I could have stayed looking for a long time, but Nellie was pointing down to the bottom of the hill. “See that creek? That’s where we’re going.”
She took off down the hill. I followed, and when she spread her arms and started leaping, I did the same, my arms as wide as wings. The slope got steeper and a breeze pushed me from behind and my feet barely touched the ground. I’d never gone so fast on land!
At the bottom we skidded to a stop, panting, our hands on our knees. Nellie looked up at me, her eyes sparkling, and grinned. I couldn’t help it: I grinned back. At that moment a kind of weight lifted from me. I felt I could run forever without getting tired.
We wandered along the creek. I didn’t know plants could grow like this, so dense and green. Fir trees towered overhead, and the ground was a sweep and tumble of ferns, their long arms draped over rich, black earth. Everywhere I looked there was brilliant green moss, growing on rocks, coating tree trunks in soft, thick pelts. Swaying branches swallowed up sound, muting our footsteps, hushing even our breath. Where were we going to find rough in a place like this?
Nellie was bending down with her pack open. I ran ahead, jumping from rock to mossy rock across the creek. On the far side, the soil was even softer. It gave a little with every step.
“Wait up!” called Nellie, bounding toward me. And then we were racing and chasing each other through the trees.
It was late afternoon when we ran out of the woods and onto a new stretch of shore. The sun lit the madrone trees sideways, painting their bark red.
“Where are we?” said Nellie.
I pointed to the rocks out in the strait, where I’d carried her, and then to the jut of land that led to Maggie’s. “So we’re halfway between your house and mine,” I said.
As I lowered my arm I saw, barely above the high-tide line, what looked like a bright green dome. Nellie followed my gaze, and then we were running over to investigate.
A short tree, only shoulder high, leaned toward the water. Its branches draped down to shelter a broad rock at its base. We pulled a branch aside and crawled in. It was like a cave woven of leaves and sparks of light.
“It feels like magic,” I said.
Nellie nodded. “But better, because it’s real.”
The space was just big enough for us to sit and examine what we’d found. Fern fronds and tufts of yellow-green lichen. Some stones from the hillside. Fragments of bark that looked like they’d fit together if you could only figure out the pattern.
Nellie picked up a fern frond and ran her finger along the jagged edges, then turned it over. On the underside were two rows of tiny bumps.
“Those are the spores,” she said. “That’s what my mom studies.”
“Your mom?” I hadn’t pictured her with anyone but the walrus.
Nellie nodded. “She’s a biologist. So is my dad. They’re working in the rain forest. I wanted to go, but Mom said if I was running loose around all those snakes and germs, she couldn’t concentrate. Dad was going to stay behind, but then Grandpa said I could live with him. Mom said there’s no school here”—she gave a little smile—“but Grandpa said I’d learn plenty from the plants and the animals. Which was a pretty good argument since they’re scientists. And he said I could read his books.”
I caught my breath. Read. Was that how they gave her their songs? I started to ask, “How—”
“Mom said he didn’t even get a decent internet signal, and Grandpa said, Who needs the internet when you’ve got the sea and sky? That’s when Mom said yes. So I get to live with Grandpa for now. Mom and Dad send letters, and Grandpa checks for email when he goes to places with decent reception, and once in a while they call when they can get to a phone.”
Nellie leaned back. Her face was hidden in the shadows.
She’d said a lot of words that I didn’t understand, but I knew the feeling in her voice. “You miss them,” I said.
“Yes,” she said softly. “I do.”
A breeze rustled the branches, and drops of sun rippled across the rock like light through water. And then the light seemed to thin, and I saw Mam swimming under a layer of ice—her determined eyes, her powerful tail. She must be heading back to me by now. A thrum of excitement ran through me, but then it got muddled up with a longing so deep it hurt.
“I miss my mother, too,” I said.
I knew Nellie understood because she didn’t say a thing.
When we got back to Nellie’s, smoke was rising from the chimney. This time I walked right in without hesitation. We spread everything out and the walrus leaned forward in his chair with a grunt.
“Hmm.” He held the bit of yellow lichen up to the window. “That might do it.”
“Grandpa?” said Nellie.
He picked up the bark and rubbed it between his thumb and fingers.
“Grandpa, shall I get the cookies?”
He set the bark down and pulled the pipe from his pocket. “Ah, yes, a story. What would you like today?”
“What’s the one you didn’t tell us yesterday?” said Nellie. “About the man who follows a selkie?”
I looked up eagerly. Of course she wanted the same story I did.
The walrus sniffed his cold pipe with obvious longing. “‘Westwood Pier’? I won’t be keeping you up with nightmares.”
“We don’t get nightmares, do we, Aran?”
“Never,” I lied.
The walrus leaned back in his chair, looking thoughtful. Then his eyes lit up and he gave a quick nod. “Right, then. Get the cookies, Nellie. I know just the story.”
This time I took a cookie. And then another. I decided to ask Maggie if she’d heard of cookies; they were much better than cornflakes.
The walrus cleared his throat. “In the old days,” he began, “there was a king who had ruled for fifty years of peace and prosperity. . . .”
A king: Was that like a chief? I leaned forward, eager to catch every word. But the story droned on and on, and there wasn’t a selkie in sight. There wasn’t even any ocean. My feet started jiggling; I sat cross-legged to keep them still. Finally I slumped over, chin in hand. This story had nothing to do with my folk, or me. It didn’t even make my heart beat faster.
What was the tale the walrus wouldn’t tell?
Chapter Thirty-Eight
The Rest of the Song
Nellie and I kept working for the walrus. We found shades of black, and things that were mottled, and the colors just under the waves. Then one afternoon we met the walrus hobbling with his stick to the store. His knee was better, he said, and our debt was paid in full.
My head flew up. “Does that mean the book is fixed?”
“Fixed! I’ve barely sent it off.”
I scuffed at the dirt as he clomped away. “I’ll never get the rest of the song,” I said.
Nellie looked at me thoughtfully with those clear, gray eyes, and then we were dashing into the woods.
But as day followed day, I spent less time longing for human tales. The second full Moon was coming. The closer it came, the more it filled my thoughts, like a rising tide sweeping over the shore.
Soon I’d see Mam. Soon I’d have my pelt.
Would the rest of the clan be coming, too? It had been so long since I’d felt the brush of whiskers, the touch of a flipper, the softness of fur.
And my pelt—was Mam bringing it with her? Or did the wise ones give her secrets instead, words or actions that would make me turn?
I stared at the Moon for hours. I felt her tug on the tides.
Maggie was watching, too. She pulled out her calendar and drew a line through another box. “Only two weeks until your mom’s back,” she said.
She left the room. I slid the calendar drawer back open. I touched my finger to each empty box, and then traced the perfect, round circle of the Moon.
Soon it was hard to think of anything else. I could almost hear Mam calling out the ritual greeting—Come to me! Come! I could see myself diving deep with a flick of my tail, swooping up
behind rockfish and gulping them down. Every night, as I lay outside waiting to fall asleep, I checked my fingers for webbing, in case it came first as some kind of preparation.
“Only one week,” said Maggie.
I spent hours in the bathroom with the door closed, staring at myself in the mirror. How would I look in my pelt? I’d probably be just a bit smaller than Finn. Maybe I’d be black like Lyr or dappled like Mam. I hoped I wouldn’t be brown like Maura, but even that would be all right. I pictured my eyes looking out from a whiskered face. I rolled my shoulders, imagining the pelt sliding on.
“Only two days now,” said Maggie.
The next morning I came into the kitchen to find her setting down the calendar. “Tomorrow,” she said with a sigh, staring out the window.
Tomorrow I’d be heading back home. I’d close my nostrils and dive deep, swimming as far and as fast as everyone else in my clan.
I knew the path to Nellie’s so well, I didn’t need landmarks anymore. I paused at each one all the same—the tree with two trunks, the whale rock—seeing them for the last time.
Would I tell Nellie I was going? Could I?
She was pacing in front of her house. The moment she saw me, she grabbed her backpack. “Want to go to the tree cave?” she said, her eyes bright with excitement. “I have a surprise.”
I nodded. “Let’s take the long way.”
We ran across the meadow, up the hill, and down. We leaped from stone to mossy stone across the creek and zigzagged through the trees, bursting out into the bright light of the shore.
I gazed across the waves to the horizon, and my heart swelled. Tomorrow I’d be swimming those waters with Mam.
“Come on!” called Nellie from inside the tree cave.
I lifted a branch and crawled in, sitting cross-legged beside her.
She tugged off her pack. “You know that song from the day we met? And how you wanted to hear the rest? Well, guess what. I found it!” She reached in the pack and pulled out a skinny white book.
“But I thought it lived in the blue book,” I said.
“It’s in lots of books. I don’t know why I didn’t think of it before. Grandpa said I could bring this one outside.”
I was getting the whole song after all! It felt like a farewell gift.
Nellie opened the book and set it in my hands. Black markings clustered in little groups on the page.
It didn’t sing to me.
I handed it back. “You sing it,” I said. It was better this way. I’d hear the whole song in her sweet voice and carry the memory away with me.
She pushed her hair behind her ear.
“In Norway land there lived a maid . . .”
Could I tell her? Just that I was leaving, and nothing more?
“‘It shall come to pass on a summer’s day
When the sun shines hot on every stone
That I will come for my little wee son
And teach him how to swim the foam. . . .’”
The song swept through me, verse after verse. The woman raised their child on land for seven years. Then the selkie came back for the pup and they swam away. That must mean the pup got his pelt after all those years in longlimbs, like I’d be getting mine. I almost said something, but then Nellie was singing,
“And she has wed a gunner good
And a proud, good gunner it was he
And he went out on a May morning
And shot the son and the gray selkie.”
The words struck me in the chest, and I jerked back with a gasp. Shot? That was all wrong! They should be fine at the end of the song—the selkie and pup with their clan, the mother with her new mate on land.
“‘Alas, alas, this woeful fate,
This weary fate that’s been laid on me!’
She sobbed and sighed and bitter cried
And her tender heart did break in three.”
Nellie looked up and saw my face. “I know,” she said, closing the book. “I don’t like that ending, either.”
I was breathing hard. The selkies were dead. The mother was dying of sorrow. They should never have gotten together in the first place.
Worst of all, it was Nellie singing those words. We’d climbed trees together. We’d explored the island and found this cave of leaves and light and made it another home. Human and selkie . . .
My teeth clenched. It was good I was leaving. But then why was there a tug of loss in my chest, pulling like a strong ebb tide?
“I have to go,” said Nellie. “I told Grandpa I’d help him pack up one of his paintings. We’re getting it ready for the next mail boat.” She slipped the book in her pack. “I’m hoping there’ll be a letter from my parents. We’re trying to figure out when we can all talk on the computer. It’s been so long since I’ve seen them, even on a screen.” She sighed. “But they have to get to a city with good wi-fi, and so do we.”
She crawled out of the tree cave. I took a long, deep breath before I followed. I wished Nellie could come wait with me tomorrow. I wished she could meet Mam. Could I at least say good-bye?
I ducked through the branches and stood, murmuring, “Nellie, I—”
She was already disappearing into the trees.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
The Second Full Moon
All morning Maggie was fussing, glancing at her calendar every few minutes and trying to hide her worry. Her problem was, she hoped Mam was coming. I didn’t hope; I knew.
I helped Maggie with things she’d need once I was gone. I brought in firewood, building a stack so high it toppled over and I had to take half of it outside again. I grabbed the broom and swept so hard, I broke a lamp. Maggie finally asked if I wanted to wait outside.
So here I sat with my feet in the waves, waiting.
After a while the door clicked open.
“Aran?” called Maggie.
I climbed to the top of the cliff and waved.
“Don’t you go swimming off,” she said. “You’ll want to be here the second she comes.”
As if I’d be going anywhere! But I nodded and climbed back down.
I kept hearing the door open. Maggie must be watching the road. She didn’t know Mam would come from the sea.
I tossed stones into the waves as the sun crept slowly across the sky. The heat of midday. The shift of my shadow. The long light of late afternoon. I called to a gull, hoping for news, but it was too high up to hear me. Maybe I’d go higher, too, so I could see farther. I climbed back up and sat at the top of the cliff.
The next time Maggie opened the door, she called, “Do you want some supper?”
I shook my head no.
The sun was sinking in a fiery orange ball. The sky faded to pink, then purple, then gray. Finally the Moon began to rise. I held my breath. Nothing was ever more beautiful than that Moon.
I reached in my pocket and pulled out the stone selkie. I longed to bring her with me, but I wouldn’t be able to carry anything in sealform. I stroked the curve of her back one last time. Then I put her in her cave, facing out, so she could watch me swim away.
The higher the Moon climbed, the harder it was to wait. Mam would be here any time now. I’d never be able to wait for her to reach land. The instant I saw her, I’d swim out and we’d roll in the waves—her shining eyes, the brush of her whiskers! We’d streak back here and she’d pull my pelt from a woven pouch. . . .
The door opened again, and then Maggie was walking out toward me. She spread a blanket on the ground and sat down. Side by side, we watched the moonlight spread across the waves like a great silver road.
After a few minutes she held out a closed hand. “Here,” she said with a crooked smile. “Don’t forget your pirate gold.”
She clinked the coins into my palm.
It was a joke, a reminder of the night I arrived. How wild I must have looked, wide-eyed and dripping from the storm! How little I’d known of the human world, seeing a couch, a rug, a bed for the very first time. Thinking the gold was real.
>
“Worth a fortune,” I said.
I smiled, and she started laughing, and then we were both laughing so hard we had to hold our sides. It was only Maggie’s light cough that stopped us.
I put the coins back in her hand.
“For you, to help with the costs,” I said. The same words as when I gave them to her two moons ago. And then, staring out across the waves, I added, “I wish it was real gold for you.”
Her smile turned wistful. “Oh, Ocean Boy, the real gold was you.”
The Moon kept rising. The stars came out. Maggie had draped the blanket over her shoulders long ago. Now she started to shiver.
“Aran,” she said. “It’s too late for a boat. Come back inside.”
“She’ll be here.”
Maggie sighed. “Well, then, you come say good-bye before you take off.” She stood and rested her hand on my shoulder, and then she walked back to the house. The door closed behind her.
The Moon was nearing the center of the sky. This was the perfect time for Mam to come. Excitement stretched me as taut as a kelp bubble. I stared out across the waves until my eyes hurt. The Moon was right overhead. . . .
And then she began her descent.
A gust of wind from the north swept over the waves, splintering the silver path into shards. A bat sailed overhead on shadow wings. The waves lapped, and lapped, and lapped against the rocks. I was still staring as the Moon began to sink into the sea.
I tried to hold on to my excitement, but it was turning brittle, the hope leaching away.
Where was Mam?
She said she’d be here by the second full Moon. Mam kept her promises. She’d be here, she had to be here. Unless . . .
The words of Nellie’s song came pounding through my head. “And she has wed a gunner good, and a proud, good gunner it was he. And he went out on a May morning—”
The Turning Page 14