seals #5

Danny looked at him. Billy moved away from Ellen to face them.
“It’s the day that all the selkies go out to a special island to have a big party for all the babies!”
Danny stood up and approached Billy.
“Ach. you’re just pretending.”
“Naw Danny, listen. It’s the only way they widny be here. I just pure forgot what day it was ! Man, I’m such a daftie!!”
Danny’s face flickered then lit.
“Noo, go and sit with your mother till I tell you what happens in the Selkie world on this big day. Their biggest day of a' !”

Danny ran and jumped onto Ellen’s lap. Her sobs were subsiding and she sniffled and took sharp breaths. She took out a hanky, fumbling to keep Danny on her knee. Billy was running a little way along the shore as she blew her nose. Her ears popped and the sound of the waves flooded her head. Billy returned with a piece of driftwood.

“Noo.. We have tae gather up as much of this tae build a fire - so they know we’re here. We’ll wait up and watch for them. At midnight all the Selkie men come ashore and … eh … leave a gift for the human families near by, so’s there’ll be nae fighting between them and us.”

Danny jumped off of Ellen and ran to find wood. Billy took courage at this breakthrough and walked up to Ellen and crouched beside her.
“Ellen. I love ye and would make a life with ye.”
Ellen's breath caught, but she smiled and pulled him to her and embraced him, turning her head to see where Danny had got to.

Danny tried his hardest to stay awake. He wanted to see them take off their seal skins, see where they hid them and maybe to get a wee shot of one but it had been a tiring day. Billy had said that it was when the tide was highest that they would come and that was still not for a couple of hours. So he went to the fire and slipped into his sleeping bag. He stared at the walls of the cave and watched the strange animals and people in the shadows that the firelight was casting onto them.

The sound of the sea was much louder than usual and when he sat up he saw the water reaching right up into the cave. The fire still burned and Billy and his mum were sleeping with their arms around each other.
The waves whispered to him to follow. He wasn’t afraid, for he had been waiting. He got up and followed the sea pulling out of the cave. That voice again. He walked out the cave onto the shoreline and the sky was the colour of blackcurrant lollipops.
He saw a big dark hump of rock up ahead that seemed to move. He walked towards it and it stood up.
“Daddy?”
The thing was huge and walked towards him. It was a man, it looked a bit like his Uncle Pat only with brown eyes. He knelt and Danny smiled at him. He wrapped his arms around him and sank into the slippery embrace.
The man pushed him back and stood up. He was walking back into the sea. Danny went to follow but he raised his huge arm and shook his head. Danny understood. He stopped and watched him walk deeper into the sea.
Suddenly Danny panicked.
“Your skin! You forgot to put back on your skin!”
He looked frantically around for it, and when he looked back out to sea the man had vanished. Then, a little way out, he saw the head of a seal gazing at him with those warm familiar eyes that he’d first seen in Oban. He lifted his hand in a half wave.
Soon there was just the sea and the brightening sky. He walked back to the cave.