***
I wake up spitting water. I’m shivering violently.
“Valentina!” I splutter. “Valentina!”
“She’s fine, she’s here!” A girl’s voice. Mairi.
I turn my head and see Mairi, Valentina and Camilla kneeling beside me. Valentina is soaking wet, her hair falling in long fair strands over her shoulders.
“You nearly drowned, you silly beggar!” she shouts.
“So did you! You crazy girl! Why did you… why did you jump–” I cough up more water.
“Shhhh… breathe!” Mairi urges me. Her face looks softer, kinder than before.
“The mermaids saved me.” I manage to say. I sit up, spluttering more water.
“They saved me too,” whispers Valentina. “They sort of… sort of kissed me, and then I could breathe underwater. For a wee while. You were out of it for ages, Luca, I thought you were dead…” She’s on the verge of tears.
“Where are they? The mermaids?”
“Sorley and Alistair are sorting them out. Securing the aquarium for the journey, and all that,” Mairi reassures us.
“You’ll catch your death in these wet clothes. But I didn’t think to bring a change. I never thought you’d be in the water!” Uncle Alistair is striding towards us.
“Sorry…” I murmur.
“And your sister, jumping after you! So we had not one, but two children to save! Terrible, terrible. But you’re alright now.”
“I’m not a child,” grunts Valentina.
“Uncle Alistair…” Maybe I should tell him about the way I could understand the mermaids’ language.
“Later, Luca. We’d better get you safely back to the hotel.”
“Ok.”
Maybe I won’t tell him at all. Maybe I dreamt it?
“See you guys soon, then. Thanks for helping,” says Sorley to my uncle.
“You’ll certainly see us again soon. I have to show Luca and Vally what you do up there in Loch Glas.”
Loch Glas? Is that where the mermaids are going?
“Can I say goodbye to the mermaids?” I ask.
“Be quick, Luca.”
They are sitting in the aquarium, arms around each other. One of them has a nasty bruise down her side, and a long strip of missing scales down her tail. It looks painful, but it could have been much worse.
“Don’t worry. If Uncle Alistair trusts Sorley and Mairi, you can too.” This is what I want to say, but something strange comes out of my lips. A singing sound, an undersea sound. The mermaid language.
How on earth do I know it? When did I learn it?
One of the mermaids puts her hand against the glass. It’s webbed, and blue-grey like the rest of her body. I lift my arm, and put my hand against hers on the other side of the glass. We stay like that for a moment.
“Thank you,” I whisper, and a strange sound of foamy waves, windswept rocks and cold depths comes out.
“I hope to see you again,” she replies.
“Me too.”
The van sways gently. Mairi has come up, and she’s standing at my shoulder, her thoughtful face tipped on one side.
“You’re cool, Luca Grant,” she says without looking at me.
I climb down, and the van drives away, taking Mairi, Sorley and the mermaids out of the city.
I’m lost in thought as we drive back to the hotel. I can’t believe what just happened. I can’t believe I can speak mermaid!
I think I’ll keep it to myself, for now.
It’s nearly dawn as we step into the hotel. We sneak into our room. It’s such a relief to get out of my wet clothes. Valentina and I shiver together.
“I’m starving,” she says.
“So am I.”
Only a couple of hours until Mum and Nonna wake up, then we can have the biggest breakfast on the menu.
Besides my hunger, I feel so much better. The freezing cold leaves me. We fall asleep, exhausted.
***
“Wakey wakey! Time to go and explore Glasgow!”
My mum sounds horribly cheery. It’s half past seven. I’m shattered. Valentina is still dead to the world.
“Come on you two. Get dressed. We’ll see you in the restaurant in ten minutes.”
I’m so tired I feel sick. I drag myself out of bed… and then I see wet muddy clothes still lying on the floor! My mum can’t have noticed them. I hang them over chairs. Hopefully they’ll dry a little.
Valentina has purple shadows under her eyes. We drag ourselves out.
“CHILDREN! HELLO! DID YOU SLEEP WELL?” booms Uncle Alistair as we walk into the restaurant.
He’s loud. Too loud for someone who had two hours’ sleep.
Valentina is about to attack the bacon and eggs, when my mum gasps.
“Luca!”
“Yes!” I exclaim, jolted. My nerves are a bit frayed.
“What’s that?” She lifts my arm. There’s a nasty-looking purple bruise running from my elbow to my wrist.
Valentina stops chewing.
“Oh, that. I bumped into the wardrobe.”
“That’s some bump, Luca. And you’re all scratched…”
She touches my neck. Uh oh. I hadn’t noticed that.
“What happened?”
“I had left my diary in the van…” I scramble. “I wanted to write before sleeping. So I went down to get it. It wasn’t dark or anything, it was just past nine o’clock. I lost my footing and fell.”
“Poor you! We’ll get you some arnica cream. Come on, everybody. Glasgow awaits us!”
I take a deep breath. Valentina starts eating again.
We got away with it.
I hate lying to my mum, but if I think of the mermaids – the way we talked, their black eyes and blue skin, and that incredible seaweed hair…
No, I can’t give up on the RWR. I just can’t.
PART THREE: AUTUMN
15. FROM THE SEA
Alistair Grant’s Scottish Paranormal Database
Entry Number 1: Selkies in Sanaigmore Bay
Type: Fairy/cryptozoology (disputed)
Location: Islay
Date: Summer, 1933–summer, 2003
Details: When she was ten years old, Rhona McNeil befriended a group of selkies on the beach near her house in Sanaigmore Bay. The friendship lasted all her life, and she recorded their conversation in an invaluable diary, one of the most precious documents available to paranormal workers. Selkies are half seal, half human. They come on land, and sometimes marry humans and have children. To come on land, they shed their seal skin; this has to be kept safe, because they must wear it in order to return to the sea. If kept from the sea for too long, selkies will sicken and die.
It’s been a beautiful Hebridean summer, with the sun shining, the sea blue-green and smooth. It’s now August – technically still summer, but we can feel the days getting fresher already. There’s a chilly wind blowing on the holiday makers, and people have started to cover up. Nonna Rina will be heading home to Italy soon. She’s been cooking up extra food and storing it in the freezer so there’s no danger we’ll starve during the next months.
Next week we’ll be back in school. Not Eilean Primary anymore: Adil and I will be starting high school. I’m a bit nervous about it, though since Camilla terrified Gary I’ve had no more trouble from him and his gang. Still, everything will be new.
There’ll be no more trips away with Uncle Alistair for a while. Mum and Dad say I must concentrate on my studies now. I suppose they’ve got a point, but I’m disappointed anyway.
Relishing our last week of freedom, Valentina and I head out for a morning wander and drop in on Donald down at the harbour. Valentina always hopes to find some weird creatures in the fishermen’s catch.
“Donald?”
“Yes, pet?”
“Have you ever seen a mermaid?”
I nudge her. She shouldn’t be talking about these things, in case people start to suspect there’s something not normal about RWR.
�
�No, not me. But a friend of my cousin, over in Castlebay, did. Well, he said he did. Willie Grant was his name. Wait a minute. He was a relation of yours, wasn’t he?”
“My dad’s uncle was called Willie. He died in the war.”
“Yes, that one. He used to See things. Some said he was a bit… you know, soft in the head. I suppose he should have stopped talking about those kind of things, because folk were laughing at him. But he kept trying to convince everyone that what he said was true. Mermaids, sea serpents, the lot. Sailor stories, you know? He was in the Navy…” Donald shrugs his shoulders.
Poor Willie Grant. Nobody believed him. He had nobody to share his gift with.
I wonder if that’s why Dad has kept these stories from us. He didn’t want people to think our relatives were weird, or mad.
“Why, have you seen a mermaid?” Donald is teasing Valentina.
“No way, nothing like that!”
“No, not even a bit!” We laugh nervously.
“Never saw a mermaid in my life!” adds Valentina, just to make sure Donald is convinced.
“Neither have I. Or a… a…”
I freeze.
“Luca?” whispers Valentina, following my gaze. Then she gasps.
“Oh, look!” says Donald. “A seal. Isn’t she lovely?”
“Help me, Luca!” says the seal. But it’s not a seal. It’s a selkie.
I can’t speak, I can’t move a muscle. Surely the selkie knows that I can’t speak to her in front of Donald and the other sailors.
“Come down to the beach. I need help. Please…” she adds. Her eyes are amazing. A bit like the mermaids’, but blacker, softer.
“See you later, Donald. We’re going down to the beach for a bit,” chirps Valentina in a shrill voice. I still can’t speak.
“Right so, see you later.” He waves.
We run as fast as we can along the sand to the rock pools. There are a few children playing nearby, but we manage to find a secluded corner.
After a few minutes, the selkie emerges. She’s leaning on a rock, so we can only see half of her. She looks like a normal woman, with very black hair and very white skin. The thing that gives her away is her eyes. No human being has eyes as black and as shiny as that. Seal’s eyes.
“There you are. Hello, Luca, hello Valentina.”
“How do you know my name?” asks Valentina.
“I’ve seen you and your brother playing on the beach many times. I even spoke to your brother, once.”
“You never told me!” exclaims Valentina, outraged. “You saw a selkie and you never told me!”
“I wasn’t sure it had happened for real…” I protest. A shiver creeps down my spine, as I recall something that happened long ago, something uncertain, that I had chosen to forget…
One day, when I must have been about four years old, I think, we had a family picnic on the beach. It was chilly. Dad was there with us, which rarely happened, and that made the day stand out.
Mum and Dad were playing with Valentina, and I’d gone to explore the rock pools. I was looking at the little shrimps swimming about in the shallow water, when I felt someone watching me. Strange, I know, but I just felt it, somehow.
I lifted my head and saw a pair of black, liquid eyes gazing at me from the swell. At first I thought it was a seal, but then I saw her long black hair floating in the water, and her arms, crossed in front of her as she leant on a rock. We looked at each other for a bit in silence, then she spoke.
“What’s your name?”
“Luca. And yours?”
“Mary Kenny.”
“Are you not cold?”
“No. The water feels great.” At that moment, someone stepped onto the rocks behind me. “I’ll see you again, Luca,” she whispered quickly, and disappeared into the sea, just like that – like it had all been a dream.
As she dived back, I saw her body.
It didn’t look right. It didn’t look human. I couldn’t make sense of it. And that meant although the strange woman was nice to me, I still felt scared. I never told anyone about what I saw, and I decided, without really thinking about it, to just forget it.
But it had happened.
“You’re Mary Kenny.” My voice sounds a bit croaky.
“You know each other?” gasps Valentina.
“From way back!” laughs Mary. “Can you See me too, Valentina? For what I am?”
“Yes. I’m lucky that way.”
“You’re lucky indeed. There are many wonders in this sea that most people will never be able to know…”
“I wish I could see everything!” says Valentina.
“You will. It’s in your eyes… you’ll unravel many mysteries,” smiles Mary.
“Yes,” Valentina agrees, perfectly confident as ever.
“I called to you because I need your help,” says Mary.
“Of course!” we say in unison.
“I need to come on land. I’ve lost something very precious to me.”
“Oh… What is it?”
“My mother’s wedding ring. A wee boy has it. Euan McAnena.”
“Oh yeah. He’s our cousin. Everybody here is our cousin, in one way or another! Maybe even you,” says Valentina.
“Maybe. Euan collects treasures from the beach. Sometimes I help him. I leave shells in the rock pools where he can find them. And other things… things from the shipwrecks out at sea – golden coins and jewels…”
“Wow.” I can only begin to imagine what kind of treasures the sea hides. I feel a longing to visit the shipwrecks.
“Can he See you? Euan?”
“I’m not sure. Sometimes I stay for a bit, you know, watch him gathering the stuff I’ve left for him. A couple of times he’s looked at me… in a strange way. Like he knew it was me leaving him treasure. Like he knows I’m not just a seal. But he’s never spoken to me.”
“Why did he take your mum’s wedding ring?”
“He didn’t mean it. The ring slipped off my finger and fell among some little things I’d found for him. I only noticed when he was gone. Look.” She lifts her right hand and I spot a white mark around her ring finger.
“Right. How can we help you come on land?” Valentina sits cross-legged on a rock, a determined expression on her face. She has taken over.
“I need clothes…”
“Of course.”
“Also, I need help to hide my selkie skin. If I lose it, then I won’t be able to go back into the sea, and I couldn’t bear that!” Mary shudders.
“We can do that. We know somewhere very safe.” Valentina and I look at each other: we’re both thinking of Weird HQ.
“Thank you. And there’s something more…”
“Sure.”
“After I get my ring back, I plan to live on land for a while. But I’ve never been before. I was born in the sea. My mother never went on land either. I need somewhere to stay… someone to help me. I don’t know anything about your world.”
“That’s not a problem,” I say, with certainty. “We have this uncle, Alistair is his name. He can put you up. He has the Sight too, so you can tell him anything…”
“Are you sure? Can I trust him?” There is apprehension in her eyes. A whole new world for her to discover… She’s brave. If it was me thinking about living underwater, I’m not sure I could take the plunge.
“A hundred per cent,” says Valentina solemnly.
“Should you not ask him first?”
“We’ll go ask him right now. But believe me, he’ll be delighted. Are you ok with ghosts?”
“You mean people who’ve died? Yes, I’ve seen a few, out at sea. Mainly sailors.”
“That’s good. Because there’s a ghost living with him. Camilla. You’ll love her.”
“I’m sure I will.” Mary smiles.
“We’ll sort things out and be back tonight.” “Thank you. I’ll be forever grateful. Come anytime after dark. I’ll be waiting.”
***
“This is the coolest
thing that ever happened to me,” says Valentina as we walk towards Weird HQ.
“More than the fairies?”
“Yes.”
“More than the troll?”
“Definitely.”
“More than the mermaids?”
“Absolutely.”
“More than Camilla?”
“Mmmm… As cool as Camilla!”
“Uncle Alistair! It’s us!” we call, letting ourselves in.
Uncle Alistair is at his desk.
“Hi, we have something to tell you!”
He doesn’t reply.
“Uncle Alistair? Are you ok?”
“YES, YES, OF COURSE I’M OK!” he booms. He turns around. He looks terrible. He looks… sad.
“What happened?” asks Valentina.
“Oh well, it’s grown-up things really… You know, stuff goes on…” he has a huge bar of chocolate in his hand. He starts chomping it, looking like he’s a million miles away.
A glowing little shadow appears on the sofa beside him. It takes shape. It’s Camilla.
“Hi guys! Oh, Alistair… Not again…” she whispers, and snuggles up to him, her arms going through him.
“Can someone tell us what’s up?” says Valentina.
“Alistair is feeling down again,” sighs Camilla.
“Oh, no!” says Valentina, and snuggles up too. There’s no way I’m snuggling anyone, so I just mutter, “I’m sorry…”
And then I see it, right in the centre of his desk. My grandparents’ photograph. They’re smiling; baby Alistair is in my granny’s arms and a toddler, my dad, is at their feet.
Poor Uncle Alistair.
“RIGHT! NO MORE BROODING!” he shouts, scrunching up the chocolate wrapper. “What did you have to tell me?”
“We spoke to a selkie, down at the beach. Mary Kenny,” I say.
“Oh! A selkie! Your great-great-grandmother Margaret Watson was one. Did you know?”
“See? I knew we must be related to her too!” Valentina smiles broadly.
“The Grants have a few interesting relations. I should really show you our family tree… But yes, back to your selkie. Tell me.”
“Mary asked for our help. She needs to get back her mother’s wedding ring. A boy called Euan McAnena took it by mistake.”
Really Weird Removals.com Page 11
