The Seven Tales of Trinket

by Shelley Moore Thomas

  “And you believe one of these seal mothers has your baby?”

  Mistress Catriona nodded. “And I will get him back.” Her voice was cold, like a winter’s morning.

  “I know what you are feeling, I think,” I began. “I, too, have been separated from my father—”

  “We shall need music. The selkies can be tamed with music,” she interrupted. “Have you a voice for singing? And a mind for conjuring tunes?”

  “I-I-I do not know, actually—” I began, but before I could get any more words out, Mistress Catriona had clasped her hand around my own and pulled me out of her cottage and down the narrow path toward the rocky coast.

  THE MAKING OF MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS

  As we approached, the ocean splashed playfully against the shore. The Mistress of the Sea and her angry storms were long gone from this stretch of the world, though the wind was brisk enough to tug at my braided hair and chill the tops of my ears. I was glad for the warmth of my mother’s cloak. I turned back to see Thomas, who trailed behind determinedly. Was he not supposed to be repairing roofs with Mister Fergus? It seemed wrong to be heading for the waves when so much work in the ruined town still needed doing. “Perhaps we should go and check on the thatching,” I began, releasing my hand from hers. “Mister Fergus may need some help…”

  “Nay,” said Mistress Catriona, a determined look on her face. “Mister Fergus bid you keep company with me, so as to keep me out of everyone’s way. I know full well that none of them believe me. You will do your duty to Mister Fergus and come with me. ’Tis what an honorable soul would do.”

  I wanted to be an honorable soul. So I followed Mistress Catriona as she led me down the dirt path.

  Thomas raced to catch up.

  “You did not have to come, Thomas,” I told him. “Doesn’t Mister Fergus need you?”

  “Mister Fergus would not want you to go and let the lady do something stupid, that’s what I am thinking. And I am supposed to watch after you. Besides, I’ve been helping the whole time you’ve been sipping tea.”

  “How did you know I was sipping tea?”

  “Peeked in the window. How did you think?”

  “And how could you peek in the window if you’ve been working the whole time? Hmm?” I attempted a big, disgusted sigh, but Thomas interrupted.

  “She’s crazed, Trinket. Can you not see it in her eyes?” His voice was a whisper. I hoped the wind would not carry it down to where Mistress Catriona navigated between the large rocks of the shore.

  I shook my head and turned to join her.

  There were bones on the shore. Bones of large sea beasts called whales. Whiter than the clouds, they rose from the rocks like the ghosts of old tree branches. I could hear Thomas gasp at the sight of them.

  Jagged and sharp, the rocks of the beach created a wall of sorts between us and the bones. Carefully, so the rough edges would not pierce our shoes, we made our way past the barrier to where the bones rested. But why would we require such things? Did she not say that the selkies liked music?

  Mistress Catriona pointed to a large curved bone. “That is what we need. You will see, Trinket.”

  Around the bone that Mistress Catriona desired nested a family of swans. Their beaks were pointed and they squawked most miserably about our approach. The mothers must need to protect their babies, I thought. Thomas once told me that the most dangerous animals were mothers protecting their young. Perhaps Mistress Catriona did not realize the peril she was in. “Have a care, Mistress Catriona, they have beaks that would slice your finger from your hand before you could blink twice.”

  “Nay, they will not harm us,” she said, stealthily moving forward.

  But Thomas ran ahead of Mistress Catriona, scattering the lovely birds. Not one pecked poor Thomas as he flailed about, dispersing them to the four winds. ’Twas a brave gesture, to be sure, for he could well have returned with cuts, bites, and bits of flesh missing.

  Thomas smiled proudly at his victory.

  “Mayhap ’tis a good thing I came after all,” he said smugly.

  Mistress Catriona walked among the downy feathers of the swans’ nests. She motioned for me to join her, so I did.

  “Now, Trinket the Bard’s Daughter, you will need this, to accompany your singing, of course.” Her fingers delicately stroked the elegant white arch of the bone she’d pointed to but a few moments ago.

  The truth was, I didn’t know if I could sing well or not. I’d sung for my mum, but what mother doesn’t think her own child’s voice sounds like that of an angel? However, a storyteller must sing, for there are tales that lend themselves only to song. So I nodded, hoping my voice would not be too hideous to other ears.

  “Here, take this. It will make a fine harp, and you’ll be our singer.”

  We went back up the narrow path to her cottage. I carried the bone under my left arm. It fit there most remarkably well. As we walked, she drew from her pocket a straight, long bone, with small holes carved in it. “I have been working on fashioning a flute from this. We shall create such music that the selkies will have no choice but to give me what I want.” And the sound she made when she blew gently and moved her fingers over the holes was like a song from heaven.

  “I’ve never heard anything like it,” I said softly, not wanting to disturb the magic in the air.

  “Yes, ’tis a fine flute. But alas, I do not play as well as a true bard.” She sighed. “But I believe it will be good enough—”

  “Have there been tellers here of late, mistress?” I asked, taking a seat upon the stump in front of her cottage. Thomas sat on the ground next to me. Mistress Catriona paced whilst polishing the flute with her sleeve.

  “One performed for us not a fortnight ago,” she said. I held my breath. Could it be? “This flute is more beautiful than his. But the tunes he played … none can compare.”

  I felt my shoulders slump. My father played a harp, not a flute.

  But still, hearing another teller, any teller of tales, would help me learn the trade.

  “He was aged and rough-sounding,” Mistress Catriona offered.

  “Probably the Old Burned Man,” Thomas whispered, giving me a look. “Bald Fergal plays upon the drum.”

  I nodded. Perhaps the Old Burned Man was still nearby and we would catch up to him soon. For if I were to become a teller, I had much to learn. And there was no James the Bard around to teach me.

  “Now for the harp,” Mistress Catriona said, changing the subject. She quickly untied one of my braids and unwove the locks with her fingers. Then, she pulled from my head three long hairs.

  “Ouch! Why do you need those?”

  Mistress Catriona began wrapping the strands, up and down, creating strings between the unusual curved ends of the bone. And when she plucked the strings, ’twas the sound of a majestic lyre.

  We were silent, Thomas and I, until the hum of the notes completely faded.

  “Most likely, you could have done all of this by yourself. Why do you need me along?” I asked. I wasn’t trying to be impertinent. She had long enough hair. She could have used her own. And she could have completed her tasks without the help of Thomas or me. I had gotten the impression from Mister Fergus that I would be sitting with a woman half crazed with grief, much like I would sit and watch over a baby. Mistress Catriona certainly needed no one to watch over her. Nor was she getting in anyone’s way. She was resourceful enough to make a plan. I wasn’t convinced that Mistress Catriona wouldn’t be successful.

  “I need you, Trinket, for two reasons. First, because it is always easier to do something difficult if one has help. And second, because you are the daughter of a bard. Your hair in the harp will give it life, like blood does for a body. And,” she continued, “you will compose a song for us.”

  I swallowed, feeling strange in my belly. What if I could not do this? What if I could not write this song? What if I wrote a horrible one?

  “Mistress Catriona,” I said. “I must tell you. My father left these fi
ve years past and never returned. I was but a small thing. I never learned most of his songs.” I did not know how to finish. Mistress Catriona, I fear that I will fail.

  Mistress Catriona placed a long finger beneath my chin. She tilted my face up until I looked at her. “Trinket, we have been brought together to help each other. Do you not see that? And, if we are successful and get my baby back, I will give you the harp to keep. What bard wouldn’t want a harp as fine as this?”

  ’Twas true. I had not, in my young life, seen many fine things. And this harp was the most magnificent thing my eyes had ever beheld. I would be foolish not to want to have it for my own. Imagine how my fame might spread as the lass who played heaven’s harp.

  I nodded and Mistress Catriona smiled. “Now, Trinket, we shall require a small boat.”

  THE ISLE OF THE SELKIES

  Thomas found Mistress Catriona’s boat washed up on the shore with only a small hole in the hull. With some patching, it would be watertight enough to get us to our destination.

  “Trinket, yer a fool to sail with a loony woman,” he said as he sealed the bottom of the little boat with tar pitch.

  Thomas made me think sometimes, which was a good thing and a bad thing. True, ’twould not be the smartest course to follow a woman the village regarded as deranged. Follow her into the ocean, no less! And yet, I felt in my blood that there was a story to be found among the selkies. My mother once said that the secret to a good story was to listen to the hum in your veins. My father would have done so, I thought.

  “Perhaps it is not the wisest of ideas, Thomas, but it is the most adventurous. And when you agreed to accompany me on my quest, you knew then that there would be the chance of adventure.”

  “But I thought that it might involve pirates or monstrous beings, or battles even.” He finished painting the tar and stuck the brush in the wooden bucket. “And I thought I would be there, not stuck fixing roofs.”

  It was true. It wasn’t fair, really. But the boat was quite small and I doubted there was room for him. Thus, I would get the adventure and Thomas would do the work.

  “I won’t be long, Thomas.” I picked up the bucket to return it for him. “And if I don’t come back soon, you can lead the expedition to find me. That would be exciting, do you not think so?”

  Thomas grimaced. “Nay. I do not think so.”

  “Well…” I began. Did I really want Thomas along as Mistress Catriona and I searched for her babe? Could we all manage in such a tiny craft? “I suppose…”

  “Trinket, you don’t have to beg. Of course I’ll come.”

  When the tar was dry, Mistress Catriona and I climbed in. She sat in the bow, carrying the harp and the flute. Thomas pushed us out into the waves and then climbed over the edge, sitting next to me and smashing me a bit. However, I was glad to have help managing the oars. As we left the shore, I looked back at the village by the sea. Mister Fergus carried a bundle of thatch over to a cottage with no roof. He paused and turned his head toward our small boat. I thought I could see his bearded face shaking back and forth in disappointment. Most likely, he thought I was as crazy as Mistress Catriona.

  * * *

  My arms ached, for it had been a long time since I rowed. Though my mother and I had lived near the sea, we were not fisher folk. There was enough to do with wool-gathering and weaving to keep us busy. Only occasionally did the opportunity arise for a journey on someone’s boat. But Mistress Catriona had ventured out with her husband many a time before the sea took him. She knew how to find the proper currents to push our little boat along. All the way there, Mistress Catriona asked me to sing. The fact that she could scarcely hear me over the waves made me brave. I sang little songs and rhymes I had learned from the children of our village when I was a wee thing. Thomas remembered the tunes, too, for we’d often sung them around the house and out in the yard. He whistled along, helping when I’d forgotten a melody.

  The isle of the selkies was small and rocky. The waves splashed against it ruthlessly, as if the ocean wanted to swallow the jagged bits, but thought them too sharp to digest properly. I could not see any place where we might be able to land. I was about to voice my concern to Mistress Catriona when she bid us row again, hard. We did as we were told and in but a moment we saw a small, crystal lagoon where the waters were calm. We all smiled as we put our shoulders into the oars and forced the small boat over the rough surf and finally into the lagoon. When at last we pulled up to the shore, I was unaware that I was still humming.

  “What song is that? It is lovely,” Mistress Catriona asked, breathing heavily as we dragged the boat across the pebbles.

  “Something so old I do not even remember it much.” I said these words too quickly, and without confidence.

  “Trinket, isn’t that your father’s—” Thomas offered, then he caught the look in my eye and gave his full attention to moving the boat. I did not want to tell her it was the lullaby from my own father, or that I practiced the tune every night before I slept. ’Twas something I was not yet ready to share.

  Luckily, Mistress Catriona was less concerned with my lie than with the tune. She retrieved the musical instruments from the boat and carefully placed the harp in my hands.

  “I’d like you to play that tune upon the harp. I think that is just the melody I am searching for. It haunts, but it is not sad.”

  She looked at me, expecting that I would be able to pluck out the tune with ease. She obviously overestimated my ability. I feared failure. Again. “I shall need practice, mistress … perhaps a different tune—” I began, but she interrupted.

  “Do not pluck a string yet, Trinket,” she scolded. “We must first find out where they keep my babe. You must not play the tune until I am ready. You will just have to practice it in your mind.”

  I gave her a look of disbelief, but she was staring off into the distance. Perhaps Thomas was right and Mistress Catriona was a loon. Who could possibly play a tune with no practice?

  * * *

  Though the beach appeared deserted, Thomas and I hid the boat behind a large rock, just in case. Mistress Catriona set out down a path to find where the selkies might have taken her baby as I began practicing the lullaby in my mind. It helped if I hummed quietly to myself and plucked the strings of a pretend harp.

  Thomas got bored and began throwing pieces of shells he found on the beach back into the sea.

  The sun was beginning to sink in the sky. Mistress Catriona had not returned. We had been on the selkies’ isle all afternoon, but I had not seen even the shadow of a seal. Mayhap we had pulled up on the wrong shore?

  I kept imagining what it would feel like to actually play upon the strings of the bone harp. My mother always told me I had been born with my father’s imagination. You could create an amusement from a stone and a stick, she’d say. But I was having a difficult time imagining the notes. I was going to have to experiment. If I did not, there was a good chance that when Mistress Catriona needed me to play the lullaby, I would not succeed.

  There seemed no reason to be silent, for I was certain no one could hear me. Thomas was kicking at the waves now at the far end of the beach, his silhouette tiny in the dying light of day. So, I began plucking away at the harp. I gasped at the sound. Whereas my father’s harp had been low and deep, this one was light and magical. The harp had been made with a mother’s love and for good purpose, and perhaps that is why it sang so sweetly. Truth be told, every random note rang out so pure that it would not have mattered if I could play the lullaby or not. But, either by miracle, magic, or sheer luck, I saw in my mind the fingers of my father, long, long ago, dancing upon the harp strings. I tried to pluck the same ones, in the same way.

  My father’s lullaby, the song the Gypsy seer hummed for me, sprang from my fingers and onto the strings. Rugged and rough though my playing was, the tune was strong and true.

  WATCHFUL EYES

  At first, I did not notice the rustling in the nearby bushes, so absorbed I was in my playing. And, tic
kling somewhere inside of my brain were words that went with the music. I could feel that they were there, but I could not speak or sing them yet.

  You can feel on the back of your neck when there are eyes upon you. Slowly I turned around.

  “What are you doing, Thomas?” I asked. I knew it was him. The pig boy did not even have the decency to look embarrassed as he stepped from the bushes.

  “I just wanted to sneak up and surprise you. This is kind of boring for an adventure, don’t you think?”

  “Be quiet. I am practicing.”

  “I’m not deaf. I could hear your harp all the way down the beach. I didn’t know you could play that well.” His hand bent to pluck a string, but I swatted it away.

  “It is the harp. It makes even foul notes sing sweetly. But I shall never be able to play a whole song unless you go away and let me practice!” I did not mean for my voice to sound so harsh, but it had the desired effect. Thomas skulked off, muttering to himself.

  I started strumming, but was struck by that feeling again. The feeling of being watched. And I was, but not by a person this time.

  The seal was misty gray and not very large. I looked into its eyes. Dark and glossy they were, like deep pools of tar. The seal cocked its head to one side, then the other, then came closer. When it finally stopped right in front of me it nudged me with its black nose.

  “You want me to play again?” I asked. I searched around wildly for Thomas, but he was nowhere to be seen.

  The seal nudged my leg once more.

  Well, what do you do when a magical creature nudges your leg? And I was quite certain this was no ordinary seal. It gazed at me with eyes far too intelligent to belong to an ignorant beastie, as if it was trying to communicate with me. I looked up, hoping to find Mistress Catriona walking out through the trees to join me, or Thomas strolling down the beach, but I was not so fortunate.