Authors: Quinn Loftis
“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 rolled from his tongue with ease. Instantly I heard the dolphins chattering over the kicked up breeze. My heart jumped along with their increased activity in the water. Legend said we needed them to witness our pledge, but they didn’t come for every ritual anymore.
As each of my friends took the vow, the dolphins’ talk faded, as if they headed the wrong way. The tension grew palpable until Blake spoke, when the noise got louder, but not closer. Finally, my turn came.
I inhaled deeply and shut my eyes, seeing the location of the dolphins clearly in my mind. They frolicked in the riptide off towards the open ocean. They heard us calling them but did not swim closer to watch. For maximum success, we needed them to join our swim. My heart churned as I realized now, that was all up to me.
I wondered how on earth I’d reach them with my low, scratchy voice. 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 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, I realized Stoney hadn’t repeated it perfectly. Somehow Mica had already learned which tones to pay attention to.
I repeated it silently then spoke it as loudly as possible. My voice lacked volume but I added energy by sending vibrations swirling through my bones, through the rocks and into the water, hoping to reach the dolphins below the surface.
They reacted instantly, repeating the clicks and whistles I made sound for sound. Quickly they moved towards me, churning through the thirty-foot sea waves that made Pinhold a famous surfing spot.
“Again!” Stoney said, insistently. I listened, repeating myself five more times, until the dolphins came right into the bay. The mood shifted and I opened my eyes to the pure joy of their arrival. As if sensing my attention, the huge pod began playing and showing off. They flipped, jumped and twisted in the air.
“Well done,” Stoney said, looking proud of us all. “Now, go join the guardians of the sea for the traditional swim.”
I took a second to appreciate their silvery grey bodies moving before I dove off the rocks, getting in the water first. While everyone in The Guard swam, only those of us pledging for the first time had anything to prove.
The inky-black water surrounding me hid silvery bodies darting around. They brushed against me, skin like neoprene, swimming in front, behind, churning the water to actually move me along. I stayed with them as long as I could, reluctant to give up my primo spot for something as ordinary as air. When I finally surfaced, a dolphin with skin brighter than the others stopped; raised her head and stared. It felt like she recognized me, but I knew I’d never seen her before.
I’d heard of her, of course. White dolphins played a large role in Pinhold mythology. Based on her size and age, she was the elusive albino born the month before me. I never believed she actually existed.
She dove back under the water and I followed without taking enough oxygen. 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 right against her. I focused on staying with her as we moved in front of the crowd and lost track of all the other dolphins, and people too.
Underwater, time passed differently. I didn’t realize that I had forgotten to breathe until I landed next to the dolphin on some jagged rocks, gasping for air. 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 wan, instead of pearly white. 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. 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 bonfire on the beach 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 into his identical silver eyes, I clicked to convince him 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 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 lava sand that tended to scratch skin.
Getting each dolphin back in the water meant lifting at least four hundred pounds of struggling muscle, turning them around and carrying them until 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 the one beside me.
“Guys, help me with her, please!” I said to Blake and Mica, putting my arms around her in order to prevent her from hurting herself more. Though her skin felt like the sturdy rubber of a wet suit, I saw 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 sea.
We carried her until we were waist deep, releasing her as soon as it was possible. Then, we all collapsed in the water, reeling from the stress of so many dolphins beaching on the sand at once. She took a second to nuzzle us, showing gratitude. 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 playful 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 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 and ran 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 and went to the open ocean with her pod. I trudged onto the beach, elated that we had managed to save them all, but exhausted and confused too.
Moments later, surrounded by concerned partygoers, I sat on a bench and bit my lip to keep from crying. The scrape on my shoulder didn’t hurt when it had 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 didn’t noticed when I first saw Billy that day, but Blake and Mica had both grown taller than him since the last time Billy had been home.
“I’d say. You have 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 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,” Celeste interrupted, “and so do I.” I giggled nervously. I wasn’t much of a beer drinker, and neither were the boys. But it was a bit of a tradition on first night, and after everything that had happened with Blake, I needed the liquid courage.
Mica and Blake fell over each other moving towards the keg with Billy, while they talked about the crazy speed and size of the pod that had joined us for the swim. Celeste finished bandaging and went from serious caretaker to giggly fangirl. “That was amazing!” she squealed, right into my ear.
With her russet curls bouncing with excitement, it was hard to remember Celeste 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. What happened out there??”
“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, giddy with impressed surprise.
I smiled. “I think so, if that’s what it’s called when they carry you along.”
“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, then 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 turned in the wrong direction? I don’t remember much, except that I didn’t want to come up for air and leave the slip stream.”
“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 one of the more typical American religions. If they couldn’t see it, they didn’t believe it. My grandparents were the opposite. 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 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 and 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 up to our docks with her pod. I don't know if it's the same one or not, but when we were six, they passed a law to prevent people from feeding the dolphins. They felt like we were being mean and they didn’t understand, and they stopped coming.”
“There was some concern they were forgetting how to hunt and, instead, learning to beg for food, which wasn’t good for them,” Celeste explained. “Let’s chalk it up to a magical First Night that leads to a whole bunch of Surf Carnival wins. And that kiss with Blake,” she said, switching gears, “was beyond amazing!”
“You saw that?” I said, cringing. “He was going to give me mouth-to-mouth, and I kissed him. I’m such an idiot.” I pulled my knees up and covered my face in them to hide the blush on my skin.
“That may have been his, ‘I’m Blake, I’m so responsible’ plan. Or… what if the CPR thing was just an excuse?” Her eyes twinkled, but I felt confused.
“He would have done the same thing for anyone,” I said, still blushing.
“You’re kidding, right?” Celeste laughed, in the way older girls with boyfriends could—like they knew something we didn’t. “Cami, haven’t you noticed the way he stares at you?” she said, stroking my hair.
“No, you’re wrong,” I said, insistent. “He didn’t initiate it at all. He wouldn’t. That’s just not what we’re like. There’s zero attraction there,” I explained, the words sounding false even to my own ears. “He’s always with Mica…which makes him practically my brother…like our third twin. I doubt he even sees me as a girl. In any event, I’m not interested in someone my family decided I should be with before I was even a person. It’s a trap. He’s a trap. And someday I want to leave Pinhold, see a bit of the world.”