Dolphin Child

by James Carmody

  ‘I have to. She’s suffering Bethany! She’s so alone and sad, I don’t think she’ll hold out much longer otherwise.’

  ‘You’ve got to find the place for real first. And you can’t just knock on the door and say let my dolphin go.’

  ‘Paul can show me’ replied Lucy, ‘and Darren says it’s the old Penrose Place on the estuary’.

  ‘I can see you’ve been doing your research’ nodded Bethany approvingly. She paused and looked intently at her niece. ‘But…, I can tell that’s not all that’s troubling you.’ Lucy looked back at Bethany and as she did so a sob caught painfully in her throat and her eyes welled up with tears. She couldn’t help herself and she cried for everything that had happened over the last year or so and for everything that might have been.

  ‘There there’ said Bethany, rocking Lucy gently in her arms. ‘It’s okay now.’ After a few minutes Lucy was able to compose herself and wiped her eyes. Bethany smiled gently.

  ‘What’s up Kiddo?’

  ‘It’s just that… Well. I feel that Spirit is part of me and that I am part of him. He lost his mother and now he’s found her again. But I….’ Lucy broke down in tears again.

  ‘… But you have not been able to find yours’ said Bethany, finally finishing the sentence for her. Lucy nodded sadly. ‘Listen Lucy’ whispered Bethany quietly, stroking her hair. ‘There is a symmetry between your life and Spirit’s, but it does not go that far. It cannot. Mum is gone. We buried her together. It was the saddest day of our lives, but we cannot bring her back with prayers and wishes, no matter how much we try. There are certain things we cannot change and that we just have to accept, no matter how painful they are.’

  ‘But it’s so unfair!’ wept Lucy into her aunt’s arms.

  Presently, when Lucy had recovered sufficiently, washed her face and blown her nose, Bethany walked Lucy up the lane to the cottage. Dad had been reading in bed and padded down in his pyjamas to let Lucy in. As she climbed the stairs she heard Bethany murmur something to him about Lucy having had a long and emotional day. In the privacy of her own little room in the cottage, she sat cross legged on the bed and stretched out with her mind to Spirit and broke the news to him that his mother was alive. Her own sense of loss seemed less acute now and Spirit’s happiness and determination were overwhelming. She had to put aside her own pain and focus on saving Star-Gazer.

  So there Lucy lay, her mind racing, in her little bed in the cottage under the wide starry night. She imagined that somewhere far above, one star was sparkling down on her more than the rest. The thought comforted her and eventually she was able to slip into a dreamless sleep.

  The next morning Dad awoke with a start. There was noise in the kitchen and his immediate thought was that there were burglars in the cottage.

  ‘Who’s there?’ he called warily as he came down the stairs.

  ‘Dad, the milks gone off’ Lucy replied.

  ‘Goodness Lucy, it’s six o’clock in the morning!’ exclaimed Dad. ‘You should be snoozing in bed’.

  ‘But we’re going out’ Lucy replied matter of factly.

  ‘Out?’

  ‘I have to see Spirit’ she replied. ‘You promised. Either let me go alone or come with me, but you said…’ Dad put up his hand and nodded, still bleary eyed. It wasn’t what he wanted to hear, but he knew that it was an inevitable part of being down here.

  ‘Okay, okay’ he replied, ‘let me get my jeans and a t-shirt on.’ Lucy wanted to cycle up to the cove and assured him that there were two bikes at the farm they could borrow. Mary was already up and doing her rounds of the farm as they tumbled out of the cottage and walked the short distance to the farmyard where the bicycles were kept in one of the sheds. She waved cheerily at them.

  Dad, still half asleep, wondered what he was doing there and why they couldn’t just drive up the lane like any sane person at six fifteen in the morning. Instead he soon found himself peddling up the lane next to Lucy on a bicycle that was way too small for him. He hadn’t cycled for what seemed like years and his legs felt like lead. Still, it felt strangely exhilarating to be up so early in the morning and to see the day stirring.

  Dad had never actually met Spirit and he had to admit that he was curious. Of course they were beautiful animals and if he hadn’t been so worried about the danger they represented to Lucy, he’d have been thrilled to see them. As it was, he was there only grudgingly and against his better nature to try to protect his daughter until all of this was over and she could be normal again. He hoped it would be soon.

  They came up to the main coast road and cycled along it for a short distance before Lucy pulled off by the gate with the stile and sign to the path. They hoisted their bikes over and leant them out of sight against the hedge on the other side. Lucy clearly knew the path well and Dad followed her, still stifling the occasional yawn.

  Dad slipped and slithered his way down the steep path leading to Old Man’s Cove, while Lucy bounded down it in front of him. He felt like he’d done a day’s work already and when they finally got to the bottom, he planted himself on a boulder to recover. It was a lovely little spot he thought, just the place for a picnic and a paddle. Dad looked out to sea, irresistibly drawn to the far horizon and the prospect of being able to see a dolphin break the surface of the sea. He thought he saw one, but it was just a wave.

  In the meantime, out of sight, Lucy had squeezed herself into her wetsuit and pulling up the zip at the back, she walked over the pebbles on her bare feet. Then she made her way down to the shoreline and stood with her feet in the water, staring intently out to sea. Dad was struck at how focused and alert his daughter was and how…., well how much like Megan she was in the early days of their marriage. All he wanted to do was to protect Lucy from all this, he thought to himself. All this danger in beauty. Was he right to trust Thelma Merryweather so much?

  He thought about dragging Lucy away, up the path, into the car and back home as far away as they could possibly get from the coast. Yet at the same time Dad knew that it was futile and that the force that exerted itself on Lucy would still apply wherever he took her. He could never stop her reaching out to Spirit and the other dolphins with her mind if she wanted. It was no good; he knew he could not protect his little girl in the way that he would like. ‘Ride the wave, ride the wave’ he murmured to himself. ‘Time will do its work and she will be a normal girl again.’ Lucy glanced back at Dad.

  ‘I’m sure he will come to us soon’ she called with a smile. She turned back to look at the sea. Minutes past and Dad could see that Lucy started to shift restlessly as she waited. He decided to slip off his shoes and socks, roll up his jeans and wade out into the shallows to where Lucy was waiting.

  ‘What’s up then Luce?’ he asked conversationally. Lucy shook her head.

  ‘I have an idea…but…’ she replied, trailing off. Dad could tell that she was reluctant to tell him and he didn’t press the issue. It was natural enough that she would not want to tell him everything that was going on, after all the resistance that he had put up to this dolphin business in the past.

  More time slipped by and from the expression on Lucy’s face, it was obvious that she no longer thought that Spirit would be coming.

  ‘Don’t worry’ he said, ‘I’m sure he’ll come some other day’. Inside though, Dad was secretly pleased. Was this a tell tale sign that the bonds between girl and dolphin were already weakening? He hoped so, though he could tell that Lucy was a little upset.

  ‘I have to reach out to him’ Lucy replied simply. ‘With my mind I mean.’ Dad watched as Lucy walked over to a boulder and settled down to focus herself and attain the mental state necessary to reach out to Spirit. Despite the fact that Lucy was his daughter and that they shared the same house, Dad had never actually seen Lucy do this before. He felt like an interloper, rudely intruding on this private moment. He’d heard a little about it, but even Thelma Merryweather didn’t know exactly how it happened. It seemed to be a mystery to all but Lucy herself.


  Dad watched curiously. There was not much to see, but after a while it seemed as though Lucy had become completely disconnected from her immediate surroundings and that her mind was somewhere else entirely. Dad started to look around distractedly. With a start that made him half jump with surprise, Lucy came to herself again and sprung up from the boulder where she had been sitting. She walked up to him and looked at him urgently.

  ‘Dad’ she said. ‘I know you’re not going to like this, but there are some things that I have to do today …. alone.’ Dad looked back at her, puzzled and surprised. ‘I’d like to tell you but, … well I don’t know how to. Please let me do this thing!’ she implored him. ‘I promise I’ll keep safe and that I won’t do anything stupid.’ Dad thought for a moment.

  ‘Do I have a choice?’ he asked sadly and quietly. Lucy gave the slightest of shakes of her head. He hated this, he really hated it. All Dad’s instincts told him to tell her that no, she was his child, that he would protect her and that she must stay with him. Yet, as he looked into her eyes, he knew that it was pointless to say so.

  ‘Go on then’ he said eventually, giving her hand a little squeeze. ‘But I want you back safe and sound by two’ he added ‘or I’ll be coming to find you’. She squeezed his hand in return and then without a moment’s hesitation Lucy turned and started to clamber up the steep path out of the cove.

  Chapter Sixteen:

  ‘Well, what happened?’ asked Chaser expectantly as Spirit and Dancer swum up to the mouth of the estuary. Dancer caught his gaze, then looked away with a pained look in her eyes.

  ‘So you couldn’t free her then?’ he asked.

  ‘We found her’ replied Spirit defiantly. ‘We spoke to her. We weren’t close enough to see her and we weren’t able to save her there and then. But we’re going to’ he added. ‘We’ll figure out a way, somehow.’

  They swam on with Chaser until they joined the rest of the pod. A light breeze had picked up. It whisked up the water into small waves, carrying fine sea spray into the warm air. Sea gulls wheeled lazily on the current and nearby a sailing boat was making its way towards the mouth of the estuary, its sails taut against the wind. Once they had found the rest of the pod, they all turned and swum back towards the open seas again, talking as they swam with the rhythmic undulating beats of their tail flukes.

  ‘Star-Gazer’s okay then is she?’ asked Summer anxiously. ‘She’s well?’

  ‘We didn’t manage to speak properly’ Spirit replied. ‘It was barely more than a few words really. But no, I don’t think she’s well. She’s trapped and unhappy and she needs our help.’

  Dancer quickly explained how they had approached the inlet where Star-Gazer was being held, but that as the tide turned the level of the water started to drop and they were afraid of finding themselves stranded on the mud.

  ‘So the inlet where Star-Gazer is held is behind a metal fence like a stiff fishing net that is stretched across the opening?’ asked Storm once they had explained everything that had happened. It was Storm’s habit to repeat back what he had just been told, so that he was sure that he understood it clearly. ‘Star-Gazer would have leapt the fence already if she could’ he went on thoughtfully. ‘Is there anything else that you learned that might help?’

  ‘Well’ replied Spirit. ‘It is the silt that stops us getting close to the metal net thing. It seems to have accumulated around the fence, perhaps because the metal slows the current there and allows it to settle. But Star-Gazer said that when the rains come, the silt will be washed away. Then we might be able to get near enough to it to find a way of getting through.’

  ‘But why have they imprisoned her there?’ asked Moonlight. ‘’What do they want with her? Why don’t they just set her free?’

  ‘I, I don’t know’ replied Spirit sadly.

  ‘Who knows why humans do the things that they do?’ said Chaser. ‘We could study them for a hundred years and they would still be a mystery to us. Humans say that they like us, then they trap us. They are not to be trusted.’

  Spirit would have liked to speak up for humans at that moment, except that he himself was having doubts. He cared deeply for Lucy and when he had been trapped the human from the fishing boat had come and cut him free. But now that he knew that humans had trapped Star-Gazer, he wasn’t so sure.

  Storm seemed to sense his doubt and questioning. He himself was wary of humans and had often warned Spirit and the other dolphins against them, but this time he did not agree with Chaser as he might have on other occasions.

  ‘You have both done well young Spirit and young Dancer’ Storm said as they all swam out into deeper waters. ‘You may not yet have managed to free Star-Gazer, but you have learned more than you knew before and knowledge is power. We can use it when the time is right. What more can you discover about the humans that have taken her prisoner?’ he asked.

  Spirit knew what Storm wanted to say. He wanted to say ‘Speak to Lucy. Find out what she knows’. It was the obvious thing to do. Yet strangely, though he felt as close to Lucy as any other living being, he felt reluctant to do so. He wanted to be an equal to Lucy. She had saved his life once and he owed everything to her. But that was all the more reason not to rush to her now, but instead to try to figure out an answer to their problems himself.

  ‘I, well…. I want to prove to Lucy that we dolphins can look after ourselves’ he replied eventually. Storm stopped swimming and so all of the rest of the pod paused in the water to rest a while. Storm took a long calm look deep into Spirit’s eyes.

  ‘It is good that you are proud young Spirit and that you want to find your own answers alone and without assistance. Yet now is the time that you should make use of all of the gifts that you have at your disposal. Star-Gazer is in trouble. Your special connection to Lucy might enable us to save her.’

  ‘That’s right’ added Summer, while No-name snuggled into his mothers flank. ‘There was a time that we thought that you were a Child-Seer in order to help us find fish. Now I’m starting to think that you have been chosen as a Child-Seer for a much more important reason. Perhaps your destiny is to save Star-Gazer and other fellow dolphins who may be in trouble.’

  ‘I agree’ said Storm. ‘Star-Gazer needs Lucy right now just as much as she needs you. Star-Gazer’s fate is tangled up with the humans that caught her. We need a human to guide us through the world above water where we cannot go.’ Spirit looked from Storm, to Summer and then to Dancer.

  ‘But I can’t rely on Lucy to help every time we are in trouble’ replied Spirit in a small voice.

  ‘Listen to me Spirit’ said Storm seriously. ‘You have an extraordinary ability, one which no other dolphin that I know shares. You are more closely bound to Lucy than we can understand. She is almost part of you. To ignore the knowledge that she can share with you is like ignoring the evidence of your own eyes.’

  Spirit let Storm and Summer’s words sink in. He knew that what they were telling him was true. He had to stretch out to Lucy and speak to her.

  Spirit settled down and tried to focus his mind on his task. It was difficult and he hardly knew where to start. He could not appear to Lucy as she could appear to him. He had to somehow summon her to him. It had come naturally and easily to him that time with the little girl on the rock. This time he wasn’t so sure.

  All that he had learned was that he had to create a sense of urgency in his own mind which he could then project into hers, so that she knew that something was wrong and would come to him. He had only tried this once or twice and it was still a new experience for him. He felt the others all watching him, wondering what he was going to do. That made him feel self-conscious and it became harder than ever for him to focus his mind in the way that he knew he had to. He tried turning away from the others so that he could not see them, but they simply swam round him, curious to know what he was doing. Exasperated, Spirit realised that it was not going to work. He felt as angry with himself as he did with the others. With a flick of his tail fluk
es he propelled himself away from them. Fortunately they hung back and did not follow. He needed to compose his mind before he tried again.

  Suddenly though, the shape of Lucy seemed to swim into focus in front of his eyes. There she was, her hair billowing out around her in the water like the tentacles of a sea anemone.

  ‘Lucy!’ he exclaimed, surprised at her appearance. ‘I’ve been trying to reach you, but I didn’t think it was working. How did you know I needed to see you?’ Lucy pulled the corners of her mouth up into what Spirit now knew was called a smile.

  ‘I didn’t’ she said. ‘I thought that you would meet me at the cove this morning. I’ve been waiting there for you but you didn’t come. I thought that it was because I was with my Dad and that he had frightened you away.’

  ‘No’ he said. ‘I didn’t know about your father. I would have come to you but, well I went to see if I could find Star-Gazer.’ Spirit quickly explained all that had happened.

  ‘So we’ve both found her in our different ways’ said Lucy when Spirit had finished his story. ‘She must be glad to know that she has not been forgotten. But she is unhappy and unwell and we still have to do something to help her. Somehow we’ve got to save her.’

  ‘I know’ replied Spirit. ‘Storm and Summer believe that the reason I am a Child-Seer is so that you can help us save Star-Gazer and other dolphins like her. Do you think that’s true?’

  ‘I, I don’t know’ replied Lucy hesitantly. ‘You know what Spirit? Sometimes when I look at people walking down the street, I half close my eyes and imagine what it must be like to look at them through a dolphin’s eyes. I imagine that I am a dolphin disguised as a human and walking on dry land. Normal life seems so strange and weird when I do. Who needs cars and houses when you can glide effortlessly through the water? If it weren’t for Dad and Bethany and my friend Amy back home, I think I’d rather spend my life living in the sea with you.’ Lucy paused and looked directly at Spirit as she floated there, suspended in the water.