The Souls of Drowned People

Chapter Twenty Nine

I started sleeping on the rocks with the other seals, because the nights were cold and damp with rain. Not because I was getting used to being one of them, although Ronan insisted that I was.

I didn't know how he could expect me to be comfortable, when he hardly seemed like he belonged there himself. Ronan, and his cousins, seemed to be outcasts to the other seals. Not in the typical way; no one turned away when they walked past, and none of the other selkies ever spoke of them, good or bad. The other selkies rarely spoke to them, either. It seemed that they existed away from the others. They were prettier than the others. Their hair was thicker, their skin more pearly white. At first, I thought it was because they were royalty, but I soon learned that title meant nothing. They slept on the same rocks. They splashed in the same waves. But Ronan and Sheenagh and Aisling, they weren't like the rest of the selkies.

I soon learned that I wasn't like the others, either. I was plain enough to fit in with them. I wasn't pale and sleek like Sheenagh and Aisling, but the others regarded me with the same cold distance, as if simply being with someone so beautiful made me beautiful as well.

Sheenagh noticed that it was bothering me. "Back, days ago, we used to be better than them," she said. Sheenagh was the only selkie who didn't seem to mind being in human form when she was with me. But she also hated wearing clothes. She didn't understand why I looked away, until she slipped halfway down into the water, and flipped her hair forward. "No longer, but they still hate us for it."

"Why were you better?"

"They were the ones who drowned," she said, with a dismissive wave of her hand. "They knew the land once, and it changed them. My sister and my cousin and I, we do not know it. We are children of the sea."

"So then I'm not anywhere as good as you, oeither."

Sheenagh raised herself slightly from the water, leaning over to kiss my cheek. "No, no. Not these days. There is no hate any longer. No difference. We all belong to the sea, now."

At night, I slept on the shore-facing side of the rocks with Ronan and his cousins. I ended up sleeping between Ronan and Aisling, the last place I wanted to be. Ronan kept raising his head to peek over me, his tail slipping and hitting me every time he shifted.

"Ronan," I hissed, and he dropped back to the rock with a thud, pretending to be asleep.

I twisted around until I slid out of my skin. I rubbed the slime from my arms and between my fingers, and threw the skin over my shoulder as I stood up, clambering over to the edge of the rocks where none of the other selkies went. I left a gap between Ronan and Aisling, small enough that one of them could have rolled over and been close enough to the other to feel their warmth.

"I left so you could stop staring," I said, when Ronan followed me. I sat on the edge of the rocks, dangling my feet into the water, and Ronan lay next to me. I rubbed his head, and played with his whiskers.

"This is weird," I finally decided. "I can't talk to you when you're a seal, and I'm a human."

Ronan groaned, but slid halfway out of his selkie skin. He lay on his back, his head and his arms human, the lower half of him still tucked inside the skin.

"You look stupid," I said, and stuck my tongue out at him. I wasn't sure Ronan knew what stupid meant, but he slid the rest of the way out of his skin, clearly understanding that I was laughing at him for it.

"I came so we could talk," he said, dipping his feet into the water next to mine.

"Okay then. Talk."