Page 56

“Wait. Did you actually check with Peggy to make sure she’s home?” I asked, as we bounced down the stairs.

He shot me a surprised glance. “Of course! What kind of father do you take me for?”

We walked hand in hand down the high street, waving to Shona as we walked past the coffee shop and at Peggy, who hollered out her window that she’d keep an ear open for the kids for as long as we needed.

Across the street from Peggy and Nial’s house, a little cobbled path wound its way between two buildings, the tops of which leaned so close toward each other that they nearly touched, creating a semblance of a tunnel leading right to the water. We ducked down it and hurried down to the small beach that lined all of Banhaven to the north and south of the harbor.

With its coarse sand and ancient rocky outcroppings, the Banhaven beach was nothing like the beaches where we’d vacationed occasionally as children. Even though I’d lamented arriving too late in the year to be tempted to sunbathe by the water, the locals had quickly informed me that, even at the height of summer, I was unlikely to ever spend a day lounging on the beach in a bathing suit. This far north and on this side of the island, beach days were more often than not spent bundled up in sweaters to ward off the bite of the ocean breeze or the fog.

But what this beach lacked in tropical appeal, it more than made up for in treasure hunting. The kids were partial to the sea glass nestled in the sand, glittering in the light of the setting sun. I far preferred the wishing stones that were a little harder to find.

The little gray stones with their unbroken white circles had always seemed a little magical to me. It was said that wishes whispered to the small stones came true when they were thrown back into the sea.

My aunts and cousins—who all had access to real magic—had teased me endlessly when I’d dug around in the sand for the elusive stones, but no amount of derision had tempered enthusiasm.

I tucked the one I found a few moments after we arrived on the beach into my pocket for safekeeping, and took the hand that Art held out to me.

We walked in silence for a few moments, enjoying the breeze coming off the water and the distant sounds of halyards clinking and clanging against their masts in the harbor a few miles back. Birds screeched and swooped over us, hunting for their dinner and generally having a good time.

The salty brine tickled my nose as I took a deep breath in and let it out slowly, holding my face up to the weak sun.

“Thank you,” I said, turning to smile at Art.

“For what?”

“Knowing that this was what I needed,” I answered simply.

“Are you ready to tell me what was bothering you?”

“I told you,” I said, glancing over at him. “I’m fine. It was just a moment of overwhelm.”

He pressed his lips together and nodded, then gestured to a cluster of large flat rocks jutting out over the water a little ways up the beach. “Let’s go sit over there,” he suggested.

“I think that’s Creag nan Ròn,” I said, mostly to fill the silence that no longer felt quite as easy as it had a moment earlier. “According to Peggy, men trapped selkie women and forced them into marriage by stealing their skins and throwing them into the deep when they shed them to temporarily become human. Until they found their skins, the women were stranded on land, unable to return to the sea.”

“That’s terrible,” Art said.

“I know.” I scrunched up my nose. “But because it was rumored that skins washed up on those rocks, Banhaven became known as the place women came to find themselves. It’s how the town got its name. Banhaven means women’s haven.”

“That’s a hauntingly beautiful legend,” Art said, helping me up onto the biggest rock.

As we settled ourselves on the edge of the rock and dangled our feet over the water, ghostly specters of the selkie women of old made room for us, and I couldn’t help hoping each one of them had found peace and belonging.

From that vantage point, we could see far out into the ocean, and that was where Art stared for a long time, fiddling with a wishing stone.

“I hate that word,” he said finally.

“What word?”

“Fine,” he replied.

“Why?” I asked, surprised.

“I haven’t told you much about my ex. Mostly because there’s not much to say other than that we weren’t right for each other. We got married because our parents thought we were. Similar levels of education and families that moved in the same social circles. We summered in the same town on the Cape, so we’d known each other forever, and, while we weren’t head over heels in love, we had no good reason to not get married, if that makes sense.”

He glanced over at me, and I nodded encouragingly.

“Basically, we were fine. Everything was fine. We didn’t fight about anything, because neither of us cared enough to get worked up about anything. Even when she was clearly upset, she’d just say it was fine. I knew it wasn’t. I would have happily fixed it if she’d said something, but she never did. And I never pushed because, honestly, I just didn’t care enough. Things were…” He shrugged. “Well, fine. They were fine.”