Secrets of Selkie Bay (10 page)

He crossed his arms in front of his chest and stood there, glaring at me, the same way he'd stood and glared at Mum that foggy morning on the beach when she'd last taken us out in the boat.

I didn't say anything. Ione didn't either, but as she tried to stuff the shovel back in the bag, she fumbled a bit and it clanked to the ground.

Mr. Doyle was there in a blink, picking up the shovel and stuffing it in the bag for us, then zipping the whole thing closed. “Good to see you are going prepared at least.” He patted the bag. Then he eyed us more closely, with squinty eyes. “I can't imagine your da is happy about this. Never seemed to like the sea, that one. Didn't like it when your mum took you out, as I recall.”

I looked at Ione to silence her. She put both hands over her mouth to try to keep her words inside.
Very discreet, my sister.

“Oh, he doesn't know, does he?”

I willed Ione to keep her mouth shut, but she kept looking at me with a look on her face that fairly screamed,
He's figured out our secret, Cordie!

“Maybe I should go and tell him? What do you think about that, Cordelia Sullivan?”

“Go ahead,” I said bravely.

“Yeah. Go ahead and try. You won't find him, though, because he's gone.” Ione was quite pleased with herself.

“Just stop talking, Ione. It's none of his business.”

“Listen to the way you talk. Just a day or so ago, you were begging me for work. And now look at you, full of spit and fire. That's no way to treat an elder.” Mr. Doyle scowled and shook both his head and his finger at me.

Taking a young girl out on a boat to trick the tourists into thinking she is a selkie girl, to boost your own business, is no way to treat a kid, either.
But I didn't have time to argue with Mr. Doyle. Neevy was starting to fuss, so I turned my attention to her, trying to ignore the cranky old man, just like Mum had ignored him.

“And if your da's gone and left you, too, well I suppose that makes you abandoned. There's authorities that can take care of that. Perhaps I should make a call.”

I didn't say anything else. Not one word. I just turned around and started pushing that pram away from Mr. Doyle and away from our boat. Not fast, because I didn't want him to know he scared me, even though he did. Ione was right there beside me. For a second, we were an unstoppable force, the Sullivan sisters, off to find our fortune.

Ione finally chanced a glance back. “He's gone,” she said.

We turned around, raced to the
Dreaming Lass.

My hands started to get clammy. I didn't know much about piloting the boat by myself, but Mum had showed both Ione and me the basics. I could manage to start the small motor and get us away from here. I was pretty sure I could, anyway. But still, I had doubts. What kind of big sister takes her little sisters out in a boat without telling anyone? It sounded crazy. It sounded like something I should not even consider doing.

It sounded exactly like something Mum would have done.

“Help me, Ione. We've got to get the cover off this thing.”

Dropping the bread bag with a thud, Ione skipped over and drew the boat close by the painter. I reached down to loosen the cover and pull it off from one side, then the other. The boat was filled with water halfway up the sides. The cover hadn't done its job. I wished Neevy were old enough to help us.

I surveyed the dock. Still empty. Mr. Doyle was nowhere to be seen.

“There, Cordie, look there!” Ione pointed out to sea, her voice giddy and squealy.

I looked, but I didn't see anything.

“Is someone coming?” My stomach seized up, just like it did when I got seasick, and I wasn't even in the boat yet.

“She's coming, Cordie! I knew she would!”

Ione pointed out to the gray morning sea. The sun was rising slowly in the east, reflecting upon the waves like molten silver.

“There!” And she pointed again.

Through the white foam that frosted the waves, up popped the black face of the seal.

 

Follow the Leader

I
T TOOK US ABOUT FIFTEEN MINUTES
of bailing to empty the boat. And finally, with the help of one of the Patel boys, who was on his way to work at Chippy's, we got the small outboard running.

“Where are you going, anyway?” he asked. I shrugged. The Patel boys were twins, Niall and Raj, and I could never tell them apart, even though both of them had been in my class this year. They swapped identities all the time—drove the headmistress crazy.

Ione cheered as the motor warmed up, and I wanted to cheer, too, but I stayed quiet. I was still too busy looking from side to side, watching to see if anyone was paying attention to the poor Sullivan girls as they struggled with their crummy-looking boat.

“So it's a secret, then?” Niall or Raj asked. “Where's your father? Isn't he going with you?”

I shrugged again.

“You're brave, Cordie,” Niall or Raj said. “So which one am I, Raj or Niall?”

“Niall.”

“Ha! It's Raj.”

I reminded him that he probably had to work, which he did. So he left.

“Thanks, Raj,” I called after him.

“Ha! It's Niall,” he shouted back.

I felt bad leaving Neevy's pram behind, but even folded up, it wouldn't fit well into the boat. And if we had treasure to bring back, we'd have to have room for it. Hopefully, the carriage would still be there when we got back. I let myself picture it for a minute—us returning triumphantly to Selkie Bay, loaded with treasure, pram waiting to be filled with Neevy and gold, as we made our way home to Da.

My head knew it wasn't really possible. That almost-twelve-year-old girls and their little sisters weren't the kinds of folks that found hidden treasure. But my heart wanted to try. And trying something felt so much better than sitting around feeling numb. I guessed Ione wasn't the only one with make-believe dreams. But which was crazier? Finding buried treasure or having a seal for a mum?

At least treasure could solve some of our problems.

Maybe not all of them, but some of them. And if we didn't find treasure, because we didn't find an island and therefore didn't find selkies, well, that would solve a problem, too. The Ione problem.

The sun was rising higher, the silver glow atop the water deepening to gold. Even the seal, whose head was still sitting perkily above the water, seemed cast from bronze.

So this was it, then. I was really going to do it.

Where exactly did I think I was going to go?

The minute we'd plopped Neevy and all our stuff into the boat, the wind picked up.

“Put this on,” I said, handing Ione a life vest. I put on mine and strapped the extra-small one on Neevy.

“Onward!” I commanded to Ione, and adjusted the choke. The engine stalled.

“Oh no, captain!” she cried.

I stood up, gained my balance, and pulled the starter cord.

It took a few times of pulling with all my might, but eventually, the
Dreaming Lass
sputtered back to life. I sat and used the rusty handle to steer.

We left the harbor within a few minutes. I was thrilled. Not a soul was out with their boat this early, except for the fisherfolk—but most of them had left before dawn and were far off the coast by now, and the ones that were on the other side of the harbor were too busy checking their nets and cages to worry about a little dinghy. The morning moon hung above our heads like a pearl in the sky, lovely and hopeful. We could not have been luckier.

But luck is funny that way. The minute you think you've got it all figured out, luck can change, faster than the blink of an eye or the gust of a wild wind.

Or the thick hand of fog.

That's what it's like sometimes, when fog grabs you. It's like a giant's hand, and often you manage to slip through its fingers for a while, but then it reaches out and takes you again.

We'd been flitting in and out, around and between the foggy fingers for about thirty minutes when it finally surrounded and completely enveloped us.

I shut the motor off.

“Which way are we supposed to go, Cordie?” Ione looked behind us, to where the coast should have been. Instead, we could see only misty white.

I could hear the fear in Ione's voice. “Cordie? You do know where we are going, right?”

There was no quick lie that came to me, so I just nodded and looked off.

The sky over the sea was a beautiful thing—white with fog, except for a small circle where the moon watched over us. Or it would have been beautiful if I hadn't been so scared I thought I might pee myself. “Uh, Ione…” I started.

What was I going to say? I am an idiot for taking you and Neevy on the boat? I don't really know where to go.

“Oh there you are again!” said Ione, switching from scared to joyful in but a second. She pointed over the edge of the
Dreaming Lass.
“It's Mum,” she whispered.

The seal had popped up again, timidly inching closer.

“No one followed us, Mum. It's okay,” Ione said gently, then turned to me. “When she's her seal-self, she's not quite like a person, more like an animal.”

“What makes you think you know so much about selkies?” I asked.

“Well, I read the book you gave me. Some of the words were big and old, so I had to guess about them. And it is in our blood, after all. Isn't that what you said when you told me about Mum?”

“Sure.”

A wave splashed against our small boat, giving me a mouthful of salty water. I spat it out and wiped my face with the back of my hand. Ione laughed.

Neevy woke with a whimper that quickly morphed into a full-fledged howling session. The seal turned its head this way and that, obviously not liking the noise.

“It's okay, Mum, she's just got a wet diaper,” Ione said to the seal. “Cordie will change her now. Don't worry.” Turning to me she said, “She doesn't like to hear her baby cry. Come on, hurry up. Change her.”

Changing a squirrelly baby in a life vest on a bobbing boat is not the easiest thing to do. With the taste of salt in my mouth, the smell of the diaper, and the roll of the waves under the boat, I was pretty sure I was going to puke. Just like Da.

“You look like a ghost, Cordie. A pale ghost.”

“Well, I am not a ghost because ghosts don't vomit.” I lay back in the
Dreaming Lass
, trying to focus on the moon instead of the shifting boards under my back.

“It's okay. The map is around here somewhere. Maybe I can find the island.”

“Yeah, right.” I hoped Ione would just shut up and let us drift for a minute until my stomach settled. Then I'd get us moving again. “Let's not start the motor up just yet. I need a few minutes.”

I must have felt really nauseated because I closed my eyes and the next thing I knew, Neevy was snuggled up next to me and Ione's voice, soft as the breeze, was floating around us.

 

Ione's Tale

Once there were three special princesses. They were special because they didn't even know they were princesses. But they were. And they were also special because they were selkie princesses. But they didn't know that, either. And that was okay.

Sometimes people don't know everything that they think they know.

These princesses were trying to find a treasure.

And their mum. They were trying to find their mum, too.

Their mum was a selkie, of course. And she'd been called back to the sea, but she never really left them. Not at all. She loved her three princesses too much to ever be far from them. So she stayed in the bay, hoping her daughters would one day see her and know who she was.

It was the middle princess, the bravest one, who noticed that the seal in the bay was their mum. The biggest princess didn't understand because she was too busy being angry at her mother for being a selkie, and mad at her da, too, even though no one was quite sure why.

She was just busy being mean. A lot. And she didn't used to be mean. Not all the time, anyway. And the baby princess spent most of her time eating bananas and pooping, so she wasn't much for noticing important things like mums disguised as seals.

So the princesses followed their mother selkie to the ocean, where she had been watching over them from the edge of the sea. Selkies will do anything for their pups because they love them so much, so their mum stayed as a seal and swam next to their boat, leading the way to the secret island.

You are probably thinking they were searching for treasure, and you would be right, but not at first. At first they had to find their seal coats. They didn't have any yet because they had been born on land. That's just the way it was.

They had to get to the Kingdom of the Selkies quickly, because they were racing an old man with a puffer-fish head. He had special powers called the Authorities and he had threatened to use them on the princesses. He wanted the treasure, too.

Really, everybody wants treasure. Except for maybe ants. Ants don't want treasure. Ants like sugar.

Anyway, even though it was scary, the seal mother guided her pups in the boat through the dangerous waters. She nudged the boat this way and that, in between the two gigantic rocks, and through the secret water passage to the Kingdom of the Selkies.

When they finally got there, they met the rest of the selkie family. They had all kinds of uncles and aunts and cousins. At first, everyone was a little shy, but it didn't take long for all the seals to adore the three princesses. That's the thing about being a princess. You get adored a lot. And, the best part was, the sisters each got to pick out a seal coat. Even though the middle princess wanted a purple one, she knew that her mother would say no, for even selkie mums have to say no sometimes. So they picked out coats of soft, shiny fur and their mum helped them learn the ways of the selkies.