Beneath A Thousand Skies

The old man dreamed.

First, he was a storm cresting on the horizon, thunder and lightning raging across a restless ocean. Then he was an albatross, a giant of wind and sea, soaring over endless blue and chasing the call of the waves. Then he tumbled, twisting and turning between air and sea, sleek grey body  dancing on the waves as he sang with the dolphins. Following the crest and collapse of a wave, he dove into the deep, water caressing his furred hide as he plummeted into the depths of a verdant kelp forest. He weaved a path through the jungle, and burst forth into the deepest of waters, his form dissolving and turning to music, the echo of a song long forgotten that was carried away on the currents.

He woke to the cage of his human body, bound once more by the chains of mortality.

But the song continued.

It called him from his bed, a siren song that beat in time with his own heart.

The bed beside him was empty as it had been for the last ten years, his anchor lost to the depths, replaced with a hollow filled with the merest echo of a storm that had once carried him far from the ocean. His hand rested there for a moment, reaching for a ghost.

The song swelled, guiding him from beneath the covers, flowing into that hollow space.

Calling him home.

Age had slowed him, but the song buoyed him like the gentle swell of the sea. Carrying him on unsteady steps around the room, enticing him towards the pelt buried deep in the chest of drawers. That was an old temptation, an ache as familiar as that which haunted his joints more with each passing year, and it was an old man, not the whisper of the selkie in his heart that slipped out into the early morning.

It was dawn. That glistening, silver time when the night sky pales to blue, and light flickers at the edge of the world.  A promise of the day to come. The waking of the world, a beginning and an end, all tied together in a cycle as endless as the ocean that stretched out beyond his home. For now, though, the small town nestled on the windswept coast slept on. Cradled in the night-time peace, even the harbour which woke before anything was still and quiet, as though he was the only living thing to exist in that moment.

The cottage, perched as it was on top of the cliff, gave him a clear view out over the harbour houses with their bright colours muted in the half-light, and beyond to the harbour path. Its boundaries piled high with crates and crab cages, old nets coated with seaweed and seagull droppings, down to the boats that were not out at sea this night. Most were the old ones, the ones worn from long years on the ocean, wood crusted with salt and oil, ropes worn, the smell of the sea etched into their very being; each one adding its own voice to the song of the sea, the creak of wood in the breeze, the flap of material and rope, the soft flutter of the gulls who had claimed them as roost for the night. It was a borderland, where humans lived in a delicate balance with the ocean, and where one such as him could live, and ease the ever-present ache in his heart.

It couldn’t keep the song at bay though, and slowly he began the long journey down the hill that curved past the old ruins of a church, and down into the harbour and the distant shape of the pier. A rustling of wings, and the sharp keening cry as a seagull took flight was the only other sign of life, in this quiet, waiting world.

A herald of his coming.

Light had spilled over the horizon by the time he reached the harbour, and he paused to catch his breath, leaning heavily on his stick. Lifting his head to the sky for a moment. The stars were still just visible, not yet claimed by the sun that had now added threads of gold to the blue ahead of him, and even with his failing sight, he found the old path in the sky. The lights that once could have guided him home. Now, they were a warm memory, a comfort in every night sky, but a path he could no longer follow. As it should be, he thought, casting his gaze back up the hill to his home, to the garden where his heart had once waited for him each dusk, a lighthouse blazing just for him.

Above him, the seagull who had acknowledged his presence now flew overhead, no longer keening, as its cry twisted into something joyful. A trumpet-call that no humans would understand. There were no words in that cry, but images, a brief message of greeting and surprise, delight and honour, aimed not just at his presence, but at one that tingled at the edge of his awareness, and he smiled as he turned his gaze to the pier and the sea beyond.

It was time.

The song was an orchestra rising to a crescendo in his heart, and it guided him past the walls of crab cages, and onto the rough cobbles of the pier. The stone wall blocked most of the breeze, and once he would have climbed up the rough steps to follow the traditional path along the time, the same walked by the local students every weekend. Now, he focused on just reaching the end, bowed with age, and the weight of what his summons meant, although with it came the joy of an unexpected reunion. He halted beneath the shadow of the harbour light and waited as the song swelled. Rippling across the waves until it felt as though the entire town should be roused by it, but he knew no humans could hear it, this performance for him alone.

It swelled, curling around him and then faded to a background hum; and in the distance he saw a large form breach the waves, dark against the dawn light.

Have you come to say farewell old friend? he asked, falling into the ocean tongue as though he was freshly sprung from the waves.

The song swelled in acknowledgement, grief and a query, adding a mournful edge to it. Whales had never spoken the ocean tongue like the selkies did, but they understood it as they understood all languages of tide and deep. They were the storytellers, the bards, the memory of the ocean given physical form. They carried stories and memories from one end of the world to the other, and he knew if he asked the Whale could have sung of the selkies, of the distant islands that had been his home, of the slow, fading of their people. He didn’t ask, it was as story as intimate and familiar to him, as the fur secreted in his drawer.

The behemoth of the ocean came closer, weaving a new song wrapped around an invitation. It was a plea, a call, the sound of the ocean calling him home. It tugged on some distant, deep part of him, a yearning that had fallen into slumber during the long years on land, never gone, but buried.

I can’t return. A simple truth, one as inevitable as the sun rising with the dawn and falling with the dusk. He felt it fall into the space between them, a stone that cast a ripple large enough to send waves to all corners of the world. Once that thought would have brought him joy, despite the ache of the words, for it would have borne it to his family; but there was no one waiting on that ripple now. No one waiting to hear that he was still here on the edge of the ocean.

A question entered the song. The whale didn’t argue with him, didn’t try to change his mind, seeking only to understand. To weave truth into the story it would tell of this moment. A memory for when he and his kind were gone from the world.

My soul is Ocean, but my heart is bound to the land forever now, he replied and, in the ocean tongue those heavy words turn into soft poetry. A song of family lost, and family found. Of a life and love lived separate from the waves but ever carrying that ocean cry. In his mind he saw his wife as he had that first day as a young selkie wandering too far from home, a siren of land, who had captured him without ever laying a hand on his skin. The smile that was brighter even than the moonlight as it danced on restless waters.

His heart. His world. His anchor.

He wove all of her into ocean tongue, so that she would not be forgotten even when he was gone. She had gone to the ocean already; her ashes scattered to the winds. She had wished for it, telling him with her last smile that the currents had once brought him to her, so now she would see where they would carry her next; and that she would be waiting for him wherever the sea carried him when it was his time.

The whale listened, song shifting to something softer, turning his words into music that resonated through the water and for a moment it was though she was there beside him.

He might have lost himself in that song then, but the seagull cried up ahead. A sentinel against the approaching dawn, a reminder that time was limited and he sighed, looking down into the water lapping at the edge of the pier. It would take little more than a single step to return to the ocean, but he belonged as much to the land as the sea now, and his skin lay buried in his bedroom; instead, he crossed his hands on top of his stick.

I am the last.

The song swelled and then fell silent. Waiting. His heart ached, because it was a confirmation of his words – the last Selkie – the whale would have told him of his people if any remained in the world; rumours and whispers carried just as far on ocean song and currents, as stories and truth. The silence was a tombstone on a people who had once been part of every song. He closed his eyes. My pups have never heard the ocean, although they bear her blessing, and their pups are the same. His land-born family, his heart stretched across the land, all loved the sea as much as him, each called at least once a year to the beach, to the welcoming arms of the waves, but none of them could speak its tongue. None could hear the whale song. None could take his skin and carry on the story of his people.

Above them the seagull cried out again, grief in its cry and a warning. This moment drawing to an end as somewhere in the distance a door opened, lights coming on in a couple of the fishing cottages. Life encroaching on this peaceful moment.

The song swelled again, softer now, and for a moment he was awash in memories. Selkies diving into the sea, fur pelts stretched out to dry on sun-kissed rocks as pups splashed in the shallows, tales told by moonlight as they gathered at the edge of the world. The whale was moving away now, and the song shifted, his tale woven into a music beyond words – as a young selkie swam out into the wide ocean, journeying far and wide, until this lonely man, this last selkie stood upon a different edge of the world.

As the sun touched the edge of the harbour, turning blue to aqua gold, the behemoth rose from the waters for just a moment, giant fin raised like a banner in the air and the song shifted once more. Still grieving, still sad, but hopeful too – a promise made on ocean waves.

My story will be remembered…

Then the moment broke, shattering into millions of water droplets as the whale disappeared beneath the wave and the song faded, until all the old man was left with was the quiet of the water lapping on the harbour, the hum of human life springing to life in the dawn, and an ache in his chest.

**

The Ocean gods had always been fickle creatures, as tempestuous as any winter storm. The old man had thought that moment was the turning of the hourglass, his life reaching its end. But he lingered, slowly fading there at the edge of the world, in the house that overlooked the ocean, as his family gathered. Waiting and watching, each an echo of the ocean below them, even if they couldn’t hear it, and he let himself drift in their currents, waiting for his anchor, his heart, to call him home.

It was a quiet afternoon, the house empty for once as the youngest pups had dragged siblings and parents down to the beach, and with a smile he had chased them from the house. The peace was a balm in the wake of their chaos, and now it whispered with promise and anticipation. He was tired, but he was content, and the whale’s song still lingered beneath his skin, waiting for the final note to make it complete.

He was resting in the bedroom, one hand as always closed on the space where his wife would be, when he heard the floorboards creak in the hallway. They had always done that, and his children had long since learned to skip it to avoid rousing suspicious parents, but the young ones not so much, and he cracked an eye and waited, hearing it creak again.

“You may as well come in,” he called, and there was a pause and then a small scuffling before the door opened and in slipped his eldest granddaughter, Isla. Quieter than her siblings she had often spent time just sitting beside him, although she was usually the first in line for beach trips and he pushed himself up so that he was leant against the pillows. “You’re supposed to be down at the beach.”

“It was too loud,” she said, not approaching, but fidgeting with her hands.

“Your siblings are always loud…”

“No…” She blinked, surprised by her own volume and then ducked her head. “Not them, the ocean was too loud.”

“The Ocean?”

“It was talking to me and then it started crying, really loud,” her hands were over her ears now, as though she could block out the sound.

The whale song echoed beneath his skin, the secret hidden in the bottom drawer called to him and he pushed himself upright. Trembling. Hope and something more fragile, something on the cusp of breaking rising in his chest.

“What do you mean the Ocean speaks to you?”

“It’s like a song in here,” she placed a hand over her heart, rubbing at it. “It’s louder when I am in the water, like I’m part of the music, but it never goes away not really.”

“Can you understand it?” He asked, leaning forward.

“Sometimes,” she scrunched her nose, and for a moment he was staring at the ghost of his wife, but then she looked at him with ocean eyes so like his own. “It’s not words, but feelings… sometimes it feels like it’s telling me stories, like the ones you used to tell me, but you always put me in those stories, and the ocean makes me feel like I am on the outside looking in.”

The old man hesitated. I am the last, he had said, and it had been a weight and a burden on his soul for years, but he had accepted it. The life and love, of which this pup was one facet, had been more than worth that price. He had expected it to die with him, an albatross following him into that final current. Could he pass on that burden? That story with no ending? There was no guarantee that she would ever have a pup of her own, let alone one who would hear the ocean.

But.

But there had been hope in the whale’s song. A story that would carry through the ages, and those stories always had new chapters. And maybe, just maybe, their people’s story didn’t have to end just yet. He gripped the covers, wishing his wife was here to guide him, but the space was empty beside him, and his granddaughter was staring at him, and the ocean was in her eyes.

“Open the bottom drawer,” he whispered at last, tilting his head towards the chest of drawers. She hesitated for a moment, before another encouraging nod got her moving. She crouched down, hand on the handle and hesitated again, looking to him. “Yes, that one.” Isla pulled it open, and ocean song spilled out into the room. It called to him, but he ignored it, watching her eyes widen. “Take it out,” he told her; a shiver running through him as small hands touched the part of his soul that had been locked away for so long. The grey pelt, speckled with white and black was carefully wrapped in a protective oilskin, but as she pulled it out, some of the material shifted and waves roared in his ears as he stared at it.

“What is it?”

“A present,” he replied, pulling his gaze away from it.

“A present?” she asked, head tilted, no doubt still hearing the ocean song spilling from it as the skin felt them both in the room, as it felt her claim on it as her fingers tightened, catching the escaping pelt before it could fall. He saw her eyes widen as she felt the fur beneath her fingers. “For me?”

“Just for you,” he smiled.

“But what is it?”

“You’ll know when you’re old enough,” he said, leaning back into the pillows, listening as the song began to fade from his ears. The pull of the pelt fading with it, claimed by new hands, a new soul. He’d thought this last loss would hurt the most in a way, but instead it felt like he could breathe for the first time in years, and he smiled eyes beginning to close. “Just listen to the song, the ocean will tell you when it is time.”

“I don’t understand,” she looked up at him, and the colour bled from her expression. “Grandpa…” He smiled at her, gaze already turning distant. Locked on the future that she carried in her arms, on the ghost waiting on that distant shore for him now that he was free and she fled, crying for her parents, the skin cradled in her arms.

A herald of his passing.

****

Seven years later:

Isla walked along the beach, water splashing over bare feet as she followed the edge of the water. She could hear it singing, calling to her, whispering her name. Come to me, daughter of the sea. The words had come clearer over the years, more distinct, and she had learned to emulate the sounds, a language all her own or so it felt. Although she knew her Grandpa would have understood, remembering his ocean eyes and the solemn joy that day when she had finally spoken about hearing the ocean.

“Just listen to the song, the ocean will tell you when it is time.” His last words that had been for her alone. He had been gone by the time she had returned with her parents in tow, that precious gift still cradled in her arms. She had guarded it as fiercely as she had held onto those words, hiding it from her younger siblings, telling her parents just that Grandpa had told her it was for her. Arguing with her mother when she had tried to throw out the ‘old fur blanket’.

It was a heavy weight in the backpack slung over her shoulders now, singing a song of its own. It was time. She didn’t know how she knew, or why the itch to return to the ocean had grown over the last month until she thought she might go mad with it. They were supposed to go on holiday next month, back to that cottage at the edge of the sea, but she hadn’t been able to wait, skipping classes and heading for the beach.

She loved this stretch of coast, all rocky coves and sandy oases. She had walked this coastal path a dozen times or more over the years, and she knew where the ocean came in close to kiss the land, and where it stayed at a distance. She knew where most people would go, the well-trod sections of path, the popular beaches, and she had avoided them, clambering over rocks and across the narrow wooden bridge between cliff sections until she’d been able to descend into the small cove hidden from the world by rocky cliffs. Her Grandpa had brought them here for a picnic once, and she paused looking up the beach towards the pale rock slab where they had laid out their food and towels before going into the water. If she blinked, she could almost see him there, ocean eyes and warm smile, and eyes ever drawn to the sea.

It’s time, it was his voice not the ocean that she heard now, that tugged her attention back to the sea, to the waves rolling into the beach, glistening in the late afternoon sun. No, not his voice, an echo of it caught in a swell of song rising from the wave. Not the song she was used to either, this was different, ethereal and echoing, images and emotions carried in the sound and her eyes widened as in the mouth of the cove, a massive body broke the surface, waterspout rising in the air.

“I hear you,” she whispered, tears in her eyes as the whale sang a welcome to her. A welcome, and an invitation, and in her mind’s eye she saw her grandpa standing on the end of the pier beneath his cottage, bent and wizened with age. Then the image split and separated, and she saw a young man with ocean eyes pulling on a fur-covered blanket…no a skin… one that melded with flesh in an instant, before a seal dove into the water a second later, and the whale song wrapped around her.  Encouraging. Teaching. Wrapping her in memories not her own, but as familiar and intimate as the stories she had heard as a child.

There on the edge of the sea, she slung off her backpack and reached for the gift that had been waiting just for this moment. The oilskin covering fell away now, discarded at the edge of the sands. A casting off of the land, as she took one tentative step and then another deeper into the water, surrounded by the swelling sound of joyful song, and while her heart trembled, her hands were steady as she wrapped the skin around her own shoulders and finally felt the itch that had driven her here settle as skin became fur, and the ocean opened itself to her with welcoming arms.

Welcome home, Selkie.

Copyright © 2025 by Rowena Andrews