The Turning

by Emily Whitman

  “That’s enough for tonight,” said Mam, all practical again. “Put that higher up so it’s safe, and we’ll finish in the morning. We need a good night’s sleep.” She scooted up past the reach of the tide and stretched out long, wiggling into a comfortable position.

  But my head and my heart were too full to let go. I tried to make her keep talking.

  “Did the Moon make humans, too?”

  “The Moon created all life.” Her voice was growing heavy with sleep.

  “Why did she only give them longlimbs?”

  “Well, she didn’t want all that nice land to go to waste now, did she? Someone needed to live there.”

  She said it like joking, but it made sense. Some humans lived far inland; if they had pelts, they’d die of sadness for not being able to reach the sea. “Mam,” I said, turning to tell her. But there wasn’t any answer, just her breath matching the rise and fall of the waves.

  I should join her. I should close my eyes. But how could I sleep? Tomorrow I was leaving on the journey that would change my life.

  Chapter Thirteen

  The Journey

  A scraping sound woke me at dawn. Mam was using her teeth to spread out the harness. I jumped up and ran over to help. When we were done, it lay splayed on the shore like beached bones.

  Mam rolled onto it, so she was right in the middle. I measured and fastened, tightened and trimmed. Then I stood back to check the fit.

  I broke into a peal of laughter. Mam looked ridiculous, with her sleek, powerful body trussed up in that tangle of cords! But she glared at me so fiercely, I snapped my mouth shut and hurried to tighten a loose strap.

  Blue sky peeked through the last scurrying wisps of fog.

  Mam pushed off, strangely awkward, but once she was floating she looked right again. In thigh-high water I climbed on her back, fit my feet in the footholds, and hunched down low. “Away!” I cried.

  “Away,” said Mam, hard and determined.

  I held my breath and she dove. The water closed over my head. Light danced and sparkled, and then grew dimmer as we swam down deep, faster than I’d ever gone before. An instant later, Mam turned with a flick of her tail and sped upward. We burst through the water’s skin.

  I gulped in air and then laughed, my joy spreading in ripples along with the waves and the water-strewn light.

  “Again?” Mam asked. The hardness was gone from her voice. It was like swimming into a warm current.

  “Again!” I said. “Deeper!”

  This time she plunged, spinning in tightening coils like an eddy pulling down. A group of anchovies broke before us, making way, then turned to stare with amazement in their round eyes. Even in the dim light, I could see it all—fish with swirling fins; a shrimp, its legs scrambling; even a cloud of plankton—and we were twisting and twirling, part of the ocean’s pulse. We reached the depth where we’d turned back before, and then dove deeper into darkness. A sudden swerve—a spiral—Mam was testing what she could do with my weight on her back. But playing, too, giving me a taste of the glories awaiting me. Her swaying ease was mine, the backward curve of her neck, then the forward curve of her tail—they were mine!

  But my boy-lungs were mine as well—aching, insistent, pounding.

  I defied the tightness in my chest. I wouldn’t rise, I wouldn’t! I tried to ignore the throbbing in my head, the dizziness. But the moment my hands began to loosen from the straps, Mam raced to the surface. She was panting as hard as I was.

  “Tug on the straps when you need air,” she said. “And not so deep the rest of the way. Now, enough playing. We have five days of swimming ahead of us. Let’s go.”

  And then we were off. Northbound, away from the waters I knew. We’d speed along beneath the surface, and then ride a cresting wave where I’d gasp in a breath, my hair blown back by a lively wind, rich with the promise of change.

  We didn’t even stop for breakfast. When my stomach growled, Mam snatched a herring in her jaws, and with a flick of her head tossed it back to me. I’d never had breakfast on her back before. She slowed while I ate.

  “Let’s go faster,” I said through a mouthful.

  “No point in getting there early,” she said, but I could feel her catching her breath.

  All day we swam. Past the island with two pines, through the swirling currents where the river poured into the sea—I slipped off Mam’s back there and she gulped down fish after fish—and then we were past the places I’d heard about.

  We swam below in hushed blue light, cool water slipping over my skin. We rose and I called out a greeting to an auklet flying by—

  “Quiet!” snapped Mam, glancing around for boats, even though the few we’d seen had been far in the distance. I closed my eyes so the sun blazed through my lids, brilliant and red. It was as if I could see the power—the strength and the grace—that would soon be mine.

  The sun set in an explosion of orange and pink. We were out in open water with no land in sight. As dark descended, Mam told me to tuck my hands and feet under the straps and lie across her back to sleep.

  “What about you?” I said. “How will you sleep with no one to keep watch?”

  “Oh, you know me; I can sleep with one eye open.”

  I dreamed I was in my pelt. I dreamed I swam deep on my own. Each time I woke, Mam was still swimming, riding the swells where I could breathe.

  The second day Mam swam slower. I wanted to swim alongside to give her a break, but her mouth got tight and stubborn and she said there wasn’t time. She gave a sudden, strong push with her tail and we sped up for a while.

  When I longed to slip off and swim, I pictured Moon Day instead. How would it happen, when the Moon called me into my true form? Maybe it would come during the ceremony, with the great chief chanting and all of us responding, and I’d feel a tingling along my arms and legs. I’d look down and see my skin growing sleek and dappled, and I’d hold my arms tight to my sides as the pelt grew up and over, and then my arms would slip into the flippers. Everyone would be staring at me, so happy. “The Moon has called him!” they’d cry.

  Or maybe the Moon wanted me to don my pelt when all the others were donning theirs. After the ceremony, when everyone returned to the pelt cave to change back for the long swim home, the guardians would cry, “What’s this? There’s still one here, a perfect black pelt, the handsomest of all. Whose could it be?” I’d step forward, reaching out a hand. “It’s mine,” I’d say, and slip it on just like I’d seen the others do. Then I’d scoot into the waves, along with everyone else. I could almost feel the pebbles under the thick skin of my belly, the waves crashing over my head as I swam out and dove, deeper and deeper and deeper still. . . .

  That night we stopped on an island for a quick sleep, and then we were off again.

  On the fourth day—

  “Look, Mam,” I said, pointing.

  We’d risen for air. Ahead of us, gulls eddied around a roiling patch of water, screaming as they dove for the remnants of someone’s meal. The water rose in a dome.

  Mam tensed, completely alert in the way that meant predator. And then we were speeding toward a rock in the distance. The water whipped past in a blur of foam. I freed my right hand and rested it alongside my leg, ready to grab my knife. Fish fled alongside us like shards of light. As we neared the rock, I slipped my feet free—

  “Off!” cried Mam.

  I leaped and Mam flung herself onto the rock, scooting as high as she could go. It was too small a refuge, little more than a granite fist thrusting up from the sea.

  I turned to see huge dorsal fins swimming toward us, and then the black-and-white arc of a giant back.

  Orcas!

  I stood at the ready beside Mam, my knife pointed at the approaching fins. Five of them. They swam right up, paused, and then slowly began to circle the rock, as if they were examining it from every angle.

  “Grab on to the rocks!” snapped Mam, wedging between two crags. “They’ll splash their tails and make waves to
flood us off. Hurry!”

  I grabbed a knob of rock with one hand, but I didn’t let go of the knife. My pulse was the pounding of wind-driven waves against stone. Power surged through me, hot and red and ready to fight.

  Even the smallest dorsal fin was taller than Mam was long. They slowed, stopped. . . .

  A monstrous head rose before me, and a huge dark eye stared right into mine. The rest of the world disappeared. There was only my hand brandishing the knife, and the cold intelligence of the orca’s gaze, looking at me, at Mam.

  And then, to my astonishment, the head sank back down until only the fin was showing. It turned away and the other four fins followed. We watched in silence as they dipped and rose, shrinking into the distance.

  I slipped my knife back in its sheath.

  “Thank the Moon they’d just eaten,” gasped Mam. Her flippers were shaking. She saw me looking and rolled so they were tucked under her.

  But my blood was still surging. I felt as if I could do anything! I wanted to dive and kick some of my wild energy into the waves, but Mam insisted we stay on the rock for a while.

  “So we can be sure they’re gone,” she said. But I saw her exhaustion, too.

  We didn’t take off again until high sun. Mam’s body strained in effort, and there were sore spots where the harness rubbed her pelt. Again I said I’d swim. She only shook her head and kept on, now under the waves, now atop the crests. The sun dipped low and the light faded to gray, and still she swam.

  When the stars came out, she said, “Sleep. You’ll want to be at your best tomorrow.”

  I shook out my cramped legs before putting my feet back in the footholds. I lay against the curve of her back and closed my eyes, but I couldn’t stop wondering about tomorrow, and the Spire, and meeting selkies from other clans, and if there’d be someone my own age. About the pelt cave, and the climb to the top, and the rites.

  Hail creation! Wave-riders, shore-striders, sung by the Moon into being!

  I didn’t think I’d be able to fall asleep, but I opened my eyes to the shimmer of moonlight on the water, and then there was darkness again.

  I startled awake as Mam swerved to a stop and my toes touched sand. The sky was brightening. I splashed ashore.

  “Are we there?” I cried, looking around for the other selkies. But the beach was empty.

  “The Spire is that one.” Mam pointed with her nose toward a bigger island, still a long swim away. While our resting spot was rounded and dark, the Spire was a silvery pinnacle piercing the sky. I caught my breath. No wonder you had to be in longlimbs to reach the top.

  “I thought you’d want to swim the last bit yourself,” said Mam, rolling onto her side.

  I rushed to undo the straps. A few wiggles and the harness lay on the beach.

  “Hide it up there,” said Mam, nodding to rocks higher ashore.

  I stared at the tumble of rope. “Why? I won’t need it again.”

  “We don’t want anyone else to find it.” She looked at me intently, her eyes burning into mine. “Some things are best kept secret.”

  I found a hollow in the rocks well above the tideline and stashed the harness. Then I bent down, unstrapped the sheath, and hid my knife there, too. After tonight I’d have claws.

  By the time I came back, Mam had caught a salmon. She chomped it in two and tossed me a glistening piece. But I was too excited to eat. She gulped it all down while I strode back and forth on the narrow beach.

  And then we swam through the pink dawn toward the Spire. I was stiff from clutching the harness, but soon my arms were reaching out like wings, my hands slicing into the water with barely a splash.

  The sky brightened to blue. All around us, the world was waking. Fish swarmed in the depths; jellyfish pulsed near the surface; pelicans plunged into the waves and rose with their catch thrashing in their beaks.

  And then there were larger bodies surging through the water, sleek heads coming from all directions—selkies!—heading straight to the sunlit Spire.

  Suddenly a selkie popped up next to me, staring wide-eyed. His pelt was white, without a single spot, and he was smaller than anyone in my clan. A pup, like me! I stopped and stared back. He smiled.

  A flipper slapped the water ahead of us and a deep voice boomed, “Come along, Finn. Don’t keep us waiting.” The next instant the pup was gone, speeding underwater toward his clan.

  Now my strokes felt impossibly slow, arm over arm in a plodding pace. More and more selkies went zipping by, leaving us far behind. But Mam didn’t look impatient. The merest flick of a tail kept her at my side as we swam to my very first Moon Day, and the great gathering of clans, and the Moon’s open ears.

  Chapter Fourteen

  The Spire

  Everyone else was heading to the flat, pebbled beach, but Mam and I swam to a tumble of rocks on one side, where a crag blocked us from view.

  “You and I will walk in together,” she said. The fur grew loose around her.

  From around the crag I could hear cries of greeting, flippers slapping and feet running, snatches of song. It was as raucous as a rookery at nesting time.

  The pelt slid from Mam’s shoulders. Her long, dark hair wrapped her body; her arms were pressed tight to her sides. In this pale face, her eyes were huge, and she had that mysterious, inward gaze, the look of changing.

  I jumped on top of the rocks. “Hurry,” I said, craning sideways, trying to see around the crag.

  But Mam wasn’t to be rushed, not now. When her pelt lay on the ground beside her, she stretched, feeling what it was to have arms again. She spread her fingers out one by one, the webbing between them thin and tender, almost translucent. She stretched her legs long, pointing her toes.

  “Now?” I said, ready to jump down.

  Mam took a deep breath. She picked up her pelt, folded it carefully, and tucked it under her arm.

  “Now,” she said.

  Together we rounded the crag.

  I stood in the shallows, staring, openmouthed. The beach was crowded with selkies. In sealform they surfed ashore, galumphed to greet loved ones, nuzzled noses. Pelts of every color lay in a glossy tumble: brown and black and silver, speckled and spotted and pearly white. And in longlimbs! In longlimbs they ran to one another with open arms, lounged on flat rocks, sat sifting sand with fresh-skin fingers. Still others were carrying their pelts up a path toward the black, gaping mouth of a cave.

  I drew in a breath: the pelt cave! Three huge, muscular bull selkies protected the door. One was brown, one black, and the third granite gray. So those were the guardians, the ones who stay in sealform for the entire ceremony. A guardian needs the eyes of an eagle to watch out for intruders, the strength of a whale to fight them off, and a voice like thunder to summon the clans if need be. Selkies take no chances. If humans ever came upon Moon Day and stole all the pelts, they could wipe out the folk forever. Your soul dies without a pelt. That’s what they say.

  Maybe I’d be a guardian one day. I could see it now: my broad neck and muscular shoulders, the scars on my pelt proof of battles I’d fought and won.

  Mam stroked her folded pelt. “Why don’t you wait here,” she said, turning toward the path.

  I watched her walk uphill and take her place in line. She reached the cave and bowed respectfully, holding out her pelt with outstretched arms. The gray bull took it to store on the ledges within.

  I was watching so closely, I didn’t sense anyone near me. Then a voice at my shoulder made me jump.

  “Why did you change early?”

  I turned and stared. It was a pup, and in longlimbs! He was heavier than I was, with a broad chest and sturdy legs, as if all his ocean swimming had muscled him up. His dark hair flowed down to his shoulders. His skin was almost pure white; next to him I looked brown.

  “Your pelt,” he said, when I didn’t answer. “Why didn’t you wait and take it off here?” His eyes shone with an eager look—it was the white selkie who’d popped up beside me in the water. He gave me an o
pen, welcoming smile. A smile of friendship.

  I was overwhelmed by the surge of bodies, the splashing and calling, and the explanation was too complicated. “I just felt like it,” I said.

  “Lucky!” His laughter showered over me, a sunlit spray. “I’d swim in with legs, too, if I could do it like you. I never swim in longlimbs. Our chief won’t let me. How’d you get so good?”

  What an odd thing to admire! I shrugged. “Practice, I guess.”

  He leaned closer. “The ceremonies don’t start for ages. Want to go climbing?”

  Did I! I ran to tell Mam, and then I dashed off to play, for the first time ever, with another selkie pup.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Finn

  We ran away from the crowd and up a stone staircase. As the island grew steep and pointed, we veered off onto a narrow path. One side hugged a wall of rock; the other was a sheer drop to the sea.

  He stopped to peer over. “This is the highest I’ve ever gone. We don’t have peaks like this where I come from.”

  “We could just explore around the beach if you want,” I said. I didn’t care what we did, as long as we did it together.

  He must have thought I was scared, because he said, “I’ll show you how. Watch your step. These skins are so thin, the stones cut right through.”

  I nodded as if I were learning something new. I let him go first so he couldn’t see how easily this came to me, how tough my soles and palms had become. His clan was probably like mine, only taking longlimbs for special rites.

  “What’s your name?” he said, heading up the path again.

  “Aran.”

  “I’m Finn. Are you on your long journey, too? It’s special when it coincides with the rites. We swam for more than a moon to get here. The elders told Brehan—that’s our chief—that we had to come this year, even though it’s so far from home.”

  “Did you come all the way from the old shores?” I asked.

  He snorted. “Of course not! We come from the north, where the islands are made of ice. It’s as far as you can go. Except some say there are ancient wise ones still farther north, at the very peak of the world. The wise ones are magic. They don’t even need to come to Moon Day because they’re always talking with the Moon.”