A warm salty breeze lifted the acrid smell of the canals away from Luna's face for a moment and she sighed with relief. She hated the trips to Port Aurelia, "A necessary evil" Finn called them, although Luna always noticed how he seemed at-home in the chaotic city.
Luna was old enough to know that the "necessary evil" was the money they came to beg from wealthy donors, after all, they couldn't always rely on trading stories and the good will of others to keep The Driftwood afloat and it's sails mended. Of course, the trips to Port Aurelia weren't all bad; there was the library, truly one of the best in the Star-Shell sea, second only to The Driftwood if Luna was to rank them.
"What about a memory pearl?" Finn called out to her. Luna saw him standing by a rough table that a woman had set up in an alleyway. "Fishwives' tales, and a scam for tourists," Luna called back, "And I told you not to buy me anything." Luna kept walking, forcing Finn to catch up with her. In a mock scolding voice, he quipped, "I think I've taught you better than to dismiss tales. Although I suspect you're right that those ones were fake." He glanced over his shoulder as though to make sure they weren't being followed. "But as for not getting you something, it's too late for that." Finn pulled a package carefully wrapped in a linen cloth from his pack and handed it to Luna - "Happy birthday," he said. Luna took the package and examined it for a moment. "Let me guess, it's a book," she said. "Well, you do like books," Finn prodded back. Unwrapping it, Luna half-expected another pirate adventure, but what was inside was one of the oldest books she'd ever held, although it was in remarkably good condition for its age. Carefully opening the book, Luna read the fading transcription of the title, "The Memory Pearl." She shot Finn an indignant look. "Like you said - Fishwives' tales," he shot back, and then turning, headed off for the docks.
That night as The Driftwood sailed out of the harbor, chasing a lead on a story that Finn had found in some benefactor's private library, Luna settled down to read her new book by moonlight. It told the story of giant clams; as these clams sat in the sand, they filtered the memories of the sea from the water. Some of these particularly poignant memories would get stuck in the clam and over time grow into pearls. The pearls had been prized above all other treasures as you could hold them and experience the memory. Some efforts had been made to breed a smaller clam that could filter memories, and the book detailed a number of scams that had taken wealthy Port Aurelians; however, in the end, the last of the giant clams seemed to have been lost, destroyed by excessive pearl hunting. The real memory pearls probably numbered less than one thousand and were all locked away in the collections of the old families.
They were at sea for six days when Luna spotted land in the distance. The chart room on The Driftwood, usually a disorganized mess, had become pure chaos. Finn had pulled maps of all the known parts of the sea, and many of the unknown parts, laying them out and tracing intersecting lines on them. The island they came upon was small; on one side, high cliffs rose up straight from the water; on the other side, a sandy beach and protected harbor offered easy access. Lowering the anchor and going ashore, they started to explore.
"What are we looking for?" Luna asked after they'd wandered about the whole perimeter of the island. "A story," Finn said, "we'll know when we've found it." Sighing, Luna trudged on, following Finn as he pushed through the dense trees towards the top of the island's cliffs. One minute Luna was walking along, and the next she was falling. Shocked, she cried out, and then all of a sudden it was black, and then she hit the water with a splash. Kicking to the surface, she took a breath and looked around. It was dark with a single point of light high above her. She must have fallen into a cave. As she let her eyes adjust to the darkness, she noticed the faint blue glow around her - the sunlight filtering in through the water; this must be a grotto. Diving under, Luna spun around looking for the exit, and then she saw it - a giant clam.
Luna didn't believe her eyes at first; she had to dive down three times, actually touching the clam to make sure it matched the description in her book. Floating on the surface, she tried to remember how the book had described the clams being opened. It was a fairly intensive process if Luna recalled - and a good chance it would kill the clam, part of what had driven them to extinction. She remembered the story of the first tide and how humans had poisoned the sea, and the mermaid's lullaby how humans had hunted the mermaids, and finally the greed of the fisherman's wife, and Luna's own greed. "Humans really need to learn to live with the sea," Luna thought, but that thought stirred in her a memory, a memory from before she came to The Driftwood. Suddenly, large bubbles appeared on the surface. Diving underwater, Luna saw the clam opening; inside it, a pearl the size of a grapefruit. Quickly, Luna swam down and grabbed the pearl, snatching it just as the clam closed its shell.
Floating on the surface, Luna held the pearl closely to her chest; it felt warm. A poignant memory, Luna thought - of course, Luna's memory must have gotten stuck in the clam, causing it to open. Timidly, Luna looked at the pearl she held; something drew her to it. Leaning forward, she touched her forehead to the pearl.
Luna swam through the warm blue sea, her flippers speeding her along; she rolled and played, showing off for the other seals who were swimming with her. At last, the pod came to the rocky beach; here they surfed the waves to the shore, pulling themselves up on the rocks. Then, with the others in her pod, she carefully shed her seal skin and stood in her human form, picking up the sealskin coat from the beach and wrapping it around her as she joined the rest of the pod heading away from the beach. The transformation always felt strange - one moment she was sleek and powerful in the water, the next she was standing on two legs, her body feeling both familiar and foreign at once. It was a feeling she'd grown used to over the years, though she remembered how awkward it had felt when she first learned to change, her limbs too long and her movements uncoordinated. "What do you think this is about?" one of the women in the group asked. "I'm not sure," she replied. "It's got to be about the hunting," one of the other women offered. "Those are just rumors," she said, trying to diffuse the situation.
At last, the pod arrived at the gathering place, a series of large stones arranged in a circle around a natural depression. Within the stone circle, more than a hundred women stood, their seal skin cloaks wrapped around their shoulders. In the center, an old woman stood on a large flat stone, talking quietly to the people around her. When she noticed the pod enter, she addressed the crowd with a booming voice, "Now that we are all gathered here," she paused for dramatic effect, "I can tell you that the stories are true!" Nervous gasps let out among the crowd. "Three of our brethren were killed, the coats taken to be worn by wealthy humans." Shouting erupted from the crowd; the women assembled were angry, but then suddenly the shouting changed from anger to terror - she looked and saw them, human men gathered outside the circle of rocks, armed with large spiked clubs and closing in on them quickly. "RUN!" the old woman cried, and suddenly chaos ensued. She turned to run back the way she'd come but found her way blocked by a man with a club; one of her friends ran at him, but she turned and ran the other way as she watched the man draw back his club and prepare to swing. She felt a rough hand grab her wrist and saw a club raised high in the air out of the corner of her eye, but she quickly slipped the grasp and just kept running. At last, she reached the water and, quickly donning her seal skin, dove beneath the waves.
From around the island, they all eventually gathered in one bay - what once had been many pods was now only about twenty of them. They watched from the water as men loaded a boat with their friends' coats and left. Feeling it was safe, they came ashore and, once again slipping off their seal skin, taking stock of what had transpired. She was sickened by what she saw; at least one hundred women lay dead in the stone ring, their coats taken and their bodies left bare. One by one, those that remained brought each body to the sea and carefully wrapped it in seaweed and set it adrift, humming a sorrowful melody as they went.
With the task of tending to the dead complete, the women sat on the beach in silence. Eventually, one of them spoke up, "We have to leave." "Where can we go?" another asked. "Across the Morrowline," another suggested, then added, "the humans can't cross it; we'll be safe on the other side." There was some whispered discussion before one of the women spoke up, "You don't know if we can cross it, and if we can, you don't know if we can come back." More whispering. She spoke up, "We cannot be safe here, and so what if it is not safe to cross; at least we're not waiting to be hunted." Many of the women started to nod their heads. She stood up, now addressing the crowd more directly, "We know where the line is, three days' swim that way, past their ports, and boats, and nets, and clubs, but if we stick together, I know we can make it."
Donning their seal skins once more, the women followed her as she stepped into the sea and began the swim that would take them from this world forever, never to return.
Luna felt the warmth of the pearl on her forehead and opened her eyes; she was still in the grotto floating. The memory had been so vivid it felt like she'd been that Selkie woman, experiencing her final moments in this world, yet judging from the light coming from the water, no time had passed.
Diving down, Luna swam for the cave entrance; it was long, but she was a strong swimmer, and the memory of the woman seemed to give her strength to swim that she hadn't before. Emerging from the cave, she kicked to the surface and found herself bobbing with the waves near the island's cliffs.
Getting back up on the land, Luna started to call out Finn's name while making her way to the beach. She heard him call back, "Luna!" then "Luna! I'm at the beach; can you walk!?" "Yes!" Luna said, smiling. She walked the rest of the way to the beach in silence, holding the warm pearl by her side.
When she reached the beach, Finn was waiting eagerly by the rowboat. "What happened?" he asked. "I fell into a grotto," Luna said matter-of-factly. "Oh, and I found this." She said, holding up the pearl. Finn stared in shock - "Is it..." he started to ask, then trailed off. "Can I?" another half-formed sentence, but one that Luna understood well enough. She handed the pearl to Finn, who pressed it to his forehead.
The pearl had barely touched Finn's forehead when he lowered it down and looked at Luna - "The last Selkies," he said. "What?" Luna asked. "Selkies," Finn said, "the creatures, seals in the water but able to shed their seal skin to take human form on land. We have stories of them in the Star-Shell sea long ago, but why they left and how, we haven't known until now."
Back aboard The Driftwood, Finn set about transcribing the story they had both experienced. Luna flipped through the old book on Memory pearls. "What should we do with it?" Finn asked, handing the memory pearl to Luna. "We could sell it," Luna mused. "After all, they are priceless; no more going to donors to beg for money." Pausing, she thought for a moment and said, "I think we should wait till we're far from this island and then throw it back into the sea." Finn smiled, "Sure, after all, it is your birthday gift!"