Finn had been scared many times in his life before, but he had never experienced the sheer terror that overcame him when Charlie began to chase him. His heart had pounded so hard that he could hear it like a drumbeat in his ears. He felt like a rabbit running from a fox.
As he stepped back into the air, away from Charlie’s snarling face, panic possessed him. He had time to think, I can’t swim! I’ll drown! And then he hit the water. He just missed hitting one of the small motor launches that were bobbing around at the bottom of the harbour steps. The wave he made swung the boat round so that he was behind it and hidden from the view of the children, who, seconds later, were looking down from the top.
In all his life, Finn had never been immersed in water. He’d never swum in a pool or wallowed in a bath or paddled in the sea. The shock took his breath away. The tide was so far out that although the water came up to his shoulders, his feet were still touching the bottom. He clutched at the bollard hanging off the side of the boat, and for a moment the cold seemed to paralyse him.
But the fear of Charlie was still on him.
He’s not scared of water. He’ll come down here and find me and . . . and . . . he told himself. I’ve got to get away.
He peered cautiously round the edge of the boat and looked up. He could hear Jas calling out to Mr Munro, and the muffled voices of the others, but their heads had disappeared. Then he waded in frantic haste to the steps that ran down from the harbour wall, making for a little wooden platform where no one would see him from above. He could hide there and wait until the other children had gone away, and then climb out and go home.
Feet thundered down the wooden steps overhead as Finn shrank back into the shadow under the platform. There was a loud splash as Amir jumped into the water, and Finn ducked right down until only his head was above the water. Holding his breath, he heard Amir calling up to the others, and their replies, and he only let it out when Amir hauled himself back on to the little wooden platform and ran back up the steps.
When he was quite sure that the coast was clear, he emerged shivering with cold and fright from underneath the wooden platform, took hold of the edge of it and tried to haul himself up. But the platform was slimy with seaweed. His hands slipped off it. He fell back into the water, which closed right over his head.
For a long, terrible moment, Finn thrashed with his arms and legs, trying to find solid ground to stand on, but then, almost at once, something changed. Something was happening to him – something strange and terrifying.
I must be drowning, he thought. This is what it’s like to drown.
Somehow, he didn’t mind.
I suppose my mum felt like this, he told himself. Maybe she’s doing this to me. Maybe she’s waiting for me on – on the other side.
He stopped struggling and felt peaceful and calm. He was floating, all of his body submerged in the water. It didn’t even feel cold any more. The swell washed round him softly as if it was welcoming him. It seemed almost to hold him in an embrace. Without even trying, he raised his face till it broke the surface and took a long, deep breath. Then he let himself sink again, feeling a strange, new kind of energy flowing in his veins.
If I’m still breathing, I suppose I can’t be dead, he thought dreamily. But it didn’t seem to matter. Nothing mattered, except for the wonderful sensation of the water.
Something brushed against his leg. He twisted his head down to look. It was a little fish, which had darted away already. But now he made another discovery. He could see a long way through the clear, green water. Seaweed waved gracefully against the harbour wall. Small fish darted past him. He could hear things too, as if his ears had never worked properly before. On the far side of the harbour, the rumble of the Janine’s engine as Mr Munro started it up was shockingly loud. It masked the rustling, swishing noise of ripples brushing against the stones of the harbour wall.
What’s happening to me? Finn thought. I feel different. This is – fantastic!
And then, with the greatest joy he had ever known, he stopped wondering about what was happening, and gave himself up to the sea. He felt as if he had come home. He began to twist about in the water, feeling it wash through his hair and along the length of his body. Then he began to move his arms and legs as he’d seen swimmers do on the TV. He could swim! He was swimming! It was as easy as breathing, easier even than walking on land!
There was only one thing that spoilt the loveliness of being in the water, and that was the growling, thrumming noise of the Janine’s engine. He wanted to get beyond it and listen to the sea.
He began to glide through the water, his arms and legs moving automatically, going fast and straight. His eyes drank in every new and wonderful sight: the play of sunlight through the current, the distant outline of a submerged rock, a slowly crawling starfish on the seabed below.
He had been underwater for a long while, holding his breath without thinking about it, but at last he felt the need to surface and suck in another lungful of air. Then he was down again, racing under the surface of the ocean, feeling as if he could swim on and on forever.
Now that the rumble of the boat’s engine had faded, he was in a whole new world of sounds. Below him he could hear the faint rattle of a pebble dislodged by a lobster as it climbed over a rock. Above, that muffled Whee! Whee! must be the call of a gull swooping low over the water. And the slow, rhythmic thud, scrape was the rumble of waves breaking on the beaches up the coast.
But now, through it all, came the most beautiful sound he’d ever heard. It was faint, hardly audible above the sucking and rippling of the water, but it was getting louder.
Someone, or something, was whistling.
There was a familiar note to the sound, something that touched him and drew him on. Before he could think about it any more, a shape appeared ahead, long and grey with flippers and a tail. It was a young dolphin.
He was seized with sudden panic.
It’s as big as me, he thought. I don’t know about dolphins. What if it attacks me?
The dolphin swam up alongside Finn and brushed against his back. Finn swerved nervously away, but the dolphin tapped him playfully with his snout. He began to make a kind of vibrating sound that thrummed in Finn’s head.
I can understand you, he thought. You want to be my friend!
He needed to breathe again. He shot up to the surface and took a gulp of air. The dolphin surfaced too. With both their heads out of the water, they stared at each other.
He likes me! Finn thought with astonishment. He wants to play!
The dolphin dived down and began to swim away, but he was making the whistling sound again, as if he was inviting Finn to follow him. Finn was afraid that he wouldn’t be able to keep up, but he found that he could swim easily, and twist, plunge and roll every bit as well and as fast as his new friend.
What was the dolphin doing now? He was clicking his beak, sending a signal of some kind.
It means ‘leap’. He’s going to leap! thought Finn. Yes, there he goes!
The dolphin was shooting up through the water, breaking the surface, flying through the air and diving down again. He twisted round, coming back to Finn, making the vibrating sound again. Finn felt the same lovely soft feeling as the buzzing set up an answering echo in his head.
It’s what a kiss must feel like, he thought, and for a moment he felt an old pain. His mother must have kissed him when he was a baby, but he couldn’t remember her at all.
The dolphin seemed to be gathering himself for another leap. He was whistling and clicking to Finn.
He wants me to leap with him, thought Finn. I don’t think I – Oh – Yes, I can! Whoosh!
He’d done it! He landed back on the water too hard, making a bigger splash than his friend, but the leap had felt incredible, powerful and free.
He tried making the buzzing sound. It didn’t come out right, but it wasn’t a bad effort. The dolphin seemed to like it, anyway. He stroked Finn with his flipper, and bumped alongside him in a friendly way. Then, somehow, they both had the same idea at the same time. They dived a bit and powered up through the water, surfacing at the same time, soaring through the air, then plunging back into the water side by side.
It was the first time in his life that Finn had ever played with a friend.
He could have stayed forever leaping and splashing in the sea, but now the dolphin was off again, streaking through the water as if he was answering a call. Finn followed him for a few minutes, but the dolphin was going too fast. He was racing further and further out to sea.
I’ve come too far out, Finn thought, suddenly alarmed.
He wanted to go back to the land, to feel normal again, to make sure that he really wasn’t dead and drowned after all.
With one supple twist, he turned and swam effortlessly towards the sound of the breaking waves. A few minutes later, he was standing on the beach, wringing the water out of his T-shirt and shorts. It was strange to be on land again. The wonderful power that had driven him through the sea had gone, and he was just awkward, clumsy Finn again.
He looked round fearfully, panic twisting his stomach. Charlie was probably still around somewhere. He might still be on the warpath.
He began to run up the hard sand and across the dunes that separated the beach from the coast road. He was going so fast that he had to double over for a little while to get rid of the stitch in his side. Then, slipping through the back streets of the village, avoiding the row of cottages facing the sea where Charlie, Amir and the Lambs lived, he made his way home, his head full of questions and his heart full of wonder.
It was quite a long walk back to the cottage on the cliff top. Once he was sure that he was out of range of Charlie and the other children, Finn’s footsteps slowed to a crawl. There were so many thoughts buzzing around in his head that he hardly knew where to start.
‘I always knew I was different,’ he said out loud. ‘But why? It’s like I was two people: one in the sea, and one on land.’
A cow was looking at him over the gate leading into one of the fields that fanned out beyond the harbour and up into the hills beyond.
‘What are you staring at?’ he called out to her. ‘So I’m talking to myself? I’m not a nutter, you know.’
But then he thought, Perhaps that’s it. Perhaps I am a nutter. Maybe there’s something wrong in my head.
He picked up a small branch that had fallen from a tree, bent and twisted by the sea wind, and started swishing at the nettles that fringed the path.
I’ve got to tell Dad what’s happened. There’s a sort of secret about me and he’s got to know what it is. It must be why he’s never let me go near water.
But the thought of telling his father that he’d been in the sea was frightening. Staying away from deep water was the most important rule. It had been drummed into Finn ever since he could remember.
I’ve just got to do it, he told himself sternly. I’ve got to know what – who I am, and he’s the only one who can tell me. But how am I going to start?
He needn’t have bothered trying to work it out, because when he reached the gate leading up the weed-choked path to the cottage door, Mr McFee was waiting for him, his arms crossed and his forehead scored with a deep scowl. He caught Finn painfully by the arm and yanked him inside.
‘I saw you! I saw you! Down on the beach! I’ve told you a hundred times. What have I told you?’
‘Not to go near the sea. But Dad—’
‘And what did you do?’
‘I was on the beach, but listen, Dad—’
‘You disobeyed me. I’m not having it, Finn. I’m not. There’ll be no supper for you tonight. You’ll do what you’re told from now on. And – and I’ll take my slipper to you, so I will.’
‘Dad!’ said Finn desperately. ‘Listen! I’ve got to talk to you! Something’s happened to me. I didn’t disobey you, honestly I didn’t. I didn’t mean to fall into the sea. Charlie Munro chased me down to the harbour and off the wall. I went in by accident. But, Dad, it was so – so amazing! I could swim! I could hear things! I made a friend, a dolphin . . . What is it about me, Dad? I know I’m different. You’ve got to tell me, please!’
Mr McFee’s arm froze in mid-air.
‘What are you talking about? There’s nothing different about you. You’re my son, aren’t you? What do you mean, you could swim and hear things and met a . . . a . . . ? You’re telling stories, you wee liar.’
‘I swam, Dad. Far and fast and deep.’ Finn’s words were boiling out of him. ‘It felt amazing in the water. I could see and hear in a different way, and there was a sort of change as soon as I was out of my depth. I only had to move my arms and legs and then I was swimming and I could stay for ages under the water without breathing. And the sounds! I could hear the most amazing things. And I met a dolphin. He was – I think he became my friend. I know it sounds incredible, but I could almost understand him! Dad, you’ve got to believe me.’
Mr McFee groaned, felt for his armchair and slumped down into it with a thump. It creaked alarmingly. He dropped his head into his hands.
‘I knew this would happen one day,’ he wailed. ‘I knew you’d find out, and go off into the sea, and leave me just like she did.’
‘Find out what? Who’s “she”?’ Finn’s skin was prickling all over. ‘What are you saying, Dad? You mean my – my mother?’
‘Aye, son. Your mother. You didn’t think I’d believe you? Well, you’ll have a hard time believing me when I tell you the truth of it. You’d better sit down. And there’s no need to look at me like that – like a scared wee rabbit. You’ve asked for the truth, and I’m going to tell it to you.’ He pointed a shaking finger at one of the rickety chairs pulled up to the table, and Finn sat down on the edge of it, his eyes fixed nervously on his father’s face.
For a long time, Mr McFee didn’t speak. Then he levered himself up out of his chair.
‘I need a cup of tea,’ he grunted. ‘You look like you do too. Wait here.’
He went into the tiny, cluttered kitchen, and Finn, who was sitting screwed up in desperate impatience, heard the running water and the clatter of mugs.
After what seemed like an age, his father came back, handed Finn a steaming mug and sat down.
‘Right, son. Here it comes. The truth. I told you, you’ll have a hard time believing it.’ He stopped, and cleared his throat. ‘She – your mother – was a selkie. Oh aye, you might well stare. She came from the sea. Most selkies are seal people, but there are dolphin people too. My Sylvie was one of them.’
Finn was shuddering with excitement. He was listening with all his attention, but what his father was telling him was so incredible that he could hardly take it in. He didn’t dare to move in case his dad stopped talking, but Mr McFee wasn’t looking at him. He was staring unseeingly at the dirt-encrusted window.
‘Folks thought those old stories were just fairy tales told by grannies,’ he went on. ‘I did and all, until she walked out of the sea one night and stood there, begging me to go on singing, looking so beautiful—’
A light flashed in Finn’s head.
‘But that’s in the poem! It’s like the poem!’ he interrupted. He thrust his hand into his pocket and pulled out the crumpled sheet of homework. It was still wet. Carefully, trying not to tear it, he opened it out. The writing was blurred, but he could still just read it. His eye ran down it, frantically trying to absorb the meaning.
‘She bore a child, a little boy,’ he read wonderingly. ‘And her heart was filled with love.’ His throat suddenly felt tight. ‘That’s me, isn’t it, Dad? Is that right? Did she love me like the poem says?’
‘Oh aye, she loved you, right enough,’ said Mr McFee, but Finn had bent his head back to the poem and didn’t notice the tears that were trickling down his father’s cheeks.
‘O I am a woman on the land,’ he read. ‘And a dolphin in the sea. That’s like me, too! That’s how I felt. Only I didn’t become a dolphin; I was still a boy. I could just – sort of – feel like one.’ He was reading on, his hands trembling with excitement as they clutched the paper. ‘A miraculous child, a magical child, Is the son that is born to me.’
He stopped and looked down at his father. Understanding flooded through him.
‘You thought I was one too, didn’t you?’ he said. ‘You thought I was a – a dolphin person? But I didn’t become a dolphin. I think I might be a sort of half one, or something.’
Mr McFee took a deep, shuddering breath.
‘Aye, I was afraid you were a selkie too. I’ve always dreaded it. I know that old poem. We had to learn it at school when I was a lad. I knew you were a – well, a magical boy, like it says. A different kind of boy, anyway. I thought if you went into the sea, you’d become like her, and swim away and leave me here on my own. Thought I could protect you, keep you safe on land.’
He put out his hand and grasped Finn’s. For once, Finn didn’t feel the urge to pull his away.
‘You were an odd-looking wee thing. Beautiful, mind you, but your hands . . . “Why, look – they’re almost like flippers,” the midwife said. You grew into a normal-looking baby almost at once, but I suppose your mother knew something was different. I suppose I did too; I just didn’t want to talk about it.’
‘Why did she leave us? Leave me?’ asked Finn, his voice coming out in a tight thread.
‘She didn’t mean to, son. Like I said, she loved you more than anything. She’d hover over you, sing to you, dance you around and make you laugh. But she’d get the urge to go out to sea every now and then, when her people came into the shore and called to her. She always came back, a bit quiet for a day or two afterwards, but happy enough.’
‘But then . . . ?’ prompted Finn.
His father heaved a shuddering sigh.
‘You know what they all say about me? That I killed her? Well, they were right. Not in the way they think, but the boat I was working on killed her. One night she put you to bed in the normal way, and I was still out fishing. She must have heard her people calling and gone out to them. We were all so busy with the catch, we didn’t see the dolphins. One of the lads caught her in his net. I tried and tried, but I couldn’t free her.’
‘It might not have been her!’ Finn said eagerly. ‘How can you be sure? She might still be out there. I could go and find her, Dad. I could bring her back.’
Mr McFee shook his head.
‘It was her all right. When I’d got her out of the water at last, and she was lying on the deck in that horrible net, and the lads were busy in the stern bringing in the fish, she turned back into my Sylvie again. My lovely . . . Then her eyes began to cloud over. “Love Finn,” she whispered. And she . . . When it was over, she turned back into a dolphin again, slowly. It was dark, a dark night, but I felt the change as I held her in my arms. No one else saw. I couldn’t tell them. How could I? How could I ever tell anyone? Who would have believed me? The secret’s burned me away inside ever since.’
‘What did you do with – with her then?’ Finn managed to say.
‘I slid her body gently back into the sea and let her go. Then we brought the boat back into harbour, and I ran home, and there you were, sleeping in your cot as if nothing had happened. I never went out to sea again. I left the boat and the job and all the rest of it. They call me a murderer, and I never answer back because they’re right in a sort of way. It was our nets that killed her, and I was a part of all that. It was because of us fishermen that she died.’
‘Why didn’t you tell me before, Dad?’ whispered Finn.
‘I couldn’t. I was too scared you’d blame me for killing your mother. And I was scared you’d swim off out there and leave me.’
‘I wanted to, just for a moment,’ said Finn honestly. ‘It felt so free and lovely in the water, and when I met the dolphin I could tell that he liked me. Ordinary kids don’t like me. They never have. I suppose they can tell that I’m strange.’
‘Folks don’t like me much either,’ replied his dad, ‘but we’ve got each other, eh, son?’
His eyes were fixed on Finn with painful intensity, but Finn didn’t notice. He had gone to the door and was looking out over the stretch of rough grass between the cottage and the cliff, which dropped away out of sight, down to the small rocky cove below. He felt a glow of happiness, a new kind of strength that he’d never known before.
It’s as if I’ve found the half of me that was missing, he thought. And now I know who I am. I’m not a selkie, but it was like being halfway there. A sea boy. Yes, that’s it. I’m a sea boy. A huge grin spread over his face. Maybe it’ll be different now that I know. Perhaps I can be a normal land boy too.
He watched, without seeing, as a pair of swallows swooped and dived over the lane, catching insects in their tiny beaks.
‘I need to go back into the sea,’ he said. ‘I’ve got to find out if – if it’s real or not. I’ve got to know.’ And I want to find my dolphin friend again, he thought. Because if he’s there, and he still likes me, I won’t ever feel lonely again.
Mr McFee started to protest, but then slowly, reluctantly, he nodded.
‘You’re not a wee boy any more, Finn, and I don’t suppose I could stop you, even if I tried.’
Finn impulsively tugged at his arm.
‘Come down the cliff path to the beach with me, Dad. If I know you’re standing there, waiting for me on the shore, it’ll feel more right, somehow.’
Mr McFee shuddered.
‘Maybe, Finn. Maybe not. I’m not sure that I could bear to watch you, to be honest. Give me a bit of time, eh? Tomorrow maybe, when I’ve had the chance to get used to all this. It’s too late this evening, anyway. The sun’s going down fast.’
He got up out of his chair, put his hands on Finn’s shoulders and looked into his son’s face for a long moment.
‘I’ve been a rotten dad to you,’ he said at last. ‘This thing – this secret – it’s been eating me up inside. Holding me down, stopping me from doing everything I should have done. I ought to have told you about your mother years ago, but I thought that if you never found out, you’d stay safe.’ He stopped and dropped his hands, then he smiled, and Finn, watching his face, thought he saw for the first time a glimpse of the man his father must once have been.
He squared his shoulders and pushed the ragged thatch of long hair out of his eyes.
‘Things are going to change from now on, Finn,’ he said, with a smile that reached his eyes. ‘You’ll see.’
Finn stared at him. His father looked different. Stronger. More confident.
‘Sure, Dad,’ he said, and stopped, afraid that if he said anything more the spell would be broken.
‘So now,’ said Mr McFee, walking briskly into the cottage’s tiny kitchen, ‘I’m going to cook us some supper.’
That evening was a golden one for Finn. While his dad cooked in the kitchen, Finn went out once again to stand by the broken cottage gate. The sun, setting behind the cottage, cast such a brilliant light over land and sea that everything seemed to glow with a deep radiance. In the warm air, bees fumbled around in the wild flowers that fringed the cliff top, and Finn could hear the sea birds quarrelling and fussing over their chicks, out of sight on their ledges on the cliff face below, where they had built their nests.
What’s he – my friend – doing out there? he wondered. Is he playing, like he did with me? I suppose he’s got loads of other friends. Real ones. Dolphin ones.
The thought made him feel a pang of jealousy.
The sun was sinking lower, and the shadow of the cottage was lengthening second by second. It was falling on Finn now, and the brilliant blue of the sea and sky was slowly darkening to a deep indigo.
What do dolphins do at night? he asked himself. Do they sleep, like us?
‘Come and get your supper, son!’ his dad called out at last. ‘It’s ready!’
Finn, suddenly starving, ran back into the cottage, then stopped at the door, his eyes wide with surprise. He and his dad had always eaten their meals with their plates balanced on their knees in front of the TV, but tonight Mr McFee had actually cleared some of the clutter on the table, and set out proper places. He’d fried up sausages and made chips too.
‘This is great, Dad,’ said Finn, sliding into his chair.
He was too busy enjoying his supper to talk, and it wasn’t until he’d eaten the last bit of sausage, and chased the last chip round his plate, that he realized that his father hadn’t said a word either.
Mr McFee had been eating more slowly than Finn, and, looking up at him, Finn could see that although the heavy, sad look had gone from his face, his father’s forehead was creased in a frown.
‘That was great, Dad. Thank you very much,’ Finn said, hoping to cheer his father up.
Mr McFee nodded absently, but his thoughts were elsewhere. Finn felt a stab of anxiety.
‘You’re not annoyed with me, are you, Dad?’
His father looked up in surprise.
‘Annoyed? No, why would I be?’ He sighed. ‘It’s just that I really, really wish she was here. I don’t know how to help you with all this business. I can’t guide you like she’d have been able to do. There’s bound to be dangers out there in the sea. I should know; I was a fisherman for years and years. But where you’ll go and what you’ll do – you’ll be on your own, Finn, and it scares me.’
Finn laughed with relief.
‘But I won’t be alone, Dad. I’ll have my friend to help me. The first thing I’ll do is look for him, and I’ll find him again. I know I will. You’ll have to trust me, Dad. I’m going to be careful, but I’m going to be myself at last. I’m going to be her son as well as yours.’
An enormous yawn suddenly threatened to split his face in two. He was so tired that his bones felt as if they’d melt.
His father smiled at last.
‘Get away to your bed, Finn. It’s been quite a day, eh?’
Finn smiled back at him, then he climbed the steep, narrow steps to his little bedroom under the eaves, feeling stronger and happier than he had ever felt in his life.
‘I’ll see you in the morning, friend,’ he whispered to himself as he climbed into bed.
A moment later, he was asleep.