Page 60 of Saved By the Selkie

“What’s a witch?” Lir asks.

“Bad omens!” another crew member cries. “I won’t sail with ’em on board!”

“We’re sunk, boys, the cap’n let these devils on!”

“Now see here!” I bark, but Athos decides to make an appearance at that moment, his voice ringing out over mine.

“What’s going on?” he thunders. If he seemed soft-spoken and mild-mannered in the cabin, here he demonstrates his mettle as a commander. Woe be to anyone who underestimates him—many men have done just that and met their ends.

His gaze lands on Blizz, and he blinks a couple of times. “Well then.”

I swallow theI told youon the tip of my tongue. Athos has almost no choice but to believe me now.

“Cap’n,” one of the crew members says, his voice high and tight with fear, “you’ve got to get rid of ’em. Keeping ’em on board is bad luck.”

“You’ll drown us all,” Jans says, “if you let ’em stay.”

“Now see here,” Athos says, and I shake to ground myself when the déjà vu makes me want to float off the ground. “This is no devil and no witch.”

He steps closer to Lir, then puts a hand on the selkie’s shoulder. Lir jerks away. Athos ignores it. “My blood brother Aramis was just regaling me with the tale of his adventure to the north, past where the land ends. To the Isle of Mythos.”

The crew settles a little, some of the men cocking their heads curiously. Others scowl. “That’s just what it is,” Jans says, “a myth.”

Athos shakes his head. “Not at all! Aramis and his crew found it and made landfall there.” He looks at Lir. “Didn’t they?”

“Well,” Lir says, clearly debating how much he should set the record straight about him hauling me out of a dinghy.

I suddenly realize that since Athos’s been out of the picture, it’s beenLir bailing me out of the scrapes I find myself in. How utterly embarrassing.

Athos claps him on the shoulder again. “And they met Lir, and Lir graciously agreed to accompany them south, and there’s no better luck in all the ocean, because Lir …,” he pauses for effect, “is a selkie, a favorite of the Poseidon himself.”

He looks at Lir again. “Isn’t that right, Lir?”

The look on Athos’s face promises violence if Lir doesn’t back him up on this. Lir, clueless naïfhe is, shakes his head. “Who is Poseidon?” he asks, blinking those big eyes of his.

The crew erupts in horrified moans. “We’re doomed, we’re doomed!” Jans wails, his voice plaintive among the others.

“God of the ocean!” Athos cries, staring at Lir in disbelief.

Lir snorts. “God?” he asks. “No one rules the ocean—the ocean rules itself.”

The crew pauses, apparently intrigued by those words. Lir shakes his head a little. “And I’m as liable as you or them to anger it.”

Athos grits his teeth. “Yes, but—you’re a selkie. You’re a child of the sea.”

Lir’s eyes widen. “No,” he says, almost like he’s offended.

I can see Athos panicking. He’s throwing Lir all the tow rope, but Lir’s just using it to hang himself, as it were.

I step closer to Lir, nudging him. “You know the ocean,” I say, drawing the selkie’s attention to me. “You know its moods.”

Lir frowns; he’s not following. I hold up a hand. “So a bunch of landlubbers like us humans would be very lucky to have a selkie on our journey. There’s no one who is better attuned to the sea.”

“Ah,” Lir says, finally seeing where we’re trying to drive with this, “I suppose you could say that.”

I appeal to the crew. “There,” I say, “no bad luck, no ill omens. Merely a creature of the ocean who knows her as well as you or I—perhaps better. And one that knows the sea must be given due respect.”

The sailors grumble a bit.