Tides (25 page)

She remembered prying open desk drawers and pulling out reams of paper and whole sets of slides. Thinking of the story Gemm had told her about the selkie and the fisherman, she had even looked up at the ceiling, hoping for rafters.

But it was in the file cabinet, at last, that she’d found Aine’s skin. She decided to start her cleanup work there.

Rifling through the lab reports and scribbled-over legal pads, she remembered the odd pulsing warmth of that skin in her hands. It had looked so dead, dry and cracked and folded as it was, but it had felt
alive.

She’d seen Aine in it several times now. The girl was still shy around humans, of course, but for some reason, she was a little more comfortable around Lo than around Gemm or Noah.

She thought back to a few days ago, when she had settled down on Gemm’s dock to make sketches of the Oceanic Hotel from a distance, of the patterns the lights made on the ocean when the sun rose. Aine had appeared in the water in front of her.

Lo had waved shyly, pencil still between her fingers, and Aine had waved back. After a few moments of silent observing, Aine had put a hand on the dock and asked, “Can I see what you’re doing?”

Surprised, Lo had nodded, smiling.

Aine looked around them, checking for boats, then pulled herself up onto the dock and sat next to Lo. Small rivers of seawater slid over her skin and tail and pooled in dark circles on the wood. She closed her eyes for a moment, concentrating, then gripped the skin of her tail and slipped it down and off. Her legs, free of the scars that etched her upper body, looked almost as if they belonged to someone else.

“Are you sure there’s no one around?”

Aine looked down at her legs. “I checked. It’s so early, anyway.” She folded her skin and placed it next to her on the dock, near a gray sweater Lo had cast off because the day was so warm. Aine glanced at the sweater. “Do you mind if I . . .” She trailed off.

Lo shook her head. “Of course not. Go for it.”

Aine squeezed the extra water out of her hair and coiled it over her shoulder. Its ends brushed the dock. She wiggled into the sweater and smiled at Lo. “Thanks,” she said. “Just right.” She leaned over to see Lo’s half-finished sketch. “Oh,” she said, her smile brightening. “It looks just the same! But . . .” She squinted at the hotel, then back at the page. “But better. It’s the way you see it, not the way it is.”

Lo looked at the girl next to her, and in spite of the sealskin on the dock, the little child’s body, the scars that hinted at pain Lo couldn’t even imagine, her heart leapt out and ached with recognition for the kindred spirit next to her.

“Have you ever drawn before?”

Aine shook her head.

“I could teach you. If you want.”

After that day, they had spent nearly every morning like that, drawing together on the dock, until Lo had to go to work.

She tapped a stack of paper against the desk to straighten it, then slid it into a file in the cabinet’s top drawer.

She hardly thought of the selkies as separate from her own family anymore. There was Maebh, who spent almost every night on White Island now. She was turning into the perfect grandmother, even if she did look so much younger than Gemm.

And then, of course, there was Mara. The way Noah looked at her was . . . Well, it was gross for Lo to think about it. But there was tenderness there too, a deepness between them when they spoke to each other, that filled Lo with a certain contentment. If her brother had to be in love, she was glad it was with someone who obviously loved him back just as much.

She had no idea what they were going to do at the end of the summer, but she wasn’t looking forward to dealing with a post-Mara Noah. At least he’d be busy packing for college when they got back to their parents’ house, and soon . . . soon, he would leave.

Lo blinked. For a moment, the papers in her hands went blurry. She was looking forward to Noah’s leaving for college. When had that happened? Only a few months ago she had wished desperately that they were closer in age so that he could stay home a little longer to help her deal with their parents. And a few months before that, she would have given anything for him just to get out of the house and leave her alone.

This was different. She didn’t want Noah gone for those reasons anymore. She just knew he would be in pain, once they left the Shoals and the selkies behind, and she couldn’t bear to see that. She didn’t want that for him.

Lo shook her head and turned toward Professor Foster’s disheveled desk. Between Gemm and Maebh, and Mara and Noah, she was beginning to wonder whether love was worth the heartache.

thirty-seven

M
ARA
and Ronan were the only ones who had managed to change, and they each had two younglings in hand, trying to help pull off their sealskins. The first season was always difficult for younglings, Mara knew, but she couldn’t remember ever having such a hard time turning human herself.

“Lir, stay still.” She grasped his right foot—the only part of him that wasn’t seal—and tugged. A human leg appeared, up to the knee. “Good.”

Lir growled, frustrated, but his other leg slipped out of his sealskin next to the first. Mara watched as all at once his skin split to the crown of his head and he emerged, pale in the darkness, a slightly damp but otherwise passably human young boy.

“See my dreads, Mara? Ronan did them for me, last time I was human.” Lir shook his head, and his narrow, shoulder-length dreadlocks twirled.

“Very nice. Will you be okay walking up to the cottage by yourself, or do you want to wait for the others?”

He replied by pulling the old T-shirt Mara held away from her and over his head. He grabbed his sealskin from the ground and sprinted up to the cottage door. “Noah!” he yelled. “We’re here!”

Mara glanced at Ronan just in time to see him shake his head. Despite what had happened to him, Lir had taken to the humans a bit more than the other younglings had. Ronan, though usually civil, could still hardly bring himself to think well of them.

“Remember, they brought Aine back to us,” Mara said, holding her hands out to help him pull Branna out of her sealskin.

“Yes,” he agreed, his voice even gruffer than usual. “Of course, they took her away in the first place.”

Mara bit back the growl that suddenly rose in her throat. She tried to make herself see things his way. After all, she had once thought the same thing.

“These people had nothing to do with that. You know that, Ronan. And look at Maebh, at how much she loves Gemm. You wouldn’t take that happiness from her, would you?”

Ronan looked in her eyes, and a flicker of kindness showed itself in their link. “No, Mara. I wouldn’t deny her that.”

Something in his voice made her blush and look away. “Well, good, then. Let’s get them inside.”

When all the younglings had managed their changes and wriggled into hand-me-down Gallagher clothes, Mara waved them toward the cottage. Ronan herded them from behind.

Aine was already inside, seated next to Lo at the table. The two of them had grown close in the last weeks, and Mara was trying to keep from being jealous. It made sense, she reminded herself, that they would want to spend time together. Though Aine still had the body of a child, she and Lo were actually close to the same age.

And if she were truly honest with herself, Mara knew that Aine still didn’t feel at home with the pod. She couldn’t hunt with them, because her human lungs lacked the capacity to keep her underwater for more than a minute or so. She was a strong swimmer, but she was still getting used to the contradictions of her half-seal, half-human body, and she was not yet as fast or as graceful in the water as her siblings, or as protected from cold water and weather as they were. Worst of all, she could not hide in her seal form the way the others could. Any human who saw her would immediately know her for what she was—or at least, would make a close-enough guess. Mermaid or selkie, Aine was not safe when she wore her sealskin. Of course it made sense that she would spend more time on land.

Still, Mara worried about the life that lay ahead for Aine. Lo would leave soon—
Noah, too,
her mind whispered, but Mara shoved that thought away—and then Aine would be left alone, caught in limbo, neither seal nor human. Forever.

She felt a tingle of sympathy enter her body, and she noticed Maebh looking at her. The Elder’s link told her that everything would turn out well, but Mara was having trouble believing it.

The younglings crowded together on the floor, piling against one another just as they did when they were seals. Lir was by the couch, leaning against Noah’s shin. His eyes darted between his siblings and his new idol. Ever since their rescue, Lir had adored Noah, following him whenever he could and telling the other younglings exaggerated stories about him.

Ronan glared at them, and Mara touched his arm. She thought Lir’s devotion to Noah was charming, but she could understand how Ronan might feel uneasy and possessive about it. That was exactly the way she felt about Lo and Aine.

Ronan looked at her, and she tried to send him some measure of patience or empathy. He nodded grudgingly, and she slipped away from him and sat down with Noah.

Noah shifted and laid his arm over the back of the couch, not quite touching her. Still, she could feel the comforting circle of him around her. She settled back, the muscles of her shoulders relaxing for the first time since . . . since the last time she’d seen him. That had been only yesterday, she knew, but it felt like much longer. Once more she pushed away the knowledge that he would leave her soon.

“Is everyone here?” asked Gemm.

“Everyone.” Mara reached down and stroked Lir’s dreadlocks.

“Well, then.” Gemm took the lid off a large metal pot on the stove. Fragrant steam drifted into the room. “Dinner is served.”

The younglings crowded up to her first. They’d eaten human food only a few times, but they found the concept of hot, cooked meals endlessly fascinating. Mara did too—the spices, the herbs, the simmering and roasting and baking—it was so complex. The only decision they had to make as seals was which kind of fish to hunt on a given night.

Aine stayed to one side, watching her brothers and sisters wait for their dinner. After Gemm had ladled out chowder for each of them, she dug through the refrigerator and pulled out a small tuna steak. She unwrapped the plastic film around it and laid it neatly on a plate.

“Here you go, sweetie,” she said.

Aine took the fish and ate with her hands, her teeth tearing through the raw flesh. She couldn’t stand human food, and none of them felt the slightest need to force it on her.

Mara told herself to stop worrying about Aine. There were hard things ahead for her, she was sure, but for now she was safe.

Mara looked around the tiny cottage, filled almost to bursting with everyone she loved. Perhaps the pod would never be safe again, now that humans knew about them. Perhaps Aine would never fully recover. But now, at this moment, she didn’t want to think of those things. She tucked herself closer to Noah, feeling utterly certain that she was home.

thirty-eight

N
OAH
had no idea how this had gotten so out of control. He stared at the piles of clothes and books that flooded his half of the bedroom, knowing his bags would have to be packed, and his room restored to its original neatness, by tomorrow. He just couldn’t make himself believe that he was really leaving.

Beyond the folding screen, Lo’s coordinated purple luggage lay stacked by the door. Even her bed was neatly made, the sheets tucked so tight into the mattress that they were probably bulletproof.

Lo herself had been on Appledore all day, taking yet another extra shift to help keep the Center running smoothly until the new director arrived. It was just like her to have everything organized and ready to go with a day to spare. Noah thought back to what Lo’s therapist had told their parents about eating disorders and about how she needed to be in control of something. She seemed to be starting to channel that need in better ways, but he knew it would take a long time to know for sure. He was just thankful that right now she seemed healthy, happy, free from the trap her body used to be for her.

He slumped back onto his bed. He didn’t
feel
as if he were leaving tomorrow—maybe that was his problem. If he could just convince himself that the summer was really over . . .

His mind recoiled from that train of thought, and he was left staring blankly at the unzipped duffle bag on his bed. He couldn’t let himself believe that he was leaving the Shoals, because that meant he’d be leaving Mara, too.

That spark—their link—opened up inside him, and he could feel her nearby, as if she’d been waiting for him to think of her. They’d both been so busy, he’d hardly felt the link at all over the past few days, and he’d almost forgotten the physical pull it had on him.

Noah rose from the bed and walked downstairs, knowing he could hardly have resisted responding to the link, even if he’d wanted to. He thought he would never understand how Gemm had ignored it for so many years before returning to Maebh.

His two grandmothers sat at the table downstairs, murmuring urgently to each other. They quieted as soon as Noah appeared on the steps.

A sealskin lay folded near Maebh’s elbow, but it wasn’t hers. Noah squinted at it, and shuddered when he realized it was Aine’s. Seeing her scarred, too-small skin always brought back the memory of Professor Foster’s house, always woke up the pain in his still-healing wounds.

Ever since their rescue, he hadn’t seen Aine without her skin—she wouldn’t even hide it the way the others did, but carried it with her. She changed several times a day, trying to speed up her growth so her body’s age would match her mind’s. He couldn’t imagine how Maebh had separated the girl from her sealskin—or why she would even want to.

“Packed yet, honey?” asked Gemm, tearing her gaze away from Maebh’s.

Noah cleared his throat. “Um, I’m getting there, I guess.”