part0014

G entoo’s parents had died years before, during the penguin riots, a time when people still dared fight against the Earl and his many soldiers. Gentoo had been very young, but had heard stories of brave people uniting to take a stand against their oppressors by locking the doors of the bowling alleys and refusing to hold Friday night fish fries.

Her parents had been heroes, fighting to free Sphen! Still, Gentoo didn’t like to think about them. It made her too sad. Maybe that’s why Gentoo liked telling jokes. It was far better to laugh than to cry.

After her parents died, Gentoo went on long walks along the shore at night. The sounds of the waves calmed her sadness and frustrations. They seemed to speak to her, as if the waves lapping and her heart beating were in rhythm, together. She had an odd bird-shaped birthmark on the bottom of her foot—Gentoo was convinced it was shaped like an eagle—and walking along the shore made it tingle.

The lock was broken on Gentoo’s bedroom window, so it was easy for her to sneak out after bedtime. It was not safe to walk alone in Sphen at night, where patrolling penguin soldiers might terrorize you for no reason. But there was a small abandoned cove where hardly anyone ever went. Gentoo often walked there, alone.

Gentoo didn’t enjoy keeping secrets from her aunt. She only kept two: her nightly walks, and that she didn’t always clean behind her ears when bathing.

For many years, Gentoo ventured out for nightly strolls through the vacant cove, often admiring the laughs of the seagulls that danced amid the roar of the waves. Gentoo knew most people found seagulls annoying and dirty, but she loved to watch them. She loved their laughter.

One of those nights, the shore was darker than usual: the full moon, so bright it usually lit the entire city, hid behind a cloud. It was an ominous sign. The darkness concealed the seashells, and Gentoo stepped on a sharp one, yelped, and then tripped over a small log.

Gentoo landed on the sand, and when she stood up, she kicked the log because it was a stupid log that made her trip. The log groaned and Gentoo yelped again. It wasn’t a log, it was a leg, and attached to the leg was an entire person.

A thin old woman lay on the ground, stinking of seaweed and fish. She wore a long white dress, torn and dirty, and waterlogged from the sea. Oddly, it did not have sleeves, but instead had two large armholes.

“I’m fine right here,” Gentoo mumbled. The cove, despite its isolation, had never scared her before. But she was scared now.

“Move closer!” the old woman shouted, a surprising strength in her voice despite her frail appearance, and Gentoo found herself stepping forward.

“Closer!” the woman shouted again, and Gentoo came closer until she knelt on the sand. “Closer!”

Gentoo did as she was told, and banged her head into the old lady’s head. Gentoo was now so near she could see blood staining the woman’s dress. “What happened?”

“I was harpooned. My kind are sturdy, but not harpoon-proof. Have you ever been harpooned?”

“Consider yourself fortunate, then.” The woman grabbed Gentoo’s arm, pulling her closer so that they banged heads again. The woman’s mouth was only millimeters from Gentoo’s face. Her breath smelled like spoiled fish but, surprisingly, the smell did not disgust Gentoo. Instead, it seemed to stir something inside her, an inner yearning for . . . she didn’t know what. Her birthmark tingled.

“An old lady who has been harpooned?” guessed Gentoo. “Who likes to wear odd, sleeveless dresses?”

“Well, yes. But I am also something else.” And it was then that Gentoo noticed one of the woman’s arms was not a human arm, but a bird’s wing. Seeing a lady alone on the beach, harpooned, who was part bird, should have sent Gentoo running away in terror. It would have sent most people running away in terror. But something made Gentoo stay. “I have been waiting for you,” rasped the old woman.

“I knew you would be out here,” the woman continued. “I could sense it. I only have a little bit of time left. I believe I am the last of my kind.”

The woman didn’t answer her. “If I die here, we will be gone forever, unless I pass on my talents. But I can only pass them on to someone with a birthmark the shape of a seagull.”

Gentoo patted the lady on her head. It was a gentle pat, a caring pat for a dying woman, but also an apologetic one. “I have a birthmark, but it’s eagle-shaped. Sorry.”

“There are no such things as eagle birthmarks!” the woman shouted, her voice once again powerful. “Yours is that of a seagull!”

“You will take my place,” said the woman. “You just need to agree. It is my final wish.”

The woman was near death, that was obvious, and Gentoo knew it was impolite to deny a dying person’s final wish. She shrugged and said, “I agree.”

The clouds drifted from their moon-blocking ways, and the beach was aglow in light. Gentoo stared as the woman transformed, her skin rippling, her face twisting. Her one human arm grew into a second bird wing, her legs seemed to shrink, and her feet turned into pink, three-toed, webbed seagull feet. The woman was no longer a person but a bird, although a very large bird with bushy eyebrows and feathers that sprang up on her head and looked like twin horns.

This creature, which was now the largest and ugliest seagull Gentoo had ever seen, plunged its mouth into Gentoo’s neck.

Gentoo did not realize the curse of the were-gull was now hers, and hers alone. That realization would come the next evening, when the full moon rose and Gentoo flew to the sea and laughed with her new seagull friends for the first time.