After finding a sealskin, a boy’s summer takes a haunting turn with strange events creeping ever closer to home in this atmospheric middle grade fantasy perfect for fans of The Whisperwicks and The Dark Is Rising series.

Some things, once taken, demand a price.

Jake is spending spring break with his father on New Zealand’s rugged coast—a place of towering cliffs and savage winds, with a colony of fierce seals. When he discovers a sealskin hidden in a crevice at Red Rocks, an unexplained urge compels him to take it home and hide it.

Soon, things take a strange turn. A peculiar red-haired woman wanders the streets barefoot, looking in people’s windows. Jake’s new friend Jessie seems as much at home in the freezing ocean as she is on land. Nightmares of the sea haunt his sleep, and worst of all, his father is changing—drawn to the mysterious woman in ways Jake doesn’t understand.

Jake realizes too late that the skin belongs to a selkie, and by stealing it he has unleashed an ancient and terrible spell. Can he put things right before the curse of the selkie destroys everything he holds dear?