Bound to the Sea

Part 10 - No Turning Back

It's been so long, love.

The words hummed in Saoirse's heart to a tune not unlike that of the music the sea sang in her head. It was a feeling of true and unwavering belonging. She had not expected to find it in the fisherman, the child, and the little croft house, but there it was. Her old life. A life she had watched from afar for five years brought suddenly and gloriously into focus, pulling her in to claim it.

She turned her seal face downward into a dive that took her far from the dappled light of the surface. The water whooshed past the slick edges of her flippers, parted like a crowd to a queen around her snout.

She could not discount the joy in this though. The rightness of it. Her place in the sea was as much a fixed truth as were her two feet on the rocky shore.

The seal spun on an incoming riptide and rocketed up toward the surface again, giddy with the ease with which she could swim.

She bobbed lazily on the small waves for a few moments and when she's had her fill of the salt water she made her way toward land.

The seal flopped in its ungainly way up onto the boat dock and closed its round eyes. The seal skin parted around and fell away from the slender form of a woman. She was surprised to find a set of clothing folded neatly on the shore-end of the dock, waiting for her. A gift from Ellis, perhaps?

Saoirse dressed in the clothes and padded quietly up the rocky strand and into the scrubby grass, slick then rough under her bare feet. She approached the croft house more confidently than she had the night before. She tried the knob and to her surprise found that the door opened easily under her hand. She slipped into the house and closed the door, on loudly protesting hinges, behind her.

The little boy and his dog were already awake and sitting on the braided rug in the center of the room. Ronan lit up at the sight of the water lady and was about to speak when she put a finger to her lips.

The wolfhound didn't growl at the newcomer but did keep his liquid brown eyes fixed on her under the grey fringe of his long, wiry fur. Saoirse placated the animal with a few pats on his head, and the dog left the child's side to settle on an old striped floor cushion beside the fireplace.

Ellis emerged twenty minutes later, blinking in the morning sunlight, thinking he had stepped back in time, or into a time that should have existed years ago. Saoirse was sitting at the dining table ruffling Ronan's mop of red hair while Mac was nudging his food bowl around with his nose, whining to be fed. Saoirse glanced up as he entered the room, and a timid smile spread across her face.

"I hope you don't mind..." Saoirse started to apologize for showing up uninvited, but Ellis stopped her with a smile.

"Don't worry yourself. You are welcome here." Ellis filled Mac's food dish then took a seat at the table next to her. He noticed that the woman had fixed Ronan breakfast but ate nothing herself.

Saoirse smiled her thanks and turned back to the boy. She mopped oatmeal off his face with a napkin without thinking, then paused as she again felt that she was overstepping. The child pushed the portion of oatmeal around the bowl and pouted, looking like a miniature version of his father. He swung his legs.

Ellis cast a sidelong glance at the woman, still trying to come to terms with her presence. "So you came back."

"Mm hmm. I did say I would."

"So you did."

A weighty silence settled between them for a moment before the woman perked up as if she had been prodded from behind. "Do you hear that?" Saoirse asked suddenly, leaning forward in her chair.