The Gathering Storm (5 page)

“No one can
tell
you how to transform,” Ms. Therian said patiently. “Could I tell you how to make your heart beat? Or how to make your bones grow? Such a thing would be impossible—and yet your heart beats every second, and your bones grow according to their own secret timetable, unknown to you. It is the same with Changing: when you are ready, it will happen.”

Mack didn't look happy with the answer, and Darren had to admit he felt the same way. Before anyone else could ask a question, Ms. Therian turned to Fiona.

“It's different for you,” she continued. “
Selkie
s cannot change on their own. They need—”

“A cloak,” Fiona said in a quiet voice. “I know.”

An unexpected light flashed through Ms. Therian's eyes. “You do?” she asked.

“My mother,” Fiona said. “When I was little she used to tell me stories about the
selkie
s that swam off the coast of Ireland. I still remember the lullaby she used to sing to me at bedtime:
‘Lo, the poor selkie, alone and adrift, seeking her cloak by the base of the cliff . . .'
”

Fiona's voice trailed off unexpectedly, and a pink flush crept into her cheeks. She had a beautiful singing voice; Darren didn't know why she looked so embarrassed.

“What else did she tell you?” Ms. Therian asked.

“Nothing, really,” Fiona replied, staring at the floor. “She died when I was three.”

There was a long pause before anyone spoke again.

“A
selkie
is born with a special sealskin cloak,” Ms. Therian finally said. “Without it he or she will stay in his or her human form forever. I take it, Fiona, that you don't have your cloak?”

Fiona shook her head. “I don't think so,” she admitted.

“You'd know,” Ms. Therian said. “So, for you, Fiona, the first step toward transformation will be finding your
cloak. Without it, all this”—Ms. Therian held her arms wide—“will be of no use to you.”

There was something in Ms. Therian's voice—a dangerous edge, hard as flint—that made Darren, and the others, pay close attention.

“But,” Fiona began, looking puzzled. “Where could it be? Why—why don't I have it?”

Ms. Therian sighed. “It's very common for
selkie
s to have their cloaks stolen and then hidden by well-meaning humans,” she said, choosing her words carefully. “I can guarantee that whoever did it loves you very much. But that doesn't matter, does it, if you are forever trapped in your human form and never able to transform into your other self?”

The bell rang then, but no one moved. “It goes without saying that everything we've spoken of today is to be kept in the greatest confidence,” Ms. Therian reminded them. “I will see you tomorrow.” And with that she turned and then exited the gym, leaving the kids alone.

“Could this really be real?” Fiona asked, breaking the silence.

“I know what I saw,” Darren said. “She became a wolf. And even if that was some kind of trick, Gabriella, your eyes . . .”

Gabriella sighed. “I guess my eyes kinda make sense now.”

While everyone stood stunned, Mack's face broke into a huge grin. “Guys, we have superpowers! Doesn't any of this sound the least bit cool to you?”

“Maybe,” Gabriella said hesitantly. “Who knows? Maybe this might help my soccer game. Imagine what it would be like running faster, jumping higher, roaring as a jaguar . . . It seems kind of fun.”

“I just can't get my head around it,” Fiona jumped in. “How could the Changers have kept their powers under wraps for so long? And what happened to make the Changers go into hiding in the first place? I mean, Ms. Therian explained the general reason, but there had to have been some kind of incident, or someone who turned the humans against the Changers. . . .”

“Looks like Ms. Therian left us with more questions than answers,” Darren said, standing. “Guess we'll have to wait until tomorrow to ask them, though.”

The kids exchanged cell numbers and promised to text if anything out of the ordinary happened. Then they went their separate ways.

After she got her books out of her locker, Fiona went to her usual seat on the bus: right behind the
driver, in the front row. She'd been sitting in that same seat, alone, since the very first day of kindergarten. Back then, Fiona used to be disappointed when no one wanted to sit next to her. Now, though, she didn't mind. Having the whole seat to herself meant that she had plenty of room to spread out her books and get a head start on her homework. Fiona's house, a shingled cottage just a block from the beach, was the very last stop on the bus route.

Fiona was the first one home, but that was no surprise; her dad had started school today too, teaching English at New Brighton University, which was an hour away. But it would've been nice if someone had been there to ask her about the first day of school.

Since she'd already finished her homework on the bus, Fiona hung her backpack on the hook next to the front door. Then she looked in the pantry. There wasn't a ton of food there—her dad had been too busy prepping for his classes to go to the grocery store over the weekend—but Fiona spotted a box of spaghetti and a jar of tomato sauce.
Perfect,
she thought.
Dinner is served.
Her father didn't exactly love spaghetti for dinner, but it was
one of the quickest meals that Fiona knew how to make, and he always told her that she should never let dinner prep get in the way of her schoolwork.
And finding my
selkie
cloak
is
my schoolwork,
Fiona reminded herself.

Now,
Fiona thought.
Where should I look?

It would've helped if Fiona had any idea what, exactly, a
selkie
cloak looked like. The good news was that the cottage where Fiona and her dad lived was small. Snug, even. She might finish searching before her dad got home.

Fiona knew there was no chance the
selkie
cloak was in her own bedroom: she kept it impeccably tidy, with everything stored in precisely the right place. The living room was easy to search, too—a couch, two comfortable old chairs, a wall of bookshelves, and a television. Fiona peeked under the worn, woolen rug that covered the bare wood floor. Then she knocked on each floorboard, just in case one was loose. If
she
was going to hide something, tucked under the floorboards seemed like a safe place. But every board was securely nailed down.

Fiona wandered back into the kitchen, but she didn't have much hope of finding the
selkie
cloak there. She
couldn't imagine hiding something as important and special as a
selkie
cloak over the oven or behind the fridge. Fiona thumped on the walls, just in case, searching for a hidden nook—and finding nothing.

That left the attic and her father's room. Fiona tapped her lip, lost in thought. The attic . . . Now, that had potential. The dusty attic was full of castoffs—old school projects and broken furniture and Grandpa Murphy's record collection. But to access the attic, Fiona would need to get the ladder, and she probably couldn't search all of it before her dad got home, which would lead to questions about why she was even
in
the attic . . . questions she would rather not answer right now.

So her father's bedroom was the next best choice.

As she passed the large bay window that overlooked the ocean, Fiona glanced at the driveway. There was still no sign of her dad's car, so she continued on toward his bedroom. He'd never said she wasn't allowed to go into his room, but Fiona knew she was snooping around. And that, she knew, was something her dad
definitely
wouldn't like.

She started with the dresser. Work clothes, church
clothes, weekend clothes—all neatly folded. The bottom drawer, though . . . That one was stuck. Fiona yanked and yanked, but it wouldn't budge.
Is it locked?
she wondered. But there was no keyhole.

Fiona gave one more tug on the drawer, and without warning, it shot open, sending her flying across the floor. But Fiona wasn't all that went flying. Dozens of yellowed photographs soared through the air, swirling around Fiona like snow. There were so
many
of them; photos she'd never seen before in her
life
.

Of course, she recognized her parents immediately. Her dad looked the same, except his hair was darker back then. And her mother . . . Well, Fiona would know that face anywhere. She looked exactly the same in the photos as she did in Fiona's memories of her, unchanged over the last nine years.
That's how death works, I guess,
Fiona thought.
It stops time.

Time stopped for Fiona as she crouched, staring at each photo—studying them, really, as if she could memorize the photos as easily as math equations or spelling words. There was one of her parents on their wedding day, not a hundred yards from the cottage,
overlooking a sparkling sunset on the ocean. Her mom cradling baby Fiona. Her dad helping Fiona ride her tricycle for the first time. And Fiona's favorite of all: her mom holding her as they sat on Broad Rock, a large, flat rock in the little beach cave near the ocean. She could remember sitting there with her mother. Fiona still went to Broad Rock whenever she missed her and wanted to feel closer to her.

How have I never seen these photos before?
Fiona wondered. It would've been so nice to have pictures of her mother in the living room or in her own bedroom. To see her face in the present, not just in the past. But for some reason, her father had hidden them away, where no one could see them. Not no one, actually, because he knew where they were. He could look at them whenever he wanted. No, he was keeping them from
Fiona
.

The thought bothered her for a bunch of reasons, but before she could sort through them all, Fiona realized something else: these photos weren't the only secret that had been kept from her.
If I was given a
selkie
cloak as a baby,
she thought,
then someone—Mom or Dad, or both—knew the truth about me. Have known it for years.

The idea was so unsettling that Fiona rocked back on her heels.
Were they
ever
planning to tell me?
she wondered.
Did Mom know—and the knowledge died with her? Or does Dad?

Did
they
hide away my
selkie
cloak?

Whatever the answers were to those questions, Fiona wasn't sure she wanted to know them. And she didn't have time to ponder them, not with the sound of her dad's tires crunching over the broken shells that paved their driveway. Fiona scrambled to her feet in a flurry. It was later than she thought. And if her father found her in here with these hidden photos scattered all over the place . . .

In moments Fiona had shoved them all back into the drawer—all except for one. She tucked the photo of her mom and her at Broad Rock into her back pocket. Surely her dad wouldn't notice that it was missing. And for Fiona to have one, just
one
photo of Mom . . .

Fiona was out of breath when she reached the kitchen, just as her father opened the door. He was whistling.

“Oh!” Fiona exclaimed in surprise. “Spaghetti. I forgot to start the water boiling. . . .”

“No matter, Fee,” Mr. Murphy said, handing her a box of pizza. “Didn't you get my text?”

Fiona shook her head. “I, um, left my phone in my backpack.”

“I thought we should celebrate tonight!” he said. “The first day of seventh grade is a pretty big deal.”

Fiona grinned as her dad nodded toward the sink. “Go ahead and wash up. I'll set the table.” Then he started whistling again—a melody Fiona would've known anywhere. Her mom had sung it to her every night when Fiona was little. It was burned into the deepest recesses of her brain. Somehow, after all these years, she even remembered the words—some of them, at least.

Betwixt the cold and rocky shoal,

And the foam upon the sea,

There lies a prize for my wee babe,

It will bring her home to me.

When Dad returned to the kitchen a few minutes later, all the bubbles had disappeared down the drain, but Fiona still stood at the sink, rubbing her hands absentmindedly under the faucet. Dad chuckled as he
leaned over and turned off the water. “I think they're clean now,” he teased her.

Fiona managed a smile. “Sorry,” she said. “I got a little distracted.” What she didn't say, though, was that the thoughts triggered by that long-lost lullaby might have just solved her riddle.