Three
Once upon a time, Clara remembered as she and Ian rode the ferry to the Mainland, she was confused by life up in the Orkneys. The Mainland wasn't Scotland, but the largest island, and many showed a distinct local pride that put the Islands before all other identities. There was a certain resistance, not necessarily to change or ferry loupers or anything concrete like that. Instead it was something she couldn't put her finger on, the sort of feeling that she got when on a class trip to Roman ruins, something that was older and ran deeper than anyone alive could know. Something told her that Ian knew, deep down in his soul, but heaven forbid she try to wrench it out of him.
Ian, the selkie; he was a curious man, that was for sure. She attributed that to him being a faerie, that is if faeries really did exist (an idea she was humoring more and more as of late), and quietly observed him out on the deck of the ferry. With the salty wind in his hair and the sea spray jumping up to meet where he stood by the bow, he seemed to be pining for the water below. Sure he had insisted that she take ownership of that odd-jacket-looking "skin" of his, but part of her wished she had it so she could drape it around his shoulders and tell him he was free.
Once in Kirkwall, Clara went straight to work. She took Ian to get some clothes, coming out of a resale shop with him dressed in what amounted to pajama bottoms and boots, with multiple layers on his upper body. There were a couple other things that she got for him—shirts and jackets and trousers and things—at his annoyance, before heading into the rest of town for a bite to eat.
"Why am I an old friend?" Ian asked as they ate their lunch on a café patio, away from other patrons. Their shopping was sitting next to them, another part of why they wanted to not be around anyone else. "We met last night."
"Listen: these islands are a tight-knit community, not to the point where everyone knows everyone else, but you're definitely no more than two or three removed from someone," Clara explained between bites. "I stick out because I'm English, and the English girl who moved up here alone can't just suddenly be walking around with another stranger that no one has yet to meet without any sort of story behind it." She finished chewing what was in her mouth and swallowed. "That's why you're an old friend who came up in his own boat, but it was wrecked in last night's storm… though why you had to add 'school mate' I have no idea."
"It was what Orson called me," he defended while idly chewing on a chip. "Ian Smith, out of Glasgow—sat exams with him or something like that."
"That was all well and fine for Orson, but it'd only work for us if you had been a returning student."
"What's that?" He cocked his head and furrowed his brow in thought, looking more owl than seal.
"A 'returning student' is someone who is older, sometimes with teenage or adult kids they can leave home alone, who attend classes to get into a second career."
"…but we look the same age. People who go to school together look the same age."
"Not necessarily these days," she said. Clara sipped her coffee and stared at the man in front of her. "You think you're some expert land-walker, but you're really a goofy idiot."
"Even the best of us have our downfalls," he shrugged. "You never believed in the Fair Folk until last night."
"Jury's still out—come on and eat up, or we'll be too late to catch the next ferry."
They did catch the ferry she wanted to, though just barely, while clutching the shopping from both the resale shop and the grocer's. It was a calm enough ride back to North Ronaldsay, though when they got back to the cottage, things began to devolve quickly.
"What do you have to snack on in here?" Ian wondered, rummaging through the cupboards. "Orson used to keep a nice stash of sweets that he'd always hide on me."
"I don't keep that many sweets around, but I'll keep that in mind for when I order more groceries," Clara deadpanned. She turned to put the bag of crisps away just long enough for her visitor to make his way into the fridge and begin spooning cottage cheese right out of the tub. "What on earth do you think you're doing?!"
"This is the good stuff," he said, pointing a finger at the tub in his hand. "Can't get this sort of thing in the seas. I do miss yogurt when I've got flippers."
"Check the packaging, you nit; that's not yogurt. Could have been, but it got sent to a different factory."
Ian glanced at the tub and shrugged. "Well, would you look at that." Continuing eating, he walked away from the fridge, kicking it shut, leaving Clara to stare at him in disbelief. Her trance was only broken by her computer emitting a ringing noise—much of the reason why she wanted to be home the precise time when she did. She went over to the desktop shoved in a corner nook and clicked on Skype. A window popped up and a familiar face filled the screen.
"Heya Rigsy—how's it going?" she grinned.
"Well enough," the young man replied. "Jen sends her love—late night."
"That woman is a saint for dealing with the amount of crap she does at work. Her regional manager ever get the sack?"
Clara knew that if there was anything good about living amongst the outer fringes of civilization, it was that she could pick and choose who she talked to and when. She hadn't said a word to her stepmum since moving, her and her gran were on great terms, and she was able to whittle down her friendships from the multitude of polite acquaintances and grit-teethed suffering to the ones she genuinely cared about. Christopher Riggins was one such friendship, Danny having kept in-touch with the former student of theirs to the point they had been his daughter's godparents. The young man had admired the two teachers and how much they'd cared for their students, making weekly Skype calls mandatory when Lucy's remaining godparent moved well over seven hundred miles away.
After a couple quick pleasantries, Rigsy left the room to go fetch his daughter, who up until that point had been napping. Clara smiled as she stretched her arms over her head, glad for this bit of normalcy in her life.
"What are you looking at?" Ian asked as he popped back into view. Clara nearly fell over in her chair, having forgotten he was still in the house.
"I'm talking with a friend still in London—Danny wasn't around long enough to teach you about Skype, was he?"
"Skype…?" Ian's eyebrows quirked as he dropped his spoon in the cottage cheese and scratched his head. "Is that a new IRC thing-a-ma-jig?"
'Oh good—the seal-man knows about the internet,' she cursed internally. It was then that Rigsy sat back down, a sleepy toddler in his arms.
"Lucy, say hi to Aunt Clara," he said, turning the girl towards the camera. Once she saw Clara, Lucy's eyes lit up and she instantly tried grabbing her through the computer screen.
"Cwawa!" she cheered. "Ahn Cwawa!"
"There's my little angel," Clara giggled. She watched happily as Lucy squirmed and half-babbled until Ian put down his cottage cheese and edged himself closer to the screen, showing up in the camera frame.
"What sort of technology is this…?" he marveled. "I love it; and it comes with a tiny human on the other end! Whose brilliant tiny human is that?!"
"Um… Clara…?" Rigsy was staring at the computer screen, wondering who the heavy-lidded man was that was making faces for his daughter.
"Rigsy, this is Ian, an old friend of Danny's uncle," she sighed. "Ian, this is Rigsy. Danny and I were his secondary teachers in London when we were just starting out."
"…and you're all the way in London?" Ian asked.
"Bristol, actually, but…"
"Wow, I sure have missed plenty of things while I was away." He picked the tub back up and walked away. "Great tiny human—gonna be a brilliant one someday."
A pause.
"Clara…? Do you need to tell me something?" Rigsy asked. He leaned in closer to the microphone and whispered "Are you alright?"
"Yes, I'm fine. I just… I'll email you, yeah? Nothing to worry about."
"Are we sure? I'm doing a pretty shit job of watching out for you like I promised I would, but this…?"
"I'm not in any danger, just…" She trailed off, watching Ian out of the corner of her eye. He was in the kitchen, arguing with the spider that lived just outside the window. "It's a bit difficult to explain. I'll email you tonight, definitely. We still on for next month?"
"You kidding? We can barely wait. Say bye to Aunt Clara, sweetie."
"Bye Ahn Cwawa! Wuv you!"
"Love you too, sweetie. Bye!" Once the call ended, she turned the chair to face Ian and glared him down. "Okay, ground rules, now."
Ian looked at her, puzzled. "What?"
"If you're going to live here, you're going to respect the fact that I have a life of my own," Clara demanded. "I don't care if you're the freaky land-walking-wereseal you say you are, you are going to act like a decent human being, and treat me as such!"
"I… uh…"
"Lessons start tomorrow at nine in the morning, sharp!" she said. "I am having visitors over in one month, and I need to convince them that you're not some crazy man that flopped onto the beach outside my house."
"…and for the last time, I didn't flop…"
"Semantics." She folded her arms and eyed him carefully—this was going to be a challenge worthy of her teaching talents.