by H. K. Varian
She started with the dresser. Work clothes, church clothes, weekend clothes—all neatly folded. The bottom drawer, though . . . That one was stuck. Fiona yanked and yanked, but it wouldn’t budge. Is it locked? she wondered. But there was no keyhole.
Fiona gave one more tug on the drawer, and without warning, it shot open, sending her flying across the floor. But Fiona wasn’t all that went flying. Dozens of yellowed photographs soared through the air, swirling around Fiona like snow. There were so many of them; photos she’d never seen before in her life.
Of course, she recognized her parents immediately. Her dad looked the same, except his hair was darker back then. And her mother . . . Well, Fiona would know that face anywhere. She looked exactly the same in the photos as she did in Fiona’s memories of her, unchanged over the last nine years. That’s how death works, I guess, Fiona thought. It stops time.
Time stopped for Fiona as she crouched, staring at each photo—studying them, really, as if she could memorize the photos as easily as math equations or spelling words. There was one of her parents on their wedding day, not a hundred yards from the cottage, overlooking a sparkling sunset on the ocean. Her mom cradling baby Fiona. Her dad helping Fiona ride her tricycle for the first time. And Fiona’s favorite of all: her mom holding her as they sat on Broad Rock, a large, flat rock in the little beach cave near the ocean. She could remember sitting there with her mother. Fiona still went to Broad Rock whenever she missed her and wanted to feel closer to her.
How have I never seen these photos before? Fiona wondered. It would’ve been so nice to have pictures of her mother in the living room or in her own bedroom. To see her face in the present, not just in the past. But for some reason, her father had hidden them away, where no one could see them. Not no one, actually, because he knew where they were. He could look at them whenever he wanted. No, he was keeping them from Fiona.
The thought bothered her for a bunch of reasons, but before she could sort through them all, Fiona realized something else: these photos weren’t the only secret that had been kept from her. If I was given a selkie cloak as a baby, she thought, then someone—Mom or Dad, or both—knew the truth about me. Have known it for years.
The idea was so unsettling that Fiona rocked back on her heels. Were they ever planning to tell me? she wondered. Did Mom know—and the knowledge died with her? Or does Dad?
Did they hide away my selkie cloak?
Whatever the answers were to those questions, Fiona wasn’t sure she wanted to know them. And she didn’t have time to ponder them, not with the sound of her dad’s tires crunching over the broken shells that paved their driveway. Fiona scrambled to her feet in a flurry. It was later than she thought. And if her father found her in here with these hidden photos scattered all over the place . . .
In moments Fiona had shoved them all back into the drawer—all except for one. She tucked the photo of her mom and her at Broad Rock into her back pocket. Surely her dad wouldn’t notice that it was missing. And for Fiona to have one, just one photo of Mom . . .
Fiona was out of breath when she reached the kitchen, just as her father opened the door. He was whistling.
“Oh!” Fiona exclaimed in surprise. “Spaghetti. I forgot to start the water boiling. . . .”
“No matter, Fee,” Mr. Murphy said, handing her a box of pizza. “Didn’t you get my text?”
Fiona shook her head. “I, um, left my phone in my backpack.”
“I thought we should celebrate tonight!” he said. “The first day of seventh grade is a pretty big deal.”
Fiona grinned as her dad nodded toward the sink. “Go ahead and wash up. I’ll set the table.” Then he started whistling again—a melody Fiona would’ve known anywhere. Her mom had sung it to her every night when Fiona was little. It was burned into the deepest recesses of her brain. Somehow, after all these years, she even remembered the words—some of them, at least.
Betwixt the cold and rocky shoal,
And the foam upon the sea,
There lies a prize for my wee babe,
It will bring her home to me.
When Dad returned to the kitchen a few minutes later, all the bubbles had disappeared down the drain, but Fiona still stood at the sink, rubbing her hands absentmindedly under the faucet. Dad chuckled as he leaned over and turned off the water. “I think they’re clean now,” he teased her.
Fiona managed a smile. “Sorry,” she said. “I got a little distracted.” What she didn’t say, though, was that the thoughts triggered by that long-lost lullaby might have just solved her riddle.
The next morning Fiona woke before dawn and dressed in the gray light. She crept through the house as quietly as she could, easing out the door without making a sound. The seagulls’ shrill cries called to her, and soon Fiona was running down a familiar path, past the scrubby pines that were stunted by salt spray, down the sand-strewn cliff, straight to the mouth of the cave. Straight to Broad Rock.
There was a damp chill in the cave, and the air was still and heavy. During high tide the water could seep all the way through the shadowy cave, to the darkest corners that Fiona had never dared to explore.
Now, though, it was low tide; Broad Rock was dry, and so was the sand around it. Fiona placed her palm against the stone, worn smooth from centuries of tidewater lapping against it, and closed her eyes. She would give anything to sit here with her mom again. Anything.
But Fiona knew that such a thing would never happen. She opened her eyes and reached into her pocket for the large serving spoon she’d snuck from the kitchen. A trowel would’ve been better, but Fiona didn’t want to waste time getting one from the shed.
Fiona began to dig up the sand at the base of Broad Rock, singing under her breath as she did so. The sound of her voice echoing through the cave was haunting, as though she were listening to her own mother’s lullaby long ago. Dig, scoop, dig, scoop. The rhythm was hypnotic; soon, Fiona lost track of everything else: the scrape of the spoon against the sand, the glint of the rising sun off the ocean, even the rising tide that lapped at her ankles, soaking her shoes.
Suddenly—thunk.
The spoon hit something solid, buried deep within the sand. Not metal on rock, but the solid, dense thud of wood. A jolt of electricity coursed through Fiona. She dropped the spoon and began digging with her hands, scooping up big fistfuls of sand and throwing them to the side until she had unearthed a chest made of grayish-tan driftwood, with rusted brass hinges. All those hours I’ve sat on Broad Rock, Fiona thought in wonder, it was here the whole time.
A little more digging, and Fiona was finally able to lift the chest from the sand. Her breath caught in her throat as she eased the rusty clasps open. The pile of gray material wasn’t much to look at, but to Fiona it was the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen: her selkie cloak, at long last, after all these years. She stroked the material, which was velvety soft, and immediately heard a song carried to her on the wind. It was in a language she’d never heard before—the song itself seemed old as time—and yet Fiona knew exactly what she was supposed to do. She wrapped the selkie cloak across her shoulders and began a slow and steady march toward the sea.
How could she do anything else?
By the time Fiona reached the water’s edge, she was no longer herself—at least, not her human form. Her mind was still intact, but little by little, all that thinking began to drift away. Was she walking? Was she swimming? Fiona didn’t know. The only thing she was sure of was that she had never, in all her life, ever felt so free. The icy ocean was as soothing as a warm bath. As a selkie, Fiona glided smoothly through the choppy waves, bobbing and dancing over the swells with easy joy. She opened her mouth to laugh and then laughed harder at the harsh, barky sound that was her new voice. Who could care about the silly human world back on shore, with its alarm clocks and school buses and backpacks full of homework? This was all that mattered: the swell of the sea, the glorious song echoing through her heart, and the powerful propulsion of her strong t
ail that could take Fiona anywhere that water flowed. It was better than bliss. It was perfection.
One thought—just one—ricocheted through Fiona’s mind.
What if I never went back?
Chapter 5
The Selkie Cloak
“Fiona!”
The voice cut through wind and water, echoing in Fiona’s round seal ears. She knew that voice. It was her father, calling to her from the rocky cliff overlooking the sea.
“Fiona!”
This time she could clearly hear the panic in his voice. All thoughts of staying a seal vanished.
In her selkie form, Fiona could hold her breath long enough to stay underwater as she swam past her father, who was still scanning the beach for her. As soon as she was out of his sight, Fiona pulled herself onto the shore and wriggled out of her selkie cloak. It was harder to take off than to put on. Fiona felt a strange ache in her limbs as she peeled the cloak away. But there she was again—two arms, two legs. No flippers.
“Fiona! Fiona, where are you?”
Fiona’s icy fingers fumbled as she folded the cloak into a small square and tucked it under her dripping sweater. Her drenched clothes were the perfect way to conceal the cloak as she trudged up the cliff to her father. Now that Fiona had found her cloak, she knew she would never be apart from it again—no matter what.
“Fiona!”
“Dad!” she yelled. “I’m here!”
“Fiona! You’re soaked to the bone!” Mr. Murphy exclaimed as he hurried toward her. He draped his jacket across her shoulders. “Oh my girl, what happened? Why were you in the ocean?”
“I—I fell in,” Fiona said. Fiona hated lying to her father, and this lie was even harder to tell because it was so dumb. She held her breath as Mr. Murphy’s expression shifted from relief to disbelief.
“You fell in?” he repeated.
Here it comes, Fiona thought. She should’ve known her father would never have believed that.
“Do you have any idea how much danger you were in?” Mr. Murphy continued. “I’m even more terrified now than when I couldn’t find you! You know better than to go into the ocean alone! You shouldn’t even be at the beach without an adult present. There’s no lifeguard here. The tide—”
Fiona stared at the ground as her father’s voice broke. Now, she felt doubly bad. Not only had she worried her father half to death, she’d lied to him, too. “I’m sorry, Dad,” she whispered. But even as she said those words, the selkie cloak shifted under her sweater, and Fiona knew she wasn’t sorry: not for finding the cloak, not for trying it on, and certainly not for being who—or what—she was. If only she could explain everything to him . . . but Fiona knew that wasn’t possible.
“I need to know you won’t ever again go into the ocean without me,” Mr. Murphy said.
“But Dad—”
“No buts, Fiona. Promise me.”
I can’t! she thought miserably. Fiona turned and stared out at the ocean, where she had felt so free. So alive. Fiona couldn’t give it up—not for anything. As she stared at the pink sunrise spilling over the white-capped water, Fiona thought she saw something bobbing along the waves. What was that? She squinted as she tried to get a better look.
Was that the sleek head of a copper-colored seal, watching her with bright black eyes?
“Promise me, Fiona,” Mr. Murphy repeated, pulling Fiona’s shoulder as he gently turned her to face him. “This is important.”
“I promise,” she said as she whipped back around to stare at the ocean again. The copper-colored seal—if that’s what it was—had already disappeared.
Mr. Murphy wrapped Fiona in a hug. “Thank you,” he said. “If anything happened to you . . .”
“I’ll be fine, Dad,” she said. In that moment Fiona had no qualms about keeping her promise. It was a simple thing, after all—to stay out of the water when she was in her human form.
When she was a selkie, though?
That was a different matter altogether.
Later that day, Fiona ran into the ancillary gym, cradling her backpack like a precious, fragile thing. “I found it!” she cried gleefully. “I found my selkie cloak!”
“So soon?” Ms. Therian asked in surprise.
Fiona nodded. “It was buried in a beach cave near my house,” she explained. “I don’t know why I thought to look there. I just did. I dug and dug until I hit a driftwood box and—”
“Where is it?” Mack interrupted.
Fiona patted her backpack proudly. “Right here,” she said.
“You brought it to school?” Gabriella asked. There was something in her voice that made Fiona bristle.
“Of course,” Fiona snapped. “I’ll never be away from it again.”
“That’s very common for selkies,” Ms. Therian spoke up before Gabriella could respond. “The thought of losing their cloaks is too painful to contemplate. You must take precautions, though, Fiona. No one must know what you carry with you.”
“I’m going to sew a secret pocket into my backpack for it,” Fiona explained.
“Very good,” Ms. Therian said. “Well, go ahead. Show us the cloak.”
Gabriella, Mack, and Darren all leaned closer as Fiona carefully unzipped her backpack.
“It’s—this—” Fiona said awkwardly, suddenly shy as she held out her selkie cloak. The material spilled out of her hands, as though it were made from water.
“That’s it?” Mack sounded a little disappointed. “I thought it would have, like, flippers and stuff.”
“It’s a selkie cloak, not a costume—and a beautiful one,” Ms. Therian told him before turning back to Fiona. “If you’d like to transform . . .”
Fiona blinked in surprise as Ms. Therian gestured toward the pool.
“Really?” Fiona asked. “I could . . . here? Right now?”
“If you wish,” the teacher replied. “The pool is saltwater, custom-calibrated for you. I think it would be a good opportunity for you to transform under my supervision. I’m sure you’ve been eager to try the cloak. It is your birthright, after all.”
“Actually . . . ,” Fiona began, “I did try it. Early this morning.”
Ms. Therian’s face was blank as a stone. “And?”
“It was amazing,” Fiona said breathlessly, her eyes shining. “I can’t begin to tell you . . .”
“Show us, then,” Ms. Therian said.
Fiona dropped her backpack and stripped down to her swimsuit, which she’d worn underneath her clothes, just in case she had time for another swim in the ocean after school. Then in one swift motion, she wrapped the selkie cloak around her shoulders. The other students’ faces were a mixture of fascination and fear as they watched her transform, but Fiona didn’t notice—or maybe she just didn’t care. That beautiful song—just snatches of it, not as clear and vibrant as before—called to her again. When the transformation was complete, the same feeling of lighthearted peace and absolute certainty settled over her.
As Fiona effortlessly glided through the water, she could still hear everything happening on the surface. That’s how she knew that the others were standing by the side of the pool, clapping and cheering her name.
Well done, Fiona, Ms. Therian’s voice echoed in her head. Please come join us.
Reluctantly, Fiona pulled herself out of the pool and shrugged off the selkie cloak. It was even harder to remove it this time, but only because Fiona hated transforming back. She stole a glance at the pool, wishing for five more minutes as a selkie, or even just one. One more minute in the water . . .
“Your cloak, please,” Ms. Therian said, holding out her hand.
Fiona hesitated.
“I’ll just hold it while you dry off,” Ms. Therian assured.
At last Fiona turned over her selkie cloak and stood before the others, drenched and dripping. There was a stack of towels in a basket by the pool, but Fiona didn’t mind being wet. She watched warily as Gabriella strode toward her, but when Gabriella held up her hand for a high fi
ve, Fiona knew that everything was okay.
“That was amazing,” Gabriella announced. “Fiona! You were crazy out there! Like a real seal!”
Mack and Darren hurried over too, patting Fiona on the back and laughing as her long hair dripped on them.
“Incredible,” Darren said. “That was intense.”
“I can’t wait to transform!” Mack exclaimed. “Awesome, Fiona. Pretty much the coolest thing I’ve ever seen. Ever.”
Ms. Therian approached Fiona with a towel. “It was an effortless transformation,” she said. “How does it feel to become a selkie?”
Fiona beamed. “I love it,” she said. “When I’m in the water, I never want to change back.”
“Yes. I could tell,” Ms. Therian said. Her lips were set in a thin, tense line. “Let’s all sit for a few minutes.”
Fiona wrapped the towel across her shoulders as she sat next to Gabriella.
“It’s not my intention to dampen your enthusiasm,” Ms. Therian began, “but I need you to understand that transformations are one of the most dangerous experiences for young Changers.”
Dangerous? Fiona thought in confusion. That can’t be right. I’ve never felt better—safer, more alive—
“You have been Changers for your entire lives,” Ms. Therian explained. “Naturally, it comes as a tremendous relief to take your other form at last. It’s not at all uncommon for a young, inexperienced Changer to become carried away, to completely forget all about his or her human life.”
“What happens then?” Mack asked.
Ms. Therian looked troubled. “You would become the animal completely.”
Chapter 6
Weird Together
Darren, sitting beside Ms. Therian, didn’t even realize he’d started gnawing on his cuticle until he tasted blood. He wiped his thumb along the hem of his shirt, hoping that nobody would notice. There was a sickly gray cast to Fiona’s face, which made Darren wonder just how close she’d been to losing herself.
