Thoughts flooded my brain as I hugged Mica, tight. Finally, after what felt like months, but was really only seconds, he hugged me back. Tears flowed down my face and into the ocean, like an offering to the gods. It was a drop in the bucket as far as ways to show appreciation went, but it wasn’t something I could help.
“Cami, what the hell is going on here?” he asked, looking around. His sputtering had stopped, and I saw the scene through his eyes: frothing seawater, black of night, a pod of over fifty dolphins making clapping sounds with their mouths.
Before I even got a chance to explain, Mica’s dolphin took over. Though they had never met before, his dolphin beamed a bunch of images into Mica’s brain, explaining everything. Because our twin link was back, I could see everything, too. He showed Mica sleeping, explaining in a way my dolphin hadn’t, how the pod needed to wake him up, and why.
Like all people, Mica’s brain had two hemispheres that worked together. Except, in our case, one side was human and the other one was dolphin.
When the sonar had shattered the cochlea in Mica’s ear, it short-circuited his brain, causing the body to think it was drowning. All internal workings slowed down almost to a stop to help the body stay alive, as long as possible, underwater. This happened all the time to other humans, but the outcome for Mica was different. The magnetic burst of the sonar had shifted the polarity in his brain, making the dolphin side more dominant.
It’s what had kept him alive long enough to get saved, and also what kept all of his organs working while he was in the coma. But, it was disconnected from the rest of his brain. The clear separation of hemispheres was something that others on Pinhold had heard before. It was not just about physical traits, like similar ears or silver eyes;it went deeper than that.
While the Elders hadn’t had the technological imaging available to make the brain visible, they knew how to tune in to their dolphin twins. Dolphin Twins weren’t legends, but truths known to all, even those who weren’t lucky enough to have one believed. It allowed our ancestors to be open to what was happening with them, in a way that our parents hadn’t been able to do.
It was a point of expectation, of hope, of honor; especially these days because, there were fewer dolphins in the water and people often married Mainers, which watered down the DNA. Our ancestors prepared for this. Their dolphin brains connected with their dolphin twins and the two brain hemispheres grew together, naturally, over time.
It’s possible that this would have happened for Mica and me, too. But, the increased magnetic properties in the ocean around our Island had messed with our bodies and our brains. Years of drilling, of sonar, and of fracking, had led to a million tiny tectonic plate-shifts underground.
It was like the difference between bio-sonar and sonar, or natural oil and an oil spill. The magnets underground were natural, useful, and good. But, when the ground cracked and too much of the magnetic forces were exposed, it led the whole world to shift.
Our dolphin brains became dominant, responding to the trauma by slowing down, mimicking dolphin sleep. When dolphins sleep with only one half of their brains at a time, the two sides are linked together and communicate about everything—including waking the resting side from sleep.
Since Mica didn’t have another half of a dolphin brain to do that job, the human side of his brain had no idea that was something it was supposed to do—which is why he and Shay never woke up.
“Dolphin brains? I’ve missed a lot, clearly,” Mica said, assimilating the information and adapting to communicating mentally with the dolphin at an alarming speed.
My dolphin flashed an image at me, which immediately went to Mica as well, from the night I had gone down at the bonfire. It was a little different: my ear didn’t exactly burst from a magnetic pulse from deep in the earth, but the slamming of my head on the rocks had a similar consequence. The extreme magnetic content on that part of the beach, which was also influenced by everything going on underground, had shifted the polarity of my brain, too. My dolphin had understood what had happened, immediately, and was able to wake me the moment after I went down.
“But how? Why?” I asked, releasing Mica for long enough to kiss the silky rubber of her skin. She rubbed her melon to mine, smooshing our foreheads together with love.
She showed me how she was already listening to me, making a series of sounds that were familiar to me—sounds I knew in my soul.
It was the whistles and clicks from the ritual, during First Night. But why had she come then, when she never had before?
She showed me how hard it had become to hear our chants, because we didn’t know them well any more. Sometimes it worked, and the dolphins came, and sometimes it didn’t. Part of the reason, was that everything that had been happening in the ocean caused cochlear damage on their end, too.
The damage wasn’t instant, like with Mica and my friends, but more like a slow degradation from long-term exposure caused by extreme disturbances, underwater and underground. They couldn’t hear us the same way they used to, with their ears. And our people had, for the most part, lost the ability to reach them with our minds and our hearts.
That night—when I’d felt more connected to nature, my past, my family, and my future—I had truly connected with her. We’d been moving toward each other for a while, really, chasing a connection that hadn’t been made between her kind and mine, in well over a generation. She was already tuned in to me when I had hit my head. My brain flopped in response to the magnetic shock, and she realized right away what was going on. In addition to getting my brain to wake up, she gave some instructions to the dolphin side to help link it with the human side.
I had felt the change instantly. But, I had confused it with my feelings for Blake. When I woke up, I was drawn to him in that way that made me feel scrambled and put back together again. He was the first thing in my life that felt like it connected both parts of my brain.
The rest of the connection came quickly, though I didn’t recognize it at the time: my swimming, my vision, and my mental link with my dolphin had been improving steadily over the summer. The two sides of my brain were becoming increasingly proficient at working together. Every time I swam with my dolphin, my skills in her ocean-world, multiplied exponentially. While the human part of my brain hadn’t understood what she was saying, the dolphin part did, and it responded even though, consciously, I couldn’t tell.
“Ok, great—lucky you!” Mica said. His sarcasm was back, instantly, and I had never been so grateful to hear him snark. “If your brain was working so fabulously at piecing all of this together, why didn’t you figure this out before now? Shay’s been down for over six weeks. Why couldn’t they help her right away?”
I looked at him. Truly, I didn’t know. But then, I understood. It was because it took me so long to believe.
If Blake and I had spent more time swimming with the dolphins together, instead of researching on computers, or fighting, or breaking into the lab, the mental link between us would have naturally increased as our dolphin brains connected.
The night he got hurt, Blake was only passed out. His dolphin pulsed at him, attempting to shift his brain, but that wasn’t what was required. Together, he and his dolphin understood enough to realize that, while it didn’t work for him, it was exactly what the others would need.
But now, he was really, truly passed out from medical need. Both parts of his brain were in agreement that his body needed to be shut down to heal. It was a traditional coma. Unconscious, he couldn’t use words to tell me what he knew, and we hadn’t gotten to the place where we were linked with our minds.
While my dolphin had learned from Blake, and his dolphin, exactly what we should do, she had been telling me and I wasn’t tuning in. I just didn’t believe. Not until Kaleb came back and showed me the crazy notions in my mind were true.
In addition to communicating with me, Kaleb had also seen the details in Blake’s brain, and was able to link the pieces together for all of us in a way the dolphins couldn’t quite explain. I’d believed him about everything, because of the way he had been able to link right into my brain.
“Oh my God! Kaleb,” I said, looking off to the horizon to the place where I had left him last. Blake’s dolphin cackled, and a picture that blurred the two of them appeared in my mind.
“What’d that jerk do now?” Mica asked, gleefully floating in the water.
“He saved you,” I said.
“Naw,” Mica raised an eyebrow, dubious, and with good historical reason. But, that was the craziest part of it all.
“This all came together, because of him. He linked all the pieces because, he was the only one who really believed.”
Mica and I swam back under the protection of our dolphins, sharing the thrill of riding with them through the waves. His gratitude, his sheer glee at being back in the water—in addition to the joy of waking up and meeting his dolphin—kept us playing and swimming much longer than we had planned. Distance needed to be covered in a hurry, in order to beat Mom and Dad for wake up; and my own sheer exhaustion was getting to me.
For the first time in a while, the swimming was hard for me. I’d been up for almost forty-eight hours, at that point, and time had truly stretched, making these the two of the longest days of my life.
Finally, we arrived home, snuck into the house, and found both Kaleb and my father waiting up for us in Mica’s room.
Kaleb, bless him, had shared as much of the story as he was able, so when we arrived, my father was miraculously on our side. My mother was royally pissed, but it couldn’t be helped. She tried to argue with me, but the proof was standing in his own room, dripping wet.
Desperate to see Blake and to rescue Shay and Darwen, Kaleb and I ran downstairs to catch Billy coming out of his house across the street, just as he was getting into his golfie. Blake, he'd just learned, was coming to. "Mica's awake. Take me with you and I'll fill you in," I demanded.
I wanted to be there when Blake woke up. I needed to apologize, to tell him I loved him and that he had been right. As we arrived in his room, he was just barely stirring. Despite my not so peaceful protests, only Billy was allowed to stay. He closed the curtain and then, later, found Kaleb and I in the hall to give us an update.
“He’s stable and coming out of the coma, which—unlike in the movies—may not happen right away. It’s a slow process that could take most of the day, so you need to be prepared to wait.”
I was prepared to wait, forever. But I really wanted Shay to not have to wait any longer. I paced outside the room as Kaleb rolled his eyes, sensing how excited I was to see Blake.
Kaleb and I communicated silently, trying to use the time well. He was struggling to convince me that getting Shay in the ocean wasn’t even needed. He thought we could convince the two halves of her brain to flip back, or wake up, or do whatever the dolphins had done just by going into her room and explaining what to do.
I didn’t think it was that simple. It was impossible to explain, considering he hadn’t really been there, but merely telling the brain what to do wasn’t enough. The suggestion was only part of it—the pulses, the energy generated by the dolphins and amplified by the water, the sacred swirl were required, too.
But, he was convinced that he was right. So, instead of just waiting around for Blake to see us, we went into Shay’s room to give it a try. Sadly, Kaleb’s instinct had not been correct—which was why we were randomly shouting at Shay to wake up when Alysha found us.
“So, you just put him in the water and the dolphins told him to wake up?” she asked, hope and confusion battling in her eyes.
“Basically, yeah,” I said, glancing at Kaleb, seeking his silent opinion on exactly how much to say. It wasn’t like I cared what he thought, per se, but I was torn. Just the fact that Mica was awake from swimming with dolphins seemed like a lot for everyone to take in.
“If it’s so safe, and works so well, why are we just hearing about this now?”
“Because Doc’s a control freak with a hero complex, and our parents are stupid lemmings only capable of believing what they see,” Kaleb said, cutting to the chase. “So, are you gonna help, or do we have to do this without you, too?”
Kaleb’s words were harsh, but effective. Alysha agreed to wait until night. It was too risky, bordering on impossible, to get Shay and Darwen out in the day. Despite Mica's recovery, Alysha's and Andrew's parents still didn’t want their comatose children back in the water for any reason. We started plotting to do it anyway.
In the meantime, we waited for Blake to truly come-to. I’d seen him, hugged him, and held him. He’d said my name in a breathy voice, as he came in and out of consciousness while I’d kissed him and made the sacred swirl on his hand. All I really wanted to do was climb into bed with him, but considering the hospital and the way we’d left things, it wasn’t exactly appropriate.
Instead, I covered every single part that I could reach with kisses—his arms, his chest. I felt his eyes open again, and I heard him groan. Of course, Billy thought he was moaning from pain, and he banished me to the hallway. But, while I’d been with Blake, I’d had a flash of something, like I could hear him in my head, just the tiniest bit.
Mica’s arrival was a source of huge celebration for the whole hospital. He was greeted by hollers and hugs. Doc, especially, looked surprised and insisted on examining him right away. While Mica was being looked over, I explained to my Mom, as best as I could, the details of what had happened. I begged for her forgiveness for going behind her back. When she gave it, I felt that this was a tremendous meeting point for us; even though she did not know about everything I’d done, I felt exonerated and forgiven, to the point that I was actually ready to ask for permission to carry out the rest of our plan.
But then, Stoney walked in with Gramps. When they set eyes on Mica, well, pretty much all hell broke loose. They both laid into Doc and my mom for not coming up with the solution themselves.
I learned a lot in the blow out, namely that putting the injured in the water with the dolphins was hardly a new form of healing on the Island. For hundreds of years, the dolphins and our ancestors had worked together to provide healing for both.
When Doc’s work became more complicated, he took over every aspect of medical needs on the Island. And then, his own baby, Helix’s twin, had died in a dolphin-assisted birth, killing Doc’s wife too. The reasons seemed, still, to be unknown.
That's when Doc turned his back on the dolphins and closed the lab off to everyone else. When the new hospital opened, dolphin healing—at least in any kind of medically supervised fashion—was gone for good. The Elders continued to go to the water for aches and pains and small matters, but they kept it on the down-low. It was just one more point of separation between them and the younger generation, who were reluctant to believe in anything that they couldn’t see or scientifically prove.
My grandfather, weeks ago, had suggested putting the children into the water. He was turned down flat. Because of recent history—and specifically Doc’s loss—he didn’t push it.
After seeing Mica, and listening to the whole story, he ordered my mom and Doc to make it so. This was an order, not a suggestion, and it was exactly what Kaleb had wanted us to do. Again, he’d been right; we could have worked harder to get Gramps on our side.
The ambulances stirred the air with their sirens, and the sand with their wheels, as they brought Shay down to the shore. While Stoney was fully in favor of this solution, he was still the Captain of The Guard. Tangible evidence of his cautious optimism was all around. What had been a private Hail Mary last night, was a huge military operation now.
We’d waited until the last ferry left for the day, so they only had to clear a handful of locals off the beach between the old jetty and the pier. The beach was closed to everyone but Doc, some nurses, my mom, and the members of The Guard who were patrolling to keep possible onlookers far away. They were staying put, they promised, though that had been a big debate. This was something that hadn’t been done on-Island in twenty-odd years; since they’d lost one of the few babies born.
Gramps had wanted a full ceremony, complete with all the Elders and drums. I think I’d broken his heart just a little when I told him we didn’t need any of that to make it work. He did insist on joining us, and that I couldn’t debate. Stoney came, too.
I felt like Alysha needed to be there, given what had happened last night, but she wasn’t the swimmer her sister was. Luckily, Andrew was happy to hold her hand and help her feel confident in the ocean. The added safety of having Stoney present worked, as well.
Our location on the beach meant it was a shorter distance until we got out where we needed to be at sea. This second time we met with the dolphins, everything went much faster. We all knew what to do, and I was able to position Shay and Darwen in the center of the circle, while the rest of us worked to hold them up.
There were more dolphins in the bay this time, as even more of the pod had shown up to help, knowing they were needed. We had an audience now, and it included some non-believers.
I’d explained how important it was to be positive, while we had been waiting for the ambulances to bring Shay and Darwen down to the beach. Words were unconvincing though, and I could see the concern in my friend’s eyes. I understood why she was worried about getting in the water for this, but she needed to let it go.
And then, Mica showed up. His presence and his words worked in a way mine had not. For the millionth time that day, I was so, so, so glad he was there.
I left to call the dolphins closer to us, which was something only I could do.
When my girl arrived, she showed up with two more who looked familiar, but whom I really didn’t know. Based on their interaction with Gramps and Stoney, it was obvious that they knew them. I guessed they were Gramps’ and Stoney’s dolphins or, at least, Elders of the pod. We followed them out into the deeper part of the sea.
Again, the dolphins circled and started their calls. The extra energy from sheer numbers made it feel less like a pulse and more like an earthquake when we took Shay and Darwen underwater. The dolphins let their sonar go. The waves reverberated off the ocean floor, visibly moving the soot and some huge boulders, shifting things around. Something silver on the bottom caught my eye.
Before I could investigate, Shay and Darwen came to. Like Mica, they sputtered to the surface, to the surprise of everyone but the dolphins, and me. My girl winked, and blew water out of her blowhole in celebration.
While the others had a moment with Shay and Darwen, I took a minute to thank my girl. We were now—all of us—believers, again, in the link between our counterparts, the guardians in the sea, and ourselves.
Today, my dolphin had shown not just me, but all of us the way things needed to be. Now, it was up to us to make sure that, collectively, we never forgot again. I promised her, over and over again, as we separated and swam our separate ways. She led her pod to the sea as I led mine to shore, so we all could return to our various duties as The Guard for each other.
We got Shay and Darwen back to shore where it seemed most of the Island waited and cheered. They were overwhelmed, confused, and ecstatic. I knew just how they felt.
There was so much to say and explain, but I was counting on Mica to handle it.
“You left me with Kaleb?” Blake asked. “Thanks a lot, Cami.” My eyes went wide; worried he was still mad at me.
“We needed everyone else at the beach,” I sputtered. “Be mad at me for not listening to you, for hurting you, but please don’t be mad about this, now.”
“Okay, Love, I forgive you. For everything,” he said, reaching for my hand and pulling me down on the bed with his good arm.
I tripped onto him, every nerve in my body responding to being so close, but concern that I could hurt him stopped me from moving a single muscle. I desperately wanted to kiss him, but instead, I froze.
“You won’t hurt me,” he said, grinning, showing off the single dimple I hadn’t seen in weeks.
“At least not like that,” he said, silently broadcasting a fear of his own. Images of me with Kaleb flickered through my head, and I gasped. Not because of anything to do with Kaleb, but because I realized Blake’s thoughts were clicking directly into my brain!
Concentrating, I looked back at him, and thought carefully about how I spoke with Mica, Kaleb, and my dolphin, too.
With Blake, I saw even more. Hopes and fears came through clearly, like he could hide nothing from me. I wondered if I sent the same to him.
If I shared my thoughts the way he was sharing his, he would be getting them unfiltered and unedited. He’d be reading me raw, getting everything from me. Would he know that I used to see him as a trap? That he had represented a life stuck on Pinhold, a limited future? I didn't feel like that anymore, but I didn't know if he would see the new feelings too.
“You and Kaleb clicked, didn’t you?” he asked out loud. He did a good job, keeping the white heat of jealously from his voice, but he couldn’t hide it in his brain. “I’ve been trying to keep his thoughts away, but it’s like he’s blasting them into my brain.”
I gasped again, the depth of his feelings of betrayal coming through loud and clear. I was furious at Kaleb for using the connection he and I had shared as a weapon against Blake. The dimpled smile had turned to an angry pout as Blake stared into my eyes, like he was trying to pull the truth from me.
Worry and fear was etched into his face; jealousy burned from his eyes. Then, I felt that buzzing—those clicks inside my blood that didn’t come from a single person or being, but from the universe when everything was lined up properly, and you’re in the right place doing the right thing at the right time.
Blake realized immediately what I meant to, do seconds after I decided. His face lit up with a joy that blasted out the dark moodiness that had taken over again with just a few seconds of talk about Kaleb. No one else mattered at all now, except he and I, alone in that room. And he got that from me; I made sure of it. Remembering the way that I’d done it with my dolphin, I leaned in and opened my mind, flooding him with my own point of view. I clicked everything, as raw and unfiltered as it could get, proving that head to heart, I was his and only his. He got it, and I got him.
Because when you click with someone, they become a part of you.
Forever.
<<FIN>>
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