The Souls of Drowned People

Chapter Thirteen

It started raining before Cillian and I went back to the house, and didn't let up for the rest of the afternoon. Rachael had resumed her normal routine and an apple pie was in the oven, the house filled with a warm aroma. But there was a sense of fear, too, and restlessness. Cillian and John didn't seem to know what to do with themselves, when they were always at the docks at this hour, and the rain was too hard for any of us to go outside. John taught me how to play chess, with Cillian leaning over my shoulder and whispering what moves I should make, and Bridget sang her new song for us, but we all jumped at the slightest noise from outside, and not five minutes passed without someone glancing out the window.

"I'm going out at the next lull," Cillian said, though the rain had yet to stop. It slowed to a trickle at one point, only to start pouring again when we all sighed with relief. Rachael tried to suggest that he wait until the rain stopped completely, and Cillian pointed to the dark clouds rolling in across the water, an endless trail of wind and rain. "I don't think it's going to stop."

When the lull finally came, lasting all of five minutes, Cillian sprinted for the door. He pulled on his shoes, racing against the rain that was already starting to pick up again. "I'll be back in a few hours. I'll have to go out farther, since everyone else probably got the good fish closer in."

"Be careful," I begged, and his mother yelled "wear a hat!" as he ran out into the rain, but I don't know if he heard either of us, or would have listened if he did.

We played more chess. I lost so miserably that John told me to play Bridget instead, and she beat me even worse than he did. I ate two pieces of Rachael's pie, hardly tasting it. Living felt strange now. Living and tasting and walking and breathing . . . I had never realized how mechanical, how methodical, it all was, until I found out that I was going to have to give it all away when I became a selkie. No one must really live their life fully, until you tell them that it's nearly over.

I was apparently the only one who was seriously worried about Cillian. It was his normal behavior, Rachael said, to get restless to the point that nothing would stop him from going outside. I knew he liked going for runs in the rain- he would force me to come with him whenever he got the chance, somehow enjoying the smell of rain and sweat, and the chill afterwards, which we always remedied with hot chocolate and a pile of blankets on my couch. That was the only part I liked about it, standing in my kitchen with him, both of us shivering and grinning. Cillian loved every bit of it; the rain danced through his veins like the sea did through mine, but even I nearly drowned, and the rain wasn't going to take any mercy on Cillian just because he liked it.

"He'll be fine," Rachael said before she and John went off to bed, sensing my worrying. "You're welcome to stay out here and wait for him, if that would make you feel better." They left me sitting on the couch with a new cup of tea. Bridget sat up with me for a while, and let me borrow one of her mythology books for the night when she finally went to bed.

"Don't worry about Cillian," Bridget told me, "He does this all the time. He likes the water, and the rain, and besides, he's a good swimmer if anything goes wrong." Noticing my worried look, she quickly added, "but nothing will go wrong, of course. Cillian's smart."

She left and I kept worrying. Worrying and waiting and wishing. Wishing I was never stupid enough to come here. Wishing that if I closed my eyes, the selkies would disappear, going back into the mythology books where they belonged. Wishing that I listened to my mother.

Rain pounded against the windows. It was the fiercest rain I had ever heard, coming down hard and harsh against the windows and the roof, trying to break through. It got louder, crashing against the door and the windows, and louder, until I realized that it wasn't the rain at all. Someone was knocking on the door.