The Souls of Drowned People

Chapter Five

I had half a dozen texts from Chelsea by the time Cillian left. Some of them had been sitting on my phone unnoticed since last night, and I knew Chelsea was freaking out. She would be wondering what we were doing that distracted me from my phone, and when I told her that we watched reality shows and ate popcorn and then he left without much of a warning, she would be more disappointed that I was.

            did you make out with hot irish boy yet?

            you should

            YOLO

            answer me woman!! i need details

            MOIRA.

            respond!!!!!!

            I turned off my phone, throwing it on my dresser. It missed by inches, clattering to the floor. It didn’t matter. Cillian wasn’t going to call until he got back to Ireland, and that was going to be hours from now.

            My forehead felt warm where he kissed me, like a fever. Maybe it was a fever. I crawled into my bed, burrowing underneath the covers and sleeping like it was a sickness I was trying to escape.

            My mother came in at some point, to see if I was alive, and I must have screamed at her, told her that I hated her and wished I could be eighteen already so I could just leave, because when I came down for dinner, she looked at me with wary eyes. She was watching me like someone would watch a dangerous animal, waiting for it to pounce, so I tore in the leftover bread, ripping it between my teeth. I was going to be the horrible creature she thought I was.

            She sat across the table from her, her napkin settled neatly across her lap. “I hope you’re not too angry with me.”

            “Cillian’s my best friend. You know he’s my best friend. And you still made him leave.”

            “Cillian is a very sweet young man. He’s been an excellent friend. But he does live in so far away, you know. It might do you some good to make some more friends here, instead of relying on him all the time. You’d have more to talk about, instead of him telling you stories about seals and drowning.”

            “You know about the seals?”

            “The story of Iona and the Selkie King is a classic Ballycotton tale. Cillian was certain to tell it to you some time or another. He probably figured that since you’re nearly eighteen, it would be a good time to share it with you. He has nothing but good intentions, but I wish he wouldn’t fill your mind with such rubbish.”

            She looked down at her soup, and I knew that she believed everything single word of the story of Iona. “You think it’s real, don’t you? Is that why you’re so afraid of the water?”

            “It’s only a fairy tale. Selkies exist only in the minds of children. No, Ballycotton is just a doomed town. I knew it. I felt it from the moment we moved there. It was no place to raise a child, especially not with your father gone. And especially not the place to raise a daughter of Adam McCabe. I knew you were going to love the water from the moment you were born.”

            “Then why do you keep me from it?”

            “Because there’s nothing for you in Ballycotton, Moira. That’s the hard truth of it.”

            “You don’t know that.” The bread cracked in my fist.

            “I do. I know far more about Ballycotton that you will ever understand. There is no happiness waiting for there. Only cold waves and the damp wind.”