CLICKS - The Dolphin Prophecy

CHAPTER 6

I was doing an inventory of lifeguarding equipment in The Guard’s beach headquarters when I heard them call my grandfather down to the beach over the short-wave radio that stayed on all day. That thing had been giving me a headache while I worked, and I’d actually been about to turn it down when the call came in. I locked the door to headquarters and got there at the same time as Gramps, offering to help in any way that I could.

Dolphin cries filled the air again, as they had during First Night when so many of them had breeched on the shore. This situation was different because, a mother and calf had washed up together and the baby had died. The mother knew, and was suffering. We attempted to remove the body, but the mother moved so violently on the sand that we stopped. She only calmed down when the little one was placed against her stomach.

At five-hundred pounds, the mother couldn’t be moved without help from the tides or professional rescue equipment. Unfortunately, everything we had was tied up with a mass stranding event twenty miles away where the dolphins had been turning up beached in record numbers, for days. They were only able to save half, if that many.

The numbers were so high this year all over California, for strandings and deaths, that these ones today didn’t have a chance for professional attention. But Gramps knew what to do, having helped for so many years before the Institute even existed. The dolphin’s sounds had quieted, though it still sounded more like cries than the usual clicks and whistles heard in the water. I wanted to cry, too, but I kept it together because there were so many little kids around, trying to help.

We’d been sitting for four hours already, trying to keep the poor thing cool and covered enough, hoping that we could keep going until the tide came in enough to get her out to sea. She whimpered quietly, while her breathing grew louder. I sang one of the sea chants my grandfather had taught me long ago. He joined along, his gruff voice catching on the exact notes of the sounds and tones that sounded like the ocean.

I concentrated on the tune and rubbing the dolphin’s head, while Gramps gently poured water on the special sailcloth that covered her and kept her skin moist. Two dolphins had used this cloth, over a hundred years ago, to save an ancestor of mine from drowning when his boat got destroyed in a storm. They’d carried him back to shore on the sheet; it had been precious to our family ever since.

I hoped its luck wouldn’t fade today. Over and over, I traced a swirl pattern on her head. She seemed to stay quiet as long as I was touching her.

“I can do the water,” I said, switching spots with my grandfather. He sat down and I stood up. Almost immediately, the dolphin cried.

Gramps shook his head. “I will take care of the water, Cami. What you’re doing is much more important.”

I sat down again, going back to the pattern I traced on the top of her head. I didn’t know why it helped, but I felt grateful that it did.

“Did you realize that you are making The Swirl over the spot between her eyes—the Sacred Swirl? The Sacred Swirl represents protection—like the shape of our island,” he said.

“Or a sea shell?” I asked.

“Exactly,” he said.

“Ears?” I wondered, putting a self-conscious hand to those that had been so newly exposed by my short hair.

He nodded and smiled at me. “If you look, you’ll find it everywhere,” he said, stroking the same pattern over her large flank under the cloth.

It did seem to calm her. I’d never considered that it had any specific symbolism; I just knew that it comforted me.

“That’s why mothers do the same thing to babies before they fall asleep,” he said.

I wrinkled my eyes, thinking back. “Did my mother ever do it to Mica and me?” I asked.

“No,” he said, “but the rest of us did, your dad, Grams, and me.”

I nodded, imagining my mother dismissing the idea that symbolic touches would help anything. Mom was all about medicine and facts. She only believed what she could see and considered the legends around the Island nonsense. I wondered if she’d done it for any of the babies who’d died in the years the Islanders had struggled with interrupted fertility. I looked in the sad eyes of the dolphin, understanding more about losing a baby from her gaze than from anything my mother had ever said.

Sacred swirl, or luck of the tide, or both, we had the dolphin back in the water two hours later. My grandfather and three of The Guard dragged her out to sea on the sailcloth, with the baby beside her. The high tide meant the Island's famous water organ was sounding in harmony with the ocean and the waves. It added an element of hope, in the way that music often did.

In the ocean, I could see Gramps and The Guard pulling the sailcloth away as the dolphin wiggled into the water. The baby still remained on the white shroud until two other dolphins came over, and only then did Gramps release the body into the sea. The new dolphins worked together to keep it on the surface of the water, and pushed it between them, swimming with it while also leading the mother to the pod deeper out to sea. It looked like a funeral, and I watched tearfully even when they were too far away for me to see them anymore.

That night, at the hospital, I finally got some alone time with Shay while Blake and Alysha went for coffee. During our few minutes of quiet, I was holding Shay’s hand, making the sacred swirl in her palm and wishing like mad it would help her—as it had helped the dolphin earlier. It felt to me like she was in there—but maybe that wishful thinking.

After my conversation with my grandfather, I’d started noticing the Sacred Swirl design everywhere. I found swirled shells all over the beach—so often, it seemed like they were finding me. I had brought some for Shay to keep by her bed, even though it seemed like protecting her might be moot at that point.

A blast of air blew into the room from a door opening and closing further down the hallway. A wisp of Shay’s hair blew onto her forehead, which would have driven her crazy had she been awake. Brushing her hair back behind her ear, I noticed that the Sacred Swirl could also be seen in her ear. Her ears were so small and delicate for someone of her size and strength; just like my own.

A student-nurse came in and quietly made notes on a chart, and I studied her as she worked. Pale, with brown eyes and brown hair, she looked nothing like those of us who lived on-Island. An old-fashioned looking white cap sat on top of her head, making her ears stick out in a way that was most obvious. The Sacred Swirl was visible there, but it was stretched out and not as balanced as it seemed on Shay.

When Alysha and Blake walked in the room, I started talking quickly about Shay’s ears; how mine and Shay’s were so alike, but the nurse’s were different. They shared a look, concern that I’d lost it was obvious on both of their faces.

“What does this have to do with anything?” Blake asked, looking at me.

“Who else have you noticed this on so far?” Alysha asked.

“Well, just us, and when the nurse came into the room and her ears were completely different, it made me think,” I said. “Why do we all have the same ears? And, what if that has something to do with what’s happened to Shay? Or…”

“Calm down, ok? Take a deep breath,” Blake said, putting a finger up to my lips. “Before you go all Mica on us and jump to a zillion conclusions, let try to see if you are on to something here.” He quickly texted Billy, who agreed to come by the hospital to see if there was anything unusual with Shay's ears.

I inhaled deeply and nodded. I was worried that if there was something to this, what happened to her could happen to us.