The Turning

by Emily Whitman

  She ran from the room.

  The book was burning up my hand. I’d been in the aerie. I’d taken a book. If the walrus found out, he’d never let me in the house again. He’d forbid Nellie to see me.

  Down the hall, the walrus cried, “There you are!” I heard his cane clatter to the floor, the rustle of a hug.

  I flipped the pages, frantically searching for the words I’d just read. Sometimes the child of a selkie and a man—what came next?

  “I thought something had happened to you.” The walrus’s voice was muffled, as if his head was bent down to hers. “I was worried sick.”

  “I’m really sorry, Grandpa. Aran is here and we were playing. I forgot the time.”

  I was still turning pages.

  “Where is this friend of yours, then?” said the walrus.

  “In my room.” Then, calling, “Aran!”

  I stood and closed the book. The next thing I knew, I’d slipped it under the back waistband of my shorts and pulled my T-shirt down over it. I walked out carefully.

  The walrus stood by the still-open door, an arm circling Nellie’s shoulders.

  “Hello, Aran,” he said, smiling.

  “Hi.” I leaned my back against the wall. “Sorry I kept Nellie so long.”

  “Well, no harm done. My knee was better today. Perhaps I’ll start going out on my own again.”

  “Oh, no, Grandpa!” Nellie gave me an anxious glance. “I like carrying your stuff. And . . . and getting fresh air and everything.”

  He motioned to the satchel at his feet. “Why don’t you start by carrying that to the table, then? And you can get some fresh air fetching the rest of my gear after lunch.”

  He shuffled toward the living room. When he reached me, he paused. His eyes seemed to see right through me to the book gouging into my back.

  “Will you join us for lunch?” he said.

  It was all I could do to shake my head.

  “Next time, then.”

  I sidled toward the door. Nellie was bending to pick up the satchel. I slipped past her, muttered a quick good-bye, and pulled the door shut behind me. I managed to walk slowly all the way to the corner of the house. Then I grabbed the book and ran.

  Chapter Forty-Three

  A Circle of Light

  I got back to find Maggie coughing worse than ever. She pressed a cloth to her mouth and it came away spotted with blood. She was gasping for air. I got her in the chair, brought her a blanket, and made her some coffee.

  “Is there someone who can make you better?” I said. “Does that hospital have healers? Will Jack help you when I’m gone?”

  “Never you mind,” said Maggie. “And stop fussing over me like an old mother hen.”

  But I made her a can of soup, and I did her chores, and I watched her until she went to sleep.

  Now I was lying on Tommy’s bed. The lamp made a small circle of light in the dark. I opened the book.

  I wished I could skim through like Nellie, but I had to work for every word. It was old people telling true stories about selkies and seals. There were gruesome tales about hunting. Humans battered seals bloody on land and speared them at sea. They slashed off the fur to make coats and purses. One man said his purse was magic because it came from a selkie’s pelt. There were stories of drowning men saved by seals, and selkies seen dancing beneath the full Moon—

  And then there it was. Sometimes the child . . .

  My heart pounded and the page went spinning. I had to stop and take a deep breath until the words settled into place.

  An old woman was talking about a fisherman in her village who’d married a selkie, with dark eyes, white skin, and a voice like music. They had a son.

  “Sometimes the child of a selkie and a man is born in sealskin,” the old woman said. “Such a child soon slips into the sea and swims away. Other times the child’s like his da, and never changes into a seal at all. But once in a rare while they come late to the changing. This lad grew up looking like every other child in the village. Then one day, on the verge of manhood, he ran to his da crying, ‘What’s gone wrong with my hands?’ Between his fingers were half-moons of skin, like the webbing between a seal’s claws. The fisherman’s heart was like to break. That morning he had a wife and a fine son. But come evening, he watched two seals swim away, and they never came home again.”

  On the verge of manhood—the boy was older than me when his pelt came! I turned the page.

  “It was just as well they left. Why, you ask? If you’re wishing to know what happens with those born half-selkie, you’ve only to look at ‘The Tale of Westwood Pier.’ And then you’ll never ask again.”

  That was the end of her story. There was nothing about how he turned. For a moment I felt disappointed. But then I realized another clue was right in front of me. You’ve only to look at ‘The Tale of Westwood Pier.’ I read the rest of the book word for word, but the tale wasn’t there.

  Westwood Pier.

  It started to rain, a steady pattering on the roof. I stared out the window at the dim light of morning. In my mind it became a fire’s glowing embers, and there sat the walrus, the unlit pipe in his hand, saying, “‘Westwood Pier’? But no, that wouldn’t do for children.”

  I turned off the lamp and slipped the book under my pillow. I knew exactly what I had to do.

  Chapter Forty-Four

  The Tale of Westwood Pier

  I shook myself dry at Nellie’s door and knocked.

  “Come in!” she called.

  I ran into the living room. A fire glowed red in the hearth and the walrus was settled in his chair. Nellie smiled at me.

  “A story fire!” I said.

  The walrus nodded. “If someone will fetch me my pipe.”

  Nellie dashed off and came back with the pipe, and I got the cookies. I sat down right across from the walrus in spite of the fire.

  “I’ve got a fine South Sea adventure for you today,” he said.

  “Actually,” I said, “we were hoping for ‘The Tale of Westwood Pier.’”

  Nellie’s head shot up.

  “Where did you hear about that one?” asked the walrus.

  I shrugged. “You mentioned it once.”

  “Strong stuff, that story. A bit much for children.”

  “We’re not babies!” said Nellie. “There are lots of scary stories in the books we read. What about the girl whose hair was knotted to the rocks by seaweed when the tide came in?”

  He leaned back in his chair, looking at me with a raised eyebrow.

  “I don’t scare easily,” I said.

  “All right, then, but don’t you come running to me complaining of nightmares. You know, I might need a match for this one.”

  He lit his pipe. The smoke curled around his white whiskers as he gazed into the fire, gathering the story’s spark.

  “Long ago,” said the walrus, “in the village of Westwood, there lived a young man and his beautiful, black-haired bride. They’d been married for almost a year, and yet she was still a mystery to him. He’d never met her family—‘They wouldn’t take to one like you!’ was all she’d say—and she never once spoke about where she was raised. It didn’t matter, because he loved her to distraction. She was his sun and his moon, his salt and his sweet. There was only one thing that bothered him. When the moon was full, he’d wake to find her slipping back under the covers before dawn, her hair damp and her skin smelling of the sea. ‘Where have you been?’ he’d ask her, and she’d laugh lightly and reply, ‘Why, you’ve been dreaming again! I’ve been nowhere but right here beside you.’

  “For a long time he chose to believe her. But one such morning, he left the house earlier than usual, and there was the path of her wet footprints, glistening in the morning sun. He followed them to the harbor and out to the end of the pier. With each step his heart grew blacker. ‘A dream?’ he said to himself. ‘Another man, more likely.’ And he came up with a plan.

  “Come the next full moon, he told his wife he was goi
ng away for the night on business. But instead he went to the pub to gather his courage, and then he snuck down to the pier and hid beneath an overturned dinghy.

  “Darkness settled in. The moon began to rise. The man heard an owl hoot a warning in the distance, and the flutter of bats on their nighttime hunt, and the pounding of his own suspicious heart. Finally he heard footsteps, and his wife’s bare feet skipped right past his hiding place.

  “He tilted the boat up a few inches and peered out. There she stood at the end of the pier, her long, black hair gleaming in the moonlight, her beauty more unearthly than ever before. She spread her arms wide and sang out in an eerie tune, ‘Come to me! Come!’

  “The man shivered. A splash came from the dark. It was no boat, no man, but a seal swimming toward her, and as it swam it sang in human tongue, ‘Come to us! Come!’ Another sleek head rose, and another, until the sea was full of seals swimming toward his wife, singing, ‘Come to us! Come!’

  “She dove, piercing the water with barely a ripple.

  “Who was this woman he’d married, this woman he thought he knew? Sneaking off to swim with seals—no, not seals; they were selkies to sing like that—and she’d greeted them like kin. Now she was splashing and cavorting with the fey beasts. Though she had no sealskin, she looked at home in the water, strong and graceful, and never had he seen such happiness on her face. A thought pierced him like a dagger: What if she swam away with them and never came back? He leaped up, toppling the dinghy, and strode to the end of the pier.

  “‘Come here!’ he shouted. ‘Come here and come home with me!’

  “The waters stilled. Every face turned toward him with those huge, dark eyes. And his wife’s eyes—why, hers were as dark as theirs.

  “‘Go!’ she cried, in a frightened voice. But it only made him more determined. If she wouldn’t come, he’d catch her and drag her home. He dove into the bitter cold water. When he rose, the beasts had circled him. He took a stroke toward his wife.

  “‘No!’ she cried. ‘Go back, my love, go back!’

  “But it was too late. The selkies had already slipped under the waves. Now they attacked from below. Jaws clamped around his feet, tighter than steel traps, and dragged him down into darkness. The man was strong—he thrashed to the surface once, and even once more—but the selkies were remorseless. They couldn’t risk him telling the rest of the world what he’d seen. Their tails struck like hammers, their claws slashed flesh, and their teeth bit through bone. The roiling waters turned red.

  “When all was done, nothing was left but a pile of bones on the ocean floor.

  “His wife walked home alone that night. They say she never smiled again. She’d rise from her bed each full moon, not to swim with the selkies—no, they never returned—but to dive down and circle those bleached white bones. You can still see them there, if you look closely among the oyster shells off the end of Westwood Pier.”

  The walrus set his pipe down with a thunk. The story was over. The fire was just a fire again. But the world had changed.

  “Aran?” Nellie’s voice came from far away.

  I saw the churning water, the pale arms thrashing, the gleam of dark fur. The air was sharp with screaming and the metallic scent of blood.

  My head flew up. “It’s a lie!”

  “I warned you it’s strong stuff,” said the walrus.

  “It’s a lie! Selkies don’t kill humans. Humans are the killers! They catch selkies and cut off their pelts and render their fat! They trap them in nets until they drown! They put them in zoos and—”

  My voice rang out so loud, it startled me into silence. Nellie and the walrus were staring at me slack-jawed. I was breathing fast. Too fast.

  Finally the walrus spoke. “I admit it’s an unusual tale.”

  “It’s just a story,” said Nellie.

  I’d gone too far. “I know that,” I said, trying to smile, though from the look on Nellie’s face it must have been a strange sort of grimace. “I mean, it’s not what selkies in stories are supposed to be like, and that’s, well, it’s wrong, and . . .”

  The walrus stepped in to save me. “I’m inclined to agree with you. It’s almost as if the storyteller had confused a shark attack with a selkie tale. And there are other problematic points. If the wife is a selkie, why does she remain on land? Where is her sealskin, or the classic webbing between the fingers? And even if she’s half-selkie, half-human, how could the husband not know? Such a jealous, suspicious man. Many of them are, in these stories.” The walrus gave a disapproving sigh. “At any rate, I consider the story an oddity, an outlier. But no less interesting for that.” He reached for his cane and hefted himself to his feet. “Who’s joining me for a piece of toast?”

  I shook my head. “I have to get back to Maggie’s.”

  Nellie knew it was a lie. She followed me to the door and whispered, “What is it, Aran? Tell me.”

  I couldn’t even look at her. I jerked the door open and ran out into the rain.

  Chapter Forty-Five

  The Torrent

  I ran and the land felt wrong under my feet and the air burned my lungs. I needed to be in the water away from houses and humans and smoke. I needed to be with my kin.

  Was the story true?

  It had our ritual greeting: Come to me! Come! That woman had no webbing, like I had no webbing. Her eyes were like theirs. She was half-selkie, I knew it, and she loved her kin, and she loved that man, and they killed him. Ripped off his flesh like salmon skin and left a pile of bones.

  And my clan? At the first hint of humans, they’d always rushed me into hiding. I’d thought they were just protecting me. But it was more than that. They couldn’t risk being discovered. How far would they go to keep their existence a secret?

  I shivered and stumbled as I ran. I’d begged for that story, but it wasn’t about turning at all. It was a warning. About what happens if a half-selkie never turns.

  Somewhere behind me, Nellie called, “Aran!” I glanced over my shoulder. There was a flash of movement back in the trees. “Aran, wait!”

  That pile of bones at the foot of the pier. The man died. The selkies never came back. And that woman, the half-selkie, now she had no one.

  I ran faster. The forest was a whirlwind of whipping branches and cracking twigs. The low roar of surf came through thinning trees. I’d dive in and never see Nellie again—

  Her hand grabbed my shoulder and whipped me around. “You’re one of them!” she cried.

  My breath scraped the air like stone on stone.

  “You’re a selkie!” Nellie was smiling, a strange brightness in her eyes, like this was some kind of game. “I should have known. Remember how I thought you were a seal, that first time I saw you? And when I was drowning and you carried me to the rocks—no kid can swim like that! And the way you have to be so secret—”

  I had to make her stop. I had to get away. But my feet were stuck to the ground.

  “And the way you’re so desperate to find stories about selkies, and how you said the one today was a lie, like you knew—”

  Heat was rising inside me. Nellie’s words were like dry wood tossed on a fire, sparking and ready to catch.

  “You knew because you’re one of them. You’re a selkie, aren’t you? Change for me! Show me how you do it!” She was so eager, like it was the easiest thing in the world. Like all I had to do was reach behind the closest rock and pull out a pelt—

  It all burst into roaring flame. “Go away!” I shouted. Fire burned through my veins, and the world turned a searing, blinding red. “Go away. GO AWAY!”

  But my voice faded, and Nellie was still there. She took a deep breath. Her eyes were thoughtful, figuring it out.

  Now I could see too clearly. The red rage was slipping away. I tried to grab it back, so I wouldn’t have to think or feel.

  “That woman in the story,” said Nellie. “The selkies were her family, weren’t they?”

  I gulped.

  “But she didn’t le
ave with them.” Her voice dropped. “Maybe she couldn’t. Maybe . . .”

  “She didn’t have a pelt,” I said.

  It was like a stick shifting in a logjam. The dam shuddered and burst, and the truth came rushing out in a wild, whirling torrent. “I don’t have a pelt, either!” I cried. “I’m the only one in my clan in longlimbs and I can’t keep up. I can’t go on the long journeys or even the hunts, and Mam kept saying it would come any day, but it never did. And then the clan came back—”

  I told her how the man came to our haulout, and I found out about my father, and how I’d counted on Moon Day. About Finn and the fight and the pelt cave, and how Mam insisted on swimming north to the wise ones instead of me. How she should have been back by the second full Moon, and I knew she was in danger. . . .

  Nellie listened until it was all out. Every last, terrible word.

  We walked from the trees to the top of the bluff. I sat beside her in the rain.

  “You need your family,” she said, soft but determined.

  I nodded.

  “And your pelt.” She turned and looked into my eyes. “I’ll be your partner. We’ll figure it out together.”

  “No. Not after that story. What if you’re with me and . . .” I couldn’t finish the sentence. I was seeing the attack again, but this time the arms rising from the water were Nellie’s, thin and brown.

  “Selkies aren’t like that,” she said firmly. “You said so yourself. And you know better than some stupid story.”

  I should refuse. I should swim away and never see her again. But to have her by my side, not to be alone with the searching anymore . . .

  “You wouldn’t tell?” I said.

  She shook her head. “What do you think I am?”

  In the old days, I would have said, human. But now I put my hand on hers, on the rain-speckled grass, and said, “My friend.”

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Birdtalk

  I burst from the water and slapped the rock near shore, sending a spray of drops sparkling in the sun.