Seacliff

Chapter seventy-five: A geography lesson

1940

Aidan and Sorley swam north along the Scottish coast, making slow progress on account of the unknown war dangers lurking at sea. They came ashore at dusk on a rocky beach flanked by cliffs.

"Where are we?" Aidan asked as they dragged their sealskins into a cave.

"I believe it is called... Stonehaven," Sorley answered.

Aidan tucked his skin into a dark crevice and walked outside to inspect the surroundings. The ruins of a castle stood atop the cliff their cave gaped into.

"Dunnottar," the boy murmured, in awe. "I came here once, when I was a child."

The memories of that summer holiday glowed in his mind like fire in a hearth. Happier times. Simpler times.

"I know," his da said. "I visited your mother's chambers while you and James visited the castle."

"I don't think I needed to know that," Aidan mumbled, blushing.

"It's where your sister was conceived."

The boy's cheeks burned red. "I certainly did not need to know that."

Sorley grinned and splashed through the shallow end of the sea to perch himself on a boulder. "You're a man now, Aidan. You must learn."

"Not about my parents, thank you very much. Besides, with a mother who's a nurse and a father who's – "

Aidan stopped short. He usually avoided calling James his father in Sorley's presence. He knew how much his da suffered that he hadn't been able to raise him like a normal father. Not a wound he wanted to add salt to.

"You can call him your father," Sorley said softly, "I don't mind. It would only be the truth."

Aidan gulped. "Sorry, Da. I know you don't mind, I just... I don't want to make it any harder for you than it already is."

"It's not hard. You are a good man, mo mhac, and I have James to thank for that. It's not hard to be grateful."

Aidan sat on a smaller stone next to the boulder. "I think other men would be bitter. Human men," he huffed. "You're just too bloody nice."

Sorley snickered. "Humans are complicated creatures. I'm not. I'm a simple animal."

"That's not true," Aidan protested. "You're not an animal. And you're definitely not simple. Just because you can't read or write doesn't mean you're simple. It took me two weeks to navigate the North Sea and come home from France. And I didn't even make it, you had to come and find me. You brought us up the coast in less than a day."

"You were much farther away," Sorley said. "And swimming in human form."

"You would have still managed that distance, accurately, in half the time it took me. You're not simple, Da," Aidan insisted. "You're just... different. Hasn't Ma taught you that it's not bad to be different? She sure used to nag me worse than any drill sergeant."

Sorley ruffled his son's hair. "Your mother is an extraordinary woman. Now let's find something to eat. We need to rest and fill our bellies for the next step of our journey, it will be a much longer swim."

"Are we stopping in Greenland?"

"Greenland? The snow island?"

Aidan nodded. He'd tried to teach his da human geography, but not much of it stuck.

"Yes, we will pause there, but not for long. It's too cold, even for us. It takes a special breed of selkie to survive there."

"Harp seals," Aidan said.

It confounded Sorley.

"Harp seals live in Greenland," the boy elaborated. "You and I, we're both grey seals. Grey seals dwell around Irish and British coasts, Norwegian fjords, the Baltic Sea, Iceland, and northeast America."

None of that meant anything to his da, but once he got started, Aidan couldn't stop.

"Never mind," the boy said in the end. "Let's... catch some fish, or something."

*

Aidan had thought that scaling Norway's snowy mountainside in full gear had prepared him for a short expedition in Greenland.

He'd thought wrong.

The snow seared his bare soles and his muscles wearied by the long swim went rigid in the biting wind. His da laughed at him as he rushed across the toe-numbing ice back to his sealskin. Its sticky warmth came as such a sweet relief in comparison.

"Where to now?" he asked Sorley, teeth still clattering. "Straight to Canada, I assume?"

Sorley nodded, although Aidan wasn't convinced that his da even knew what 'Canada' meant.

After the uninterrupted voyage from Orkney, the swim across the Labrador Sea to the Canadian coast felt quicker and easier. Although Iceland officially maintained their neutrality, the British had strong-armed them under Allied protectorate and the military activity in the area had made for a tense journey along the south of the island. They'd had to keep their distance, but also stay close enough to chart their course to Greenland.

The sun was setting when Canada came into view. Exhausted and dying to stretch his legs, Aidan exited his skin at sea and towed it onto the rocky beach at the foot of the pine forest. Sorley had claimed the land would be uninhabited, yet as they approached, rows of humanoid figures emerged from the treeline, spread out across the shore.