Spirits of Ash and Foam (18 page)

Now all three felt crummy. Charlie looked around, trying to find some inspiration to change the subject. It was a gorgeous day. The sun was climbing a cloudless sky, but the spray kept things cool. He glanced from the reflection of the sun in the water to Miranda's light skin and asked, “Do
you
have sunscreen on?”

Miranda assured him she did. She knew his concern had more to do with getting out of an awkward moment than protecting her epidermis, but she was grateful for either impulse. She could help too, or so she thought. “How weird was that, last night? With the mosquitoes.”

Charlie shot a nervous look at Rain, who said, “Really weird.”

Miranda nudged her. “You were like totally a hero.”

Rain smiled and nodded with mock seriousness. “Yes. Yes, I was.”

Alonso's voice called out from the helm, “Dolphins on the portside.”

Miranda and Charlie both had to stop and think which side he meant. Rain knew her ports from her starboards, though, and immediately crossed to the other side of the boat and pointed. “I see them.”

Miranda and Charlie followed in time to see an entire pod of bottlenose dolphins taking turns breaching in the bow wave of the boat, dodging the foam and froth like it was a game. This wasn't exactly an unusual sight to Rain and Charlie, but it was still uncommon enough to be awesome. For Miranda, it was breathtaking.

Alonso called out again, “Tell the Kims.”

“They won't come out,” Rain yelled back.

“Tell 'em!”

“Fine!”

Begrudgingly, Rain entered the cabin and informed the five Kims. Wendy and John ran out to see the dolphins, which made Michael want to follow. His mother insisted he needed sunscreen first, but he whined that he'd miss the dolphins. So they compromised, and Michael agreed she could put on his sunscreen
while
he looked at the dolphins.

Rain followed Esther and Michael out onto the deck, and a queasy Fred Kim followed her. Wendy and John—with Miranda and Charlie standing directly behind them, gripping their shoulders—were already on the portside, pointing and laughing at the dolphins. Michael, his yellow shovel gripped tightly in his little hand, ran right up to the edge, and Esther made a long motherly reach to grab his arm and pull him back from the brink. He said, “Ow!” loudly and fussed and squirmed while she applied the sunscreen.

The dolphins were truly putting on a show, cavorting and playing and showing off for the
Spirit
's passengers. A few slid right up to the boat. Alonso cut the engine and let her drift.

Charlie led John aft and down the steps to the stern diving deck. Miranda followed with Wendy. Michael struggled to be released, and Mrs. Kim either gave up or felt she had slathered enough goop on the kid to let him go. He rushed off after his siblings, and Rain raced to catch up. The adult Kims followed, and even Alonso joined them.

Still firmly gripping John with his right hand, Charlie reached out with his left to stroke a dolphin that had sidled up close. John was astounded. “He let you touch him!”

“'Course he did,” Charlie said. “Because he knows I'm his brother.”

“You're not his brother,” Wendy said suspiciously.

“I am. My last name's Dauphin, and that means dolphin in French. My people and the dolphins go
way
back.”

“Yeah, well, he's still not your brother,” Rain said, “because he's a
she
.”

They all turned to look at the dolphin again, but it was disappearing beneath the surface.

“How can you tell it's a she?” Charlie asked.

“Maybe I'm using my imagination,” Rain snarked back.

“Yeah,” said Alonso. “Or maybe she could tell by the size. An adult male is longer and thicker.”

“Don't spoil the magic, Dad,” Rain said. But she wondered how she
had
known the dolphin was female. Why she was so certain of that fact.

Mr. Kim called out, “There are some on this side now.” He and his wife moved to starboard. Alonso followed them.

The kids didn't budge. “I wanna touch one,” John said. Wendy and Michael concurred.

Something broke the surface near them, but it wasn't the sleek, smooth, blue-gray skin of a dolphin. It was a wrinkly mottled brown-gray back. Wendy cringed. “Eww, what's that?”

The creature poked its head out of the water. Rain practically gasped. “It's a manatee!” This was a rare sight indeed. The manatee floated alongside the
Spirit,
watching the six children.

John looked from the manatee to Rain and back. “It's looking at you,” he told her. The manatee turned to study John, and then Wendy, before lingering to gaze at Michael with small brown eyes partially hidden by layers of fat.

“She seems so intelligent,” Miranda said. “So human.” Now the manatee was a she too.

“I've
never
been this close to one,” Charlie said.

John stretched out his arm. “I can't reach her,” he said.

Almost on cue, the manatee moved closer. Wendy and John reached out and touched her. Michael looked up at Rain and asked, “Can't she come on the boat? I don't like the water.”

“No, sorry,” Rain said, “but I won't let you fall.”

“Okay.”

Charlie and Miranda moved John and Wendy back to make room for Rain and Michael. Michael reached out and touched the manatee. Rubbed her. Rain said, “Be gentle. Stroke, don't rub.”

Pulling his hand away, Michael said, “Her skin's loose.”

Very loose. It seemed to be pulling back and off the creature in folds.

“Gross,” Wendy whispered, but all six kids were fascinated, and no one else said a word as the process continued and the skin pulled away, revealing black tendrils beneath.

Miranda found her voice. “Is she injured?”

Rain said nothing.
She's shedding her skin. Like a snake.
The black tendrils beneath the manatee's skin moved like snakes, but Rain soon realized they were something else. Hair. Black hair under the water. Long black hair framing a caramel-skinned face and big brown eyes.
It's a woman! A human woman!

Two dolphins rose up to flank the woman. One carefully took the shed manatee skin in its mouth and swam away with it. The other dolphin nudged the woman, who nodded and lifted her face out of the water. She was young and beautiful, and she smiled at Rain and the other children.

Then she dove down beneath the surface, the water sliding off her smooth bare skin as she went. Then she was gone. Like she had never been there.

Rain looked around. No dolphins either. She rubbed her eyes and said, “You'll never imagine what I just saw.”

She turned to look at Charlie and Miranda, their jaws hanging open. Charlie slowly lifted his eyes to meet Rain's. “I saw it, too,” he said.

Miranda couldn't find her voice, but she nodded frantically.

John snickered. “I saw her butt.”

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

PROOF

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 13

The three adults completely missed the best part of the show. Mr. Kim walked across the deck, saying, “Well, I think the dolphins are gone.”

His three children turned slowly to look at him, their faces registering enough awe to make him stop in his tracks. Wendy Kim spoke very slowly. “One of those dolphins was not a dolphin, Dad.”

Rain jumped in quickly. “It was a manatee! We saw a manatee over on this side.”

John said, “It was a
womanatee.
I saw her butt. Her naked butt.”

Wendy swiped at him but missed. “John, that's not appropriate.”

“Don't hit me. Use your words.”

“I didn't hit you.”

“You tried.”

Still clutching his yellow plastic shovel, Michael ran to his mother. “She turned into a lady.”

Mrs. Kim looked mystified. She looked across at Rain, who offered a ridiculously comical shrug and raised her hands as if she had no clue what those crazy kids were on about. For support, she turned to Charlie and Miranda, who mimicked her precisely.

Alonso said, “Well, you're all up on deck, so why don't we set up lunch?”

A slightly green Mr. Kim suppressed a belch, but Mrs. Kim said, “Yes, that would be lovely.”

So Alonso, Rain, Charlie and Miranda brought out tables for the food and clean towels for the deckside picnic. They brought out Iris' gourmet sandwiches, her homemade potato chips and pasta salad. They brought out ice chests with carafes of fresh-squeezed lemonade, bottled water, sodas and a few locally brewed beers. They brought out a key lime pie (made with Grandma Rose's special recipe) and fresh-baked chocolate chip cookies. Plus cloth napkins, plates, and silverware. In short, they materialized a feast.

Throughout all this prep work, Rain's mind was racing. A manatee sighting was rare enough, but a manatee that transformed into a raven-haired, golden-skinned woman was something she absolutely had to check out! She tried to justify the necessity of it by telling herself the Mighty Morphin' Manatee might lead her to the next
zemi
—but she didn't take the idea all that seriously. No, what really fueled her fire was one simple fact:
Charlie and Miranda saw the weirdness!

A plan was forming. But her father would have to cooperate. At least up to a point.

It took all her willpower, but she kept her mouth shut until the banquet was fully prepared. Meanwhile, Wendy, John and Michael had not stopped talking about the Manatee-Woman, and eventually their parents got the gist of the story. It was too fanciful to be considered a lie and way too fanciful to be considered the truth, so the parents chose to be amused and indulgent, especially since the miraculous event seemed to have distracted their children from repeating their earlier—less pleasant—behavior. Wendy seemed to briefly suspect her mother and father weren't taking them seriously, but when John started detailing scenarios to explain the magical origins of their recent visitor, Wendy dove in with her own theories and forgot to care whether her parents were true believers or not.

Once Esther Kim began preparing plates off the buffet table for her children, Rain made her move. She slid up to Alonso and said, “They'll be eating for at least a half hour, don't you think?”

Alonso said yes automatically—then instantly realized his daughter was winding up her curveball. He tried to stop her before the pitch, but …

“Then you won't mind if Charlie, Miranda and I go snorkeling while they eat.” There was definitely no question mark at the end of that question.

“Rain…”

“Dad, we're roasting. We just want to cool off. A quick dip. We'll be back on board before they get to the pie. You know, Charlie and Miranda have been out here since eight.”

She always made it sound so reasonable. Still, he had to at least try to hold the line. “Yeah, well, I've been out here since six.”

“You're right. I get it. You three go in the water; I'll do lunch duty.”

He lowered his head, soundly defeated already. This was a game they played all the time, and he almost never won. In part, this was because he knew Rain was basically a really good kid. She did her chores—not without complaint but without whining—and this week, she'd even been getting her homework done without him or Iris having to breathe down her neck. So he let her win the little victories. Though just once, he'd love to outmaneuver
her
for a change. Not today, though. “No, you go ahead. But be back before the pie.”

She jumped up, kissed his cheek and was gone, grabbing Charlie and Miranda and dragging them below.

As soon as she was in the cabin, she stripped out of the lifevest, sleeveless tee, shoes and shorts she was wearing over her swimsuit. Then she started pulling snorkels, diving masks and fins out of a cabinet. Charlie followed her lead—because he always followed her lead—but Miranda just stood there. Rain looked at her. “C'mon. You are wearing a suit, aren't you?”

“Uh, yes. Are we taking the kids swimming?”

“Um, I don't know. Maybe. After lunch. Right now, we're going snorkeling to look for that … that … For her.”

“Her?”

“Her!”

“Oh, yeah. Um, snorkeling?” Miranda had, of course, been snorkeling before, but not often and not recently. Still, she dutifully took possession of the gear Rain handed to Charlie to hand to her.

Rain removed one more item from the cabinet: her father's new underwater digital camera. His
expensive
new underwater digital camera. She decided against asking for permission. She already knew it was reserved for paying customers, but she figured the Kims weren't the diving type. Besides, Charlie and Miranda had seen
Her
too. If Rain could get some pictures—some tangible
proof
all this weird stuff was really happening—then she could tell her parents the truth. The whole truth. Thus she reasoned she was really doing her folks a favor.
If they knew, they'd
want
me to take the camera.

Two minutes later, the three thirteen-year-olds were in the water. Rain was in her element, scanning the blue for Her (in either form) or for …
a dolphin!
It was as if the bottle-nose had been waiting for Rain. It smiled, twirled and swam off leisurely. Rain waved her companions forward and set off in pursuit.

Charlie was right behind her, but Miranda was already having trouble getting the hang of the snorkel. She exhaled hard, successfully clearing it of water. But seconds later the tube flooded again, and she didn't have the breath left to clear it. She surfaced, cleared the snorkel again, caught her breath and realized she had lost track of her friends.

Charlie was swimming even with Rain when—always the gentleman—he glanced back to make sure Miranda was still with them. He spotted her, not far away, but facing the wrong direction and looking about. He tried to mark where Rain was headed and went back for Miranda.