by Janis Mackay
On and upwards they travelled, Miranda gently nuzzling her grandson, until the rays of moonlight stretched down through the sea and the water felt lighter.
Yes, that’s Tarkin. He’s on the rock waiting for me. He’s from America. He brought toffee and a torch.
And there it was, not a ray of moonlight but the beam of Tarkin’s torch, penetrating the water from the world above. His grandmother had led him back to the door in the black rock and opened it with a push of her flipper. Go then, dear one, go back, don’t worry about us, and Neptune bless you.
In a flash, Miranda flicked her tail and dived deep under the water. At the same moment Fin broke through the surface of the sea with a gasp.
Tarkin had dropped down on his belly with his arms dropping over the side of the rock. “Oh, boy, am I glad you’re here. Grab my hands, Fin. I left you some toffee. Come on. Welcome back, buddy.”
Soon Magnus Fin was huddled in the warm fleece blanket. With Tarkin’s towel wrapped around his damp head he stuffed two toffees into his mouth. The strange encounter under the sea faded for a moment as though it had never happened.
“So, Fin, what happened? You were gone all of two minutes. Like, I want to hear all about it.”
Fin stared at Tarkin then stared down at the sea. It was lapping around the rock. “Nothing much happened,” he said, chewing busily. “Nothing at all.”
“Nothing much? Come on, Fin, something must have happened!”
Fin looked over his shoulder and stared again out to sea. It was dark and cold. Fragments of memory, like a dream half-recalled, came to him. Goose bumps crawled across his flesh. He swallowed the toffees then murmured, “A green staring eye, creepy, and banging. I got scared. And Miranda came. Fast. You, I told her your name. Sickness Miranda said. It’s come, nothing to worry about.” Fin turned back to look at Tarkin and shrugged. “I think that’s what happened.”
“She’s trying to protect you, Fin.” Tarkin jumped up. “That horrible banging noise? Well, I heard it too. No joke! I was sitting here all alone. I was just tearing off a toffee wrapper when I heard it. I got the creepiest muckle feeling all over me. It was coming from under the water – I heard it, honest!”
Fin could tell it was true by the way Tarkin’s eyes blazed and his voice trembled. The torch was shining on him, lighting up his pale shocked face and his wide blue eyes.
“You look like you heard a ghost,” Fin said. He pulled on his trainers and managed a weak smile. “Look, we’d better get home. Don’t worry, it’s just some illness. Miranda said it’ll pass and everything will be fine.” Fin stood up and shone the torch down onto the foot ledges.
“So what about that creepy eye then?” Tarkin scooped up the flask and blanket.
“Maybe I was imagining it. Come on, forget it. I want to go home.”
“Well, what about all this writing? Something’s up and you know it.” Tarkin shone his torch down onto the hundreds of Ms and Fs. “You’re needed, and your grandmother’s trying to protect you. You can’t deny that, Fin. If it was me I’d go back.”
Magnus Fin jumped off the rock. “But you’re not me, Tarkin,” he shouted. “You’re not half selkie. You didn’t come eye to eye with that scary wild thing down there. You don’t know what it’s like.” With hot tears stinging his eyes, Fin leapt over the rocks in the moonlight and ran home.
Chapter 9
Early next morning, Magnus Fin sloshed cold water on his face and stared at himself in the mirror. One green eye and one brown eye stared back and a blank face that didn’t seem to have any answers. “It’ll come to you in your dreams,” that’s what Tarkin had said the night before when he’d finally caught up with Fin on the beach path.
Fin sighed. Nothing was coming to him. Sometimes the thing he longed for was to be normal. He’d confided that to Tarkin, who of course, all fired up for adventure, had talked him out of that. “Normal? Man oh man! Do you know what you’re saying? Life is way too exciting to veg out and bleat. Normal? I can’t imagine anything worse. Get real, Fin. Get unique! And anyway – you’re needed.”
“Am I?” Fin asked his reflection, running his fingers through his hair.
“Breakfast’s ready, children,” his mother Barbara shouted up the stairs. Magnus Fin dried his face. He could smell the toast. He could hear his cousin Aquella clattering about in her little attic room. He didn’t know getting dressed still felt strange to her. He didn’t know at that same moment she was staring at her reflection in her mirror, and running a plump finger over the cotton of her school uniform, then over her white soft skin, thinking how this face, these clothes, this arm, weren’t her real self. Magnus Fin guessed at none of that. He glanced at his face in the mirror, managed a half-smile then went down to the kitchen.
For the first time in ages Magnus Fin didn’t run off to the beach. He sat down at the table for breakfast.
“Not off beachcombing?” Barbara asked, sliding the jar of raspberry jam towards him and giving him a quizzical look. “I mean, it’s really nice to have your company, but I thought you always went beachcombing before school?”
“No, I think I’ve got enough stuff.”
Barbara and Aquella stopped chewing and stared at him.
“But, Fin,” Aquella said gently, “today might be the day you get a bell from the Titanic.”
“Or a coin from the Spanish Armada,” his mother added, studying him for signs of illness.
Fin let his toast fall onto his plate. He looked up at them both then blurted out, “Well, you go then! Why don’t you? Both of you! You go!” His eyes welled up with tears. He pushed the chair back, grabbed his rucksack and ran out of the house.
He sped down the track, his heart pounding. He heard his mother shouting, “Fin, Magnus Fin, what’s wrong? I didn’t mean to upset you. I’m sorry, Fin. Come back!” But he didn’t turn round. He kept going till he couldn’t hear her any more. Then when he reached the bridge he didn’t turn left towards school but ran up through the field.
He couldn’t stand it any more. Life had been so good. He had a best friend. And he had Aquella. And his parents were happy. And now something was up under the sea. Seals were dying, he didn’t know what to do about it, and anyway it seemed he wasn’t wanted. So what about the M Fs? And that horrid green eye? He thought all this as he ran up through the barley fields towards the farm where his dad worked. His dad would know what to do. Fin would tell him everything. On he ran. He could smell the dung now and see the long-horned Highland cows. Still a thousand thoughts raced through his head. He didn’t want to worry Aquella. He knew that if the seals were in trouble she’d want to go down there and help – but without a seal skin she couldn’t. Only he, Magnus Fin, it seemed, could do that.
By this time he had reached the farm. In the distance he could see the noisy tractor with its long forked pick-up with a bale of hay on the end, and driving the tractor was his dad.
Fin waved and jumped up and down. “Dad! Hey, Dad! It’s me. It’s Fin! I’ve come to give you a hand with your work!”
But the tractor was huge and the radio was blaring and Fin, by comparison, was very small. The big red tractor drove right past him into a shed where mounds of hay bales were stacked up. Fin ran after it then watched as the huge fork dumped the hay bale. Ragnor didn’t get out but reversed the tractor and headed back to the field. Fin couldn’t believe it. Was he that small? His own father hadn’t seen him!
He slumped down on a pallet and leant back against the hay to get his breath back. From the shed he watched the tractor heave up another bale of hay. It all had to be stored before the winter. A thought suddenly occurred to Magnus Fin. Thought transmission! His father, though he’d been on the land for many years now, was, deep down, a selkie, wasn’t he? Fin had never tried it before but it just might work. Fin closed his eyes and thought hard. He concentrated on his dad and imagined his thoughts swimming towards him. Here goes, he thought, and said inside:
Something’s not good under the sea. But Miranda
says not to worry. What do you think, Dad?
Jings! Fin! I thought that was the radio. I almost fell out of the tractor.
Sorry.
That’s OK. I’m a bit rusty at this kind of thing. Well, son, with me for a dad life was never going to be straightforward.
Dad, she says the sickness has come to them. I can’t think about anything else.
The sickness! There was silence, as though a phone had been dropped.
Dad?
I’m here. Son, if Miranda says to stay away that’s what you should do. She knows best.
But Ragnor didn’t sound so sure. Magnus Fin was silent for a while.
But Dad, I feel I should go. Tarkin thinks she’s just saying that to protect me.
It might pass to you, son. These sicknesses can be fatal.
Just then Ragnor drove his tractor into the shed with a huge bale of hay jabbed onto the prongs of the pick-up.
Hey, Dad, I’m right in front of you!
Ragnor tooted the horn and waved to his son. Then he leant out of the tractor and shouted, “Want to drive a tractor?”
Magnus Fin nodded, clambered up and sat next to his father. In no time Fin was busy pushing levers, changing gear, and later on, holding the steering wheel.
“You should be at school, you know, son,” Ragnor said, though Fin could tell by the way he said it that he wasn’t about to march him back to school. Not today. It was as though Ragnor was glad for his son’s company, glad perhaps for the chance to tell him more about his selkie ancestors. “But now you’re here, well, you might as well stay.”
Magnus Fin grinned and was just about to break open a bag of crisps when a shadow passed over his father’s face and he spoke, his voice so low it was hard to hear him over the rumble of the engine. “The sickness,” Ragnor said, “has been before.” Ragnor manoeuvred the tractor along a rutted track as he spoke. “And no doubt it will come again. Why don’t you just forget it, Fin? Enjoy your life. You’ve already saved our selkie family once, and you’ve got yourself a good pal. Next year you’ll be going up to the high school. You’ve got a whole life ahead of you. Don’t spoil it now.”
Magnus Fin stared at his father, with his jet-black hair and shining dark eyes, the strong man from the sea who came ashore and married Fin’s mother. Ragnor the selkie was telling Magnus Fin to forget it!
“But I want to go back to the sea,” Fin blurted out, realising in that moment that he really did, scary green eye or not. “They need me to help them, Dad, and I want to go. I’m Sliochan Nan Ronnie. Aquella said I was.”
Ragnor shook his head and laughed. “Ron, son. Sliochan Nan Ron.” He stared at his son, his handsome rugged face a blend of sadness and admiration. “Aye, she’s right. You are. But, Fin – first hear my story. It’s not for nothing Miranda is afraid.”
Chapter 10
Ragnor switched the engine off. It was lunchtime and the other farm labourers had stopped work. Ragnor turned to look at his son, then spoke in a low voice, “Your grandmother, my mother, is the most beautiful and brave seal in the ocean. You know they call her the bright one? And there are too many who want to hunt the bright one.”
“Why would anybody want to do that?”
“Good question, son.” Ragnor shrugged. “Mostly she stays in the deep waters, a queen among selkies.”
“Does that make you a prince?”
Ragnor shook his head and laughed. “No, Fin. In the selkie kingdom you are not born a queen or a prince. It is something you achieve. Selkies who do brave deeds to help others, they can become kings and queens, princes and princesses. You perhaps are a prince, but not me. Aquella may well be a princess; but me? I’m happy to be a farm labourer and to be the husband of Barbara, your father and Aquella’s uncle. I’m a simple land selkie – that’s all.”
Ragnor gazed ahead as though it was the deep green sea in front of him and not a stubble field. “Miranda was a queen long before I was born,” he went on. “If selkies learn the secret of shape-shifting they live till a grand age. And no one knows it better than she.” He looked at his son, his handsome face serious. “The great change is no easy thing, Fin. Oh, great Neptune no! Many selkies lose their lives shape-shifting. But Miranda?” At this Ragnor fell silent till Magnus Fin was afraid he wouldn’t carry on with his story.
Fin prodded his dad on the arm. “Miranda?” he asked, waiting. “What about Miranda?”
Ragnor shook his head, as though waking from a dream. “Aye, Miranda,” he said at last, “well, her story is also my story. You see, Fin, she taught me to change out of my seal skin into human form at will. She had the wisdom to change whenever she wanted. She didn’t have to wait for the change times – midwinter and midsummer. She taught me many things: to swim with the tides; to play the surf waves; to rescue fishermen in difficulties; and to steer clear of great white sharks and killer whales. And she taught me the songs to release my seal skin and hide it in safe places. Then, when I fell in love with Barbara, a human woman, and the other selkies said I was foolish, Miranda said only one thing – follow your heart.
“Then every other day and every other night after first meeting your mother I changed out of my seal skin and came ashore. And when my uncles and cousins refused to swim with me and hunt with me, thinking, by loving a human I had betrayed them, still Miranda didn’t heed them. She stayed by me. Follow your heart, Ragnor, that’s what she told me.
“You see,” he said, his voice dropping to a whisper, “she had followed hers.” Ragnor grew silent, so silent it seemed his story was done.
“And then what happened?” Fin asked after the silence became unbearable. “What happened to Miranda?”
Ragnor blinked. “Everyone said to take a mate from the great Atlantic selkies was madness. It was well known they were reckless. They fished in the very waters the whalers and trawlermen fished. They bit through their nets. They taunted killer whales then outwitted them. But Miranda followed her heart. Her mate was the strongest of the great Atlantic selkies. Together they travelled to the Arctic and back and many adventures they had, your grandmother and grandfather. Often Miranda told me about my father. How brave he was. How he was known in all the northern waters as the fearless one. How he could leap a twenty-foot wave and sing with a rich, deep voice that, once heard, you’d never forget. Except …” Ragnor paused, “… I never heard him. Miranda found him dead the day I was born. It was the sickness.”
Fin thought about his grandfather, a great Atlantic selkie. He imagined this magnificent creature leaping high waves and swimming beside Miranda.
Ragnor turned to look at his son. “His name was Fin.”
For a while, nothing more was said. Fin gazed out at the field.
“So now you’ve heard the story, son. You know why Miranda wants to protect you. It’s a terrible thing, this sickness. The selkies have long been persecuted, but when the sickness comes there is no one to fight, no one to hide from. We don’t even know what causes it.”
Fin nodded. If anything, his father’s story had made him even more determined to go back under the sea to try and help his selkie family. He was sure now that he had been summoned for a reason; the brown sludge and the green eye flashed before his eyes. He didn’t want any more members of his family to die from this terrible sickness.
Ragnor knew that look in his son’s eyes. He placed a hand on his shoulder. “The truth is, son, life would be easier for you if you forgot the sea. Much easier. But, if you still want to go, then go.” He closed his eyes and sighed. “Take your moon-stone with you and heed your instinct.” He put his hand to his belly as though that’s where instinct came from.
Solemnly Fin nodded.
After that, nothing more was said on the subject. They ate cheddar cheese and chutney sandwiches and after lunch they brought in the last of the hay, piling it high in the byre. Sometimes they laughed. Sometimes they were silent. Fin felt the strength of his father and of the land seep into him.
Before Magnus Fin went upstair
s to get ready for bed that night his mother had been extra loving and given him a long hug. He felt warm and happy inside. Now he was back at the mirror brushing his teeth, looking for bravery in his face and finding it this time.
His toothbrush caught on something. The white toothpaste turned red and Magnus Fin spat out his last baby tooth. He held it between his thumb and forefinger, washed his mouth out, then winked at himself with his brown eye. If ever he needed a good omen for this mission that lay ahead of him, here it was.
Granny May up in John O’Groats was always going on about the tooth fairy. She said the last tooth to fall was the most special. Pure magic, that’s what she called it. Only the other week she’d seen Fin wobble his last tooth. She’d laughed and told him he could wish on a last tooth and that wish would surely come true.
Well, Miranda, Fin’s other granny, was as magical as any tooth fairy. Miranda often gave him gifts, tossing him treasures on the incoming tide. He would give her something this time: a baby tooth from her grandson. And not just any baby tooth, but his last one! That might help the sickness. Didn’t Granny May say this tooth could cure all ills? Fin held the tooth between his thumb and forefinger and brought it close up to the mirror. Perhaps it was the light from the candle flickering by the glass, but that small sharp tooth gleamed like a nugget of gold.
Magnus Fin lay his head down on his pillow that night and smiled. Underneath it lay his lucky tooth and his moon-stone. In his heart he had the story of his grandfather. And in his belly he had his instinct. He had checked the tide tables and laid out his wetsuit. He was ready.
That awful green eye had something to do with the sickness of the seals, Fin was sure of it. The crab had guided him towards it for a reason. Well, the very next evening, he would go back. And he wouldn’t allow himself to be nuzzled back up to the surface this time.
Chapter 11
