by Janis Mackay
“You said you were a great swimmer, Tarkin. You’ll be fine. It’s not far and the tide’s out. Find some bit of the boat to hold on to so you don’t float up.”
Tarkin still looked pale. He bit his bottom lip and shrugged his shoulders, then seemed to find confidence from somewhere. “Sure, man. I am a great swimmer. Man – I am the best. The best. Hi-fives.” And they slapped each other’s hands.
With that Tarkin waded out into the water, adjusted his mask, flung himself under with an enormous splash then disappeared. Magnus Fin started counting.
After ten seconds Tarkin was up again, puffing away as though he had just swum the channel. “Wow! Wow that was so cool. I went under, Fin, I went right under and I saw the boat and I could breathe. I opened my eyes. With this mask I could see right under the water. Wow! It’s all broken up and full of seaweed but you can still see it’s a boat. Wow! You don’t get that in New York!”
“Did you get the compass?”
“No. That was just a check. Man, you gotta know, you don’t go for treasure without doing a check first. OK, I’m off again. You are the greatest Fin, giving me your wetsuit and this ultra cool mask.” Once again Tarkin threw himself into the water and with a yell and a splash he vanished.
Magnus Fin, standing neck high in the water, started counting again: 17–18–19–20–21 …
As he did he felt something nudge his ankles … 28–29–30 … He thought it was a frond of seaweed but after five more seconds it came again, a thick warm nudge this time against his knees. Still counting, Magnus Fin felt about in the water … 46–47–48 … His hand brushed something sleek and warm. Whatever it was, it moved. Suddenly the great head of a seal raised itself above the water and stared into Magnus Fin’s eyes, not three inches away. The seal’s eyes were a glistening sea green, and kind, and concerned. The seal didn’t open its mouth but it was as if Magnus heard the creature speak.
“Quick! Your friend is in danger. Save him. Quick!” And as silently as it had appeared the seal lowered its gentle dog-like head and vanished from sight.
In an instant Magnus Fin dived down into the water and swam as fast as he could towards the wreck. And sure enough there was Tarkin under the water kicking and thrashing and sinking. Magnus kicked his ankles, swam underneath Tarkin, swung his friend’s thrashing arm over his own shoulder, and in three strokes brought Tarkin back up to the surface. In seconds he had Tarkin lying tummy down on the beach, beating his back.
“Tarkin!” he shouted as he pummelled, his voice choked with fear and worry, “Tarkin!”
These seconds dragged like long, awful minutes. Magnus Fin’s heart pounded in his chest. Tears stung his eyes. Suddenly, with a great gasp and a heave, Tarkin lifted his head and a gallon of seawater gushed out of his lungs. Magnus cried out and continued pummelling his friend’s back. Tarkin, too, cried out then he struggled to sit up, his face white as a sheet and streaming with water.
“I’m really sorry, Tarkin,” Magnus Fin gasped. “I thought you were doing fine. I didn’t know. Something brushed my legs. A seal. I think it was a seal. Then I knew you were in danger. You were drowning.” The words tumbled out. Shaking, relieved words.
“Thanks, Fin. You saved me. I can’t swim. I just said I could. I can’t. I can’t dive. I wanted to. Oh God, I nearly drowned.” Magnus Fin couldn’t tell what were tears and what was seawater, it was all salty and streaming down Tarkin’s face.
“I thought you could swim. Tarkin, I thought you were a great swimmer?”
“No. I thought if I tried maybe I could. I just said that to myself.” His panting and gasping stopped. Tarkin looked at his friend, and Magnus thought he had never seen such a sad look from a boy. “We never hang around anywhere long enough for me to go to lessons. I want to swim. I really want to, Fin.”
“Well, at least you’re safe now.” Magnus slapped his friend on the back. The two boys laughed and laughed out of sheer relief, not knowing that just behind them a beautiful seal lifted her head out of the water, for a second stared at them, then lowered herself back into the sea.
Chapter Nine
That following Sunday, the day of Magnus Fin’s eleventh birthday, something happened to change his life for ever. Since his parents’ aging, birthdays were very much like any other day – or they had been – until now. Magnus Fin remembered years earlier, when he was three years old, his mother had baked a cake and given him presents. She had sung happy birthday and danced about the small cottage. He remembered his father gave him a mini-surfboard. Those had been happy days.
“Happy birthday, Magnus Fin,” he said to himself, stretching and gazing at his mermaid picture. He would make the day special for himself in some way: go to the beach and see what the tide had brought in; eat a huge bag of pick-and-mix sweets then go to his favourite rock pool; perhaps take Tarkin to his favourite rock pool. He put his surf shorts on and went through to the kitchen to make his breakfast.
“Happy birthday, son,” said his father, “I’ve got a present for you.” Ragnor was up and dressed. He seemed excited and nervous. Magnus Fin felt the excitement transfer to him till a shudder ran up his spine. Suddenly he remembered – the story! Today he would hear this strange story. His heart missed a beat. Normally he enjoyed his breakfast cereal, but today he couldn’t eat.
“I want you to come with me to the cave,” continued his father, “soon as you’re ready. Remember I told you? Well, son, now you’re eleven, it’s time for the story.”
“I’m ready,” Magnus Fin said, pushing aside his bowl of untouched Rice Krispies. The thought crossed his mind whether, now he was eleven, he should still be eating Rice Krispies, or should he be having something grown-up instead, like muesli? Tarkin ate muesli.
Magnus Fin was at the front door in two minutes. He could feel his eleven-year-old heart thudding in his ribs. He was trembling with fear and excitement. He loved stories, but somehow he felt that this birthday story would not be like the other stories. “You’ll be shocked,” that’s what his father had said. Magnus Fin’s stomach was a flutter of butterflies.
Just as father and son were about to leave the house they heard Barbara call out from her bedroom, “Magnus. Happy birthday, Magnus.”
“Give her a hug, son,” Ragnor said, “go on.”
Magnus Fin ran through to where his mother lay propped up in bed. “Here is the best present,” she said, reaching over to her son and giving him a warm hug. Magnus Fin smiled at his mother, for once not seeing the aged face but only the warm brown eyes. Then he ran out to where his father stood at the garden gate.
“Come on then, birthday boy,” said his father, and the two of them set off for the cave. The sun was already high in the sky and sparkling on the water. Ragnor’s cave was a good twenty-minute walk along the shore at the slow pace he walked.
The cave was deep enough to shelter from the rain and wind, and there was many a day that Ragnor sought out his beach cave. No one knew what he did there, and though there were rumours enough, no one from the village ever came to find out. The truth was he sat there, he made fires there, he gazed out to sea there, he sang his old songs and sometimes he slept there. In the old days he and Barbara had done their courting there, but nowadays this cave was a place Ragnor went to be alone.
Magnus Fin watched his father limp across the rocks while he himself jumped lightly from stone to stone. He wondered if Ragnor would ever make it. On the sand they walked side by side and eventually reached the mouth of the cave.
Magnus Fin stared in. It had changed since the last time he was there. His father had made a seat from stones. There was even a small stone table and in the middle of the cave there was a dug-out fireplace surrounded by a circle of stones. Everything was neat. There were natural shelves in the cave where the rock jutted inwards. Here Ragnor had placed stubs of candle and circles of shells. There was even, Magnus noticed, what looked like a drawing of a seal or mermaid on the cave wall. Fin had never seen it before. Perhaps he had never looked close
ly enough – or perhaps they had come to a different cave.
“It’s cosy in here,” said Magnus. “You’ve got it like home, Dad.”
“It is in a way. And it’s fine and quiet. Sit yourself down, son,” Ragnor said, nodding in the direction of the stone seat. For a long time Ragnor didn’t speak. Magnus Fin sat on the seat and waited. His father arranged driftwood into a spire then sparked the dry wood into life. It crackled and soon a strip of smoke curled up and wafted towards the mouth of the cave.
“Rare smell, isn’t it?” Ragnor said, sitting on the stone table because there was only one seat. Magnus Fin nodded. It was.
Through the smoke Magnus Fin peered at his father, thinking he had never seen anyone so lined, so grey. “I wasn’t always this way,” Ragnor said, reading his thoughts. “This ancient-looking creature you see is not me. You could say that what you see is an enchantment. And now it’s your eleventh birthday. It’s a special age, son – no longer a young boy, not yet a man. Some call it the age between the worlds. Listen to me carefully, my son, while I tell you – I wasn’t always a human man.”
The smoke stung Magnus Fin’s eyes. He rubbed them, thinking in that moment he might faint, or run away, or cry. What was his father saying? What kind of a birthday gift was this? Where was the mountain bike or the surfboard? This bent and lined man sitting opposite him and now staring at him through the smoke – who was he? And what did he mean – enchantment?
“It’s time you knew the truth about where you came from, Magnus Fin. Let me tell you as best I can: the green eye you got from me and the sea, the brown eye you got from your mother and the land. And the deep blue pupils in your eyes you got from your grandmother, the wisest and most beautiful seal that ever lived. These stories we told you, Fin, about me being a fisherman from a far-off island – they weren’t true, or not completely. Aye, Fin, even your name has a claim to both worlds. Magnus was given to you from your mother after her father. Fin you got from me, and the sea. I can tell you the truth now, son; great Neptune knows I’ve carried it in me long enough – my secret, like a weight around my neck. I am – or, I was – a selkie.”
Magnus Fin swallowed then shivered and rubbed his hands together, even though it was warm by the flames of the fire. Selkie! He’d heard that word before – in a story maybe. But now his head was in a spin. What was his father saying – he was a selkie? Feeling dizzy he remembered the sea shanty he’d often heard his father sing.
I am a man upon the land
I was a selkie in the sea
But I came ashore and married a lass
Now I’ll see no more my Sule Skerrie.
His father went on with his tale and it took Magnus Fin all his strength not to fall from the stone chair. “You’ll have heard of us, son, or maybe not. I am a seal man, a selkie. Man on the land, seal in the water. It’s not given to all seals but there are some of us with the gift of both worlds. When the moon was full I could slip out of my seal skin and take on the form of a man. We selkies had fun, I can tell you. Sometimes we would hide our seal skins and go to dances when we heard music playing on the land, and human folk would say we could dance like the waves of the sea. Little knowing it was the waves of the sea taught us to dance in the first place. Aye, I lived out there, far out there and way down deep. I come from a place called the Emerald Valley of the seal people, or, in our ancient tongue, Sule Skerrie. I miss it, son, more than you can ever know.”
Magnus Fin hadn’t fainted, or fallen from his stone seat. He sat rigid as though he himself was made of stone. He didn’t know what to say. A tear ran from his father’s eyes. Maybe this was not a time for Magnus to speak. He twisted his hands together and stared into the fire. The strange words his father was speaking continued unravelling like thread.
“I was a handsome, fit and brave seal. Oh, Fin, I could swim faster than any seal – no whale could ever catch me – but I was also foolish. It was sport amongst us young selkies to try for a human girlfriend. A kiss from a human girl, for us in our world, was like kissing a beautiful princess in this world. And, Fin, your mother was a beauty. You can’t see that now, and we are both to blame for that, but your granny has told you often enough how beautiful she was and it’s true. I used to watch her picking shells on the shore. Sometimes she swam in the sea. Once she lay on a rock in the sun and that’s when I kissed her. I slipped out of my seal skin, bent over her as she slept and kissed her. Then I brought her jewels that I had taken from the holds of wrecked ships. Son, you wouldn’t believe what riches are under the sea!”
For a second Magnus Fin’s troubled mind flitted to his own Neptune’s Cave. Yes, he knew what treasure there was under the sea. He nodded at his father but Ragnor was staring into the smoke of the fire.
“Your mother found me handsome and of course she liked the jewels I brought her. She said I was far more pleasing than any crofter or farmer’s son. I loved her beauty and though all the selkies warned me against it I came ashore and married her. I gave her my seal skin and took on a human form for I couldn’t bear to live without her. You were born, Fin, and we loved you dearly – though your eyes unsettled your mother.”
Magnus Fin blinked. He could imagine his eyes unsettled his mother.
“For three years, Fin, we were blissfully happy. Folk in the village often said they’d never met a couple more in love than we were.”
Magnus Fin listened to his father’s words. He had always known he was somehow different, and he had always loved the sea. He, Magnus Fin, was descended from the seal folk. It made sense, in a strange dream-like way, and it frightened him to the core. Questions, that for so long now he had sewn up inside himself, came tumbling out: “But how did you know how to be a man? I mean, do you feel like a seal inside yourself? How did you learn to talk? How did you take off your skin? How?”
“Oh, lad, so many questions. Us selkies know both worlds. It was easy for me to be a man because I had often taken off my skin. You could say this stay on the land has just gone on for longer than usual. Anyway, Fin, on your third birthday I wanted to take you under the sea. It is our custom to present our young to the family at the age of three. Us seal folk have always done this. It’s a time of great celebration and well-wishing. It’s the time the young one meets the elders and good wishes are given, we call them hansels.”
Magnus Fin stared at his father through the flames of the fire. The words he was hearing had a strange effect on him. Part of him wanted to listen, part of him wanted to run away. But, taking deep breaths, he continued listening to his father’s tale.
“I begged your mother to give me back my seal skin. I promised I would only be gone for three days, but your mother was petrified I would go and take you and we would never return, and she’d be left alone. I tried to convince her, Fin, but the truth is I couldn’t convince even myself. I wasn’t sure that, once under the sea and back with my own folks, I would ever come back. Barbara knew that, Fin, and on that day she took out my seal skin and she burnt it.”
Magnus Fin gasped. “She didn’t mean to,” his father added quickly. “She has told me that a thousand times. It was only meant to be a tiny burn, just enough to make it difficult for me to live for more than a few days underwater. But she had forgotten how dry the seal skin had become. Four years out of the salt water and my seal skin was dry as tinder. When she held a match to it the whole thing went up in flames. I begged her to stop. I felt the flames burn me as though my seal skin was still a part of me. The fire seared through my legs. I screamed. She screamed.”
A shiver ran the length of Magnus Fin’s spine. “She tried to stamp it out,” his father went on, “and doing so she burnt her foot. Since that day I have limped and she has limped. And since that day, Fin, every year has been as seven to your mother and me. Under the sea, the tides renew us, the waves keep us young. We selkies live hundreds of years. But here on the land I took on human time and lived as a human man, but after the burning of my skin everything changed. With the burning of the skin we
broke the law of the sea and every day we age, we grow greyer, weaker, slower.”
“But if she is sorry, I mean, if Mum didn’t mean to, can’t she be forgiven? We can all do things that are wrong, can’t we? We don’t have to suffer for years and years, do we? Is there nothing that can be done to help?” Magnus Fin’s eyes were wide with anguish.
“If the waves came back that might help in some way, son. We used to bathe in the sea, your mum and me. It helped but she always clung on to me, afraid I might dive under the water and never come back. Little did she know I couldn’t even swim without my seal skin. But you can, Fin. So now, son, I have told you my story. Uncommon though it is, it is your story too. Had you received the hansels that were yours by right at the age of three, you would have had the bravery to stand up to anyone. I’m sorry, Fin – you’ve had to cope without the good wishes of your seal kin.”
“What is a hansel?” asked Magnus Fin.
“Well now, every young selkie needs a hansel. It’s a gift, Fin – a good wish for your life from your ancestors. It’s our way of passing on good things to the young. You missed them when you were three. And so I couldn’t speak of this until you turned eleven years old – the year between the ages when you are both child and man. So often I longed to, for look, Fin, can you see how weak the sea has become? Have you not wondered what has happened to the waves? I fear for my people, Fin. Look, the tide is far out, let me show you something.”
Magnus Fin, as though in a dream, got up from his stone seat, left the cave and followed his father. A black-backed gull wheeled overhead. The sea was glass still. The tide was low. It was true: the waves were small and weak as though they were hardly able to drive themselves up the shore. Climbing over the black and seaweed-strewn rocks, Magnus Fin thought with every tottering step that his father would slip and fall. It seemed an age that they clambered over them.
Magnus Fin’s head spun like a leaf in the wind. Thoughts whizzed like electric shocks through his brain till he felt his head would burst. If his father was a selkie, what did that make him? What would Tarkin say if he found out? Was his father going mad? Tarkin said old folk can get senile. Was Dad senile – so that now he believed in selkies? They don’t exist, do they? Do they? Do they?
