It was a warm June afternoon when Alfred Jones stepped into the crumbling warehouse. The clammy air smelled of salt and rotting seaweed, and sent shivers crawling down his spine. He paused in the doorway, running a hand through his blonde hair, his bright blue eyes taking in the scene from behind a pair of glasses. He had come here to meet Captain James McAllister, the old seadog who ran a fishing company at Cape Cod. Everyone who knew the captain all agreed on one thing: he might be the smartest, most skilled fisherman around, but that didn't cover up the fact that he was crazy—plain, flat-out crazy. Alfred wasn't quite sure what that entailed, but he hoped it wasn't it didn't mean that agreeing to meet the captain was a mistake.
Alfred had first met Captain McAllister four months ago at the Cape. Alfred, who was on a school break at the time, had gone there to meet up with a few friends. The group had stopped at a bakery, and had begun to talk about their studies.
When Alfred had started telling them about his adventures as a student marine biologist, he had felt someone tap on his shoulder. He'd turned around to see an old man staring at him intently. The man had thinning grey hair and a beard to match, and wore a weathered navy blue trench coat over a black wool shirt, and dark, salt-stained pants. The man had introduced himself in a voiced heavily accented with an Irish lilt, then had sat down in Alex and his friends' booth and began firing questions at him one after another: what's your name, what school do you go to, how long have you been studying marine biology, etc. Once Alfred had answered all his questions, Captain McAllister had handed him a business card and offered him a temporary position in his crew for a "special expedition regarding certain sea life". Alfred had accepted, and now he was here, at the place he had been told to meet with the captain to discuss the expedition in further detail.
"Are you coming in, or are you just here to test the doorframe?" came a voice from within the warehouse, making him nearly jump out of his skin.
"Yes, sorry. I'm coming in," he said quickly. He took a deep breath, and slowly walked in. The warehouse was filled with rusty nautical equipment, empty beer bottles and other miscellaneous junk piled up over the place. The warehouse was lit with the flickering yellow glow of six bare lightbulbs that hung down from the ceiling. At the far end of the room stood an ancient wooden desk, around which sat five chairs. Four of them were already occupied.
Alfred strode over to the small group, hoping he looked more confident than he felt. As he neared them, one figure stood up—a man, a few inches shorter than Alfred, with snowy white hair and strange red eyes. He appeared to be no older than twenty.
"Hi!" he said cheerfully, holding out his hand. "My name's Gilbert Beilschmidt. I'm the head engineer. I've been working here since I was sixteen."
Alfred reached out to shake his hand, when Gilbert grabbed it and shook it so hard he almost yanked it right off his shoulder.
"That's enough, Gilbert!" came another voice, this one carrying a strong Irish accent. "You don't need to pull his arm off."
"Sorry," said Gilbert sheepishly, releasing Alfred's hand. It flopped to his side limply, drawing a laugh from the others.
"Nice job," said the man. "You just broke our only marine biologist."
"I said I'm sorry!"
"Whatever." The other stood up, revealing an aging man with salt-and-pepper hair and sun-roughed skin. "My name is Cameron. I'm the first mate of our crew. I've been working with Captain McAllister for twenty-seven years. If you have any questions about our excursion while we're at sea, feel free to ask myself or any members of the crew, including Mister Jackson O'Neal," he said, gesturing to a bald, middle-aged man who was sitting on a stack of plastic crates. "He's the cook of our fine establishment."
The cook nodded in greeting. Alfred nodded back, though he was unsure if that was the proper way to greet a cook.
"And I believe you've met Captain McAllister," said Cameron, turning to the figure sitting behind the desk. The man in question stood up, and everyone immediately snapped to attention, delivering a crisp salute to the captain—everyone but Alfred, that is.
"At ease," said the captain, then turned his attention to Alfred.
"Mister Alfred Jones," rumbled Captain McAllister, fixing his piercing gaze on Alfred. "How nice of you to join us. We were beginning to think you weren't coming."
"Yeah, sorry about that," Alfred said. "There was, uh, really bad traffic—"
"Do not speak unless spoken to," said the captain icily. "And when you speak to me, you will address me as 'sir' or 'Captain'. Is that clear, Jones?"
"Y-yes sir," Alfred stammered, shrinking back slightly.
"Good." Captain McAllister turned his attention to the others. "You three are dismissed."
Gilbert, Cameron, and Jackson all saluted and walked stiffly out of the warehouse. Alfred noticed that they were walking slightly faster than necessary.
"You may sit," said the captain, gesturing to the seat that had remained empty. Alfred sat down quickly, not wanting to do anything that would upset the captain, especially now that they were alone.
"Now then," Captain McAllister started, pulling a file and a pen out of his desk, "Your name is Alfred Frederick Jones, correct?"
"Yes sir," said Alfred, wondering to himself why he needed to be asked about his own name.
"And you recently graduated from a four-year college with a degree in marine biology, yes?"
"Yes sir," he repeated.
"How much do you know about seals, Mister Jones?"
"Wha—seals, sir?"
"Yes, Mister Jones," said the captain, as if he were speaking to moron. "Seals. You know, the mammals that are taken around at zoos and trained to balance beach balls on their noses for anchov—"
"I know what seals are, sir." As soon as the words popped out of his mouth, Alfred instantly regretted saying them. Captain McAllister's eyes narrowed, and corners of his lips turned down. It felt as if all the oxygen in the warehouse had been sucked out of the room.
"Are you disrespecting me, Jones?" he growled.
"N-no, sir!" said Alfred, trying to cover up his mistake. "I just—that is, I took a whole three-month course on how to properly care for seals, and I—"
"Perfect," Captain McAllister interrupted, his anger vanishing as quickly as it appeared. He pulled a paper out of the file and scribbled something on it. When he was done, he looked back up at Alfred and asked, "How much do you know about sailing?"
"Um…" Alfred paused for a moment, thinking. "Well, I'm pretty sure that port is right and starboard is left."
"Hm," muttered the captain, and scribbled some more on his paper. "Well, we've already got a crew of experienced sailors, so that shouldn't be a problem…" He continued to mutter to himself as he wrote, until suddenly he stopped and looked Alfred straight in the eye.
"The reason I have called you here, Mister Jones," he said quietly, "is because I am on a mission to catch the rarest kind of seal-like creatures. One that has not been seen in centuries. One that has been reduced to a myth, but is in fact a part of our reality. I am speaking, Mister Jones, about selkies." He paused. "Do you know what selkies are?"
"Selkies?" Alfred repeated. "I don't… think so?"
"Well, that simply won't do," the old man chuckled. "First and foremost, selkies are known to disguise themselves as seals while in the ocean, but when they go on land, they transform into beings that look like men and women—very attractive men and women, to be precise." Captain McAllister was talking faster and faster as he continued, his excitement starting to pull the formality out of his words. "When selkies leave the water they wear their seal pelts wrapped 'round them, but if the pelt's taken away, they must stay with whoever has it whether they wan' to or not. Naturally, this happens more often to females than males. In general, selkies are on the nicer side, though they do tend to be rather promiscuous with both themselves and humans. Also—"
"With all due respect, sir," interrupted Alfred. "If selkies turn into seals in water and turn into people on land, how exactly would we know if any seal we caught, or any person wearing sealskin clothes, was a selkie?"
"I'm glad you asked," said the captain, regaining his composure. "My colleagues and I have created a device that reads the energy levels of living beings. Magical creatures have much higher energy levels than non-magical ones, so any selkies we come across will be quite easily detected. Once we find one, it will be your job, as our resident seal expert, to make sure that our selkie is properly taken care of until we get it to whoever will give us the highest reward for our efforts."
Alfred was quiet as he absorbed all this new information. After several minutes of thoughtful silence, he concluded that Captain McAllister was, without a doubt, absolutely crazy. Riding around in a boat trying to find a creature that didn't exist—which was basically what the captain was proposing—was not exactly the way Alfred planned to spend his time. He'd be better off trying to scrape up a job at the local aquarium.
"I can see that you're starting to have second thoughts," murmured Captain McAllister. "However, I think I know how to convince you."
He pulled out an official-looking document out of the file and handed it to Alfred. "This is your contract," he said. "It explains everything, including how long this trip will be, what equipment you'll need, what to expect from myself and the crew… and, of course, your paycheck, which is discussed down at the bottom."
Alfred took the contract, skimming over the lengthy paragraphs until he reached the part about how much he would be paid. He read it, then read it twice more, just to be sure he wasn't seeing things. According to this contract, he would be paid $25,000 per week for an eight-week trip—that added up to a grand total of $200,000.
Alfred's jaw dropped. If this was real, he would be able to pay off his student loans by the end of the trip. Forget about the aquarium, this was exactly the kind of job he wanted!
"I'll do it," he said, looking back up at the captain.
The old man grinned, showing off two rows of pearly white teeth. "Good choice, Jones," he said. "Now, all you have to do is sign the contract and it will be official."
Alfred took the pen and uncapped it, preparing to seal the deal, until he stopped.
"Actually," he said, "Hold on a sec."
The captain's smile faltered as he asked, "What is it, Mister Jones?"
"It's just, well…" Alfred frowned at the contract. "I just want to know, do I get paid week by week, or at the end of the trip?"
"All employees get paid at the end of the expedition," stated Captain McAllister.
"Well, what happens if something, y'know, goes wrong?" Alfred asked tentatively.
"Nothing will go wrong, Mister Jones."
"I'm not saying that it's gonna happen," he said, backpedalling slightly. "But if there were some hypothetical disaster—like, I dunno, the selkie biting my head off—do I still get paid?"
"If the selkie bites your head off, your family will be given your full pay to compensate for their loss," the captain replied, a note of impatience creeping into his voice.
Alfred nodded, but still did not sign the contract. He could feel the captain's gaze burning holes in his head. The two froze, each waiting for the other to make a move. Finally, the older man's patience gave out.
"Jones," he growled through clenched teeth. "Are you going to sign the bloody thing or not?!"
"Alright, alright, I'm signing it," said Alfred as he scribbled his signature at the bottom of the contract. The captain immediately snatched it up and returned it to the file.
"Pleasure doing business with you, Jones," he said, standing up. "Our expedition starts on July 15th, almost exactly three weeks from now. I expect to see you at the Nauset harbor at 7am sharp. My ship is the Silver Seal. She's quite a large lady, the Seal—you can't miss her. However, there's going to be a smaller boat at the harbor to take pick you up and take you to our ship, as the Silver Seal a bit too big to dock in the harbor."
Alfred nodded and stood up to leave, then paused, remembering how the others had waited for the captain to give the all-clear first.
Captain McAllister gave a nod of approval and said, "You are dismissed, Jones."
"Aye aye, Cap'n!" crowed Alfred with an enthusiastic salute, and dashed out of the warehouse. He couldn't wait to tell his family and friends about his new job.
The captain smiled as he watched Alfred leave. The young man seemed quite cocky—a mite too arrogant for his own good, as Cameron would say—but he would soon learn who was really in charge. Indeed, there was a lot he would have to learn if he was to survive the expedition.
All in good time, he thought to himself. All in good time.