At twenty-one degrees Celsius, Máire’s blood was still simmering. It did not seem to matter how much or how cold the water, and at that point she must have swallowed an entire well. The fear of drinking too little far outweighed any concern for what might happen as a consequence of drinking too much. And, by the time she exhausted her taste for water, just about any other cold liquid would do.

Still her senses were unsatisfied. Still, her veins rose through her skin and radiated what she imagined was a glowing neon lava. Still, she drank, for even the mere sensation of drinking, consuming it unceasingly.

Beyond salvation.

The thought matched Máire’s mood while going in to work, and it suited her all the more while she guzzled down two litres of Deep RiverRock. Puffing a gust of laughter from her nose and blaring Bob Dylan through her earphones. The wandering minstrel man who poured out poetry from his bleeding heart, whether anyone understood it or not.

Oh where have you been, my blue-eyed son,

Oh where have you been, my darling young one?

The humidity, though much less intense than that afternoon, had been hovering around the air indecisively. Its perfume kept bringing her back to Toronto – in August. It reminded her of tar melting on the runway as she stepped off of the plane. The four o’clock heat allowed to briefly forget the throbbing pain in her ears about the jet lag, about the residing staleness in her clothes and in her pores. She could bathe in that tarry smell until the air would inevitably cool.

It reminded her of rush hour, and blazing out of Pearson Airport on Highway 407, sitting in the backseat of a black metal beast that was drunk on diesel. Maple Leaf flags followed her the entire way to the outskirts of the city, saluting her, then trickled down to fewer numbers.

A whole month without Irish winds and sharp drafty rain.

Oh, there would still be some sort of rain, but it would be the succulent pear drops which she welcomed after weeks of heat and dusty soil. Rain which drummed down to herald the approaching thunder and lightning. Beating onwards into battle with the ground far below. Three and a half hours of it, threatened to flood the Trent River once, a few hours north of the city, and her family only wanted to get out on the boat. Still, she would have thrown herself recklessly into the water despite the rain, if were not for the thunder and lightning.

She resolved to brave a cold shower in a bid to cool down, and her mind suddenly switched to some of the stories she had heard about selkies. Or rather, the whole idea of selkies full stop. At times when she was little, Máire had convinced herself that she was a selkie, whose leathery hide had been buried on the Irish shoreline.

But which beach?

All of them, she would think to herself, I can’t be taking the same skin with me everywhere I go – I’d get caught and killed!

She backed out from under the running water gasping, remembering something else a little too clearly.

Her tongue clicked against the roof of her mouth and the compulsion pushed her across the width of the flat towards the fridge. She poured herself a glass of water from the jug, put the jug down, lid open, then reached into the cupboard for a new two litre bottle. She untwisted the cap and poured as much as she could into the jug.

Máire knew the jug had about three quarters of cold water left after filling her glass, though wondering over whether or not she meant to do this, mattered very little to her.

The empty space bothered her, so she did something about it.