October 1901
Banks Bay, Greenland
Nicky remembered the weeks after Morag’s death. It had felt as though the world itself had been ripped apart, a strange reality in which she and Allan had to relearn their own lives, their own selves. A reality in which nothing had meaning, or sense. She had thought she might go mad.
It was two months after the funeral when she had woken to find Allan on the small balcony of Morag’s bedroom. He was naked. It was early, still dark.
“Allan?”
He was standing, his back to her, looking down at the garden below. She reached out to touch him and he spun around with a roar. She reared back, and he charged at her, ranting. His face taut with fury, a stream of expletives and accusations that didn’t make sense.
“How fucking dare you! Don’t you ever touch me again, do you hear?”
She had fallen to the ground, and he had stood over her, a hand raised. A terrifying moment.
“Don’t,” she had whimpered. “Please.”
Her plea seemed to wake him up, his face softening, as though he’d returned to his own mind. He dropped the hand that had risen to strike her and staggered backward. Then he locked himself in the bathroom. She got up and moved tentatively to the door, pressing her ear to the wood.
She heard sobbing. Allan had never cried. She had never heard this sound. But she knew its nature. He was broken. He was a man without his daughter. He was expected not to mourn, but to carry on as though nothing had happened. He had worked the day after, as expected. She had witnessed the grind of it, but felt powerless to do anything.
“Allan, please let me in.”
“I’m sorry.”
She took a breath, steadying herself. “I know you are. It’s all right. Please let me in.”
Eventually, the door unlocked, and she stepped inside. She found him sitting on the toilet bowl, hands on his knees, his gaze on the floor.
“You frightened me earlier,” she said.
“I know.”
“I love you.”
He didn’t answer. Then, after a few moments: “I’ve enlisted to fight against the Boers.”
She thought she’d misheard him. “What?”
“In the Transvaal,” he said, looking up. His jaw tight. “My father was a soldier. It’s my duty.”
She laughed, thinking he was joking.
“I resigned from the mill yesterday.”
“You resigned?”
“I told them why.”
“Allan,” she said. “You can’t be serious.”
“I leave in two weeks.”
She was too stunned to answer. He was leaving? It felt like a punishment. She had blamed herself every single moment of every day for what happened to her daughter. If she had only listened to Allan and returned home earlier, if she had checked that the front door was locked behind them, if she had instructed Mrs. Mackie to check on her . . . so many things she could have done to prevent this gaping hole in their lives.
He was right to punish her. He was right to leave her.
And so she had walked out of the room and gone back to bed, saying little to him throughout the mornings and nights that followed, until one afternoon, she saw a suitcase and an army uniform on the bed.
She realized that she knew him less now than when they first met. Her husband, transformed into a stranger.
Over time, their letters to each other became warmer, friendlier, and she missed him. She sensed he missed her. They had both been changed by Morag’s death.
But love, she thought, was a constant. Perhaps it would help them return to each other, in their changed states. Maybe it would be enough.
She vomited for a week before it occurred to her that she might be pregnant.
She hadn’t bled since boarding the ship but had put it down to her usual irregularity and the stress of the kidnapping. At first, she had thought it seasickness. Or perhaps food poisoning. Her diet lately was seal entrails, dark, rubbery meat that she washed down with strong tea. She only ate when driven to it by ravenous hunger, and there was no telling if the meat was edible.
But she was still being sick, and now her breasts felt tender. A horrifying sign.
She climbed to the top deck in a daze. Should she throw herself overboard? The thought of giving birth to a child by any of the mariners brought bile into her mouth, hot and sharp. She hated every one of them, except now, a surprise even to herself, Daverley. Perhaps it was his kindness, his fatherliness toward her. Or their common grief.
How could she return to Dundee now? How could she ever face Allan? He would never shun her—of course not—but it would wound him, knowing that the child was not his. Knowing that it was conceived in such a horrific way. Would she give it up? How easy would it be to do this, given what they had suffered with Morag? To keep it, though . . . surely it was impossible. Whatever she did now would affect them forever.
She leaned over the side and vomited into the water below.
When she looked up, Daverley’s gaze was fixed on her, contemplative. He was caulking a cask, glancing around to check that none of the other men were watching as he approached.
“Sea legs failing you?” he said.
She ran the sleeve of her dress across her mouth. “Must be something I ate.”
“Maybe it’s something you’re carrying,” he said.
“And how would you know about that?”
“I had a wife. She carried four of our bairns. Each time she looked every bit as peely-wally as you do now.”
She looked down again, wondering how long would it take to drown if she slipped overboard. Perhaps minutes? Or perhaps the cold water would rinse the child out of her. Her grip tightened on the edge of the hull, and he saw.
“You see something in the water?” Daverley said, glancing down. “A mermaid, perhaps?”
She shook her head. “Where are your children now?” she asked him.
“Two of them are with my wife,” he said. “In God’s arms.”
“I’m sorry,” she said. “My husband and I lost a child. Our only child.”
Daverley tipped his hat with a free hand. “My condolences.” He turned back to the water below. “I’ve been watching for any sign of Thomas,” he said. “That’s why I asked.”
“Thomas?” she said. Did he mean his body? Surely not—the lad was laid to rest many miles ago, weighed down so he would not float. Even if the weights had shifted there was no way his body would have traveled so far north . . . It struck her that grief played with the mind.
“The old tales have it that a body rested at sea does not permit the soul to rest,” Daverley said, scanning the water.
“You’ve said that before. Why is that?”
“That, I know not. But the sea is where life began, and so the veil of death does not exist there.” He threw her a searching look. “Surely you have heard these things, being the daughter of a shipmaster?”
“My father’s a businessman, not a shipmaster,” she said. “And he’s certainly no storyteller.”
He turned, pressing his back against the edge of the hull. “You’ve heard about selkies?”
“Too much about selkies,” she said drily. “Selkie wives in particular.”
“I heard some of the men call you that,” he said. “But it’s incorrect, the way they’ve used it.”
She turned her gaze to him then, and he smiled.
“You want to hear the story?”
“Go on, then.”
“For a start, a selkie wife is simply a selkie female, whether married or no. And when a person is drowned or buried at sea, their soul arrives in the kingdom realm of selkie folk instead of heaven. A selkie changes form because it can possess the living, slip inside their skin like you or me putting on a coat, ye ken?”
She studied him. “And you believe this?”
“I’ve seen it with my own eyes,” he whispered. “Stouthearted sailors possessed by a selkie, driven to throwing themselves into the depths, or steering the whole ship into rocks. It’s no’ a folktale about sacrifice. It’s a tale about giving the sea more souls, more selkie folk to do the sea god’s bidding.”
She tried to follow this. “So the selkie wife in the original story drowned herself to join Lír’s realm, but then possessed the souls of the living so they would drown, too?”
He nodded. “It’s a grim tale, indeed. But then, anyone who’s ever spent time at sea will know that the ocean’s a wild and savage place. And every time we take some of its fish for meat or whales for oil, old Lír sends his selkies out for revenge.”
“God.”
She found herself trying to explain the story away, her mind turning to other stories she’d heard over the years about the sea and its creatures. Sirens, mermaids, kraken . . . but then her foot twitched, and she remembered with a wrenching feeling the dark pelt that had formed over the wound. It had become infected, spreading all the way up her leg and transforming her foot into a flipper. She could barely bring herself to believe it, but each time she unwrapped the gauze, there it was, clear as day.
She had to get back to Dundee, to Allan. A doctor would help her. And the crew would be brought to justice for what they’d done to her.
“Can I ask you a question?” she said, lifting her eyes to Daverley.
“Aye.”
She bit her lip. “Did you know? About Thomas’s part in bringing me on the Ormen?”
He searched her face. “No.”
“But you knew they were to kidnap me? You knew I was being brought on board?”
He shook his head without removing his gaze from her. “Lovejoy asked Thomas to assist with moving livestock on board.”
“Livestock?”
“Yes. The day before we disembarked. We had to move the cows, the lambs, and the hens into the hold. He was gone for most of the day.”
She nodded, taking that in. “That was the day I was attacked in Dawson Park.”
He frowned. “By who? Thomas?”
“No. I’ve no idea who he was. An older man, late fifties, perhaps older. Stockily built, a dark beard. He was wearing a brown cap and a navy overcoat. Does he sound familiar?”
He shook his head. “Thomas never mentioned it. But then, he was under orders from Lovejoy. I’d wager Lovejoy told him he’d be punished if he said anything. Especially to me.”
She searched his face, trying to work out if he was telling the truth. She supposed he had nothing to gain by lying.
He went to say more, but just then the watch started to shout. “Ship ahoy!”
She looked up and saw Wolfarth pointing north. For a split second, it seemed that nothing was there, but then the light shifted and she saw it—a ship, its white sails glinting in the sun.
“It’s the Erik,” Daverley said. “Another whaler. We pass each other frequently on these voyages. Sometimes we take home letters and suchlike to the crew’s families, others they do the same for us.”
“That’s what Thomas told me,” she said, excitement growing in her. “Do you think I could send a letter back to my husband?”
He hesitated. “We’d have to be discreet. If Captain Willingham were to hear I’m passing on messages on your behalf . . .”
“You could say it’s a letter from Thomas. He was writing letters back to his siblings.”
“What if they read the letters?”
“Do you think they would do that?”
“They might.”
“Well, hopefully by the time they do that, they’ll be too far away to tell Captain Willingham.”
He shifted his feet. “Why would Thomas write a letter to be passed on to your husband?”
She hesitated. “My father, then. Maybe you can say it’s his will? Instructions for his wages to be passed on in the event of his death?”
Daverley looked doubtful. She held him in a long, pleading look. At last, he sighed and looked away.
“I’ll do my best,” he said.