Silver Tides (Silver Tides Series)

by Susan Fodor

  I chuckled, holding the fur tightly in my hands. "I’m losing my mind."

  Mum was the most human person I knew. She loved being a productive member of society, we were constantly volunteering at the women’s refuge and donating goods and money to charity. We had trained guide dogs for a time, and Mum would always take our old blankets down to the animal shelter. Mum had coordinated countless events to raise money for charity, she was the most humane person I knew, and there was no way that she could be anything other than human.

  "What do you mean?" she asked, tugging the fur gently out of my hands.

  "I was reading some stuff on the Internet." I smiled sheepishly. "And it reminded me of how mad you were when I almost gave that away. Then I started having some crazy thoughts."

  Mum cocked her head, allowing her caramel curls to tilt to the side beguilingly. There was something foreign in her eyes, something I’d never seen before. My stomach felt like there were frogs trying to catch butterflies in it. Foreboding warned me that I didn’t want to have the imminent conversation.

  “Define crazy?” Mum asked slowly.

  “What is that?” I asked, taking my eyes from my mother, and motioning to the gleaming fur coat.

  “What were you reading on the internet?” she countered, drawing my eyes to her face again. She looked relieved, and even pleased by the turn of events. The truth scared me.

  “About selkies,” I answered levelly meeting her gaze. “I was reading about selkies, and how they are able to shape shift with the help of a seal pelt.”

  Mum beamed at me, like a teacher whose student had stumbled upon the right answer. “Then it’s my seal skin.” She smiled, slipping it over her shoulders expertly. In a blink Mum was gone and a furry seal sat in her place.

  I pitched backwards at the suddenness of the change and fell off the bed onto the carpet. The thud of my undignified descent reverberated through the floor. I had to know if the seal was real or a hallucination. I rolled onto my hands and knees and crawled towards the seal chanting, “This is not real, this is not real.”

  I knelt in front of her and awkwardly reached out to pat the top of the seal’s soft furry head. It was solid and warm.

  “I am real,” the seal spoke, with Mum’s voice.

  I pitched back and fell on my backside with a thud again. I was eye-to-eye with the seal. I would have known those eyes anywhere; it was my mum. My mind whirred like the fan on our computer, but it seemed slow to comprehend the implications of what my eyes were telling it.

  For a long moment I sat staring at my seal mother. I would have recognized her anywhere, the color of her fur; the look in her eyes; she was unmistakably April Belan. If she was a seal, then what was I?

  “So, it stands to reason that if you’re a selkie, so am I?” I stuttered in shock. “So, where’s my fur?”

  “You were born without a selkie skin,” Mum said quietly. “That’s why I moved to land; I couldn’t exactly raise a human baby in the sea without being noticed.”

  “So you left the sea for me?” I asked sympathetically, the story finally snapping into place. “Then you met Dad, er Paul and you stayed here?” It came to me in a rush, that Mum had been married to another selkie, and lived in the sea. She had left the frolicking, fun loving seals to live on land for my sake. In a blink Mum turned into April, a woman with a life that didn’t always include me; she was a real person, not just my Mum. I shuddered as sorrow flooded me; Mum had left her life behind to keep me safe.

  “Yes,” Mum said, through her black-lined seal lips.

  “Can you take that off?” I asked, unnerved. “I really need my mum, or are you stuck like that now for seven years?”

  Mum threw her head back and laughed with abandon, but it sounded more like a seal bark. “No that’s just what we tell humans to get away from them.” She moved her flipper down the centre of her body, like she was undoing a zipper, and the fur fell away, revealing the mother I had known my whole life, but it felt like I was seeing her for the first time.

  “Sit.” She motioned to the bed, and I got up off the floor and sat beside her.

  “I met Paul when I was your age; he had just immigrated to Australia, and I was young and full of idealism,” she began nostalgically. “We were young and in love, but my parents are traditionalist selkies. They didn’t want me to marry Paul and leave the sea, so they arranged for me to marry Leo. It broke my heart, but I had to do what was right for my people as a whole. Paul and I broke up, and I thought I would never see him again. I settled into the idea of being married to Leo; he was handsome, kind, and generous. It was easy to love him for who he was and what he wanted to give me.

  We protected the land together, keeping the merfolk from killing any innocents and ensuring the safety of humans. It was a happy time in my life. I got pregnant, and we were thrilled; the eighteen-month pregnancy was perfect. I was large and happy, and we couldn’t wait to have you. Something went wrong during the labor; there was a lot of blood. My mother, who had delivered countless selkies, insisted we go to land for human help.

  When we arrived on shore, it became obvious that you were going to be human; though it’s rare for our kind to give birth to furless selkies it’s not impossible. I called one of our selkie friends who lived in Queenscliff, the Lubecks. I had you in Geelong hospital the next day. Leo was so proud; you enamored him from the moment you came into the world. He knew that you would become someone amazing.

  I moved in with the Lubecks, who have a son a few years older than you, hoping you would transform quicker around another selkie who had your unusual condition. Leo was desperate for you to return to the safety of the sea.

  We were attacked by the merfolk, who had heard you were away from the colony. Your death would have disheartened many of the selkies, convincing them to leave seal rock and live in human form. The less selkies to defend the shore, the more opportunities merfolk have to lure humans out to sea.

  Everyone got away unharmed, fortunately, but we were compromised, and I had to find a safe place for us. So I called Paul.

  Just like Leo, he fell instantly in love with you. Leo came to visit after it seemed safe, and the three of us agreed that it would be best if Paul, you, and I became a family. So here we are, waiting for you to come into your fur.”

  The way Mum looked at me implied that I should understand everything now that she’d given me the abridged history of my birth. In truth, it just left me with more questions and nagging nausea.

  “How old will I be before my fur grows out or whatever?” I asked, overwhelmed by the information Mum was providing. I absently ran my hand over my arm covered in blonde hair, noticing that Mum and I had similar colorings. Would I look like her if I were a seal? My mind answered, that I would never be a seal.

  “The Lubeck’s son got his fur when he turned 12,” Mum said carefully. “That’s quite old; most kids get it before they start school. The oldest I’ve ever heard of a selkie changing was 16.”

  “So I’m either a really late bloomer, or I am actually a human,” I concluded.

  “You’re definitely a selkie,” Mum assured.

  I sat for a moment taking it all in. “Wasn’t Leo jealous? Why didn’t he stay?”

  “Your father, Leo, is the king of the selkies; I was... am his queen,” Mum replied, quietly.

  “I’m the princess, Daniel’s sworn enemy,” I concluded, dropping my head into my hands.

  The realization poured over me like a bucket of Gatorade over an unsuspecting victim. Even without my fur, I was a selkie. Daniel would hate me. Tears poured down my face at the sense of failure that filled me; I would never become a mermaid or a selkie or anything else, despite my heredity. I knew I was human. It was the only life I’d ever known, it was the one I wanted. A ragged breath caught in my throat, as my whole world fell apart. Mum was unfazed by my meltdown; she was a firm believer that tears were the body’s healing agent. Apart from putting her hand on my shoulder, she continued.

  “So
Daniel is merfolk?” Mum mused, unsurprised.

  “You knew?” I accused, my head snapping up in shock.

  “I suspected.” She shrugged, nonchalant. “But the whole having a family on land thing, really threw me.”

  “He’s not finfolk; for some reason he just transitioned into a switcher, he was human,” I explained, feeling better to be able to contribute something that Mum didn’t know. Everyone had been withholding information from me, but I would be the bigger person and share what I knew.

  “God’s way of trying to give the merfolk empathy for man,” Mum pondered out loud.

  “I don’t know,” I said, the tears plopping off my chin onto my jeans. “Daniel hates selkies; they’re his enemies, and now he’s going to hate me.”

  Mum put her arm around my shoulder and lay her head against mine in a comforting manner. “Not necessarily; on land everything seems to be great.”

  I knew Mum was trying to encourage me, but Cordulla would never let Daniel stay on land. Daniel was waiting for me to be a mermaid, and my parents wanted me to be a seal; they would both be disappointed. The feeling of falling returned. My world was shifting around me, and I didn’t know what to hold onto.

  “He thinks I’m going to become a mermaid, and you’re all waiting for me to turn into a seal.” I sniffed. “And I think I’m just a human.”

  Mum suppressed the urge to shudder at the thought of me being a mermaid and replied, “I know it’s a lot to take in. I’d hoped that you would just transform one day. Legends of selkies that could shape shift have been long in our history, and a few possess it in our colony. You’re almost 18; it can’t be far off.”

  Mum’s intention was to offer comfort but her words only made me feel worse. I didn’t want to turn into a seal or a mermaid. All I wanted was to graduate high school, go to university and become a traveling author. Mythical creature-hood was not part of my plans. It didn’t make sense to me that Mum would keep my selkie heritage from me, especially when she was so invested in my being a princess and all.

  “Why did it take you so long to tell me?” I demanded, feeling like I was falling into a vortex.

  “There’s never a good time to tell your child that their world is much bigger than they ever suspected. It wasn’t like you didn’t know. Before you became a teenager you were aware of being a princess, then there were some unfortunate events and you stopped talking about it. You’d roll your eyes at me if I mentioned it. I figured you were just wrestling with being a teenager and fitting in at school. I didn’t want to put more pressure on you. Somewhere along the line, I realized that you’d forgotten about being a selkie, the way you forgot about the toys you loved as a child.

  I thought about reminding you when I first suspected Daniel to be a merman, but his ability to stay on land and his devotion to you.... It made me doubt my instinct. Then when Sophia told me he was away for a time and couldn’t articulate a good excuse. I knew my initial instinct was right. His presence and self-control are unprecedented and that scares me, more than ever before. I’m scared for you, for us.”

  The fear in Mum’s voice pushed from my mind the fact that I’d known about my heritage and forgotten. “What are you talking about?” I asked, confused.

  “For hundreds of years the selkies have been all that hold the merfolk back from destroying every human life,” she said sadly. “We fight them on beaches and inlets. We try to keep them from ships as best we can. They are the vampires of the sea.”

  “What?” I asked in horror. “Daniel is not like that. They don’t eat humans. I don’t understand.” Then I remembered Cordulla and Daniel had mentioned girls drowning and I shuddered. Had Cordulla suspected I was the selkie princess, I would be at the bottom of the ocean. I was fortunate to be alive.

  “No, they don’t eat humans,” Mum agreed, “but they hate humans and wish them dead so they can take the land as well as the sea.”

  It didn’t make sense that people who were sea-bound would want land-based cities. Yet the fervor in Mum’s eyes prevented me questioning her logic.

  “So if they’re the vampires of the sea, does that make you the werewolf?” I scoffed, changing the subject.

  “Watch your manners, miss.” She laughed, before looking into my eyes seriously. “Those monsters took down the Titanic, not to mention the countless innocents they drag out to sea, straight off the beach. Remember the young girl that washed up on Queenscliff beach last summer?”

  “That was the merfolk?” I asked, surprised. The girl had been in the class below me. The school held a memorial day for her. I’d never spoken to her, but the knowledge that someone I had seen from time to time, had been killed by Daniel’s people made the distance between us grow.

  Mum nodded somberly. “Think of Jaimie and how much she loves to swim at the beach; imagine that one of those cold-blooded sea snakes pulled her out to sea. Just so they can watch her drown.”

  I shuddered at the thought. I began to wonder if Daniel had ever pulled anyone out to sea, or if it was just the others. He’d lived in Atlantis for two years, and I knew nothing of his time there, was he a monster like Cordulla? I chewed my lip, stressing about how little I actually knew about the boy I’d pledged my heart to.

  “Daniel is not typical of their kind.” Mum tried to convince me; oblivious to the fact that I had met Cordulla and was already convinced of how dangerous merfolk could be. “His people would kill us all.”

  “So what do I do now?” I asked exasperated. “I’m a human torn between three worlds.”

  “Darling,” Mum sighed, “you are you. Don’t overthink the situation. When the time is right all will come together.”

  “Hmfpt,” I scoffed. “That’s easy for you to say; you were born with perfect timing.”

  “So were you.” She smiled. “You just haven’t discovered it yet.”

  “So every year when we swim at seal rocks...” I asked, leaving the thought unfinished.

  “An annual trip home to see your father and relatives.” She smiled. “They love you so much.”

  “But they won’t come visit?” I asked skeptically. “You’d think if they loved me so much they could at least show up at Christmas?”

  “Initially everyone was concerned about leading merfolk to you, and then Leo was worried about keeping the selkies together. Your grandparents keep hoping that you will return home soon, so they don’t have to make the track onto land. They claim that they are too frail, but I know that they don’t visit as a silent protest against my marriage to Paul. They didn’t count on it taking you so long to become a shape shifter.”

  I nodded, realizing again how much Mum had given up to ensure that I had a normal life. She had given me stability and a home, but I hadn’t given her the shape shifter daughter she’d expected. She could have been a queen; instead she was a job collector and mother. At least she had been reunited with her first love. She was looking at me expectantly, like the knowledge of my species would make me shape-shift immediately.

  “What if I never change?” I asked, chewing my lip.

  Mum laughed. “Let’s face one challenge at a time; help me pick up all the clothes you’ve spilled all over the floor and then we can start on dinner. After that you can go to bed and school, and when the time is right, we will all know what to do.”

  I gave in, because there was nothing I could do to change anything. Even if I never changed, my family were selkies and Daniel’s people were monsters. I didn’t know how to make such an unlikely union work.

  princess

  Friday afternoon there was a knock on the door. I opened the door to reveal a tall attractive young man. His skin was the color of cream, only more delicious, he had disheveled black hair, and his long eyelashes framed caramel brown eyes. He could have stepped off a fashion shoot—he was so devastatingly handsome. He was a selkie.

  “Mya?” he asked, startled.

  “That’s my name, not my pant size,” I replied, realizing how nerdy it sounded after it had left
my lips. He gave me a lopsided grin, making me feel instantly at ease.

  “I’m Charlie Lubeck,” he introduced, looking into my eyes, searching for recognition. He obviously knew me, but I had no idea who he was. His presence was comfortable and safe, like pulling on pajamas after being poured into a fancy dress and heels.

  “Like one of the Lubecks from Queenscliff?” I asked, nonchalantly.

  “Yeah,” he said, looking away, his cheeks burning red.

  “Come on in, I guess.” I opened the door, and he entered looking anxious and nostalgic in equal measure.

  “You were like 12 the last time I saw you,” he said awkwardly. “I don’t think your house has changed at all.”

  “I’m sure I have, though,” I teased, confused by his obvious discomfort in seeing me again. I racked my brain for any shred of memory containing Charlie, but he was as foreign as the memories of being a princess.

  “Yeah you have,” he agreed earnestly, before looking away.

  “So what brings you here after five years of absence?” I challenged playfully. I was surprised by how easy it was to talk to Charlie, like instantly discovering a long lost friend.

  My question sent a new wave of crimson across Charlie’s cheeks. “I’m here to see your Mum?”

  “You mean the queen?” I said, with mock correction. I felt like I had the upper hand with him, a feeling that I’d never experienced before. I decided not to abuse that power. I was glad that I didn’t remember being a princess, because I didn’t want to have power over people. I was happy to just be friends with everyone.

  Mum entered the hall having heard my comment. “Stop tormenting him.” She smiled, amused.

  “Your majesty.” Charlie bowed respectfully.

  “Please,” Mum said, touching his shoulder lightly, “we’re on land. Let’s ignore formality. How can I help you?”

  “You’ve been summoned to parley,” he said, glancing at me.

  “At the Mud Islands?” Mum asked, sounding regal and composed in a way that I’d never experienced before.