Shabhala’s chain broke and tore away; she grabbed for the cloch, but it vanished, drifting down.
Eyes open in terror, Jenna struggled, trying to strike at the creature though the water softened and slowed her blows. She pulled at the thing's hands, and felt it bite at her shoulder and neck. It bore her down to the bottom, turning her under its body. She felt rocks and mud on her back and she
knew that she had only seconds, that the first breath she took would be her last. She saw another dark form speed toward them, churn-ing white foam on the dappled surface, and she despaired. Yet at the same moment she was about to give up and take the breath that would mean her death, the form above dove and struck her assailant hard. The creature shrilled in pain, releasing Jenna to respond to this new attack. Jenna pushed herself up from the rocky bottom, surging toward the rippling promise of sunlight above. Her head broke the surface and she took a desperate breath, her arms slapping at the waves. She could feel herself going under again, the weight of her clothing dragging her down. She gulped water. .
A hand caught hers and pulled her up: O’Deoradhain. She choked and gasped, bleeding and coughing up water, as he helped her onto the shore. 'Lamh Shabhala,' she managed to say. 'They took it. .' She started to plunge back into the lough, but he held her back, grasping her from behind. She struggled in his arms now, trying to get loose, screaming and crying as she fought to dive back in and find the cloch, but he was too strong.
'Jenna, you can’t go back in there. .' he was saying to her, his lips close to her ear as he hugged her to him. 'You can’t. .'
She continued to try to break free, but exhaustion took hold and she hung limp in his arms, struggling to catch her breath. The surface of the lough showed nothing, then a silken head surged up through the small wind- driven waves several yards out: a seal. It roared at them once and dove again, surfacing closer to the shore. Bright blue highlights glinted in its ebon fur where the sunlight touched it. Metal glinted in the animal’s mouth and Jenna cried out wordlessly. She pushed out of O’Deoradhain’s grasp and floundered into the water toward the seal. It waited for her; wading in waist-deep, Jenna snatched at the broken chain with the silver-caged stone. Her hand closed around Lamh Shabhala; the seal opened its mouth and released the necklace at the same moment. Sobbing, Jenna clutched the stone in her hand. The seal stared at her with its bulbous chocolate eyes, its whiskered snout wriggling as if it were sniffing the air. 'Thank you,' Jenna told the seal, tightening her right hand around the cloch.
She would have sworn that the seal nodded. Its head lifted, the mouth opening, and a series of wails
and coughs emerged: like words but in no language Jenna understood. Then, with a flash of shimmering lapis, the seal turned and dove back into the water.
'It said that the Holder should be more careful, and warned you that not only humans want to possess a cloch na thintri, especially Lamh Shabhala.'
Jenna turned. O'Deoradhain stood on the bank, his hand extended to her. 'Come out of the water,' he said. 'I'll start a fire, and we can get you warm and dry.'
She didn't move. Waves lapped at her waist. 'You understood it?'
'Her, not it. And aye, I understood her.' He stretched out his hand again. 'Trust me, Holder. I will explain.'
She ignored the hand. 'I thought I knew you,' she said.
His mouth twitched under the beard. 'Not all. Come out of the water, Holder; I don't know if that creature will be back.'
She took a breath, shivering. Then she reached for his hand. 'Then tell me,' she said as he helped her from the lough. 'Tell me why the seals come to you.'
He nodded.
I was perhaps four or five when I realized that my mam was. . strange. I woke up one night in the bed I shared with my younger brother. I don't know what it was that woke me-maybe the sound of a footstep or the creaking of the door. I managed to get out of the bed without waking my brother. Our house was small: my sister- the youngest of us at the time-slept in her crib in the same room, beside my parents' bed. I could hear my da snoring. The moon was out and the sky was clear; in the silver light, I could see that where my ma should have been, the blankets were flung back. I called out for her softly so I wouldn't wake the others, but she didn't answer. I went out into the other room, but she wasn't there, either. The door to our cottage, though, was ajar.
My da was a fisherman, and we lived just above a rocky shingle of beach on the southern coast of Inish Thuaidh not far from the island of Inishfeirm where
your family lived, in the townland of Maoil na nDreas. Sometimes, when the day was clear, we could even see Inishfeirm like a gray hump on the horizon to the south. But that has nothing to do with this story. .
I walked out of the cottage. I could see my father’s boat pulled up on the beach and hear the waves pounding against the shore. I thought I heard another sound as well, and I padded down toward the water. The wind was brisk, and the breakers were shattering on the walls of our little cove, splashing high on the cliff walls that rose out like arms on either side. In the bright moonlight, I could see seals out there on the rocks several big ones, and they were calling loudly to each other, occasionally diving awkwardly into the surf and pulling themselves back up with their flippers.
These seals, I noticed, were different than the small harbor seals that I usually saw. They shimmered in the moonlight, their fur sparkling with blue highlights. I watched them for a while, listening to what sounded like a loud conversation. One of the bulls noticed me, for I saw him turn his snout toward the beach and bellow. A few of the other seals looked toward me too, then, and one lurched from the rock into the sea and I lost sight of it. I watched the others, though, especially that old bull, who kept roaring and staring at me.
'Ennis. .?' 1 heard my mam call my name, and she came from around da’s boat to where I was sitting on the beach. She was soaking wet and naked, and water dripped from her hair as she crouched down by me, smiling. Her eyes were as dark and bright as a seal’s. 'What are you doing out here, young man?'
'I woke up and you weren’t there, Mam,' I told her. 'And I came out and saw the seals and I was watching them.' I pointed at the old bull and the seals gathered around him on the rock. I laughed. 'They sound like they’re talking to each other, Mam.'
'They are talking,' she said, laughing with me.
She had a voice like purest crystal, and she seemed entirely comfortable in her nudity, which made me comfortable with it also. 'You just have to know their language.'
'Do you know the language?' I asked her wonderingly, and she nod-ded, laughing again.
'I do. Would you like me to teach you sometime?'
'Aye, Mam, I would,' I told her, wide-eyed.
'Then I will. Now, let's get you inside and back into bed. It's cold out here.' She lifted me up, but I struggled to stay.
'I'm not cold at all. Mam, what were you doing out here?' I asked her, staring up at her face, her hair all stringy and still dripping water from the ends, a bit of seaweed stuck near her ear. 'Aren't you cold?'
'No, Ennis. I was. . swimming.'
'With the seals?'
She nodded. 'With the seals. Maybe, someday, you can swim with them, too, if. .' She stopped then, and a smile curled her lip. She rubbed my hair. 'Come now. Back to bed.' She led me back to the cottage door and stopped there. 'Go on in,' she said. 'I'm going to swim a bit more. .'
She kept her promise. She taught me how to understand the language of the blue seals. And, once or twice a year, she would leave our house late at night to 'go swimming with the seals.' I don't think my siblings ever noticed, but I did. I would see her slip out of bed and follow her. I think she probably knew that I was watching her, but she didn't seem to care and never paid any attention to me at all.
She would stand at the water's edge and take off her night robe, standing naked under the moon with the seals all wailing and moaning and calling to her.
She'd run toward the water, diving into the surf. Somehow, though I looked, I never saw my mam after that- she would vanish among the bodies of the seals and emerge hours later as light began to touch the sky, dripping wet but some-how not cold. If I were still there asleep on the beach, she would wake me and take me back to the cottage with her.
I asked her, the first time, why I never could see her after she went into the water and she told me I might understand one day. She also told me about the blue seals-that there was but one small group of them left in all the world here at Inish Thuaidh, but that soon a time would come when they would return in greater numbers, and that
