Chapter Forty-One

Patterns

When I came back, Maggie surprised me by grabbing me in a hug. She must have thought I’d left last night when she was sleeping.

“How long—” I said, and then stopped. I was going to ask her about the calendar, about Jack and when she was going to call the child-taking people. But if I didn’t say the words, maybe she wouldn’t think them.

Too late. “We still have a little time,” said Maggie, her eyes glistening. Then she went into the bathroom and washed her face for a very long time.

The next morning I met Nellie at the tree cave. She’d brought a book with pictures of an animal called a bear. There were hardly any black markings. I looked at it scornfully. What could a book like this have to say?

Nellie pointed to a mark standing by itself. “That’s a small letter a.” She moved her finger to the center of a dense clump. “And so is that one.”

It was the same shape: a beak curving over a round belly, like a well-fed puffin.

There were patterns! My eyes raced across the page, and I pointed to another a and another.

Nellie nodded. “There are twenty-six letters. Each one can look two ways, so that makes fifty-two shapes to learn. Then you learn the sounds they make. After that it’s just practice.”

I worked with Nellie all morning. A, B, C, D, E. When she went home for lunch, I traced letters in the sand. I dipped my finger in the surf and drew dripping letters on the rocks.

I went back the next day, and the next. I had to learn to read fast and get back to the aerie and start searching. Every day that passed was another day that Mam could be caged or caught or lying injured somewhere.

When I wasn’t learning to read, I had to do something else, or I’d be eaten alive by worry. So I swam. Before, I’d gone swimming to explore. Now I swam to get stronger. I had to be ready to take off as soon as I had my pelt. And if Maggie called the child-taking people, I’d have to swim off in longlimbs. I couldn’t let them take me away from the sea.

Every morning I woke before dawn and swam as hard as I could before first light. Out to the rock where I’d pulled Nellie, five times out and back without stopping. Then I climbed the cliff, shook off the wet, and snuck inside to put on a dry pair of shorts. I always held the stone selkie in my palm for a moment before switching her to my new pocket. She was my courage. I needed to be even braver now, for Mam.

When I heard Maggie fill the kettle, I came out rubbing my eyes as if I’d just woken. I ate a bowl of cornflakes and headed out the door, with Maggie calling after me yet again to be sure I didn’t let anyone see me. I still hadn’t told her about Nellie and the walrus, and now it felt too late. She’d be disappointed in me. She’d worry, and start coughing. It was better not to tell.

Then I worked with Nellie in the tree cave. All the way to O, P, Q. Then to X, Y, Z. But we still weren’t done! I had to learn how to put the letters together. Sometimes a pair of them made a whole new sound. I had to memorize where they acted differently than they should have.

A hard swim back to Maggie’s, and then I spent the afternoon and evening doing my chores, and more and more of hers as her cough got worse. Sometimes it sounded like she couldn’t breathe. She had something she called pills, small and round as fish eggs, and she’d take one and go to bed in the daytime. So I cut wood and piled wood. I swept and scrubbed the house before she could. I brought her fish and mussels so she wouldn’t have to go to the store as often.

As I worked, I was always watching for letters. I ran my fingers across them—on the calendar, on boxes, on cans of food—putting the sounds together so they flowed into words.

At night I shut the door to the bedroom and pretended to go to sleep. When Maggie turned out the lights and her steps dragged to her room, I snuck out the window. I set the stone selkie beside me on the rocks, and I thought about Mam and prayed to the Moon, until somehow I fell asleep.

I was at the tree cave with Nellie. I read the bear book aloud without stopping. I looked up with a flash of pride. But with my next breath, I slammed the cover shut.

“What?” said Nellie.

“This is stupid,” I said. “I don’t need to know about bears. I need . . . I need . . .” A wave slapped the rocks below. I thought of Mam, and my chest grew tight. I took a deep breath. “I need songs and stories and the lore of the sea.”

Nellie nodded. “I think I know something you’ll like.”

“Go get it now,” I urged.

“Why are you so impatient? I’ll bring it tomorrow.”

I wanted to tell her there wasn’t time, but I forced the words back down.

The next day she brought a book with lots of letters and only a few pictures. I started reading aloud. It was the story of the selkie wife. I read faster, and then I wasn’t reading aloud anymore, but in my own head.

Nellie pulled another book from her pack and started reading silently beside me.

I read and read, clawing my way through the words. It was hard work, but I finished the story before Nellie got up to go.

I scuffed at the stones as she ran off. I’d spent the whole morning on a story I’d already heard. Where were the clues to my turning? The books with magic? I thought back to the walrus and the story he wouldn’t tell, so powerful it gave nightmares.

I had to get back into the aerie.

An amazing smell greeted me as I opened the door. Maggie was setting a platter on the kitchen table. She lifted her head with a smile.

“Come on in, Ocean Boy. Do you like chocolate cake?”

I’d never smelled anything like it before, so rich and dark and sweet. She cut thick slices and set them on plates. Three fat layers bound by glistening ribbons of filling.

I’d never eaten much of Maggie’s food before, but she’d never baked before, either. I took one tentative bite.

That cake spoke to something in me I hadn’t known existed. A kind of hidden . . . humanness. Suddenly I was shoveling the cake into my mouth.

Maggie fiddled with her fork. “You’ve been working so hard around here, I wanted to make you something special.”

I nodded my thanks.

“I wish . . .” Her eyes were glittery. “I wish I wasn’t sick. I wish I knew what Jack would do one day to the next. I wish . . .”

I stopped with the fork halfway to my mouth.

She sighed. “I wish I could do something for you. In case—”

I didn’t like where this was going. “You made me a cake,” I said. And I held up my plate for another slice.