“Then Bob came running up, shouting and red in the face, and grabbed her tight. ‘How in God’s name did you get out there?’ he said. And she said—”
The kettle whistled and Maggie turned to the stove.
My heart was pounding in my chest. But Maggie was measuring coffee, reaching for the kettle—
“What?” I said. “What did she say?”
“That she couldn’t remember! Said she fell asleep up on the bluff, and the next thing she knows she’s lying on this rock surrounded by waves and can’t remember a thing in between.”
I stifled a sigh of relief. The bittersweet smell of coffee filled the room.
“Bob was having a fit,” said Maggie. “Going on and on about how they’d both promised her parents she wouldn’t go swimming without him. It’s not like the man knows how to care for a child in the first place. Alone up there with his books and his paints. Lets her run wild all over the island.”
I looked out the window so I wouldn’t be looking at Maggie. “What’s her name?”
“Nellie. Well, that’s what he calls her, anyway. She’s got some long, complicated name, but he calls her Nellie.” Maggie sat down opposite me, cradling her steaming mug. “There’s more. Harry thought maybe he saw someone else in the water. But it was a long way off, and he wasn’t sure.” She took a sip, looking at me over the rim of her mug. “You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?”
I gave her my best innocent look. “It must have been a seal.”
That song was haunting me. I hummed the tune as I stacked firewood. I whispered the words. I am a man upon the land, I am a selkie in the sea—without the rest of its verses, it was only half a creature, a ghost searching for its flesh and bones.
What happened between the selkie and the human woman? And their baby—the song didn’t say pup, so it must be in longlimbs—what happened?
Mam would be back in less than a moon. Before then, before I left the human world, I wanted to hear the tune again. And every one of its words. And . . . and I wanted to see the girl.
I shouldn’t. She was human and that meant danger. Maggie was different. She’d been chosen by Mam; she proved herself when Harry came. But the girl?
Then I thought of her clear, gray eyes, and her bravery after she’d almost drowned, and her smile. When I sat beside her on the rock, it was so easy, as if the rest of the world didn’t exist. And she kept her promise. She didn’t tell.
I walked to the window and stared out at the darkening sky. Tomorrow morning I’d go back to the bluff. I hoped the girl would be there.
Chapter Thirty-Two
The Book
A gust of wind woke me from my sleep. Dawn was cracking the sky. I settled the stone selkie in her cave and swam near the base of the cliff, catching breakfast. The sun crept up as slow as a snail. Finally I couldn’t wait any longer. I took off swimming toward the bluff. A powerful current kept trying to push me back to shore.
I rose for air in the slap and splash of whitecaps. Maybe I should turn around and go back. After yesterday, the girl’s grandfather would probably keep her inside for days. For a half-moon. Longer, until Mam came back and I’d left Spindle Island.
Above me, an osprey rode a wild swoop of wind. I kept swimming.
I rose at the tip of the point. There she was, sitting cross-legged, staring down at something in her lap.
I opened my mouth, but nothing came out. My voice was hiding somewhere down around my ankles. Finally I gulped and managed to call, “Hi!”
She leaped to her feet. “I knew you’d come!” She hoisted something flat and dark blue. “I brought it! The book with the song! I can sing you the whole thing now.”
I swam a little closer.
“Come on up,” she said, pointing to a split in the steep rock face.
It was a good place for climbing, with plenty of handholds and ledges. But I stayed where I was. The shoreline is the safest place to be: whichever direction danger comes, be it shark or human, you can slip out of reach in a flash.
“Sing it from there,” I said.
“You aren’t coming up?” She sounded disappointed.
I shook my head.
“Okay.” She sat, settling the book in her lap. White pages flapped in the wind. She held them down and started to sing.
I strained to hear her over the blustery wind. I caught a strand of tune, but her head was bent to the book, and it swallowed the words back up again like a secret it wanted to keep.
“Sing louder,” I called.
“It messes up the tune.” She stood and studied the split in the rocks. “I guess I can sit on that ledge.”
Clutching the book to her side, she started working her way down. She moved quickly, sure-footed and nimble. I backed away so the waves surrounded me. I was only here for the song, I told myself. That was all.
Now she’d reached the steepest part. She took a step—a stone teetered under her weight and slid, scraping and grating, and she reached out a hand to catch her balance—
The book flew from her grip and out over the waves, flapping wildly. Then its wings slapped shut and it dove into the roiling foam. Whitecaps crashed, pushing it deeper with every blow.
No! I dove under the chop, groping blindly, clutching at bubbles. Then my hand hit a hard, straight edge. I grabbed it and raced to the surface.
Nellie was standing on the ledge near the water. I swam back holding the book high above my head, victorious. I’d saved its life, and now I’d have the song as my reward. I climbed up beside her, grinning.
But she was staring at the book in horror, her breath coming in short gasps.
My smile dropped.
She held out both hands and I laid the book across them. The blue wing lay askew. Beneath it the pages were sodden and crumpled. Nellie reached out a trembling hand and lifted a torn strip of paper; it draped over her fingers like seaweed.
“Grandpa’s going to kill me,” she whispered. “I’m not supposed to take the books out of the house. For the special ones in the glass case, I’m supposed to ask before I even touch them. And I didn’t ask.”
She was going to be punished. But it was because of me she’d taken the book, because of me she’d tried to carry it down the steep path.
“Maybe . . . maybe we can fix it,” I said.
“Fix it?” She bit her lip. “How?”
I wasn’t about to tell her I’d never seen a book before, let alone healed one. I ran a finger along the cover. It was as blue as the ocean depths, and the paper inside was thick and rich. Even wet, it held its force like a living thing.
I lifted the crooked wing and gently tried to straighten it. There was a small ripping sound. I jerked my hand back.
“We’ll need to see how they’re made,” I said. “Are there any more books like this?”
“This old? Yes, a few.”
“Bring one here.”
She shuddered. “I can’t take another one out of the house. I don’t dare.”
A wild thought came into my head. I was going to push it away. But then I thought of the stone selkie waiting in her cave, and I wanted to be brave.
I swallowed hard. “Where’s your house?”
She pointed toward the trees. Inland. Away from the safety of shore and the heartbeat of the waves.
I stood up straighter and took a deep breath. “I’ll come there.”
“You can’t!” she said. “You need to stay secret.”
“I can come if no one else sees me.” I turned to climb.
“Wait,” said Nellie. “It’s too late to go today. Grandpa goes out painting early, but he might be back soon. Meet me here tomorrow at seven.”
“Seven? When’s that?”
She paused—had I shown myself as different yet again? Then she pointed to a spot low on the horizon. “When the sun’s still down there, and the robins start to sing.”
Chapter Thirty-Three
The Aerie
The next morning I was swimming toward
the bluff when my hand brushed against my side—and against the stone selkie in my pocket. I’d forgotten to put her in the little cave. I was about to turn back but then stopped. It felt good having her with me as I went inland. I pushed her down deeper in my pocket and swam on.
Nellie was pacing back and forth across the bluff. She waited silently while I swam to the rocks and climbed up beside her. Wildflowers tickled my ankles, and the rocks were speckled with green and gold lichen.
“Ready?” said Nellie.
I nodded.
She took off into a tangle of trees. Dark branches closed overhead, and bushes snagged at my legs. It was all I could do to keep up. Nellie ran like a deer, her bark-brown legs leaping along paths I couldn’t even see. I’d always thought of myself as a fast runner, but now I lumbered along cracking every twig. At one point she stopped, waiting for me to catch up, and I felt my face flush.
The trees thinned; sun sparked off water. We crouched behind bushes and peered out.
A house perched atop a cliff, its back sheltered by trees, its face gazing out to sea. It wasn’t much bigger than Maggie’s. But her house was as tilted and ramshackle as an afterthought, and this one! I didn’t know human houses could look like this, so solid and graceful, its beams rising as strong as fir trees. It looked like it belonged.
Nellie pointed to a room at the top, all windows. “That’s where the glass bookcases are.”
My heart beat faster.
“Wait here while I make sure he didn’t come back early.” She walked to the house and opened the door. “Grandpa?” I heard her walking around inside. Then she was at the door again, waving me in.
Maggie’s house was built to keep the sea out. This house, with its wall of windows, asked the sea in. There was warm polished wood and stone the colors of the rocks where I was raised. Everything was as spare and clean as the wave-washed shore. A picture on the wall made me catch my breath. It was just swirling shapes, red and black, but somehow they came together to make a breaching whale.
“Come upstairs,” called Nellie.
I followed her up a dark, narrow chute. A door swung open, and I blinked in bright sunlight.
The room was nothing but windows on three sides. I could see everything from here: whitecaps breaking against rocks in the strait, a speck of a fishing boat far from land, a wisp of cloud on the horizon. A heron flew past, and I felt like I could swoop out and fly alongside. It was like looking out from an eagle’s aerie.
Nellie’s voice broke through my thoughts. “Which one do you want to see?”
I turned. She was standing in front of a wall made entirely of books. They rose from floor to ceiling, packed tighter than a guillemot colony at nesting time.
I took a step closer, my mouth open in wonder. There were so many! They seemed to shimmer with a kind of magic. Did each one have a different song? Would they sing to me, too? I wanted to open them all. But I had a task to do.
“It needs to be like the hurt one,” I said.
“Then I guess . . .”
One group of books had their own little house of dark wood. They gazed out from behind its glass windows. Nellie opened the door and pulled one out.
“This has the same kind of cover,” she said.
The book fell open. Black markings danced across thick, ivory-colored pages. Nellie placed it in my hands.
I felt like an imposter. How could she have such faith in me? I didn’t know how to heal books. I barely knew how to hold one.
But I had to find a way. Like when I knotted the cedar strands: I’d never seen a sheath before, but I made one all the same. Or when the Moon-calling song rose in my throat to help Mam bind her pelt back on. Those were finding a way for the first time, too.
“Go get the hurt one,” I said.
She ran downstairs and returned with the damaged book. It was still damp. That was probably good; some things got brittle when they dried, like seaweed.
I set the books side by side on the wood floor. I bent over the healthy book and sniffed; I licked the page. Nellie’s eyebrows shot up.
“No salt,” I explained. “We’d better start by rinsing the other in clear water.”
“Rinsing it?” Her voice rose. “I can’t make it wet again! Look at the cover: it’s already fading.”
She was right. There were white streaks on the blue skin.
“If things aren’t made for the ocean, it kills them,” I said. “I think this one’s more like a freshwater fish. It can’t take the salt.” I picked up the book.
Her eyes were huge. “What are you doing?”
“Taking it outside to wash it.”
“Outside?”
“Look,” I said impatiently, “do you want to fix it, or not?”
“But what if Grandpa comes back early?” said Nellie. “What if he sees—”
“Sees what?” boomed a gruff voice behind us.
Chapter Thirty-Four
The Walrus
My head whipped around. There, at the top of the stairs, stood a great gray walrus of a man. His face bristled with whiskers and a single brown tusk hung from his jaws. I grabbed the book and leaped to my feet.
Nellie gasped. “Grandpa!”
He wasn’t a rich brown like Nellie; his hands and face were lighter than mine. But his eyes were the same sea gray as hers, and they burned with the same fierce intelligence. He stared at the gaping glass case, the healthy book on the floor, the salt-stained book in my hands. His brows lowered.
“We were going to fix it,” said Nellie in a rush. “Aran thinks we should rinse out the salt water, and—”
“Salt water? You took it outside? It’s been in the sea?” His voice grew louder with every word. He took a menacing step closer. “Give it to me, boy.”
Well, what would you do if a walrus came at you? I bared my teeth and growled. The world grew sharp and crisp.
“Stop, Grandpa, you’re scaring him,” said Nellie.
But I wasn’t scared. I was completely alert, my body tensed for action.
“That’s my Songs of the Orkney Islands,” barked the walrus.
He was blocking the stairs so I couldn’t escape that way.
Nellie looked at my arms hugging the book, and then at my face. She lifted her chin to the walrus. “He needs it.”
“Needs it? A nineteenth-century first edition?”
“Not the book, the selkie song. I couldn’t remember all the verses.”
I froze, exposed like a fish left gasping on shore. It was bad enough that he’d seen me; now he’d start asking questions.
“All for a song, eh?” His eyes got a considering look. He reached up to his tusk. I gasped as he pulled it from his mouth.
“Desperate times call for desperate measures,” he said, sitting at a table by the window. “And this calls for my pipe.” He struck a twig into flame. Smoke spiraled up from the tusk; he waved it toward me. “Bring it here.”
I weighed the book. Until it was healed, it probably couldn’t sing Nellie the rest of the song, and she couldn’t sing it to me. And the walrus’s anger—you only get that protective of something very valuable.
The sound of my voice startled me. “Do all the books have songs?”
“Songs, and stories, and the lore of the sea.”
I stared at the wall. Maybe there were more songs in there about my folk. What did humans know about selkies? About pups like me? This was the only time in my life I’d have a chance to find out.
I took a step closer to the walrus. Then another. I handed over the book.
He examined the cover, shaking his head. “Nellie, I thought I made it clear. You’re never to touch these books unless I’m with you.”
She gulped.
“I’ll send this off to be repaired. You’ll work to help pay for it.”
Nellie gave a crisp nod of agreement, blinking back tears. But at her side, her hand flicked toward the door.
“Go,” she whispered.
She was trying to help me get a
way. But I couldn’t leave her to face the old man’s anger alone. And I couldn’t leave this wall of secrets.
“I’ll work, too,” I said.
The walrus snorted. “I don’t know a thing about you.”
Nellie said, “He’s just some boy I found at—”
“I’m staying at Maggie’s,” I said, jumping in to get the story right. “I’m her nephew, except, I’m not there, I mean, it’s a secret. My father can’t know, with the divorce, and . . . and . . .” I sputtered out of air. They were both staring at me. I took a deep breath. “Don’t tell anyone else I’m here. Please.”
“All right,” said the walrus. “I’ll think what work this warrants. Come back tomorrow morning.”
Nellie glanced at me. “Grandpa, he can’t—”
“I’ll be here at seven,” I said.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Blue
The next morning I was still out on my sleeping ledge when I smelled coffee. There was a light on in the kitchen window. Maggie was never up this early! As quietly as I could I crept to the side of the house, eased my window open, and climbed in. I tiptoed to the bed, then jumped out again so my feet hit the floor with a thunk. I opened a dresser drawer and slammed it shut. Then I walked to the kitchen.
Maggie sat slumped over a steaming mug.
“Morning, Aran.” She was trying to sound cheerful, but she looked so hollow, a puff of wind could have carried her away. “Listen, I have to go to the mainland today.” She paused and took a sip. “Jane’s husband is taking me across to the big island to get the ferry.”
I didn’t answer. All I could think about was getting to Nellie’s. I rushed to pour myself a bowl of cornflakes and gulped it down. I rinsed the bowl at the sink, flicking the curtain aside to check the height of the sun. I glanced at the door.
Maggie shook her head with a crooked smile. “I know, I know, you’re off for your daily dose of sea. But you be extra careful, okay? I’ll be back before dark.”
I ran off without saying good-bye.
The Turning Page 12
