The Selkie Maiden (Book 1 of 2)

The Selkies Of Kerry

"Ciarán!" yelled a short stocky elderly woman from the porch of her rustic seaside cabin "Now don't ye go off wander'n too far! Stay above the welks! And keep off dem rocks!"

"Yes, móraí." Kiera shouted back, making her way through the slick channel wrack that littered the tidal zone of the rugged mist-hugged rocky Irish beachside.

On occasion, she would accidentally step into an icy cold pool of seawater that had had been hidden under brown seaweed. She would swiftly step out of the tidal pool, giving her foot a little shake to scatter off the excess water from her leather shoe.

The wind came from the northeast in bursts of bone chilling gusts, whipping around her dark reddish-brown hair, wrapping it around her face, windswept into a snarled mess.

Her curious brown eyes looked across the lonely beach to the imposing rocks that jutted far-out into the turbulent sea like tiny rocky black mountains.

These rocky islands sometimes held treasures that Kiera specifically came down here to see. Usually, it was seabirds roosting from a tiring long days flight, or wave swept debris that came all the way across the Atlantic Ocean. Sometimes she would find beautiful intact shells or rare carnelians uncovered by the storm.

These rocks were her playground; however, she would never stray beyond the breakers.

She loved everything about the sea: its briny scent upon the breeze, the taste of sea-salt upon her lips, the hypnotic melody of the waves crashing upon the Strand. Here, she could dream and fantasize about the 'other world' without the disparaging comments of dreamless humans mocking her for believing in the existence of faerytale's.

She circled around a tall wave-smoothened black crag as she stumbled upon a grey seal pup sunning itself, left upon the strand by its hunting mother. Both seal and human were startled as Kiera quickly stepped back, and the seal grunted at her, surprised by her presence.

There was a moment of intense hesitation between the two – the seal pup was considering fleeing from the human, taught by her mother that all humans were bad! A painful memory of the times of the cull which usually came during the midsummer's eve when exhausted mothers would give birth to their newborn pups, and bring them ashore as they are far too weak to survive in the sea.

Easy prey for humans armed with a hakapik: a wooden club with an iron hammer's head for bashing skulls, and a metal hook to drag the carcass upon strand for harvesting.

The seal began to waddle back to the breakers as Kiera begged for the seal's attention.

"Please don't go!" she cried out, holding her hands up to show that she meant it no harm. The seal, as if knowing what she was saying, turned back and glanced up at Kiera with suspicious pale blue eyes.

"Please don't go!" Kiera begged again, trying to be as still as a rock. All her life, she had wished to see a seal up close "I didn't mean to scare you. I will go if you like. You were here first."

Kiera slowly eased her hands back down at her side as she slowly turned and was ready to go back home with a story to tell her mom and dad. However, with a loud threatening bark, in front of her was a rather large aggressive cow baring its yellowish-white teeth at her.

She was leaning back on her hind flippers as she bore her teeth at Kiera, barking and making a low growling noise. She was positioned to charge at the girl, at six miles per hour – it was about as fast as Kiera could run – she was no match for the seal in this flooding maze of rocks! Her best option would be to climb up.

Yet, to her surprise, the little seal was then by her left side, yapping at its mother – saying what – only the seal's would understand. Whatever the little pup had said to its mother, the mother seemed to have calmed down in response, resting back on its front flippers; grunting a few times as the little greyish-white seal waddled back to where it had been resting.