Secrets of Selkie Bay

by Shelley Moore Thomas

  I had been too busy watching Mr. Doyle paw through Mum’s book to notice the vanishing seal. When Mr. Doyle’s head snapped up to search for the sea, I retrieved the book. Gently, of course.

  “We’ll be going now,” I announced, thrusting Neevy back in the carriage and buckling her in. “Now.”

  Ione took the book from me and thumbed through it herself. “I am sorry you didn’t find what you were looking for, Mr. Doyle. Are you sure he can’t borrow it, Cordie?” She was about to give me her begging face when Mr. Doyle himself interrupted.

  “Don’t need it. That’s a fantasy map, not the real thing. I’ve been out there, in that patch of the water a thousand times over. There’s no island there. No island, no treasure. A person would be a fool to look for it. It’s not there.” His shoulders slumped and he put his hands in his pockets. Right now he resembled a turtle more than a puffer fish.

  “That’s because it’s magical,” Ione retorted. “You have to believe to see it. Isn’t that the way magic works?”

  I was not about to waste the day debating the rules of magic with Mr. Doyle. Without another word, I pulled Ione along, down the streets of Selkie Bay, all the way back to our little house. We were out of breath when we got there, but I was not too tired to think about something that had really started to bother me.

  “Can we go and see Mum in the morning?” Ione asked, interrupting my thoughts. We were inside now, and Ione was cutting bits of cheese for our sandwiches. She fed a little piece to Neevy, who gobbled it up. “I think she’d like that.”

  But I was barely listening. Instead I was trying to picture the island Mum had shown us, out between the two old guardian rocks. There had been a glimmer of an isle out there. I remembered it.

  It was probably the same one Mr. Doyle said didn’t exist.

  But maybe it really did.

  The Buried Treasure of the Pirate Queen

  I LOCKED ALL THE DOORS and checked the windows twice. Secretly, of course. I didn’t want to scare Ione.

  But I was kind of scared myself.

  I’d never been home at night in our house without Mum or Da. And though yesterday I’d been sure I wouldn’t be afraid—that was yesterday.

  “Can we stay up as late as we want?” Ione asked me, once Neevy had fallen asleep. We’d scooted her crib into our room, so that we’d all be together through the night. It’d been Ione’s idea, but I rather liked it.

  “No.”

  She made a face, this time one involving a stuck-out tongue and crossed eyes, but went back to playing with an old chess set. Ione had given every piece a name and had built them a castle from books. The pieces were celebrating the return of the queen. Ione made them dance and sing—she played more happily than I’d seen her do in months. I envied her.

  But I had other things to do than eavesdrop on a chess-piece party. I pulled out A Child’s Book of Selkies and began to read.

  When in Seal form, the Selkie naturally prefers the sea, or one of the small islands that dot the coast. The most remarkable of these islands is called the Kingdom of the Selkies. It is the largest isle, and a place where Selkies can shed their skins (or not) at their leisure. Selkies are in no danger of being captured by Humans in the Kingdom. That is because the island is hidden and remains hidden to this day. Only those whom the Selkies trust know the details of sailing to this island. It is rumored that at certain times of day, the island is completely invisible, due to the position and glare of the sun.

  If one were lucky enough to stumble upon the island, one would be fortunate, indeed. A simple dig or two might reveal hidden treasure, for selkies are fond of things that shine, like silver and gold. However, navigating to the isle is treacherous. The island is protected by formidable guardian rocks, sudden storms, and dense fog. Legends report many shipwrecks near the coast of the Kingdom.

  Attempting to plunder the island would be a very poor idea, to be sure.

  I didn’t realize I’d been reading aloud until Ione stopped playing and asked, “What’s plunder mean?”

  “It means taking something that’s not yours.”

  “Oh, like you did with that money.” Was Ione ever going to stop annoying me about the money and where it came from?

  “Do you really think I’m a thief? Or some kind of pirate?” I asked.

  Ione played with the knight, drumming it against her knee as she thought. “I dunno, Cordie. Mum would be mad if you stole, but since she’s a selkie now maybe she thinks about things differently.” She cocked her head and looked up at me.

  I wanted to scream at her, Mum is not a selkie, but yelling at Ione was never a good idea. So I just took a deep breath and looked back at the book, at the map of the island. I wasn’t thinking of plundering it, but I did feel the urge to investigate. Especially since Mr. Doyle really seemed to not want us to. No island, no treasure, he’d said. And I probably would have thought it was just a bunch of nonsense except that Selkie Bay was not only known for its relationship with the mythical selkies. Another legend was the pirate queen’s treasure, the same lady with all the pubs named after her.

  But going off on the Dreaming Lass with my sisters probably wasn’t a great plan.

  “Cordie, we should go there! To the island. I bet Mum’s there right now. That’s where I’d go if I were a selkie. I’d go right to my own island. Please can we go?”

  “No.”

  “Why not? Why can’t we go? Is it because last time we went on the Dreaming Lass you turned green and tossed your guts overboard?”

  “No.”

  “Then why?”

  I wanted to tell her, Because there will be no selkies on the island at all, because they aren’t real. But I knew she’d hate me for it, if she believed me, which she wouldn’t. She probably just needed to see for herself.

  Maybe it wasn’t such a bad idea to pay a little visit to the selkies’ island.

  I sighed and quietly began to memorize every centimeter of the map.

  “Please.”

  Reluctantly, I nodded. A trip to the island might be the very proof I needed to lay to rest Ione’s Mum is a selkie fantasy—the magical island would be quite uninhabited. If we found it at all. It would be a harsh lesson, though. “Yes, I suppose we might try to find that island. We might find something else out there, too.”

  Ione stopped playing with her chess pieces and looked up at me. “What else is out there?”

  “On the island of the selkies, the one they call the kingdom? Maybe lost treasure.”

  “We can find it, I bet. Mum tried to show it to us! And of course she’d know where it was, being a selkie and all.” She knocked over one of the walls of her book castle in her excitement and didn’t even notice. “But why do we need a treasure? Don’t we have enough money from what you—?” Ione had scooted close to me on the floor and was now looking at the map intently.

  “For the last time, I didn’t steal that money. And there isn’t that much of it, anyway,” I said, even though my feet were sore from walking on it to the harbor and back. “But there might be so much more than that, out there on that island. They say a ship belonging to a pirate queen sank just outside of the bay, hundreds of years ago. They found the wreck but no gold. Maybe the captain stashed the treasure somewhere on an island.”

  “Do you think that’s why Mr. Doyle wanted the map?” Ione asked.

  “Maybe.”

  “He said it was a fake map. He said there was no island out there.”

  “But we know there is,” I said. “Because Mum tried to show us.”

  Ione smiled and kissed the queen in her hand.

  Into the Sea

  I DIDN’T SLEEP MUCH THAT NIGHT. It didn’t help that Da called to make sure we were being watched over by Maura and I had to lie to him that she was in the bathroom, so I felt kind of awful about it. It was a quick call, and his voice was strained. We both remembered the sugar jar and what was said. And what wasn’t said. So when I tried to close my eyes, every little sound made me jump. W
hen the house finally lit up with the day’s sun, I might have slept for a few minutes.

  I knew I would be yawning all day, but I didn’t care.

  Today was a day for adventuring and finding lost things.

  * * *

  “Cordie, come on!” Ione had run ahead and was standing a block away, impatient hands resting on her hips. Neevy was still asleep in the carriage. We’d raced out of the house early to get to the dock before anyone noticed. Sure, there were workers already there, down at the bad end, but the strip was nearly deserted. I shook my head at Ione, turned the pram, and went down a side street to the small outdoor market that opened early in the morning during the summer. Different folks set up their tables on different days, depending on what they had to sell. By August, so many booths would be packed into the little street, it would be hard to walk. But on this quiet morning, early risers such as the Sullivan sisters were bound to stand out if they weren’t careful. Slowly, trying hard not to draw too much attention, I wheeled ahead.

  Ione ran into me, nearly knocking me over. “Cordie, what are you doing?”

  “I am getting us something to eat,” I said. “And keep your voice down. I don’t want nosy Mr. Doyle to know what we are up to.”

  Ione was usually hungry, so she seemed satisfied with my answer. I hated using Mum’s money from the jar, the money that should have gone to the rent, but if we found a treasure, we’d have more than enough.

  Ione spied some fruit-filled pies that looked like heaven. We bought two and quickly ate them before Neevy woke. I felt a little bad, but she wouldn’t have liked the tartness of the berries, and besides, in a minute I would find something that was more suitable for a baby.

  I just needed to think.

  Ione worked her way over to a man selling fried chips from a van. “No, Ione,” I said. “We have to be smart about this. We can’t spend all the money right now.”

  I surveyed the market. What wouldn’t spoil quickly? Ione was surveying, too, no doubt looking for the tastiest snack or the cake with the most frosting.

  I chose some apples and some slightly green bananas.

  “Those aren’t ripe yet,” Ione said.

  “I know.”

  There was a loaf of really hard bread, like Da said they have in France. It looked sturdy enough.

  There was some goat cheese coated in wax that caught my eye. “Do you need to keep this in the fridge?” I asked the man, who had a goatlike face to match his cheese.

  “Not so long as you don’t let it get too hot. Keep it cool, and dry.”

  A lady had a case of water bottles. I bought ten.

  “Why do we need so many?” Ione chirped.

  “If we don’t bring our own water, what are we supposed to drink?” I supposed that’s what you did when you were eight—forgot about all the problems of day-to-day living. However, I was eleven, nearly twelve. I couldn’t afford the luxury of forgetfulness.

  I stuffed as many of our bags as I could underneath the pram next to the three life vests we’d brought from home and pushed us along, back toward the harbor.

  Near the end of the dock, bobbing among several other dinghies, was the Dreaming Lass.

  Even though we’d been out in it only a few months ago, it was smaller than I remembered.

  “Oh, Cordie, this is going to be fun!” Ione jumped up and down. “I hope we packed enough diapers in Neevy’s diaper bag.” Ione looked inside to check, then pulled out one of the hand shovels we used when we weeded the blackberry bramble behind the house. “Well, this explains why it’s so heavy.” She was about to put it back inside, next to the other digging tools I’d found, when she froze, the shovel poised in midair.

  “Cordie,” she whispered, turning my attention from the boat to the long shadow that stretched from about two feet in front of us all the way to the edge of the Dreaming Lass.

  “And where do you think you are going?” said Mr. Doyle. His voice first thing in the morning was even more scratchy than usual.

  “Nowhere,” I said, before Ione could butt in. “Not that it’s any of your business. We don’t work for you anymore. Remember?”

  He took in the shovel, the Dreaming Lass, and the old book sticking out of the diaper bag and said, “You’ll never find it, you know.”

  He crossed his arms in front of his chest and stood there, glaring at me, the same way he’d stood and glared at Mum that foggy morning on the beach when she’d last taken us out in the boat.

  I didn’t say anything. Ione didn’t either, but as she tried to stuff the shovel back in the bag, she fumbled a bit and it clanked to the ground.

  Mr. Doyle was there in a blink, picking up the shovel and stuffing it in the bag for us, then zipping the whole thing closed. “Good to see you are going prepared at least.” He patted the bag. Then he eyed us more closely, with squinty eyes. “I can’t imagine your da is happy about this. Never seemed to like the sea, that one. Didn’t like it when your mum took you out, as I recall.”

  I looked at Ione to silence her. She put both hands over her mouth to try to keep her words inside. Very discreet, my sister.

  “Oh, he doesn’t know, does he?”

  I willed Ione to keep her mouth shut, but she kept looking at me with a look on her face that fairly screamed, He’s figured out our secret, Cordie!

  “Maybe I should go and tell him? What do you think about that, Cordelia Sullivan?”

  “Go ahead,” I said bravely.

  “Yeah. Go ahead and try. You won’t find him, though, because he’s gone.” Ione was quite pleased with herself.

  “Just stop talking, Ione. It’s none of his business.”

  “Listen to the way you talk. Just a day or so ago, you were begging me for work. And now look at you, full of spit and fire. That’s no way to treat an elder.” Mr. Doyle scowled and shook both his head and his finger at me.

  Taking a young girl out on a boat to trick the tourists into thinking she is a selkie girl, to boost your own business, is no way to treat a kid, either. But I didn’t have time to argue with Mr. Doyle. Neevy was starting to fuss, so I turned my attention to her, trying to ignore the cranky old man, just like Mum had ignored him.

  “And if your da’s gone and left you, too, well I suppose that makes you abandoned. There’s authorities that can take care of that. Perhaps I should make a call.”

  I didn’t say anything else. Not one word. I just turned around and started pushing that pram away from Mr. Doyle and away from our boat. Not fast, because I didn’t want him to know he scared me, even though he did. Ione was right there beside me. For a second, we were an unstoppable force, the Sullivan sisters, off to find our fortune.

  Ione finally chanced a glance back. “He’s gone,” she said.

  We turned around, raced to the Dreaming Lass.

  My hands started to get clammy. I didn’t know much about piloting the boat by myself, but Mum had showed both Ione and me the basics. I could manage to start the small motor and get us away from here. I was pretty sure I could, anyway. But still, I had doubts. What kind of big sister takes her little sisters out in a boat without telling anyone? It sounded crazy. It sounded like something I should not even consider doing.

  It sounded exactly like something Mum would have done.

  “Help me, Ione. We’ve got to get the cover off this thing.”

  Dropping the bread bag with a thud, Ione skipped over and drew the boat close by the painter. I reached down to loosen the cover and pull it off from one side, then the other. The boat was filled with water halfway up the sides. The cover hadn’t done its job. I wished Neevy were old enough to help us.

  I surveyed the dock. Still empty. Mr. Doyle was nowhere to be seen.

  “There, Cordie, look there!” Ione pointed out to sea, her voice giddy and squealy.

  I looked, but I didn’t see anything.

  “Is someone coming?” My stomach seized up, just like it did when I got seasick, and I wasn’t even in the boat yet.

  “She’s
coming, Cordie! I knew she would!”

  Ione pointed out to the gray morning sea. The sun was rising slowly in the east, reflecting upon the waves like molten silver.

  “There!” And she pointed again.

  Through the white foam that frosted the waves, up popped the black face of the seal.

  Follow the Leader

  IT TOOK US ABOUT FIFTEEN MINUTES of bailing to empty the boat. And finally, with the help of one of the Patel boys, who was on his way to work at Chippy’s, we got the small outboard running.

  “Where are you going, anyway?” he asked. I shrugged. The Patel boys were twins, Niall and Raj, and I could never tell them apart, even though both of them had been in my class this year. They swapped identities all the time—drove the headmistress crazy.

  Ione cheered as the motor warmed up, and I wanted to cheer, too, but I stayed quiet. I was still too busy looking from side to side, watching to see if anyone was paying attention to the poor Sullivan girls as they struggled with their crummy-looking boat.

  “So it’s a secret, then?” Niall or Raj asked. “Where’s your father? Isn’t he going with you?”

  I shrugged again.

  “You’re brave, Cordie,” Niall or Raj said. “So which one am I, Raj or Niall?”

  “Niall.”

  “Ha! It’s Raj.”

  I reminded him that he probably had to work, which he did. So he left.

  “Thanks, Raj,” I called after him.

  “Ha! It’s Niall,” he shouted back.

  I felt bad leaving Neevy’s pram behind, but even folded up, it wouldn’t fit well into the boat. And if we had treasure to bring back, we’d have to have room for it. Hopefully, the carriage would still be there when we got back. I let myself picture it for a minute—us returning triumphantly to Selkie Bay, loaded with treasure, pram waiting to be filled with Neevy and gold, as we made our way home to Da.

  My head knew it wasn’t really possible. That almost-twelve-year-old girls and their little sisters weren’t the kinds of folks that found hidden treasure. But my heart wanted to try. And trying something felt so much better than sitting around feeling numb. I guessed Ione wasn’t the only one with make-believe dreams. But which was crazier? Finding buried treasure or having a seal for a mum?