HER FEET SLAPPED ON the cool, slightly uneven ground. The air was crisp and full of the scent of the ocean and the sound of noisy gulls fighting over scraps nearby. She almost felt as though she could be back in San Francisco, but she also felt the echoes of her ancestors deep in her bones. She thought of her grandmother, long dead now. She wondered about her grandmother's mother, and her mother, and so on. Her people came from near this place and could have walked this ground in days long past.
She felt her blood pumping with the run and felt the rush of the ocean in her veins. She remembered her father telling her of selkies in the family tree and wondered if they'd come out of the ocean that was right beside her. King James had told her that family was important and right now, she felt
