Dolphin Child

by James Carmody

  One exhibit seized Lucy’s interest in particular. It was a diorama; a sort of model of the town of Merwater in perspective, showing how it might have looked two hundred and fifty or more years ago, with a crowd of model people gathered at the harbours edge. There were some figures who appeared to be drowning in the water and some men in rowing boats struggling out through the high waves towards them.

  There was a telephone handset next to the exhibit with a recorded voice to tell people what it was all about. Lucy picked it up and sat down on the bench next to the exhibit to listen.

  ‘The town of Merwater was mentioned in the Doomsday book almost a thousand years ago and as recently as two hundred and fifty years ago was still famous for its fish and the tin that was mined nearby. The scene in the exhibit in front of you shows a famous story from the town’s past, which most people think is a myth.

  The town is called “Mer” Water because legend has it that Mer people once lived here. Sometimes known as mermaids, Mer People were as comfortable in the sea as on dry land. However they were not the half-fish, half-woman that pictures and pirate stories portray. So the stories go, the Mer people all had a special connection with dolphins and so are sometimes known as Children of the Dolphins, or Mer children. At one time, it is said that almost a quarter of the population of Merwater were Children of the Dolphins. Stories recount how the locals would swim out to be with the dolphins and would work with them to bring fish to their nets.

  Since that time legend has it that there are only one or two Children of the Dolphins born in every generation. About two hundred and fifty years ago, a young girl aged ten or eleven called Susan Penhaligon told everyone in the town that she was a Mer Child too. She claimed that she could teach the other children how to become Mer children as well. Two or three-score children became her followers. The town people started to become concerned about what Susan Penhaligon was telling their children and forbade them from associating with her. Some people believed she was under the power of dark forces and called for her to be tried as a witch. Susan Penhaligon went into hiding, but her followers remained faithful to her and would steal away at first light to see her and to be with the dolphins, who they thought were a type of angel.

  On Easter Sunday in 1756 it is said that Susan Penhaligon’s followers left their homes and swam out to sea at sunrise, to perform a mystical ceremony that she had devised and which she told them would enable them to all become Mer Children like her.

  However that very morning a storm hit the coast. Of the thirty or so children that followed Susan Penhaligon out into the waves, only one boy survived. Ten or so children were drowned and washed up on the coast. Susan Penhaligon and the other children were never heard of again. They too were lost, presumed drowned at sea, but legend has it that they turned into dolphins and lived on amongst the waves.

  Some local families still believe the old stories of Mer Children and dolphins. To this day those families whose children were never found are always kind to dolphins, believing that the descendents of their lost children still swim with them. The families of the children that were washed up drowned on the beach are mistrustful of dolphins and anything to do with them.

  The diorama you see in front of you shows the townsfolk of Merwater at the harbours edge vainly trying to save the children from the storm.

  Although this story was recounted in locally printed pamphlets from about 1850 and has been passed down from mother to child for generations, there are no contemporaneous records to corroborate that these events ever actually occurred. The story of Susan Penhaligon and the Mer Children is a legend that continues to fascinate generations of visitors.’

  The recording ended and Lucy put down the handset back on its rest. Lucy felt shaky and had to sit down briefly on a bench to steady herself. She felt a strange swirl of emotions. She was pleased to learn that she was not alone and that other people might have had similar experiences to her own in the past. The story of Susan Penhaligon and the children she took to their death in the seas disturbed her though. How could associating with something so wonderful as a dolphin lead to death like that?

  Lucy thought back to Paul’s mother Mrs Treddinick and what she had said only yesterday. ‘You and your kind are dangerous’ she’d said. ‘You’ll be the death of all of us!’ Those words cut into Lucy like a knife. She wondered whether Mrs Treddinick believed the old stories and what she’d said to her son Paul about Lucy.

  Lucy glanced at her watch. She’d have to get back to Nate and Bob in a few minutes. She wandered around the museum a little more. There in another display case was one of the original pamphlets telling the story of Susan Penhaligon and there was even an old oil painting of what an artist imagined her to look like. It was a dark picture, with a girl in the foreground and the sea and leaping dolphins in the background. The girl’s eyes were too close together, Lucy thought and the dolphins in the picture all looked strange. The next room told the story of tin mining in Cornwall, but Lucy didn’t have time to look at that properly and left the small museum, still feeling disturbed by what she had just heard and seen.

  There were quite a few tourists already onboard the Merry Widow and Nate greeted her again in a friendly tone.

  ‘Hop on board young Lucy, we’re leaving in five minutes.’ Nate looked at her more closely. ‘You okay?’

  ‘You know. I’ve just been in the museum’ she replied quietly. A look of understanding passed across Nate’s face. He could imagine which displays she’d been looking at and what it meant to her.

  ‘Oh I see’ Nate replied simply. He had to busy himself with preparations to cast off and leave the harbour. Lucy went and stood at the stern of the Merry Widow. The weather had cleared up and a light breeze was coming off the sea. There were twenty or so tourists on board, cameras at the ready, eager for the glimpse of seals basking on the rocks, a great plankton-feeding basking shark perhaps, or even a dolphin.

  Lucy contented herself with standing at the bow of the boat and looking down at the low waves beneath her. She imagined Susan Penhaligon and her followers swimming out to sea and their mysterious fate. What was going through their minds when they did so? Lucy looked back at the town. Merwater was disappearing in the distance as they went round the headland. The sheer rock of the cliffs steeped up to their left.

  Nate gave the tourists a commentary over a loud speaker as they sailed along. They were heading towards a rocky outcrop a quarter of a mile from the shore. Lucy had never seen a seal in the wild and was keen to see them up close. Before long Bob cut off the engine and the Merry Widow sat quietly in the water near the seals basking on their rocks. It wasn’t possible to get up too close, but they had a good view and the tourists on the boat snapped away happily with their cameras. There were some young seals amongst the group and oohs and aahs emanated from the tourists on deck. It made Lucy think about Summer’s calf. She had only seen No-Name in her visions and had never been able to meet the tiny dolphin in real life. She longed to do so.

  On their way back Lucy scanned the sea for any sign of dolphins. At one point she saw what looked like a dorsal fin briefly breaking the surface of the water, but then it disappeared again and she could not tell whether her eyes were deceiving her and it was really only a wave. Nate beckoned her to join him and Bob in the cabin and he gave her a turn steering the vessel, as he did with all of the other children who came out on the boat and who were old enough to have a go.

  The two hours quickly passed and before she knew it, they were back at the harbour, ready to disembark and go home. Bethany would be waiting for her in the Land Rover at five o’clock. Lucy chatted to Nate and Bob for a while and then glanced at her watch. She thought she’d better go and find her aunt. She thanked both the two of them again for the trip on the boat and then headed off.

  As she started on her way back to the car park where Bethany would be waiting, there sitting on the harbour wall was Paul Treddinick. His distinctive curly hair was easy to spot. He was looking out at the
waves rolling in to shore and seemed to be frowning unhappily.

  Chapter Six:

  Spirit stirred from his waking sleep. Half of his brain was alert to the changes in the waves and the current in order to stay close enough to the surface to breathe through his blow hole. On the other half of his brain he dreamt troubling dreams.

  At first he dreamt about the girl on the rock that he and Dancer had helped. Just before he awoke though, he dreamt that there was a dolphin some distance ahead of him in the water. He couldn’t see the dolphin, as in his dream the water wasn’t clear. He clicked rapidly and using his echo location was able to ascertain the shape of a dolphin in the water. The dolphin didn’t answer though and although Spirit swam and swam towards the shape, he simply could not reach it.

  For some reason he felt that the silhouette of the dolphin ahead of him was familiar but he couldn’t say why. He desperately wanted to get to it, but the more he tried, the further away he seemed to be. Eventually the dolphin just appeared to dissolve into the water.

  Spirit woke up with a start. Dancer was already awake.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ she asked.

  ‘Oh I just, you know, had sort of a nightmare.’

  ‘Was it of a herring as long as a ship?’ joked Dancer. ‘That’s what I dream about. And that herring’s really, really hungry and chasing me!’ Spirit smiled. Already the memory of his own dream seemed less immediate, disturbing though it was.

  ‘Are you hungry?’ asked Dancer.

  ‘Actually I’m famished’ Spirit replied. They slipped away from the main pod and hunted around on the shallow seabed for flounder, but without success. As they did so, Spirit felt a tingle of anticipation run down his spine and then Lucy suddenly came into focus in the sea just in front of them, appearing as though an apparition, not quite there because her physical self was still miles away on dry land.

  Spirit had learned now that when a human pulls up the corners of its mouth, that is mostly a sign of friendliness, although not always. Lucy smiled broadly at them both. Human expressions were very hard to read. They seemed to mostly just use their faces to show how they felt, while dolphins expressed themselves in a myriad of ways; the way they swam, jumped or flicked a fin, or clicked and whistled. Even though he knew he would never fully understand the strange ways of humans, he was sure that Lucy really cared for him. He felt the same way about her. Though they were so different from each other in so many ways, he felt that somehow at a fundamental level they were quite alike.

  ‘Hi Spirit, hello Dancer’ she said. When she came to them as a vision, they were able to communicate with each other without human words or dolphin clicks and whistles. Spirit had spent many hours trying to figure out how it worked, but he just couldn’t. Somehow thoughts seemed to pass straight from her mind to his. All three of them started to glide along through the water companionably.

  ‘Did you dream of us last night?’ Spirit asked. He often asked. He’d had been enchanted to discover that Lucy had dreamt of him and the rest of the pod almost every night since she was a little girl and he was still a very young calf.

  ‘Actually, I didn’t’ admitted Lucy ‘I sort of dreamt of dolphins, but not any one in particular, I don’t think’. Spirit quickly told Lucy about his own dream. He thought that she might make a joke about it like Dancer did, but instead she seemed surprised and startled. Spirit wondered whether she was going to say something, but she seemed to hold back. Instead she changed the subject.

  ‘How did you feel about helping the little girl?’ she asked the two dolphins.

  ‘Oh, you know, when we saw her in trouble, we knew that we simply couldn’t leave her until she was safe’ said Dancer. ‘But she was scared of us, otherwise we might have been able to carry her to safety. That’s when Spirit reached out to you with his mind.’

  ‘I’d never done that before’ said Spirit, wondering why Lucy had changed the subject away from dreams and what it was that she wasn’t telling them. ‘I didn’t think I knew how to do it. I had to use all my mental energy to reach out to you. I was glad that I could though. I don’t know how we’d have helped the little girl if I hadn’t got through to you. I tried to swim up to the people splashing in the water at the edge of the beach, but they didn’t seem to understand.’

  ‘It was amazing when you contacted me’ replied Lucy. ‘It was as though an electric shock ran through my body. Every nerve stood to attention.’

  ‘Well I’m glad’ said Spirit modestly.

  ‘You were a sensation at the beach’ continued Lucy. ‘Everyone’s talking about the dolphins appearing there and hordes of people are going there now to try to catch sight of you again. It’s even been on the local TV.’

  ‘Oh I’m not going there again’ laughed Spirit hurriedly. ‘It was scary having all those arms and legs in the water around us, trying to touch and grab at me. I’m not going to put myself through that again unless I really have to.’

  ‘Why do humans go in the water like that anyway Lucy?’ asked Dancer. After all, humans are not sea creatures are they?’

  It’s difficult to explain really’ Lucy said. ‘The sun makes us feel healthy and happy and so does the sea. But we only like the sea when it’s sunny, otherwise we get too cold.’

  ‘You humans need a layer of fat round you to keep you warm’ joked Dancer.

  ‘But it’s strange isn’t it’ said Spirit thoughtfully. ‘You humans can’t really swim properly at all, well not like us anyway. You should be afraid of the sea shouldn’t you, instead of being attracted to it.’

  ‘I know’ said Lucy turning slowly in the water, ‘maybe we’d all secretly like to return to the sea again. You know scientists say that all the animals on dry land evolved from sea creatures millions of years ago. They say that whales and dolphins were land-living mammals once which evolved to return back to the sea again.’

  ‘I don’t really understand that’ said Spirit. ‘Dolphins have been the same since time itself began. That is what the elders teach us. You couldn’t just grow flippers and a blow hole could you?’ Lucy laughed and then paused for a few moments. Spirit felt that she was deciding whether to ask him something.

  ‘Spirit’ she said eventually. ‘I know its silly, but have you ever heard of humans turning into dolphins?’

  ‘No, never’ replied Spirit. ‘Not in any of the old stories that I’ve been told. Why?’

  ‘Oh, well…’ Lucy hesitated again and Spirit could tell that she was uncertain about how to continue. ‘Amongst people, there are stories about humans turning into dolphins and I just wondered….’ She trailed off.

  ‘I can ask if you like’ said Spirit, his imagination aroused. ‘I can ask Storm or some of the other older dolphins.

  ‘That would be good’ she replied. It was Spirit’s turn to become thoughtful. Her question reminded him of what Moonlight had said the day before.

  ‘Why do you think that we are linked together in this way; I mean you as a human and me as a dolphin. Is there a purpose to it?’

  ‘I don’t know, I….’ Spirit could see that Lucy’s energy was giving out and that she was fading away into the water as she and Dancer looked at her.

  ‘Goodbye Lucy’ he called to her. Then she was gone.

  ‘You really shouldn’t worry about what Moonlight said to you’ Dancer reassured him once Lucy’s image faded away into the salt water. ‘He’s never going to understand that there’s more to life than eating fish.’

  ‘But he’s right though in a way, isn’t he Dancer’ replied Spirit, his voice tinged with doubt. ‘There must be some reason for the link between me and Lucy.’

  ‘Sometimes we cannot understand the reasons for things’ said Dancer after a few moments thought, ‘but we just have to accept them. Maybe we will never discover the reason for the connection between you and Lucy, but my guess is that your life is better knowing her than not.’ Spirit looked at Dancer’s face. There was wisdom behind those normally playful eyes.

  ‘Why
do you think that Lucy asked about humans turning into dolphins?’ asked Spirit.

  ‘I don’t know’ replied Dancer. ‘Storm believes that humans are foolish creatures. He says that they’re more like children than fully grown adults and that they just pollute the seas and destroy everything around them. Maybe they actually do believe stories like that. I don’t imagine that any dolphins would though.’

  With these curious thoughts still fresh in their minds, they swam back to join the rest of their pod, still hungry. It would be better to hunt all together. When they got nearer, Summer’s young calf No-Name saw them and swam enthusiastically towards them. The little calf became separated from his mother’s side doing so and before anyone quite realised, No-Name was some tens of metres away from both Summer and Dancer and Spirit.

  Vulnerable and alone, he could fall easy prey to any larger predators that might be prowling the waters. As if to confirm their worst fears, suddenly the white and black bulk of a killer whale appeared off to one side of the calf, swimming rapidly in No-Name’s direction, appearing as if from nowhere.

  Spirit himself had been the subject of an attack by orcas only a few months before and knew just how dangerous they could be. He had learned a lot since then and gained greatly in confidence, but orcas still scared him.

  ‘Orcas!’ he cried as loud as he could. He could tell that the same thought passed through Dancer’s mind as his. The orcas would try to attack No-Name. It was always easier for them to attack the young, weak and inexperienced dolphins in the pod. A calf makes an easy meal for a pack of hungry killer whales.