Tides Page 9

  “Thank you,” she said. “It’s always colder this way. No blubber.” She patted her stomach. “Well, not as much, anyway.” She laughed, and Noah found himself smiling along with her.

  It was easy, if he could only let himself go. Noah still wasn’t sure if he could, but he decided to try. He sensed that he was working toward something important, and while he didn’t quite understand what it was, he wanted—rather desperately—to try to find out.

  “You said you wanted to talk to me.”

  Mara nodded briskly. Her hands moved up to the hood of his sweatshirt and raised it to nestle against her small, flat ears.

  “I want to apologize for my behavior last week,” she said. “I was rude.”

  Noah shook his head. “I deserved it. It was presumptuous of me to . . .” He faltered. He didn’t want to say rescue you; he knew the reaction that would get. “I was being presumptuous.”

  They sat together in awkward silence. Noah scuffed his foot against the ground.

  This was so much easier when she was human, he thought. But then, she had never been human—he’d only thought she was.

  “I came to tell you,” Mara said, her voice cutting through the whistling island air, “about me. I came to tell you that I am a selkie.”

  Noah thought he probably shouldn’t believe her, but he did. “And Maebh?” he asked. “She doesn’t have a problem with your telling me that?” She had certainly seemed to when he’d seen them together.

  “Well . . .” Mara hesitated. “You saw us talk about it.”

  Noah would hardly call that “talking,” the way they had crashed out the door like a pair of hurricanes, hollering accusations at each other. He could only imagine how much worse the fight had gotten when they’d gone home to . . . well, wherever they lived. Mara didn’t seem to feel guilty, though, as he often did after a “talk” with his parents. He compared their icy silences and passive-aggressive manipulation with the scene he’d witnessed between Mara and Maebh. He decided the selkies’ way was probably better.

  “It’s complicated,” Mara said. She sighed. “I think she might understand.”

  The sky had faded from violet to deep blue. Noah felt the chill more deeply now without his sweatshirt.

  “Why don’t we go in?” he asked.

  He held out his hand, and Mara took it. His sweatshirt’s long sleeve flopped down and a breath of warmth drifted onto their clasped hands.

  Noah moved his fingers ever so slightly, feeling for the webs he’d seen earlier and hoping she wouldn’t notice. They reached only to her first knuckles. He could hardly feel them at all.

  eighteen

  SOURCE

  MAEBH waited, but Dolores had stopped speaking.

  “Should I tell the rest of it, love?” Maebh asked.

  Dolores shook her head. “I can bear it. It’s remembering, knowing how I hurt you, that’s worst.”

  “No. We’re so far from that now. And we wanted to talk to Lo about hurting—right, Lo?”

  Lo nodded again, still careful, still disbelieving. She watched them both.

  “Love.” Maebh pressed her hand over Dolores’s. “It is my turn to tell.”

  In their first winter together, Dolores taught Maebh how to read.

  It rarely snowed on the islands, but harsh storms and freezing winds kept them indoors. Dolores offered to lend her novels, but Maebh balked, embarrassed.

  “I’ll get them wet.”

  “What?—Oh, I guess you would.” Dolores’s face colored. Maebh was always having to remind her that she wasn’t human, didn’t live in a human place. “Well, I can keep it here for you. This door doesn’t lock—only the front door does.”

  They stood together in the narrow corridor between the lighthouse and the cottage, shivering with cold, relishing their privacy.

  “Oh . . .” Maebh sighed, searching for some other excuse. Dolores sounded so worldly when she talked about books and the places they described—all the places she yearned to visit someday. It made Maebh feel naïve and homely and a little stupid. She’d hoped Dolores would never find out she couldn’t read.

  But when she finally told her, Dolores’s face showed none of the deep disappointment she’d expected. “I’m so sorry!” she said, as if mourning a recent death. “Well, I’ll just have to teach you.”

  Maebh blushed and looked out the window. It was still raining. The rocks were black and icy, and the ocean was riddled with pockmarks. She hoped her pod had found shelter—then remembered that in seal form, no one minded the cold or the wet. She wondered how she could have forgotten something so basic. Perhaps the Elders were right—perhaps she was spending too much time as a human.

  Dolores smiled at Maebh and took her hand, a sensation to which Maebh had almost, but not quite, grown accustomed. She forgot about the Elders.

  “Let’s go find a book,” Dolores said.

  Maebh nodded. She glanced around for her sealskin, then remembered it was tucked safely in the rocks on the other side of the island. As if it would have gone anywhere, she thought. Still, she couldn’t quite bring herself to feel certain, whenever she was with Dolores, that her skin would stay in its proper place.

  In the living room, Dolores ran her long, smooth fingers over the musty bindings of the books. “What should we read?” she asked. “These are Mother’s, in theory, but this shelf is where I keep all my favorites . . . Oh, I know.” She withdrew a thin brown volume and read the title aloud. “The Journals of Miss Eugenia Humphrey, Lady Adventurer.”

  “No!”

  Dolores looked up at her, startled.

  “I just think . . .” Maebh cast around for an excuse. She didn’t want to hear about the far-off places where Dolores wanted to go, where she could not follow. “How about something . . . something with magic?” In magic, at least, she had more experience than Dolores. She wouldn’t feel foolish if they read about her world instead of the human one.

  Dolores still looked confused, but she nodded. “Okay, let’s see.” She grinned and pulled out a much fatter book with a dark blue cover. “This is called Metamorphoses,” she said. “It was written a long time ago, but people still love it. I think it’s the perfect thing to read to a selkie, don’t you?” She laughed.

  Maebh smoothed her hands over her still-damp hair, not sure whether to feel happy or embarrassed. “Yes, all right,” she said. “That sounds nice.” She sat down on the couch, but Dolores shook her head and beckoned her to the door.

  “I don’t want to bother Mother,” she said carefully.

  They crept back into the shadowy corridor. Dolores sat down near the window, to use what light they had, and patted the packed dirt floor next to her. “Sit down.”

  Maebh leaned against the wall and slid to the floor.

  Dolores scooted closer to her. “You need to be able to see the pages.” She balanced the book on their thighs. One open page lay on her lap, and the other on Maebh’s.

  “This is an em,” she said, pressing her finger under the first black marking on the page. “It sounds like this—mmm.” She looked up. “Now you.”

  Maebh pressed her lips together and echoed the sound. She felt it vibrate in her mouth and stared at the M on the page, telling her mind to remember what it meant.

  “Good.” Dolores smiled at her and slid closer.

  Lo was starting to smile now too. She turned to Maebh. “So did you tell her your stories? The selkie stories?”

  Dolores shook her head. “Not till later, sweetheart. Not until much later.”

  Maebh nodded. “We were too busy with our own story, then.”

  Maebh never wanted to tell Dolores the old stories of selkies and humans. She never spoke of the fisherman, the stolen skin, the captivity. She knew Dolores would never do such a thing to her; she would never hurt her. Maebh didn’t think she had to tell.

  Every night, swimming away from White Island, she saw their mutual future stretched in front of them like overlapping waves, constant and steady. Eventually,
Dolores’s mother would retire to the mainland, and Dolores would take over the keeper’s duties. Then they could always be together, and if Maebh changed form every day, she could grow old along with Dolores.

  Together, they looked forward to the warm nights of the coming summer. Dolores never dared to bring Maebh into her mother’s house at night, and it was too cold to stay out for long in humanskin in the winter dark—so while they vowed their love for each other, they shared no further physical affection than occasional embraces and stolen kisses in the lighthouse. Their relationship was a quiet, private one, both because the girls were somewhat quiet and private themselves, and because Dolores told her the world would not want to see them together. She said most humans didn’t like seeing two girls in love. Maebh told her selkies weren’t like that; they mated and raised their young together in pods, but love was love, and it was something else entirely. She found herself waiting impatiently for summer to return so they might spend a night together on the beach.

  But on the first warm night in May—a night she thought she’d ask Dolores to spend with her—the hotel staff played records and drank beer on the Star Island lawns until the sun was almost up. She and Dolores had lain at the edge of the water for hours, waiting for them to go inside. They couldn’t quite touch each other, hearing so many others nearby.

  And so, when Dolores’s mother invited a man to dinner, Maebh wasn’t thinking about what that might mean. All she could do was watch Dolores move, watch her speak, watch her eat. The beauty of Dolores’s mouth had fascinated Maebh since their first meeting, but now she could hardly bear to look away from it.

  “This is Roger,” said Dolores’s mother when the man came through the door, a bottle of red wine in one hand and a camera in the other. “Roger Delacourt. His mother used to baby-sit for Uncle Jerry and me, Dolores—I’m sure you’ve heard me mention her—and now Roger’s at Star all week, photographing the hotel for the Times—imagine that!”

  Dolores’s mouth opened, and her eyes widened. “Oh,” she murmured, “you must travel a lot, Mr. Delacourt.”

  He chuckled. The sound grated on Maebh’s ears. “Yes,” he said, setting the wine down on the table and stepping closer to Dolores. “I get around. And call me Roger, please. I hope I don’t seem all that much older than you are.”

  Dolores blushed. “All right, Roger. Could you tell us about your traveling, please? I’ve hardly been off the Shoals since I was born, and I’ve never left New England.”

  “Well, now,” said her mother, pressing her hand on Dolores’s shoulder, “that’s just because you haven’t gotten your chance yet.”

  Dolores smiled shyly at Roger.

  It was only then that Maebh pulled her mind away from its dwelling on Dolores’s mouth, and she began to wonder about Roger Delacourt.

  Mrs. Mochrie invited Roger to dinner every night that week. On the last night of his stay at the Oceanic Hotel, he made an announcement.

  He stood up from his chair at the head of the table, a seat Mrs. Mochrie had given up to him from the first, and he raised his glass. “I’ve fallen in love with these islands,” he said, his voice deep and dripping with seriousness. His dull, pale hair stuck out from his head like a false halo, and his green eyes glittered. “I’ve decided to stay here for the rest of the season, and Mrs. Mochrie has generously welcomed me into her home until another room in the Oceanic becomes available.” He nodded toward Dolores’s mother. “And so, a toast, to Mrs. Mochrie and her beautiful daughter, Dolores, and to”—he looked sideways at Maebh and gave her a very small smile—“Maebh, her dear friend. I hope we can become a little family this summer.”

  We were a family before, Maebh thought at him, her back tense and the muscles of her face hard. She stopped wondering about Roger then, and started to worry.

  After dinner, Mrs. Mochrie asked Dolores to light the beacon with her. Maebh rose automatically to join them, but Dolores’s mother shook her head. “I’m sure you wouldn’t want to leave Roger lonely,” she said, “and I have something to discuss with my daughter.” Her voice was bright and casual, but the fierceness of her expression told Maebh to obey.

  Dolores and her mother stayed in the lighthouse for almost an hour. Maebh had ample time, between her awkward spurts of conversation with Roger, to wonder what Mrs. Mochrie might be saying to her daughter.

  “Dolores really is a gorgeous girl,” Roger said, leaning back on the couch and crossing one ankle over his knee, as if he meant to take up as much space as possible. “I’ve shot fashion models less striking than your friend, there. She could really make a name for herself on the mainland.”

  Maebh frowned. “Dolores already has a name.”

  Roger’s laugh cracked across the small room, making her wince. “No, I know. That’s not—Jesus. I meant she could be famous, get her picture in magazines, stuff like that.”

  Maebh had never read a magazine, but she knew she probably shouldn’t tell Roger that. Dolores read them, old issues hotel patrons left behind, and she loved to talk about the exotic places and glamorous lifestyles the articles described. But Maebh still refused to believe that Dolores might actually leave the Shoals for the things in books and magazines. She shook her head at Roger. “Dolores likes it here,” she said. “She’s happy on White. With me.”

  Roger raised his eyebrows. “That was fine when she was a child, but Dolores is almost a grown woman now—as are you, Maebh. Surely you don’t think you’ll both stay on these little islands forever.”

  Maebh’s stomach turned, hot and acidic, and she cast her eyes down at the floor. All she could make herself say was, “I don’t know.”

  When Mrs. Mochrie and Dolores finally returned, no one seemed able to meet anyone else’s eyes. Mrs. Mochrie busied herself with the dishes, making far more noise and taking far longer than was really necessary.

  Dolores stared at the empty seat on the couch next to Roger for a while. Then she sat down next to him, quickly and silently, and gave him a smile Maebh hoped she didn’t mean.

  “You know,” Roger said, sliding his arm along the top of the couch so it rested behind Dolores’s shoulders, “I was in Bermuda this spring, shooting a line of resort wear. You’d like Bermuda, Dolores. It’s an island too, but much bigger and warmer than this one, and with lots more colors. The beaches there are pink—seashells ground into such fine sand, you’d never guess they once belonged to living things.”

  Dolores smiled, picturing pink beaches. Maebh thought of all the creatures whose bodies made the sand, all the broken ghosts of shells.

  When Roger asked Dolores to come to the mainland with him, Maebh assumed she’d be back soon. They were only going to New York for an audition, he’d said. She hated herself for it, but Maebh hoped Dolores wouldn’t get the job.

  But she did get it, and the one after that. Maebh still visited White sometimes, over the months that led into another winter, so she could hear the news about Dolores and read her occasional postcard. Not very long after Dolores left, Mrs. Mochrie showed her a department store catalog with her daughter’s picture in it. She was in a sweater-set ad, smiling in lipstick the color of a cooked lobster, her eyes lowered. Maebh knew then that Dolores would be gone a long time.

  But even as that knowledge sank into the hard pit of Maebh’s stomach, settled in the back of her mind, she refused to believe that “gone a long time” was the same as “never coming back.” Somewhere between her mind and her belly, those hot, hard places, there rested a drop of faith in Dolores that would not evaporate.

  And one day in November, Mrs. Mochrie had news for Maebh. Dolores and Roger were getting married.

  Because selkies chose mates but had no ceremony to unite them, Maebh understood marriage only in a vague, story-time sense. To her, marriage was the fate of selkies with stolen skins, something their human captors demanded of them. It was certainly nothing good.

  “I’m so relieved.” Mrs. Mochrie sighed, leaning back against her kitchen counter. “I was starting to worry
about Dolores, growing up on these islands with no prospects to speak of. Thank God for her looks, and thank God for Roger.”

  Maebh looked away, choking back the immense pressure on her throat.

  Mrs. Mochrie looked at her strangely. “Oh, don’t worry, dear. I’m sure you’ll find someone yourself, soon enough.”

  Maebh stayed quiet, and Dolores’s mother looked down at her hands.

  Maebh thought years might have passed in that silence, but she didn’t know what to say.

  “Oh—I forgot.” Mrs. Mochrie strode across the room and began to dig through the small pile of mail on the kitchen table. “Dolores sent you a letter, too. For the life of me I don’t know why she sent it here.” She held out a small white envelope. “Write her back, maybe, and let her know your own address.” She frowned. “Whatever that might be.”

  Maebh took the letter. “I think I’ll go read this now, if you don’t mind, Mrs. Mochrie. I’ve been impatient to hear from her. I’ll light the beacon for you, if you want.”

  “Oh, thank you, dear.” Dolores’s mother waved her hand toward the door. She fished a pack of cigarettes from her pocket, lit one, and settled back onto her new pink couch.

  Maebh walked outside, closing the door carefully behind her so as not to make too much noise. It was cold and blustery, but she thought she couldn’t bear to go through the walkway just now.

  She stared at the address on the letter. Maebh Terlinn, care of Sarah Mochrie, PO Box 7, Isles of Shoals, NH. So many layers of place, though to Maebh they were only “home.” And Dolores had gotten her name backwards.

  Maebh tripped over a dry clump of seaweed and fell, scraping her leg open on the rocks. She held back a pained shout, not wanting Mrs. Mochrie to come out and investigate. She stood, straightened her simple blue dress (which had once belonged to Dolores), and kept walking to the lighthouse. She looked at the ground now, and not at the letter.