Red Rocks (4 page)

T
he next few days were sunny and unusually warm for the end of winter, and Jake could feel the end of the holidays approaching. He had talked to his mum on the phone a few times. She said she missed him and that she couldn’t wait for him to get home, but the last time she had said that, he’d returned to find his bedroom had been turned into the baby’s room. He’d had to move downstairs. Mum and Greg had acted
like it was a big adventure, but the new room was cold and he felt far away from everybody on stormy nights. With any luck, there’d be no new surprises when he got home this time.

His father had relaxed a bit now that he had met Ted and Cara properly. He acted eager to get Jake out of the house some mornings,
supposedly
because he had to work, but sometimes when Jake arrived home he could see his dad up in his workroom, just staring out to sea in a daze.

Jake and Jessie had become good friends, despite her strange ways: that weird voice and the dark eyes that he would find watching him all the time. Something else was odd. When he first met her, he had thought she was much younger than him, but now, less than a week later, she seemed the same age. Maybe he was just used to her company, but he was sure that she was taller as well, nearly as tall as he was.

They explored rock pools for hours and collected the shells that lay bleached and empty
amongst the stones of the beach. He brought a pack of cards with him and taught her how to play poker, using the shells as currency. She had never played with a deck of cards before, and Jake had to keep reminding her which cards were the spades, and which were the diamonds.

There was no sign of Cara, and Jake didn’t ask after her. He supposed that she lived somewhere else — after all, there wouldn’t be any room for her to sleep at Ted’s house. He thought he saw her one day, in the distance, still wandering around the streets, but he couldn’t be sure. She appeared in his dreams some nights, and Jake always woke up feeling hot and embarrassed afterwards.

He stayed away from Ted. Even though his father had given him the nod of approval, Jake still found the old man a bit weird, mainly because he constantly talked to himself. Often Jake would turn up at the shack on his bike and neither Ted nor Jessie would be home. But if he called out, Jessie would come gliding
towards him over the rocks, wet as if from a swim, smelling of salt and seaweed. Ted would appear as a silhouette out to sea, bobbing about in his dinghy, where he sat patiently for half the day, only coming in when he had a catch of fish. Jessie would bump up against him as he brought the bucket into the house, eagerly straining to catch a glimpse of what was inside. Ted had to smack her hands away.

‘Easy, girl!’ he’d say. ‘We’ve got company. Let’s get these into the frying pan and then we’ll eat them, eh?’

The three of them would sit around, eating whole cooked fish off blue-rimmed metal plates balanced on their laps. Ted showed Jake how to lift the meat from the bones, then turn the fish over and prise the skeleton away. Jessie concentrated hard on her lunch, sucking every last piece of meat from the bones, even the eyes! Afterwards she didn’t seem to notice when she had fish smeared on her cheeks and in her hair; she just walked around with a
small smile on her face, looking satisfied.

After one such lunch, Jake told Jessie they should walk to Red Rocks to look at the seals.

‘Let us not,’ she said. ‘I like it here, with you.’

‘But I’m coming, too! Come on, it’ll be fun. One of them nearly let me touch it the other day.’ He didn’t mention the fact that that was when he fell in the water.

‘Oh, you want to go for another swim, do you?’ Jessie laughed. ‘Anyway, you should not get too close. Some of the seals are nice, but some of them are mean.’

‘I know.’ She could be such a little
know-it
-all sometimes, talking to him as if she was a grown-up and he was a bit stupid.

He ignored her and started walking towards the rocks without looking back. He could feel those dark eyes on his back, until she relented and scrabbled after him, her feet so tough that she barely flinched as they marched over the stony path. He could smell the seals before he got to them. The whole air was thick with their
stink. A couple of thick-necked large ones were lying in the sun, lifting their pointy noses only to yawn, their whiskers sparkling in the light. They opened an eye each and watched as Jake crept closer and closer. Jake didn’t know why he was getting so close. He wanted to prove something to Jessie, but what? To show he was brave.

‘Jake,’ she pleaded. ‘Please come back. They do not like it.’

As if in answer, one of the seals lifted its head and growled at him, like a dog. He stopped where he was, suddenly frightened, but when he tried to step back without taking his eyes off it, his foot missed a step and he stumbled backwards.

Then, out of nowhere, another seal appeared from behind the larger ones. It lumbered towards Jake, fat neck outstretched and mouth open. Its gums flashed, bright pink. Jake screamed and put his hands over his head, desperately trying to scramble his way back across the loose rock. He felt the skin on his calf scraping off through his torn jeans. He wasn’t sure what happened next,
but it was as if a great wind picked him up and spun him away. Jessie had thrown him like an empty sack and she now stood between Jake and the seal, crouched low. A low, inhuman growl emanated from her body. The seal stopped. It was smaller than the other two, who looked on with passive interest, but it was still bigger than Jessie. Jake was frozen to the spot, waiting to see what happened. If Jessie was attacked, he would never forgive himself.

‘Jessie —’ he called out to her, but his voice was weak and barely audible over the waves that now hurled themselves against the rocks.

Jessie and the seal stared at each other for what felt to Jake like a full minute. Then the seal shook its head, rose up and turned its back. It flopped away across the rock and dived into the water. The two larger seals went back to their nap as if nothing had happened.

Jake’s heart was still beating fast as he got to his feet. Jessie spun around at the sound his shoes made on the small stones. The sight of
her made him take a step back. Her irises had grown huge and black, and the way she was crouched, with her small pointed teeth bared and her hair blowing in the wind, reminded him once again of an animal.

‘Hey,’ said Jake. ‘It’s only me.’

Jessie covered her face with her hands for a moment and took a deep breath. Her fingers were spread wide, and Jake caught a glimpse of taut blue skin between them.

She took her hands away and when she looked up at him again, the whites of her eyes had returned and she was just a little girl again.

‘What on earth was that?’ he asked, still incredulous that she had been so brave and had successfully scared the seal off.

Jessie straightened up and walked past him, jumping from the rock down onto the beach. ‘I told you to stay away. You would not listen. You could have been killed, you know.’ Her voice was remarkably calm.

Jake followed her. ‘So could you!’ he said.

‘Yes,’ was all she said. ‘Come on, let us go.’

‘Wait.’ Jake grabbed her arm. ‘I want to show you something. You know about seals. Come and tell me what you think about this.’

They walked further, keeping an eye out for any more seals. But the rocks were bare. A few heads bobbed in amongst the shining kelp and the swell of the waves. They came to the rock with the crevice in it. Jessie looked unsurprised, as if she knew it was there.

‘Look,’ said Jake. ‘It’s a cave. It just looks like a slit in the rocks, but when you go in it opens out.’

‘I can see that.’ She still sounded annoyed with him, and seemed impatient to leave. She stood with both her hands on her hips.

‘Come on,’ said Jake. ‘I’ll show you.’ He moved towards the crevice and started to crouch down, ready to crawl in.

‘No, don’t.’ Jessie stopped him with a hand on his arm. ‘You don’t know what might be in there.’

He was inclined to listen to her this time. Did she know about the sealskin? Could he trust her with his secret? There was only one way to find out. ‘I found something in there once. It was so cool. I don’t know how it got in there, though. Maybe you do, since you know about the seals.’

A frown creased her forehead as she waited for him to go on.

‘I found a sealskin.’

Jessie gasped, and looked more fearful than when she had confronted the seal.

‘It’s okay,’ he said quickly. ‘It wasn’t bloody, or anything.’

‘What did you do with it?’ she asked.

‘I took it home. It was heavy.’

Jessie sat down on the rocks with a bump. ‘But Jake, you must not take it home. You must put it back!’

‘But why?’ asked Jake. ‘Do you know how it got there?’

Jessie looked around, uncomfortable. She
scratched her head as if buying time. Jake waited.

‘Do you know what a selkie is?’ she asked.

‘A selkie? No. Should I?’

‘Selkies are seal-people. The seals come on land and they shed their skins so they can walk the earth like humans do. When they have finished their business, they put their skins back on and become seals again.’

‘But that’s just a fairy story,’ said Jake, who could now remember something he had heard a long time ago. A story, set in Ireland maybe, where his ancestors had come from.

Jessie stared at him, hard. ‘It is not a story. It is real. Jake, if you have stolen a sealskin, then whoever it belongs to will be stuck in human form.’ Jake was surprised to see tears form in her eyes. ‘You must put it back.’

‘But that’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard!’ said Jake.

‘Jake!’ Jessie shouted. ‘You must put it back.’

What did she know? She was being
ridiculous
, a baby, and he told her so.

Sobbing now, Jessie stood up and ran away from him, disappearing into the rocks.

Jake stood still, wondering whether to follow her or not, to comfort her, tell her he was sorry. But he was a little frightened of her. If she was upset, he didn’t want to provoke her any more, to see that wild, dark-eyed face again. Instead, he decided to wait for her to calm down and come back. In the meantime, he would explore the crevice once more.

The rocks were sharp on his knees, and the scrapes on his legs from his encounter with the seal were aching. It was dark inside the cave. He waited for his eyes to adjust before moving forward. A thin musky smell, like the seals but fainter, hung about the air. He shuffled forward with his hands in front and once again, his fingers came in contact with fur. This time, he didn’t shout, but he pulled sharply away and backed out of the cave, then ran away as fast as he could.

T
he air was different when Jake got home. He felt it as the front door swung open. It was thicker, harder to breathe. He heard a murmuring coming from the living room, and was about to push open the door to investigate when he remembered his torn jeans. The last thing he wanted to do was explain to his father that he had been rescued from a seal attack by a little girl, let alone tell him about the fight
he’d had with Jessie about the sealskin. He ducked instead into his room and changed into trackpants, pulling them carefully over his scraped and bloodied calf. He’d clean himself later, in the shower. In his socks, he walked silently down the hall and opened the living room door.

His father looked up sharply and a flash passed over his face — fear? No, it was the same look he’d worn when he’d told Jake he was moving out of their home.
Guilt
. But this time, it was gone as quickly as it had arrived.

The room smelled of coffee and sea air; Jake filled his lungs with it. He recognised the deep red hair before Cara turned around and gave him a penetrating stare. He expected her to smile at him, but she didn’t — she just stared, as if he were a bug under a microscope that she was about to dissect. He remembered the strange effect she’d had on him in Ted’s shack, but this time the wind and sea stayed where they belonged.

‘Jake,’ said his dad. ‘I wasn’t expecting you back so soon. What’s the time?’

‘It’s about four,’ said Jake.

‘Four?’ Dad’s eyes widened. ‘I can’t believe it! Where’s the day gone?’ He laughed, nervously Jake thought, and looked at Cara, whose gaze was still fixed on Jake. ‘Lots to talk about I suppose.’

Jake looked at the ground, unable to stand the intensity of Cara’s stare, and she finally turned back. ‘Perhaps I should leave,’ she said.

‘Yes, I suppose.’ Dad looked forlorn. They both stood, Cara unfolding her long body. She was nearly as tall as Dad was. Jake looked at her feet, which were filthy. Why didn’t she put some shoes on? What was wrong with her? As they passed by him on the way to the front door, Cara brushed past him and his arm tingled. He snatched it away from her and rubbed it as if he’d been burnt. She turned her black eyes to him when she got to the door.

‘Goodbye, Jake,’ she said in a whisper, and
stepped outside. Jake’s dad followed her, and pulled the front door almost shut behind him as he murmured something to her. Jake could see his fingers pressed into the door. He wanted to walk forward, to hear what they were saying to each other, but the sight of his father’s hand on the door, the solid hunk of wood between them, made him feel unwanted, and he went into his room instead and shut the door.

Later, his father knocked softly.

‘Jake? Dinner’s ready.’

‘I’m not hungry,’ said Jake, although his stomach growled as he said it.

The door opened. ‘What is it, mate?’

‘Nothing.’ Jake sat on his bed with his arms folded, his book dog-eared but unread beside him. He’d tried to read but he couldn’t absorb the words.

Dad sat down next to him. He was quiet for a minute, staring at the floor, as if trying to decide what to say. Then he gave Jake a sideways shunt with his shoulder.

‘Are you angry with me? About Cara?’

‘No,’ Jake said, but he didn’t sound convinced. How could he explain how he was feeling when he didn’t even know himself? He didn’t like the fact that Dad had been alone with Cara. It couldn’t be because he was jealous, could it? She was a grown-up; he was just a little kid. And yet he felt
something
, as if he had known her all his life and wanted to go on knowing her forever. It was insane, but Dad somehow felt like an impediment to knowing her. And yet. She scared him. She had the same dark, moody eyes as Jessie. He had seen what Jessie could do in a temper. Cara was older, and Jake just knew that the force inside her would be even stronger if provoked.

He said nothing of this to his father. He decided to shrug away his feelings, to pretend nothing was wrong for the sake of peace.

‘I’m okay,’ he said. He forced a smile. ‘Maybe I’m hungry after all.’

‘Great.’ Jake heard the relief in his father’s
voice. ‘Because, Jake …’ He stopped and sighed. ‘You know since your mum and I broke up, there hasn’t been anyone. And … you know, she has Greg, and now the baby, and maybe I’d like to find someone, too. You know? It can be a bit lonely by myself. When you’re not here, of course,’ he added quickly.

Jake didn’t want to be having this
conversation
. He resisted the urge to stick his fingers in his ears.

‘Yeah,’ he said, and stood up. ‘Whatever.’

He ate his dinner quickly, scared his dad would want to talk about Cara again. It was crazy. He’d only just met her, for goodness’ sake. And he was talking about her like he wanted to settle down with her or something. Jake couldn’t help wonder if this was why his dad had been so eager to get him out of the house in the mornings this week; if Cara had been visiting him every day. Maybe they were in love.

Oh, puke, thought Jake. He put his dinner
plate in the sink and, pleading a headache, went to bed early.

The next day, Jake woke up stiff and sore. His legs were scraped and bruised from where he had fallen on the rocks. He lay in the gloomy room and listened to the rain falling on the corrugated iron roof. It was usually a comforting sound, always reminding him of holidays with his father, since the roof in Auckland was made of tiles that made no sound. But it provided no comfort this morning, when he thought about his fight with Jessie and what his dad had tried to talk to him about last night.

He was relieved to be able to use the weather as an excuse not to visit Jessie. Instead, he moped around at home, eating toast and reading his book while his father worked. Jake almost felt as though his dad was avoiding him, but of course it was no different from his usual routine.

After a sombre lunch, and when Dad had
gone back to the shed, Jake sat looking out the window. The sea had turned brown from the rain, and the road was slick. The clouds hung low and moody over the bay. As he sat there looking, he became aware of a soft knocking sound, barely audible over the rain on the roof. Was there someone at the door? He waited to see if Dad appeared, but he didn’t, and the tapping continued, like someone drumming their fingers along to a tune. He decided to go to the door, just to check.

When he opened it, he was surprised to see Jessie. She stood there looking very small and wet. Her bare arms seemed immune to the cold and she let the water from her hair stream into her eyes without wiping it away.

‘Hi,’ said Jake. ‘What’s up?’ It didn’t occur to him that she might visit him — he had always been the one to make the trip, although of course it wasn’t just her that he went to see. It was the high cliffs and the glimpses of seals, the rock pools and the sad, windy beach.

‘I missed you,’ she said. ‘Can I come in and play?’

He stood aside and let her in. She dripped puddles onto the wooden floor, so he handed her a towel to dry herself with. She looked at it, unsure what to do. He mimed drying his hair and she nodded and copied him. Then they stood awkwardly in the living room. Jessie looked around with interest and Jake saw the room through her eyes: it was small and untidy, with newspapers in messy piles on the couch and the floor, dirty coffee mugs on the table and cheap old curtains at the windows. It was so different from his home in Auckland, which had polished wooden floors that shone, and rich oriental rugs matched with red velvet curtains. His mother kept the place immaculate and he was scared to even leave his schoolbag on the floor. Here he could leave his dirty sneakers on the worn living room carpet and there still wouldn’t be as much mess as his father made all by himself. He felt embarrassed suddenly, but
then he remembered where Jessie was staying, and knew she wouldn’t mind a bit of chaos.

‘So, do you want to play cards, or …’ He was waiting for her to say something about yesterday, about their fight, about how she had run away crying, but she just nodded and said, ‘Yes.’

He beat her twice at Snap and the sense of unease didn’t lift. It was strange having her in the house. She somehow didn’t belong, so far from the rocks and the smell of salt and fish and the seals.

‘Go again?’ he asked.

‘Can I look at your bedroom? Can we play there?’

Jake shrugged. ‘Okay,’ he said. Most of the toys in there were from when he was younger, cars and trains that he didn’t take much
interest
in any more. He mostly just read books in there now.

As soon as Jessie entered the room, Jake, who was behind her, saw her shoulders stiffen.
She turned to one side with her face tilted up and he realised she was sniffing the air. Her pale face flushed.

‘What’s wrong?’ he asked, but she said nothing and started pacing in a tight circle.

‘Jessie …’ He was about to tell her that she was freaking him out, to suggest they leave the room, when suddenly she dived to the floor and, with her fingernails scrabbling on the floorboards, disappeared under his bed. She let out an unearthly screech and emerged moments later with the sealskin clutched in her hands. Without stopping to think and giving her no warning, Jake stepped forward and ripped it from her hands.

‘It’s mine!’ he shouted. ‘Leave it alone!’ Jessie moved towards him and to his surprise, he shoved her away. Jessie stared at him and her eyes took on the darkness he had seen
yesterday
. He hugged the sealskin to his chest, waiting for her to pounce on him, to fight him — a fight he would lose. But instead, she
backed away, and tears welled in her eyes.

‘You are no friend of mine,’ she said. ‘Or of the seals.’ She ran from the house, out into the cold rain, slamming the door behind her.

Later that night, after the rain had abated, Jake took the sealskin from its new hiding place in his wardrobe. He still couldn’t bring himself to show his father, because he knew he had done the wrong thing by taking it. He thought about what Jessie had told him about the selkies. Could it be true? He caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror, holding the skin. He stood up and went closer. He draped the skin around his shoulders, wrapping himself in it until it was hard to tell where the skin ended and Jake began. When he looked into the mirror again he got a fright — it was as if he had caught a glimpse of a live seal, standing upright in his room. He gave a small yelp and tore the skin off, throwing it on the floor.

‘It’s just a stupid story,’ he said to himself
and got into bed, pulling the covers up around his ears to block out the sound of the sea pounding on the beach. He lay there, listening to his breath in the hot darkness, and tried not to think of Jessie.