Scorched Treachery (Imdalind #3)

by Rebecca Ethington

  We all stripped down to swimsuits and passed Celeste our clothes to hold before getting on the old school multi-person raft. Billy paddled the distance to the other shore where the ceremony would take place on the little island that sat independent of the rest of Pinhold. It was a small sanctuary, protected by a tricky current and tons of heavy trees. It had broken off from the larger landmass with the eruption of an ancient volcano, or so the legend said. It was only about two hundred square feet, and only visible when the tide was low.

  Tonight the water lapped gently when we pulled up. A combination of dark rocks and soft black sand edged the tiny land mass. I jumped from the wooden craft and ran through the shallow surf. Anticipation, adrenaline and the energy from the people waiting for us flowed through me and drew me in. I felt giddy with it.

  Thirty lava stones swirled in a sacred spiral, with members of The Guard around them. Some held torches to provide fire and light, and others beat rhythms on the stone drums that each had a slightly different tone. The tapped tones and beats sounded like ocean waves, like the ancient conversation between sea and land.

  I’d heard the drums from home over the years, but they never sounded like this before. It enveloped me, connecting me to the union of nature, time and the many who’d come here before me. I breathed in, savoring the connection, when Blake caught my eye. He smiled, and I knew he felt the same as I did.

  His grandfather and my grandmother stood in the middle of the circle. Both were Elders on the island, revered for their wisdom, athletic prowess and lifelong commitment to The Guard. Both had competed professionally on the international Surf Carnival circuit. Since Blake’s grandfather was busy running the day-to-day events on Pinhold, my grandmother had taken charge of most of our training through the years. They were expecting great things from us in the upcoming lifeguarding sport competitions, but tonight’s ceremony was a spiritual one.

  The single most important thing drilled into us year in and out was that those of us lucky enough to have homes on Pinhold had a responsibility to take care of the island and the ocean around us. Tonight’s ceremony was about renewing that commitment for the members of The Guard. But my friends and I would take the pledge for the first time.

  Can’t we just skip to the party? Mica clicked, his intense, impatient feels disturbing me. His average emotional temperature always burned higher and dipped lower then mine, which meant that his feelings more frequently influenced us. But I wasn’t about to let that happen tonight.

  Stop. Breathe. This is happening. Enjoy it, ok? I clicked back, attempting to share my happy calm.

  Gram and Stoney, Blake’s grandfather, looked at those of us here for the first time with tremendous pride. Two sets of twins—me and Mica, and Andrew and Darwen—and one mismatched pair, Blake stood by Shayla because neither of their twins were there. Around us stood a combination of our relatives, the combined generations of The Guard who’d participated in training us for this competition since we were born.

  “Welcome to First Night,” said Stoney in his rumbly voice that was so much like Blake’s. “If this is your first time here, please close your eyes. Listen, smell, taste, touch—feel the power of Pinhold. Do not rely simply on what your eyes can see. As potential members of The Guard, you must learn to read all the signs around you.”

  Following orders, I concentrated on the shadows and flashes behind my eyelids. The pounding waves, jumping fish and crackling fire reverberated in different parts of my ear. Briny saltwater and honeysuckle hit my nose on a sudden wind that shivered with expectation.

  “Tonight, you make the promise of those who’ve come before you—to protect the ocean from land, nature from man. On this First Night, we rededicate ourselves to an ancient covenant that is symbolized by this pin that represents the balance in our world. You may now open your eyes.”

  As head lifeguard, Stoney had top authority on our Island. The Guard ran the town council, beach patrol and police force, so basically everything. A flash of silver showed through his long fingers that I recognized from years of stories about our Island’s name.As the drums began to pound, Stoney placed the pin on a central stone in front of him. Like all the rocks here, it had magnetic properties. The pin needed to stand at a right angle to the ocean, representing the pivotal balance between ocean and land, animal and man. When it did, our Island, our people and the ocean stayed healthy. When it tilted, disease and disaster soon would come.

  We held our collective breath as Stoney blocked our view of the truth. He finally stepped away and smiled at our circle. Then he released his hand gently, and the pin stayed upright.

  A celebratory cheer went up all around us, and the music started again. A combination of beats, claps, clicks, and hums that I’d heard since in the cradle but never in a ceremony like this. Rhythm and music were a big part of Pinhold life. Visitors joined our weekly drum circles on the beach, and stayed to listen to the wave organ built into the cliffs that played a series of gong sounds at every high tide. The patterns we played now I knew in my bones, but they’d never come together this way. Tonight they stirred that feeling of connection and continuity that had always eluded me before.

  To the untrained ear, the clicks and whistles probably sounded like nothing more than rhythmic nonsense played along with the beat. But really, they were imitations of the sounds made by the dolphins that lived in our bay—we were inviting the dolphins to join us and witness our commitment to protect their home.

  “We call you to pledge yourself as the guardians of the sea. Witnessed by the sacred swirl, do you pledge to protect the ocean from land and the animals from man?” Stoney asked. His voice pulsed in time with the pounding drumbeats.

  “Yes,” said six voices in unison, including mine.

  “Now it is time to answer in the language of the ancients.” Stony instructed, keeping his voice low. “When I touch you, repeat after me.”

  Stony started with Mica. The strange sounds seemed to roll from his tongue with ease. Almost instantly, I could hear the dolphins chattering in the distance. My heart jumped, because the legends said we needed them to witness our pledge, but they didn’t always come around for every ritual anymore.

  As each of my friends took the vow, the dolphins’ chatter seemed to fade away sounded softer, as if they headed in the wrong direction. The tension in the crowd was palpable. When Blake spoke, the chatter got louder again, but not closer. And then my turn came.

  I inhaled deeply and it felt like I could almost see the location of the dolphins out at sea. They could hear us, but they hadn’t come to watch. For maximum success, we wanted them to come and join our swim back to the Island.

  They moved lazily in the water, playing amongst themselves. I wondered how on earth I’d reach them with my voice which was always low and scratchy. Speaking loudly never worked well for me. Then I heard their noises change as they went under the surface to play and swim, even further away from us.

  You can do this, clicked Mica, straight into my brain. Slow and low. He said the syllables silently, emphasizing all the proper points for inflection. With this info from Mica, I realized that Stony hadn’t repeated it perfectly. Somehow Mica had known which ones to listen to.

  I repeated it silently; spoke it as loudly as possible. While my voice lacked volume, I filled it with as much energy as I could to capture the attention of the dolphins. Vibrations swirled through my bones, down into the rocks, entering the water to reach the dolphins below the surface.

  The reaction was instantaneous. The dolphins repeated me sound for sound and were quickly on the move.

  “Again!” Stoney said, emphatically.

  So I did. I repeated myself five more times until the dolphins came right by us in the bay. The mood shifted with the dolphins’ arrival. When I opened my eyes and saw them in front of me I allowed myself a wide grin. There, right in front of us, was a huge pod playing in the waves. They flipped, jumped and twisted in the air—showing off with glee.

  “Well done,�
� Stony said, looking proud of is all. “Now, join our brothers and sisters in the sea, as is tradition, for a swim.”

  I took only a second to watch their silvery grey bodies moving through the water before I dove off the rocks, getting in first. While everyone in The Guard would swim, only those of us pledging for the first time had anything to prove. Mica counted the dolphins silently, stopping when he reached fifty. This pod is larger than we’ve seen in years! he clicked to me, sounding louder than usual in liquid.

  The inky-black water surrounded me and I could barely see the many silvery bodies darting around. They brushed against me, skin like neoprene, swimming in front, behind, and all around, churning the water so that they actually moved me along. I stayed underwater as long as I could, so as not to give up my spot in the middle of the large group. When I finally surfaced, a dolphin with skin brighter than the others stopped in the water, raised her head and stared. It felt like she recognized me.

  She dove back under the water, and though I didn’t get quite enough air, I followed. Underwater she nudged me forward, and as I picked up speed she came alongside me. Her smooth movement created a slipstream, a pocket in the liquid that let me stay alongside her. I focused on staying with her as we moved front of the crowd and lost track all the other dolphins and the people too.

  Underwater, time passed differently. I didn’t realize that I had forgotten to breathe ‘til I landed next to the dolphin on some jagged rocks, gasping for air. And I couldn’t move my body, no matter what I tried.

  A sharp fragment of rock dug into that soft indented space behind my ear. Blood—the dolphin's and mine—mixed in the water between us, and she looked so pale I got worried. She flopped her tail a few times, unable to get off of the rock. When I moaned in pain, she stopped doing that and looked right at me with one eye. In order to do that, she had to turn her head to the side. I blinked for a second, breaking the stare when I felt her pulse. I knew it was there. It came through my skin and into my bones, right to the spot that hurt the worst. At once, the blood clotted and the pain stopped. But I was still stranded too far away for anyone near the beach bonfire to see.

  Then Blake sprang from the ocean like a dolphin with wings, or at least that’s what it looked like to me. I tried to smile but my lips wouldn’t move and since my eyes weren’t all the way open, he set up for mouth-to-mouth. If the situation were reversed, I would have too.

  Gently he began to push on my chest, counting to thirty. Like the dolphin’s pulse, his touch went right through me. Once I could move again, I didn’t want to. Blake went forward with his plan, adjusting my throat carefully before touching his mouth on mine. At that moment, my attraction shifted from neutral to positive.

  A magnetic reversal had reset my internal compass on a molecular level and I needed to kiss him for my very existence to make sense. I felt his shock, and then his interest as he shifted gears from rescue to romance, kissing me back until we heard Mica’s panicked yell and froze in place.

  “Mica, stop, I’m fine. It’s a scratch,” I said, struggling to sit up on the rocks. I showed him the roughened skin on my shoulder that was nothing worse than a surfing thrash. Looking right into his identical silver eyes, I clicked to convince him that I wasn’t the one who needed help.

  The dolphin wriggled on the rocks next to me, chirping, clicking and whistling in a very stressed-sounding tone. The dolphins who answered her calls had followed her out of the water and on to the beach. Everyone who had completed the swim, as well as those waiting on land for the party, worked furiously to get them off the black sand which was made of tiny pieces of lava and very scratchy.

  Getting each dolphin back in the water meant lifting at least four hundred pounds of struggling muscle, turning them around and carrying them ‘til the bay was deep enough for them to swim. It was noisy and terrifying, but the other dolphins were getting the help they needed so I gave all of my attention to mine.

  “Guys, help me with her, please!” I said to Blake and Mica, putting my arms around her in order to prevent her from doing further damage to her skin. Though it felt like the sturdy rubber of a wet suit I could see from the scrapes already on her that it was as sensitive as mine.

  “On three,” Mica said. He and Blake had moved on either side of the dolphin and had wedged their arms underneath her body to protect her from the scraggy surface as we pushed her back into the welcoming sea.

  We carried her ‘til we were waist deep, releasing her as soon as it was possible. Then we all collapsed together in the water, reeling from the stress of so many dolphins breaching on the sand at once. She took a second to nuzzle us, showing gratitude to each one of us in turn. But we couldn’t stay in the happy moment for long. We needed to help the other dolphins whose clicks and whistles had gone from happy to stressed, the ones safe in the water as well as those stuck on the sand.

  Now that I was practically on top of her, I realized that she was a rare albino dolphin, not just a light-skinned one. The albino swam away from the rocks, calling the other dolphins towards her and out to sea. The ones who could turn did so and followed, leaving twenty or so gray animals struggling in the shallows. Moving as quickly as possible, I ignored my own pain to run to the others with Blake and Mica. We worked with everyone on the beach to turn the rest of the dolphins and get them back in to the ocean, happy when they finally moved to a deeper, safer part of the sea.

  Before swimming from sight, the albino turned, eyeing me just like Mica had done, as if to check that I was okay. Seemingly satisfied, she turned away and went back to the open ocean with her pod. I scrambled to shore to find my girlfriends to tell them what had happened with Blake.

  Moments later, surrounded by concerned partygoers, I sat on a bench and bit my lip to keep myself from crying. The scrape on my shoulder didn’t hurt when it happened but it sure burned during a thorough cleaning with peroxide. Billy produced a first-aid kit and used the lights on the golfie to see the damage. When I could no longer hold back the tears, Celeste pushed her way in and applied the liquid bandage herself.

  “Epic First Night, huh?” Mica joked, attempting to break the tension. He looked over at Billy for confirmation.

  “I’d say. Maybe we should always have them on the summer solstice, instead of just around it. Mad dolphin calling skills, Cami,” Billy said, giving me a gentle fist bump while Celeste continued to cover the scratches on my back.

  “Well, yeah, as long as the dolphins—and Cami—are fine,” said Blake, eyes flashing over to mine in the firelight.

  “Not totally fine,” I said, flicking my red plastic cup to make the point.

  “Boys, I think Cami needs another beer,” said Celeste, “and so do I.” Mica and Blake fell over each other moving towards the keg with Billy, while they talked about the crazy speed and the size of the pod that had joined us for the swim.

  Celeste finished her bandaging and quickly went from serious caretaker to giggly fangirl. “That was amazing!” she squealed, right into my ear.

  With every russet curl on her head bouncing with excitement, it was hard to remember she was a serious research scientist.

  “You mean embarrassing,” I said. “How am I ever going to make The Guard if some rocks and a foot of water almost made me drown?”

  “Cami, that was hardly a drowning. So what did happen out there?” she asked.

  “I’m not sure. As soon as I dove in I got carried up in their wakes, or something that felt like it,” I guessed, remembering the feeling of the albino dolphin moving me through the waves.

  “You were in a slipstream?” Celeste asked eagerly.

  I smiled.

  “Wow, that’s how moms carry their calves in the water before they can swim fast enough to keep up. I can’t believe so many of them came—and then beached. And that we got them all back in the water so fast! Why did you swim up on the rocks, anyway?” Celeste looked at me with concern.

  I paused, furrowing my forehead, considering her question. “I guess I got tur
ned in the wrong direction? I don’t remember, except that I didn’t want to come up for air and leave the slip stream,” I said.

  “Maybe you passed out under water?” she asked, looking concerned. “Either way, that albino saved you. Isn’t that a sign of fortune, according to the Island legends?”

  I nodded. Just spotting an albino was considered very good luck, but being rescued by one? I couldn’t begin to imagine what the Elders would interpret that to mean. Many of the Elders worshipped the sea instead of a more traditional religion. But my parents’ generation rejected the spirituality. If they couldn’t see it, they didn’t believe it. My grandparents weren’t like that at all. Everything was a sign, a feeling, open to interpretation based on many silent factors that only they understood.

  “Definitely a good omen for a great summer,” I said, feeling optimistic in spite of the pain.

  “That made my summer and it’s only the solstice,” Celeste said dreamily, sounding more like a little kid who’d spotted a unicorn than a research scientist.

  “Seeing that dolphin? Don’t you work with them, like all day every day?“ I asked.

  “Yes, but that one’s an anomaly. Some scientists can’t handle them because they mess up statistics, but I love the unusual ones. And that’s the first albino I’ve ever seen. In case it’s the last, I want to enjoy it. Have you ever seen her before?“

  I shrugged, thinking back to my childhood. “When I was little an albino used to come right up to our docks with her pod, I don't know if it's the same one or not. But when we were six or so they passed a law to prevent people from feeding the dolphins. It felt like we were being mean and they didn’t understand, and they stopped coming.”