Seacliff

Chapter fifty-seven: Joys and sorrows

1939

Aidan didn't have the heart to tell his mum about Jemmy. It didn't feel right. Such an intimate thing... His parents had taught him that one's intimacy was one's own, never to be shared with the public. Even if his mum didn't count as public, he feared it would sadden her to learn of Jemmy's duplicitous nature.

"Aidan!"

Steps bounded up the stairs and Aidan sat up in his bed. His sister barrelled through the door, jumping into his arms. He clutched her tight, kissing the top of her head. Aoife's big, innocent eyes bore into his troubled ones and his sorrow dissipated. Jemmy be damned. He couldn't let him steal his joy.

"You're back!" Aoife cheered and smooched her brother's cheek. "What did you bring me?"

He burrowed into his bag and produced a wrinkled copy of the Evening Standard, abandoned by some London traveller at Waverley Station. Aoife snatched it from his hands.

"Mama doesn't let me read the newspaper," she whispered, shielding her mouth with her fingers, and giggled. "Says I ask too many questions when I do!"

"Well, this will be our little secret," he whispered back, "and you can ask me all your questions. All right?"

Aoife studied the headline on the front page, her brows knitted together as her mouth mimed the letters. "What does... a... an... ann-exed mean?"

"It means... attached. Like your nose is annexed to your face."

Aoife snorted and snickered when her brother pinched the bridge of her nose between his knuckles.

"And what is a dan-zeeg?"

"Supper is ready!" their mother called from the bottom of the stairs.

Aidan stood up with his sister clinging to him. She dropped the newspaper on his bed. Large, bold capitals spelled out on the front page: Germans invade and bomb Poland, Britain mobilises.

"Don't you have feet, Aoife?" Aidan playfully chided.

Aoife hooked her arms around his neck and buried her face in his shoulder, shaking her head no.

"You're a spoiled little brat," he said, without an ounce of seriousness in his tone. "Did you know that?"

She only held him tighter and he kissed her hair.

They washed their hands at the kitchen sink, then sat around the table and had the loudest supper. The noise used to bother Aidan. He had often willed his sister to just shut up and eat. Tonight, however, he relished every minute of it.

On the upside, the evening's mental exertion exhausted even Aoife's unbridled energy. She fell asleep with a smile on her face in the middle of her brother's faerie bedtime story. Tucking her in, he pecked her forehead and slipped out of her room.

His da was waiting out in the hall. "Midnight swim?"

Aidan couldn't decline. Swimming at night was the best, because they didn't have to worry about unexpected visitors. They could leave their clothes at the house, walk to the beach at leisure, and dive into the waves without a care in the world.

A cool rush of adrenaline flowed through Aidan's veins as he took to the water. The sea healed his soul, as if he could be reborn every time he surfaced from saltwater, one with the ocean and the magic dwelling within it. His earthly problems seemed minuscule in comparison.

They headed for the Selkie Stone, where their sealskins were stored, and Aidan paused to catch his breath once they emerged on the dimly-lit shore at the mouth of the caves. His heart was pounding in his chest, exhilarated. Deep down, though, his despair festered.

"This is the most wretched I have ever known you to be, lad," his da said as he hauled his skin out from its hiding place. "You were always such a happy child... Is something the matter?"

The advantage – and disadvantage – of having a selkie father was that he always knew how his son felt.

Aidan dug his own sealskin out from behind a rock formation. "I guess I'm just not a child anymore."

"No..." Sorley sat down in his skin, a melancholic smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. "No, you are not. You are your own young man and fate will give you cause for wretchedness aplenty. You cannot always prevent it. And you cannot let it defeat you."

Aidan laid out his sealskin alongside his father's and climbed into it.

"Remember," his da continued, "you are not weak because you feel the pain, you are strong because you learn from it and persevere."

"What's there to learn from it?" the boy muttered and lowered himself into the fatty folds of his second skin.

His shell, as it were.

The flesh engulfed him, sealing itself shut. It took over his senses, merged with his limbs, fused with his brain. When he opened his eyes, he had flippers for hands and a tail instead of legs.

He engaged his every muscle to flip his heavy seal's body around and crawl towards the sea. Muscles his human body didn't employ as often. It required getting used to, but once adrift, it felt like flying.