Silver Tides (Silver Tides Series) (23 page)

“Thanks,” I exclaimed, sarcastically.

"No, I take it back.” He rethought, his eyes widening with horror. “I don’t wish that you could be there; the selkies are thieves and murderers. I would never want you to be anywhere near them.” He held me closer, as though mentioning their names was dangerous.

"I don't imagine Cordulla would appreciate me attending," I replied, shivering at the thought of something happening to Daniel.

"Probably not, but you're going to be my queen," Daniel stated, dogmatically.

"Is that a proposal?" I teased, giggling at the preposterous notion of getting engaged so young.

"Do you want it to be?" he asked seriously, his eyes searching mine.

My heart did six beats instead of one. "Let's just deal with one thing at a time," I replied, laughing it off. I loved Daniel, but getting married was more than a little premature; we’d only been dating for a few weeks and had known each other for less than six months. While I was all about being young and in-love, I wasn’t’ going to go nuts and get married.

"Will I forget you when you return to the sea?" I asked, remembering Cordulla's threats.

"I hope not." Daniel swallowed, looking away.

"But there's a chance I will," I finished.

"If you remember Cordulla, I have no doubt you'll remember me." He exhaled, hugging me.

"You need to tell your mum if you're going away," I warned Daniel.

"I will." He exhaled heavily. "She'll be heart broken, but I'll be back soon. I'll need to leave in the next couple of days to find out what's going on and then go to parley."

My heart sank at the thought of going to school without him. It made me feel like my reign at school was in jeopardy, usually that wouldn't bother me. I had liked being invisible; but it irked me to think of Miranda being cruel to my friends on account of me. As long as I had the ability to protect them I would.

After Daniel left I began to plan for school. I stood in our pink bathroom with the clashing mats and towels staring at myself in the mirror. My face seemed too red and my saddlebag hips were so inconvenient. I scrunched my hair to get some curl definition, but it was futile; it lived in no-man’s-land between straight and curly. It wasn't possible that I could be as beautiful as Cordulla or Daniel. It seemed like a goof in the universe that Daniel would choose me. I would cherish him as long as he let me and probably beyond.

The parley was set for Friday night, so Daniel left Wednesday. Sophia was devastated, but hopeful that he would be back after the weekend. Neither Sophia nor I dared to think that Daniel might not return
.

folklore

I didn't realize how much time I had spent with Daniel till he left. His absence left a gaping hole in my schedule, not to mention my affections. As long as he was gone I purposed to spend my time wisely, which meant not sitting around wondering where he was, or what he was doing.

Surprisingly, Daniel's absence was barely noticed at school. Tamara, Tammy, and Jaimie picked me up before school, and we spent most of our time in our usual pursuits. Miranda asked where Daniel was, and I explained he was sick and taking a few days to recover. The others didn't even seem to remember Daniel; he was like a blind spot in their memories.

After the first day, I was totally relieved that nothing had drastically changed. I'd begun to wonder if Daniel had been the driving force behind my popularity, but his absence had made little difference, confirming my place in school social structure. It was nice to know that people liked me for me, and that my non-catty approach to popularity continued, along with the peaceful vibe that Daniel had instigated.

I finished my homework in record time without Daniel staring or the obligatory pashing.

Despite my best efforts to act like everything was normal, I missed Daniel. I worried that he was in danger, and there was nothing I could do to protect him. I worried that Cordulla would convince him to never see me again. Thinking about Daniel filled me with apprehension as heavy as a car sitting on my chest.

Unfortunately, Mum and Dad were both busy. Dad was studying to upgrade his electrician’s license, while Mum and Sophia were decorating the Esso mansion in Daniel’s absence. A pastime that Sophia had thrown herself into with renewed vigor.

My only distraction was when Dad would teach me self-defense moves; I hoped that I’d never need to use them.

When the isolation was too much, I turned to the bookcase for a distraction. I found a thin book from the 80s with a seal on the cover. It was not unusual of the op-shop books that Mum brought home; what caught my attention was the title. A single word: Selkie.

I'd tried to block out of my mind the impending war between the mermaids and selkies. Till that moment I had assumed that selkies were another class of merperson. I clicked on Mum's computer, the fan whirring into action, while the computer slowly mobilized itself. Why was it that it took the computer twice as long to get going when I was in a hurry? I googled selkie, and found a Wikipedia post. Selkies were not mermaids, though they did live in the sea.

Selkies were enchanted humans in Irish folklore, who were turned into seals as part of a curse. They needed their furs to transform into seals, though some were able to shape-shift. Male selkies were attractive and were rumored to offer comfort to ladies who were lonely in seaside villages. They were easily summoned by shedding seven tears in the sea. Female selkies were not stunningly beautiful, but humans seemed to be attracted to them and would keep them by stealing their furs.

Being Irish folklore, it only made sense that they would have immigrated to Australia. My mind flashed back to endless walks along Queenscliff beach and snorkeling off the Mud Islands. Every year on my birthday Mum would take me on a cruise to swim with the dolphins, though the most exciting part was swimming with the seals at Seal Rock.

There was an audible pop in my brain as I remembered the one occasion Mum came close to hitting me. We were cleaning out our closets to give clothes to Goodwill, and I accidentally grabbed a pile from her closet that she hadn't intended to give away.

She began throwing clothes wildly around the room searching for the missing article. I was 13-years-old at the time; she grabbed my shoulders so hard that her fingers left red marks on my skin. "Where is it?" she demanded.

I had no idea what she meant until she found it in the Goodwill bag.

"Never ever give this away," she told me, showing me what looked like a fur rug.

I had nodded, tears in my eyes, and kept my promise.

Pushing my chair away from the computer I walked to my parents’ room in a daze. I rolled the big mirrored cupboard doors open and dug around in my mum’s clothes. I began to relax; she must have given it away.

"What were you thinking?" I chuckled out loud.

Then my fingers swept across something soft and furry. I grasped the item and pulled it out, toppling a pile of Mums T-shirts onto the carpet.

I stumbled backward onto the bed. In the mirror I saw a pale teenage girl brandishing what was without a doubt a seal fur.

selkie

My mind worked overtime trying to reconcile what I’d read and what I knew, but it was all too much. I was so preoccupied with trying to work out why Mum would have a seal fur, that I didn’t even hear her walking toward her room.

"What are you doing in here?" Mum asked, discovering me on her bed clutching the seal fur.

The most remarkable thing about my mother was her sense of timing; she told amazing jokes and looked like a rock star, even in the most awkward moments, because she had a keen sense of timing. It only made sense she would walk in just when I needed her. I was comforted and unnerved by her appearance. I wanted to talk to her as much as I didn’t.

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.