Author’s Note

Stories are places where worlds meet. That’s what Aran says, and that’s what I believe. We find each other through stories. Some of the most powerful come from myth and folklore. Even when I was small, their magic took me deep inside myself to a place that felt truer than true.

The first inklings of this book came to me on a trip to Ireland. My family was on a boat to the Skellig Islands. Seals bobbed up to stare at us and dolphins leaped alongside. Then the crags of Little Skellig rose from the waves. A picture flashed into my mind of selkies lounging on those rocks in longlimbs. It was so vivid I can still remember every detail: the pelts piled at their feet, their faces raised to the sun. Soon we landed on Skellig Michael. We climbed stone steps to the top of a pinnacle, and ducked into beehive-shaped huts where monks lived about 1,400 years ago. It felt ancient, elemental, and profound. The next morning I sat down to write, and a few pages about a selkie boy flowed from my pen. I tucked them away.

Later that year, we visited a place we love: Washington’s San Juan Islands. We sailed the boat my husband built, landing on lonely beaches and greeting the seals. Orcas breached offshore. Scattered islands, mist and sun, the heartbeat of the waves: this, too, was a perfect place for a selkie boy! I found my earlier scribbles and began to write.

Celtic folklore and music wove their way through these pages. “The Great Silkie of Sule Skerry” is a classic ballad. I’ve taken lines from several versions and changed a few words. The book Aran steals from the aerie was inspired by The People of the Sea: A Journey in Search of the Seal Legend, by David Thomson. My fascination with selkies owes a debt to The Secret of Roan Inish, a movie based on Rosalie K. Fry’s book Secret of the Ron Mor Skerry. “The Tale of the Selkie Wife” is my retelling of a traditional story; “The Tale of Westwood Pier” is my own.

Research is one of the best parts of writing. At a seal haulout, I watched pups ride on their mothers’ backs. Visits to the Seattle Aquarium, the Oregon Coast Aquarium, and the Oregon Zoo helped me picture Aran’s undersea world. I hope you’ll have as much fun exploring seals and ocean life as I did. Online, you can listen to a puffin grunt, watch seals twirling in kelp forests, and see orcas on the hunt. Myth and folklore are rich with tales of the moon, the sea, and beings who can shift shape between animal and human. Seal legends are told around the world, including the Pacific Northwest. You’ll find some links to the natural world and the mythical worlds on my website at emilywhitman.com.

Seals, orcas, fish, mollusks, birds: everything depends on a healthy ocean to survive. But the ocean is in danger. Ocean warming, acidification, pollution, overfishing, plastics, and dead zones are serious problems. We share our world with all living things. I hope you’ll find out more about the ocean, its wonders and the dangers it faces, and what we can do to make a difference.

The world is full of magic. When my son was young, he’d run along a beach and seals would follow in the surf. He’d be collecting pebbles, unaware of the seal slipping ashore a body length behind him.

Maybe they were selkies.

We’ve all got ocean inside us. Beautiful, mysterious, and untamed. Like Aran, we are two everythings.