodded once. “Good.”
He didn’t ask where I was going when the hall split. He felt it — the same pull curling low in my spine.
“North,” I said anyway.
His thumb brushed my wrist, right over the mark. Grounding. Claiming.
“I’ll walk you,” he said. Not a question.