Secrets of Selkie Bay (2 page)

“Da?” I said, fingering Mum's letter in my pocket.

“Hmm?” He had finished with the bowls and was now carefully rinsing the goggles that protected his eyes from flying splinters and airborne fiberglass at work. Most of the men washed theirs at the docks, but Da always wanted to hurry home.

I searched for the words, but then I realized that I didn't know which ones I wanted.
Should I share the letter with him?

I was quiet for a little too long.

“Cordie, is this about your mum?” He had turned off the water and was facing me now.

I nodded.

“You miss her, don't you?”

I nodded again.

“I miss her, too.” That's what he always said when I tried to talk about her.
I miss her, too.

And that was all.

I felt hotness in the back of my eyes.
Don't cry, Cordie. It will just make Da feel worse.
I blinked away the tears and then he was hugging me.

“Let's not talk about her right now, Cordie. I know it hurts too much.”

I let myself cry only for a moment and I think Da was crying, too. Then I sniffed a big sniff. I tried to wipe the wetness of my tears from Da's shirt, but then realized it was already wet from the washing. I looked up at him, waiting for him to meet my eyes and tell me that it would be all right. But he didn't. He just went to that silent place inside of himself, and then he cleared his throat, turned to the sink, and finished his work.

“Good night, Cordie,” he said when I finally left the kitchen.

Da was like a biscuit that had fallen to the floor and crumbled.

It would not be easy to put him back together.

 

Isle of Dreams

D
A SAID WE COULD WATCH
a show on television before bedtime, but we didn't really want to. That was something we used to do, all of us, together. We'd curl up on the couch and eat scrambled-egg sandwiches for dinner and watch nature shows about Tasmanian devils, endangered wolves, or migrating whale pods. Our favorites were always the ones about the sea. Otherwise, Mum and Da didn't like us watching much TV, not when there were books to read inside and mud pies to make outside. Back then, watching TV had been a treat. But tonight, as with every other night since Mum had been gone, neither Ione nor I had much desire to lay even one finger on the remote. It just felt wrong.

In our room that night, after Ione fell asleep, I crawled under the covers of my bed and switched on my flashlight. I read the letter over and over until my eyes felt dry and burning. I read until my stomach hurt from flopping around so much. One minute I'd find myself happy, thinking about her and hoping she'd be back soon—hadn't she said she'd
try to come back
? And the next minute I'd be mad, furious actually, that she had left in the first place. She said she had a reason, but really, what reason would ever be good enough to leave us? Eventually, I fell asleep with the letter squashed in my hand, dreaming of the last time Mum and I were out on our tiny motorboat, the
Dreaming Lass.

Ione had been there, too. And Neevy. Mum had her strapped to the front of her in one of those little baby harnesses. The sky was swirling with low clouds, and old Archibald Doyle, with his white strings of hair dancing around his wrinkly head, had stood on the beach that morning, arms crossed, glaring.

“You think you'll see something out in that, do you?” he asked, motioning to where the clouds kissed the waves, with no actual sky in between.

“Stay out of my business, Mr. Doyle. I know what I am doing,” Mum had cried over the top of the wind. I remember how Mr. Doyle shook his head in disgust and turned away from us, heading up the beach.

And then we were speeding along and the little motorboat was pitching. My stomach was lurching, as usual. Even in my dream, I felt the urge to throw up.

“Oh, Cordie, the sea is not so bad,” Mum had said to me, taking the hand that wasn't steering the boat to smooth my hair from my damp face.

“I'm okay when it's flat, but when it rolls like this, I feel it in my guts.”

“Why is your face so gray, Cordie?” Ione asked.

We bounced along the choppy waves until Mum cut the motor and said, “There. If you look
there.
Can you see it? Can you see the shimmer of it?”

We shook our heads. The mist was thickening even more. And the waves were getting higher. But then maybe, just over the tip of the foam, I saw a faint glimpse of … something.

“We must navigate in between those two huge rocks,” Mum was saying, pointing to two dark forms in the otherwise white distance. “The black ones. They are ragged and dangerous. Many an experienced sailor has unwittingly thrust his boat upon their jagged edges.” Leave it to Mum to make everything an adventure. “After we pass through, we can see it better, but we'll have to be careful.”

“See what? Where are we going?” Ione's voice echoed in the wind as a patch of fog enveloped us, thick and cottony. “I can't see anything.”

“Why, the magic island of the selkies, of course.” Mum had used her teasing voice. The fog was too thick to make out her expression.

“Oooooh,” Ione and I said together.
“The selkies.”

“Don't laugh,” Mum said, but she was laughing, too.

“I thought you didn't like talking about the selkies,” I said.

“I don't like the way people in this town talk about them, the way they exploit the legend, and that's a different thing altogether,” said Mum. The fog moved in clumps between us, surrounding us like a worn-out blanket.

“Aren't they just pretend, Mum?” Ione asked. “Are there really such things as selkies?”

Mum turned toward me. “What do you think, Cordie?” she asked. “You know the legends.”

You couldn't live in a place called Selkie Bay and not know the legends. Half of the businesses on the main street had something to do with selkies. “Yes,” I said. “I know them.”

“Well, what do you think? Do you believe that shape-shifting selkies live on a secret island with rocky shores where they hide their magical seal coats?”

“I dunno,” I said too quickly.

“Ah, well, then I don't know, either.”

“I do!” Ione cried. “I believe in them!”

“Then let's go find that island!” Mum cried. She revved the motor and we were racing again, but the mist still twirled around us and I felt like I was spinning, spinning like a top.

After a few minutes, Mum looked around and sighed. “Oh well, can't see much of anything. Another day then. When I was a girl, I used to love that island—”

But she didn't finish her sentence because I had leaned over the side of the
Dreaming Lass
, and was now tossing my breakfast to the waves.

*   *   *

As I sat up in bed, the dream faded slowly. The rumpled letter had fallen from my hand. I reached down to the cold floor and felt around for it. I picked it up and smoothed it flat against my leg, then folded it as tiny as I could. I'd have to hide it in my clothes today so nobody would stumble upon it. By nobody, I meant Ione. She was such a snooper, and this note was between me and Mum.

The flashlight clattered to the floor, dim and lightless, having gone through the batteries during the night. No one heard the clank but me. Ione was snoring softly in her bed, and one room over, Da was snoring not so softly in his. Neevy gave the occasional slurp as she sucked on her fist in the tiny room just past Da's. Other than those comforting noises of the night, our small house was quiet, though I knew Da would be getting up for work soon.

I wouldn't have much time.

I crept about in the almost dark, the soft coming of daylight still only a promise, but it was light enough for me. I picked up
A Child's Book of Selkies
and gave it a quick scan. There were no telltale notes scrawled up the margins in Mum's handwriting. No clues whatsoever from this book about where a sugar jar full of money might be. And when had she started keeping money in the sugar jar, anyway?

When the jar had gone missing a couple of months back, I first thought Ione had broken it and been too afraid to own up to it. When Ione told me angrily that she hadn't broken the sugar jar, and suggested that maybe the ants had run off with it, I thought perhaps Mum had taken it. Except that didn't make much sense. Da had been extra-quiet right after Mum disappeared. I didn't know what to say about anything, let alone a sugar jar that we couldn't find, so he and I never discussed it.

I padded through the narrow hallway, past the sitting room, and down the two stone steps to the kitchen. The old slab floor was freezing cold, as usual. It was the only room in the house that wasn't floored in creaky wood, and even when summer was at its hottest, it stayed cool. Ione and I often lay on our backs, arms stretched wide, soaking in the delicious chill before we went to bed. Mum would laugh, saying she didn't realize she had starfish for daughters as she gingerly stepped over us to get to the pantry. I, however, had no need for caution this morning, just silence. Tiptoeing, I crept ahead to the pantry and moved cans and jars around, this way and that. I could remember when the two shelves were stocked full. Now, I could easily see within seconds that they held no sugar jar.

Next, I checked all the cabinets and the refrigerator. As I opened the heavy white door, I wondered why I hadn't looked in the fridge first off. That was where
I
would hide money, if I had any. The light from the small bulb nearly blinded me, but after moving the almost-empty milk jug, a carton of eggs, a block of cheese, four small apples, and three nearly scraped-out jars of jam, I realized it wasn't there, either.

I crept to the hall, toward the room where Da lay snoring, then stopped. If she had put it in their room, Da would surely have found it by now, wouldn't he?

The coat closet in the hall was next.

I opened the door and it creaked a tiny bit. I found the string that hung from the ceiling and gave it a tug. With a click, everything was illuminated. The top shelf was empty. Leaning against one side of the closet was Neevy's fold-up pram. On the rack were several of Da's jackets and some of our sweaters that we hadn't needed since April. I touched the empty hanger where Mum's coat used to hang and it swung back and forth. It had been her special coat, sleek, smooth, and silvery black, but it was gone now. Only a bare spot remained.

The phone rang, making me jump back and bang my head against the closet door. I quickly shut it and ran to the phone, which sat in its usual spot on a blue-painted end table in the sitting room. As I always did, I imagined her voice on the other end and wondered what I'd say to her.

But Da got there first.

“Hello? Yes, this is Sullivan. Yes, I know I'm late with the payment. Next week. I'll pay it next week.” Da hung up without a goodbye.

“The phone wake you up, too?” he asked.

I nodded.

“You'd think they'd wait until the sun came up. Greedy creditors.” He went to the kitchen to heat some water for tea. “Well, since I'm already awake, I'm staying up. How about you?”

I nodded and got some mugs from the same cupboard I'd been searching through only moments ago.

“Da, have you seen the sugar jar?”

There was a pause. “I don't like sugar in my tea, Cordie. You know that.”

“Yes, but I was just wondering—”

“If we are out of sugar, I can give you a little money to take to the store, but buy only a small amount.” He handed me a few bills before I could say that I didn't really need the sugar, just the jar.

“Da—”

“I've got to go in early today, Cordie. Just get what you need in town. But don't be gone long. And make Ione go with you. It would be good for her to leave the house for a change.”

 

The Mermaid's Tresses

W
HEN DA WAS OFF TO WORK,
I searched every nook and cranny in our little house for an hour. The jar was nowhere to be found. We needed that money.

I know I'm late with the payment … I'll pay it next week.

Exasperated, I went to check on Neevy. She had pulled herself up to the railing of her crib and was standing with her arms outstretched to me.

“Mmmmmuummmaaa,” she cried.

These were the times my heart broke.

“No, sweet girl, it's just Cordie.” Neevy snuggled against me and stuffed her plump thumb into her mouth. “Ione!” I called. “Can you get Neevy ready to go?”

There was no need to yell, but I did, anyway. Our house was tiny enough that if you stood in the kitchen in just the right place, you could see down the hall into each of the other small rooms of our house. The sitting room, the bathroom, and the bedrooms—mine and Ione's, Da's, and little Neevy's at the end.

Ione stumbled sleepily down the short hallway and stopped in front of me with a gigantic yawn.

“We are going to town,” I said.

“Where in town?”

“To … um … to the Mermaid's Tresses.”

“Why do we need to go there?” Ione put one hand on her hip in her stubborn pose. She used to love going to the salon, hanging out on the swivel chairs, talking to Maura and Mum just like she worked there herself.

“We just do.”

“What if Mum comes home while I'm gone?” Ione's big dark eyes got glassy and it looked like a tear was forming in the left one. If she started crying, then I'd probably start, too. And it wouldn't take much to get Neevy going as well.

There was no time for crying today, not if I was going to make us some money.

“Yeah, well, we are going, Ione. Hurry up and get ready. And get the pram,” I said in my most businesslike voice. If I kept Ione moving and busy, maybe I could avoid a scene. And maybe I could stuff my own worries back inside my heart and keep them there a while longer.