by Tui Allen
There was one alternative; she could go back to work in Delph’s astronomy class. Cosmo had promised to protect her from teasing. She’d heard the boys were already journeying beyond the solar system.
They’re all so famous now; they won’t want me hanging around them smirching their glory.
Echo had passed on the apologies of the boys. Even Givan sent her a sincere message. Still she couldn’t bring herself to turn up to class as though nothing had happened.
~~~
Ripple was setting off to hunt when she saw Cosmo, Echo and Rush approaching. She swam to meet them. The girls performed a unique dual whirly-spin of their own invention.
‘Your Shade-scar has almost gone,’ said Cosmo.
‘You’re the only dolphin with a Shade scar!’ said Rush, examining the now thread-like scar, ‘but I can hardly see it.’
‘Who’s hungry? Let’s eat!’ said Echo and they shot away to find the nearest shoal of fish.
The next two hours were a blur of sunshine, food and laughter.
Then Cosmo asked, ‘Ripple are you working with your music again?’
‘Yes, my songs are coming back to me. I’m even upsetting elderly dolphins in the main school with them.’
‘Time you got back to astronomy class then. Can you come tomorrow?’
‘Are you sure the others won’t mind?’
‘Even Givan’s fine with it. You should’ve seen his expression when I told him who your father was.’
‘Well then. I’ll be there,’
Before Cosmo left he said, ‘Can we hunt together after class tomorrow?’
She laughed. ‘I’ll look forward to it.’
The four performed a few last spiral skyjumps in formation and then the boys headed away.
Echo turned to her sister. ‘I’m sure he likes you, Ripple. They’re all saying he’s the best young astronomer the school’s produced for years. Do you like him?’
‘I love him, but he fears my music. Do you like Rush?’
‘More than internal organs, blood circulation and skeletons.’
‘So we’re both in love.’
Ripple returned to the astronomy class and began working at her music. The minders were pleased to see her and the boys polite and even welcoming.
~~~
But the orbit of Azure had passed the point where her tilt kept her southern oceans closer to the sun. The dolphins felt Sol’s rays weakening in strength. The days shortened, dark clouds gathered and cold currents swirled up from the south.
‘The weather adepts,’ announced Delph to his students, ‘are already predicting a hard winter. I doubt that classes will continue much longer.’
One grey autumn dawn a call went out for the school to assemble. Dolphins arrived, hailing old friends and catching up with the scuttlebutt. The concentration of dolphins in the area of the main school increased throughout the morning until there were thousands circulating there. It was the first full assembly Ripple had witnessed and the crowd amazed her. She arrived with Cosmo, Rush and Echo and they joined Pearl, who’d come in with her old friends Breeze and Nimbus.
Ripple saw her father cruise in with the senior astronomy team. She noticed the respectful glances and gestures he received from dolphins as he passed. Rigel spotted them and changed his course to bestow caresses on Pearl and his daughters. Ripple and Echo bounced excitedly at receiving his attention.
Ripple saw Cosmo watching Rigel’s every move as the astronomy team took up a position in the crowd nearby.
By mid-day the assembly was ready. An elder called for order. Ripple noticed Aroha’s mate Matangi among the elders and wondered why he was there.
The elder used a wide-range thoughtstream to reach the entire crowd.
‘This assembly has been called on advice from the weather adepts.’
A buzz of curiosity spread through the school. Weather adepts had not called in the school in the lifetimes of the oldest dolphins there. But to Ripple it explained Matangi’s presence among the elders, weather being his vocation.
The elder continued. ‘They have asked us to inform you that we’re soon to enter a hard winter. The first of many brutal fronts will sweep in from the west and will continue through the darker months bringing frequent gales. Thicker cloud cover will bring heavy rains and allow less heat and light through. The sea will be colder than we’ve known it. Food supplies will diminish. Predators will be hungry and unpredictable.’
A hush fell on the crowd. Ripple felt Echo’s flipper brush against her and she returned her sister’s caress. Dolphins comforted one another throughout the crowd. Older dolphins looked towards the sky in resignation as though they saw their fate written on the clouds.
Ripple, Cosmo, Echo and Rush bunched themselves so closely they could detect the warmth of each other’s bodies even through the cold water. Cosmo stroked Ripple as Echo had done. His touch calmed her.
‘We recommend the school disbands,’ the elder said. ‘There’s no hurry; the first severe fronts are still fourteen or fifteen days away. But after that we can’t stay and compete for food in the same area. Families and social groups should stick together, hunt far and wide as necessary and re-group here again in the spring. Until then we recommend that all classes and organised activities be cancelled.’
Ripple overheard Rigel speaking to his team.
‘It’s fortunate we still have some time,’ he said. ‘Enough to forewarn our contacts in Tectarius of our absence over coming months.’
The dolphins were in no hurry to disperse after the assembly, appreciating the camaraderie of the main school now they knew it would soon vanish. Many felt the need to reach out to old friends and make contact again before the coming weeks of darkness.
Twelve days later the weather closed in. Thick cloud hung above like a roof of grey mud, blocking the sun and deepening the chill of the sea. Food thinned. Dolphins gathered their families and the school began to disperse.
~~~
Late on the twelfth afternoon after the gathering, Pearl realised that her illness had returned. This time she hid it carefully, but she felt a rapid deterioration of her body as though she’d swallowed a poison. Could she have eaten a fish which had in turn eaten something dangerous? She tried to disguise the illness by swimming energetically but within a day or two she knew she could no longer pretend. She did not ask Echo to look at it this time but went direct to Nimbus who carefully examined her inner organs and circulation. Nimbus confirmed Pearl’s suspicions that the old liver stain had returned and spread. She also told Pearl that poisons in the liver were now leaking through her blood. It was a rare but swift-acting illness for which there was no cure. Pearl was not surprised since by this time she was having difficulty moving; even breathing had become an effort. Nimbus called Breeze, who arrived within moments. Alone with these two, Pearl was relieved to finally abandon all efforts to disguise her condition.
The three older females cruised away together slowly, Nimbus and Breeze supporting their old friend. Many private messages passed between them.
Later that evening Nimbus and Breeze returned without Pearl as a series of vicious southerly squalls swept freezing rain across the ocean heralding the beginning of a winter which was to prove more terrible than any in living memory. Pearl was never seen again on the oceans of Azure in that life nor in any subsequent ones.
Even in dying, Pearl, out of compassion for a hungry young blackfin, intentionally gave it one less reason to deprive a vulnerable baby dolphin of a joyful life dancing across the oceans of Azure.
~~~
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Chapter 22: Dark Winter
Nimbus and Breeze arrived as Rigel was concluding a final meeting with his astronomy team, before they returned to their families for the winter.
‘We’d like to speak to Rigel alone,’ said Nimbus. All but Rigel disappeared in seconds. Nimbus felt Rigel delving their minds; piecing things together.
/> ‘It's Pearl,’ he said. ‘What’s happened?’
‘She’s gone from Azure. We were with her. Your children don’t know yet.’
It was as though the fluke of a whale had struck Rigel. He withered before their eyes. Nimbus hadn’t been aware Pearl meant so much to him. Like others in the school she’d allowed the characteristic physical separateness of this couple to cause her to misjudge the depth of their attachment.
‘What took her?’ he asked finally.
‘She chose the predator herself – a young blackfin.’
‘She chose? Why?’
‘An affliction of the liver. There was no hope. She wanted her children to witness neither her death nor her decline. We supported her in her choice.’
‘Pearl asked that you watch over the children,’ said Breeze, ‘at least for the winter. She was most concerned for Ripple. But she also asked you to be near Aroha at the time of the birth of her baby in the spring. I’m to assist with the birth. Pearl wanted you to pass on her love to all the children and to tell them she was ready to move on.’
There had been other females in Rigel’s life besides Pearl, but she was the only one who’d been truly part of him. His body was as skilled and strong as ever, his intellect as sharp, but a driving force within him was extinguished just as winter took its grip. Rigel joined with his three youngest offspring and the girls’ new male friends. For Echo, Rev and Ripple it helped to have their father near now that Pearl had gone, and Rigel took comfort from their presence. Only Aroha was not among them since she chose to remain with Matangi and his group.
Winter roared in under a blanket of mud-like cloud which shut out sun and stars and released storm after storm. Thousands of dolphins scattered themselves in small groups across a vast area of ocean surrounding the Northern Islands. Food was short and predators hunted voraciously, preventing many dolphins who’d played in the main school that summer from returning to it the following spring.
~~~
Where’s Mother, thought Ripple? Is she on the other side of this enormous wave? Yes, surely I can hear her. I should see her any moment. But the troughs are so dark, I can’t find her. She’s always beside me if I’m frightened in the dark. Mother! Mother!
She searched from the mountainous crests to the blackest troughs of every wave, but though she heard Pearl’s voice murmuring all around, her mother did not appear.
My father is here, and Echo and Rev. I can feel the touch of their flippers. Pain billows around them like the evil ink of Erishkigal. Why do they feel pain? They must know where Mother is. Why don’t they bring her to me?
Is it true what they say? Is Mother dead? Is it because of my music? If the Shade had never touched me, would Mother still be alive? How much more harm will come upon us because of my music? I must never make music again. Mother can never understand it now anyway. I wanted her to hear my music. Instead it has killed her. I have killed her!’
‘Ripple! Stop that!’ said Rigel. ‘Your mother’s death was not your doing.’
‘Father’s right,’ said Echo, ‘You can’t think that way. It will destroy you.’
‘How can I be sure she didn’t die because of me?’
‘Nimbus couldn’t have hidden such an idea from me!’ Rigel said.
Ripple tried hard to obey them but the vibration of the thought had sunk deep within her where it worked its poison. She expelled the thoughts from the surface of her mind and replaced them with other thoughts of her mother.
I remember the day when Mother found me in the abyss. She drew me back to the sunlight. Though she had no idea what music was, she said, ‘Your music will resonate through my future.’ But now she has no future.
Ripple remembered how the idea had chilled her. Now it was a faint source of elusive hope, but try as she might she couldn’t work out why.
Cosmo was beside her all the time now but Ripple hardly knew he was there; they all seemed so distant in the darkness. She felt the touch of their flippers and their comfort wafting around her like a warm current, but the freezing seas reached through and chilled her.
Cosmo brought fish for her. Sometimes he gave it to her with his own mouth. Sometimes he gave it to Echo to feed her.
‘As if I can’t catch it for myself!’ she thought. ‘If I felt like hunting or eating!’
~~~
Rigel noticed how Echo buried her own sorrows to nurse the shattered family. He saw her giving food when they needed it even when she needed it herself. He saw her organising Rush and Cosmo to hunt for those who couldn’t face hunting and he hunted with them though she didn’t ask him to. It seemed Pearl lived on in the shape of this daughter. He made sure he found food for Echo if he thought she’d sacrificed too much.
Even if the weather had cleared and his astronomy team had called him away to the stars, he wouldn’t have left his family now to answer that call.
Rigel chose a moment when his three children swam close together and Rush was off hunting. He steered Cosmo away to speak privately without losing sight of the group.
‘How do you feel about the chaos Ripple carries in her mind?’
‘It frightens me. But I haven’t noticed it for a long time. Perhaps she’s healed.’
‘Healed?’ Rigel was silent for a time. ‘Think back to a time when you remember hearing my daughter’s chaos. Picture her as she was then in your mind. Share that picture with me.’
Cosmo pictured Ripple as he’d seen her in the summer, capering oblivious to her surroundings, with chaos pouring from her mind.
When Rigel was satisfied with the picture Cosmo had sent him, he allowed them to return closer to the others.
‘Compare her then with what she is now,’ said Rigel.
They observed Ripple who was swimming between Rev and Echo. She moved in an undeviating rhythm, communicating with no-one; her mind distant, her spirit cold. While they watched, Rush arrived with a small fish which he gave to Echo. Echo gave it to Ripple who declined to eat it at first though Echo eventually coerced her. She ate as though it tasted like sand.
‘Well?’ said Rigel.
‘She grieves,’ said Cosmo. ‘She’s not herself.’
‘She’s hardly healed,’ said Rigel.
Cosmo looked towards her but though she was close, all sight of her was suddenly obliterated by a howling squall. He wanted only to return beside her. Still Rigel prevented him.
‘Your own teacher, my old friend Delph, has told me that you’re an astronomer of great promise. Astronomy is a vocation, which can utterly absorb you, yet I’d renounce astronomy forever if it would bring Pearl back for one minute.’
Cosmo was silent for a long time while the wind-driven foam hissed around them.
‘I take your warning,’ said Cosmo at last. ‘But I hope one day to emulate my own father who put my mother before himself to the last moment of his life. When they died, I was so young I had few memories of them. An older dolphin gave me all her own memories of my parents. It’s in my power to do something similar for you.’
Rigel received a vivid memory from Cosmo showing Pearl and her children all together, as he’d seen them on the first day he had entered the Northern School. Rigel saw Rev’s apparent disease, resolving into a passenger octopus and Ripple’s welcoming leap against the sunset. He saw Pearl’s health, her grace and beauty, the warmth and fulfilment of her motherhood, and how happy she’d been that day to have all their own children around her.
‘This is a gift beyond all expectation,’ he said.
The two swam in silence until they saw Rush setting off again to hunt and went to help him. Rev joined them and the four males swam deep and hunted long, expending much energy, eventually providing a meagre meal for them all. Echo tried and failed to feed Cosmo’s first offering to Ripple, who insisted she was not hungry. In the end Echo ate it herself, which pleased Rush.
All that night the squalls continued. The six stayed close. Dawn came at last, with no glimpse of the sun, just a brief grey day during which they
fed on the little they managed to find. There followed a dreary succession of long violent nights, dismal dawns, and cold hungry days.
During that time, Cosmo found many chances to make use of his fighting skills defending them against predators. The others there learned much from him, even Rigel.
~~~
Many weeks later, on a howling black morning when vicious sou-westerly squalls lashed the sea as they seemed to have done forever, Rigel led the group of six beside an underwater cliff face. Rev recognised the spot.
‘Squelch’s hole is just over there,’ he said and hurried towards it. Rigel sensed his son’s spirit lifting at the thought of reunion with his old friend. But as Rigel had expected, the hole was empty. Squelch’s natural term of life had run out months ago. Rigel recognised that for all his children, the discovery of the passing of Squelch was the darkest moment since the death of their mother. Their world for now was as black and empty as that hole in the rock, and all laughter a thing of the past.
‘Will this winter ever end?’ he wondered to Cosmo and Rush, but at that moment the mouth of a low-slung cloudbank opened, vomiting horizontal rain and gale force winds across the sea. The worst storm of the winter had begun.
~~~
As Rigel wondered if the winter would ever end, two hours away to the north-east Matangi announced that it very soon would. Aroha had continued all winter in the care of Matangi’s family. The loss of Pearl had taken away her desire to hunt or eat; partly because of her condition. Her health had deteriorated and there was concern for the health of the baby she carried. Matangi and his strong family had nursed her, bringing food to her, though like the males in Rigel’s team, they’d often been hungry themselves. They had also guarded Breeze, keeping her from harm and minimising her hunger, grateful for Aroha’s sake that Breeze had wintered with them.
Aroha understood that if her baby lived, it would never meet the most beautiful grandmother it could have known. Surely presenting Pearl with a grandchild was the main reason for having a baby in the first place. So what point was there now? She was angry with Pearl for breaking her promise to help with the birth. But it was Pearl herself, living on in Aroha’s own memory and imagination, who helped in the end. She urged her firstborn daughter to remember the stars in the clear summer skies, the birds soaring in warm ocean breezes, the surf thundering towards the shore, to encourage the life within. As the time approached, Aroha noticed a lightening of heart and a kindling of anticipation.
