Midnight Dolphin

by James Carmody

  They ran over to the observation point. Megan could easily outrun her sister, but she let her win anyway. She hoped that Bethany would forget all about their conversation now.

  ‘Do you think we’ll see dolphins if we look through the telescope?’ Bethany asked. Megan sighed. Bethany was always full of questions.

  ‘I shouldn’t think so’ Megan replied. ‘It’s quite rare to see them you know.’ As it happened Megan had two pence in her pocket and she put the coin in the slot so that Bethany could take a look. The six-year-old was far too short to look through the eyepiece though and Megan had to lift her up so she could put her eye up to the lens.

  ‘All I can see is blue!’ exclaimed Bethany indignantly; she could hardly tell if she was looking at the sea or the sky. Megan chuckled. She preferred to scan the horizon with the naked eye. They certainly wouldn’t see any dolphins that afternoon. There was a fishing boat in the middle distance though and they watched for a while as it made its slow progress across the calm sea.

  Megan would enjoy telling Jet about what Bethany had said later though. Somehow she felt that she could trust her sister, even though Bethany was half her age. The sun baked down on them from above.

  ‘We’d better get back’ she said to Bethany.

  Back at the holiday cottage, after dinner, the family sat outside in the garden enjoying the late afternoon sun. It didn’t get dark till ten o’clock in August and although the sun was no longer warming their skin, the air was still pleasant and balmy. High up in the sky the swifts were still swooping and circling in their hunt for insects on the wing and Megan saw a bat flit by, flying from the house towards the trees. Bethany was playing in the grass, Mum was doing the crossword at the back of the newspaper and Dad was leaning back with his eyes closed.

  Megan was lying on her stomach on the grass studying a column of small brown ants that emerged from a hole by the path and which marched determinedly out into the thicket of grass stems. She wondered if they’d located Bethany’s secret horde of sweets.

  Normally Megan would only reach out to Jet with her mind if she was entirely alone, but everyone seemed so absorbed in their own activities and there was no particular reason why they should notice if she did. At worst they would simply think that she had dropped off to sleep.

  Megan started to focus her mind. She would do this by looking into the middle distance and then letting her focus dissolve. Then she would imagine water rushing into the scene and let her mind concentrate on the water and not the surroundings behind it. Then she would be there and feel the cold tang of salty water on her skin and she would be swimming along free and easily, liberated from the gravity of life on dry land.

  Often Megan would see the tails of Jet’s pod receding away from her and she would glide along faster to catch up with them. She could easily make out Jet because he was slightly smaller and darker than the others and she recognised the way he swam. Often Jet would know that she was approaching him and would glance back before she reached him. He would whistle a message to the others and would peel off from the others to come back and join her.

  At first Megan had found it difficult to stay with Jet for more than a few minutes. Her energy would deplete too quickly and she would dissolve back into the briny currents again. As time went by though, Megan became stronger and she frequently stayed with Jet for forty five minutes or more, swimming along with him and even breaking the surface of the water to leap high into the air. At first Megan had been worried that someone would see her if she followed Jet when he took a leap and would think she was a mermaid. After a while though Megan realised that when she came to Jet like this she was not physically there.

  One time they both chased along at the bow of a sailing yacht as it sliced along through gentle waves. A man and a small boy stood at the bow looking down in excited admiration at the dolphin barely two meters away from them.

  ‘What a beautiful dolphin!’ exclaimed the man admiringly. The boy looked on the other side of the bow where Megan was gliding effortlessly along through the water.

  ‘Look Daddy!’ he exclaimed. ‘a mermaid!’ The man looked over to where the boy was pointing.

  ‘Don’t be silly’ he replied unseeingly. ‘The dolphins’ on this side!’

  ‘So I’m not always completely invisible to people like this’ Megan said to Jet afterwards.

  ‘Maybe that boy’s a Dolphin-Child too, but doesn’t realise it yet’ Jet replied as they relaxed together in the surge and swell of deep green sea.

  As Megan lay in the garden watching the procession of earnest ants making their way across the grass, she looked forward to spending time with Jet, even if it might only be for a few minutes.

  She started to focus her mind in the way that she had taught herself. Megan let the scene in front of her blur and imagined the sea washing in to cover it. The scene remained speckled with patches of white though and try as she might she could not make the background of dry land dissolve away as she normally did. Megan tried again. This time the sea washed around her and she felt the cold water on her skin. She could see the pod not far away lounging just under the waves, but as she started to approach them the scene dissolved before she could get anywhere near them. Megan found herself lying on the grass again, an ant running lightly over the back of her hand. She flicked it off.

  Megan was disappointed that she had not been able to reach Jet, but maybe it was because her family were around her, or perhaps it was something she’d eaten. She’d try again later.

  As she turned to see what imaginary world Bethany had created with her toys, she noticed that Dad had opened his eyes as he leant back in the deckchair and was watching her intently. As she looked up he closed his eyes quickly as if to pretend that he was sleeping again.

  Later on, at bedtime, Megan tried again. In the bathroom, toothbrush in hand she looked through the small circular mirror on the wall as though it was a porthole in the side of a submarine and the sea lay beyond. Megan was able to conjure up the sea beyond the glass, but when she tried to let her mind dissolve and re-form in the sea beyond the glass, she was unable to do so. It was like watching a natural history programme on the television. She felt a million miles away. When Megan was younger she believed that the television was like an actual window and that if you looked at it from one corner, you would see more of the scene that would be hidden than if you looked at it head on. The vision of sea disappeared again and all she could see was her own unhappy face looking back at her. Megan decided there and then that at least she would go down to the sea at first light the next morning to swim with Jet. When she was with him in real life like that, they could not speak to each other as they did when she reached out to him with her mind. She would not be able to explain to him that it suddenly felt hard to reach him. Yet at least she would be able to look into his eyes and feel the energy that passed from him to her and back again.

  The next morning Megan was awake again at first light and crept out of the room that she shared in the cottage with Bethany, this time making sure that her younger sister did not follow her. She slipped her swimsuit on quickly but did not bother putting clothes on top, so eager was she to get to the sea. She ran quickly and lightly along the board walk that rose and fell as it followed the path of the dunes to the sea. There at last she saw the sea glittering in the early morning light. Megan scanned the water for the tell-tale sign of a dorsal fin, but there was none there.

  Rather than wait and watch, Megan decided to plunge into the sea and swim out from the shore into the deeper water where it would be easier for Jet to approach her. She swam with the powerful confident strokes of an accomplished swimmer, but even though she got as far out as she dared on her own, Jet did not approach her. She stopped and started to tread, looking around her anxiously for signs of the friend who did not come.

  Chapter Four:

  Megan came back on to the shore and stood on the sand, shivering as she scanned the horizon one last time for any sign of Jet or the other dolphi
ns in his pod. She looked at the sun. It must have been after half past seven by now and she knew she had to get back before Bethany, Mum and Dad woke up. Her parents liked to sleep in when they were on holiday, but Bethany always had been an early riser.

  Megan felt confused and more than a little scared about what was happening between her and Jet. Why couldn’t she stretch out to him like she was used to doing? Megan had grown to feel in control of her life and in her connection to dolphins. She’d worked hard to develop her skill and now it seemed no more solid than the sand that she was standing on. What was happening to her? She was already beginning to feel empty and alone. If Jet and the others disappeared from her life altogether, she didn’t know how she could go on.

  Megan walked slowly and sadly over the dunes back to the cottage. As she got close, Megan could see the curtains of upstairs flick back into place. Bethany was evidently already up and watching out for her from their bedroom window. Megan let herself back into the cottage as quietly as she could.

  Just then Mum came downstairs into the cottage kitchen.

  ‘You alright there love?’ she asked her daughter. Megan nodded and looked away. The truth was that she felt numb inside, but didn’t know how to tell her mother that. ‘You don’t look your normal self. You’re not going down with something are you?’ Mum continued.

  As soon as Mum was up, Bethany bounded out of the bedroom and demanded breakfast, taking up all Mum’s attention again. Then Dad got up and turned on the radio for the weather forecast and the news. Amidst the noise of family life, Megan was able to sit quietly and contemplate the awful prospect of never being able to reach Jet again.

  Mum and Dad started to debate how to spend the day. Bethany said that she’d like to spend the morning peering into rock pools and looking for shells for her collection. She wanted to make a collage out of them. Ordinarily Megan would have enjoyed a day rock-pooling as well, but after the loneliness of staring out at the lapping waves, Megan wanted to get away from the sea. She said that she really wanted to spend the morning looking around Merwater on her own, and to her surprise, her parents agreed.

  An hour and a half later they dropped her off in town near the small harbour, and drove off, with Bethany waving a fishing net on a bamboo pole out of the car window before the car turned the corner and disappeared. Megan looked around her. It was a quiet morning, but despite the early hour there was still a bustle in the harbour where fishermen were unloading their catch. Several vans were parked at the harbour’s edge to take the fish to the train station for their onward journey to Billingsgate Market in London. Seagulls loitered optimistically in the vicinity, watching out for any discarded fish or entrails that they could snatch up.

  Megan turned her back on the harbour and walked past the hardware shops and agricultural suppliers, and up into the main part of the high street where the butchers shop sat next to the prim haberdashery store. She turned left, off the main street and into the maze of roads that led up the hill at the back of the town.

  Before long Megan found herself, as she knew she would, back in the cobbled yard where the second-hand book shop was. On the other side of the yard was a pub called the Drunken Owl, and next to the bookshop was another shop selling brown earthenware pottery which to Megan’s eye looked rather misshapen. The bookshop itself was called Owl Books. There was the cat, Bilbo Baggins, asleep in the window as he had been the previous time she’d visited. Megan glanced at her watch. It was past ten o’clock now and according to the times pinned to the inside of the shop door, it should have been open for business ten minutes ago. But the ‘closed’ sign was still up and Megan thought she had no option but to wait until it opened. She wasn’t brave enough to hammer on the door and demand that she be allowed in.

  Megan turned and began to look in the pottery shop window to pass the time. It was all rather dusty in there and she wondered how many bowls and earthenware mugs they actually managed to sell. Just then Megan heard the bell above the door of the bookshop chime.

  ‘Out you go Mr Baggins’ she heard a voice say. ‘Go and get some fresh air.’ Megan saw the cat run across the yard, jump onto a windowsill and disappear through an open window into the pub opposite. Not much fresh air there, Megan thought to herself. She looked back at the source of the voice.

  ‘Were you waiting for me to open up?’ asked the lady standing at the door of the bookshop. She’d just flipped the sign around from ‘closed’ to ‘open’. ‘Eager readers, that’s what I like to see!’

  Megan had hoped to see the girl who’d been minding the shop the last time she was there, but this must be her mother, Megan thought.

  ‘Do come in’ beckoned the lady, and Megan duly obliged and entered the shop. ‘Is there anything that you were particularly looking for?’ she enquired brightly. Megan suddenly felt shy and shook her head.

  ‘I just wanted to look around’ she said, and made her way up one of the narrow aisles between the high bookcases. As Megan tried to appear inconspicuous, picking out random books to look at, there was a thudding sound at the back of the shop as though someone were running downstairs and a small door opened abruptly.

  ‘Mum! Have you seen my trainers?’ It was the girl who Megan had spoken to the other day and who she wanted to speak to now. The girl’s head appeared round the door. ‘I can’t find them anywhere.’ Megan looked up happily, but still nervous. She was less sure about what she wanted to say to the girl now, especially since the girl’s mother was in the shop as well.

  ‘Oh hello, how are you?’ the girl said in a friendly tone when she saw Megan.

  ‘You two know each other?’ asked her mother.

  ‘Yes, this is my friend, err…’

  ‘Megan’ cut in Megan, finishing the girl’s sentence.

  ‘Oh why didn’t you say?’ called her mother. ‘You go right on up with Rachel.’ Megan was happy to oblige, but she felt awkward doing so. Rachel was years older than she was, and had said that she was studying at University.

  The staircase at the back of the shop was very tight, uncarpeted and its wooden walls were painted a pastel blue. They opened up on the first floor into a living room, again with wooden panelled walls painted the same delicate shade of blue. Several large flowers had been painted directly onto the walls. The floor was scattered with large Moroccan-looking cushions and a hookah water pipe sat in a corner by the window.

  ‘My Mum’s still a bit of a hippy you know. Come on, take a seat and tell me all about yourself.’ They sat down on the oversized cushions on the floor and made themselves comfortable. Rachel soon coaxed out of Megan the fact that she was on holiday with her Mum and Dad and sister Bethany. Rachel said that she had just finished her first year at University, but was going to switch from sociology to study biology.

  ‘So what is it you really want to ask me about?’ Rachel laughed after they had chatted inconsequentially for a while. Megan felt awkward again.

  ‘What do you mean?’ she asked.

  ‘It’s written all over your face’ replied Rachel. ‘And besides, people normally come to bookshops to find things out. It’s not unusual.’

  ‘Well’ replied Megan nervously. ‘I want to know about the dolphins and people, I mean when they have a link between them.’

  ‘I’m not sure I follow you’ replied Rachel uncertainly.

  ‘Some people have special links with dolphins, and can use their minds to communicate with them’ said Megan, trying to be clear. Rachel’s face showed that she was beginning to understand what Megan was talking about, and became quiet and serious.

  ‘How do you know all this?’ Rachel asked curiously.

  ‘It’s because I, well…’ stammered Megan.

  ‘Because you are one of them?’ guessed Rachel, finishing Megan’s sentence for her. Megan looked down at the ground, feeling uncomfortable. Rachel nodded to herself.

  ‘Come on, let’s go take a look at the books downstairs’ she said. I know exactly where to start.’

  There were a f
ew people browsing the shelves in the shop when they went back downstairs again and they squeezed their way through to the till where Rachel’s mother was absent-mindedly reading a book.

  ‘Mum, we need the key to the glass cabinet’ Rachel announced. Her mother looked up.

  ‘Whatever for?’ she asked.

  ‘Megan here’s asked a very interesting question, and we need to do a bit of research. You don’t mind do you?’

  Rachel’s mother gave her daughter a questioning look, but handed over the key. Just next to the counter was a glass-fronted cabinet where the oldest and most expensive books were kept. Rachel turned the key to open the case with an assured hand and pulled out a slim, leather bound volume from one corner. She quickly relocked the cabinet, and gave the key back to her mother.

  ‘This is what we want!’ she told Megan. ‘Let’s go back upstairs and take a look.’ Megan followed her back up the creaking stairs.

  ‘Everyone round here knows the story of Susan Penhaligon, and how she led a group of children out into the stormy sea believing that they’d all turn into dolphins.’ Megan nodded, pretending to have heard about the story too. ‘But this journal that my Mum bought a couple of years ago in a house clearance sale tells us a bit more about these Dolphin Children’ continued Rachel.

  She opened up the journal. Megan craned over to take a look. It was closely written by someone in copperplate handwriting, that was as beautiful to look at as it was hard to read.

  ‘It’s the journal of a clergyman called Jeremiah Smith which he kept in the eighteen fifties I think.’ Megan watched as Rachel squinted at the handwriting and stroked her chin, as if to help herself concentrate.

  ‘Old Jeremiah Smith went round speaking to the country people and fisher-folk and writing down their stories’ she went on. ‘He was quite the social historian of his day. I’ve had a good look at this already and I wanted to take it with me to University but Mum says it’s far too valuable and that she wants to sell it for at least fifty pounds.’