by Janis Mackay
While Magnus Fin was preparing to go under the sea, Tarkin, if he managed to work on his mother’s boyfriend and if everything went according to plan, would be on the sea.
Frank, the boyfriend, had, back at the end of summer, acquired a small wooden boat. There was just one problem. Tarkin didn’t like Frank. In fact, Tarkin couldn’t stand Frank. Frank wasn’t Tarkin’s dad. Tarkin’s real dad had a real fishing boat. Tarkin’s real dad had taken him fishing when they lived in the Yukon. Tarkin had gone on about it so much that one day Frank turned up with a broad smile on his face and a twinkle in his eyes. “Come to the window and see what I bought us, buddy,” he said, waving Tarkin over.
“I’m not your buddy.” That’s what Tarkin had said, until his mother started to cry, saying did he have any idea how hurtful he was being? Tarkin hated it when she cried. He wasn’t being hurtful. He was just telling the truth. But he was kind of interested in what was outside the window. So Tarkin stood up, pretending he was looking for the remote control. While Frank was comforting his mother Tarkin shot a glance out the window. Wow! A boat! But he said nothing, switched on the television and ignored Frank.
“That cost Frank a lot of money, Tarkin. It don’t grow on trees, you know. Frank got the boat for you and him. He thought you’d like it,” said his mother.
“I like it,” Tarkin said, then muttered, “big shame about him.”
“What did you say, son?”
But Frank took her hand and squeezed it. “Hey, it’s OK, Martha. He says he likes it. That’s good. That’s just fine.”
That had been three months ago. Since then the boat had bobbed about down in the harbour with nothing but rain and an occasional seagull in it. Frank had made a few hints about taking the boat out together, but Tarkin always said he had better things to do. After a while Frank stopped mentioning it.
But now Tarkin could think about nothing else. The next day was Friday. Low tide was eight o’clock at night. Tarkin had a strong hunch that’s when Magnus Fin was going back under the sea. Fin hadn’t been at school that day. All morning Tarkin had worried himself sick thinking Fin had gone off under the sea without even telling him, until someone said he’d been spotted up at the farm.
Friday night. That’s when Fin would go. Apart from anything, it would be full moon, which was a magical time in the selkie world. Tarkin also had a hunch a boat would come in handy. He wanted to be a part of this adventure if it was the last thing he did.
People did go fishing at night. Tarkin had seen them, with lights on their boats. So he bit his lip. He twisted his ponytail round and round his fingers. He fiddled with the two silver earrings hooped in his left ear. Slowly he pushed the door of Frank’s shed open and looked down at the floor.
“Um … Frank?”
“Hey, buddy. Good to see you. What can I do for you?”
“Um … know that boat?”
“Sure, Tark. Our boat you mean. What about it?”
“Fancy going, um – fishing – tonight? Buddy?” Tarkin reckoned one evening’s practice with Frank would prepare him for taking the boat out alone the next night.
“In the dark? Hey, well … yeah, why not, buddy. Yeah, I’ve got bait. Got us life jackets an’ all. Sure, Tark, and hey, what a great idea. Moonlight fishing, I can’t wait!”
Chapter 12
Early the next morning, Fin and Tarkin ran down to the shore. Tarkin was full of his fishing trip: how he had been sick over the side and how Frank hadn’t even managed to catch one fish. “Not one! But after spewing up all over Frank’s feet I got used to the waves tossing me about. Then I learnt how to use the rudder. It’s real easy. Oh man! Frank didn’t even know how to hook bait on. You should have seen him. What a loser. He started singing some old-fashioned fishing song. Talk about tuneless?” Tarkin laughed and said he had sailor’s legs, just like his dad, but he didn’t tell Magnus Fin the real reason for his boat trip.
Magnus Fin felt sorry for Frank. Tarkin was his best friend, there was no doubt about that, but Fin always felt awkward when he started on about Frank.
By this time they had reached the beach. They scuffed up sand and examined the tideline. The tides around full moon always seemed stronger. Full moon, so Fin told Tarkin, was usually when he found his best treasures.
“Look!” Fin yelled, falling to his knees. “A car number plate!”
“Wow! No way – it’s from a Ferrari!”
That was another good omen. Now Tarkin needed to find something too. There were lots of shells, and a few seagull feathers, lots of driftwood, and three plastic bottles, but nothing you could seriously call treasure. Tarkin looked glum. Maybe there was to be no good omen for him … Maybe he’d sink the boat …
“Shuna! Run, hide!”
Tarkin and Magnus Fin looked up. A gull screeched above them, but the sound they’d both heard hadn’t been a gull. The boys scrambled to their feet and peered along the beach towards the flat rocks near the cave.
In the distance a girl with very long hair stumbled over the rocks, fell, got up and stumbled again. Fin and Tarkin stared at each other.
“Who’s that?” asked Tarkin. Fin shrugged. The girl hadn’t seen them. And the way she kept falling looked as though she was in some kind of trouble.
“Come on!” Fin started to run. “Let’s see what’s wrong.”
The two boys tore across the beach, up onto the sandy track and along to where the flat rocks lay like shelves between the land and the sea. They both knew the dead seals were on these rocks. As they came closer they slowed down. The girl had vanished.
The boys scanned the rocks and beach around them. Fin’s heart gave a jolt. Another dead seal lay washed up on the ledge. It was like a cemetery for seals. He shivered. Again he heard the voice call, “Shuna – run! Let him go! Quick! We can’t stay here.” Fin knew that voice. It was coming from behind a rock.
Meanwhile Tarkin was walking towards the dead seals. He had seen something Fin hadn’t. Pressed against the body of the fourth seal, almost hidden behind its great round body, lay the girl. Her face was buried deep into the belly of the seal, and she was weeping.
Fin watched, astounded, as Tarkin knelt down beside the girl to comfort her. But when he reached out to gently touch her she screamed and jumped to her feet.
“Miranda!” she yelped. “Help me! It’s a human. Oh help!”
In that moment Miranda, her long white hair trailing to her waist, a tangle of dulse for a skirt and a necklace of shells jangling with every step, came out from her hiding place. Seeing his grandmother, Fin ran towards her, but she cried out in distress and quickly stepped back, shaking her head and lifting a hand to ward him off.
“Stop! It has come to me, Fin. Don’t approach. The sickness has come to me. Stay back!”
Fin stopped dead in his tracks. Tarkin gazed in amazement. The two long-haired women, dressed in seaweed and shells, seemed to him magical, wonderful creatures. Only once had Tarkin seen such a miraculous sight: the mermaid he’d seen in a freezing lake on a fishing trip with his dad, long ago. Now he blinked, and blinked again, mesmerised.
While Tarkin stared at Shuna, Fin stared at his grandmother. Her snow-white hair covered her face. In one hand she held something – a scallop shell filled with deep-green shreds of seaweed. At her feet lay a pile of fur. Fin looked down at the two seal skins that lay near Miranda’s webbed feet. Shuna ran to Miranda and buried her face in the older woman’s hair.
“But I want to help,” Fin called out. “Please, Miranda – please let me.”
But still Miranda shook her head. She placed the scallop shell of seaweed on the sand. Then she slipped her hand into the girl’s and bent down. Hurriedly she lifted up the seal skins and ran, pulling the girl with her to the water’s edge. The shiny black and grey skin she handed to Shuna. The silvery white one she kept for herself. Seawater now frothed round their white ankles. She looked back at her grandson.
Now Fin could see that the sickness had come. Miranda’s eyes, a
lways so bright and clear, were cloudy as though a skin of milk lay over them.
“Let him help, please, Miranda,” the young selkie pleaded. “For the memory of my dead brother, let Magnus Fin help us.”
“Hush, Shuna, you don’t know what you’re saying.”
“I do. If no one helps it will go on and on and on. Then there’ll be no one left to help.” Shuna stared at Magnus Fin, her eyes brim-full with tears. “Please?”
“It is my duty to protect you, Magnus Fin,” Miranda said, “but if you are set upon this journey, then come, but know that I will do what I can to keep the sickness from you. Take the scallop shell. In it is healing medicine from Neptune. I brought it here, but … I was too late.”
Only then did Miranda, flinching, seem to sense there was someone else present. “Tell the human to look away,” she said anxiously. “It’s not for him to witness shape-shifting.”
“Tarkin, close your eyes,” Magnus Fin shouted over to his friend.
Tarkin, though, had already heard Miranda and quickly buried his face in his hands. But, as Miranda and Shuna slipped into their seal skins, Tarkin made a tiny gap between two of his fingers, and peered out. He watched as the girl and the woman changed into their seal skins.
It shocked him. It stunned him. The soft white human skin of the women seemed to melt into the thick fur. Their arms became flippers. Their legs knitted together and became one. Then the two beautiful seals, now lying flat on the rocks, hauled their round bodies up to the water’s edge then slipped silently into the sea.
“You looked!” Fin gasped, astounded that his best friend would disobey Miranda.
Tarkin said nothing. He could only stare at the place on the rocks where the seals had lain. His face was white. His mouth fell open and his whole body trembled.
“You shouldn’t have done that.” A tremor of anger shot through Fin’s words. “They said not to look. I can’t believe you spied on them. You shouldn’t have done that, you know.”
Still Tarkin was silent. He stumbled to his feet. He opened and closed his mouth, trying to say something. No words came.
“Come on,” said Fin, his Ferrari number plate tucked under his arm, and now the scallop shell of precious seaweed held carefully in his hands, “we’d better get to school.” He stared strangely at Tarkin and shook his head. “Anybody would think you’d been struck dumb!”
Tarkin opened his mouth. He tried to push out a word, a sound even. But nothing came. Not even a whisper.
Magnus Fin was right. Tarkin had been struck dumb.
Chapter 13
“Wait for me, Tarkin!” Magnus Fin shouted, indicating that he was going to put the Ferrari sign and seaweed in his bedroom and he’d be back out in a flash.
Fin ran into the house, flew up the stairs and into his bedroom, where he slid the number plate and scallop shell under his bed. He grabbed his rucksack then turned and ran downstairs three at a time. He couldn’t have been in the house more than a minute, but when he got back outside Tarkin had disappeared.
Fin raced along the track to catch him up. “Tarkin?” he yelled as he ran. “Tarkin, where are you?” But Tarkin must have run like the wind. He was well and truly gone.
Magnus Fin walked up the brae to school alone that morning. Now, as if his planned return under the sea that evening wasn’t enough to worry about, there was a missing best friend as well.
“Where’s that American pal of yours then?” boomed Mr Sargent when he was marking the register.
This time it was Magnus Fin’s turn to shrug his shoulders.
“Off to get a hair cut by any chance? Hmmm?”
“He’s got a sore throat, I think,” Magnus Fin said, hoping that Tarkin’s sudden loss of voice was nothing more sinister than that.
The clock on the classroom wall moved closer and closer to the time of low tide. It was ten o’clock – long division, then two o’clock – French, then half past three.
“Happy St Andrew’s day,” boomed Mr Sargent as the bell rang and everyone made a quick dash for the door. “And don’t forget your maths homework for Monday.” But nobody heard that. In seconds the classroom emptied. It was the weekend. Children ran across the playground, cheering and skipping, kicking balls and yelling.
Aquella caught up with her cousin on the way down the brae. “Hey! Where’s Tarkin gone?” she asked, out of breath.
“He’s got a sore throat,” Fin said, without looking her in the eye. Aquella instantly knew something was up. The cousins walked on together, Fin sneaking glances at his watch. Four hours to go. Fin had to be careful what he thought. Aquella could read his mind. But it was hard to control your thoughts. As soon as Fin tried not to think about going under the sea, he thought about going under the sea. Aquella tugged his sleeve.
“You think I’m stupid?”
Fin glanced round at her. “I never said that.”
“You really think I don’t know?”
Fin played dumb. “Know what?”
“Now you’re the stupid one. Know everything! You think I didn’t see Shuna? And Miranda? You think I don’t know about the sickness? Honestly, Magnus Fin. I’ve been down to the beach; I’ve seen the dead seals. Dead selkies if you want to know. You think cos I’m a land girl now I can just turn my back on the sea?”
Fin didn’t know what to say. He coughed and looked down. He didn’t know she felt homesick. She seemed happy. She was in a girl’s band. She had friends. Sarah and Kayla hung about with her. Everybody seemed to love Aquella. She was kind and gentle and popular. But as she stared at Magnus Fin her green eyes blazed. She wasn’t so gentle now.
“You think I like being left out? You think I can just crawl out of the sea and forget about my whole life and family and friends? Oh, Fin, I cry myself to sleep. I miss the sea so much. Sometimes I think I’ll never get used to squeezing my feet into shoes and eating vegetables. And now the sickness has come to them and there’s nothing I can do about it, because if I get salt water on my skin I’ll shrivel up.” By this time large tears were rolling down Aquella’s face.
Fin knew about the skin thing. Skin was important for selkies. Aquella had to go a year and a day on dry land, without so much as a splash of seawater, for her skin to fully adapt to air. Fin laid a hand on her shoulder for comfort.
They had reached the track now that led to the cottage. Both of them stared out over the water. “Mostly I close my eyes so I don’t see the sea. Sometimes I even put my hands over my ears so I don’t hear it. I’m afraid I might wake up in the middle of the night and just go – back into the sea.”
Magnus Fin patted her back. He felt like crying himself. He had no idea it was so hard for her. Poor Aquella. She looked at him, wiping her tears with her long black hair. “But I stay, Fin. I stay because it’s good to be a land girl. And I stay because I wouldn’t be good to anyone shrivelled up.” She managed a tiny smile. “But at least tell me what you’re going to do, what you’re planning. I know I’m a selkie without a skin, but maybe I can do something.”
Fin glanced again at his watch then at Aquella. “I’m going under the sea at eight o’clock tonight. I’ve got a present for Miranda that might help. It’s my last baby tooth. And there’s something hidden behind a weird rock. I want to see what it is. Maybe I can do something to help. Maybe I can’t. But I have to try.” Just blurting these words out gave Fin a feeling of strength. And it felt good to have someone to talk to.
“I’ll come down to the beach tonight,” Aquella said. She had stopped crying now and seemed excited. “When you’re under the sea send messages to me with your thoughts. If there’s anything I can do tell me. Please, Fin – I need to help them. You understand that, don’t you?”
Fin nodded. “Promise you won’t get salt water on your skin?”
Aquella smiled. “Not a drop, I promise.”
Then Fin, suddenly remembering, said, “Tarkin’s lost his voice. He watched Miranda and Shuna change into their seal skins. That’s why he skipped school. He
can’t speak.”
“Oh no!” Aquella threw her hands to her face. “Why did he go and do that?”
But Fin didn’t answer because just then Barbara appeared at the front door of the cottage. “Hey! I got you two presents,” she called, waving for them both to come in. “Something nice to wear for the ceilidh tonight.”
“Ceilidh? Oh crikey, I totally forgot about the ceilidh,” Magnus Fin said to Aquella while waving to his mother.
“I’ve got a kilt for you, Magnus, and a beautiful green dress for you, Aquella.” Barbara was waving for them to come and try the new clothes on.
“Little does she know,” Aquella whispered, nudging her cousin in the ribs, “you’ll be swimming in a wetsuit deep under the sea. Some kilt! Some ceilidh!”
“And I thought we should maybe practise a few ceilidh dances,” Barbara said as the two children stepped into the cottage. “It’ll be Aquella’s first ceilidh. Now isn’t that exciting?”
Barbara beamed at the children while Aquella laughed nervously and Magnus Fin coughed and almost choked. “Yeah!” they chorused, flashing a baffled look at each other.
Barbara put fiddle music on and the sound wafted into the garden, drifted over the stone wall, glided down the beach and danced out to sea.
Chapter 14
Meanwhile up in the croft at the edge of the village, Tarkin was lying in bed refusing to speak to anyone. His mother insisted on coming into his room every half hour to check on him. “At least write to me, honey, if that makes things easier on your throat.”
Tarkin shook his head. Why wouldn’t she just leave him alone? And then, as if her frequent “feeling any better honey?” calls, and trays piled with bagels and cream cheese, and glasses of warm milk weren’t enough, Frank insisted on sitting on the edge of his bed telling him stories.
“There was this tortoise and it got racing with a hare. At least, I think it was a hare …”
Tarkin closed his eyes and sunk down under the duvet.
