Storm Singing and other Tangled Tasks Read online

  Roxburgh flung himself into the chorus, sounding as if he was about to burst into tears, or scream in murderous anger, with every single note. Helen sighed, and turned round to check on the creature.

  And the sun went behind a cloud.

  As the sunlight dimmed, the shadow vanished.

  Helen could see a transparent figure. Its purple skeleton. Its pink innards. Its see-through stomach, filled with two partially digested fish.

  “Yuck! Look at this.”

  Yann stretched round, but the sun reappeared and dazzled them both.

  As the sharp black shade hid the spy again, Helen saw one more thing.

  A bag. A thin fishskin bag, like Rona’s mum carried. On the ground at the spy’s feet. Wriggling.

  “What did you see?” asked Yann.

  “It’s like a jellyfish squished into a gingerbread-man shape, and it has a bag, filled with something moving, something alive.”

  Helen heard the first few notes of Roxburgh’s own composition, a battle hymn about his selkie king ancestors, as she whispered urgently to Yann, “What do we do?”

  “We attack it before it attacks the selkies!”

  “If it’s going to attack them, why didn’t it attack at the start? And what’s in the bag?”

  “Weapons, perhaps, or something it’s planning to tip on the selkies’ heads. We can’t wait until it attacks to find out.” Yann pushed up from his kneeling front legs. “I’ll grab the bag.”

  “Don’t be silly. You can’t creep up on it with hooves. I’ll go.”

  “Don’t be daft. You’re not …”

  Helen didn’t have time for a repeat of the eeny-meeny- miny-mo argument on the beach, and Yann couldn’t shout after her without alerting the spy, so she ignored him and slid round the rock on her tummy.

  She crawled through the dry grass. If the creature looked round, her red fleece and blue jeans would be easy to see, but it had its back to her and the gentle rustling of her approach was covered by Roxburgh’s loud voice.

  When she was halfway to the spy’s rock, she saw a pale arm move inside the shadow, reaching for the writhing grey bag.

  The creature was about to launch its attack!

  Chapter 3

  Helen had no time to be slow and careful now. She scrambled to her feet, and ran forward at a crouch. Then she heard thudding behind her and a yell of, “Down!”

  She fell to the ground as huge hooves sliced over her head and smashed onto the earth just in front of her.

  Helen leapt up and ran after the centaur. When she reached the rock, Yann was on the far side, tall and solid, arms crossed, blocking the spy’s route to the cliff edge.

  Helen nodded in approval. Yann wasn’t planning to fight this odd beast, just stop it attacking the assembly below. She matched his position on the other side of the boulder, aware of the cliff edge four steps behind her, but standing strong, feet shoulder-width apart, like she was ready to perform onstage.

  Helen heard Roxburgh start his improvised song, about killer whales stalking seals. He sang with less power than normal, as if he was saving his voice, which made no sense because this was his last song.

  Helen couldn’t see Yann because the rock was between them, but she could see the creature’s shimmering back. She heard the centaur’s confident voice, pitched low so he didn’t disturb the singer below. “Don’t move any closer, mucus monster.”

  The creature swung round to face Helen. Its skinny body was made of see-through jelly, filled with thin purple bones and pink internal organs. Helen recognised the throbbing heart and expanding lungs from her mum’s anatomy books. She looked up from the two large fish disintegrating in the creature’s stomach, to stare at its lilac face and pale eyes.

  Its purple skull was huge, but at least it didn’t have any teeth. Though that hadn’t helped the fish, which had been swallowed whole.

  The creature shambled towards her. Its head didn’t seem secure on its neck. None of the bones in its lanky purple skeleton actually connected; they were floating separately in its jellied flesh. And it had lacy frills of pale pink skin at its wrists, neck and ankles.

  It was taller than Helen. Almost as tall as Yann. But it was made of blobby jelly, it didn’t have teeth or claws, and it was decorated in pink. Helen wasn’t really scared of it. However, it would be foolish not to take it seriously.

  It took a step to the side, trying to get round her.

  She blocked it with a long step of her own.

  It stepped quickly back to the rock, to get through the gap. But Helen, who’d played this game in the playground when she was her wee sister’s age, was already there.

  “You’re not getting past.”

  “Yes, I am,” whispered the creature wetly.

  “No! I won’t let you disrupt their competition.”

  “You will not stand in my way. You cannot resist the power of the sea. The sea will always claim what belongs to the sea.” It lingered on every “sssss” sound, hissing its way through the sentences.

  It stepped to the side again, a long fast step, swinging the bag on its stringy arm.

  This time Helen didn’t block it. She grabbed the bag.

  She seized handfuls of the scaly material in her fists.

  “No!” the creature squealed, trying to pull the bag out of her hands. “Give that back!” Its voice was getting louder. Perhaps it didn’t care if the audience below heard. “Let go!”

  Helen didn’t let go.

  “You cannot resist me!”

  Helen heard Roxburgh’s voice increasing in volume to drown out the creature’s shrieks.

  “You cannot resist the power of the sea!” The creature tugged hard but Helen tightened her grip.

  There was a soft laugh, and Yann appeared, blocking the creature’s back. “Neither you nor the sea can resist the strength of a puny human girl! Give up, snot monster, and go home.”

  As Helen pulled harder, she was horrified to see the creature’s arm stretch, getting thinner and paler, but she kept her weight on her back foot and didn’t let go, even though the purple arm-bones were getting further and further apart.

  She didn’t want to pull this creature apart, but neither did she want it to drop a mysteriously wriggling bag on Rona’s head, so she kept hauling backwards.

  Suddenly the lace around the creature’s right wrist uncoiled and flicked out. Long transparent strings whipped across Helen’s left hand, then coiled back to the creature’s body.

  Helen gasped at the burning pain from the red welts rising on her skin. It might be pink and frilly, but this creature could sting.

  She stared at the tightly curled tentacles, hoping they wouldn’t attack again. Hoping if they did, she’d have the courage to hold on.

  “Let go, dust-dry child. Surrender to the power of the sea and give me my bag!” screamed the creature. Roxburgh’s voice grew even louder.

  Helen was afraid to move back towards the cliff, and afraid to move forward towards those stinging tentacles, but she was determined not to let the creature have the bag, so she dragged her hands suddenly downwards.

  The bag ripped open, shreds of fishskin dangling from both their fists, and water gushed over their feet.

  The creature’s rubbery arm bounced back into shape with a squelching pop. Without a jelly arm to absorb the recoil, Helen fell backwards, landing hard on her backside.

  She flung her hands out behind her, and the edge of the cliff slid away under her fingers. She scrabbled forward, almost falling into the writhing mass which had oozed out of the bag.

  Helen saw jellyfish, sea urchins, and a heap of other poisonous, stinging or spiny creatures. The bag had been full of the sea’s nastiest booby traps. The creature was scooping the living weapons into its four-fingered hands.

  Yann cantered behind Helen to block the way to the cliff. Helen crawled away from the twitching pile of poison, and leant against the rock. She could hear Roxburgh still singing below, his voice more powerful and more beautiful than
ever, despite the disturbance above.

  The creature gathered as many weapons as it could hold, and took a step towards the centaur. Yann spread his arms to block the way. It threw an orange jellyfish, but Yann punched the blob towards the rock, where it stuck for a moment then slithered down into a crack.

  Helen saw Yann raise his fist to his mouth to suck the pain from his knuckles and she yelled, over Roxburgh’s rousing chorus, “Don’t put it in your mouth, it might be poison!” Yann grimaced and shook his hand open instead.

  Helen stood up, considering how to distract the creature from behind, though Yann was doing fine on his own. The creature couldn’t see past him to aim at the crowd.

  The creature stepped closer to Yann, trying to throw over his horse’s back. Yann swivelled and kicked out with his front right hoof, which squelched sickeningly deep into the creature’s chest. It squealed in pain, and dropped its weapons under Yann’s hooves. The centaur made a face as he landed hard on the jelly and spines, mashing them into the earth.

  The creature wailed, “No!”

  It swung out its arm, not in a fist, but like a whip, and its tentacles flicked at Yann’s eyes. The centaur reared up, so the tentacles slashed across his shoulder instead.

  But Yann had stepped too close to the edge, and his unbalanced weight was now all on his two back hooves, one of which was sliding off in a clatter of stones. Helen realised he had only one hoof on solid ground and his weight was pivoting on the cliff edge.

  She leapt forward, reached up and grabbed Yann’s hand. It felt like she was holding the weight of a racehorse and rider, but she held on tight and leant away from the cliff for the split second it took Yann to regain his balance and bring his front hooves down.

  There was a moment of silence, then the crowd below began to cheer and clap.

  Yann kept Helen’s hand in his fist and grinned at her. “So you can lift a horse’s weight. Thank you, human child!”

  She let go and turned round. “Where is it?”

  “It gave up. It ran out of weapons, or ran out of courage.”

  Helen saw a pink splodge lurching towards the cliff path, and thought she heard hissing laughter over the applause.

  Yann stared at the strings of jelly and broken spines under his hooves. “I didn’t mean to kill them, but I couldn’t avoid them.”

  The cheering from below faded into quiet, and Helen realised Roxburgh had finished his song.

  Yann blew on his stung hand. “I don’t think they were cheering for us.”

  Helen and Yann peered over the cliff together.

  A few selkies were brushing dust and gravel from their hair or fur. The rest were pointing fingers or fins up at Helen and Yann. All except Roxburgh, whose fists were held high in triumph, and Rona, whose head was in her hands.

  Chapter 4

  “Our apologies for disturbing you,” Yann called down.

  “How dare you interrupt our contest, you impudent half-boy!” the scarred selkie bellowed back. “You and Miss Grey’s other dry-shod friend will come down here now, and explain yourselves!”

  Helen saw a ripple of heads turn towards Rona, who was now staring straight ahead, trying to ignore her friends and the disapproving crowd.

  Helen stepped away from the edge, round the pile of spines, tentacles and gloop.

  “We should deal with our injuries first.” She pointed with her throbbing hand at the red welts on Yann’s shoulder.

  She swung down the green rucksack containing first aid equipment she’d “borrowed” from her mum’s surgery, and pulled out a blue book. She always carried an old vet student book about exotic animals, which was sometimes useful for treating wounded dragons or injured phoenixes, but for this long weekend in Sutherland, she’d borrowed a library book about first aid at sea.

  “Jellyfish,” she muttered, flicking to the index, then studying the pictures on page 27. “Moon jellyfish? Lion’s mane? Man of war? What kind of jellyfish was that, Yann?”

  “It wasn’t a real jellyfish, Helen. It was talking. It was walking. It had luggage. You’re not going to find it in your book.”

  Helen shrugged. “There’s no agreement about the best way to treat jellyfish stings anyway, and we don’t have vinegar, lemonade or toothpaste, so we’ll just have to make it up.”

  She checked their hands and Yann’s shoulder for any stray bits of tentacle, then searched her rucksack for two white plastic sachets, which she squeezed hard and shook. She threw one to Yann. “Instant cold pack. Hold it to your shoulder, with your sore hand. It might stop any swelling and dull the pain. Perhaps the selkies will suggest a better remedy.”

  “They’re not going to offer us tender loving care, Helen; they’re going to give us a row.”

  Helen swung the rucksack onto her shoulder and adjusted the fiddle on her back, then pressed the cold pack to her aching hand. By the time the next competitor started his first song, Helen and Yann were heading back to the cliff path.

  As they felt the cold packs start to work, Helen asked, “How will you get round that slippy beach?”

  “Slowly! I’m in no rush to get a bawling out from that big bull seal.”

  “Don’t worry. Once we tell them about that creature trying to attack them, and show them the stings, the ripped bag and the squished weapons, they’ll thank us rather than give us a row. Anyway, you’re twice the size of any of them. You don’t have to worry.”

  “I’m not worried about us,” muttered Yann. “I’m worried about Rona. The audience might think we tried to sabotage her main rival, then they might vote for Roxburgh rather than Rona, however well she sings.”

  Helen frowned, then winced at a couple of flat notes from the Western Isles selkie. “This one’s no competition.”

  “Will the vote be between Rona and Roxburgh?” Yann asked.

  “Probably, so long as no one throws sea urchins at Rona. She might not keep singing like Roxburgh did. He must have really impressed the audience performing right through the fight. He even sang better to cover up the noise. I don’t know if Rona could do that.”

  The fifth competitor reached the end of his last song as they reached the top of the cliff path. Helen and Yann stared at the water, shading their eyes against the glare. Helen pointed to an almost transparent pinkish blur, just under the surface, a few metres out in the flat sea. “Is that it? It looks even squidgier underwater. I think it’s still listening.”

  “If it attacks us, we can use those slimy stones as missiles. Come on.”

  But Helen sat down on the cliff edge. “Let’s wait here. Rona’s next, and I want to listen properly. I won’t be able to concentrate if I’m climbing.”

  Yann shrugged. “We’ll never get to Geodha Oran before the vote anyway, so I suppose it’ll do no harm to wait.”

  Rona started to sing, her high voice soaring over the land and sea.

  “This is how seal song should be heard …” Helen grinned and took off her rucksack, “… at a distance, mingling with wind and waves and seabirds.”

  The throbbing in her hands was dying down, and she looked up at Yann, still pressing the cold pack to the worst of the stings on his shoulder. The marks on his tanned skin now looked like thin lines from a pen rather than raised wounds from a whip.

  Helen relaxed, listening to Rona singing in her human form so she could sing the other two songs as a seal. Rona had decided to sing the same traditional song as Roxburgh, an old ballad about a selkie girl who lost her skin then her heart to a fisherman, in order to show the difference in their styles and voices.

  Rona had thought so hard about the meaning of the words, about the loss of skin and sea and family, that even though she didn’t sing with Roxburgh’s dramatic intensity, her precise voice sliced straight to the heart of the story.

  “She is amazing.” Helen closed her eyes and listened to every smooth ringing note.

  Yann murmured, “Only with your help.”

  “Nonsense, I just gave her confidence. The talent is all her
s.”

  Rona was tackling a complex run of fast notes, and Helen sat up straight to listen. She didn’t realise that she’d put the cold pack down and was fingering the notes on an imaginary fiddle until she heard Yann laugh.

  “Music really is your life, isn’t it?” he teased.

  “Absolutely! Music can tell any story, create any emotion. Music can do anything.” They listened as Rona sang loud and strong and beautiful, giving new meaning and intelligence to an old song.

  “I thought that was pretty good,” said Yann.

  “Pretty good? That was the best I’ve ever heard her sing.”

  “Better than Roxburgh?”

  “Definitely. It was the right decision to sing the same ballad. He was sobbing in his hankie for six verses, but she brought their history to life, thought it through for them, showed them it in a new way. She was perfect.”

  Yann cocked his head at the sudden silence. “Now she’s putting her sealskin on for the song you wrote together.”

  “I didn’t write it with her. That would be cheating. It’s her composition. We did work on the performance together though. I had a few ideas to make the rhythm more striking.”

  Helen wasn’t relaxing on the grass any more. She was pacing up and down, as Rona began her song about the selkies’ longing to be on land when they were in the sea, and their longing to be in the sea when they were on land, the frustration of being caught between two worlds.

  Helen strode along the edge of the cliff, her fingers finding notes in the air. As Rona launched into her soaring chorus, Helen stopped to pull a green hair bobble out of her jeans and tug her dark curly hair into a ponytail, to stop the rising wind blowing it across her face. The only other bobble in her pocket was bright pink, but she handed it to Yann anyway, to tie back his shoulder-length hair.

  She stood still, listening to the second verse, watching as the creature below ducked under the waves.

  “How’s she doing?” asked Yann softly.

  “Can’t you hear? She’s incredible!”

  Helen couldn’t stop smiling, even when a screeching line of seagulls blew over her head. She didn’t like seagulls, but this flock was tossed over the darkening sea so fast she didn’t have time to duck.