The Turning

by Emily Whitman

  I leaped over a fence, running even faster now, over grass and then soft earth, toward a line of trees. There were ferns underfoot, and branches blocking the sky, and the sharp scent of pine. I knew where I was going. I felt it in my bones.

  Through the branches came a shimmering light.

  I burst out from the trees and stopped, staring. In a vast, black sky, the Moon was rising, huge and full.

  Slowly now, I walked across rough stone to the edge of the cliff. The ocean spread out below me to infinity. Out in the water, three rocks raised their pointed heads. A tiny row of man-made lights showed the sweep of a far shore. The moonlight silvered my skin; it danced on the tips of the waves. But the waves were empty.

  Was this the right place?

  I stood straight, my shoulders back, my arms stretched long at my sides. I drew in a deep breath and sang, “Come to me! Come!”

  The words floated out across the water, each curving wave catching and reflecting the tune.

  Where were they?

  I lifted my arms out straight before me, palms raised like the Caller at Moon Day, and sang louder, beseeching, “Come to me! Come!”

  I could swear the Moon was watching. Her clear, honest light filled me. Full of ache and longing and love, I sang out a third time, “Come to me—”

  From out in the waves, a voice sang, “Come!”

  A silver head was surging toward the cliff. Mam! Another head popped up behind her, and another, skimming the crests. They sang out together, their voices rising as one: “Come to us! Come!”

  I dove from the cliff, piercing the waves.

  Never had I swum so fast! I was already past the first rock when—whoosh!—Mam zoomed up and braked hard, head back and flippers forward. A glittering splash of silver drops sparkled down as my arms wrapped around her. The warmth of her pelt. The soft brush of her whiskers against my cheek.

  “Aran,” she whispered. “Aran, my son!”

  The rest of the clan zipped around us, laughing and calling my name. I hugged them all, Grandmam first. “I knew you’d be fine,” she said, nuzzling my ear.

  Lyr exclaimed, “Look how big you are! And how fast you swim! Is this the same Aran we left behind?”

  No, I wanted to say, not the same. But before I could speak, there was Mist swirling around me, and Maura pretending to nibble my foot, and Cormac, spiraling down and then zipping up into a backflip.

  Then I saw someone else, waiting quietly just outside the circle, his fur shining white in the moonlight.

  “Finn!” I cried, streaking over. “What—?”

  “Our clans are living together now!” he said with a smile.

  “But your chief . . .”

  “I convinced him to let me come. Because we’re all hoping . . .” He stopped and looked at Mam.

  The clan had gathered around me in a circle. Anticipation rose from them like steam.

  Mam flicked her tail and swam up beside me. “I brought it,” she said.

  Now I saw the straps holding something close to her body. My mouth fell open; my heart was pounding. She couldn’t mean . . .

  She nodded, her eyes huge and bright. “Come over here.”

  I followed her to the jutting rock. She hauled out halfway, her tail still in the water.

  “Help me take this off,” she said.

  The strap and the pouch were made of animal hide, with clasps made of bone.

  “Open it,” said Mam.

  My hands trembled as I lifted the flap and reached inside. I touched fur. Seal fur.

  A pelt.

  I pulled it out and laid it down on the rock, staring. It was brown and gray, like pebbles jumbled together.

  I gasped. “Where— How—”

  “The wise ones,” said Mam. “They were farther north than we’d ever imagined. The white selkies had ancient tales about where they lived, but not even they had journeyed so far. So far we got iced in. I nearly went mad, not being able to get back to you!”

  “That’s the truth,” sighed Lyr.

  “But find them we did,” said Grandmam. “And your mam talked them into letting her bring you this pelt.”

  Mam nudged it forward with her nose. “Spread it out,” she said.

  My hands moved slowly. So slowly. The fur felt odd and stiff. I spread it out on the rock. The rounded curve of the head. The flippers, hanging lank and empty, black claws clattering against stone.

  The Moon was almost directly overhead. Her light picked out every individual hair of the pelt.

  And all I had to do was slip it over my shoulders . . .

  “Where did it come from?” I said.

  There was silence. Then, “A dead selkie,” blurted Maura.

  My head jerked up.

  Mam sighed, as she so often did with Maura. “That’s not quite how I’d put it.” She turned to me. “Long ago, a selkie died while in longlimbs. So his pelt was left behind. The wise ones said to give it to you beneath a full Moon. They said you’d know what to do.”

  I lifted the pelt. The gap down the front fell open. I spread it wider, so the shoulders would fit over mine. . . .

  “Go on!” urged Mam.

  But this wasn’t how I’d pictured it at all. I’d imagined my pelt slipping on as smooth and light as a breeze. This pelt felt heavy and stiff. It felt . . . wrong.

  “Well?” said Mam. “Hurry! I want to see you in it!”

  I started to slide my hand into a flipper. And then I stopped.

  This hand.

  With this hand, I fought off sea lions. With these legs, I swam for days at a time. With these ears and eyes and instincts, I sensed the weather. I found the best currents. I foraged and caught all the food I needed. I survived.

  In this skin.

  I held the pelt in front of me—Mam breathless, expectant—and then I folded it up.

  “I can’t,” I said. “It isn’t mine.”

  “Not yours?” cried Mam, aghast. “Of course it’s yours! Didn’t I go all the way north to find it for you? Didn’t the wise ones—the ones who talk with the Moon, Aran!—didn’t they say I could bring it to you?”

  She’d risked so much for this pelt. So I could keep up. So I could go on the long journeys. So I could be like everyone else.

  I swallowed hard. And then I slipped the pelt back into its pouch.

  “It’s someone else’s skin,” I said.

  Mam gave a mournful, despairing cry. “But then how will you ever belong? How will you live?”

  It was the question I’d spent my whole life asking. A lifetime of being different, of feeling I wasn’t enough. But now I knew. In my deep heart, in my bones, I knew the answer.

  “I guess I’ll live as myself,” I said.

  The pouch slipped off the rock and under the waves.

  Overhead, the Moon felt even closer than on Moon Day. The air shimmered, alive with sparks of light. My skin was tingling.

  Finn gasped. “Look!”

  Everyone startled back in a splash, staring at my hands.

  I lifted them before me and spread them wide. My fingers were linked by webbing. With a fingertip, I traced the new line, a curve of soft, almost translucent skin.

  And my arms! The silver light shimmered on skin . . . and then on fur, black and sleek and shining.

  I sat down quickly with my feet in the water. My legs were together, then tighter, fusing. I kicked in wonder and awe. The water splashed up high in a glistening arc, tossed, not by feet, but by a tail. My arms snugged tight by my sides. My shoulders strengthened around the muscles of my powerful neck.

  I didn’t just hear the sound when my pelt gathered. I felt it deep inside. There it was—and part of myself slipped into place.

  My clan circled around me, their faces radiant with joy.

  There was a bright cry of wonder. But it didn’t come from the clan.

  We all turned and stared back at the shore.

  Chapter Fifty-Nine

  I Could See Everything

  She stood
at the edge of the cliff. Taller, now, but with the same long legs, that spray of hair, that easy grace: Nellie.

  “Aran!” she called.

  I felt an instant, instinctive tug. It had been there the first time I saw her, and it was even stronger now.

  The puffin was hopping around at her feet. “Me bring!” she grunted proudly. “Friend! Friend!”

  “You got your pelt!” cried Nellie.

  The clan had grown completely still. The silence was electric, like lightning about to strike.

  Maura’s eyes narrowed. “A human,” she said.

  “She saw you turn,” muttered Cormac.

  “She’ll tell,” said Grandmam, and the low warning in her voice was the worst of all.

  Their bodies were taut with coiled energy, the kind that explodes into fang and claw. That means attack to defend.

  Like the selkies at Westwood Pier.

  The tale flooded back into my mind—the waters roiling white, then red. But this time the arms thrashing to the surface were thin and brown.

  “Nellie!” I cried, trying to warn her.

  My voice only pulled her closer. She teetered at the edge of the cliff.

  “I’m so, so happy for you!” she shouted, straining toward me. “But don’t go yet! I have to tell you about Ma—” She leaned too far. Her arms whirled, her hands clutched at air, and then she was falling toward the water far below.

  Around the clan, the sharp air, that instant before the surge—

  There was no room for thought, for reason. Slap! I whacked the water with a flipper, startling the clan just long enough to give me a head start. I pushed off with a powerful thrust of my tail. It was like I’d been in this body forever. All the strength I’d earned living on my own, it was there in the force of my shoulders, my back, my tail.

  I reached Nellie as she struck the water. She plummeted down in an eddy of foam and I swam alongside, swerving to stop her descent. There, in the deep, she wrapped her arms around my neck.

  A flick of my tail and we shot to the surface. Nellie let go, treading water. I stayed right beside her. The clan had formed a circle around us.

  “Listen to me!” I cried.

  For a moment, nothing. Then Mam swished her tail. Lyr’s shoulders relaxed.

  Beside me, Nellie was shivering.

  “I’m going to carry Nellie to those rocks,” I said. “And then I need to tell you everything that happened while you were gone.”

  They swam by my side, silent and somber, over to the rocks. Nellie clambered up and sat, hugging her knees for warmth. The puffin flew over and settled at her feet. I hauled out halfway, my shoulders near Nellie, my tail in the waves. Then I started talking. My words rushed out like water that had been stopped up for too long.

  I told them about my arrival on Spindle Island, and how Maggie hadn’t expected me and I had to convince her to let me stay. I told them about slashing the net, and seeing Nellie for the first time, and the song. How I saved Nellie from drowning, and she taught me to read so I could search for clues and try to save Mam. How she guessed the truth about me and became my partner in searching, and never told a soul.

  “I’ll never tell,” said Nellie. She put her hand to her heart, like I’d shown her so long ago. “I swear to the Moon.”

  Grandmam watched, nodding.

  When I got to the part about Jack coming home, Mam gasped and got so upset, Lyr had to comfort her before I could go on. It was good he was by her side when I told them about Jack’s fist crashing through the wall. And then the doubloons and the boat and how I made Maggie die—

  “But she’s not dead!” cried Nellie.

  The world stopped . . . and shifted. “She’s alive?” I whispered.

  Nellie nodded eagerly. “I knew you thought she was dead or you’d never have left. That’s why I ran here so fast, because the puffin said you were swimming away and I had to tell you. She wants to see you, Aran. She needs to see you.” Nellie sighed, battling with herself. “But now you have your pelt and you’re leaving. I’d better figure out how to tell her you’re okay.”

  Maggie. Chocolate cake, and doubloons, and her hand on mine. How she gathered her courage to tell Jack, I like having him here.

  And Nellie. Nellie with her clear, gray eyes. Nellie who knew me better than anyone in the world. Who’d always had faith in me, and stood by me, and never cared if I was human or selkie.

  I scooted all the way out of the water, so I was at her side. The Moon lit my pelt from tail to whiskers.

  Nellie looked into my eyes. “One brown and one blue,” she said, her voice full of wonder. “Even in that amazing pelt, you’re still you.”

  She’d put into words what I was feeling. Of course she had. Nellie always knew.

  That’s when I knew, too.

  For twelve years I’d lived in longlimbs, resenting it, fighting it. Believing it made me less. Then came Jack with his blinding rage, and that same fire burning in my own veins. Thinking that’s what it meant to be human.

  Now fear slipped from my shoulders—that terrible weight—and drifted away across the waves.

  Human didn’t have to be fists and rage. Human could be Maggie making a chocolate cake. The walrus’s fire. Nellie running to find me.

  What would it be like to live in longlimbs knowing the human part of me was good?

  “Mam,” I said. “I’m staying.”

  “But Aran—!” Mam’s eyes were black pools of shock and sadness. How could I make her understand?

  I took a deep breath. “You risked your life for me. My pelt”—I reached out a flipper to her, my voice catching—“it means everything. But being human—a good human—that means everything, too. I’m two everythings, Mam.”

  Another look came into her eyes and mingled with the sadness. It was more than acceptance; it was pride.

  “You’re staying,” she said softly.

  I nodded.

  Maura splashed her tail. “Staying? After we came all this way?”

  “Hush, Maura,” said Grandmam.

  But Maura kept on. “After you finally get to be a real selkie? What are you going to do now, take off your pelt the moment you’ve got it?”

  “Yes,” I said. “I am.”

  Mam swallowed hard. “Are you going to be only human now?” From the way she said it, I knew she’d love me no matter what skin I was in.

  “No, Mam,” I said. “I’ll keep my pelt safe, and I’ll swim out and find you and the clan again and again and again. But right now, I need to do this.”

  “What if your pelt won’t bind next time?” said Cormac, in genuine concern. “The Moon doesn’t like her gifts to be taken lightly.”

  That’s when Finn swam up. “Don’t you see? This is what the Moon knew had to happen. She wants him to be both! Look!”

  We followed his gaze. The moonbeams had woven together across the water, blazing a broad silver path from our rock to the shore.

  Lyr nodded. “We should go, then.”

  “Wait,” said Mam. She looked at me, a smile playing at the corners of her mouth. She cocked her head toward the waves. “Well?”

  I laughed. “Wait here,” I said to Nellie.

  I rolled off the rocks and into the gleaming water. I arced my back and I flicked my tail and I zoomed down through ripples of moonlight. I swooped from side to side in giant curves, feeling the grace and strength of my new body. My whiskers picked up vibrations in the water I’d never known were there: a shrimp wriggling its legs, a tiny fish slipping into seaweed to hide.

  Mam glided to my side. Together we swam deeper, and deeper, and still I could see everything, from a jellyfish pulsing high above me to a greenling’s blue spots fading into the distance. Down to the bottom we swam. Then Mam swerved away, and I sped along the ocean floor. My path was shaped by the slightest curve of my side, the flick of a flipper. The sand lay in rippled waves and I traced every dip and rise. A flat sole saw me coming and burrowed into the sand until only its round eyes poked out. />
  I swam into a towering, swaying forest of bull kelp. A flash of white swirled down the strands, and another of granite gray—it was Finn and Grandmam, come to play chase. We flew along, darting behind rocks, zipping around so the fronds whipped in our wake. Finn somersaulted in front of me and I flung my tail forward to come to a sudden stop, spinning around to go in the other direction. But the spinning was glorious and I kept spinning and spinning. . . .

  I came out of a twirl and slowed down, swimming on my back, gazing up at the underside of the waves. Cormac, Maura, and Mist were at the surface; their tails made soft eddies of foam. Then the seabed was dropping away below me, the water deepened, and I gave an easy roll to follow it down.

  And there was Mam slipping to one side of me, with Lyr to the other. As one, we swirled deeper, our tails swishing in unison, the swerve of our shoulders as strong and sure as waves. I had plenty of air; I could have stayed down as long as I liked. But above us, the water was sparkling. It wasn’t the silver of moonlight, but a brilliant, glowing green.

  We surged upward into swirls of luminescent plankton. Each dot blazed like a miniature green star. I swam through that light—it flickered across my whiskers, my shoulders, my tail—and then with a mighty push, I burst through the waves in a back flip. All around me the others were leaping, too—Mam and Lyr, Cormac and Maura, Grandmam and Finn and Mist—the plankton flying off us in brilliant green arcs across the night sky.

  We turned back toward the rocks where Nellie and the puffin were waiting. Mam swam by my side; the others fell behind.

  Mam slowed and looked into my eyes. “You’re sure?” she asked.

  “I’m sure.”

  I slipped closer, brushing her face with my whiskers. Her flipper reached out and touched mine. We floated there, riding the waves’ gentle rise and fall.

  And then, a strong flick of my tail and I was speeding to the rocks.

  I slid up beside Nellie. The clan bobbed nearby, their faces serious now, because we all knew what came next.

  My pelt loosened around me as easily as if I’d done this every day of my life. I lifted it from my shoulders. I stroked the soft nap of the fur. Even now, it felt like part of me. I folded it into a neat packet and tucked it securely under my arm.