Page 59 of Between Salt and Serenades
“Have you slept?”Zellia cut me off and scooted across the sand to be in front of me. She then grabbed my head and pulled down my bottom eyelids with her thumbs.
“Zel—”
“Leave. Go to the Ever Wanderer and rest. I will take care of her and make sure she gets all the oxygen she needs.”
“I couldn’t even if I wanted to. Mom doesn’t want to see me, and neither does anyone else,”I admitted. I’d hurt one of my own to save a selkie. Though I had just earned the favor of the pod through the brief return of the fish, that favor was a distant memory, now replaced by images of me slicing Tetwin across the back,making bold statements of a new pod ashore, and claiming a selkie as my protected guest.
“Mom will come around. She’s more mad you put yourself at risk than anything. Don’t tell her I said this, but I think part of her is relieved you found someone worth protecting, even if she is a selkie.”
My response was lost in my mind as I watched Breena stir.
“Zel, will you please wake her?”I asked again.“I understand why you sang her to sleep, but the spear is out of her now, and you already used your song to close her wound. I can’t keep her here much longer. Every hour Breena is here, she’s at risk of drowning or someone taking it upon themselves to eliminate her supposed threat.”
“Her wounds will heal faster down here with my magic, the power of the salt, and my song. And she will heal faster if I keep her asleep.”
“Yes, but we’ve been back in the sea for five days already.”If there was a time to tell my sister I would be heading back to land, now was as good as any.
“Okay, and?”
“I promised the fisherman, Rory, that we would return in five days, and I intend on keeping that promise, especially now. It’s not safe for her here.”
“So, what? You’ll swim back to land and drag her with you?”
“No, I’d never do that,”I said and picked up a bonnet shell, cupping it in my palm.“Did I mention the fisherman is the captain of his own ship?”
“You’re going to bring that fisherman back here again? Sidra!” she exclaimed. “It was bad enough that you showed him our location the last time, and you want to do it again? I wouldn’t be surprised if Tetwin gathered the hunters to take down Rory’s ship the moment it arrives.”
“Maybe, if it means I’ll be gone, they won’t care.”
Zellia shook her head at me and shoved my shoulder. Grabbing the shell from my hand, she held it up so I couldn’t reach like she used to when we were children.
“Promise me this isn’t going to get you killed.”
“I promise. Rory is, well, he’s…”I thought for a moment.“A good person. Not just a good human being, but a good being in general. You’d approve.”
Zellia sighed and handed the shell back to me. Her grip on it was tight, and I had to fight with her to take the shell back for a second, but she gave it back all the same.
“If you must go, I will wake Breena. But Sidra, if you don’t take me with you, there’s no knowing what will happen to her. She was stabbed. You’re not forgetting that, right?”
“Of course I’m not.”
How could I? The memory of the death-marked spear striking her played on a constant loop in my mind.
Zellia nodded then moved around to the other side of Breena. She did a final evaluation of her wound before she started the process of waking the selkie. While she prepped, I held that bonnet shell and set my intention. The object grew warm in my hands as I thought of Rory, imagining him with his legs crossed, sipping tea in a rocking chair in his cottage. I pictured a tartan pillow behind his lower back, the framed painting of a rabbit above him.
When the shell cooled, I knew he'd received my signal. Now, all we could do was wait for him and his Indigo Tide.
“Come hold her flipper so you’re by her side when she wakes. I may need you to help me keep her still,”Zellia said. I listened to every little demand she made about where to hold the seal and what to do when she woke.
Zellia bent over Breena, blocking out the sun as she leaned closer. Her lips parted, and a sound only Breena could hear swirled around her and snaked into her mind. I could lull someone to sleep with my song like any good full blood, but what Zellia was doing was a completely different skill, more specialized. She could sing her patients into a state of unconsciousness and keep them unconscious as long as she wanted. Eventually, the strain of the magic would fatigue her, but she could keep her patients asleep during healing procedures and well after, so as to speed up their recovery and keep them from consciously experiencing pain.
When Zellia finished her song, Breena seized, and Zellia had to grab her other fin to keep her still. I moved in closer as Breena went limp again then began to shimmer.
“What’s happening?”I asked.
“I’m not sure,”Zellia was not too proud to admit.
“What do you?—”
