Red Brian took the seal maiden 
to his house further along the shore.

They drank wine from seashells 
and slept wrapped in fishing nets

and before long, she was his wife

and in her happiness forgot even 
her first home, the waves, for a time.

The following spring they had a son.

He was born with a sealskin 
wrapped lightly around him like a coat.

Apart from that, he looked 
like any other human child.

The seal maiden hid the sealskin 
before anybody could see it.

"I'm surely tied to the earth now," the seal maiden 
whispered as she looked at the baby boy.

She wondered how much 
seal blood was in the baby.

She held her ear to the small chest 
to listen for the ocean in his heartbeat.

There it was, a whoosh from the depth.

No one else would hear it, 
only her, and the baby himself.

The seal maiden rarely went 
along the shore at night now.

All her time was spent with the baby, 
feeding and washing and singing to him.