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‘Does it feel better to know?’ Ebba stood in the doorway after Alfred left, watching her mother wash the dishes.
Myna paused and turned to glance at Ebba before returning to her task.
‘It does, knowing the truth now. But I wonder what’s the point of it? Does it change anything?’
Ebba frowned. ‘Of course it does. You know your parents, now. And they know Wayanna knows. It’s all out in the open. There are no secrets.’ She crossed the room and picked up the tea towel to help with the dishes. ‘You still have some of Grandpa’s old trunks, don’t you? Have you gone through them yet? Perhaps your skin is in one. We could find it, you could—’
Myna was shaking her head. ‘I can’t, Ebba. I can’t go back to the sea. I can’t leave you or your father.’
‘It wouldn’t be leaving. It would just be for a visit. You could come back.’
‘Don’t you remember the old stories? The selkie women never come back.’ Myna was almost pleading. ‘Once a selkie is back in her skin she never returns.’
Ebba scoffed. ‘That’s story, Mother. Besides, in those stories the women were taken as adults, from their home. You have no recollection of the sea at all. And Oulde comes back. She’s never left Alfred.’
‘That’s different, Eb. She’s never had her skin taken from her, she comes of her own free will. And she doesn’t stay, she visits.’
Myna watched her daughter as she absorbed her words.
‘You think you’d abandon us?’
Myna took a deep breath. ‘I know I would.’ She turned to her daughter. ‘There’s a memory you seem to have forgotten, for which I’m ever so grateful.’ She took Ebba’s hand. ‘When you were about three years old, I was worried you were afraid of the sea, and I wanted to teach you that the ocean was a safe place. But once I was in the water, I lost control.’
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Ebba sat on the stony shore, the cold seeping into her backside and putting an ache in her bones.
‘Where could it be?’ Her words were muttered, there was no one to hear them, but she often found if she asked aloud the answer presented itself.
She’d searched the remaining trunks of her grandfather’s, but they held few items; Grandma’s crockery, a single water-stained photograph of some old people Ebba didn’t recognise, a fine woollen shawl, a couple of books, her mother’s childhood doll, and Grandfather’s thick oil-skin coat. There was certainly no skin there.
Nor had there been any sign of it in Grandfather’s still empty cottage. Nothing but dust mites and rats inhabited that space now, and the shed was the same.
She didn’t know where else to look. Would Duncan have hidden it further afield?
‘Dyllis has hidden it even from me.’ That’s what Duncan had told Alfred. So Grandfather didn’t hide it then, Grandma did. And what hope did Ebba have of finding something hidden over fifty years ago, by a grandmother who’d died before Ebba was born?
A shadow crossed Ebba where she sat and she started. She realised the sun was already disappearing in the west, the evening star shone brightly in the eastern sky.
‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you.’ The shadow spoke, and Ebba realised it was a woman. Then her eyes adjusted to the glare, and for a moment she couldn’t speak. The figure before her shared her own long dark hair and grey eyes. It was like looking at her reflection in a pond.
‘You’re Ebba.’
Ebba nodded, still mute.
‘I never knew we looked so much alike,’ the woman said. ‘I’m Wayanna. Your sister.’ She frowned. ‘Mother has told you about me, hasn’t she?’
‘Oh, yes.’ Finally something dislodged in Ebba’s throat. ‘I know all about you.’
‘Oh?’ The brief flash of relief across Wayanna’s face turned into a frown, and Ebba cringed at her choice of words.
‘Sorry. I didn’t mean...It’s just...Yes. She’s mentioned you. I know about our history, what happened to you, and her.’ Ebba trailed off. She’d not ever thought to actually meet her sister herself, and now she wondered why. Fear? Jealousy?
Ebba realised Wayanna was watching her and opened her mouth to speak again. But Wayanna got in first.
‘Why have you come to see me? You are waiting for me, aren’t you?’
‘I...’ Ebba paused. ‘I’m not really. I was just sitting here. I didn’t realise...the afternoon got away from me.’ She gestured to the west, where the sun had now set.
‘Oh.’
The disappointment was clear, and Ebba felt awful.
‘I’ve been searching for Mother’s skin,’ she said. Anything to change the subject. ‘I’ve searched through Grandfather’s things, even his old cottage, his work shed, everywhere I can think of. But it’s not in any of those places. And sitting here I realise Grandma hid it from everyone, even Grandpa. But she died before I was born, so I have no idea where to start looking.’ Ebba realised she was babbling, and stopped.
Wayanna gave her a curious look. ‘Mother already found her skin,’ she said. ‘She found it years ago, when you were young. But she put it away. She refused to wear it.’
‘What?’ Ebba felt her mouth drop open.
‘You didn’t know?’
Ebba shook her head.
‘She said she couldn’t leave you, or Father. She suggested I shed my skin and join you on land.’
The resentment was clear in Wayanna’s voice, and Ebba wondered at the jealousy she’d felt earlier. What right did she have to be jealous of a sister taking their mother’s time? Ebba had all day of her mother’s time, all her life with her.
‘I’m sorry,’ Ebba said.
‘Don’t be.’ Wayanna offered a small smile. ‘You got something I couldn’t have, and I got something you couldn’t have.’
‘What have you got that I haven’t?’
‘My own skin.’
