Letting Go (3 page)

He shot a cautious glance at her, while the grown-ups—none of whom seemed to notice the glittery silken strands—held their breaths. Conjuring a smile, she nodded to the little boy as the Aboriginal man had done to her that morning. Small fingers reached reverently for the bird. When he brushed its wooden surface, his mouth eased into a grin. He gently plucked it from her palm, and the three adults heaved a sigh of relief.

She and the kid weren’t so different. Like him, all she wanted was for someone to recognize her. To say, “I see you. You’re important. I care about you.” The guy on the street had done that for her.

Passing along a kind gesture to the boy seemed the right thing to do, but the selfish part of her couldn’t go through with it. She’d
just
gotten the bird, and it clearly had some kind of magical powers. Okay, maybe not actual magic, but it sure made her feel special. Judging by that temper tantrum, this little fireball would destroy her gift the moment she turned her back if she let him keep it.

No way. The bird was hers.

She opened her mouth to ask him to return it, just as the sun broke free of its cloudy prison outside and beamed through the front window. Rays of light illuminated one of the shimmery lines. By far the thickest of the bunch, this string didn’t come from the bird like the others. It linked Zoe to the little boy.

Her mouth clapped shut, and she choked on her own breath. What did this mean? Were she and this kid somehow tied together?

He smiled at her.

Zoe did a double take. Lots of threads from the bird to her and the bird to him, but the ones tethering the two of them together glowed the brightest.

As she’d once heard Aunt Renee say,
Well, I’ll be dipped in shit.

It was probably another of her hallucinations—she had them occasionally—but after the weirdness she’d experienced with the man, the bird, and these glowing lines, Zoe didn’t want to tempt fate by being selfish or ignoring omens from The Powers That Be. She had enough problems as it was.

“
Looks like you might need this more than I do.” Though it hurt to let the falcon go, she had to.

Laughter fell from the boy’s mouth, the sound of sunshine after a thunderstorm. Looking her straight in the eyes, he whispered, “Ta,” then wiggled the pulley with gentle fingers. The wings flapped their approval.

Free again.

“
You’re welcome.” Zoe ruffled his dark hair.

Having paid the bill, Mother stood up to leave. “Good luck with your baby,” she called over her shoulder as she strode away from the table, purse bucking under her arm, heels clicking on the tile floor.

“
Thank you.” The kid’s mom smiled at Zoe. The creases in her face had smoothed.

For the second time that morning, the magic in Zoe’s life faded, along with the glow of the filaments tying her to the kid.

“
No problem.” Zoe shoved her papers and CD player into the backpack. Swinging it over her shoulder, she faced the boy one more time. They locked gazes.
Take good care of that bird, little guy
.

His smile tugged the now-invisible line between them and assured her he would.

* * * *

The next morning, Zoe and Mother zipped up their suitcases, checked out of the hotel, and took the train to Hervey Bay in Queensland. The presentation had gone well, and Mother decided to reward Zoe’s “good behavior” with two days up north instead of one.

Truth was, Mother had a thing for Dr. Simons. Zoe could tell by the way she gushed every time she mentioned his “amazing research.”
Gag
.

Scientists were so weird.

They arrived at the balding doctor’s house around four o’clock. Disappointed that it had taken so long to get there, Zoe resigned herself to staying in for the night. They barely had time for a pee break before the old, slightly pudgy guy with the awesome accent—yeah, the Aussie talk was really starting to grow on her—held up his keys and said, “Are you ready to see some whales?”

Whales? Zoe’s heart nearly burst. She hopped a couple of times on the balls of her feet. “Man, I’m
so
ready!”

Mother even cracked a smile, but Zoe was pretty sure it was for Dr. Simons, and not her. Zoe didn’t care. She grabbed her backpack, and away they went.

The recreational boat was fast and spacious. Below deck it had a bedroom, bathroom, and small kitchen. Zoe imagined what it would be like to live on the water, day in and day out, right in the middle of the whales’ migratory route. Heaven.

The bay was the most beautiful blue—so clear, she could see the sandy bottom in places. Fraser Island in the east served as a buffer against rough waves, keeping the water pretty calm. Yeah, this would be the life.

Thoroughly bored by the scientific banter between the two doctors, Zoe slipped on her headphones and listened to her whale song CD for the hour it took them to get into humpback territory. She decided that when she got back to California, she’d do some odd jobs around the house to earn money for a new CD. She’d pretty much memorized this one and was eager to find a different population of whales to compare songs.

The boat slowed, and Zoe unplugged her headphones. “Dr. Simons, do the whales sing while they’re here?”

He smiled. “Occasionally. But most of the animals we see are mothers with newborn calves. The males are the only ones who sing, and they do it on the breeding grounds, which are farther north, around the Great Barrier Reef.”

Zoe’s shoulders slumped. The whales off Santa Cruz didn’t sing while they were there either.

“
What about the babies? How old are they by the time they get here?”

“
Sometimes as young as a week or two. Their lack of coordination is quite cute. They learn a lot from Mum while they’re here. The sheltered position of the bay provides a quiet place for growing bodies to thrive. Very few predators. Sometimes we get orcas, but that’s about it. Man’s the worst of all.” Dr. Simons shook his head.

Zoe stood up and practiced riding the waves as the boat skated over the blue. “In what way? Whaling’s illegal, isn’t it?"

“
True. Nowadays, entanglements in fishing gear and ship strikes are the two leading causes of humpback mortality. You sure do ask a lot of brilliant questions, young lady. How old are you?”

Brilliant? Nobody had ever called her
that
. She glanced at Mother, who kept her face carefully neutral. “I’m twelve.”

Dr. Simons grinned and patted her shoulder. “By the way you talk, I’d have thought you were at least in high school. Tall for your age too, eh?”

Her cheeks heated, and she nodded. A stream of condensation shot up from the water. Zoe’s heart broke into a full gallop as she pointed. “I saw a blow!”

He turned around and grinned. “Yes, you did.”

The boat’s engine slowed to a low purr, waves rushed a little less anxiously, and even Mother stood up for a closer look.

Another blow rocked the air. Two humpbacks!

Zoe leaned over the side and scanned the clear water. A monstrous black shape rose slowly. A head formed. Its bumpy knobs—
tubercles
—were a bit scuffed on the right side.

“
Tubercles help them sense motion in the water.” She said it to herself, a technique she’d picked up from her special education classes. Speaking the words helped her understand the meanings better.

“
Excellent.” Dr. Simons raised a brow, then glanced at Candace. “You never told me you were raising a genius to rival your powers of deduction.”

Mother brushed off the compliment with a coy shrug.

A few feet away, the whale tested the air with the tip of its rostrum, then poked its entire head up in a spyhop. Zoe gasped. Long strings of barnacled seaweed hung like a necklace around the pleats on its throat.

Wow
. Just, wow.

Dr. Simons laughed and said, “He can hear you, Zoe. Talk to him.”

She arched a brow. “Really?”

“
Of course. Whales have ears and big brains. They’re very curious, just like people.”

“
Hello, whale. I’m Zoe.” Yes, she sounded like an idiot. No, she didn’t care.

The nose remained poking out of the water. As Zoe watched, awestruck, the whale lifted its head higher until their eyes met. Her breath caught.

That brown orb staring at her—
through
her—rattled her to the core. It was like meeting the gaze of an ancient traveler who knew secrets far too complex for mere mortals to understand.

Like the Aboriginal man yesterday.

Weird, anxious energy lit up her body. Zoe shook with a sudden chill.

The humpback was too far away to touch, but she shot her hand out anyway. She needed it to know she was there. She needed it to see her. She needed to feel visible. Just like in the restaurant with the little boy.

Tell me I’m somebody,
she mentally begged.
That I’m worthy. And not stupid.

Dr. Simons thought so. Why couldn’t Mother see it too?

The whale slid back into the depths. Her heart went with him. She let go of her breath. Dumb tears choked her.

The other whale blew again, and Mother laughed, oblivious to Zoe’s precarious emotional state. The animal fluked up and dove. With elbows propped on the boat’s railing, Zoe tipped her head downward so her hair covered her face, and tracked the huge black body’s progress. Both whales disappeared in a swirl of setting sun and gathering darkness.

A tear from each eye fell and dissolved into the salty ocean. Just like her, they were tiny droplets in a mighty sea of greatness. Swallowed and forgotten before remembered.

Mother and Dr. Simons struck up a conversation behind her about genetic differences between humpback populations. Zoe closed her eyes and inhaled the ocean air.

If not for her disease, she could be somebody important one day. If she could read like everyone else, she might have friends. Imagine making the honor roll. Getting into a good college. Becoming famous.

The symbols and sounds in her head were much more impressive than what little she could make sense of on the page. It was so frustrating not to have the keys everyone else had to open such simple locks. Her keys unlocked a different language altogether. One no one else understood—

A high-pitched sound shrilled from far away.

The boat vibrated.

Zoe straightened and faced Mother, whose brows pulled together.

Afraid to ask for fear of the scorn she’d likely receive, but too curious not to, Zoe said, “Do you hear that?”

Dr. Simons’s concerned expression melted away. His ears drew back, smoothing the furrows in his forehead, and his lips curled into a smile. “It’s one of the whales.”

Zoe clutched the railing and leaned over the starboard side. Deep tones resonated through the metal into her bones. The tip of a fluke drifted just below the surface. Holy cow!

She darted to port and looked down. The other fluke tip pointed up at her. Swallowing hard, she tuned in to the song bubbling through the water and the boat. The volume increased. Her feet actually shook as they absorbed the vibrations.

A whale serenade. Chills swept up, down, across, and through her. “Oh my God. He’s singing to us!”

Dr. Simons nodded and laughed.

It was hard to see much under the fading sunlight, but the vague outline of the whale’s torpedo-shaped body hung upside down in the water column directly under the boat. Deeper, his black pectoral fins spread out to the sides, like an inverted cross. The humpback remained in that position as the song vibrated through liquid and steel.

When more tears formed at the corners of Zoe’s eyes, she didn’t bother to wipe them away. Mother be damned if she didn’t like it. It wasn’t every day a girl got serenaded by a beautiful, forty-ton beast in a foreign country.

Zoe focused on the phrases the humpback sang to her, and that gorgeous, haunting music took on a life of its own inside her messed-up head. She imagined the whale telling her a story of a time long ago, when the earth first formed out of loose flotsam and jetsam that the universe rejected. He sang about the fire that shaped the ball of rock, the water that condensed and fell, the atmosphere that breathed, and the life that followed billions of years later.

No words, yet symbolic meaning. Almost like
this
was her native language. The whale’s song made more sense to her than those confusing English letters and words ever had. It was effortless, whereas reading had always been a battle, with her on the losing side.

She wanted to jump into the water, dive down, and hug the whale. Let him know she understood. Thank him for his priceless gift.

But she didn’t have to. The hummed notes told her he understood too.

Overwhelmed by the first deep, soulful connection of her life, Zoe let go of the tears.

A warm hand patted her back. Dr. Simons. “Are you all right, Zoe?”

Way better than all right.
She nodded and slid an arm across her face in a pathetic attempt to hide the evidence of her emotional outburst.

“
I’m sorry, Dr. Simons. I’ve just never heard one sing before. Outside of these.” She tugged at the headphones hanging around her neck.

“
Amazing, isn’t it?” His grin swelled wider.

“
Truly.” She glanced back at Mother, who studied her nails. She hadn’t said a word since the singing began.

Here they sat in the middle of an ocean on the other side of the world, as a whale crooned right beneath them, and all Mother could do was pick at her fingernails and pretend to be interested when her would-be boyfriend spoke.

Zoe shook her head. Cold didn’t begin to describe it.

She shouldn’t be surprised.