The Turning

by Emily Whitman

  Something snapped in me. My arm shot out and I shoved him back a step. “I’m getting my pelt!”

  “Not if the human half is stronger. Some of your kind never turn. They’re stuck forever in that—”

  This time I shoved him so hard he fell to the ground, and then I was on top of him, my fist raised to strike. He rolled us over, gripping my arms, trying to pin me down. I jerked free and slammed him backward across the boulders, sending prawns and squid flying, and then we were on our feet, careening into the rocks, fists flailing—

  A hand reached between us and grabbed Finn.

  “What did I tell you?” It was Brehan, his face dark with anger. “That one’s nothing but trouble.”

  I stumbled to my feet, my chest heaving. “But we didn’t mean to—”

  “And on Moon Day, too,” he went on, ignoring me.

  That broad hand clamped down on Finn’s shoulder, leading him away.

  Chapter Eighteen

  The Pelt Cave

  I waited, and I waited, and I waited. The sky faded to gray. The last star fled. From the hollow there rose a tune aching with loss and farewell: the Caller was singing the Moon down into the sea.

  A streak of red slashed the eastern sky, and a conch blared. I leaped to my feet. The pelt cave was opening!

  All around me, selkies began to move reluctantly, as if they didn’t want the night to end. I shoved past them toward the stairs, and then I flew, leaping down two steps at a time. I reached the cave just as the guardians finished rolling back the boulder. I was the first in line. No one else was even in sight.

  I stood at the door and held up my hands to receive my pelt.

  “Name?” barked the great gray bull guarding the door.

  “Aran,” I said as loudly and clearly as I could.

  He disappeared for a moment. My heart was pounding like it would explode.

  The guardian came back, but he wasn’t carrying anything. I peered past him into the darkness. Was someone else bringing my pelt?

  “Didn’t find it right off,” said the guardian. “It might have slipped under another. It happens sometimes. Check back in a bit.”

  I stood there in disbelief until a tap on my shoulder made me turn. A line had formed behind me. Reluctantly I moved a half step, but as body after body nudged past me, I went to sit on the hillside. Young and old, male and female, short and tall: one selkie after another approached the door and left carrying a pelt.

  They walked down to the surf; they slipped their pelts over their shoulders and pulled the fur tight. And then came that instant of turning, where it stops being a pelt draped across a body and becomes sealform and grace and strength. The shore was filling with a growing herd, gray pelts and brown pelts, dappled and pearl white. . . .

  White was Finn’s clan.

  The guardians must have uncovered my pelt by now. I ran to the back of the line and took my place again. I craned my neck to the side so I could see how long I’d have to wait. There, at the door to the cave, was Finn, his arms outstretched. When he pulled them back to his chest, they held a gleaming white pelt.

  As he passed by on his way to the shoreline, I leaned out and said, “Finn, wait for me!”

  So I can show you it’s true, I wanted to add. So we can play under the waves.

  But his chief was beside him. He motioned for Finn to keep walking.

  Still, Finn tilted his head toward me and whispered, “Bye, Aran.” And then, “Good luck.”

  I shuffled impatiently, desperate to get my pelt in time for Finn to see me put it on. Maura ran past me with hers tucked under her arm. She splashed into the waves like she couldn’t wait an instant longer. The line crept forward.

  This time when I reached the cave, the guardian recognized me. “I’m sure I can find it now,” he said. “Aran, right?”

  “Right.”

  A long moment passed. Again, he came back without a pelt. “Are you sure you left it under that name?” he asked.

  Left it? I couldn’t explain, not with the line behind me, and the eyes of that burly guardian burning into mine. So, “That’s my name,” I said. “It has to be there.”

  “Give us a little longer, then,” said the guardian. “We’ve never lost one yet.” And he nodded me aside.

  The sky was already pale blue as I took my place yet again at the end of the line. Mam walked toward me, her dapple-gray pelt tucked under an arm. “Sorry I took so long,” she said.

  I saw Lyr at the front of the line, reaching for his sleek black pelt.

  “I’ll wait with you.” Mam smiled, but something was wrong with the corners of her mouth. My stomach clenched. Of everyone, Mam should be the surest. She’d prayed as hard as I had; I’d seen her face. But doubt was reaching out from her with icy fingers. Suddenly I couldn’t stand being next to her.

  “Go away,” I said sharply.

  Her eyes widened in surprise.

  “I want to wait by myself.”

  “Well . . . all right, then.” She walked slowly toward the shore, looking back at me over her shoulder.

  No one else appeared behind me. I was the last in line.

  The sun’s rays were streaking out over the waves when I reached the cave for the third time. The gray guardian saw me and nodded.

  “I’ll look once more,” he said.

  I heard the slup, slup of his belly heading into the dark. He was gone a long time.

  When he came back, the other two guardians were with him.

  “This is unprecedented,” said the gray guardian. “We’ve looked everywhere. What color did you say your pelt is?”

  I paused. Then, “I don’t know,” I whispered.

  “What’s that? I didn’t hear you. Speak up! What did you say? Did you say brown?”

  “I don’t know!” This time it came out so loud, their heads reared back.

  “Don’t know?” the gray guardian barked. “What do you mean, you don’t know?”

  But then the black one was leaning over and murmuring something, and the gray guardian’s face changed. His eyes—the eyes of this great bull selkie, chosen for his strength and valor—were filling with tears.

  The ground grew unsteady beneath my feet. “I’m getting it today,” I insisted. “I prayed for it. It has to be in there. Look again, please!”

  He shook his head. “I’m sorry.”

  The three of them scooted out. Behind them, the cave gaped, dark and empty.

  “We have to close up here,” said the black guardian. “Maybe next year.”

  They put their shoulders to the rock and rolled it across the door.

  Chapter Nineteen

  What Really Matters

  I dragged my feet toward the shore. The cove was almost deserted. A last few selkies slipped into the surf, and then only my clan remained, all back in sealform except for Mam.

  Cormac was leaning aggressively toward the others. His words rose over the rumble of the waves. “And I say, you’re not thinking about the dangers. Luck only lasts so long. I was talking with the white selkies and—”

  Grandmam’s head swung around. “Aran!” she cried, scooting toward me. Then she stopped, a question in her eyes. The question they all had in their eyes.

  I shook my head. Their faces fell; it struck me like an accusation.

  A pause, then, “All things in time,” said Lyr.

  Mam took a step closer, her eyes huge and aching—

  I swiveled away in a spray of pebbles and ran. An instant later Mam’s feet came pounding after me. I put on a burst of speed, and then there was hard rock underfoot, and the slick of seaweed. I hauled myself up the crag at the end of the cove and half jumped, half fell to the other side.

  “Oona!” cried Grandmam. “Let him go. He needs time.”

  Mam’s steps trudged, slow and heavy, back to the others.

  Now that they couldn’t see me, my legs buckled. I fell to my knees and my chest caved in. My fists were stone, cold and hard against my face.

  “Are
you staying longlimbs to go find him?” Lyr wasn’t even lowering his voice. They must think I’d gone too far to hear.

  Mam didn’t answer, but a rock scraped aside—that would be her fetching her pelt—and then came a flap as she spread it out, and the gathering sound of it binding around her. Finally she sighed with such pain and sorrow, the world blurred into gray.

  “What will you do?” asked Grandmam.

  A pause, then, “I’ll swim back with him,” said Mam. “He’s bound to come find me before nightfall.”

  “When he’s done moping?” asked Maura.

  The silence sharpened. I could almost see her looking around, wondering what she’d done wrong. Then she said, “I just meant, if he isn’t going to turn, he’ll have to get used to it. That’s all.”

  A rough scrape across pebbles, the growl of Mam baring her teeth—

  “Enough!” said Lyr. “We’ll sort this out later.”

  I sank deeper into the rocks.

  “No, Lyr,” said Cormac. “We need to talk now. We all hope Aran will turn, but there’s more at stake. It’s a matter of our survival. Up north, the waters are cleaner, and you can go moons without seeing a human. The white selkies want us to come, but Aran can’t—”

  “Enough!” Lyr said, louder.

  Cormac defied him. “The white selkies see him as a danger. And frankly, even if he could swim that far—”

  Lyr’s roar shook me to my bones.

  In the shocked silence, he barked out commands. “Cormac, you’re leaving. Now. Maura. Mist. Go with him. Go to the island with two pines. The rest of us will find you there.”

  A splash, and they were gone.

  For a long time there was only the sound of the surf. Then Grandmam said gently, “Oona, my dear girl, you have to face it. It’s possible he may never turn.”

  I waited for Mam to growl, defending my honor once again. But only a harsh keening reached my ears.

  “There now, hush,” said Grandmam.

  The terrible sound was Mam crying.

  Dark clouds rolled in toward the Spire, swallowing the sky.

  No bird, no seal, no leaping fish—there was no one to watch me slip into the surf, under the waves, and away.

  I swam underwater except to breathe. The sun was high by the time I reached the island. I pulled out the harness, threw it on the ground, and untangled my knife from the pile. I strapped it on my calf.

  I was walking back into the surf when something knocked me off my feet.

  “Don’t you ever do that again!” Mam was yelling and crying at the same time, her face shoved up next to mine. “You stupid, stupid pup! You could have died! I searched every inch of the Spire. I thought you’d—”

  “I heard what Cormac said,” I shouted back, struggling to my feet. “You’re all going to die if you stay with me!”

  “Don’t be ridiculous.” Her jaw clamped shut.

  “It’s true, isn’t it? Isn’t it? Humans will trap you. Or I’ll slow you down and orcas will get you. They almost did on the way here.”

  “We were fine.”

  “I saw you shaking!” That stopped her. I stood taller, drawing strength up from the waves. “I won’t live with the clan until I’ve got my pelt.”

  “Then I’ll stay with you,” said Mam. “I’ve done it for eleven years. I’ll stay as long as it takes.”

  “Stay? I’m not staying. I’m going north, far north, past where the white selkies live.”

  She shook her head. “You’d never make it.”

  Her certainty cut me to the bone. But in that sudden slash of pain, I saw the truth.

  “You don’t think I can do anything. You didn’t think I’d make it to Moon Day. But the harness was cheating. That’s why I didn’t get my pelt. I have to swim north by myself. I’ll find the wise ones who speak with the Moon.”

  “Aran! No one even knows if they really exist.”

  “Finn says they do.”

  Mam froze. Then, interested, “He said that?”

  The words spilled out of me, raging with anger and hope. “They live at the top of the world, and they’re magic. They’ll know how I can get my pelt. You can’t stop me. I’m going.”

  Mam’s eyes got a quick, calculating look. She took a deep breath. “Aran”—her voice was so calm, it was as if I’d imagined the rest—“what really matters here? It isn’t whether you make the journey; it’s getting your pelt. Right?”

  I found myself nodding, even though my heart was shouting at me not to listen to her.

  “The wise ones, if they exist, may indeed be our best hope,” she went on. “But I’m the one who should go. I’ll get there faster. I’ll convince them. You stay here with the clan—”

  That startled me out of her spell. “No! Humans will find them and stick them in zoos.”

  Mam’s eyes widened slightly; there was another quick readjustment. “Then stay behind while the clan comes with me.”

  I gasped in amazement. “Stay? Without you?” Mam had never even let me spend a night by myself. Did she really trust me to live on my own?

  Her voice kept rolling over me. “I’ll choose a place for you to stay. You must wait for me there, so I can find you again when I return. It’s the only way I can undertake this journey for you. Will you promise?”

  This wasn’t giving in. The Moon would look down from the heavens and see me surviving on my own, living off my wits and my strength and my skill. Maybe it would make up for cheating with the harness. My resistance swirled away in the surf.

  I’d have to catch all my own food, ride out storms, and outwit predators. There’d be no one to help if I got hurt. Was I ready?

  “Yes,” I said. “I promise.”

  If I’d known where she was taking me, I’d never have agreed.

  Part Two

  Land

  Chapter Twenty

  Promises

  I stayed with the clan while Mam swam off to find a place for me. Everyone spoke to me with soothing voices as if I were sick. They brought me fish, and when I told them to stop, they herded fish in my direction and then pretended it was an accident.

  Why had I said I’d wait with them? By day I scanned the horizon for boats. At night I startled awake at the slightest sound. One week stretched into two. Even Grandmam was getting edgy. Why didn’t Mam let me stay here? There were clams and mussels to eat if fish were scarce, and high rocks to wait out storms. But she’d said she had something special in mind.

  Finally, after seventeen nights, Mam slid ashore. I ran up as the others circled around. Their questions piled on top of each other so fast, I couldn’t even tell who was speaking.

  Mam ignored them and turned to me. “We need to leave right away to catch this current. Go get your doubloons.”

  On our way back from Moon Day, we’d stopped at the old haulout to collect them. I didn’t know why she thought they were important, but I wasn’t going to argue now.

  I ran to fetch them. When I reached into the crevice, my magic green rock tumbled out along with the gold. I slipped it all into the sheath with my knife.

  When I got back, Grandmam and Mam were whispering with their heads close together. They saw me and startled apart. Worry lines creased Grandmam’s forehead. At the sight, my stomach churned.

  Mam tugged the harness onto the beach.

  The others had never seen it before. They stared at the thick brown cords in confusion. Mam rolled on top of the straps and I started to fasten them around her body. Cormac reared back, his eyes narrowing.

  “What on earth is that?” said Maura.

  “A harness,” said Mam, scooting into the shallows.

  “Please tell me you didn’t use that for Moon Day,” gasped Maura. “Oona, you wouldn’t . . . he didn’t . . .”

  “They need to go,” said Grandmam. “Come here, Aran, and say good-bye. We’ll see you soon as anything.”

  I crouched down to hug them. I buried my face in Grandmam’s pelt, breathing in her warm, briny scent. Then I w
aded into the waves and climbed on Mam’s back.

  As she shifted to get comfortable, I glanced back at the shore. The clan lay in a row, watching. Suddenly Lyr arced up and opened his mouth to speak—

  Mam dove. We were off.

  “It’s only for two moons,” said Mam as the sun was setting. “A flick of a tail, that’s all.”

  I stared at every rock and islet and haze of land, wondering what sort of place she’d found for me. Her tight mouth told me she was uneasy about leaving me behind, but she was as bound by her promise as I was by mine.

  “How long will it take you to reach the wise ones?” I asked.

  “Just shy of a moon, from what Brehan told Cormac.”

  “How do they talk to the Moon?” I went on. “Do you think they swim up to the horizon when she’s resting there? Or maybe she sends down a beam of light and it turns solid like ice, and they shimmy up to her side.”

  “Maybe. I don’t know.” She sounded impatient, so I talked faster.

  “How will you carry my pelt? Not in your mouth; you need to eat. Maybe they’ll teach you a song to make me turn, or—”

  Mam dove to say we were done talking.

  The sky darkened and we swam through the night. Come daybreak, we found a rocky islet and took turns sleeping while the other kept watch. On the third day I was surprised to see several boats in the distance. On the fourth, we passed an island larger than any haulout I’d ever known. We’d always avoided big islands; they attracted humans.

  I bent to Mam’s ear. “Where are you taking me?”

  “Wait and see,” was her only reply.

  Near dawn, as the Moon was setting behind swollen clouds, we swam into a current of fresh water. Mam headed toward its source. The water grew so sweet I started to gag. The sky lightened from black to granite, and a humpbacked island rose before us. Fir trees stabbed the sky.

  High atop a bluff sat a huge, bulky shape. At first it looked like a boulder. But its top rose to a point, and its sides were too straight, as if a landslide had sheered them away.

  I looked at it warily. “What’s that?”

  Mam’s shoulders tensed. “A house.”