Selkie, p.5
Selkie, page 5
Quinn grunted again and twisted her body in anger.
The sight of the lighthouse reminded her of something Owen had told her a few years ago. Something about the recent uptick in storms, and the dangerous rocks on the coastline claiming too many boats as of late, and how the fishermen and other sailors had gotten in touch with a board that controlled the country’s lighthouses. Owen had told her they were constructing a lighthouse offshore. She hadn’t asked where. She had barely been listening.
But this was the lighthouse Owen had been talking about, built right on top of the last place Quinn had seen her family. Even if the herd hadn’t decided that this part of the coast was too dangerous after her disappearance, they would not have returned to the beach once humans had taken up residence at the top of the island. She’d been too focused on the beach itself when she came by earlier and hadn’t noticed the building that sprouted out of the clifftop.
Against the evening backdrop, the lighthouse’s beacon shone brightly as it swiveled in the tower. It would be a welcome sight for any sailor out on the open water. It made Quinn’s heart clench.
Was there nowhere she could go that was free from humans? She had escaped the town that had been her cage for seven years, only to find that her jailers had spread and laid claim over what had been a safe place for her family. There would be no respite in the sea, since Quinn didn’t have the stamina to keep swimming until she found a new island, if she could find a new island. Her memories of the coastline were lost like a shape traced in the sand before high tide.
As Quinn bobbed and swayed in the current, exhausted, her fury prodded at her, steadily building with every wink of the lighthouse beacon. The somber sky above her, laden with clouds, splintered and began spitting rain.
The downpour made Quinn blink. She peered up at the clouds, dark gray and churning like a hand had grasped them and twisted.
Don’t, Quinn told herself. The last thing you need right now is a storm.
When she set off toward the island again, the clouds above her relaxed, but the rain did not let up. Quinn approached the island carefully, ducking under the water when the beacon’s round, searching light passed over her, and began circling the shore for a place to rest. Her first pass around the island revealed a small wooden dock just big enough for perhaps two boats, but there was only one small boat floating in the water. Behind the dock, Quinn could barely make out a thin, winding path that led high up the island toward the lighthouse.
Quinn snorted at the dock and turned determinedly in the other direction, skirting around the island until she was on the opposite side. There was no beach there, just a towering cliffside with the lighthouse perched on top like a cairn. At least Quinn would be out of reach of the sweeping light at the base of the cliff.
A closer inspection revealed shallow divots and cracks in the cliffside, some of them large enough for Quinn to clamber onto. She searched for one that was deep and a little elevated out of the water.
The ledge was just deep enough for Quinn to wedge herself into the crack and get out of the rain. Lying on her stomach, Quinn tucked her fins under her and laid her chin down on the bare rock. Her nostrils fluttered as she caught her breath, and her whiskers twitched in the open air. The waves lapped at the cliffside, sometimes spilling onto the ledge.
Her mind was still racing with everything she had gone through, everything she had discovered in just one day, but her body was exhausted. She slipped into sleep as easily as if she had pulled on another pelt.
Chapter Three
NOW
A FEW DAYS HAD passed since Quinn’s return to the sea, and she was uneasy in her freedom.
When the island had been free of humans and full of seals, Quinn and her mother often had to haul themselves quite far up the rocky beach to find a bare spot to settle down. With the herd around her and the sharp rise of the cliffs behind them, Quinn had slept soundly, knowing that she was as safe as she could ever be. The beach provided a little protection from the wind, too, and with an ocean full of fish only a few meters away, Quinn wondered why the herd didn’t remain on this island all the time.
“It’s just not our way,” her mother had told her. “We must always be on the move. It is too dangerous for us to linger in one place for too long.”
She had a far-off look in her eye when she told Quinn this, as if she was thinking about more than what she was saying.
Even when Quinn took this question to other adults in the herd, she received similar answers. Grunting replies about moving with the tides and the fish, not sticking around one beach for more than a season, some murmurings from the herd’s oldest members about following the route of their ancestors. And always there was that look in the adults’ eyes, and Quinn was left with more questions rather than a satisfying answer.
Alone now and tucked on the opposite end of the island in her shallow cave, Quinn thought about how she had pushed for a reason for the herd’s constant wandering. If they liked this island so much, why couldn’t they stay all year long?
Quinn realized that she had answered her own question seven years ago. She and the other young seals had done just what the rest of the herd had feared would happen if they stayed put on the island. Quinn had become restless. When she had felt safe and protected, and she didn’t have to swim hundreds of kilometers up or down the coast, her curiosity overtook her. She and the others had let that safety lure them into a sense of fearlessness. They had energy to spare on bravery, and they had let it coax them onto the shore and out of their pelts. And Quinn had paid dearly for it.
Quinn could also realize now that the herd had probably been on the move to avoid garnering human attention, since dozens of sleek seals would have drawn notice even if they had been the normal kind. Her mother and the older seals had most likely worried that a human might recognize their kind from the stories. Selkies were physically no different from normal seals, but Quinn had always thought there was a particular sheen to the coat of a selkie, an intelligence behind their wide, black eyes that gave them away.
But with the herd gone and not even a pack of regular seals to blend in to, Quinn would stick out in the waters around the island and near the town. She couldn’t remember overhearing Owen or the other fishermen talking about seals hanging around these waters in recent years. If she stayed here and was spotted by the humans in the town, word would surely get back to Owen, and he would know that Quinn was still within reach.
Quinn’s other option scarcely sounded more appealing. She could leave this island and the humans behind, and swim up and down the coast in search of any remaining selkies, even if they weren’t her family. How long would that search take? Could Quinn stand to be alone for that long, as vulnerable as she was while she was slowly gaining back her strength and ability to feed herself?
With her pelt returned to her, at least she had the choice. She had spent seven years on land against her will, but the sudden return to freedom and realization that her life was back in her own hands—or in her current form, fins—was overwhelming. If she chose wrong, what good would it be that she had escaped Owen and the half-formed human life she had been living?
Quinn wriggled in the small space she had claimed in the side of the island. Her thoughts were making her agitated, and she shuffled to the ledge and slipped into the water to try to clear her head. The weather was cloudy but calm, and she began a slow loop around the island, a path she had started traveling to help rebuild her strength and search for food.
As she rounded the side of the island that faced the mainland, Quinn dove beneath the water as her thoughts wandered again. Quinn didn’t miss Owen in any sense. She had slept in the same bed as him for years, but every night with him was a lance on a still-healing wound. There was no part of her that felt tugged loose by Owen’s absence.
Quinn couldn’t say the same for her children. She still believed she had made the right choice in leaving them behind. So far, that was the only choice in her newfound freedom that made sense to her. But Quinn’s entire life on land had revolved around her children, even if she had kept them at arm’s length as best she could.
She found herself wondering what Oliver was doing now that she wasn’t at the house; would he have to go to school? She worried that, even with her gone, her children would still be outcasts among the other students. The tight grip of guilt squeezed her throat as she thought of sweet, silent Oliver withstanding the childish cruelties.
Or would Owen make all three stay home now, with Flora looking after her younger siblings even though she was still a child herself? It wasn’t fair that Flora had to grow up so quickly. Quinn wished Flora’s only concerns were playing hide-and-seek in their small house and fixing Evie’s dolls. But by leaving them behind, she’d ruined any chance of Flora getting to live a normal childhood. She hoped the townsfolk would at least be a little kinder to them now that Quinn was gone.
Quinn had made a full loop around the island and was swimming at the surface, diving shallowly before popping back up at an easy pace that allowed her mind to wander. It was late afternoon or early in the evening and a good time to go fishing, if she could pull her thoughts together long enough to focus.
Her aimless swimming brought her close to the beach as she made another pass across the front of the island. The small boat was still docked to the pier. Quinn poked her head out of the water, taking deep breaths through her nose. Her whiskers twitched and trembled in the chill air above the surface of the ocean.
She was nearly past the stretch of beach when something caught her eye. The beach had been empty each time she had swum by in the past few days, but now the rocky shore held a dark shape, huddled close to the edge of the cliff and the water. Risking raising her head a bit higher out of the surf, Quinn inhaled deeply, nostrils flaring as she tried to catch a scent on the wind. The beach was protected, but the figure was close enough to the water that a breeze could carry a smell straight to Quinn.
The figure was a human. Instantly, Quinn tensed, her eyes locked on the hunched shape as if it were going to dive into the water and come after her.
Since there was still only one boat at the pier, Quinn figured this had to be one of the lighthouse keepers. From what she could remember of half-heard conversations and snatches of gossip in the market, there were three lighthouse keepers in total, all men.
Quinn narrowed her eyes. If she was staying on the island while she regained her strength and made up her mind about whether she was going to leave, it would be a good idea to know what kind of humans had taken over the island from the seals. She sank low in the water and moved soundlessly through the waves.
As she glided closer, Quinn gauged that the human was barely bigger than her seal form, short, but stocky. He was crouched by the shore, a large oilskin coat making his shoulders broad and hiding his face behind the collar. The water rushed up the shore and lost its legs less than a meter away from the human’s boots.
Quinn stopped as close as she dared. Still a few body lengths away from the beach, a thought occurred to her. With the human so close to the water, would she be able to sneak in close enough to set her teeth into the human’s leg or arm, and drag him into the water with her? She had heard stories of selkies drowning people who got too close to the herd when seal hunting was a popular sport amongst the local humans, but she had never seen it done. While the selkies had only been protecting their herd, their actions had probably fed into the stories Owen heard from his grandfather, which had planted that seed of fear about Quinn in Owen’s head. But she had never drowned a human. Could she do it now?
A strange feeling was filling her chest: her rage, which had been simmering ever since she had escaped but was still ready to boil over at any moment, gladly resurfaced at the sight of this human. Maybe he had done no wrong to Quinn directly, but his presence here reminded her of everything she had lost in the past seven years. Could she take this lighthouse keeper into the heart of the ocean and rid her world of one human?
Quinn was not an animal, but the violent urge to sink her teeth in this man’s skin and drown him in the unforgiving sea came as easily as her other instincts. But just as quickly as her rage had risen, she felt horrified at the savageness of her thoughts.
The human would struggle, and Quinn didn’t trust her heart to stay hard enough to kill him. She wanted her island back, but killing this human would not return the past seven years of Quinn’s life to her.
The man didn’t move in all the time that Quinn floated there, plotting and giving up on how to murder him. She wasn’t going to learn anything about the keepers from the hunched figure, and Quinn began backing away when she heard a soft sound.
The keeper sniffled again, the noise nearly lost in the gentle waves breaking on the beach, but Quinn recognized the sound of crying.
The tide was rising; the water nearly reached the keeper’s boots now, and as it stretched up the shore, the keeper finally raised his head. Wet tracks stained his cheeks, reflecting in the dim light. Quinn stopped retreating. She swam closer, staying low to the water.
The keeper’s face was round and pale, with green, red-rimmed eyes and a pointed nose. A brown knit hat pulled low over his ears hid most of his hair, but a few ginger strands poked out of the front. The keeper took a shuddering breath as the tide rushed back in, and this time the water brushed the toes of the human’s boots. At that moment, a few tears that had been clinging to the keeper’s nose and chin shook free and landed in the water. The tears were nothing more than a few salty drops in a huge expanse, but they made Quinn’s heart flip. Had there been three, or four tears? Quinn stayed right where she was.
When the water climbed up the beach again, Quinn watched the keeper’s face intently. Another sob sent more tears dripping into the sea. When the seventh drop landed, Quinn felt a tug on her heart.
She stared at the keeper in disbelief.
She remembered another story her mother had told her, mostly to keep her entertained on the long journey up the coast one summer. She had told Quinn about one of their ancestors, a male seal, who had felt compelled to break away from his herd and head toward a human town. When other seals asked where he was headed, he could not explain, only that he knew he had to get there as soon as he could. He found himself at a rocky beach. He searched for what had drawn him to this place and came upon a human woman sitting on a rock in the water. She was crying. As he watched her, seven of her tears fell into the ocean, and again he felt that tug on his heart. He revealed himself to her. The woman, who was grieving the sudden loss of her husband, was shocked when the selkie rose out of the water and peeled back his pelt, revealing a very handsome man. The two fell in love, the selkie leaving the ocean behind to stay on land with his new wife.
Quinn had been puzzled at the end of her mother’s story.
“Why did they fall in love?” she had demanded. “They just met! And how do human tears summon a selkie?”
“It’s only a story,” her mother said, soothing. “And not just any tears can summon a selkie. Only women seem to have such an effect on us, especially when they are feeling great grief or loneliness. Perhaps it is because at that moment we feel a great kinship to them. Some say that selkies were humans first, women who lost themselves in grief and asked the ocean to take away their emotions. The ocean, in a moment of tenderness, granted their wish and turned them into seals. But a few kept ahold of their human sides, which is why we can turn into humans, too.”
This had confused Quinn even more, reminding her mother that she had told Quinn that selkies came from seals who became human, not the other way around. Her mother had laughed.
“We’ve many stories, love,” she told her daughter.
But what Quinn could remember for certain was that only the tears of a human woman could summon a selkie. And even though she had never felt the call before, she knew that that was the tug she was feeling in her heart now. This lighthouse keeper was a woman.
Quinn flicked her tail to push herself a little closer to the shore. Ignoring the instinct telling her to turn back, Quinn let her curiosity take over and bring her close enough for her belly to scrape the rocky shoreline.
How had a woman come to be a keeper at the lighthouse? Quinn had seen the town’s expectations of women, with only a few of them holding jobs outside of their homes. And hadn’t she heard that the keepers were all men?
The keeper’s eyes were closed, still leaking tears, but her hiccupping breaths were evening out. She tugged the brown sleeve of her sweater out from under the oilskin coat and wiped her cheeks. Now that Quinn was closer, she could make out a dense pattern of freckles across the keeper’s face. However, if Quinn hadn’t felt the pull toward the woman because of her tears, she wouldn’t have figured out that the keeper was a woman. Her short, stocky figure was mostly hidden under the bulky coat, but a closer look revealed that the keeper’s rounded face gave way to a squarish jawline. She was also wearing thick pants, which Quinn had never been allowed to wear when she lived with Owen.
If Quinn tried to get any closer, she’d be on the beach. Had she been able to hold her nerve, this would have been the moment to grab the keeper’s ankle and drag her into the water.
The keeper sucked in a deep breath and sniffled loudly once more. She seemed to have gathered herself, and she wiped her face with her sleeve again. Blinking her eyes open as if unsticking them from a deep sleep, she met Quinn’s gaze blankly.
Quinn had known this was coming. There had been time to duck back into the water and get away before the keeper opened her eyes. Instead, Quinn stayed. Perhaps it was the woman’s tears calling to a deeper part of Quinn, tugging her closer despite the instincts telling her to run away, but Quinn also felt trapped by her curiosity. She needed to know more about this woman.
After a moment of staring at each other, the keeper shot to her feet. Quinn jerked back at the movement but didn’t leave. Her flippers were tense, ready to send her flying through the water if the keeper made one wrong move.
