Seacliff

Chapter forty-one: Birth of a new dawn

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Cold water hit her face, forcing Saoirse awake. She coughed sea salt and wiped at her eyes, blinking them open.

"You are with us again. Good."

Her sight remained too blurry to make out the speaker or her surroundings. Saoirse struggled to recall the last thing before losing consciousness.

"Now push!"

The command sent her senses and her memories rushing in. She had been bleeding in the sea, afraid she would lose her baby and her life.

"Push, Saoirse!" the man – it sounded like a man's voice – urged her. "Just one big push and it will be over."

Somehow, she trusted him. She had arms around her, holding her steady. Saoirse mustered her strength and channelled it all into her pelvis, groaning with the effort, her eyes squeezed shut. Her groans became screams as she strained to bring her baby into the world.

Then, after the longest minutes of her life, the child slipped out of her in one fell swoop, as if ushered by magic.

"That's it," the man said, relief evident in his tone.

He stood up and Saoirse dabbed briny sweat from her brow. What an unnatural experience she had just endured. As she contemplated the odd ease of her premature birth, it suddenly dawned on her that there were no cries. Her baby wasn't crying.

"Now once more." The man crouched between her legs again. "The afterbirth. This will be easy."

Saoirse demanded of her body to squeeze out the placenta while her mind was on her noiseless baby. Where was it? Had it been stillborn? The thought alone broke her heart.

"My child," she cried, "I want my child!"

The man scooped her up and carried her for a few strides. Tears had blurred her vision again. She was laid at the foot of a tree and leaned against it.

"Please, sir..." Her crying was uncontrollable now. "Please, my baby... Is it alive?"

"Saoirse, mo chroí..." A warm hand cupped her cheek. "Our baby is alive and well."

Her heart skipped a beat. Her breathing halted. She scrambled to clear her sight and get a good look at the stranger. Could it be? Could it really be...

Sure enough, Sorley was smiling at her, then her tears resumed their siege.

"Sorley! Oh!" She clung onto his neck as he moved to hug her. "I never thought I'd see you again! My baby... Our baby, where is it?"

He lowered himself beside her, nodding to a – naked – woman, who approached bearing a... fluffy white seal pup?

Disbelief sobered Saoirse up. "I gave birth to a... seal?"

Sorley chuckled good-naturedly. "No, my Saoirse, you gave birth to a selkie."

He took the seal pup from the woman and held it in the crook of his arm. A small remnant of the umbilical cord protruded in the white fur on the pup's belly. Sorley stuck his forefinger through its navel, then shoved his whole palm in as the skin parted. His hand sank up to his wrist into the pup, before pushing out the baby's head and torso.

It was screaming and flailing its little arms, much to Saoirse's relief. The naked woman came to help peel back the sealskin, while Sorley put his other hand under the baby's bottom. It had a head full of black hair and a strange mucus enveloped its body.

"I will be back shortly," Sorley said and got to his feet, heading for the sea.

"No!" Saoirse shouted. She couldn't move, her legs like lead jelly. "What are you doing? What are you – No!" He submerged the baby into the sea, washing it, as if the waves needed to baptise it. "Sorley!"

He returned cradling the wiggling baby at his chest.

"Our son." He knelt and handed her the tiny blue-eyed bundle he'd extricated from within a seal. "Ár mhac, a chuisle mo chroí."

More tears poured forth. The baby's miniature digits twitched and clasped onto the tip of her index finger. He had chubby, rosy cheeks, puffed with a curious pout. His eyes darted to and fro and when they settled on hers, his mouth gaped into a toothless smile and a gibberish giggle.

Saoirse weighed his little feet in her palm, kissing each of them in turn like she'd promised. They were as big as her thumb.

"He's so small," she murmured, unable to look away from him. "And so warm." She flattened her palm on his chest – it covered his entire torso – and felt his little heart pump life through his veins.

Sorley stretched to peck her forehead. "He is a selkie. He must be warm."

Saoirse showered the baby with featherlight kisses, until it seemed like he was about to throw his first tantrum.

"And speaking of which," Sorley continued, "we must get you somewhere dry and warm before the cold makes you ill."

She couldn't disagree. Being reminded of it made the painful discomfort tide over her.

"I would love to go home," she said, "but many things have changed since you left, Sorley. If I show up at the Lodge with a baby in my arms and two naked people in tow... I have a housemaid now, and James – "

"James?"

"You remember James?" A wry smile on her lips. "We're married now, Sorley. James and I."

His eyebrows jumped. "Married? Again?"

"I had to. You abandoned me." Despite her choice of words, there was no malice in her tone.

His face preserved its stony, stoic features, yet sadness seeped into the crow's feet around his eyes. "I had to go when I did. I will tell you everything, but first, I must take you to safety."

"I'm not sure how long it's been since I left the house. If the boys returned from the castle, they might be looking for me already."

"The boys?" A frown.

"Yes, James and..." Saoirse sighed. "I have a long story of my own." Her mind whirred in search of a solution. "Can you scout ahead? Go back to the Lodge first, find James and tell him. He... knows."

Sorley nodded. "Very well."

Standing up, he exchanged a few hushed words with the naked woman in what sounded like Gaelic to Saoirse's ears and took off. The woman fetched a basket from behind a nearby tree and plopped down cross-legged, setting the basket between her and Saoirse. In it lay her baby's sealskin, facedown, so it looked like a lifeless pup rather than a gutted carcass.