A pale green stone peeked out from under the pile. It was the right color, and there were the curves that fit perfectly in my palm. But now I saw the scars pitting its surface, and the ground-in flecks of dirt. Against all the others, it looked dull and common.
I left it there and walked away.
That day Maggie only checked the phone six times. The rain slowed to a drizzle.
“I could start up Jack’s precious truck,” she said. “But I hate driving that thing. The phone will be working soon. You might as well stay another night.”
And another. And another.
Each night I’d lie in the bed until the house was dark and quiet. Then I’d slip outside by the sea, my heart aching with longing for my clan, until the waves finally sang me to sleep. I woke before dawn to scavenge barnacles and seaweed, sneaking back inside before Maggie woke.
I copied how she made the bed. I used the broom. I brought in wood and stacked it next to the firebox in neat piles. If I was polite and helpful and human enough, maybe she’d stop talking about sending me away.
One day she picked up the phone and it buzzed like a swarm of flies. She reached a finger to its face, then paused, looking thoughtful.
“Another few days won’t hurt,” she said, setting the phone back down.
The sky was dawning a thin, pale blue. I crouched at the base of the cliff, swallowing another barnacle. I was tired of barnacles. I wanted fish, fresh and salty sweet. Maggie wouldn’t be awake for ages. I had plenty of time.
I slipped from the rocks into the water. I wouldn’t go very far, not so far I’d be breaking my vow. Just far enough to catch some real food.
I dove down and right away I found a fat crab. I surfaced to break off its legs and suck out the meat. I smashed its shell on a boulder and picked it clean.
I ducked and swam along the rock face, right into a cluster of little silver fish. I gulped one down, relishing the crunch of small bones against smooth flesh.
I kicked to the surface and turned a somersault. Here, in the water, I knew who I was. I dove down and rocketed back up, I spun and spiraled, floated and stroked, as graceful as you can be in a body without a tail.
But as I played, the sun was rising. Finally I had to admit it was time to go back to the house.
I belly flopped up on a flat rock, then scrambled up the cliff. I was hefting myself over the edge when I froze.
There was Maggie, staring at me.
“Where’d you learn to swim like that?” she asked, her voice full of wonder.
I knew better than to answer. I pulled myself to my feet.
She gazed out over the cliff to the sea, then back at my arms, my legs. “You look like you belong out there.”
My breath caught. This was the last thing I expected, to feel understood. It confused me.
“I’ve lived by the sea my whole life, Aran, and I’ve never seen anyone swim like that. Like you’re part of the waves. I knew you were different, but . . .”
“Oh no,” I said. “I’m just a regular human boy.”
She raised her eyebrows. “But a boy who needs to swim.”
I gave a quick, hard nod.
She chewed her lip, weighing something. “So you need to be by the ocean. You’re not going to like a foster home in the city.”
I shook my head, pretending to know what she meant.
“When did you say your mom’s coming back?”
I gulped, hardly daring to hope. “By the second full Moon. I know she will.”
Maggie looked deep into my eyes, really seeing me for the first time. A struggle passed over her face, and then she nodded. “All right, I’ll try to keep you here until then. But not any longer. My health isn’t good. I could . . . I could have to go to the hospital at any time. And you have to promise me, if Jack calls to say he’s coming home, you’ll go to foster care. No back talk. Have we got a deal?”
The only part that mattered was about getting to stay. Mam would be back in time and the rest would never come to pass.
“Is a deal like swearing?” I asked.
The corner of her mouth twitched up. “I guess it is.”
“Then we have got a deal,” I said, holding my hand to my heart in the way of vow making.
She wrapped an arm around my shoulders. To my surprise, I didn’t mind.
Chapter Twenty-Six
The Puffin
I sensed the tides; I watched the Moon. Maggie had a different way of keeping track of time. It was called a calendar. Each day she took it out of a drawer in the kitchen and drew a line through one of its boxes. Then she put it back without saying a word.
I started swimming every morning before the sun cracked the horizon. Maggie warned me to be careful. “Someone sees you swimming like that, and next thing you know, your picture’s on the six o’clock news. Your dad could hear about it.” She thought for a moment. “Anyone finds you, say you’re my nephew. Then tell me right away and we’ll figure out what to do.”
So I stayed close to shore. I dove deep and swam low, and I rose for breath cautiously, making barely a ripple.
I did that for two whole days.
But now that I’d had a taste of really swimming again, the ocean was calling to every drop of my blood. Holding back was torture.
On the third day, I was sitting, fuming, at the base of the cliff when a gull cried out overhead. I jumped to my feet. Of course! The seabirds! I started with gulls since they’re the most talkative. I gave them food, setting out crabmeat in cracked shells and sharing my catch. Soon we had an agreement.
Word got around to the other seabirds. Gulls and guillemots, ospreys and oystercatchers: they all started warning me when boats were heading my way. Now I could swim farther from shore. As long as no other humans saw me, I wasn’t breaking my promise.
Each trip made me bolder. My routes became longer. Out to the little islands in the strait. To the skellies that were too small to call islands. To the reefs that lurked near the surface, because boats avoided shallows. The best days dawned shrouded in fog. Fog meant freedom. In the white haze, I was just another splash of wave. On those days I swam far and long and hard.
My limbs had always been lean and strong. Now they were growing more muscular. I could swim farther without needing to stop and tread water. If I swam hard enough, I didn’t have room to think about Moon Day, or the dangers my clan was facing, or how long was left until the second full Moon.
I’d come back to Maggie’s panting and dripping, exhausted enough to go inside and sit quietly, just like a human boy.
One day I was standing on top of the cliff when a puffin flew up and plopped at my feet. She looked exhausted. I was surprised to see her traveling alone.
“Where does the wind carry you?” I asked in birdtalk.
She cocked her head to look up at me. It was a long way for her to look; puffins have such short necks.
I held out my arm. “Come,” I said.
She fluttered up, then sidestepped to my shoulder, her orange beak close to my ear. She was breathing hard. She preened and I stared out to sea politely to give her a moment to gather herself.
Then, “Help?” she grunted, in a low, rough voice.
I nodded to show I’d try.
She stretched out a wing. “Hurt. Lost flock. See flock?”
For the first time in ages I smiled. I could help! “Two suns gone,” I said pointing to a rock out in the strait. “Big flock. Sleep there. Fly west.”
“What west?”
I pointed to show the exact direction and she chortled, relieved to know where to find them. She rubbed the side of my face in thanks.
“Me lose flock, too,” I said.
She made a low, sympathetic rumble.
“Selkie flock,” I said.
She bobbed her head up and down, then grunted, “Me fly. Me look.”
I lifted my arm again and she waddled out to spread her wings.
“Good winds!” I called as she flew off.
A sudden crash split the ai
r behind me.
I spun around. Maggie was standing, openmouthed, by the house. A fallen box lay at her feet and glints of metal were scattered all around.
“Mother of God!” she exclaimed, staring at me. “Were you talking with it?”
Her eyes, her voice—everything shouted danger.
Since I’d been here, I hadn’t heard her speak with a single auklet or sandpiper or gull. She threw out crusts without saying a word. Not once had a bird flown to her feet for conversation or settled beside her.
So even though we’d come to some kind of understanding, I looked right at her and answered, “No, of course not. Who talks with birds?”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
The Net
I woke before dawn to find the world muffled in fog. I couldn’t have asked for better. Today I’d test myself by swimming all the way around Spindle Island.
I dove in and struck out toward the point. I found my way by feeling the current’s shape against the shore, by the sound of the wind soughing through the trees. I didn’t have to worry about hiding, and after so many days of swimming underwater, it was a treat to ride the swell and dip of the waves. I fell into an easy, steady rhythm. Soon I wasn’t thinking at all, just moving like part of the sea.
I rounded some rocks. The wind eased and the waves quieted. It was the same, sudden stillness from the night Mam brought me. The harbor must be right in front of me, its buildings huddled together in a ragged flock.
Now I heard waves slapping against the curved bellies of boats. I tensed, ready to hide.
But then I took a deep breath. I was already hidden by the fog. And I felt strong from my swim in the dark. A wild idea came to me. The boats would be empty now, lashed to their moorings. What would it be like to set my hand on one? Not to let myself be afraid?
My senses heightened—the plash of the smallest wave, the smell of salt and smoke.
I turned and swam toward the dock.
I rose beside a small boat. It was open at the top. I reached for the rim, wary at first, as if it would bite. But then I grabbed on firmly and tilted the boat toward me. Its belly was braced with strips of wood, like a whale’s curved ribs. Two planks stretched crossways—seats. Otherwise the boat was as empty as a crab shell picked clean by gulls.
One boat. That should have been enough. Mam would have been snapping at me to leave. But Mam wasn’t here, and there was another boat only three strokes away.
This one was all hard lines. Instead of wood, its skin was white and cold. The box hanging off its back reeked of smoke. That must be what throbbed the water. Motorboats, Mam called them.
And I still wasn’t ready to go. The fog was so thick, only the slightest hint of dawn snuck through. No one would see me if I explored a little more.
I climbed up onto the dock. No sound came from shore. I crept along, peering down at the boats from above. A rusty metal boat was full of buckets and ropes. A sleek boat had a skinny pole jutting up from the center, like a bone stripped of its flesh.
I neared the end of the dock and the lapping sound deepened. Something big was lurking there. I lifted my chin, took another step—
A metal wall rose before me. It was the side of a huge, muscular boat. Ropes thicker than my wrist lashed it to the dock. My breath caught, but I stayed there, staring. And then, before I knew what I was doing, I’d grabbed one of the ropes and was pulling myself up hand over hand, my feet walking up the boat’s cold skin.
I landed on deck in a crouch, listening. Nothing but waves, and the whisper of wind on metal cords.
I stood slowly, my heart pounding. A small house squatted before me. Silver pipes and black tubes snaked up its side, their mouths clamped on like lampreys. I grabbed one and climbed to a flat roof. A pole as wide as my waist thrust up into the fog, so tall it disappeared from sight.
I wouldn’t waste time climbing it. It was the boat’s guts I wanted to explore.
I jumped back down to deck. Wide metal cords stretched toward the boat’s tail. I wrapped a hand around one and followed it back, the twisted strands rough under my palm. It ended at a shrouded shape, twice my height and curved on top. The thick cover crinkled when I touched it. I lifted an edge to peek underneath.
The cover started to slip. I tried to hold it up, but it kept falling, crinkling and crackling loudly the whole way. I tensed to dive.
No sound came from shore.
The cover lay in a crumpled pile at my feet. I stared up at the strange object before me. Two metal rounds hung suspended above the deck. Something was wound around them, like cloth, but coarse and uneven. I stepped closer. It was rope, layer after layer, squished tight. Some dingy white, some green. A string of white floats dangled down.
Why would one boat need so much rope?
A length stretched out at the bottom. Spread wide, it made a diamond pattern. A tight, gripping mesh. I traced a strand with a finger—and gasped. A net, that’s what it was!
Beware the ship, beware the net. . . .
I had to see it better.
I reached for a diamond of rope and pulled. The circle cranked around, spilling net out at my feet. That’s how they’d spread it in the sea.
A fire rose in my chest.
Soon, maybe tomorrow, this net would be gulping down swarms of fish. Killing turtles, porpoises, sea lions—not even to eat them, just to dump their bodies back into the waves. And selkies. It would snag them, like the net that snagged Riona’s chief and held him under until he drowned.
NO! My grip tightened on the cords. Not this net!
There was a roaring in my ears like thirty-foot waves crashing down. Their strength was mine. I grabbed my knife and raised my arm—
The blade slashed through the net as smoothly as if it were flesh. The cut ends shriveled back, a mouth gaping in surprise.
Something cut through me, too, freeing the anger I’d kept buried too deep to feel. Anger at humans, and having to hide, and my own wrong skin—now it surged through my veins and the world turned red. I lifted my arm again and again. I was the downward thrust, the slashing blade! I was the ocean storm!
I jerked out length after length of net. With every slash, cords shriveled back in fear, their strength bleeding away. This net would never catch another porpoise—slash—or seal—slash—or selkie! The dock disappeared in a red haze until there was only the net and my knife flashing down—
A gull screamed from the top of a post.
I froze, my knife raised high. The sky was a dull, granite gray. Buildings peeked through ribbons of fog. Wooden slats. A light behind a curtain.
The creak of a door opening.
My breath rasped the air like it belonged to someone else. Shreds of net lay scattered at my feet. Severed strands drooped from the spool like moss dangling from a ghostly tree.
A shudder ran through me. The red haze was gone, leaving me panting and sick to my stomach.
I kicked and shoved a tangle of net back under the crinkled coat so the humans wouldn’t see what I’d done. So they wouldn’t see me. With a last glance at shore, I climbed onto the railing and dove.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Out of the Fog
I swam back exhausted, stunned by the fury that had slashed out with the blade of my knife. For the first time, swimming to Maggie’s felt like seeking refuge.
I was still catching my breath, so I swam on the surface, keeping to the wisps of fog. The shore wove in and out of view: trees with bold red bark, a doe foraging in the bushes, fresh water trickling down rocks to the waves . . .
A girl, my size, at the edge of a bluff, gazing out to sea.
She stood as alert and graceful as a deer. Her arms and legs were slim and wiry like mine, but her skin was a rich, shining brown. A tangled shock of black hair flew behind her. She held her head high, welcoming the wind like she was part of the earth and the grass and the trees. I should have ducked, but I was so tumbled and raw inside, all I could do was stare.
And then, to my surprise, I w
as lifting my hand high above the waves. A salute to this spirit of the land.
She turned. Slowly she raised a slender arm. And then she startled and bounded off across the bluff, her feet barely touching the ground.
The spell broke. I dove under, swimming unevenly, shocked at what I’d done. Why did I wave? And today of all days, with those nets hanging in shreds?
But the more I swam, the more I was filled by the beauty and strangeness of what I’d seen. That nimble spirit was nothing like Maggie with her dull hair and tired shoulders, or the coarse man who had flailed after his boat. I couldn’t imagine her in a stuffy house. No, the land must have sprites like the sea had selkies. So even though I’d promised to tell Maggie if anyone saw me, this didn’t count.
When I got back to Maggie’s, I tried to pretend it was just another day. Eating a bowl of cornflakes. Helping around the house. It was midmorning when I brought in a last armload of logs. I was stacking them by the wood stove when someone banged on the door.
Maggie and I both startled, our heads swiveling.
“Maggie?” It was a rough male voice. He pounded again, rattling the door in its frame.
Maggie pointed to the bedroom. I set down the log silently, rose to my feet—
“You in there?” boomed the voice. “I need to talk to you.”
The doorknob started to turn.
I flung myself to the floor and squeezed under the couch. The springs sagged into my back. Dust swirled around my face.
The door opened and a pair of heavy black boots strode into view.
“Maggie!”
“Hey, Harry. You always barge in like that?” There was a sharp edge to her voice. She didn’t like this man.
“You didn’t answer. Didn’t think you heard me.”
The boots tromped closer. One step. Two. I scooted back deeper. Dust flew up my nose, igniting a sneeze. I struggled to hold it in, but it grew, and grew—I stifled the sound, but my body shook the couch. An instant later, Maggie gave a loud, fake cough.
“I need some coffee,” she said, walking toward the kitchen. “Join me?”
She never had coffee this time of day.
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