We crawled into the tree cave and sat cross-legged on the smooth rock.
“What happened to your wrist?” said Nellie.
“Jack—” For a moment that was all I could say. Then, “He’s back, and he took my stone selkie—”
Nellie gasped.
“And—” I struggled to drag out the words. “He gets really mad. He put his fist through the wall. I—I’m afraid he’s going to hurt Maggie.”
“What about you?” Nellie reached out and, very gently, traced a finger along my wrist. “Those are bruises. He hurt you.”
“It’s not me I’m worried about. I can handle it.”
“Maybe . . .” She swallowed. “Aran, maybe some things are too dangerous to handle. Like Jack. And like . . .” She paused, clenching the book, and then her words came spilling out.
“Listen, there’s a story in here about this old woman. She always wears gloves, but one day she pulls them off and shows her grandson this extra skin between her fingers. That’s the webbing, right? So she’s a selkie, and—”
“Nellie,” I said. “It doesn’t matter. We have to help Maggie. If I leave—”
“No, you have to hear this part! Her son told her to hide the webbing, but she says she earned it—that means her pelt, right?—because the Moon set her a test. And then she tells her grandson”—Nellie leafed through the pages—“Here it is. She says, ‘Should you ever find yourself facing that test, think long and hard. Don’t risk it unless you can’t live without it. It might cost you everything. A love, a life—’”
Nellie slammed the book shut. “See? It’s too dangerous, trying to get you to turn.”
I shook my head. “Pups turn all the time. Listen, Maggie wants to give—”
“But don’t they do it younger? Maybe the older you get, the more dangerous it is. Didn’t you hear what the old woman said? It could cost a life. Your life, Aran.” She looked back down at the book in her lap and said softly, “You know, being human’s not so bad.”
I could see her heart beating at the base of her throat.
She sat up tall. “Come live with us!” she urged, her eyes intense and bright. “I know Grandpa will say yes. And Maggie can tell your mother where you are, and we’ll be together all the time. Please say yes, Aran. Please!”
I thought of story fires and cookies and big windows looking out at the sea.
And then I thought of Jack’s fist crashing through the wall.
“I can’t,” I said. “Not until I know Maggie’s safe.”
“Come now! Grandpa and I are going to the big island to get online and talk to my parents. I don’t like leaving you here. Come with us.”
“I told you, I’ll be fine. Didn’t I come meet you today, same as always?”
She sighed, her shoulders slumping. Then she pulled back a branch and looked out. “The sun’s setting. I need to go. Think about what I said, okay?”
We clambered out onto the rocks. She reached for my hand and held it for a moment before she ran off. I kept staring at the spot where she’d disappeared. My head was full of cross currents, all rough chop, and no way through.
Chapter Fifty
A Bit of Advice
I knew I should go right back to Maggie’s, but I couldn’t face Jack. I swam for a long time, trying to make sense of everything—Maggie, and Mam, and gold, and the boat—but I only got more confused. By the time I got back it was late. The house stood silent, the windows dark. I breathed a sigh of relief.
I hadn’t done any chores that day, so now I gathered an armload of firewood and brought it inside. I knelt and, as quietly as I could, stacked it by the woodstove. I stood up—
“Hey, kid,” said Jack.
I whirled around. He was leaning back in the other chair, the one Maggie put me in the first night I came. His legs were spread wide, his shirt unbuttoned and open over his wrinkled T-shirt. His hand rested on the bottle. Now I smelled its sweetness over the wood and ash.
“Have a seat,” said Jack, gesturing to Maggie’s chair with the bottle. The words were fuzzy at the edges. “Go on, sit. Maggie’s asleep with her pain pills. It’s too quiet in here.”
I backed up and sat at the very end of the chair, alert and wary.
“What?” said Jack. “Can’t we have a little talk? I’d offer you a drink—” He looked at the bottle, at me, and then settled it back in his lap. “Nope. Kids don’t drink. Shouldn’t drink. Bad for you.” He nodded sagely.
If I sat still long enough, maybe he’d fall asleep and I could sneak away.
“Tell you what, kid. I’ll give you something else. A bit of advice. How’s that?” When I didn’t answer, he said sharply, “Well?”
“Sure,” I said.
He nodded and leaned back in the chair. And then, like it was precious information, he said, “You gotta take care of yourself in this world.” He looked at me, waiting.
“Okay,” I said.
“No one else is gonna do it for you. You think you got a job, you can pay your bills, put food on the table. Then it’s gone.” He took a swig from his bottle. “You think you got a family. Think they love you, got your back. Like I had Tommy . . .”
His voice went raw. “I was at sea. Maggie tried to call. The radio wasn’t working. And when it did . . . when it did, he was already dead.” He took a long drink. “And Maggie. When I got home, she’d gone stone cold. Her face was white. ‘Go work,’ she told me. Said we needed the money. But that wasn’t the whole story. She wanted to be alone. Shut off her heart. Then her heart started dying for real.” He lifted the bottle toward me. “Right?” he barked.
“Right,” I whispered. I glanced at the door, longing to be gone.
“I’m not enough for her. Can’t make her happy. Can’t even keep a roof over her head.” He sighed. “I finally get a chance to make a real living, and she won’t let me take it.”
His free hand was clenching into a fist. I glanced at the hole in the wall.
“You can have it!” I said. “The gold, or the”—what was the word?—“the money. I don’t want it. My mam’s coming back for me, and if she doesn’t I’ll go find her. You can have it.”
“Coming back.” He gave a bitter laugh. “You think your mom’s coming back? You’re kidding me, right? How long have you been here?”
I gulped. “Almost three months.”
“And she’s how late?” The laugh didn’t reach his eyes. He took another drink. “She’s not coming back. Don’t you get it? She doesn’t want you anymore. Couldn’t handle telling you to your face, so she made up some story and dumped you here.”
I clenched the arms of the chair. “No, she’s hurt,” I said, trying to convince myself. “That’s why she’s not here. She’s hurt or in danger.”
He leaned forward, like he was sharing a secret, showing me how the world worked. “If she really loved you, she’d be by your side right now.”
I leaped to my feet. “That’s a lie!”
He looked lighter now, like the weight of all he’d said had lifted off his chest. But his pain had become my pain. It gnawed at my gut, at my throat. It couldn’t be true.
Then I remembered Mam dancing with Lyr at Moon Day. She’d looked so alive and free. I hadn’t made her that happy for a long time. I was the weight she had to carry on her back. I was why she couldn’t go on the long journeys with the clan.
I’ve found a place for you to stay, she’d said.
And the stone selkie wasn’t a selkie; she wasn’t even a gift from the Moon. The Moon didn’t see me after all. Maybe she’d never seen me. Had Mam ever planned to bring me a pelt, or was it a trick to get me here? Now she could travel as far and as long as she liked. She wasn’t stuck alone with me anymore.
“Leave you,” muttered Jack, his head falling back against the chair. His eyes closed. “They leave you. Every. Single. One.”
I sat on top of the cliff until the tide was ebbing. Then I climbed down, so I could sleep on the rocks with my feet in the waves. Right at the
shoreline, because that’s what selkies do. The clouds hung low and the sky pressed down, empty and black. The wind sang an eerie tune along the stone walls.
I hated the thoughts Jack had planted in my brain. I tried to shut them out. But the more I pushed them away, the more the waves murmured, “Leave you . . . leave you . . . leave you . . .”
I pressed my hands against my ears.
I’d trusted Mam. I’d counted on her to come back with my pelt. But she’d worked so hard to leave me with humans.
Other times the child’s like his da, and never changes into a seal at all . . .
Half human. Half selkie. Not a whole anything. Where did I belong?
Chapter Fifty-One
The Keys
I woke in the water with a sputter and gasp. A wave had washed me off the rocks. The sky was already light. I hauled out and shook myself dry.
When I reached the top of the cliff, the truck was gone.
Inside, Maggie was leaning over the sink and coughing, the sponge in her hand. “House is a mess,” she wheezed.
“Let me,” I said.
I led Maggie to her big chair. I made her some coffee. She had a few sips, then her head fell back and she was asleep, the mug still in her hands. I set it on the table. I’d never seen her look so gray. And her legs looked funny—puffy and swollen.
She’d been doing too much. I hadn’t been helping enough.
So I got to work. I washed the dishes and dried them and put them away, quietly, so I wouldn’t wake her up. I swept the floor in every single room. I emptied the trash into the big bin at the back of the house.
Maggie stirred, and I made her a can of soup. She’d stopped asking me if I wanted some a long time ago. She took a spoonful, and another, then set the bowl back down.
And Jack was still gone. The air in the room felt lighter. We could pretend life was normal again, the way it had been.
I should talk with her about what to do, about where she could go and where I could go. I should make sure she wasn’t sending me inland. But I couldn’t figure out how to start.
I went gathering, and brought her mussels wrapped in seaweed, and put them in a bowl in the refrigerator. I heated up her soup and brought it back again, and she took another sip. “I’ll be up in a minute,” she said.
It was already past high sun. Maybe I should tell Maggie about Nellie. We could talk to the walrus. He’d help us figure out what to do.
“Maggie—” I said.
But she heard the tone in my voice and stopped me with a shake of her head. “I just want to enjoy this quiet with you, Ocean Boy. There’ll be plenty of time to talk later.”
And then there wasn’t.
Because the truck came growling up from the road. It lurched to a stop and Jack stumbled out.
Maggie gripped the arms of her chair.
Jack swept in like a storm. The air crackled in his wake. He reeked of smoke and the stuff he drank. He reached in his pocket and threw something down on the round table beside Maggie. Pieces of metal on a metal cord. He looked at Maggie like he was daring her. His chest rose and fell.
“What’s that?” said Maggie, too quiet. It wasn’t a question. She already knew.
“That’s the keys to my new boat.”
“Your boat.” Her mouth was a thin, hard line.
“I had to act fast, or she might have been gone.”
Her hands tightened. “I told you, that money belongs to Aran.”
I wanted to tell her it was fine, that Jack should keep the boat, but my mouth wouldn’t open.
Jack shoved his hands in his pockets. He looked out the window. “I figured you didn’t really think it through, Maggie.”
Slowly, with great effort, she pressed herself to standing. “You figured wrong,” she said. “You’re going to take that boat back.”
He tugged his hands from his pockets. The stone selkie flew out and skittered across the floor. Then his hands were fists. His shoulders lowered. He stepped closer.
“The hell I am,” he said.
Maggie stood tall. “If you keep that boat, it’s stealing,” she said. “The money is Aran’s.”
How could I make them stop? Jack’s tension filled the whole room, so tight it was about to snap—
They both grabbed for the keys at the same instant. Jack fumbled and Maggie snatched the keys in her fist, pulling them up and away from the table. Jack grabbed her wrist and jerked her close, and she stumbled, trying to catch her balance. The room was full of rage and fire, and I was dry tinder.
“Leave her alone!” I shouted, heat growing in my chest.
Jack didn’t hear me. He was beyond hearing. His grip tightened on Maggie’s wrist. “Give me the keys!” he said, and Maggie’s mouth dropped open in pain.
And then I was beyond hearing, too. I had to make him stop. But he was so much bigger than me. I reached for the first thing at hand—an empty bottle in the seat of Jack’s chair—and raised it over my head.
The motion caught Jack’s eye. He dropped Maggie’s wrist and whirled around, staring at me, panting. He lowered his head, and my grip tightened around the bottle’s hard, cold neck, and I held it high—
“Stop it!” screamed Maggie. “Both of you! Stop it right now! Stop—”
Her breath caught. A shudder ran through her like an earthquake. She struggled to draw in a breath—a terrible, endless gasping sound. Her eyes went wide. She froze, and the keys fell from her hand and clattered to the floor. Then she slumped like there was nothing holding her up anymore—no bones, no breath—and slid to the ground.
She wasn’t moving. Her arm was crumpled under her.
“Maggie!” Jack dropped to his knees beside her. “Maggie, come on, Maggie, wake up!” He reached an arm under her shoulders. Her head lolled to the side, the whites of her eyes showing.
The bottle dropped from my hand.
Jack stared up at me. “Look what you’ve done!” he cried.
Then he was gathering Maggie up in his arms. “We’ll take Harry’s speedboat,” he said, as if she could hear him. “Get you to the hospital. Hold on.” He staggered to his feet.
Was she breathing? I couldn’t see her breathing.
He carried her to the truck. The engine roared to life, and they were gone.
Chapter Fifty-Two
Gone
The air smelled singed. My breath came in short, sharp gasps. The boat keys lay splayed on the floor by Maggie’s chair.
What had I done?
The open door swayed back and forth in the wind. The bottle rolled at my feet. The bottle I’d been about to crash down on Jack’s head.
I crumpled over. What had happened to me? What was I turning into?
“No,” I whispered.
I should have stayed calm. I should have pulled out the words trapped in my throat. But I’d let that rage blind me. I made Maggie scream.
The human side of me was taking hold. I shivered. I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t think. I had to get out.
I was halfway across the room when I remembered my knife. I ran back to Tommy’s room, shoved the boxes aside, and pulled it from the gap. My hands trembling, I strapped on the sheath—I had to jerk the cord, it had grown so tight—and then I ran outside into the wind.
I ran through the tossing trees, the late afternoon sky low and dark, my feet pounding a raw path. I ran blind, until I skidded around a rock—the whale rock. Now I knew where I was going. Nellie’s.
I burst through the trees and pounded on her door. “Nellie!” I cried. There was no answer. I grabbed the knob; it didn’t turn. “Nellie, let me in!”
I ran around the house trying every window. Nellie’s slid open. I hoisted myself to the sill and jumped down into her room.
The bed wasn’t its usual tumble of pillows; the covers were pulled crisp. She’d shoved the piles of clothes from the floor into the closet. I pulled them out, searching—her backpack was gone. On the bedside table, the picture of her parents was set at a careful angle
beside the lamp. What was it she’d said in the tree cave? Something about talking to her parents . . . and going to the big island . . .
I ran into the living room. The fire was dead. The house echoed around me, as empty as an abandoned nest.
They were gone.
A sob wrenched from my throat. I stumbled toward the door.
Nellie said being human wasn’t so bad. But that fury had burned through my veins. Just like the men in all the stories. I’d let my human side out, and now look what I’d done. I couldn’t let it take hold. I wasn’t human. I wouldn’t be.
Somehow the door was open behind me. There was grass underfoot, then rock . . .
Waves rushed over my ankles. I was standing on the cusp of Nellie’s cove.
This was where Nellie and I searched for blue. Where I found the pearl and put it in the mussel shell. The light had shimmered between them like they belonged together.
But it was a lie. You couldn’t live in a borrowed shell.
The waves crashed over my legs. My waist. My chest. A whitecap rose higher and higher, foam flying, until it towered over me in a roaring arc.
I dove.
And then I swam, leaving Spindle Island, and my life as a human, behind me forever.
Part Three
Shore
Chapter Fifty-Three
Lost
The clouds darkened, the waves raged higher, and still I swam. Spindle Island had disappeared behind me long ago. There was no rock, no resting place. No current to carry me. Day sank and the waters turned black. I dragged up one aching arm and then another, over and over, until I was nothing but a sack of skin, a tumble of bones.
A swell swept me under and spat me out. I rose crying to the Moon for help, but the words stuck in my throat. She didn’t see me. She’d never seen me. I was alone.
One arm and then another . . .
I woke on an exposed knob of rock, my head pounding, my body crumpled in pain. Hunger gnawed at my gut. I crawled across the rocks and ripped off fistfuls of sea lettuce, cramming them into my mouth, barely stopping to chew.
The Turning Page 18