Sincerely, Jennifer x

Bobby was too nice for his own good. I tried to warn him, to steer him clear of the danger, but it was already too late.

He was a nice boy. 

Not a boy, not really. A grown man with a wife and dreams of a peaceful life. He moved here to escape the noise, the chaos of the outside world, but he couldn’t have known what this place truly was.

This village.

This cursed, rotting place, even I didn’t know, at first.

I wish he’d chosen anywhere else. I wish he’d been crueler, harder, less trusting. Maybe then he’d still be here, but Bobby was kind. And because of that, he came here, to the end of all his hopes.

No one listens to me. Crazy old Connie, they call me. I hear the whispers when I pass by. They don’t believe what I saw, what I know. They don’t see what’s lurking just beneath the surface, tangled in the tide and dripping with malice.

I’ve been saying it for years now. There’s something wrong with this place.

It all started when Jasmine appeared. My brother Peter brought her home, unannounced, flashing a diamond ring and calling her his fiancée. None of us had ever met her before, and the suddenness of it all felt wrong. She was beautiful—impossibly so—with long silver hair that seemed to shimmer even in shadow and big, dark eyes that seemed to swallow you whole.

She didn’t speak much, and when she did, her words were flat, hollow, as though she were reciting them from memory. I tried to warn Peter. “You don’t know her,” I’d said. “You don’t know who she is.”

Peter brushed me off. A man in love doesn’t listen to reason, not even when reason is screaming.

They married within a month, and Jasmine moved into the house by the sea. She spent her days staring out at the waves or walking alone on the beach. She rarely spoke to anyone in the village and barely acknowledged Peter. She had everything—money, jewels, leisure—but I’d never seen anyone so empty.

Until Bobby moved in next door.

He and his wife, Mandrake, bought the little house next door. Jasmine noticed him immediately. The way her face lit up when she saw him chilled me to the core. I’ll never forget that smile—unnatural, far too wide, stretching across her face as her fingers splayed against the glass.

Her lips spread over her teeth, curling wide up her face, almost to her ears, and her eyes glistened and glowed as she watched him. 

For the first time since I’d known her, Jasmine looked alive.

Peter noticed too. He tried to keep her away from Bobby, locking doors, giving me orders to watch her when he wasn’t home. I obeyed—what choice did I have? Peter was the mayor, after all. No one said no to him, but Jasmine was clever, and Bobby was unsuspecting. 

She found ways to see him, ways to talk to him, slipping through Peter’s grasp like water through a sieve.

I didn’t realise how far it had gone until the day Bobby burst into the café, pale as death. Mandrake hovered beside him, trying to calm him as he told me what had happened.

“She was in our house,” he whispered, his voice shaking. “Jasmine. I saw her, standing on the landing, watching me as I slept.”

He swore she disappeared when he got out of bed, and as strange as it sounds, I instantly believed him. His voice was too full of fear to be lying. He told me about other things—how she always seemed to be watching him, smiling at him from her window, waiting in the garden when he came home.

That night, I confronted Peter. He denied everything, of course. Claimed Jasmine loved only him, that I was imagining things, but the look in his eyes told me he knew the truth.

He wanted to believe that her eyes belonged only to him, but her heart was aflame for the boy next door, and there was nothing he could do to stop her. 

I begged him to intervene, and I suppose in a sense, he tried. He’d lock the door after he left for work, barking orders at me to watch over Jasmine when he was away, and begrudgingly, I did. 

She’d stand at the window all day, waiting for the small moments where he’d look her way, and smiling wickedly as he shuffled by with an uncomfortable glance. 

Then came the day I discovered the truth for myself. Jasmine and Bobby, arguing through the window. I crossed the street, just in time to hear Bobby say, “I tried, but I can’t get it!” His voice cracked as Jasmine pressed her hand against the glass, her smile never faltering.

“Please, Jasmine,” he begged, holding his palm to his head with a grimace, “just give me more time.”

I called out to him, and he ran. I followed, storming into Peter’s house, determined to put an end to it.

Jasmine was waiting for me, humming softly with a smile.

Her eyes glistened like the ocean at dusk as she stepped closer. “You want to know, don’t you?” she whispered.

Before I could answer, she took my hand, her touch cold and damp, and led me upstairs. At the end of the hallway was the padlocked door. I’d seen it before, but I’d never asked what was inside.

Jasmine didn’t need to tell me. As I reached for the door, a wave of nausea washed over me. My head pounded, my vision blurred, and I saw it.

Something behind the door. Something terrible, something that she wanted so badly. I could feel her desperation, and her hunger as I saw myself entering the room. 

My eyes fell upon something in the corner. At first, I thought it was just a pile of furs—soft, silken, greyish brown in the dim light. But then the smell hit me, briny and wild, like the ocean trapped in a bottle. I stepped closer, my breath catching as the truth unfolded before me.

The seal skin.

I’d heard the stories, of course. Selkies, creatures of the sea who shed their skins to walk on land. If someone took their skin, they were trapped, bound to the land until it was returned.

Jasmine’s skin was inside that room.

Peter had taken it. He’d trapped her here, forced her to stay.

And now, she wanted Bobby to set her free.

I staggered back, the weight of the truth crashing down on me. Jasmine’s voice was soft, almost gentle. “Bobby will do what Peter won’t. He’ll free me.”

I fled the house that day, running home and desperately trying to sleep, but after tossing and turning l knew that I had to speak to Bobby. 

I set off the next day, rushing to his house, but I was too late. By morning, Bobby and Mandrake were gone. The police found no leads, and the village moved on, as it always does.

I know the truth.

Sometimes, I’ve wondered if it was Jasmine. She had dark power that I struggle to comprehend, but she also had hope. Maybe Peter? He was without real power, but drenched in darkness. Perhaps, the sea itself. Jasmine’s home, where her family watched, languishing and longing for her return. 

Perhaps, I’ll never know, but one thing is certain, a young couple vanished in the night, and I couldn’t save them. They disappeared and nobody but me cared. 

I begged for help, suddenly an outcast at my brother’s command, telling everyone I could find about what lay behind the door and the mystery of Mandrake and Bobby. I think some of them knew I was telling the truth, but they can’t speak, silenced and locked away, in a sense, like Jasmine.

It’s been years, and still I wander, crazy old Connie, reaching out, and telling everyone I meet. You, the next you that comes along, anyone with ears, hoping that one day, someone will understand the sickness of this place.