Lost Children of the Far Islands (10 page)

The other seal’s long white whiskers quivered. Its brown eyes darted around wildly.

Gus squeaked. She could barely breathe. What was happening? And why did the seal in front of her look so familiar?

The Bedell solved the mystery for her. “Leo!” he growled to the other seal. “Stop gawking. If you want to survive this trip, you must move.”

Suddenly from behind the sea mink stepped a very small, very beautiful fox with a white-tipped tail and four white paws. Although it too looked gray, Gus could tell from the way light came off its coat that it was a vivid color, and most likely a red fox.

The fox grinned, showing very white and pointed teeth.

Gus’s head was spinning. The sleek fur was standing up all along her back. She and Leo were
seals
? And this
fox
was her baby sister?

“Oh no, this will not do,” the sea mink said in his
hissy voice. “How on earth did you manage that? Well, it is not safe to travel in that form, little one. No, no, no. Come now, the sea, please.”

The little fox stamped the ground with a paw.

“This is a bit of a disaster,” the sea mink said to no one in particular. “Very strong child. Naughty, strong child.”

He turned back to the little fox, who watched him with her tongue hanging out in a foxy grin.

“Ila, my dear,” he said in a syrupy, wheedling voice.

Leo snorted.

“Ila, won’t you please think of the sea now, just give it a little thought, the fish and the water, and the lovely, dark deeps …”

Gus felt her skin prickle at the man’s words. She found she could barely stay on the beach. The sea was so near, and it smelled so
good
.

The fox, however, made a sound somewhere between a yowl and a human laugh, and trotted past the mink and directly into the water, pausing to splash playfully in the shallows.

The sea mink arched his back and hissed, showing his sharp little teeth.

Gus could smell the fear on him. There was no mistaking it—a tang like rust on iron. In fact, she realized, she could smell
everything
. She sniffed the scent of salt and, under that, the nervous brine of swimming fish, which made her nose twitch uncontrollably. She smelled the green bite of the stubby trees that clung to the rocks
above the beach, and the damp, charcoal smell of the granite. And under that, approaching on the breeze, a familiar smell of soap and piney aftershave. Then the smell of salt and brine and the sweet flesh of clams and the ticklish smell of sardines and the heavier, meaty smell of something larger swimming out in the deep drove the familiar scent out of Gus’s nose.

She found that by humping her back up and pushing off with her front flippers, she could move over the sand. Leo struggled along beside her.

At the water’s edge, Gus stopped. She had a sudden feeling that if she went into the water she would never come out again. The Gus that she knew herself to be would be lost forever. She couldn’t move. Leo, beside her, hesitated as well. The smell of pine aftershave grew stronger, pulling her back.

Then, hearing a familiar voice, they turned. What they saw, blurry and black-and-white, but clear enough not to be mistaken for anyone else, was their father. He was scrambling down the steep rocks, slipping and falling and rising again, shouting his children’s names.

“Ila has gone,” the sea mink said. “She will drown on her own.”

Indeed the small fox was now swimming, her tail waving like a slight flag above the black Atlantic.

“Gus! Leo!” their father shouted.

“You must stay with her,” the Bedell said. “Or lose her forever.”

And so the two seals slid into the water.

Their father reached the beach and fell to his knees with his hands stretched out in front of him, as if he could somehow pull them back.

Gus and Leo hung uncertainly in the water for a long moment, watching their father. Then the salt-scented sea called them in and down, and they scooped in lungfuls of air and dove.

They dove deep and then straightened out. It was glorious. For as long as she could remember, Gus had been having the same dream. In it she was using her entire body to move through the water, her arms stretched out behind her and her legs kicking together like a mermaid’s tail. The water did not seem to have a temperature—it was just a clear substance that held her as she arched her back slightly for power and glided forward. And now, immersed in the Atlantic, she realized that what she had been dreaming of all these years was this—inhabiting a body that was made to move through liquid with so little effort that it felt like flying.

Leo nudged her and she turned in the water to look at him. Although it was dark, the darkness seemed no impediment to sight. The delight in Leo’s eyes was clear. He rolled once, twice, then bumped Gus with his nose, urging her. She tucked her chin slightly, pushed through the water with one flipper, and rolled, over and over next to
Leo, spinning faster and faster until her dizziness made her stop and hang in the dark water next to him.

They could hear their own heartbeats, as well as each other’s. On land, Gus’s heart had been racing. But as soon as she was underwater, her heart had slowed down so much that she could scarcely keep track of its beats. The deep thud, counterpointed by Leo’s, soothed her, like a familiar song sung very slowly and softly.

Then there was another, quicker sound that grew into a series of trills and whistles, and a school of silvery salmon rushed by, their small hearts pittering in their bodies. The whistling noise was the water passing through their gills. Leo laughed in delight, although it came out as more of a honk. They could
feel
the salmon hurrying by—their whiskers picked up the vibrations of the passing bodies.

Gus could just see Ila’s four legs churning above her head. She popped up effortlessly to the surface to take a breath and to check on the small fox. Leo popped up next to her with a loud
huf
. Ila was swimming easily, her muzzle tipped up against the salt spray of the water. The morning air was crisp and delicious, but both Leo and Gus were eager to go back under.

The Bedell was waiting for them under the surface. It was clear that his fear had disappeared. Whatever threat had been hounding him had withdrawn. He seemed to feel at home here, zipping up to the surface for a breath and then barrel-rolling in the lighter-colored water before diving down again to where the seals swam.

They continued forward in an easy silence, Ila on the surface, Gus and Leo below, and the Bedell moving between them like a flashing ribbon of shadow, here and then gone. As they swam, the sun rose and traveled through the sky, warming the upper layers of the water.

A school of flat, light-colored fish with downturned mouths swam past.
Stripers
, Gus thought with a sudden surge of hunger. The fish, as if sensing her regard, flicked their tails and dove as one, down into a deep gulch cut into darker reaches of the sea. Leo looked at Gus. Gus and Leo had known each other for every moment of their lives, even the nine months beyond memory, and they often could tell what the other was thinking without exchanging words. And now Leo was thinking one word:
chase
. Gus bobbed her head, and then the two seals dove and leveled out behind the fleeing stripers, knowing the stripers were quicker but chasing anyway for the sheer joy of using these new bodies.

After a while, they grew tired and began to look around for the Bedell and the little red fox. When they popped up, the weather had changed. The water was churning, as though spun by a giant invisible hand. Clouds blocked the sun, and rain hissed and spat on the surface of the ocean. Peering about them, the seals saw waves being whipped into tall peaks, and in the middle of the tallest of the peaks, struggling to stay afloat, was the little fox.

“Ila!” Gus shouted to her, but her barking cry was caught by the wind and carried off, effortlessly. It was
possible that Ila could hear nothing at all now except the scream of the wind, the guttural calling of the heavy waves, and her own frantically pounding heart.

For Gus and Leo, the sudden roiling anger of the ocean meant little—they could simply dive to where the water was still. Or they could ride the waves on their sleek bellies, letting the water break over them. It was nothing to their noses and eyes, which they could seal against the water, and their lungs, which kept them from needing air for ages. But this was not the case for Ila.

Ila was frightened and growing tired. A wave slapped at her and spun her around. She sank under its insistence before popping back up, lashing out in all directions with her strong legs, her eyes rolling in panic.

Gus and Leo swam under Ila, trying to boost her up onto Leo’s back. The little fox was far too frightened to understand what they were doing, and she scratched frantically, sliding and kicking and gulping seawater.

Then the Bedell surfaced next to Gus. Without any warning at all, he Turned and was a man, struggling to stay afloat. His black overcoat was pulling him under, yet he made no move to take it off.

“Your seal form would have served you better, young one!” he shouted.

Treading the water with one hand, he held the other hand out in front of him. There was something resting in his palm. He called out in a language that sounded a little like French but broader, full of long vowels and strange consonants. Suddenly he was blown backward as
the tiny thing in his hand leapt up and unfurled, crashing into the water as a raft with one sail and a sturdy-looking, flat-planked floor.

Leo understood immediately, and with one powerful heave, he shoved the drowning fox up onto the edge of the small boat, where she scrabbled for her footing and then gained the raft and stood, her sides heaving and seawater running off her body. The boat seemed unmoved by the rolling sea, sitting lightly on top of the water like a toy boat in a bathtub. The fox sank to her belly, exhausted and trembling.

Without a word, the Bedell, who was a sea mink again, set off. The boat followed obediently in his wake, as though he were pulling it, but they could see nothing connecting the two.

Gus and Leo followed on the surface, both keeping an anxious eye on the fox, who slept as though enchanted. The boat rode easily over every cresting wave, and its deck and the small body curled up there remained as dry as an August afternoon.

Gradually, the water beneath them began to brighten. A sudden flash of silver streamed under them—hundreds of tiny fish dodging the seals with one swift dip. They began to smell, very faintly, mussels, and sweet crabs hustling away from them. This time, they ignored temptation and kept their eyes focused on the boat carrying their sister.

After a long while, they sighted a small island that was alone in the water. Dodging underwater shoals, the
seals swam through the light froth to where the last of the waves slapped at a rocky beach. Leo hauled his unfamiliar bulk onto the black rocks, Gus just behind him. The little boat, which had been waiting for them in the shallows, bumped up on the rocks as well. Ila woke up and, hopping into the shallow water, dashed forward onto the rocky beach. She shook herself, looking delighted all over again.

The boat continued forward, propelled onto the beach by an invisible power, its deck dry and unmarked by either salt or water. Then the Bedell stood there in his black overcoat. The boat folded itself into a small box. The Bedell put the box in a small leather pouch, and closing his fingers around the bag, he slipped it into one of his pockets like a bit of sea glass. He looked at Gus and Leo, who were still seals, and said shortly, “Skidbladnin. Gnome-made boat. I, ah, removed it from some rather sturdy warrior types some time ago, but water under the bridge, let us hope!”

With that, he stretched his hands out to both of them, and they each felt a strange pulling on their seal coats, as if two hands were smoothing them from nose to tail. The smoothing accelerated into tugging, and then, with a sudden hard yank, they were pulled up and dumped back down on the sand on their human backsides, in soaking wet human clothing. Leo’s glasses hung crookedly from one ear. Color rushed in so abruptly it felt like noise—the hot orange of the lowering sun, the navy sky,
and the brilliant red coat of the little fox who sat in the sand with her tongue out, grinning.

Gus squeezed her eyes shut in pain. When she opened them again, the Bedell was just closing the two wings of his overcoat.

He spread his arms out wide and smiled his fierce little grin at them.

“Welcome to Loup Marin,” he said.