Archive of Our Own

She learns about her ma three days after her seventh birthday—but she doesn’t learn the whole of it until many years after that.

Eileen is the one who finds the skin. She doesn’t know what it is, at the time. She’s pouting; stomped off, and run down the beach away from the cottage, furious that her sisters said (yet again) that she’s too young to play their game. Fiona and Greer used to let her play with them all the time, but lately, she is the odd one out. Ever since Greer turned twelve and Fiona, thirteen, they’ve decided that she’s too much of a baby to hang out with them anymore.

She slips on the skin. Eileen knows better than to climb out on the slippery rocks—she’s gotten in trouble for it enough times before—but she’s angry, and trying to prove that she is not a baby, thank you very much.

It’s a mistake. It’s not moss, that’s immediately clear. She cries out sharply; panicked and gasping at the combination of frigid water and hard rock. It takes a few horrible moments to get her breath back, push herself up out of the water, and take stock of her body. She’s soaked through, and her arm is bleeding. Eileen looks down at what caused her to slip and sees the velvety black skin. She runs her finger over it, hesitant. There’s a thrumming inside of her chest as she looks at it; something blooming underneath her skin, her bones, something far beyond her pain. A longing that makes no sense. Eileen pushes herself up carefully and looks around. She’d gone into the little cavern that Da always told her not to climb. The ocean swells and floods it regularly—all three girls know not to go there. Da spanks anyone who tries, and none of them want to risk his temper.

It’s low tide, though, and Eileen is only seven. Seven, and trying to prove herself.

(Seven, and about to break her family wide open).

She goes to Ma. For one, Da would spank her, even though she’s hurt. For two, he’s still off at work. And third, she is still spitting mad at Fiona and Greer.

Ma wraps her up into her lap, cleans the cut, and fusses over her sodden clothes, but she goes absolutely stock still when Eileen tells her what she slipped on—what she felt, when she touched it.

“What?” Ma whispers, the tone of her voice like nothing that Eileen has ever heard before. It breaks, and then snaps, like a hard piece of sugar. “Show me,” Ma demands, her eyes gone black and wild.

Eileen struggles to keep up with Ma, tripping as Ma drags her along down the beach. Her hand, wrapped tightly in Eileen’s own, is shaking. “Ma…” Eileen starts, a little more than frightened, now. She is entirely unused to being frightened of Ma. Da—his temper, his moods, that’s familiar, but Ma has been a steady, comforting presence since birth. She didn’t know even that it was possible to be afraid of Ma.

“Where was it?” Ma asks her again, eyes scanning wildly around the cavern. The tide is growing stronger, and the waves are licking at their heels. A warning; a plea.

“Here,” Eileen says, wary. “Am I in trouble?” she whispers.

Ma goes still. The hand in her own squeezes—too tight—Ma’s eyes never turn to look away from the skin. “No, baby," she whispers, that horrible timber back into her voice again. “No. You’re not in trouble.” She jerks her body towards the skin, almost like her limbs have forgotten how to work properly, and Eileen nearly falls over with her. Cold, and wet, and shaking with fear and adrenaline.

Ma stops—seems to finally realize that the tide is coming in, fast. The water is freezing, and her daughter is shivering and frightened. Eileen watches her close her eyes and take in a deep breath. Before she can say anything else, Ma picks her up and holds her tight. Eileen almost protests that she’s too big for this, now—but the air is charged, somehow; it’s gone crackly in a way that makes her want to tuck into her Ma and hide.

“Listen to me,” Ma says, and Eileen can hear the tears in her eyes. “Eileen, you did a good thing. Thank you,” she says, choking on a sob. “Tell your sisters to behave. Tell them to take care of you and each other. Stay out of your da’s way. I’ll be back for you.”

Eileen panics and holds her ma tighter. “What? No. Where are you going?”

“Home,” Ma says, another sob wrenching out of her. She walks out of the cavern still carrying Eileen. She’s not protesting about being carried, now, she is clutching on tight, terrified of being let go. Off in the distance, she can see Fiona and Greer walking down the beach towards them. Ma sets her down—pulling Eileen's arms out of her grasp as she starts to scream and cry.

“Ma!” one of them, maybe Fiona, hollers out.

“No,” Eileen begs as Ma gently pushes her down into the sand and starts to walk back to the cavern. “Ma, NO! Wait for me!”

She doesn’t wait—it’s the first time in her entire seven years of life that Ma doesn’t listen to her. She slips into the cavern as though she cannot hear Eileen at all.

She’s sobbing when Fiona and Greer finally reach her. Fiona quickly takes stock, eyes going wide and panicked as she bends down and grabs at Eileen. “What’s wrong?” she asks, scanning her for injuries. “Did you get hurt? Where did Ma go? Did she leave you here hurt?” the incredulity of that idea spills out all over her face.

“Fiona,” Greer says, her voice a little shaky with fear. Fiona whips her head up away from Eileen and towards where Greer is pointing. A seal splashes out of the cavern and into the high tide wave as it crests inside.

“Eileen…” Fiona’s voice has gone shaky, too, but she’s taking charge. “Where is Ma?”

“She went in there,” Eileen cries. “I found… she made me stay out here. She said to take care of each other and that she’d be back for us.”

Fiona jerks in surprise, her eyes never once leaving the seal. Eileen wonders if that thrumming that she’s feeling inside of her chest again is inside of Fiona, too. She’s too frightened and upset to ask. “What? Be back?" Fiona asks, hesitant.

The seal turns back towards them, its black eyes so familiar that it hurts Eileen’s chest. The understanding is there, but it doesn’t come until much later, once the shock has completely worn off. The seal smacks one of their flippers against the water, eyes boring into the three of them, it releases a loud sharp bark, and then it slips underneath the water and disappears.

“Eileen…” Fiona says after a few minutes of nothing but the sound of the wind and the waves. “What did you find in the cave?

…

…

It’s weeks later when Da gets drunk enough to tell them the truth.

Ma never comes out of the cavern. They wait for hours in the cold, Eileen still shaking and hurt until Fiona pushes her into Greer’s lap and tells them not to move. Eileen, of course, screams her head off.

In all fairness, Ma just did the same thing and never came back out, and she’s terrified that her big sister will disappear, too.

“Walk over to the edge with me,” Fiona compromises. She narrows her eyes at Greer. “Don’t let go of her hand. Don’t come in after me. You go home and get Da if I tell you to.”

Greer, usually prepared to bicker and argue back, just nods mutely and tugs Eileen into her front, holding her tight enough that it hurts, but Eileen doesn’t complain. Neither of them take their eyes off of Fiona as she trudges into the cavern, hollering out Ma’s name. It takes what feels like hours, but must only be minutes before she comes back out, eyes hollow. “Where is she?” Eileen asks, looking behind Fiona.

Fiona straightens up her spine and walks towards them. For the second time today, Eileen is picked up like she’s still a baby. She’s surprised, but maybe she shouldn’t be—Fiona is tall and strong like Ma, has always been. For the second time, she doesn’t argue, but instead wraps her legs and arms around tight, trying hard not to cry. “Let’s go home,” Fiona says, and tugs Greer along up the beach.

Fiona takes care of everything. She puts a new bandage on Eileen’s arm and cheek, pushes Greer into the bathroom to take off her wet clothes, and starts making them supper. Greer has gone silent to an alarming degree. Eileen can’t stop talking—she chatters away incessantly—demanding to know where Ma’s gone, why that seal came, what they’re gonna tell Da, how much her body hurts, she never once takes a breath until Fiona places a pot of stew in front of her.

“Shut up and eat,” she says, tired; not unkindly.

That’s when Da gets home. Eileen and Greer both go still. Instead of looking towards Ma, they look towards Fiona.

(Years later, Eileen realizes how unfair all of this was on her sister. It hits her, just how young Fi was, even then).

Fiona wordlessly places a bowl in front of Da’s seat, at the head of the table. None of them say a word about Ma. It’s always better to let Da direct the conversation, to hum and nod and placate and then get out of the way, quick. All three of them learned that young.

For his part, Da doesn’t notice the lack of his wife in the room until he’s shoveled two bowlfuls of stew down his gullet. He pushes back and nurses his second beer, then glances between the three of them. “Where’s Muirin?”

(Eileen asks Fiona about it, years later—the two of them sitting in a restaurant together, an ocean away from the small isolated island that they grew up on. She marvels at how Fiona hadn’t wavered, how she had looked Da right in the eye, and spoke confidently, surely. Fiona always shrugs it off. “I learned it from Ma,” is all she ever says. “I paid attention.”

That may have been true, but Eileen remembers feeling Fiona’s legs shaking with fear underneath the table. She still managed to do it anyway).

“Gone,” Fiona says. Da starts to argue, starts to prod, starts to sip his beer, but Fiona shakes her head. Her eyes never leave Da’s. “She found her craiceann róin.”

It’s one of the most formative moments of her life—cauterized into Eileen’s brain, the way that Da’s face goes white and his body goes still. The beer bottle shatters onto the floor. Eileen and Greer hold their breath. Fiona, though, Fiona is the only thing that moves inside the room. She pushes herself back up from the table. “Clean that up before one of the girls gets cut,” she orders their father, but it’s their mother’s voice that comes out of her mouth. Her words. “It’s bedtime,” she says, clearly towards Greer and Eileen, their father and his shock, dismissed.

It’s not bedtime—the sun hasn’t even set, but neither of them argue. Da still looks as though someone has hauled off and slapped him, aghast at the very notion and to surprised to react. The moment that the words ‘craiceann róin’ left Fiona’s lips, he went almost catatonic.

Fiona doesn’t answer any of their questions. What skin? Aren’t you scared that Da will spank you? How do you know Ma is gone? Should we clean up the glass? Instead, she actually begins to strip Eileen as though she is still a baby who needs help dressing for bed. Greer slaps her hands away, when Fiona moves to her, the first real movement from her since Fiona walked out of the cavern. “I can do it,” she snaps. “So can Eileen, Jesus.”

“Then do it,” Fiona says, and slips into the bathroom to shower.

It’s like this for days. Fiona moving rote, slipping into their mother’s place of making sure that they are fed, dressed for school, do their homework in the afternoons, helping them avoid Da’s moods. The last part is easy at first, because he doesn't come back home at all after work. He doesn’t show up for dinner. He isn’t there at breakfast. For four days in a row, he’s gone, and then he appears, eyes red, and bloodshot, and as drunk as Eileen has ever seen him.

Da drunk is Da raging mad. Da buzzed is fun; charming, entertaining, goofy and full of life. But, once he edges into real drunk territory, it’s best to scatter and to do it fast.

She’s alone in the kitchen. Fiona is arguing with Greer in their bedroom, snappish and quiet, trying to hide it from Eileen.

Da looms and his face goes hard. “Let me see,” he demands and starts grabbing at her arms. “Show me your fingers,” he snarls. “Your toes. The bitch probably lied. I should have checked when you were born. I should have kept checking.”

Eileen starts to cry. Silent and shocked as Da wrenches at her arms and pushes at the skin between her fingers. He presses, hard, between them and she cries out in pain. He ignores her, pulls at her feet, rips her socks off roughly and starts to pull her toes apart. Eileen panics and cries out loudly. “Da, stop!” she begs. “You’re hurting me!”

Fiona is in the room in seconds. “Stop,” she demands, but there’s a note of fear in her voice. Wobbly and watery.

Da doesn’t stop and he pulls too hard. Eileen falls off of the chair and lands hard on her tailbone, her head whacking back against the chair. She whimpers. “Show me your fingers and toes,” Da hollers as Greer appears behind Fiona.

“Da, stop it,” Fiona tries again, but Da grabs Greer and does the same song and dance with her, yanking at her limbs while Eileen cries on the floor. “SHOW ME!” he screams and Greer gasps, holding up her hands wide.

“STOP IT!” Fiona screams, moving right past her fear and catching onto her anger. Her temper has always been closer to Da’s then any of the rest of them, and now they’re matching each other. She pushes past Greer—managing to push her towards Eileen—Greer takes the hint and hauls her up off the floor. Not strong enough to lift her, she pulls and tugs and gets her arms around Eileen, ready to run towards the door, dragging Eileen with her at Fiona’s say so.

Da goes as still as he can, wobbling and unsteady on his feet. His words slur together as he glares down at Fiona. “Show me,” he demands. “You look the most like her.”

Fiona glares up at him in disgust. “I’m not a selkie, Da,” she sneers. “If I had a craiceann róin, I would have left this shithole years ago.”

The words shatter the room.

Da rears back and then falls, too drunk to hold himself up, tangling in his own feet. He lands hard, the same way that Eileen just had moments before. “I didn’t steal it,” he says, looking miserable. “She wanted to stay. We were in love.”

Eileen looks to Greer wildly, confused by this entire conversation. Greer seems to be, as well, her eyes are pinging between Da and Fiona.

“Maybe,” Fiona allows, though she looks dubious. Dubious and older suddenly, than her mere thirteen. “But then why couldn’t she find it? Why did she leave the second that finally she did? Why did she always look trapped by this fucking cottage, this town, and you?”

Da sucks in a breath, and then he starts to cry. It’s only for a few minutes, and then he’s raging again. He pushes himself up off the floor in jerky, drunken movements, eyes wild like he might try to kill Fiona where she stands if she doesn’t shut up.

“Because she was an ungrateful bitch,” he snarls. “Because I thought she’d make a good wife and mother, all the old tales said so,” he spits like he’s got a nasty taste in his mouth, like he could rid himself of her by that motion alone. “But she was never more than a fucking animal.”

“YOU SHUT UP!” Eileen screams, before she even realizes that she’s done it. Da and Fiona both look over at her in shocked surprise. Eileen has a moment to panic, and then she watches Fiona’s dark eyes—just like their mother’s—quickly calculating the distance between Eileen and Da. She doubles down. “YOU GO AWAY AND LEAVE US ALONE AND STOP BEING MEAN!”

Da just… stares at her. Mouth agape and almost sober, until he stumbles into action at Fiona jumping between them and pushing Eileen behind her. “You’re all just like her,” he mutters, mostly glaring at Fiona’s dark eyes and black hair—the most physically similar to Ma than the rest of them. Almost her spitting image, everybody says so. He swears, then grabs another beer from the fridge. He swings it wildly after taking a sip, pointing at them with the bottle. “She left you, too,” he slurs. “Selfish bitch,” he stomps into the living room and then slumps down onto the couch.

Greer bursts into tears.

…

…

“I don’t know anything,” Fiona repeats for the tenth time.

“FIONA!” Greer screams in frustration, tugging at her thin blonde hair. “You knew what it was called, you—”

“I’ve told you everything that I know. I guessed that,” she reiterates.

“Where would you even—”

“Old Mary,” Fiona says.

“The witch lady that lives in the old lighthouse?” Eileen asks, suddenly very scared. Kids at school dare each other to sneak out there at night. Older kids say that she gobbles children up and cooks them.

“She’s not a witch,” Fiona rolls her eyes. “She’s a midwife.”

“What does she have to do with Ma?” Greer asks.

“For one, she helped her give birth to all of us,” Fiona says. “And most children on this side of the island whose mothers didn’t go to the mainland to the hospital.”

“A witch helped us get born?” Eileen gasps.

“Who told you that?” Greer demands.

“Ma, and Old Mary herself,” Fiona says, quickly losing her patience with both of them.

“But—”

Fiona cuts Greer off. “I don’t know anything else,” she snaps. “I guessed. Ma’s gone. Da’s a wreak. Eileen’s got webbed fingers and toes. Ma never stopped looking at the sea. Da hardly ever let her go anywhere. I’ve heard selkie tales. I guessed,” she says again, tired and defeated.

Eileen is still shocked and staring at down her fingers. “No I don’t,” she whispers, though she sees the thin skin there. She never thought about it before. Maybe that’s why it hurt so much when Da pressed there.

Greer looks down at her hands as well. “I don’t,” she says, holding hers up.

“No,” Fiona agrees.

“You don’t,” she adds, nodding towards Fiona.

“No,” she repeats, sounding… agonized, almost, by the notion.

“But you look like Ma,” Greer says, her face scrunching up as she tries to put all the pieces together. It’s true. Of the three of them, Fiona is the mirror image of their mother; tall and muscular, with long black hair and pure black eyes, all angular almost unnatural beauty. Striking and unsettling alike. Greer looks like their father—blonde and lithe, with bight green eyes, all classically beautiful and charismatic. Eileen is the odd duck among them. There are hints of their parents in her, if you squint, but mostly she looks utterly unlike the rest of them. Reddish brown hair, hazel eyes, skinny and still baby-faced. Da sometimes says that she looks a bit like his mother did—though they’ve never met the woman, and stranger still, never even seen a picture of her.

(Years later, a memory re-surfaces of Ma whispering to her in the bath. Brushing the hair back from her eyes after washing her it. No, that’s wishful thinking. You look like my grandmother. Exactly. You’re one of ours. She wonders which statement is truer, but she never has a woman or a picture of either one to compare herself against).

Fiona shrugs, a jerky movement that doesn’t cover the way the statement seems to cut her to the quick. “Looks must not matter, here.”

“Can I turn into a seal?” Eileen asks, after a few moments of silence.

“Don’t be stupid,” Greer scoffs. But then she quiets and looks to Fiona. “Selkies aren’t real,” she says. “They’re just old fairy stories.”

“Then where is Ma?” Fiona asks, her eyes boring into Greer’s.

“Who cares?” Greer snaps. “She left us.” She looks between the two of them. “That’s all that matters.”

…

…

Da mostly stays out of their way, after that.

Fiona keeps making them get up, and eat breakfast, and go to school, and do their homework. No one at school asks about Ma—she never came around to things in town, anyway. Fiona instructs them not to say a word about Ma being gone to anyone, least a teacher go and contact someone from social services on the mainland. Fiona forges Ma’s signature on forms as needed, shuffles them into the grocery store weekly, and teaches herself how to fish without Ma or Da helping. She might not have webbed fingers and toes, but she’s always been a natural in the water—she can find fish faster than Da—and he does it for a living.

Greer refuses to go into the water. She won’t even go down to the beach anymore, even though looking for sea glass used to be one of her favorite pastimes. Even though the sound of the waves used to be one of the only things that could properly settle her for sleep. She rips down all of her artwork with it off the walls and shoves it into the back of their closet.

Fiona turns fourteen, and essentially, becomes their stand-in mother. Da still works, still goes off and drinks with his friends, still pays the bills—but it’s Fiona who he leaves money in the coffee can for. Fiona whom he leaves the responsibility of the other two to deal with. Fiona who he sometimes studies across the kitchen table, disgust and fury roiling off of him in subtle waves.

But he doesn’t ever say anything about Ma, again. And he doesn’t touch the three of them at all.

…

…

There is a woman in the kitchen.

Eileen freezes in place and stares up at her naked back, long blonde hair draping loosely down to her bare bottom. The women jumps in surprise at the noise and when she turns around, Eileen is shocked to see her breasts. She doesn't have a lick of clothes on. Sheepish, she tries to fold her arms over herself. “Sorry, I was just grabbing some coffee,” she laughs nervously. “He didn’t say anything about kids,” she mutters. “Um… I’ll just,” she tries to slip past Eileen.

“Who are you?” Eileen asks, finding her voice.

“Um… Julia,” she says, dodging past Eileen and heading back towards her father’s bedroom. She slips inside and closes the door without another word, leaving Eileen stunned.

She moves to get herself some cereal after a few more moments where nothing else happens. She’s still crunching on it, alone at the table, when Da’s door opens again. He comes out with the woman, shuffling himself into his clothes, still. She’s wearing a flowy dress and an embarrassed wince of a smile. Da says nothing about how weird all of this is, just heads for the coffeepot and pours himself a mug. Julia beelines for the back door.

“Bye, Julia,” Eileen says as she opens it, because Ma taught them to be polite, as much as she is curious about why a strange woman would be naked in her kitchen. Both adults freeze and wince in tandem, and Eileen worries that she has done something wrong, but then Da chuckles awkwardly. Julia holds up her hand in a half-wave.

“Bye,” she says, and all but sprints out of the house.

Eileen turns towards her father. He’s studying her the way that he sometimes studies Fiona, now, and her shoulders hunch up towards her ears against his gaze. “Don’t be late to school,” he finally snaps.

“It’s Saturday,” Eileen whispers, but he’s already gone.

She never sees Julia in the house again. She sees her once at the grocery store, though—walking down the frozen fruit isle and nearly knocking into her cart. They don’t say anything to each other.

The parade of women become a semi-regular occurrence, after that. No one ever stays longer than a few days at a time, even the ones who clearly want to, who try to play mother to the three of them in some sort of bid to stick around.

Fiona always puts a stop to it whenever they try.

…

…

The years pass and Greer and Fiona fight more and more. They argue about anything and everything: what to make for dinner; what books and movies Eileen should be allowed to watch; whether or not Eileen should be allowed to go to the beach; who to be friends with in town; how and when to spend their money—it’s exhausting.

Early on, they both accepted that Fiona was in charge without much argument, but now, Greer is fourteen, herself, and has decided that she is just as capable, actually.

They argue together like Ma and Da used to—quiet and hushed and trying to keep it from Eileen. But Eileen is more interested in sneaking in on these conversations than she ever used to be with her parents.

The rules have changed now.

Greer doesn’t want Eileen to be allowed near the water. At first, when Ma initially left, this wasn’t a problem—Eileen was traumatized, and confused, and sticking to Fiona like glue. But as time passed, there was an aching inside of her that kept drawing her down to the shoreline. She has never sleepwalked before, but she keeps on waking up as the water brushes against her bare toes—Fiona and Greer frantic and running behind to grab her.

Greer forces Eileen to start sleeping in her bed, and now she wakes up to Greer’s arms tight like a vice around her, holding her in place with that tugging in her chest. She whispers to Fiona that it’s familiar—she felt it when she found Ma’s craiceann róin. Fiona looks frightened for a blink, then sighs, like she was waiting for this moment.

“I think you’re more like Ma than the rest of us,” she admits.

“No, you are,” Eileen argues, like it should be obvious.

“Physically, in looks, maybe,” Fiona counters, holding Eileen’s hand as they walk down the lane together. Greer’s staying back at school to work on a group project. “But, I think that maybe I’m not like her where it counts—you are.”

“I don’t want to be a selkie,” Eileen whispers miserably. “I want to stay with you and Greer.”

Fiona stops walking. She’s been tall for years, but now she’s nearly of height with Da—eye level with more men in the town than not. Above many of them, to their clear displeasure. She towers over Eileen, who is still spindly and short—barely grown an inch in the last few years. Fiona drops down to her knees, then sits cross-legged in the dirt, making sure that Eileen can see her eyes without craning her neck up. “You can always stay with me,” she says, firm. “But, Eileen, you’re only nine-years old, you might feel differently as you grow up.”

“No,” she shakes her head wildly back and forth. Being apart from Fiona even during school makes her nervous and anxious—her teachers are starting some rumblings about ‘separation anxiety’ that she knows are going to cause problems if they ask to talk to Ma, soon. “No,” she says again, throwing her body at Fiona’s and wrapping her arms tight around her neck. “Never.”

Fiona sighs and just hauls her up—Eileen never protests about not being a baby, anymore. She wants to be carried, though she knows that she is too old. She wants to be on Fiona’s lap. She wants to be touching her, or Greer, nearly always; then she knows that they’re still there. Irrefutable proof.

“You might change your mind,” Fiona says, as they walk towards the house. “It’s important that you have the choice.”

“I don’t want to be like Ma,” Eileen whispers. “She’s selfish and bad.”

“Don’t listen to everything Greer says,” Fiona chides, rightly intuiting where that line of thought came from. “Greer is grieving and angry.”

“But—”

“She has a right to be,” Fiona says, cutting in before Eileen can protest otherwise. “But she doesn't have the right to decide how you feel about Ma.”

“Because you’re older?”

“No,” Fiona says, fiercely. She holds Eileen away from her body, forcing her to meet Fiona’s eyes. “No one does. You choose what you think for yourself. Always.” Fiona sets her back down and takes her hand as they reach the house. “And you’re allowed to change your mind.”

Eileen looks back at the ocean. That tugging swells and blooms inside her chest. She swallows it down and follows Fiona into the house.

She wakes up in the ocean, again. Greer’s voice is screaming behind her and then her arms wrap around, haul her up, drag her away, and for the first time, Eileen tries to fight it.

Greer isn’t as strong or tall as Fiona—but she’s gotten bigger in the last two years and she snatches Eileen up fairly easily. “Stop it,” she yells, voice pure panic once she realizes that Eileen is trying to fight to get back to the water.

“I want to—”

“No,” Greer screams in her face. She tosses Eileen over her shoulder and drags them out of the water. Eileen never takes her eyes off the water, so she notices it, first. She pounds hard on Greer’s back, screaming for her to turn around, to look, begging and pointing. “I’m not—” Greer goes silent when her eyes land on the seal. Eileen can distantly hear Fiona running towards them, but all of her attention is focused on the seal bobbing further out at the shoreline.

It’s eyes are so familiar it that steals the breath from her lungs. “Ma,” she whispers.

That shocks Greer into action. Her arms tighten around Eileen—too-tight, painful. A panicked vice-grip as her face twists in fury as she never takes her eyes off the seal. “YOU CAN’T HAVE HER!” Greer screams at Ma.

Fiona comes barreling into them, nearly toppling them both over with the force of it. “What are you—” she starts, then goes deadly silent. Eileen sees her shoulders hunch, watches her body language change, and suddenly, she’s not a tall, brave, sixteen year old anymore—she looks like a little girl. “Ma,” she gasps, looking at the seal.

“FUCK OFF!” Greer screams. “YOU CAN’T HAVE HER. YOU LEFT, SHE IS NOT YOURS ANYMORE! SHE’S OURS!” She holds Eileen so tightly, tries to move them backwards out of the water, but the tide is growing and she nearly slips and falls.

Fiona catches them as the seal jerks forward. “Greer, don’t—”

“SHE CAN’T HAVE HER!” Greer screeches, turning on Fiona.

“I’m not saying to—”

“THIS IS BULLSHIT!” Greer screams. She’s been insistent for the last two years that selkies aren’t real. Ma left them just like any other shitty mother might. She got on a boat and went to the mainland and never looked back. Fairy stories are old superstitions, and nothing more than tales people made up. She only cares about concrete facts that can be proven. She’s more and more interested in science. Math. She takes away fantasy stories when she catches Eileen reading them. She’s convinced Eileen that Old Mary is an evil woman in the most banal, boring sense—no witchcraft to speak of. Just simple cruelty.

Eileen watches as her world falls apart at one look into her mother’s eyes in the face of a seal. Greer deals in scientific proof—and she’s looking at it.

And she’s pissed as all hell about it.

“YOU CANNOT HAVE HER!” she screams again, even as the seal comes closer, undeterred.

Suddenly, Eileen is frightened. She wants her ma back, and she’s loved the sea since birth, but she doesn’t want to leave her sisters and everything that she has ever known, even if that tugging inside her chest grows. She clings to Greer and wraps herself around tight even as she wants to dive into the water and swim to Ma.

Fiona staggers forward, almost trace-like, and Greer screeches and tries to grab at her. “Ma,” Fiona begs, “take me with you, please.”

Eileen starts to scream.

The seal doesn’t turn into their mother. Later, Eileen will wonder why, will spend weeks searching everything that she can find about selkies and come to some educated guesses, but now, she just stares in confusion. Ma’s eyes look apologetic and despondent as she holds eye-contact with Fiona. She only looks over at Eileen once, and then all of her focus snaps to Greer.

Greer, who looks just like their father. Greer, who hates anything that she can’t figure out completely and entirely. Greer, who has no webbing anywhere, who hasn’t allowed herself to touch the sand or the water in almost three years, unless she is snatching Eileen away from it.

Greer, who just turned fourteen.

“Oh,” Fiona whispers to herself, coming to the conclusion that it will take Eileen ages to figure out on her own. Tears spill out of Fiona’s eyes as her shoulders shake. “Oh,” she repeats. “Okay.”

“GO AWAY,” Greer screams at Ma again. “She’s ours,” she holds Eileen tighter to her chest. “You lost the right.”

“Greer,” Fiona says, sounding hollow. “She’s not here for Eileen yet.”

Ma’s eyes have not left Greer since they turned to her, and she keeps coming closer, nearly joining them on the shoreline, now. Fiona could almost reach out and touch her.

She doesn’t.

The seal barks. A harsh, guttural sound that shocks all three of them. Her front flipper reaches towards Greer’s feet, still submerged in the waves. “No,” Eileen hears Greer whisper, so quietly that the only reason she can hear it above the wind and the waves is because of how tightly Greer is clutching Eileen to her front. “No, I’m not a selkie.”

The seal barks again. Three short bursts of them, then silence. Ma’s eyes holding Greer’s as some innate understanding fills Greer’s brilliant mind.

“No,” Greer says, louder this time. Firmly. She’s not panicked anymore. Instead, she’s gone deadly calm. Her gripe on Eileen loosens, but never disappears. “I’m not a selkie, Ma,” she repeats. “I won’t leave them. I’m not like you.”

“Greer,” Fiona chastises. “That’s not what—”

“I don’t care,” Greer snaps at them both. Her eyes are fierce and horrible as she looks back at Ma. “I’m not leaving.” She turns her back on the seal, then. She carries Eileen out of the water and back towards the house, leaving Fiona standing at the shore and staring at what’s left of their mother.

…

…

Things change, after that.

Fiona, who has been steadfast since the moment she walked out of the cavern three years ago, goes almost catatonic and simply moves through the motions. Like the first time, Eileen can’t stop chattering and asking questions. She’s jittery and anxious and can’t be left alone, but this time, Fiona has almost no patience for her. This time, Greer takes her hand and keeps her fed, forces her to go to school, do her homework, keeps her out of Da’s way. Fiona still cooks and goes grocery shopping and goes to school, but their sister is still gone. Her eyes are dead and he doesn’t smile or laugh at anything.

“Fiona, why are you—”

“Not until I’m twenty-one. If even,” she whispers almost to herself, when she gets back to the house that night. The three of them, clothes soaked and salt stained as they shiver and cling to each other in the dark kitchen. “You, too,” she says, looking up and meeting Greer’s eyes. “You realize that, right?” she stresses. “You lost your chance for another seven years.” She looks back down at her hands. “But… Eileen was seven, and I was nearly fourteen. Why didn’t she take us then?”

“Who cares?” Greer snaps.

“I do,” Fiona snarls at her, the spitting image of Da in a rage. Eileen can’t help it, she shrinks back into Greer. Fiona sees and goes deadly still with horror. She sags like someone cut her strings. “I do,” she repeats, miserable.

“We don’t have webs,” Greer says, like she’s clinging to that fact. Like it will save her. Like it means everything.

“We don’t know all the rules,” Fiona reminds her in a dull voice.

Greer straightens up. “Well, I’ll find out, then,” she says, determination written all over her face.

Greer throws herself into research mode while Fiona goes catatonic. Eileen watches them both with growing worry, trying to nudge Fiona back into her normal self, pushing food towards Greer while she’s wrapped up with books and scribbling notes.

It’s nearly a month later—four horrible, lonely weeks—when Greer walks into the kitchen and slams her notebook down with a flourish. “Alright,” she declares. “Family meeting.”

Eileen looks between the two of them—Fiona, eyes dull as she pushes her pasta around on her plate, barely nibbling at it, and Greer, eyes wild and brimming with frenetic energy. They’re both much too thin. “Da is still out on the boat until Friday,” she says.

“Da doesn’t need to be here for this conversation,” Greer waves her off. “It doesn’t concern him.”

Fiona just takes a bite of her pasta and chews, her eyes unfocused.

“So, many selkie legends have a recurrence of the number seven in them,” Greer starts, shocking Eileen. “In some tales, seven tears into the sea can call a lost selkie lover. In others, selkies can only change into humans once every seven years, unless their skin is stolen—or given. There aren’t as many tales about a selkie’s offspring,” she says, the first hint that she’s affected by these facts showing on her face. Fiona goes still, but doesn’t look up at her. “Some say that only the children with webbed fingers and toes can grow up to be selkies,” she says, looking at Eileen. “Some say none of them can. Some say they all do. It’s all conflicting and speculation. Old Mary thinks a lot of it is exaggerated.”

Eileen blinks up at Greer in surprise. “You talked to Old Mary?” she asks.

“She’s a good primary resource,” Greer says, as though she hasn’t spent the last three years warning Eileen off of the woman. Eileen gears up to start screaming at the unfairness of this to her sister, but Greer plows on. “She knew Ma well, apparently. She knew—about her being a selkie. She tried to help her, back when she first married Da. According to Mary, she had a selkie lover herself, once. But she never took his craiceann róin, and he never offered it to her. That’s part of how they bind themselves to a human. Willingly or not.”

Eileen's head is spinning and she gapes at Greer before looking over at Fiona. She barely looks as though she is even listening. Greer notices, but she plows on anyway.

“Fiona is likely correct. If any of us can turn, it would be on years of sevens. I don’t know why Ma didn’t take Eileen with her, when she found her craiceann róin,” she says, looking down at her notes. “Maybe she was too overwhelmed. Maybe seven is too young to change. Fiona wasn’t fourteen yet, so… that’s probably why she didn’t take her.”

“But, Fiona turned fourteen only a few weeks later,” Eileen protests, though she’s not sure any of this is making a lick of sense. Fiona jerks at the statement, then silent tears start to spill out of her eyes. Eileen scrambles out of her seat and crawls onto Fiona’s lap, hugging her tight and wiping her tears away. “I’m sorry.”

“I wondered that, too,” Greer says, sinking down into the seat beside Fiona. She doesn’t touch either of them, though, only fiddles with her hands. “I can only make an educated guess. Either Fiona isn’t capable of it—doesn’t have a craiceann róin,” she corrects. “Or, there are other factors that would be needed in order to get her ready for one. Or…” she trails off for a moment, looking disturbed and conflicted about what she is about to say. “Or Ma knew that we would need her.”

Fiona’s tears spill down her cheeks faster than Eileen can wipe them away.

“None of it matters,” Greer says after a moment or two of Fiona’s silent crying. “None of us are going into the sea.”

“Says who!?” Eileen protests.

“Me,” Greer says, suddenly looking like Ma when she was adamant about something. Non-negotiable.

Eileen looks aghast towards Fiona, waiting for her to step in and argue. Waiting to hear, it’s your choice, always, but just Fiona silently looks down at her hands, and then back up to meet Greer’s eyes. “Four years for Eileen and I,” she says, and Greer flinches like Fiona has slapped her. “Seven, for you.”

Greer throws her notebook at Fiona’s head. “You want to leave just like Ma? Fine,” she snarls, pushing herself back away from the table, she snatches Eileen out of Fiona’s lap. “But you are not taking Eileen with you.”

Eileen makes to protest, starts to fight against Greer’s hold, but then she catches sight of Fiona’s gaze and goes limp, instead. “No,” Fiona whispers. “I wouldn’t do that to either of you.”

Eileen never gets her to explain what exactly she means by that.

…

…

They see the seal more regularly, after that.

Greer still refuses to go to the beach. She still makes Eileen sleep in her bed, against the wall side. She locks their bedroom door, and window, and sleeps with the keys hidden up high every night. Fiona sighs, but she doesn’t protest, not even when Eileen complains to her about it directly.

“Sweets, you could drown. It’s dangerous to sleepwalk to the sea,” she says, sounding defeated. “She’s not wrong about that.”

“But—”

“You’re allowed on the beach, as far as I’m concerned, but sleepwalking there is dangerous. We agree on that, and I’m not going to tell her, or you, otherwise.”

Suddenly, the reality that her sisters often discuss Eileen, and her wellbeing, and are acting as stand-in parents, fully hits her. On some level, she’s known that this whole time; but, it’s another thing entirely to finally be old enough to understand it, though still young enough to need it. She watches them both closely all that week—they aren’t fighting much anymore. They bicker, sure. There are disagreements. But… they’ve formed a routine and Eileen never even bothered to notice.

Greer gets her up in the mornings and into the shower if she hasn’t already made her bathe the night before. She ushers her into wakefulness, checks that everything is in her backpack, and that her clothes fit properly and aren’t dirty. Fiona makes breakfast, lunches, checks forms, takes care that she is in bed on time. They swap on dinners, on walking Eileen to and from school, and homework in the evenings based on their own schedules.

It’s been going on for months now, maybe much longer.

And Eileen just went along without question. Da certainly never says anything about it. He either stumbles in late, or very early from his shifts, spends longer stretches out on the boat, and only occasionally joins them for meals. The women he spends time with mostly slip in and out, and Eileen knows (from eavesdropping, something that she’s recently taken up doing with near constant frequency) that he mostly spends time with them in the town’s hotel, or wherever they live.

She is itchy inside her own skin, and she keeps waking up feeling as though the ocean’s waves are washing over her, and she is only ten, and motherless, and unmoored—

So, she picks a fight.

Fiona drops a bowl of broccoli and pasta down in front of her, and Eileen pushes it away. “I don’t want that,” she says, petulant.

Above her head, Fiona and Greer share a look. (When did they start doing that? Ma and Da sometimes did that—communicated about them, in front of them, with silent looks, but Eileen had no idea that her sisters could do it, too). Greer turns her seat towards Eileen, an encouraging smile on her lips. “Sweets, broccoli is your favorite! Look, it’s got the shake cheese you like,” she says, pointing to the can of grated parmesan.

Eileen scowls further and sinks back into her chair. The Look is exchanged again, and Fiona tags in. Eileen is appalled with herself that she hasn’t noticed any of this before now. “Sweets, I saved up a little extra from Da’s last haul, we can go for ice cream later if you eat all your vegetables and finish your homework.”

The prospect of ice cream almost causes her to flounder, until she remembers that they’re both manipulating her.

“NO!” she hollers and does something that she has never done before—she flips the bowl of food and smashes it to the floor.

The kitchen goes silent. Eileen is surprised that she’s done it, herself. She knows that as far as other children go, that she is one of the well behaved ones, according to her teachers, her friends’ parents, and from observing her classmates behavior. Mostly, she does whatever her sisters tell her to—she trusts them, they often have good reasons, and they don’t usually make her do things that she doesn’t want to to. Or, if they are, they take the time to explain why. This is how things went with Eileen when Ma was here, too.

But, Ma is gone. Da is hardly ever home anymore. Ma is a selkie. Eileen might be a selkie. Her sisters might grow webs between their toes and then disappear into the ocean and leave her behind. And her skin is itchy.

“I HATE THIS!” she screeches. She means the broccoli and she absolutely does not mean the broccoli. Fiona and Greer share another look and it almost causes Eileen to claw their eyes out, but then they surround her. They work in perfect synchronicity and get their limbs around Eileen’s flailing ones and hog tie her between them. “I HATE YOU!” Eileen screams, which is the absolute biggest lie she has ever told in all her ten years.

They know. Of course they know, because they’re the best sisters in the world who have been taking care of her—especially Fiona—for the last three years. They’re motherless and unmoored, as well. They know exactly how Eileen is feeling right now.

She screams louder and then it breaks and turns into sobs. It turns into unintelligible mumbles about how she doesn’t want anyone to turn into a selkie and leave.

“No one is,” Greer is saying, kissing at her temple. “I am never going to be a selkie, Eileen. I am never going to leave you.”

Fiona does not promise that part. Eileen realizes, later on.

“I would always come back,” Fiona says. “If I go to college or…” she doesn’t say the word selkie, but they all think it. “If I go somewhere, I will always come back. I’ll call. I’ll write. I’d never just leave you, Sweets.” Eileen is hiccuping and swiping at her watery eyes, but she catches the look that Fiona gives Greer, regardless. “Either of you.”

“Promise,” Greer says, and holds out her pinkie finger. Fiona latches on and then they both look to Eileen. “Do you promise?” Greer asks her, a shuddering breath rattling through her chest.

Eileen locks her pinkie into her sisters’. “I won’t leave and not come back, either.”

Fiona looks at her. Only Greer said anything about never becoming a selkie. It hangs there in the air between the three of them.

It always does.

…

…

She stops sleepwalking that night. The itching doesn’t disappear, but it doesn’t scare her as much, it isn’t as unbearable as it was, before. Greer still clutches her hand and drags her away from the beach as they walk past.

But Fiona goes down.

Eileen wakes up early, and crawls her spindly little body over Greer’s and slips into the kitchen, eager for breakfast. Fiona is nowhere to be seen, at first. Eileen tugs out bowls and pours herself cereal and then looks out the kitchen window—towards the shoreline.

There is Fiona.

And there is the seal.

(Selkie. Ma, probably).

Eileen just stands there and watches while her cereal goes soggy. Fiona is gesturing animatedly, and the seal—selkie, Ma—is doing the same. Flippers swinging back and forth, and mouth opening in what Eileen just knows are short sharp barks. She doesn’t know how to read a seal’s body language, though, she knows aggressive behavior from an animal and knows immediately that this is not that. Fiona, though, Eileen knows as easy as breathing. She’s not mad. Irritated, a little, maybe. She tugs up at her hair in frustration once or twice. But, her shoulders bob up and down in a way that Eileen knows is more defeat and acceptance. She sits down into the wet sand a moment later and Eileen gasps as the seal—selkie, Ma—shuffles its body forward and presses its nose right up against Fiona’s cheek. It nestles in, sniffing and rubbing and then barks and whacks a flipper lightly against Fiona’s leg.

Eileen watches her sister laugh and then nod, as if she understands.

She nearly dumps her disgustingly soggy cereal into the sink and runs out towards them, but then Greer’s hands clamp down on her shoulders, holding her in place. “What the fuck?” she whispers above Eileen, eyes trained on their mother and sister, too.

“It’s really Ma, isn’t it?” Eileen asks as they watch Fiona push up and make her way back to them. The selkie watching the whole time.

“Fuck,” Greer whispers to herself.

“Bad word,” Eileen says, automatic. “Twice.”

“Sorry, Sweets,” Greer says, shaking herself. Her eyes never leave the selkie, either.

“Is it?” Eileen presses. “Ma?”

Greer shudders. “I don’t know, Eileen. Mostly I think no, that’s ridiculous, and selkies aren’t real. They’re just old fairy stories that came about before scientific explanations for things like autism, mental illness, marital abuse, etc.” she shakes her head and grabs Eileen’s gross congealing bowl and tosses it, moving to make her some scrambled eggs, instead. “But…” she looks back out at the shoreline, the selkie has shuffled back into the waves. “Its eyes looked just like Ma’s,” she whispers. “And…”

“And Ma wouldn’t really just leave us,” Eileen says, suddenly fierce. It’s the hardest part of all of this, really. (She knows, when she looks back with adult eyes, how miserable and isolated their mother had been, but her love for the three of them had never been in question. Not once). Ma wouldn’t just leave.

Not without taking them, too.

“Everybody has a limit, Eileen,” Greer says, instead of confirming Eileen's words. “I don’t know,” she flips the eggs as Fiona walks inside the house. “Maybe Ma just hit hers.”

Neither of them comment on Fiona’s excursion, and Fiona herself says not a word.

…

…

Fiona graduates the next year, and Eileen and Greer hold their breath.

Da comes home early from his latest trip and Eileen catches him in the kitchen with Fiona. She hangs back, curious and eavesdropping.

“You did good, kid,” he says, not quite looking Fiona in the eye. He seems sober. Ashamed even, maybe. Eileen is baffled by this entire exchange. “I don’t have any extra money to—”

“I know, Da,” Fiona says, cutting him off. She looks over and meets his eye, of height with him. “I got a scholarship,” she announces. Eileen’s whole body goes numb. “I’m going to college on the mainland in the fall. I’ll get a job and loans for the rest. You’re going to have to start taking care of them. Eileen, especially,” she says, her voice hard. “Greer will graduate next year, and her grades are even better than mine. She’s going to get a full ride somewhere good, and she is going to go. You’re the parent. Start acting like one.”

“Fiona—” he starts, and Eileen knows that he’s going to plead with her to stay local. To get a job and take care of Eileen. She can see it in his eyes and in the set of his shoulders. Not fair, she thinks, indignant. But it’s what you want, too, she reminds herself.

Fiona cuts him off. “I’ve been doing your job for the last four and a half years, Da,” she says, not exactly with malice, but with a hell of a lot of resentment and frustration built in. “You are the one who stole Ma’s craiceann róin,” she adds. “You made her marry you, you wouldn’t give it back, and chose to have three kids with her. You chose all of this for yourself. The very least that you could do is take care of your youngest daughter.”

Da opens his mouth, face going red like he might start hollering at her, but then something in him deflates—like a balloon that’s suddenly been popped. “I thought we fell in love,” he adds, in a soft, ashamed whisper.

“People don’t usually fall in real love with their captors, Da.”

He flinches like she’s struck him. “I wasn’t her—”

“Yes,” she says, calm and deadly, holding his gaze. “You were.”

…

…

Eileen sobs when Fiona leaves. She hugs her tight, begs her to take them with her, refuses any and all treats and promises and acts like a total baby, instead of an eleven year old. Greer is stoic but also crying, promising to take good care of Eileen, the house, herself.

(Fiona was at the shoreline that morning, a seal-head bobbing in and out of the waves).

“I’ll call you when I get there,” she promises. Then she kisses first Greer’s temple, then Eileen's, lingering there as she whispers, “go visit Ma,” and then she is gone.

Into the boat, drifting through the ocean waves. Same way Ma left, almost.

Greer holds Eileen's hand tightly as they watch. A seal’s head pops up and swims behind the boat until they cannot see either anymore.

“Right,” Greer says, and tugs Eileen along. “This calls for a movie and popcorn comfort night.”

…

…

Greer slots into Fiona’s place well enough, though it’s her senior year, and she’s busy with forms, and volunteering, papers, and studying.

Suddenly, Da shows back up in the kitchen. Eileen is alone, working on an art project as he stands awkwardly in the doorframe, like he doesn’t know how to approach her, anymore.

Before Ma left, whenever Da was sober, he could be fun. He sometimes threw Eileen up into the air and caught her. He was the one who taught her to swim in the ocean—not Ma. (She thinks, looking back on it, that it must have been too painful. Or maybe the magic didn’t allow for it. Eileen never saw her in the water once, her whole first seven years of life). He was the one who would jump up and dance, spin them around until they were a giggling, hiccuping mess.

“I thought that you might want to go out with me on the boat,” he says, suddenly spitting the words out. Eileen actually turns around to check there isn’t some strange woman behind her that he’s talking to.

“Me?” she asks, once it’s apparent that there is not.

Da nods.

“And do what?” she asks.

“I’ll teach you to fish,” he says, decisively nodding his head. “You should know how, growing up on a fisherman’s island.”

“You never taught Fiona or Greer,” she points out.

“I should have done,” he says. “Greer can come next time, if she wants.”

Eileen cannot picture that at all. Greer still won’t go anywhere near the water, and she hardly says more than a few words to Da, nowadays.

Eileen sort of wants to say ‘no’ but she’s not sure if that’s allowed, so she closes her notebook and follows Da outside. They make their way down to the docks, Da chattering away the whole time. He talks about the proper knots, shows her more than once, makes her try it, and then they’re off.

On the water.

The salty air stings Eileen’s throat, and she has to hold in a shocked gasp when her fingers first brush the waves. She snatches her hand back and listens to Da to distract herself from the feeling. She helps him drop the nets down, watches the horizon and listens as he pushes the buttons and steers the wheel.

It’s as strange as it is nice, and she finds that when they finally come home—dragging a haul of fish for supper behind them—she’s grinning and laughing with Da. She freezes at the sight of Greer, pacing in the kitchen.

“Where were you?” she nearly screams.

Eileen backs up into Da’s front, startled. “I took her fishing,” Da says, looking a little affronted.

Greer’s whole face twists, a picture perfect image of Da, himself, ready to go off in a rage. “You what?” she snarls. “You let her on the water!?”

Da bristles, going on the defensive as he slaps the fish down into the sink to be cleaned and washed. “Jesus fucking christ, Muirin. I took her fishing! She should know how! It’s not the goddamn end of the world!”

Greer goes absolutely still. Eileen is shocked to hear her mother’s name. They hardly ever say it, anymore. It’s even more surprising to hear Greer be mistaken for Ma. Fiona is the one who used to occasionally be when they were in town, but even that was only once in a while—not many people knew Muirin. Greer looks almost nothing like her, and almost exactly like Da, and she blinks in shock at their father, who doesn’t even seem to notice that he’s done it.

“Cook the fish,” he says, grabbing his coat and storming out of the kitchen. “I’m going out.”

Eileen turns back to Greer’s shocked face. “I’m sorry,” she whispers. “I—” she feels ashamed, like a traitor as she adds, “it was fun.”

Greer’s mouth opens and then closes again. She says nothing, only shuts her eyes and takes in a deep breath before moving over to the sink to begin cleaning the fish. “Wash your hands and get changed,” she says. “Then come and help me.”

“Greer—”

“Now, Eileen.”

She goes. Da doesn’t take her fishing again. And none of them ever talk about it.

…

…

“I can defer,” Eileen hears Greer say into the telephone. She’s cut off by whatever the other person—likely, Fiona—is saying immediately. “No… I know…” she says, sounding defeated. “It’s only… no, I know. I know, Fiona. No… I can’t do that,” she says. Eileen waits, straining to be able to hear what Fiona is saying. “He’s not, no.”

Eileen nearly trips she is leaning so far out around the doorframe.

“Alright, I will,” Greer says, and hangs up.

…

…

Greer leaves the same way that Fiona does—on a boat, on the water.

Off to college. To bigger and better things.

Away from Eileen.

Eileen spies on her the night before, so she’s watching as Greer slips out of bed and out of the house and makes her way down to the water. She has never seen Greer do this before and she watches, rapt from the kitchen window as the selkie appears, like she’s been waiting.

Greer steps forward, screams something, then cries.

And then—

She hugs the selkie, clings to it like it’s Ma. And that’s when Eileen knows. It’s been over five years of speculation, of ‘pretty sures’ but not of knowing to her bones an absolute and irrefutable truth. It’s not that Eileen thinks that Fiona would ever lie to her about something like this, but Fiona might bend the truth if she thought that it would make Eileen feel better. Greer wouldn’t. Greer thinks the that truth is a sort of armor. She tells Eileen everything, makes sure that she has all of the knowledge she might need to take care of herself, protect herself, make her own decisions.

(Except the one that rules over everything. Except going towards the water).

If Greer wraps her arms around a seal and cries like it’s their Ma… then it is.

She says nothing about it the next morning. She fusses with Eileen’s shirt, stalling at the docks. “Remember that the cupboard above the sink sticks, don’t have your face near it when you tug it open,” she says, again. “Always get eggs, and bread, and cereal and milk. Old Mary will feed you if it’s something more complicated, I made her promise. Go there, if Da isn’t home. My friend Lisa, remember her?” she has said all of this already, more than once, and written it all down in a notebook for Eileen, just in case. “She promised me that she would look out for you—go to her if you need anything, Eileen. Promise me.”

“I promise,” Eileen parrots, for what feels like the hundredth time.

“And call me or Fi if you have any questions. Day or night. I’ll have better reception on the mainland. So I can—”

“I know, Greer,” Eileen stresses. “Jesus, I’m twelve. I’m not a baby. You were my age when Ma left. Fiona was only a year older than me. I can do it.”

Greer blanches. “That’s not the point.”

(She knows. They both know. Eileen is the baby, has always been taken care of—she isn’t as good at it as Fiona and Greer).

“I know all of this already,” Eileen says. “I promise. I’ll be okay.”

Greer grabs at her hands. “Don’t go into the water by yourself. I’ll be back for fall break, with Fi. I’ll see you at Christmas, and I’ll call you all the time, alright?”

“Alright,” Eileen agrees.

After one last hard look at Da, waiting down at the end of the docks, Greer finally lowers herself into the boat. Eileen stays there and watches it leave. She sees Ma pop up out of the water and follow after the boat, the same as she did with Fiona.

Da steps up behind her, a hand coming down gently on her shoulder. “Just you and me, kid,” he says, some combination of shock mixed with determination in his tone.

Eileen watches the boat and the selkie until she can’t see them anymore. “Yeah,” she whispers.

…

…

It’s not.

Just her and Da.

A woman named Audrey starts showing up with increasing frequency. She’s blonde, like Da and Greer. Lithe, and pretty, and tall, and she smiles at Eileen like she’s trying to coax something out of her. She laughs at Da’s jokes and smacks him lightly on the shoulder and says things like “oh, Jamie, you’re too much,” in a way that means he is exactly what she wants him to be, actually.

Eileen is twelve. She’s had health classes, now. She got her period this summer, and Fiona and Greer have talked to her and explained many more things than the health classes ever did.

She’s not stupid. She knows what’s going on, now, with the women and Da. It’s utterly revolting, and annoying, and weird that now that Greer and Fiona are gone, Da stops bothering with the hotels and going to Audrey’s house. It’s not women anymore, either. It’s just Audrey.

All autumn Eileen answers Greer and Fiona’s phone calls and tells them that she is doing fine and lies about Audrey’s existence. She doesn’t know what will happen over their breaks in school, but she doesn’t want to think about it. Greer’s friend Lisa checks in on her every few days or so at first, and then Eileen tells her that Greer is overprotective and that she is doing fine, thank you, and she mostly stops bothering. Old Mary shows Eileen which flowers are good to crush into tea if you have cramps, and gives her berries and vegetables from her garden and Eileen assures her that she is fine, too.

Not a selkie, still. Not going in the water. She promised.

Audrey starts trying to teach her how to cook. She turns on music in the kitchen, dancing and singing along as she laughs and tries to get Eileen to join her. Eileen thinks about her sisters and her mother, stifled and dutiful and bound by this kitchen, and wants to throw up.

Da drinks less. It’s a blessing, because he’s much calmer; easy-going and charming and fun. But a part of her resents that he’s here and happy, now. A part of her is furious that he’s able to pull it together for her and Audrey and not for Ma or Fiona or even Greer. A part of her is furious that she’s delighted by it, happy to have Da around, to be having fun with him and Audrey, before she catches herself.

She’s doing an awful lot of lying to her sisters, lately.

…

…

Fiona is the one who finds out about Audrey, first. Eileen slips up and mentions her name on the phone, quickly brushing it off as a woman Da is seeing as though it’s unimportant. But Fiona always knows how to read her. She shows up with her two bags and catches Eileen, laughing and dancing in the kitchen with Audrey.

“Hello,” she says, announcing her presence.

Eileen jumps in shock. Audrey laughs, trying to cover her surprise. She smiles and shakes Fiona’s hand and introduces herself, and can definitely pick up on the tension in the room, but pushes past it and plays host. Eileen wants to crawl away and hide. Audrey, playing hostess in this kitchen—Fiona’s, basically. Suddenly, she feels more like a traitor than ever.

Fiona grabs Eileen and escapes into their old bedroom. “Da’s got a girlfriend?” she asks, though it’s not really a question.

“Um, yeah,” she says, not meeting her sister’s eyes. “She’s nice.”

“Hm,” is all that Fiona says.

Greer says a lot more, when she shows up the next day. She hollers—at Da, at Eileen, at Audrey, and at Fiona. Da does some hollering back, but the minute he starts to get mean, Audrey puts her hand on his arm and tells him to take a walk and come back when he’s calmer.

Shocking all three of them—but Greer and Fiona most of all—he does.

Audrey turns to Greer and Fiona. “Girls, I know that this might be an adjustment. I’m sorry, I thought he had already told you about me, or that Eileen had.”

Eileen cringes as their gazes drift towards her. Audrey moves quickly past it. “I’m not trying to replace anyone,” she assures them. She’s said this to Eileen, before. It’s what got her to start trusting Audrey—she believed her. “Not your mom, and not your places in Eileen’s life. I know you’ve both done a lot of taking care of her, over the years. Jamie has told me—”

“What?” Greer snaps, arms crossing as she glares over at Audrey. “He’s told you what?”

Audrey falters only a little underneath Greer’s sharp gaze. Eileen sort of respects her for it. She can tell that both Greer and Fiona do, too. “He’s done quite a few things that he’s not proud of. His drinking got out of control after your mother left, and he knows that he let the two of you pick up the slack when he should have been the one taking care of you. I’ve made it abundantly clear that if he can’t stay sober, then I am not staying with him. He’s been doing very well,” she smiles, proud as she looks over at Eileen for confirmation. It feels like a betrayal, to nod and agree, but it’s the truth.

Greer scoffs, but it’s Fiona who asks, calmly, “Did he tell you anything about the craiceann róin?”

Audrey raises her eyebrows while Eileen sucks in a breath. “A seal skin?” Audrey asks. “No, why would he… you mean about his job? They don’t catch seals, girls. I’m not—” she looks between the three of them in some confusion.

“Don’t worry about it,” Greer says, hauling Fiona with her into their bedroom. “Eileen, come on,” she orders.

Audrey meets her eye and smiles sadly, mouthing it’s okay, as Eileen gets up and follows after her sisters.

“What the fuck, Eileen?” Greer demands once the door has been shut.

“I didn’t know how to tell you,” she says, looking down at the floor.

“You say, ‘by the way, Da’s got a girlfriend. Her name’s Audrey, and she’s here all the time, playing house’ and then we have a conversation about it!” Greer nearly yells.

“I—”

“I mean honestly, is she joking? She thinks that Da is sober?” Greer scoffs.

“He is, I think,” Eileen says, because she hasn’t seen him with a beer all year. He hasn’t been raging. His eyes aren’t bloodshot or glassy anymore. He’s hardly mean. Eileen has eavesdropped Da and Audrey talking about therapy. Fiona is studying her very carefully. “I’m sorry,” Eileen whispers.

“Your birthday is coming up,” Fiona says, changing the subject entirely.

Greer snaps to attention, at that.

“I… yeah,” Eileen says, looking nervously between the two of them.

“You’ll be fourteen,” Greer adds, stating the obvious.

“I know,” Eileen whispers. The itching is back, it has been for weeks. Audrey keeps on holding her hand and distracting her whenever she notices Eileen scratching at her arms.

“Couple weeks after that, I’ll be twenty-one,” Fiona adds and Greer sucks in a harsh, watery breath. Before Eileen or Greer can say anything else, Fiona adds. “I’m going into the water.” Greer goes deadly still. “I’ve thought about it a lot over the years. I actually graduated early,” she admits. “My diploma is in my bag. I’m not going back next semester, I’m done.” Greer releases a strangled, horrible noise and Eileen jumps. Fiona moves and wraps her tall, strong, body around Greer’s, holding tight. “If it’s possible for me to come back in seven years, and you don’t choose to follow, then I will,” she promises. “And if it’s not,” her voice splits, then breaks, like a hard piece of sugar. “Then I’ll come back like Ma has been—you’ll still see me. I won’t just leave. I promise.”

“Fiona,” Greer gasps, unable to say anything else.

“I’m not,” Eileen says. “Going into the water.” Both of their heads snap to her, twin expressions of surprise on their faces.

“But…” Fiona looks flabbergasted by this information. Eileen understands, she has been the one most likely to for years—she wanted Ma, missed her, her toes and fingers are webbed, the water calls to her in a way that it doesn’t her sisters, but—

She’s scared. She misses Ma, but she misses the idea of her, more than her. She’s been scared to admit it to either of them, but she doesn’t remember her as well as they do. Not anymore. She remembers them as her caretakers. She’s mostly scared of Fiona leaving.

“Sweets,” Fiona starts, then shuts her mouth.

“You might change your mind,” Greer says, as though it’s inevitable. Eileen shakes her head vehemently, but she understands what Greer means—the idea of disappearing into the water has hung over their whole lives for the last seven years, nearly consuming everything.

And now it’s happening again.

…

…

Fiona plays nice with Audrey and Da, but Eileen and Greer both know it’s mostly because she knows that she is going to leave, soon.

Greer lashes out at them both, but continually tries not to, and is given a surprising amount of grace from both Da and Audrey. Neither pushes—or rather, when Da tries to, Audrey reigns him in. She only stays over three times during their month long breaks. She’s there most days, but she’s good about giving them space. She doesn’t defer to them, but neither does she make decisions without gauging their opinions. Eileen can tell that she is steadily winning them both over the same way that she did with Eileen, and they also have complicated feelings about it.

It all gets very complicated indeed when Eileen turns fourteen, and Ma shows up at the kitchen door.

Greer gasps, dropping the glass in her hand as it shatters at her feet. Fiona jerks in her seat, eyes boring into their mother. Da looks like he’s seen a ghost, like he might vomit. Audrey looks surprised and a little wary. Ma’s eyes take each of them in, greedy on Fiona and Greer as she tries to memorize the differences before she lands on Eileen.

“Happy birthday, baby,” she says softly. “I missed you so much.”

“You’re here,” Eileen says, hardly louder than a whisper.

Ma nods. “I came as soon as I could.” Out of the corner of her eye, Eileen sees Audrey frown to herself at that, but no one else comments on it. Da is gripping at his fork, holding himself back from going off on Ma, knowing, probably, that he would be in the wrong, here. He knows that if Ma starts telling any sort of truth, it’s only going to make him look bad in front of Audrey. Eileen watches as Ma crosses the room, walks up to Eileen and cups her face, smiling through her tears. “Sweets, you got so big,” her voice croaks, and then she picks her up like she is still a baby—easily hauling Eileen up into her arms and holding on tight. She almost protests, almost pushes away, but the smell of her mother envelopes her, and on an instinct that she hardly remembers, she wraps her limbs around her mother and holds on tight. “Come here,” Ma croaks, and then Greer and Fiona are there, too. All holding on tight to Ma and the four of them are the only ones left in the kitchen.

Eileen doesn’t know where Da and Audrey slipped off to, but they have.

“Are you taking her tonight?” Greer asks through her tears a few moments later. Eileen stiffens in a panic and she knows that Ma feels it.

“No,” she says, brushing hair out of Eileen’s face and then turning to Greer. “She has to make the choice on her own. I’m here until I put my craiceann róin back on. My sister is in the water, in case Eileen wants to go tonight, or before Fiona. But I’m staying until Fiona’s ready,” she swallows and kisses Greer’s forehead. “Until you’re ready,” she adds. “I’m not leaving until all three of you are ready. I’m sorry that…” she swallows hard. “I hadn’t had it for so long, I forgot about the limit. It was instinct, and then I had no choice but to wait…”

“Why?” Greer asks, always greedy for more information, to understand things. Eileen’s head is swimming and she turns and crawls onto Fiona’s lap like she is a child, not a girl who just turned fourteen.

“The seven year limit doesn’t always apply,” Ma says. “Only at first. Only after the first time, and the first time back after many years. If I’d fallen in love with your father, chosen to stay, and had my craiceann róin and been able to change whenever I wanted, I would have been able to leave and come back the same day, always. I tried to explain it to him… but…” her eyes—somehow—darken further and then she shakes her head. “It doesn’t matter. What matters is that doesn’t apply, anymore. I can change and come back all I want. If Eileen wants to change tonight, I can change with her, introduce her to my sister and come back for you girls,” she says, towards Greer and Fiona. “But Eileen can’t come back for the next seven years.”

Eileen jerks and smashes her face into Fiona’s neck. “No,” she whispers, panicked.

Ma hears her. She forgot about that, that her hearing was always so strong. She forgot so many things.“Sweets—” Ma starts to move towards her.

“Fiona and I don’t have webbed toes,” Greer says, almost an accusation.

“No,” Ma agrees, pausing and turning to give her attention to Greer. Her eyes keep darting back to Eileen, though. “The change will be much harder, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t.”

“Oh,” Greer says, on a shudder. “Oh,” she repeats.

“I want to,” Fiona says, voice ragged. “I graduated early. I want to. Planned to try.”

Ma smiles at Fiona so big, it almost makes Eileen open her mouth to say the same. “Okay, baby.”

…

…

Things get weird, after that.

Audrey is obviously not thrilled that her boyfriend’s missing wife has suddenly reappeared and inserted herself back into his life.

Ma refuses to stay at the house, though.

“I’m staying with Mary, out in the lighthouse,” she says to the girls. To Audrey, she merely says, “good luck. I hope he’s better to you than he was to me.”

Da sputters, but Audrey holds Ma’s gaze and nods at her, an understanding there, even if she doesn’t have all of the information. “If he’s not, then he knows that I’ll leave, too,” she says, and Ma smiles at her. It lessens some of the guilt that always hoovers inside Eileen’s stomach.

Fiona basically moves into the lighthouse with Ma. Greer stays with Eileen at the house, but spends nearly all of her time over there, anyway. Eileen barely leaves her bedroom. She’s overwhelmed, and her skin itches.

“Your body wants the sea,” Greer tells her. “That’s what Ma says.”

“My body can fuck off,” Eileen grumbles. Greer rolls her eyes and plants a kiss to her forehead before leaving.

Da seems to know what is going on. Intuit it, somehow. Eileen doesn’t know if he knows any of the rules, if he understands the significance of sevens, but he’s picked up on enough to be aware that Fiona is likely leaving, and he likely won’t see her again.

On her twenty-first birthday, he gives her a small necklace with her birthstone on it. “You’re pretty amazing, in spite of me. I’m sorry that you had to be,” is all that he says before walking back to the house.

Eileen is hyperventilating. Fiona is at the shoreline and there are not one, not two, but six selkies out in the water, watching and waiting for them. “My older sister, my younger sister, my aunt, my uncle, and my mother,” Ma says, pointing each of them out. “They’ve been waiting to meet you.”

Fiona stops at the edge of the water. “If Eileen doesn’t come now…”

“She can come any day on the year that she is fourteen,” Ma explains in a soft voice. “Then she has to wait until she’s twenty-one.”

Greer’s shoulders jump up to her ears and she claps her hands—a loud crack that shocks the air. “My birthday will happen before hers,” she exclaims, her face suddenly glowing. “I’ll be twenty-one before she turns fifteen.”

“Yes,” Ma nods.

Fiona looks agonizingly out at the water and Greer understands. They’ve been sharing Looks between them for the last seven years. “You can go tonight, Fi,” Greer says softly. “I’ve got her. I promise.”

Ma looks somehow both sad about that statement, and proud of them at the same time. Eileen wants to scream. Fiona walks over to Eileen and bends down. “I love you, Sweets,” she whispers. “I’ll see you very soon.”

Then she walks into the water, gasping as the selkies—including Ma—surround her. She cries out like she’s in pain a few times, gasping against the current like she is drowning, and then Ma’s nose whacks her under and when she comes back up—there are eight selkies before them.

“Holy shit,” Greer whispers, clutching tightly to Eileen’s hand. Fiona leaps into the air, a loud, excited bark ringing out as she looks back at them, and something inside of Eileen’s chest screams as she almost lurches into the water herself. But, beside her, Greer let’s out a soft little moan and Eileen stops herself.

She can go any day until she turns fifteen. She is not going to leave Greer behind. They stay like that for what feels like hours before Ma slips out of the water, naked and holding her craiceann róin in her arms. The breath Eileen had been holding finally releases, and she can feel the same from Greer.

“Let’s go get some sleep, girls. We’ll see her soon,” she says, wrapping her arms around them both as they walk towards the lighthouse.

…

…

There is so much about Ma that Eileen totally forgot. She spends most of her time at the lighthouse with Ma, these days, but she also guiltily slips home and spends some evenings with Da and Audrey. Da seems somewhat irritated by it, but Audrey seems to understand. She doesn’t press Eileen for information about Ma or Fiona—assuming that she has gone back to college, like Greer.

Eileen has gotten used to secrets, over the years.

It’s maybe one of the most wonderful years of her life, and it’s over all too soon. She forgets the inevitable conclusion that is dawning the closer and closer as Greer’s twenty-first birthday approaches. She spends time with Ma and Old Mary at the lighthouse, actually makes some friends at school, dances with Audrey and Da in the kitchen, starts to get really good at drawing, and then has a panic attack when Greer shows up, looking determined and terrified and excited.

“It’s alright if you’re not ready,” Greer whispers to her as they share their old bed together. “I’m glad that I got to go to college and see the world, and I know that Fiona, is, too. You deserve to have that, Sweets. If you want to wait until you’re twenty-one—”

“But then I’ll be alone,” she whispers, miserably.

“No. Ma said that she wouldn’t leave until you were ready.”

“But… what if I never am?”

Greer pauses, thinking. She always takes Eileen’s questions seriously, no matter what she asks. “Then, once our seven years are up, Fiona and I will visit you wherever you end up. Ma, too,” she says like it’s simple. Maybe it is—other sisters and mothers grow up and leave and visit. Other than the selkie part, Eileen supposes it’s not so different, when you get down to it.

“What if someone steals your craiceann róin, like Da?”

Greer’s face goes hard. “Then I’ll kill them, and take it back. I won’t let any man force me into anything I don’t want. Fiona never would, either.” Greer catches her eye. “Fiona wouldn’t want a man, at all, anyway.”

“Really?” Eileen asks, only marginally surprised.

“She likes women,” Greer shrugs.

“Do you?” Eileen asks, because they’ve never talked about this before, and suddenly, it feels important, if she might not be able to talk to either of them for another six years. “Like women? Or men?”

“Men,” Greer says. “Though most of them are terrible,” she adds. Greer looks over at her, waiting. “What about you?”

Eileen feels her face go hot, and she hopes that Greer can’t see her in the dark light of their bedroom. She thinks about Henry Donnelly from homeroom, how he catches her eye and smiles shyly at her, sometimes. She thinks about the one time that she walked in on Audrey in the bathroom without knocking, last year, how her face went bright pink and she stumbled over her apologies and couldn’t stop the image of her breasts from leaving her mind for weeks, after. She couldn’t look her in the eye, blushed whenever Audrey touched her for ages. She thinks about how she didn’t know what to make of that, didn’t even know how to ask about it. The words kept on sticking inside her throat wherever she tried. “Um,” she mumbles. “I don’t know.”

“You don’t have to,” Greer says softly, brushing some hair out of Eileen’s face. “It takes people their whole lifetimes to figure out, sometimes.”

“Maybe both?” Eileen says, more like it’s a question than a statement.

“Boys and girls?” Greer clarifies, because as much as she says it doesn’t matter, she does like facts better than unknowns. Eileen only nods and shrugs. “Okay, Sweets,” Greer smiles and reaches over to kiss her cheek. “As long as you pick a good one.”

“I want to go with you but I’m scared to,” Eileen says, getting back to the point of things.

“I know,” Greer says, and Eileen knows that she knows exactly. Better than Fiona would have.

“I’m also scared to be left alone again, if I don’t come now.”

“I know,” Greer repeats. “All I can tell you is that I’m glad I didn’t go when I was fourteen, that night. I wasn’t ready. I needed more time. I needed college and to see more of life than this island. Fiona is glad she got that, but…” Greer frowns into the dark, and Eileen knows that she was definitely able to tell that Eileen was blushing, earlier. “I think she would have been ready at fourteen. I think she’s glad for it, but she didn’t need it the way that I did.” She turns her whole body towards Eileen, resting on her elbow. “I wish I could make the decision for you like I do with other things, Sweets, I really do. But I can’t. Only you can know if you’re ready now.”

Eileen thinks about her new friends at school. She thinks about her art projects, how often she draws images of water and seals and islands. She thinks about college, and the whole world to explore once she gets to the mainland. She thinks about kissing Henry Donnelly, about meeting a girl to kiss in college. She thinks about Da, sober and steady and apologetic and trying. She thinks about Audrey, smiling and dancing with her in the kitchen, giving them all the space they need. She thinks about Fiona, and Greer, and her mother.

But mostly, she thinks about the water and the waves, and the feeling of being unbound to anything. Freedom.

She keeps on thinking until the next morning, standing at the shoreline with Greer on one side and Ma on the other, seven selkies bobbing in the water in front of them.

“I’m ready,” Greer says, and walks into the water. Eileen stands there, frozen. She watches as Greer cries out in pain, gasps, as Fiona—and she just knows that it’s Fiona—bops and then pushes her underneath. She watches the two of them bark at each other in delight. She watches as their heads turn back to her, waiting.

“It won’t hurt for you, Sweets. Not at all.” She clasps Eileen’s hand and gently trails across the webbing between her thumb and forefinger. “But, if you’re not ready, then it’s okay,” Ma whispers. “We can stay here until you are. I’ll go greet them and come right back,” she promises.

Eileen feels the wind whip her hair around and sucks in a sharp breath. All of the things she wants: art, boys, school, girls, exploring—it will all still be there in seven years. She doesn’t have to choose. Not really.

Eileen squeezes her mother’s hand, and keeps her eyes on the horizon like Da taught her. “No,” she whispers, but Ma’s hearing catches it, anyway. She’s always been listening. “I’m ready.”

Ma beams. Eileen holds onto her mother’s hand, and walks into the ocean to meet her family. The water feels like coming home.