Chapter Fourteen

The Spire

Everyone else was heading to the flat, pebbled beach, but Mam and I swam to a tumble of rocks on one side, where a crag blocked us from view.

“You and I will walk in together,” she said. The fur grew loose around her.

From around the crag I could hear cries of greeting, flippers slapping and feet running, snatches of song. It was as raucous as a rookery at nesting time.

The pelt slid from Mam’s shoulders. Her long, dark hair wrapped her body; her arms were pressed tight to her sides. In this pale face, her eyes were huge, and she had that mysterious, inward gaze, the look of changing.

I jumped on top of the rocks. “Hurry,” I said, craning sideways, trying to see around the crag.

But Mam wasn’t to be rushed, not now. When her pelt lay on the ground beside her, she stretched, feeling what it was to have arms again. She spread her fingers out one by one, the webbing between them thin and tender, almost translucent. She stretched her legs long, pointing her toes.

“Now?” I said, ready to jump down.

Mam took a deep breath. She picked up her pelt, folded it carefully, and tucked it under her arm.

“Now,” she said.

Together we rounded the crag.

I stood in the shallows, staring, openmouthed. The beach was crowded with selkies. In sealform they surfed ashore, galumphed to greet loved ones, nuzzled noses. Pelts of every color lay in a glossy tumble: brown and black and silver, speckled and spotted and pearly white. And in longlimbs! In longlimbs they ran to one another with open arms, lounged on flat rocks, sat sifting sand with fresh-skin fingers. Still others were carrying their pelts up a path toward the black, gaping mouth of a cave.

I drew in a breath: the pelt cave! Three huge, muscular bull selkies protected the door. One was brown, one black, and the third granite gray. So those were the guardians, the ones who stay in sealform for the entire ceremony. A guardian needs the eyes of an eagle to watch out for intruders, the strength of a whale to fight them off, and a voice like thunder to summon the clans if need be. Selkies take no chances. If humans ever came upon Moon Day and stole all the pelts, they could wipe out the folk forever. Your soul dies without a pelt. That’s what they say.

Maybe I’d be a guardian one day. I could see it now: my broad neck and muscular shoulders, the scars on my pelt proof of battles I’d fought and won.

Mam stroked her folded pelt. “Why don’t you wait here,” she said, turning toward the path.

I watched her walk uphill and take her place in line. She reached the cave and bowed respectfully, holding out her pelt with outstretched arms. The gray bull took it to store on the ledges within.

I was watching so closely, I didn’t sense anyone near me. Then a voice at my shoulder made me jump.

“Why did you change early?”

I turned and stared. It was a pup, and in longlimbs! He was heavier than I was, with a broad chest and sturdy legs, as if all his ocean swimming had muscled him up. His dark hair flowed down to his shoulders. His skin was almost pure white; next to him I looked brown.

“Your pelt,” he said, when I didn’t answer. “Why didn’t you wait and take it off here?” His eyes shone with an eager look—it was the white selkie who’d popped up beside me in the water. He gave me an open, welcoming smile. A smile of friendship.

I was overwhelmed by the surge of bodies, the splashing and calling, and the explanation was too complicated. “I just felt like it,” I said.

“Lucky!” His laughter showered over me, a sunlit spray. “I’d swim in with legs, too, if I could do it like you. I never swim in longlimbs. Our chief won’t let me. How’d you get so good?”

What an odd thing to admire! I shrugged. “Practice, I guess.”

He leaned closer. “The ceremonies don’t start for ages. Want to go climbing?”

Did I! I ran to tell Mam, and then I dashed off to play, for the first time ever, with another selkie pup.