Charlotte McConaghy

It’s almost dawn when he takes this night and destroys it with naught but a handful of words, as most things are destroyed.

Creatures that have learned to survive anything, everything, except us.

“How do you do it without a suit?”

I shrug, grin. “Seal blood.”

“Oh, aye, you’ve the dark look of them, too.”

I’ve been told this before. It’s the black hair and the black eyes and the pale, pale skin. It’s how the black Irish used to look, back in the days when folktales were true and people might really have come from the sea. It’s how my mother looks.

He said Franny Stone makes choices and the universe bends.

I touch myself to the thought of Niall Lynch.

about him. If I make of myself a thick enough shell then I will keep him safe; if I fuse myself to his skin, if I am needed, then surely we can’t be parted.

I will take a piece of you with me, Mam. You stole the breath from your own body just as I am doing. You gave me books and poetry and the will to see the world and for that I owe you everything. I’ll take the sound of the wind keening through our little wooden hut, and the smell of your salty hair and the warmth of you pressed around me. I will take a piece of you, too, Grandma, for you gave me quiet and you gave me strength, and I’m so sorry I didn’t recognize them sooner. I’ll take some of you, John, I’ll take the photo you kept on your mantel, and all the love you left inside it, waiting there long after they were gone. I’ll take each of the gifts the crows brought me, each of the treasures. I’ll take the sea with me, deep in my bones, its tides making their way through my soul. And I’ll take the feel of my daughter in my belly, I’ll take all of her, and keep her always.

But I need take nothing from you, Niall, my love. I’d rather give you something.

The nature of me. The wilderness inside. They are yours.

Once, it was birds who gave birth to a fiercer me.

GREENLAND NESTING SEASON

furred teeth. The