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“There was a time when I was alone
Nowhere to go and no place to call home
My only friend was the man in the Moon
And even, sometimes, he would go away, too
Then one night, as I closed my eyes
I saw a shadow flying high
He came to me with the sweetest smile
Told me he wanted to talk for a while…”
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Trinity Santos is nine years old, fresh coppery blood from her nose mixing with her tears as they drip into the foggy water below her, disappearing into the gray-green beneath the dock. Her reedy legs, covered in bandaids, are crossed where she sits on the rotted wood, the boards soft and splintered under her bare thighs.
The tide is coming back in. The water laps against the pilings with these clopping sounds, like a horse’s hooves. She sniffles, wiping her swollen face with the back of her hand, smearing her salty tears and blood all together. Nobody comes looking for her; nobody ever comes looking for her. The dock is old and crooked, leaning slightly toward the sea like it’s tired; she’s tired too. The wood smells like rot, salt, and fish. Barnacles crust the beams underneath, clustered together in chalky white colonies that cling stubbornly to the wood. Their rough shells form jagged crusts along the supports, like broken, uneven teeth. There are long ropes of brown seaweed swaying in the water like angel hair on trees, just barely dragging along the surface.
Trinity stares down between the boards, watching a whole lot of nothing. But just then, something pale moves beneath the surface. Something rubbery with big patches of white, moving through the dark water. She leans forward a little, squinting through her wet lashes, thinking that maybe it’s a shark. Then the head breaks the surface, it’s a seal — with these huge black, wet eyes, round as gumballs. She’s seen pictures of them before, in books and stuff. She thinks it’s a harp seal. “Hi.” She sniffles. “Are you lost? This is land, the sea is that way.” She points, but the seal just keeps on looking at her. Its whiskers twitch as it lifts its chin onto the edge of the dock, water dripping from its white patches in tiny beads.
Trinity sniffles again, wiping her nose. The seal tilts its head slightly, as if puzzled. “You gotta go that way!”
The seal doesn’t move and she rolls her eyes, letting out a tired, irritated huff through her stuffy nose, “Are you stupid or something?” But the seal just — melts away. At first, Trinity thinks the thick fog is playing tricks on her, because the roundness of its head wobbles slightly, like clay being pressed in from the inside. Then the sleek curve of its body loses its firmness, its glossy skin going looser somehow, going slack as though whatever filled it has suddenly gone away. Then the whole thing seems to sag, the rubbery flesh narrows and puckers in odd places, the smooth skin dimpling and collapsing inward. Its head shrinks and something beneath the skin moves, like inside a costume. The seal skin loosens even further, wrinkling and folding in on itself as though it’s suddenly too big for whatever is inside it. The hide bunches and slides backward. Until it can just be pushed away, like a blanket, revealing a round little face. A boy, around her age or younger, with damp sandy curls sticking to his forehead and ears. His skin is milky and oddly shimmery in the fog. Trinity squeaks, unable to look away. The boy grips the edge of the dock with several small webbed fingers and pulls himself up just enough so his shoulders break the surface, the dark water rippling around him in wide circles.
“Why did you call me?”
“I don’t have a phone.” She whispers.
The boy shakes his head, digging his nails into the rotted wood planks to pull himself up completely, seal skin draped across his back. He blinks at her. “You need to take it.”
“Take what?”
The little boy takes her hand in his odd tiny webbed pair, cold and clammy, and guides it to his shoulder. He bends her fingers until she grips the weird rubbery seal skin. “Take it.”
She nods and pulls. The seal skin slides free from his shoulders with a wet heavy sound. It crumples in on itself as she lifts it, sitting in her lap like a damp bundle of blankets, or towels after a swim. The little boy looks tinier without his skin, with limbs thin as pipe-cleaners and those marble eyes now a clear blue. He looks at her very seriously. “Hide it by morning.”
She nods, holding out her now damp hand. “Are you cold?”
The little boy nods.
“Okay, come with me, I’ll take care of you.”
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“He said, "Peter Pan, that's what they call me and I promise that you'll never be lonely."’
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