-
Not Synced
Before she knew it, the tide had turned
and Solanna had lost her sealskin.
-
Not Synced
And not only that, now she had
arms and legs and feet like a girl.
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Not Synced
She looked around frantically
for her sealskin,
-
Not Synced
couldn't see it anywhere
for an age,
-
Not Synced
and then, looking out to sea,
she saw it, bobbing on a big breaker
-
Not Synced
before it went under
and disappeared.
-
Not Synced
She tried to swim after it,
but not being a seal anymore,
-
Not Synced
she couldn't get past the waves
and was thrown back on the sand.
-
Not Synced
She started to cry loud
pitiful wails for her mother,
-
Not Synced
hitting her new legs and stamping
her new feet
-
Not Synced
and waving her long,
terrible human arms
-
Not Synced
and then she saw her mother
skim across the waves
-
Not Synced
with four salmon between her teeth.
-
Not Synced
"Mummy!"
-
Not Synced
Solanna roared into the wind
and tide, but it was useless.
-
Not Synced
It was as her mother had told her.
-
Not Synced
Now, she was a seal maiden.
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Not Synced
Alone and naked in a terrible body
that her mother would never recognise.
-
Not Synced
Even her voice
didn't sound like her own.
-
Not Synced
She watched her mother disappear
around the edge of the cliff
-
Not Synced
and wondered, would
she ever see her again?
-
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It was dark when the fisherman
found the sealmaiden.
-
Not Synced
She lay on the sand asleep
with seaweed in her hair
-
Not Synced
and the sea in her dreams.
-
Not Synced
He gathered her up and carried her
to his house along the shore
-
Not Synced
and dressed her and fed her
and tried to make her talk.
-
Not Synced
The seal maiden wept and sang
and slept through days
-
Not Synced
and nights that seemed to go on forever.
-
Not Synced
The fisherman watched and waited.
-
Not Synced
He had heard of creatures
like her before,
-
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creatures that come up out of the sea
-
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and are stranded here among us,
lost and miserable.
-
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He was kind to the creature and
taught her all he could about the earth.
-
Not Synced
At night, he could hear waves crash
and roll in her heart, louder than the waves down at the shore. The sound of the tide in her made him sad for he knew that this little seal maiden ached to be among her own kind.
-
Not Synced
But he was powerless to help her, not knowing where her sealskin was or how he might find it.
-
Not Synced
He noticed the only thing that brought her out of herself was music so he played his fiddle for her and sometimes she would sing for him all the songs she had learned under the waves.
