The wind that blew in through the front door was harsh and cold, but nothing stung as much as my mother’s words. Cillian opened the door for her, and jumped out of her path before she could forcefully push him out of her way herself. I looked at Cillian, at the stunned and helpless look on his face. Cillian was worried about me. He cared about me. I wanted to take a long look at someone like him, before I faced the wrath of my mother.
The storm from outside was blowing in her eyes. They were dark with rage, narrowed, and for a moment, I saw the wild beauty that the selkies must have seen, that my father must have loved.
“Get your things,” she said calmly, as if I were five years old and supposed to come home from a play date with Cillian.
“I’m sorry,” I said. The same calm was in my voice, the kind of controlled calm that says an explosion is right below the surface. “I can’t leave. I’m marrying a selkie. In case you weren’t aware of that. But I think you were.”
Her cheeks paled. She had thought she could whisk me back home and lock me in my room, throw me in my nets, and go on living like the promise was never made, like we tried to do for some long.
If faced with the choice of drowning with the selkies and living in a cage full of secrets again, I would chose the selkies. There would be no secrets hidden in the water.
“Get your things,” she said again. The composure was breaking. With each slap of the waves against the rocks, her eyes darted nervously toward the window.
“Everyone is going to drown, if I leave.”
“You should have never come to Ireland. I told you this was a bad place. And since you shouldn’t have been here in the first place, I’m sure Ballycotton will be just fine without you. They lived for seven years with you gone.”
“Those seven years didn’t matter. Nothing matters, except tomorrow. Tomorrow I’m going to be eighteen, and I’m going to drown. And if I don’t go, if I decide to be a coward and run away— if I decide to be like you, everyone else is going to drown. I’m not going to let that happen.” I grabbed Cillian’s hand, and let my mother stare at our fingers intertwined. “I’m not leaving Cillian here. I’m not leaving Bridget or Rachael, or anyone. I am not leaving Ballycotton.”
“It isn’t safe for you here.”
“It isn’t safe for anyone. So why should I leave, when I’m the only one that can save them?”
“We can discuss this later. Get your things.”
“There is no later!” The wind cracked against the windows. “I belong to the selkies. And I don’t want to drown, believe me, I don’t want to drown. But whatever happens tomorrow, I’m staying in Ballycotton. I’m staying here with Cillian and the people who actually care about me.”
I heard footsteps in the hallway. The people who actually cared about me were standing there, staring. Bridget looked terrified over this unfamiliar, seething woman in her kitchen. Even Rachael looked confused for a long moment, before she pulled her green bathrobe together around herself, and a huge smile, not fitting the scene, ran across her face.
“Deirdre? Deirdre McCabe?”
“Rachael,” my mother said coolly, and winced away when Rachael tried to hug her.
“You remember Bridget, don’t you?” Rachael pushed Bridget forward. “She just loved the United States last time she visited with Cillian. And John, of course. And well, you certainly know Cillian.”
My mother looked like she certainly wanted to murder Cillian.
“Let me make you some tea, Deirdre.”
YOU ARE READING
The Souls of Drowned People
Ficção AdolescenteMoira knows there has to be a reason why she was forced to leave Ireland after her father's drowning, and the secrets her mother keeps aren't calming her curiosity and desire to learn the truth. Her only link to the past is her best friend, Cillian...
