There is a stone which sits upon the sand on the far western edge of North Berwick, away from the busier part of the beach. Most people don’t notice it, but look carefully and you will see it. It actually looks like a small standing stone, different to the rocks around it. In this tale the stone is called the ‘Hello Goodbye Stone’. For a young girl, it was the most important gift from her parents.

A SEAL raised its head above the surface of the water and looked towards the shore. It saw a fisherman standing on the sandy beach, just beyond the rocks.

The seal watched as the fisherman walked slowly backwards and forwards. He was like a soldier on guard duty, looking this way then that.

There was no one around, so he walked to the rocks which made a small cove and placed a sack on the edge of them.

Then the fisherman walked towards a small standing stone which jutted up out of the sand. This was the Hello Goodbye Stone.

The fisherman leant against it and peered up and down the beach one last time to make sure the coast was still clear. Then he looked directly at the seal and took his cap off.

This was the signal for the seal to come ashore. It swam into the miniature cove and crawled onto the sand just in front of the fisherman.

The seal made for the rocks where the fisherman had left the sack and hid behind them. Then the sack was pulled out of sight, and the fisherman waited, still checking that nobody was around.

Moments later a young girl stood up from behind the same rocks. She was wearing a beautiful hand-made dress which had been in the sack.

She was a selkie and she carried the sack, in which she had carefully placed her selkie coat.

She walked towards the fisherman and her face lit up with a smile. He wasn’t so old but had a weathered face from his years at sea, and his wrinkles crumpled as he too smiled. He opened his arms and she ran into them for a hug.

“Hello dad, I’ve missed you,” she said, hugging him tightly.

“I’ve missed you too,” said the fisherman, giving her a big bear hug in return.

“Thank you for your shells,” he said. She smiled.

They walked together along the beach towards North Berwick, where the fisherman had his house. The selkie girl was called Pearl and she was his eldest child. So she was half selkie and half human. Her mother was a selkie and her parents had once lived together. But sadly for Pearl they split up.

So since she was wee she had spent time in both her worlds. This was the time to be with her dad. They talked and laughed along the way, and when they arrived at the house they were greeted with wild screams of joy from the fisherman’s younger children, two girls and a boy.

They hugged Pearl, who they called their “selkie sister”. She had presents for them: shells and what she called “pirate treasure” that she had found at the bottom of the sea.

Then Catherine, her step-mum, came through and gave Pearl a hug. “Welcome home,” she said affectionately, “did you like the dress?” Pearl smiled. “I love it, thanks,” she said.

As the children played, the smell of cooking began to fill the house. The father was cooking Pearl’s favourite, fish pie!

“Aw, yuck,” said her younger half siblings. “Yuck, yuck, we hate fish pie,” they chanted. But in the end they ate it, and maybe even liked it.

And so Pearl spent a wonderful week with what she called her land family. Her wee sisters were called Jeanie and Maggie and the youngest was the brother Robbie. They picked berries in the woods, had picnics and sat round the fireside telling each other spooky stories.

Pearl liked to walk without shoes, feeling the ground on her feet. Sometimes she visited the Hello Goodbye Stone and left small things she’d found on her walks. As usual, time flew and soon it was time for Pearl to return to the sea. And so she said her goodbyes.

She walked with her father back to the Hello Goodbye Stone. There was no one around but her dad kept a close eye on both sides of the beach just in case.

When they reached the stone, Pearl took her selkie coat from the sack. It was always kept well away from the younger children, in case they accidentally damaged it. She held it carefully while giving the sack to her father.

“Goodbye dad,” she said. “Love you and see you again soon.”

He gave her a hug and smiled, trying to hide that he was sad. “Love you too,” he said. She knew he found saying goodbye hard. And she found it hard too. It wasn’t always easy being part of two different worlds, with two families and two homes. When she was younger she used to miss her dad when she was in the sea, and miss her mum when she was on the land.

Then her dad once said: “Always remember that at the end of a goodbye there is a hello.” That helped Pearl a lot.

And then her parents came up with the idea of the Hello Goodbye Stone. It was where she would say both hello and goodbye. But also, if she was missing someone, she could leave something on it for the other parent or family, as a way of saying ‘miss you but see you soon’. And they could do the same.

So the stone also made her feel close to the family she was not with, and usually that was all she needed to feel better. It meant her two halves could be joined, even though they were separate, and that made her feel whole. And she knew she’d soon see whoever she was missing.

Pearl walked to the nearby rocks, where before she had taken off her selkie coat. She looked to make sure no one was around, then lay down behind the rocks. In a few moments she crawled out, now a seal. She paused for a second and looked at her dad, then continued into the sea.

Pearl swam towards the island of Craigleith. She turned her head for a moment and waved at her father. Then she dived underwater to say hello to her mum.

They swam together towards Craigleith Island, where Pearl’s seal half-siblings waited on the rocks. It was time for Pearl to be with her mum and her sea family.

Pearl was part of both her worlds: sea and land. And making that possible was the greatest gift her parents had given her.