Midnight Dolphin (16 page)

‘
You mean it’s
Nate’s boat, the Lady Thelma?’ Lucy asked. She rose towards the
surface of the water, hoping to catch a glimpse of the Lady
Thelma’s homely hull.

‘
The boat’s
about two miles from here’ replied Spirit.

‘
But it sounds
so close’ said Lucy. ‘Can we go and see it, please?’ Spirit
suppressed a chuckle.

‘
Of course’ he
replied. ‘Why not?’ He glanced at Dancer who’d just swum over. ‘Are
you coming too?’ he asked.

‘
What are you
waiting for?’ she replied. ‘I bet I get there before you two sleepy
heads!’ With that, Dancer was off. Spirit sped off in pursuit
leaving Lucy to catch up. She glided through the water
effortlessly, but it was still hard for her to go as fast as the
two dolphins. Spirit hung back a little till she reached him.
Dancer was far ahead now and he had no chance of catching up with
her.

Before long
they swam up to the Lady Thelma. Lucy and the dolphins broke the
surface of the water and she saw the familiar shape of the small
fishing vessel. The Lady Thelma still needed a lick of paint and
had seen better days, but Lucy had a lot of affection for the old
tub, as Nate called it. There was the small wheel-house on top.
They approached from the front of the boat. Spirit and Lucy caught
up with Dancer and the three of them swam along abreast of each
other. Lucy could see that Nate was standing at the prow, leaning
with his face on his hands staring absently out to sea. Bob must be
in the wheel-house, Lucy thought.

The two
dolphins broke the surface of the water in shallow leap, and so did
Lucy. She wondered if Nate could see her too. She knew that
ordinary people would not be able to do so, but perhaps Nate was
more attuned to the mysteries of the deep. He was a fisherman from
Merwater after all. Maybe he would see her with Spirit and Dancer
and think that she was a mermaid.

She could see
that the two dolphins had certainly drawn his attention, but she
could not tell if he saw her too. It was strange to be so close in
this altered state to someone she knew so well. What would he think
if he knew? He looked sad though. Normally Nate’s ruddy middle-aged
face was set in an expression of warmth and cheerfulness. This time
she could see that he looked morose and unhappy. She wondered why.
She certainly couldn’t ask him, even though now they were barely
three metres away from him. Spirit, Dancer and Lucy turned and swam
alongside the vessel, even if it was much slower than they
were.

‘
Can we leap
high enough for me to see Nate’s face better?’ asked Lucy. Spirit
inclined his head in agreement and a moment later all three of them
were in mid-air, as high as the wheel-house of the boat. Nate
turned to see the spectacle and Bob was calling something from
inside, but Lucy could see that his baggy eyes were red and his
face looked drawn. The three of them sliced back cleanly into the
water. After a while they left to return to the pod. Lucy felt
worried for Nate and for Thelma too. What could cause a tough
resilient fisherman like Nate to look so miserable?

The clear
morning light was shining through the windows of the hospital.
Curtains had been drawn back and nurses bustled in and out of the
ward as the building stirred into life and its staff went about
their everyday routines. Lucy lay there, as perfectly still as she
had been the day before. Not a muscle in her face or body had
moved. Dad sat there in the day chair next to her, his arms folded
and his eyes closed, his head lolling to one side uncomfortably as
he slept. The rays of the sun stirred Dad from his slumbers and he
blinked slowly as he regained consciousness. His neck felt stiff
and uncomfortable and he massaged it with his hand. A nurse came up
to check on Lucy’s heart-rate and blood-pressure monitors.
Everything was as it had been when the last nurse had checked in
the middle of the night. The nurse’s shifts changed at six thirty
and now the nurse was an efficient-looking Afro-Caribbean lady with
a warm accent.

‘
No change to
Sleeping-Beauty?’ asked the nurse with a sympathetic smile. Dad
shook his head.

‘
Well maybe
her prince will come today.’ Dad still felt exhausted and hardly
had the energy to reply. ‘But you looked very tired Mr Parr. If
Lucy’s not come round by tonight it would be good for you if you
sleep in your own bed getting some proper rest.’

‘
We’ll see’ he
replied. He knew he wouldn’t leave Lucy’s side till she was on the
mend but he wasn’t going to tell her that. The nurse went on to
another patient. ‘
Sleeping
Beauty
’ Dad thought to himself. If only it
was as easy as a kiss. He leant over and pressed his lips gently to
Lucy’s forehead. She didn’t move. ‘
Well I
suppose a father’s kiss doesn’t count anyway
.’

‘
I think that
Lucy should pay a visit to Sunlight’ announced Storm when the three
of them returned to the rest of the pod. ‘She knows more than most
of us about the relationship between dolphins and humans.’ Lucy had
found out in the Merwater museum about the story of Susan
Penhaligon and how more than two hundred years ago she had led a
group of children into the sea where they believed they would turn
into dolphins. Sunlight was from a strange pod of dolphins who
believed themselves to be descended from those children. She had
escaped that pod for another to lead a life free from that sad
legacy and had taken the name Sunlight to renounce her
past.

Half an hour
later Lucy felt optimistic as she, Spirit and Dancer sped along,
breaking the tips of the low waves as they journeyed towards the
part of the ocean where they knew that Sunlight’s pod tended to
stay. Spirit and Dancer were hungry and they broke their journey to
hunt a shoal of sprat that they came across by chance. Lucy didn’t
feel any hunger at all and she hung in the water, watching with
amusement as the two dolphins turned lithely, hunting the flashes
of silver-backed fish in the water. After the two dolphins had had
enough to eat they continued on their way.

Dancer called
ahead, her whistles echoing far across the ocean to announce their
imminent arrival, and presently they heard the reply of the other
pod, not so very far away. Sunlight and the other dolphins of her
pod were resting in the midst of a kelp forest that rose up from a
few meters below them. The green tendrils of kelp swayed
languorously in the water. They had fed well that morning and were
content to rest, play and talk.

They were
immensely curious as Dancer and Spirit arrived, accompanied by
Lucy. They crowded around, looking at the human girl with keen
interest, emitting echo-location clicks to study her, but were
surprised when no echoes bounced back from where Lucy was in the
water.

A young calf
swam up to touch Lucy, but instead the calf simply glidinged
through where it appeared that Lucy was floating.

‘
It’s as
though she’s a ghost’ exclaimed one of the pod.

‘
This is Lucy’
explained Spirit. ‘You all know that I am a Child-Seer and that
Lucy is a Dolphin-Child. Normally she only comes to me for short
visits, but this time her real self has been hurt in an accident
and somehow she is able to stay with me much longer. We wanted to
speak to you Sunlight’ he continued, turning to look at the older
dolphin.

Dancer and
Spirit spoke politely to the elders of the pod for a short while,
exchanging the traditional greetings and news. Eventually Spirit
caught Sunlight’s eye again.

‘
Come, swim
with me’ she said to Spirit and Lucy. Dancer sensed it was better
for her to stay and to continue to talk to the pod elders. Spirit
and Lucy followed Sunlight as they worked their way through the
kelp forest.

Presently
Sunlight turned and they paused in an open patch of water just near
the kelp.

‘
Can I talk to
you Lucy?’ asked Sunlight, almost shyly. All Lucy could hear though
were whistles. She was able to speak to Spirit with her mind,
without the use of either human words or dolphin whistles. She
could speak to Dancer in the same way, but she had never been able
to do so with Storm or the other dolphins in the pod. She’d thought
that since Sunlight was born of a pod that carried human names,
they might also be able to communicate telepathically. She was
disappointed that they could not.

‘
I can
translate’ said Spirit to Sunlight. He explained in more detail how
Lucy had come to them. Sunlight looked at Lucy with troubled,
searching eyes.

‘
The name
handed down to me through the generations is a human one; Susan
Penhaligon. My pod believed that by some magic they were descended
from humans that gave up arms and legs for fins and tails and
became dolphins in the sea. I could not share that belief and fled
them to find a life elsewhere.’

Spirit
translated. Lucy was anxious to find out something, anything that
might help her in her plight.

‘
Tell her that
before I had my injury I was worried about losing my gift; that I
thought I’d never be able to see or speak to you again.’ Spirit
turned to Sunlight and recounted what Lucy had said. ‘Tell her I’m
worried that if I return to my physical body, I will never see
Spirit or the rest of you all again.’ Lucy’s eyes flicked between
the two dolphins in front of her. ‘And I so desperately want to
stay here with you. More than anything!’

‘
Dear Lucy’
replied Sunlight, looking at the slight human girl floating in
front of her in the water. ‘I have no answers and know no truths.
The story of the pod I was born into is a sad one. If humans turned
into dolphins, why do some say that human bodies were washed up on
the shore all those years ago?’ She shook her head. ‘Were those
children transformed into dolphins, or did my ancestors take human
names because of their guilt and remorse? I wish I
knew.’

‘
Sunlight’
said Spirit. ‘Please tell us anything you can that might be able to
help us. We don’t know who else to turn to for guidance. If there
is anything that you can remember from your time as a calf,
anything at all, please tell us.’

Sunlight
looked off into the distance, as if she was looking back in time.
It felt to Lucy that they waited a long time before the older
dolphin replied.

‘
Spirit. Have
you ever heard of the Three Green Caves?’ said Sunlight eventually.
Spirit shook his head. ‘I thought perhaps Storm or one of the
others in your pod might have told you the story. There was once an
old dolphin in this part of the ocean. Shimmer was her
name.’

‘
Yes I have
met Shimmer’ replied Spirit. ‘But she is no longer with
us.’

‘
That is
right’ Sunlight went on. She paused while Spirit translated for
Lucy. ‘When I was young my mother told us the story of the Three
Green Caves. I thought it was just a story from my pod. The thing
is when I met Shimmer years later, she told me that she had heard
the same story as well.’

‘
And what is
that story’ asked Spirit curiously. Sunlight paused.

‘
It is said
that if dolphin and child meet at the green caves when the full
moon is highest in the sky, that their union will last for all
their lives.’

‘
But where are
these caves?’ asked Lucy excitedly through Spirit. Sunlight looked
sadly at Spirit and Lucy.

‘
I wish I
knew’ she replied.

‘
They must be
somewhere along the coast round here’ said Lucy, fired with
enthusiasm. ‘It’s just a matter of looking isn’t it?’ Sunlight
sighed and regarded Lucy with compassionate eyes.

‘
But Shimmer’s
own sister was a Child-Seer’ exclaimed Spirit. ‘She told me that
her sister became weak because she spent so much time with a human
child and neglected her pod. She told me that her sister spent long
periods of time away from her own pod, and then disappeared. She
said that she thought that her sister was weakened and then killed
by orcas. She warned me against doing the same thing.’

‘
Did Shimmer
know where the Three Green Caves were?’ asked Lucy
insistently.

‘
She did not’
replied Sunlight quietly. ‘Shimmer told me that she believed that
it was because her sister had been looking for those caves so hard
that that is how she came to be killed.’

The three of
them swum slowly back across the sea to join the rest of their own
pod. It was Star-Gazer that noticed first.

‘
Lucy, you’re
looking paler’ she exclaimed when the three of them reached the
others. Spirit looked at Lucy, but couldn’t see any
difference.

‘
Yes, she’s
definitely looking less clear. You can almost see right through
her’ agreed Chaser.

‘
She’s fading’
said Summer. Now that Spirit looked again, he could see that Lucy
was becoming more indistinct than she had been the day before, or
even that morning.

‘
No, it can’t
be’ said Lucy in alarm when Dancer explained what everyone was
saying. ‘I’ve only just got here. I want to stay with you and look
for the Three Green Caves.’

‘
But your real
self, your physical self is sick. The energy it takes for you to
project yourself here with your mind must be enormous. You’ve never
sustained it for so long before. Maybe your body just can’t manage
it any more’ speculated Star-Gazer, full of worry.