by Janis Mackay
“Course you’d think any day the hare’s gonna beat the tortoise, wouldn’t you? Well, not so …”
Tarkin was so miserable he wanted to cry, but he sure wasn’t going to cry in front of Frank. These selkies had put a curse on him; he knew it. This was no simple sore throat. His throat felt fine. Why oh why did he peep?
“So this tortoise, the thing is, he just kept plodding on. That’s the secret you see, you just keep on going. You don’t stop.”
Then Frank got up and left. As soon as the door closed, Tarkin pulled down the duvet so that he could breathe. He had the first grateful thought he’d had for hours. It came to him slowly and made him feel just a tiny bit better.
Well, at least I can breathe. Then that thought led to another, which made him feel even better. And at least I can think. Then he pulled back the duvet and swung his legs out of bed. He stood up and walked over to the window. And at least I can walk.
It may have had something to do with the tortoise who kept on going, but Tarkin suddenly felt a whole lot better. He could breathe, think and walk. He studied the sky. The afternoon light was already fading. He had missed a whole day at school.
He got busy, pulling his rain trousers and life jacket out of the cupboard. According to his moon-phase calendar, low tide was in four hours time. He didn’t want to miss that. He needed Frank and his mother out of the way. He grabbed a sheet of paper and quickly wrote:
Kaylay on in village hall. You should go. You’ll meet people and Fin says it’s great. I am OK. Tarkin.
As for steering a boat, there was nothing to it. Tarkin had seen where Frank left the key for the starting motor. It was hanging up on a nail in his shed. And the shed was unlocked. If Fin got into trouble Tarkin would be right there on the sea, with a blanket, and sweets, and a torch. And even if it was a bit scary out alone on the dark ocean, Fin would only be gone a few minutes in human time. Tarkin was zingy with excitement now. He was going to be in on this adventure. He wasn’t just going to sit on a rock chanting and eating toffee. Oh no. He was going to take a boat out to sea and help the selkies – even if they did put a curse on him.
He posted his note through the living-room door then jumped back into bed.
“What a good idea, honey,” his mother said two minutes later, waving his note.
“Wanna come with us, buddy?” asked Frank. The adults stood together, framed in Tarkin’s bedroom doorway, smiling anxiously.
Tarkin shook his head and pointed to his throat.
“He needs to rest, Frank,” said Martha gently. “A sick boy can’t dance.”
Tarkin nodded vigorously and pointed to the pillow.
“But we can’t leave him on his own,” said Frank.
Tarkin folded his hands under his cheek, meaning he’d be fast asleep. Then he pointed down to the village, meaning they should go there and dance.
“I’ll ask Rena next door to keep an eye on you, honey,” Martha said. Then she kissed Tarkin, ruffled his hair and left him. He could hear them in the hallway discussing what they’d wear.
“Think I’ll wear my plaid pants,” said Frank.
“I’ll wear my kilt,” said Martha.
And I’ll wear a life jacket, thought Tarkin, as darkness fell and the moon slowly rose over the water.
Chapter 15
“Magnus and Aquella are coming with us to the ceilidh. Don’t they look lovely?”
Ragnor nodded. They did.
“Thing is, Barbara,” said Aquella, after doing a twirl in her new green dress, “we just need to visit Tarkin first. He’s not well. Then we’ll come as soon as we can.” This was not strictly a lie and Aquella smiled her sweetest smile. Fin nodded in agreement.
Ragnor flashed him an anxious look. Remember to heed your instinct, son.
Fin glanced at his father and nodded. “You look grand in a kilt,” his father said, and winked.
Magnus Fin ate three helpings of shepherd’s pie. He’d read how food is converted into warmth and energy. He’d need warmth. He’d need energy. It was the last day of November. No one swam in the sea in the north of Scotland on the last day of November. He munched on.
“Tuck in, son,” said Barbara, “you’ll need lots of energy for dancing.”
Ragnor, chewing slowly, looked at his son. “Aye, Fin, you’ll need lots of energy right enough. Tuck in.”
After supper Magnus Fin lay on his bed, so stuffed he couldn’t move. He had to loosen the buckle on his kilt. He could hear Aquella downstairs. She was doing Barbara’s hair and chatting. Ragnor was doing the dishes. Fin felt so full he was sure he would jump into the sea and immediately sink. For the hundredth time he glanced at his watch. Half an hour to go.
Fin could hear sounds drifting up from the living room. His parents were going for a drink before the ceilidh. They were putting coats on and laughing, calling up to him to send their love to Tarkin and see you later at the dance. The front door opened then closed. He heard their footsteps on the path. He heard their voices on the wind, like chattering starlings. Then they were gone.
In seconds Aquella was at his bedroom door. He was so full of shepherd’s pie the only thing he wanted to do was sleep.
“Right, Fin! Quick! Get ready!” Aquella commanded, her voice trembling with excitement. “I’ve put Neptune’s seaweed into this locket with your baby tooth. Put it on, quick.” Fin rubbed his belly and groaned.
“But what about Tarkin?” he asked, still lying in bed and beginning to feel sick, as Aquella snapped the locket shut.
“What about him?”
“He said he wanted to help. He said he would be there.”
“Well, maybe he’s there already. If not, we haven’t got time to fetch him. Come on, Magnus Fin. Get up! And here,” she added, flinging him a pair of swimming goggles, “these might come in handy for the stinging brown gunge. Put them round your neck. Now come on!”
Fin groaned again. He rubbed his belly then looked at his watch. Aquella was right. It was time to wriggle into his wetsuit.
“Might be a good idea to take the kilt off,” Aquella said, laughing, “and I promise,” she added, clapping her hands over her eyes, “I won’t look.”
At quarter to eight Magnus Fin and Aquella left the cottage, he in his wetsuit, she in her green dress with a pink puffy jacket on top, and a hat and gloves and scarf. The moon was now up and a silver path lay over the sea. It was almost light outside in an eerie colourless way.
They ran along the beach path, Fin casting his eyes around for a glimpse of Tarkin. Maybe he was on the black rock waiting? Maybe he had brought a flask of hot chocolate?
But as they neared the skerries there was no sign of Tarkin. The only things on the rocks were the letters M F. The white writing screamed at him. Fin clutched at his moon-stone and ran on, glad for the company of his cousin. But soon, he knew, they’d come to salt water. Then he’d be on his own.
“You have three minutes, Fin,” she said when they reached the skerries. She squeezed his arm and smiled encouragingly. “Take your trainers off. I’ll look after them until you come back. I’ll be in Ragnor’s cave. Good luck.”
Ragnor’s cave was close to the flat rocks where the dead seals lay. The same place he had seen Miranda and Shuna. It was a special place for the selkies; Fin knew that. He looked at Aquella anxiously as he handed her his shoes.
“I’ll be fine,” she said, “and remember – if you need help let me know. I’ll be waiting. I’ll be the land lookout. Now go!”
She ran across the beach. The tide was far out so the salt water wouldn’t touch her. Fin watched her slow down. In the moonlight he saw her stand close to the dead seals then she turned and waved him on. He had one minute. He jumped over the skerries and headed for the black rock.
Fin leapt from rock to rock. Panting hard, he hoisted himself up onto the black rock and curled his webbed feet over the ledge. There was no one to count for him this time.
“Ten, nine, eight …” he shouted out loud. The moonlight shon
e bright. He gazed down at the water. It glinted like silver. He heard a thrumming noise. Thinking it was the churning of the water below he shouted on, “Seven, six, five …”
The rumbling noise grew louder. Someone’s thoughts dived into his. Four, three, two …
Fin glanced up. In the distance he saw a small boat. A torchlight from it flashed towards him: on, off, on, off. That was Tarkin’s signal! And those were Tarkin’s thoughts. His best friend was heading towards him – in a boat!
One – JUMP!
Magnus Fin grinned. He waved. The torchlight flashed back.
Then he jumped.
Chapter 16
Magnus Fin hit the water with a loud splash. It was freezing! Gasping with the shock, he clutched at the mother-of-pearl handle and pulled. The rock door to the selkie world opened. From the crack between the worlds the emerald-green light flashed – and he was through.
But through to what? Where was the crab? The water churned around him, twisting him in a spinning vortex, its force sucking him down. Magnus Fin was in a whirlpool. It pulled at him and spun him. Everything was a blur. Booming sounds near deafened him. The brilliant light near blinded him. His lungs felt fit to burst. He floundered with his arms and legs, helpless in this tube of whirling water. Had he jumped straight into a sea storm?
Just when he was sure he would faint, the churning, spinning and whirling motions ceased. He was thrown forward by a tidal force. One more booming sound and instantly the water calmed. Everything grew still and quiet. Eerily quiet. Or had Magnus Fin gone deaf?
Fin ventured forward. His arms trembled but he managed slowly to swim. He glanced above. He glanced below. With the silver beam of his torch eye-lights he scanned the dark seawater. What strange world was this? No swaying arms of seaweed moved. No fish swam. No crab was here to guide him. Nothing!
Nothing, that was, except for a few slow swaying seals, sleeping peacefully. Thankful he wasn’t alone, Fin nudged the seals, but try as he might, and he did, nothing would wake them. Confused, Fin left them to their dreams and swam on through the dark silent water.
After a few strokes he bumped against something. Feeling forward, his hands came up against what felt like metal. Panicking, he swam back, but only a few strokes. Again he met the same resistance. Where was he? Frantic now, he swam up. He swam down. He swam to the sides again, kicking his legs furiously through the water. Then he stopped and slumped against the wall. There was nowhere to go. He was in some kind of container, a sunken ship perhaps. And unless he was mistaken, there was no way out.
He wanted to scream for help. But he’d only been under the water for minutes, seconds even. He couldn’t call for Aquella already, surely? He wanted to protect her, and he wanted her to think he was brave and strong.
What about Tarkin then? Hadn’t Tarkin’s thoughts come to him and told him to jump? Perhaps he really was close by somewhere in a boat. Tarkin had lost his voice – but now, just maybe, he had discovered thought transmission.
Fin concentrated hard on Tarkin. He tried to picture him. Then he tried to send his thoughts towards him: HELP ME! I’m stuck in a sunken ship. Oh help!
But after a few seconds the thoughts bounced back: HELP ME! I’m stuck in a sunken ship. Fin groaned. The ship, or whatever it was, was sound proof – and thought proof. Oh help!
Magnus Fin didn’t cry very often. But he cried then, and floated helplessly round and round in the silent prison filled with briny water, a few blissfully unconscious seals and his own salt tears.
Chapter 17
Tarkin was glad that the village hall was surrounded by pine trees. So even if Frank did step outside for some fresh air he wouldn’t see his fishing boat churning across the moonlit ocean. When Tarkin cut the engine and let the boat drift on the smooth sea he caught snatches of music on the wind. He grinned. If only his dad could see him now. He couldn’t believe how easy it had been to steer the boat out of the harbour, and now, how well he was managing. He was probably a natural born seafarer. Hadn’t his dad spent a couple of years in the United States Marine Corp? Seafaring was in the blood.
Tarkin, with his hand gently on the rudder, let the boat drift, trying more or less to keep the rock where Fin jumped off in his sight. The full moon flooded the beach, the coast and the sea with a pale silvery glow.
Tarkin checked his watch. It was one of those watches that lit up. Magnus Fin, so his watch informed him, had been gone all of one minute. From what Fin had told him, a minute on land could feel like a day underwater – so in sea time, Fin had been gone a long time. Tarkin scanned his torch across the water but there was no sign of him, so Tarkin tore the wrapper off a toffee and ate it.
Maybe it was the toffee, though more probably the swell that gently rocked the boat, but Tarkin felt his stomach lurch. Under his unsteady feet the boat rocked like a cradle. Tarkin snatched in air, and wound his fingers tightly over the edge of the boat. He groaned. The last thing he wanted was to be sick.
Frank’s words of advice from the night before came back to him, “Bend your knees and go with the flow, buddy.” Tarkin bent his knees and moved with the gentle rocking motion of the boat. It helped. He breathed out and unclenched his grip.
Seasickness scare over, Tarkin checked again that everything was in place: towel, life jacket, rope, huge bag of sweets, blanket, torch, pen and paper. The water slapped against the hull of the boat. The moon shone. Tarkin sat at the stern guiding the boat through the calm water and chewing his toffee.
Awesome! Life at sea, he thought, is definitely the life for me. What muckle bliss.
Aquella sat on the flat rock, with four dead seals for company. She knew these seals, had swum with them, and at solstice times had come ashore with them. Fin had gone, into the freezing water. And there, if she wasn’t mistaken, in a small fishing boat out at sea, was Tarkin. She couldn’t see anyone with him. Her strong selkie eyesight could only make out Tarkin wearing a bulky life jacket. She felt relieved seeing the life jacket but nervous at the thought of what an eleven-year-old boy in a boat alone, at night – who didn’t know how to swim – might get up to.
“Oh, Tarkin,” she sighed, standing to see him better, “in the name of Neptune, don’t try anything heroic.”
Aquella liked Tarkin fine. She could see how he admired Fin. He had even tried once to wear a coloured contact lens so he too would have different coloured eyes. And he was forever speaking about the mermaid he once saw. He wanted adventure badly. More than anything he wanted to be different. And there was Magnus Fin, as different as day is to night, adventure seeming to seek him out, and him wishing he could be normal.
Aquella watched the little boat. It seemed to bob about aimlessly. It was enough that she was there to help Fin if he got into trouble. Tarkin was bound to be more a hindrance than a help.
“Tarkin!” she shouted. But he was further away than he seemed and she didn’t dare go any closer for fear of salt water. “Tarkin don’t be stupid!” But her words evaporated into the night air. “Now I’ve got you to look out for as well as Magnus Fin,” she said to herself, annoyed that a boy who couldn’t even swim would take a boat out.
Aquella stood on the rocks and waited, for what she didn’t know. She stared out to sea, resisting the urge to walk right into it. She thought about how Ragnor had said the best way to be a land girl was not to think too much about her life under the sea.
“It’s like Tarkin,” Ragnor had said to her, comforting her one night when she felt homesick. He’d been listening while she struggled on with her reading, and when she gave up he just sat with her.
“How?” she’d asked, not understanding how she was like Tarkin. She had black hair, he had blond hair – she had green eyes, he had blue eyes – he was skinny, she wasn’t. And now – she was responsible – and he wasn’t.
“Well, he probably misses America,” Ragnor said. “I know he misses his dad. But he’s in Scotland now. Here – up in the north – same as you – and he’s getting on with it. Think of it
like living in another country. It helps. And it doesn’t help to think too much about the past, Aquella.”
That made sense to Aquella. She was a foreigner in a new land. And she was determined to make the most of it, just like Magnus Fin’s friend from America. She had looked at Tarkin differently after that. He, like her, had also come from far away.
And he, like her, just wanted to help. Thinking this, she breathed in the salty tang of the sea, sat back down on the flat rocks, pulled her jacket about her, and waited.
Chapter 18
Magnus Fin didn’t know how long he had been in this prison. He wasn’t hungry – though the shepherd’s pie may have had something to do with that. He wasn’t even thirsty. He was bored. And bored was the last thing he expected to be in the selkie world. He was also – he could feel it pulsing inside him like a slow-boiling kettle – angry.
HELP! LET ME OUT! But it only took seconds for the thoughts to echo back: HELP! LET ME OUT!
Fin hammered his fists on the steel walls, which, Fin discovered as he hammered, sloped up to a point. He was surely in an upturned sunken ship, or a tanker. He kicked as hard as he could, but no one heard him. Fin howled. He punched. But the steel was hard, his fellow prisoners were still asleep, and his fist throbbed.
HELP!
HELP!
It’s Magnus Fin, son of Ragnor.
It’s Magnus Fin, son of Ragnor.
It’s me – M F.
It’s me – M F.
Don’t leave me alone.
You are not alone.
Fin swung round. A slamming sound boomed in his ears. The water churned then grew instantly calm again.
You are not alone. It came again and it wasn’t his thoughts. Hope filled him. Eagerly Fin scanned his prison.
Swimming towards him was a black and silver seal. She swam up to Magnus Fin and nuzzled him gently. It is for the sake of our health.