The wind whips at my curls and I close my eyes against its biting touch and breathe deep, taking in the taste of salt coming off the ocean below me and the smell of seaweed rotting on the rocks nearby. It’s better, being close to the water. One day in Glasgow made me feel like I was going to itch out of my skin.

Kit always talks about Glasgow like it was some kind of mecca, like it’s the most exciting place that he dreams of visiting some day, but I just found it… disappointing. I don’t think I’m made for cities. My mum and her land family lived on the coast in a quiet village, and so does Kit. If I have to be on land, I think that’s where I’d rather be. Not dodging buses and stepping in puddles of other people’s piss.

Rolling my shoulders, I readjust my pack and feel for the familiar, reassuring weight of my pelt, and then I sigh and turn my face fully to the cold air. We’re still hours out from the island, but I can already hear the singing: the soft, echoing cries of my herd calling out through the night. I can’t see anything; it’s too dark for that. But I can hear them.

I think about singing back to them, but I don’t think this human voice could carry the tune.

Kit’s can, a bit. He sounds stupid, but he still tries. I like to sing to him sometimes, when I’m around the coast near his house. I’ll send out a hello when he’s on a boat or walking down the coast, and he’ll stop and mimic it back to me. The words are garbled, but the message is clear enough:

Hello, friend. I miss you.

It helps the time between land days go by; helps me know he’s safe. I don’t know if he knows what he’s saying; I know he can hear the songs, but I don’t know if he can understand them. I’ve never asked.

There are a lot of things I wish I’d asked him. But the best thing about land days — Kit days — is the way they bring a smile to his face. Over the years I’ve learnt the things that erase that smile. Thomas. Selkies. The future.

I try to avoid those things on Kit days.

There’s a tradition to my visits, one we developed quickly and that I stick to rigidly. He’s always waiting for me on the rocks with clothes and a hug. He brings the blue wool jumper — the one that he took from Cormac, the one that smells like cigar smoke and brine and the sweet woody smell of his house. He makes me something rich and dark to drink that isn’t tea but tastes like smoke and sugar, and then we sit.