The Pen to Print Awards 2021.

The Selkie Hunt by Nuala Clarke

Ronan stands at the water’s edge and breathes in the salt air. Waves foam up and slam themselves down onto the sand, surrendering into a hushed relief. He takes a pebble from the sand, smooth against his chipped skin, and throws it as far as he can. It disappears in an instant. He pictures it sinking to the seabed, a cloud of sand rising from where it will lay.

He is young. Still a lad to the other fisherman, who have roamed the seas for years. Their faces are lashed from the relentless cold winds. Ronan keeps his beard trim, still young enough to want the attention of the village girls. He saw Emer Reid looking last market day. She glanced to the floor when his eyes met hers, two grey fish scales flashing in the sun.

Ronan looks out to the vague horizon. Clouds are low, blocking the rising sun. It’s hard to find where the sea ends and the sky begins within the countless grey hues. The boats won’t be setting out today. Many have been dragged up onto the shore. Deep groves marking their trail fill with water. Most are upturned in case of rain. Their undersides bask in the open air. A dog barks and investigates some of the boats. Fur disappears into the shadow of their hulls. Ronan whistles and the dog comes running to his feet. He greets him, tussling his ears fondly. He knows his master must be close.

Two strong hands clasp Ronan’s waist and force him to the ground. He is quick to react and turns to fall on his side. The sand is soft, cushioning his fall. Above him a mischievous grin floats in the air.

“Brandon.” Ronan exhales. “Do you need to do that every time?”

Brandon, claiming his smile and setting it into a freckled, round face, replies, “I’ll do it until you manage to dodge me.”

They clamber up. Brandon helps Ronan to his feet, their hands clasp familiarly. Brandon’s dog is circling them yapping in excitement. Grains of sand fall from their clothes like glistening pyrite.

“Will you swim today?” Brandon asks, eagerly.

“Yes.” Ronan states it solemnly.

“I’m not. Pa says I’m not to.” Brandon kicks at the sand. “He’s scared I’m not strong enough for the currents… Hush, Thorn.”

His dog quietens. Ronan scratches his soft head.

“You can go another year, Bran. There’s no rush.” He looks out at the crashing waves. Brandon’s Pa is right to be cautious. Ronan is confident though. He has swum the shoreline and back, to the caves and the slippery rocks that guard them. He has confidence in his body, which he has trained to be powerful.

The sun finally reaches the top of the block of cloud that is bordering the sea. Light fills the day. It casts stretching shadows from the grounded boats back towards the grassy dunes. They walk back to the village together.

They arrive to a delight of coloured fabrics, hung from windows, across the roads. The women are preparing dishes in kitchen windows and on chairs set up on the cobbles. The air is fragrant with a blend of herbs. The carpenter John has brought out his scraps of wood and assembled a large pyre. He is lighting it now, nurturing the flame as carefully as he would a fledgling sparrow. Smoke turrets up into the sky and the orange of a new flame appears, hungry for air.

They sit together for hours, as the village assembles around them. They watch the first sow loaded onto the pyre to be roasted, fat crackling in the heat. They hear elders tell myths of the sea to eager children who have snuck away from chores to be with the men. Some men’s tankards never empty, as they toss back and refill the nectar which makes some docile and others truculent. Ronan is careful. He drinks enough to keep the cold at bay, yet not enough that his senses are dulled. He’s seen men lost to the dark waves at no fault of the sea.

By late evening, the music and dancing has started. Ronan stomps and claps along. He does not ask Emer Reid to dance, though she sits nearby and eyes him. Instead, he watches Brandon dance with the village girls until the music stops, and the ground is cleared to make room for the procession to the beach.

Night comes quickly, eagerly coaxed closer by the village folk in their anticipation. Flames float atop torches, ignited from the pyre. They are carried by the elders who had won previous swims, and by Ma Ó Murchadha, said to be a selkie herself, stolen years ago from the sea by Lorcan Ó Murchadha, who had never returned her skin to her before he had died. She has a large scar down her face, from eye to chin. The pink skin shines in the firelight like a crescent moon. They say it was caused by a fishhook. Ronan’s mother had told him she had got it when she was a seal, others say Lorcan punished her when he caught her looking for her skin. She does not smile, Ma Ó Murchadha. People avoid her hard stare. As she walks past the crowds, Ronan meets her penetrating gaze and feels accused. He looks to the floor and she walks on. When the elders have passed, they all follow the flames down to the beach.

A passage of light shines on the sea surface and up to the resting moon, whole and omniscient in the black sky. Stars shine like pinpricks in a curtain, whispering stories through their formations. The men who will swim walk to the water’s edge. There are no grand speeches. These people know their place in the world. The sand under Ronan’s feet is wet, sinking under his weight. The man on his right, he can’t see who it is, sways. He knows there are ten of them swimming tonight. No one wants to be first. They walk together, slowly, until they feel the sea consume their bare feet. They walk further. The sea grips their calves. It tugs them, beckoning them in.

Ronan is alone now. He cannot see the other men. He only sees the black. There is no sky, no land, only the ocean and its treasures, hidden deep in its depths. The sea has been warmed all summer ready for him. The air is colder than the water, so he submerges himself beneath the surface and begins to swim. He feels strong. He pictures himself as a fish, moving with the currents, ever going forward, sensing his destination. There is no time now. His humanity is being washed away with every stroke. He tries not to think of the selkies, the seal-skinned women who live in the sea. He’s sure that if he thinks of them, they will feel him searching. Instead, he thinks only of the ocean, so close to his body that blood and water flow in sync.

Soon he is at the cliffs. The sea is calm today, for which he is glad. Tumultuous waves have crushed men against these very rocks, beating their limbs and scratching away their paper skin. Ronan climbs up onto one of the rocks, carefully feeling for footholds. He doesn’t slip. Now, crouching, he surveys the rocks. This is where she would be. It’s where the seals come in summer evenings to beach. They are off limits to the fishermen despite the price their flesh would fetch in neighbouring towns. Everyone knows the curse you’ll suffer if you kill a selkie.

He moves across the rocks, quietly. The moon lights his path. Water drips from his hair into rock pools. There! A shadow upon that flat rock. It looks like Thorn when he curls up to sleep by the fireside. Ronan leaps to the next rock and sprints down to the bundle. He can hardly believe it as he snatches up the skin and holds it out. Though he knew, deep down, that the sea favoured him. The coat of a seal hangs in front of him, soft to touch, heavy though dry. He doesn’t know what to do next. Is he meant to hide it? Or sit and wait with it in his grasp? His breathing is steady despite his heart thumping faster than the waves are breaking on the rocks.

He waits. He does not know for how long. Until he sees her emerge from the sea, white as a shell. She is scared when she sees him. She knows what he has in his hands, the power he now wields over her. Everyone knows that if you catch a selkie’s skin, she must follow you to land to be your wife. As she nears, he cannot believe how beautiful she is. Her hair is silver, falling to her waist. Her eyes are like storms, the same blue as Ma Ó Murchadha, the same accusation. Her face is wet.

Ronan does not know what to do. He wants her. He wants a selkie wife. He even wants the adoration of the village folk. No one has returned with a selkie wife in his lifetime. Winners have only been judged by their time spent at sea, not from the rewards of the hunt. He pictures Brandon’s face, shocked, ecstatic, venerate. He imagines this woman in his bed, the daughter of the sea bound to him, her face cupped in his hands, her glimmering hair on their pillow. Isn’t this what the ocean wanted?

The selkie stands watching him. She is close enough that he can see glassy water droplets running slowly down her legs leaving a salt trail. He wants to taste the salt on her. They stand watching each other. He can’t help but think of Ma Ó Murchadha. He sees her sometimes walking on the shore as he sets off in his boat in the early mornings. She haunts the beach, wandering lost across the sand, following her own footprints home when the sun breaches the horizon.

Ronan doesn’t expect to feel hesitant. The selkie is so alive. Her eyes bright and fierce. He won’t have her turned to an echo, like Ma Ó Murchadha.

Ronan places the seal skin carefully on the glistening rock between them. The selkie’s eyes soften as she steps forwardly and picks it up. He hopes that she might choose to stay with him. He watches her wrap her skin around her shoulders and dive from their rock into the ocean. A tail flicks water from the surface of the sea and disappears. She is gone.

Ronan dives into the same spot, certain now of the water’s depth. He swims round to the cove and soon feels the stony bed under his feet. He walks from the sea just as a new dawn breaks. The sky blushes pink. He sits on the shore and watches the waves caress the beach. In the sand, his fingers find a small shell, twisted like an exotic palace.

 

Many years from now, when he is married to Emer Reid, he will often walk to the cove when the seals are beached and search them for a glimmer of recognition. He’ll never swim in the late summer selkie hunts, but he’ll walk in the procession alongside Ma Ó Murchadha and watch when Brandon and some of his other friends go out to swim. When the other men will boast of the selkies they’ve seen bathing in rock pools, he won’t say a word of the selkie he saw in the moonlight, as he clasped her skin close to him. He will have a thick beard, and from his neck will hang a white shell, which will sing the songs of the sea to his daughter when she holds it to her ear.

©Nuala Clarke, 2021

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