Midnight Dolphin (25 page)

Suddenly
Spirit was out in the sweet waters of the open sea again. He looked
back and saw the familiar coastline rearing up behind
him.

Spirit stirred
out of his waking-dream and opened his eyes.

‘
Dancer,
Dancer’ he called excitedly to his friend, sleeping in the water
next to him. Dancer peered at him blearily.

‘
What? What is
it Spirit? It’s the middle of the night.’

‘
I know where
they are Dancer. I know!’

‘
Know what
Spirit?’ she asked in reply, still half asleep.

‘
The Three
Green Caves’ replied Spirit, buzzing with realisation that his
dream had given him. ‘I know where the caves are!’

Mary Pewsey
stepped out of her parent’s low cottage, up onto the rutted road.
She gathered her skirts around her so that they would not trail in
the mud and started walking. A pony and trap were making their way
slowly down the road and Mary crossed out of its path. It was early
Autumn and though there were still warm days, this early in the
morning she felt a chill in the air. A light mist had rolled in
from the sea and still hadn’t lifted. Even the seagulls seemed
subdued. Mary shivered a little despite her shawl as she made her
way.

With her
bonnet tight upon her head, Mary used to feel as blinkered as the
ponies that pulled loads of tin ore up out of the mines. Yet she
knew now that she was infinitely freer than those ponies would ever
be, or indeed freer than most of the people she knew. Mary smiled
quietly, hugging her secret to herself as she walked briskly into
the village of Merwater.

When Mary was
younger, her father had made her help mend his nets and gut the
fish that he landed. It was hard work though, and left her fingers
dry, cracked and bleeding. If she continued doing such rough work,
her hands would be useless to create the delicate lacework that her
mother had taught her and her sister. Fortunately her mother had
found her a place at a merchant house on the High Street where she
was indentured, spending the day making lace to sell in Exeter with
five other women. Mary’s hands had recovered and she was paid
modestly but reliably for the lace that she produced.

The women
would talk as they worked, or sing songs together to pass the time.
More often than not though long stretches of time would pass in
which none of them would exchange a word. It was at times like this
that the tick tock of the clock in the hallway would seem
particularly loud and the bustle of the street on market day was
especially alluring. It was a narrow life for Mary and the other
women. Yet while her fingers worked methodically and diligently,
Mary’s mind was able to slip away, escaping the confines of the
dusty room, plunging instead into the world of water and of the
dolphins that lived there.

As Mary walked
along, the one person she dreaded seeing appeared from a doorway on
the other side of the street.

‘
Mary Pewsey!
Mary!’ cried the portly, black-clad figure. Mary sighed and turned.
The Reverend Smith approached her, stick in one hand, notebook in
the other.

‘
Good day sir’
she said courteously, but with a heavy heart. Would that man never
leave her alone?

‘
I wonder if I
might, err, if I might talk to you for a moment’ he
ventured.

‘
Sir I will
lose pay if I am late at my place of work’ she sighed, itching to
be away from him.

‘
Quite, quite.
Perhaps I might accompany you?’ Mary turned resignedly to resume
her brisk walk. He surprised her though by walking as quickly as
her.

‘
You must
bring me to these caves Mary’ the Reverend demanded quite
suddenly.

‘
What caves
might they be Reverend?’ replied Mary guardedly. She wondered what
her mother had been telling him.

‘
Why the
Trinity Caves of course!’ Mary froze inside. She couldn’t have
someone like the Reverend Smith barging into the Trinity Caves.
They were a special place. Not for the likes of him.

‘
I don’t know
where they might be Sir’ she replied, hoping to keep as blank a
face as possible.

‘
Come now
Mary’ admonished the Reverend, irritation rising in his voice.
‘Your mother has told me the full extent of your interest in them.’
Mary looked at her feet. She did not wish to appear disrespectful
to the vicar of their parish. If she angered him she was well aware
that the Reverend Smith could see to it that she lost her position
with the lace makers. She didn’t know what to say to
him.

‘
I am a man of
learning’ he continued in a more conciliatory tone. ‘I must
investigate them and the significance they have to you and this
region. I am writing another book Mary’ he continued, wondering how
to break her silence. ‘If you assist me you will be furthering the
cause of natural philosophy and I can mention you in those
pages.’

Mary glanced
up at him. Her own learning had been at best patchy and had ended
abruptly when she was only ten because her father needed her to
earn money for the family. Yet she had an insatiable curiosity to
learn about the natural world about her and the sea in particular.
She had read the Reverend’s first book in its entirety, as her
mother had persuaded the lady of the house where she worked as a
scullery maid to lend it to her. She and the Reverend shared many
interests she realised, but they would never be allies. She could
not betray her dolphin Sprite.

‘
I must get to
my lace-making Sir’ she mumbled. ‘If I am late the superintendent
may dock half a day’s pay for my impudence. Please let me go Sir’
she implored him. The Reverend Smith sighed in
exasperation.

‘
Very well, if
you must’ he replied irritably. ‘But I must warn you, young Mary, I
am very persistent!’ He turned and marched off.

As Mary and
the women attended to their lace-making, her mind roamed across the
wide sea in the company of Sea-Sprite and the other dolphins of his
pod.

‘
But I cannot
tell him about the caves Sprite, I cannot!’ she exclaimed as they
curled around each other while Sprite swam and she glided. They
broke the surface of the water together and Mary could feel the
sharpness of the air on her wet skin.

‘
You are right
Mary’ replied Sprite as they sliced back through the waves again.
‘The caves are our special place. We found them together and we
cannot let others come and break the magical unity that we found
there.

At the same
moment, in the room that Mary was working, one of the women asked
her to pass a skein of thread. One half of her mind applied herself
to work and conversation with her fellow workers, whilst the other
half of her mind remained free to roam the sea with Sprite. At
first Mary wondered if she merely imagined that she had retained
her gift in this manner, but she soon realised that she knew things
about the sea that no one else did. She was able to direct father
to the best shoals of fish. She knew when the Eleanor Grey had
foundered on the rocks off Black Rock Point long before anyone else
raised the alarm. How could she tell someone like the Reverend
Smith about what had happened that night at the Trinity Caves? It
was impossible.

‘
Don’t worry
Sprite’ she answered resolutely, ‘I will not let that man find out
about our caves. I will not!’

When Megan
woke up the next morning, she realised with a deadening empty
feeling that in three days’ time her family would be packing their
belongings back into their cramped car, and setting off for the
long drive back home after their holiday. Unless something happened
fast, she would never regain her special bond with Jet and all the
discoveries of the past few days would be meaningless. She sat up
in bed. Light was streaming through the thin curtains of the
cottage but Bethany was still lying peacefully, breathing
rhythmically in her sleep.

For what
seemed like the hundredth time, Megan tried to stretch out with her
mind and find Jet. But it felt as though a membrane had grown over
the portal in her mind that she used to use to reach him and she
could no longer find it. She felt frustrated and unhappy. She
thought fretfully about that article by Owen Davidson that Dave’s
friend Jane had promised to bring round to Rachel. She wondered
what it might say.

Megan wanted
to be free again today to go into Merwater and hang out with
Rachel, but Mum and Dad were insistent.

‘
No Megan’
said her mother firmly over her cornflakes. ‘This is a family
holiday and poor Bethany here has been feeling lonely without you
around. You’re spending the day with us.’

‘
But Mum….!’
Megan began.

‘
Oh please
Megan’ Bethany implored her. ‘There’s this fantastic cove that we
went to. I found tonnes of beautiful shells on the beach, and I
saw...’ at this moment Bethany trailed off, reluctant to say
exactly what she’d seen in front of Mum and Dad. ‘You’ll like it
there, you’ll see’ was all she added. Megan looked to Dad for
support, but she could tell that he would not be swayed. She bit
disconsolately on her toast.

Megan sat
unhappily reading a book while Bethany got her rock-pool net and
jam-jars together and Dad made some sandwiches to take with them.
She couldn’t concentrate and ended up staring out of the window
instead. Just then a car horn tooted outside and Megan leapt out of
her chair, throwing her book down, keen to meet her
friend.

‘
It’s Rachel!’
she cried enthusiastically. She ran out of the holiday cottage,
flung open the garden gate and bounded over to where Rachel had
parked her Citroen Deux Cheveaux.

‘
Are you free
today?’ Rachel smiled. She was wearing a floaty summer dress and
looked tanned and relaxed. Megan pulled a face.

‘
I don’t know,
maybe if you could talk to Mum and Dad’ she said, ‘then they might
let me come with you.

Just then Dad
walked over wearing shorts and flip-flops to put some things in the
car. Rachel got out of her Citroen to greet him.

‘
Hello Mr
Ames’ she called. Dad smiled sympathetically but firmly.

‘
Hello Rachel’
he replied. ‘I’m sorry, Megan can’t spend the day with you today.
You see our Bethany’s been feeling a bit left out and so we’re
having a family day out. You understand don’t you?’ Rachel
nodded.

‘
We’re leaving
in about fifteen minutes so you can chat till then if you like’ Dad
added. He stuffed a couple of beach towels into the back of the
family car, and flip-flopped back to the cottage. Once he was out
of earshot, Megan turned back to Rachel.

‘
So, did Jane
lend you a copy of Owen Davidson’s article then?’ she asked
excitedly.

‘
As a matter
of fact she dropped off a copy first thing this morning’ Rachel
replied.

‘
Let’s have a
look then!’ said Megan.

‘
I didn’t
bring a copy with me though’ replied Rachel. ‘I didn’t think I’d
need to. But I can tell you what it says if you like.’ Megan
nodded.

‘
Well you know
that Owen Davidson was a geologist working for the tin mines?’ she
asked, leaning on the bonnet of the Citroen. Megan nodded. ‘Well it
turns out that he was working there in the Eighteen Nineties, two
or three decades after the Reverend Smith was on the scene. Some of
the tunnels go right out under the sea. I wouldn’t fancy being down
there personally. Those tunnels branch out from the main shaft and
follow the seams of tin. This time though old Owen Davidson,
decided to build an exploratory tunnel to follow a seam of mineral
he hadn’t seen there before.’

‘
So he dug
along the seam and found the Trinity Caves did he?’ asked
Megan.

‘
Well, in a
nutshell, yes. In his article there’s a lot of technical stuff
about the types of rock and props they use to support the tunnel
and the risk of gas building up and the like.’

‘
So, what did
he say the caves were like then?’

‘
Apparently he
was really intrigued by this green mineral in the rock’ Rachel
continued. ‘He took four men and had them swinging their picks in
relays of two to make faster progress. When they finally broke
through the wall of the cave an eerie green light enveloped them.
As Owen Davidson stepped through into the cave itself, he could see
that the mineral formed into crystalline structures the like of
which he had never witnessed before. He took samples of the crystal
for analysis by breaking a piece off with his pick. He said it was
evident that the caves were linked to the sea somehow, but he was
unable to determine exactly how.’ Rachel paused for a moment. ‘He
said that the caves had an unworldly beauty the like of which he
had never experienced before.’

‘
But if he
discovered these caves, how come no one knows how to find them
now?’ asked Megan curiously.

‘
Well, that’s
the strange thing about the article’ replied Rachel thoughtfully.
‘He just says he discussed the discovery with the miners who had
helped him and they all decided to seal the cave off again to
protect it from the outside world. It was like they knew they’d
uncovered something special and didn’t want the rest of the world
trampling through and spoiling it.’