The Selkie's Mate by Nicola Davies

N ICOLA DAVIES

The Selkie’s mate

Illustration Claire Jenkins

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The Selkie’s Mate Published in Great Britain in 2017

by Graffeg Limited Written by Nicola Davies copyright © 2017.

Illustrated by Claire Jenkins copyright © 2017.

Designed and produced by Graffeg Limited copyright © 2017 Graffeg Limited, 24 Stradey Park Business Centre, Mwrwg Road, Llangennech, Llanelli, Carmarthenshire SA14 8YP Wales UK Tel 01554 824000 www.graffeg.com Nicola Davies is hereby identified as the author of this work in accordance with section 77 of the Copyrights, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

A CIP Catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.

ISBN 9781910862490 123456789

N ICOLA DAVIES

The Selkie's mate Illustration Claire Jenkins for Emma Corfield

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The Selkie's mate In the far north west are islands where the sea and land melt into each other in a fretwork of rocks and water. It’s hard to tell salt from fresh, sand from stone, water from sky. The landscape shifts from liquid to solid in little more than a step. The people who live there shift too, from making a living on land, to the ocean, and back again. Whether a person is on the sea or the land depends on the state of the tide, the racing of the clouds or the weather of their heart. Even the seals are not always seals, but sometimes selkies, beings who can slip off their skins, to walk on land in human form.

In this place lived a young crofter. Like all crofters, he had a cottage with deep stone walls, and a thatch of grass, held down with ropes and pebble-weights, crouched low to resist the winter gales. He had a garden to grow potatoes, walled against the wind, a field of flowers for his cow, and

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a boat for fishing. Of the three, it was the boat he favoured.

Only the very worst storms kept him ashore.

Summer and winter he launched his boat from the crescent of white sand before his croft. He would dance his boat between the rocks and islets, to gaze down into the forest world of weed and fish and cry aloud with joy to dolphins riding the tide race. Seals he loved most of all.

He watched their shadows pass beneath his keel and greeted them where they hauled out on rocks and sandbanks to rest at low tide. When they slipped back into the water as the waves rose, he wondered what it would be like to live so easily in two worlds. At night he slept with his window open. Even in his sleep he smiled to hear the sound of the waves and the piping calls of the wading birds coming up the beach with the tide.

The crofter was happy in his life, with the sea in all her moods, from the black breakers of winter with spray-streamed tops, to the silk blue calms of

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N ICOL A DAVIES

The Selkie’s mate Illustration Claire Jenkins

In a land where people flow between ocean and land, a seal and a fisherman sing together under a glowing moon. When the beautiful selkie comes to live ashore, the fisherman must promise to let her one day return to the sea.

One in a series of tales that explore the deeper, darker side of our connection with the natural world. Be ready to feel a little bit of magic, and perhaps a few shivers down the spine.

Shadows and Light series by Nicola Davies 1. The White Hare 2. Mother Cary’s Butter Knife 3. The Selkie’s Mate 4. Elias Martin

£8.99

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Children’s Fiction