Chapter 18
Aileana
She walked back to the cottage after she spent the night in Kendrick’s arms. His home was about a mile up the coast from her grandmother’s. As she entered the cozy home, she was met with the smells of Scottish brown bread baking in her seanmhair’s oven.
The fragrant aroma of the fresh bread took her back to her childhood summers in Scotland with her grandmother. She loved her seanmhair’s wonderful Scot’s country cooking and her folk tales, she just hadn’t realized that some of the tales weren’t fiction.
As Aileana moved to give her seanmhair good morning hug and kiss, Skye eyed her and said, “What has placed that smile upon yer face? Are ye just getting in, or were ye up early and just returned from a walk? This old lady is curious and wants to ken what mah ban-ogha is doing this bonnie morning.”
Aileana sat at the small square table near the fireplace with her grandmother to enjoy their breakfast of warm brown bread with fresh sweet butter, Lorne sausage, and eggs. She chuckled to herself, thinking the Scots sure knew how to eat, and they ate big at breakfast time. She would have to make sure she got a daily jog in to keep from getting big as a walrus. It wasn’t too hard to enjoy her runs on the beach next to the cliffs, and it was a fantastic way to keep the weight in check and the heart healthy after the substantial Scottish meals.
But now was the time to talk to her seanmhair about her stories of the Selkies. Aileana needed to find out what her seanmhair knew of the Selkies. She had thought the stories of Selkies were only fairy tales told to children; it turned out they weren’t just folk tales.
“Tell me about the Selkies. I want to know what you know of them, Seanmhair.”
She replied, “Have ye found yersel’ a Selkie, ban-ogha? I once had an extraordinarily handsome Selkie choose me to be his life mate. We were happy for many years.”
“Seanmhair, what do you mean you were his life mate? Does that make Daddy a Selkie if you had a life mate”?
“So ye do have a Selkie. Ye would have to have a Selkie to have knowledge about a life mate. Yes, yer father was a Selkie, but nay longer. He gave up his skin and his memories of his Selkie life when he decided to marry yer mother.”
“Does Mom know that Daddy was a Selkie? Why would he give up his skin and not be a Selkie any longer?”
“Yer mother has no idea yer father was once a Selkie, and he has no memory of being a Selkie either. The reason was love, not just the love for yer mother, but also for the work he was doing with the Ocean Research Center in Malibu. He felt he could make more of a contribution to the Selkies by living on the land. He wanted to make a difference with the knowledge he had gained as a Selkie.”
Her seanmhair went on to tell Aileana that by destroying his skin he would not be able to return to the sea as a Selkie. Also by destroying his pelt, he would not have any memories of ever being a Selkie. He still kept his knowledge of the sea, but not the understanding of how he knew it. It made it much easier to live as a human if you had no memory of your prior life. What her father had done was a big sacrifice, which few Selkies would ever do.
She asked her seanmhair to tell her about her Selkie grandfather and what had actually happened to him? Did he leave her and go back to the sea, even though she was his life mate? This new knowledge of her family’s roots was astonishing, to say the least.
“Weel, mah story began when I was dancing at our local highland games. It was the year I turned sixteen. While I was on stage, I noticed a huge young man striding toward the edge of the stage. This stranger was so handsome with his long black hair, and there was something about him that drew my eyes to him.”
“So, Seanmhair, was he was a guy from the village?”
“Nay, I had never seen him before, I would have remembered such a tall handsome man. He watched me as if he knew who I was. At first, I was somewhat nervous because his eyes never wavered while he watched me as I continued my dance.”
“So what happened, what did he say to you, Seanmhair?”
Her grandmother started to laugh as she continued her story. “After I finished my dance and walked off the stage, he strode over to me big as ye, please. He then looked me in the eyes with those dark brown eyes of his, and he said the most outrageous statement to me. He told me he’d had a vision of meeting a bonnie, green-eyed lass, with long auburn curls that would become his mate.”
“Oh, that sounds like something I would hear coming out of Kendrick’s mouth. It must be a Selkie thing.” She laughed at the thought of her grandfather making such a bold declaration.
“Yer grandfather courted and wooed me, then he won mah parents’ approval. Mah parents understood mah Mackenzie Sutherland wasn’t going to take no, fur an answer. Mah parents said yes because they could see how much he loved me. He also promised to buy a cottage near the village, so I would never be far from mah parents. Even then this was a big step for a sixteen-year-old lass.”
“Did you know he was a Selkie then?”
“Nay, I didn’t find out till mah wedding night. He explained what being a Selkie meant, he also told me that because I was his life mate he would never leave me to return to the sea. He bought this cottage I live in now because it is so close to the ocean. That by living here he would be able to take short Selkie swims. And that would be enough for him as long as he had me,” she said with a wistful smile.
“Seanmhair, I hope I haven’t upset you with all my questions?”
“Aileana, that was the most incredible and blissful part of mah life. I was then blessed again when our son, yer father Iain was born. After yer father’s seventh birthday it became clear Iain was also a Selkie. Yer father loved going out with Mackenzie in his boat, yer grandfather fished to make a living for us. Plus every once in a while he’d find gold coins off the shore, in ancient ships that had gone down in storms long ago.”
“That explains a lot why Dad loves the sea so much.”
“Yer father, even as a young balach, he dreamed of becoming an oceanographer to study plants and animals in the sea. He wanted to make a difference to humans and to his father’s Selkie Clan.”
“What happened to my grandfather?”
“Mackenzie had made a trip inland to deliver his fresh-caught fish to the Hotel Lairg’s restaurant. On the ninety-minute trip back home, some young people took a bend in the road and swung wide hitting Mackenzie’s vehicle head-on. No one survived the crash.” As Skye told her story her arms wrapped around herself as if to give her comfort at losing her Selkie husband.
“Seanmhair, you must have been rather young when all this happened? Did you ever think about remarrying?” Aileana asked.
“I was only thirty-three years old back when it happened, and yer father a young balach of twelve. Iain lost his father, but I lost mah best friend, mah lover and mah life mate. After Mackenzie’s death, I worked in one of the restaurants in town making baked goods. I did try dating later on, but no one could take his place in mah heart.”