Secrets of Selkie Bay (15 page)

Mr. Doyle was perplexing. He'd just lost his boat and he seemed not to care! Instead, he walked slowly, gently, back to the cave and over to the seals, where he sat among them. He began petting them and saying kind things. And they let him.

Except for the black seal.

She had not yet returned from the sea.

*   *   *

It was getting too late in the day to do anything about our boat situation, not to mention the fact that it was still rainy. So Mr. Doyle built us a small fire in the cave and we began what was sure to be a very long night.

“How did the three of you find your way here?” he asked us as we warmed ourselves. We didn't have much wood, so we burned the old club. As the flames flickered, Mr. Doyle let out a sigh. Ione and I did, too. That club was something that none of us ever wanted to see again.

“She led us here. Mum, I mean,” Ione said. “It's okay, Cordie. Remember, he already knows.”

When Mr. Doyle grudgingly produced a small tin of fresh Seal Biscuits in a much more modern tin, Ione decided she could forgive him for his past deeds, as long as they were never repeated.

“She? The black seal? Led you here?” he asked in a broken-up way in between biscuit bites.

Ione nodded. “But she's not a seal. She's a selkie.” Mr. Doyle glanced at me and I looked away. It certainly had seemed like the seal had led us here, or maybe pushed us here. Either way, we'd never have made it without her.

“I'm worried about her, Cordie,” Ione said.

“She's fine.”

But if she was fine, why didn't she come back?

This was the second mum I had asked such a question about.

Ione looked toward the opening of the cave forlornly. “Where is she?”

I wanted to distract Ione from worrying about the seal, and to distract myself, too. But I didn't have it in me to make up another selkie tale. “Let's talk about something else.”

“How about we talk about porridge,” said Ione after a few moments of awkwardness. “Like in the story of the three bears. I have always wondered if it is just the same thing as oatmeal. If it is, why don't they just call it oatmeal?”

“I don't know,” I said.

Ione waited for Mr. Doyle to answer her question, but he didn't.

“I guess porridge is kind of boring,” Ione said.

With that, we sat gazing into the flames. Silence hung in the air like mist, so thick you could almost see it. Or smell it. The silence smelled like seaweed and mint and smoke.

Then Mr. Doyle's scratchy voice, low and deep, began to echo softly through the cave.

 

A Tale Not About Selkies

There is a tale my father told me once, about a time before the selkies came. There have always been folks who were closer to the sea than others. Folks who hear the call of the sea and feel it thump deep in their chest with each beat of their own heart. The waves rise and fall in time with their own breathing. They say that inside every man and woman is an ocean of sorts. For some, it's more real than for others.

So, in the time before selkies, there was a kingdom and in this kingdom were two sons, Lorcas and Seamus. Lorcas was fine and strong and a treasure to his parents. Seamus, well, he was dark haired and dark eyed, with more sea in his veins than blood. Seamus was the wild one who stayed not on the path his parents had chosen for him. Little did his parents know that you cannot control a river. It must always make its own way, even if its path is ne'er the straightest one. Nor the easiest.

Lorcas and Seamus were devoted to each other, as good brothers are. But a terrible accident befell Lorcas and he lost his sight. The future his parents had planned for him withered and eventually blew away with the wind. He sat in his home, doing nothing, thinking nothing, being nothing.

But the same wind that carried away Lorcas's future deposited it at the feet of Seamus. He would now be the favored son, if he chose. He no longer had to cut paths through harshness to make his way. The easy life could be his.

Seamus, however, with the ocean in his veins, simply went to his brother and told him, “Lorcas, I shall be your eyes now.” And whether it was magic or love at work, it didn't matter, for from that moment on, everything Seamus saw, Lorcas could see, too. It was as if the oceans inside of both of them became one sea. One sea.

 

In the Wee Hours

I
ONE AND HENRY WERE SNORING SOFTLY
and the rest of the seals were, too. Even Neevy had been put to sleep by the spell Mr. Doyle's tale cast.

I had started to doze myself, when the abrupt end of the story roused me.

“It just ends there?”

He nodded.

“What does it mean?” I asked.

“A story means whatever you need it to mean.”

I was going to ask,
What does that even mean?
But then I imagined him saying,
Whatever you need it to mean,
and I would have felt the need to throw a shoe at him, so I didn't.

“Sometimes, Cordelia, we do things for others, for our family, that might not be the things we want to, but out of love, we do them. That's what I think the story of Lorcas and Seamus is about. Doing what you must for your family.”

“Do you have any family now?”

He didn't answer at first, but turned his attention to the opening of the cave. “Rain's tapering off and there's work to do,” he said gruffly, then rose and made sure the fire was truly out, without looking at any of us.

I shouldn't have asked. Neevy snorted a little in her sleep and I put a calming hand on her bald head. To the other side of me, Ione rearranged herself and I reached out and smoothed her hair. I thought about how lucky I was to have them and a lump rose in my throat. I would do anything for them. Anything.

“Well, look who's here,” said Mr. Doyle as the black seal slowly hauled herself inside the cave, then lay down, breathing heavily.

“Mum!”
I extracted myself from my sleeping sisters and rushed over to her. Her large eyes were closed and her skin felt saggy, not smooth and tight like it had yesterday. And when she rolled over to show me her side, my breath caught in my throat.

The gash was worse than ever.

Mr. Doyle made no move to come closer.

“Can you help me? I don't know what to do for her,” I begged.

He opened his mouth to say something, then closed it again, shaking his head. I saw him scoot a bit away from the fire, away from us.

“You can't possibly be afraid of her,” I said, all the while stroking Mum's fur. “She needs help.”

“I promised myself after Pegeen I'd have nothing to do with real and true selkies. Nothing,” he whispered. He had squashed himself up against the side of the cave, as far from us as possible. I was pretty certain he was trembling.

I was, too. But not from fear.

“Nothing except trying to make your living off of them!” I cried. “I haven't forgotten what you did to Ione—parading her around on your stupid boat. Filling her head with stories about—”

I stopped. I'd done my share of filling Ione's head with stories. I'd even let my own head fill up with stories of treasure.

And look where that had led me.

“If you'll keep that”—he pointed at Mum—“
her
there, I'll slip outside and start repairing your boat. It's our only way off this island and someone has to do it. We should leave at dawn.”

“I'll hold her, but she's too weak to attack you, if that's what you're worried about,” I said, wrapping my arms loosely around her.

Mr. Doyle crept by, but as he passed Mum's head, her black eyes opened and she looked right at him. He moved quickly then, like he'd stepped on a flame.

Mum never had liked Mr. Doyle much.

*   *   *

By morning, Mr. Doyle had finished patching the hole in the
Dreaming Lass
, using tools from his brown bag.

“Seems clear enough, but we need to get out soon. I don't want to be racing that storm.” He pointed over to some dark clouds to the north. “Can't tell how fast it's coming,” he said. “Your da is probably having fits. First your mother and now—”

He didn't need to finish.

“You never called the authorities.” It was not a question.

“Of course not. What kind of man do you think I am?”

That was a question I could not answer. What kind of man
was
Archibald Doyle? Was he the mean, miserly man who Ione hated just because of the look of him? Was he the strange, gentle man who gave a sad little girl who missed her mum a nice day out on his boat? Was he the exploiter, ready to use a child to increase his business? Was he the crusty yet repentant man who now sat feeding fish to the gray pixie seals he had once caused to vanish?

Or was he somehow a mixture of all these?

I would probably never understand him. Even now, as I tried to put the puzzle of Mr. Doyle together in my head, I was left with a piece that didn't fit at all. The piece of him that feared Mum.

Mum slept. I placed a sleeping Neevy beside her because she had seemed to like it when Ione had done that. Ione was brushing Mum's fur with her fingertips, singing to her. I couldn't tell if she was running a fever or not, because who knew how hot a seal was supposed to be.

“She looks better, don't you think, Cordie?”

“Yes, she does,” I lied. She didn't look better at all. I sat down next to her and examined the wound again. I was pretty sure it was from the propeller, and that it was infected. She'd gotten hurt while helping us.

Of the pixie seals, only Henry stayed with us in the cave. Some were out with Mr. Doyle, and some weren't here at all, probably out frolicking in the waves.

“Are we really going to leave without finding the treasure?” Ione whispered. “We came all this way and we didn't even dig once.”

I didn't care about the treasure anymore. Gold, silver, money. None of it would help the black seal right now. “Mr. Doyle has been coming here for years, Ione. Don't you think if Grace O'Malley's pirate treasure was here, he would have found it?”

“Pirates are smart and selkies are smarter. And I bet Mum knows where that pirate treasure is. Too bad she can't change herself back to a person and tell us. Hey, Cordie, when do you think she'll be able to change back?”

“I don't know.”

“I bet it said in the book. I wish Mr. Doyle hadn't let it rip apart and blow away into the ocean.”

Ione kept talking, but the only words I heard were,
When do you think she'll be able to change back?
ringing through my brain, again and again. I laid my head against Mum's side and felt the beat of her heart, soft and warm, against my ear.

Mr. Doyle barely set one foot into the cave. “Cordelia, get your sisters. We need to leave.” Then he turned his back and returned to the beach.

Mr. Doyle was right. I knew he was right. I could hear the thick patter of the rain starting up again. The drops were getting bigger. If we didn't go soon, we might not have another chance today.

But I couldn't make myself get up from beside the seal—from beside Mum. I couldn't make myself leave my mum. I was holding her, not tightly, because I didn't want to hurt her, but with strong arms, as if that could somehow make her strong again.

“Cordie, you need to come. Now.” But it wasn't Mr. Doyle's gruff voice that traveled the distance from the cave opening to my ear. It was a voice both broken and smooth at the same time.

It was Da.

 

The
Pinniped

D
A'S TINY RESEARCH BOAT,
the
Pinniped
, was anchored in the small lagoon of the Kingdom of the Selkies. I could see it from the mouth of the cave, just past where Mr. Doyle stood, bent over the
Dreaming Lass.
I'd only heard about the
Pinniped
, never seen it myself except in pictures, but I knew, with its bright yellow hull, that it had to be the old boat.

“I thought it was rusty and ruined,” was the first thing I said to Da. Not
I missed you
or
I am sorry.

But then he was hugging me and I was standing, hugging him back, and Ione and a sleeping Neevy were all gathered in there, too.

“That's the boat I went to repair. In Glenbay. I didn't want to tell you in case I couldn't do it.” He was kissing our heads and nearly crushing us, but we didn't care. He hadn't yelled at us for being here, or told us how mad he was. That would come later.

If there was anything I was certain of, it was that at some point, my father would have words for me.

“We need to go, girls. Before the storm hits,” he said.

“So it's finally coming then. Moving faster than I thought,” Mr. Doyle interjected. Apparently he'd given us enough of a private reunion. “Got here as fast as I could, you know, when I saw they'd gone. But there was a thing that happened with my boat making it rather difficult to leave…”

“If I hadn't run into Raj Patel, I wouldn't have known where the lot of you were, now, would I?” Da looked at me as he said it. “And yes, Archibald. The storm is coming. Some say it's the storm of the century.”

“Storm of the century. That rhymes,” said Ione.

“No it doesn't. The words just sound the same at the beginning,” I said.

“That's what I meant.”

“Seriously, girls. We'll have plenty of time to talk later. And believe me, there is plenty to talk about,” Da said.

I knew that last comment was for me, but I didn't want to think about it. Not yet, anyway.

“Cordie, is that a seal right behind you?”
Da said, noticing Mum for the first time.

“It's Mum,” said Ione, kneeling down beside her. “And this is Henry.” She pointed to the other side of her, where Henry, alert like a little pup, regarded us all.