Seacliff

Chapter seventy-seven: War and monogamy

1940

Aidan sighed and focused on tending to his little fire. He missed home the most when it came to eating. Fish grilled bland on a stick didn't satisfy his sophisticated palate. It was, however, preferable to the raw seafood he had to ingest while swimming.

"What's wrong?" Sorley enquired when he returned with their food.

His da sat beside him on the moss, releasing half a dozen twitching fish onto the ground. He picked up the sticks Aidan had prepared and began impaling their dinner.

"Nothing," the boy replied. "Just... I guess I'm too human to feel at ease here."

They spoke in hushed Gaelic, wary of their hosts. Hopefully the ginger Irishwoman was too preoccupied to eavesdrop.

"You are right to feel this way. Armed selkies... I have never seen such a colony before."

Aidan fixed the fish sticks in small holes he'd dug around the fire. "Well, we are in the midst of a world war. Perhaps they're just taking self-defence precautions."

His father made no response. Instead, he turned and smiled at a member of the colony whose presence Aidan hadn't registered. The man grinned, his painted eyes ominous in the firelight.

"Mating season is still underway," he told Sorley. "We would like you to join."

"I will not partake," Sorley replied without hesitation.

A raised, condescending eyebrow. "Your half-breed son's a maiden still, so he gets a pass. But you know it is your duty to the colony to breed, even if you are just passing through. Especially if you are just passing through."

"I will not partake," Sorley insisted. "I will hunt for you, if you wish, mind your children, or aid your midwives if the need arises while I'm here. But I will not partake in pleasures of the flesh."

"Why should we trust you with any of the other things if you won't contribute your seed to the colony?"

Sorley held the man's accusatory stare until someone shouted from the fire. The selkie left to re-join his colony.

"So...," Aidan mused, "I take it monogamy is frowned upon in selkie circles?"

"Monogamy?"

"Sticking to a single partner. Being faithful to Ma."

"No, I... I do breed." Sorley pulled out one of the sticks and turned it around so the fish would cook evenly. "I haven't, since your sister, but... I have done it and I would do it, I just don't trust them."

"You said you knew Mansa Musa," his son reminded him.

Sorley nodded, the flickering flames glinting in his eyes. "He used to be his brother's second-in-command before whalers killed his daughter. The grief... worsened his rebellious nature, but..."

Aidan reached for one of the fish and held it above the fire for a crispy finish. "But what, Da?"

"The proper colony grounds are further south. Kallik had long threatened that he would leave to start his own, yet no one believed him. Amaruq had built them such a safe home, they trusted him with their lives. Out here, they are defenceless. Much too exposed. Kallik should know better."

"Kallik?" Aidan blew on his steaming fish. "You mean Mansa Musa?"

"Yes. Amaruq is his brother."

"Right." A tentative first bite scalded Aidan's tongue. "I could have never imagined a selkie chain of command, to be honest. And I can't blame Kallik for wanting to live by his own rules. Grief can make you do stupid things, I suppose."

Sorley put an arm around his son's shoulders and gave him a squeeze. "Indeed. I don't know what I'd do if anything happened to you or your sisters."

Aidan could only think of Jemmy and how his reckless desertion had set off this strange succession of events. What he wouldn't give to be seated at the dining room table instead, reading Sophocles and arguing with Papa about Jung and Freud over coffee.

"So, then, is it Amaruq's colony we're heading for?"

"Yes. He should be able to help you settle in this... America."

Aidan frowned. "How?"

His father shrugged. "I am not too knowledgeable in the ways of his colony, but if there is anything you ever want at all, Amaruq is the man who can get it for you."

*

A loud commotion tore Aidan from a violent nightmare at the break of dawn. He started awake, rubbing at his eyes, stretching his tense muscles. Following his father's advice, he'd slept beside his sealskin, as opposed to within it, so they could make a run for it at a moment's notice if needed.

"Da?"

Aidan stood, yawning, brushing off twigs, moss, and pebbles. Sorley's sealskin sat where he'd left it the previous night. His father, however, was nowhere to be seen. The boy glanced into the clearing, where some bodies stirred on the grass around the remnants of the camp fire. The noise echoed around him.

"Aidan!"

The boy turned and saw his father come running from the direction of the sea, horror etched into his features.

"Aidan, we must go! Quickly, before they come back."

Aidan didn't question it. He hooked his hand into his skin and lugged it along as they hurried through the forest. They were nearing the sea, only at a more southern point than the one they'd landed on. The piercing screams became clearer here, but he dared not speak. Could not speak, too focused on keeping up.

"Aidan, listen to me," his father told him as they crawled onto the beach.

The screaming split into layers now. Pained screams, jolly screams, war screams... some laughter sprinkled in for good measure. A massive boulder separated them from the noise.

"You must swim faster than you ever have," Sorley continued. "Do as I do and keep close, all right?"

On Sorley's mark, they launched their sealskins adrift and leapt into them, gaining some momentum even as the skins were still closing. Their departure must have been noticed, because the commotion paused. Aidan caught a fleeting glimpse of the proceedings on the beach.

He saw an overturned boat and... pools of blood. Body parts scattered about. A flash of ginger hair. Mansa Musa stood on the boat's spine, staring towards Aidan. The sight catapulted him to France for an instant. To corpses strewn on streets lined by bombed-out houses. To hands and feet flowing downstream wherever the river carried them. To –

The Chief hopped off the boat into the water, raising his spear above his head. Aidan snapped out of his trance. He screeched at his da to hurry and they sliced like torpedoes through the waves. The spear scratched the end of Aidan's tail. It stung and drew blood, but he'd had worse.

The last thing they needed, though, were sharks on their trail, so Sorley stuck close to the coast, took a hard right turn after long minutes of speeding underwater, and stopped at the mouth of a cave surrounded by seals. Regular seals. They shed their skins and took refuge inside.

Aidan limped with the phantom pain of his injured tail. His father paced nervously around.

"We don't do that!" he yelled at his son out of the blue, grabbing his face. "Do you hear me? We do not hurt people!"

"Da..." Aidan stumbled backwards from the force of his father's hold.

"We do not hurt people! Whatever humanity there is in you, it's your mother's and should only harbour kindness. You are not made for war, you are made for love. Promise me... promise that you will never take a life for sport."

Touched, Aidan grabbed onto his father's wrists and nodded. "I promise, Da. I promise. No more war."

Sorley kissed his son's forehead and pulled him in the tightest hug Aidan had ever experienced.