When Cal woke she saw Skimmer resting nearby. He never slept deeply and at the flicker of her eyelids he shifted close. The pale morning light played on the crystal water. A shoal of herring fry tacked past, like tiny slips of quicksilver. She sat up. There was Jake stretched beside her, arms crossed on his chest and a seahorse bobbing around his head. Cal trickled a pinch of sand on to his nose. He twitched and brushed it off in his sleep. The seahorse darted a safe distance away and, a moment later, returned to hunt for breakfast in Jake's thick curls.
Cal rubbed the sleep from her eyes and gazed down toward the village. What a mournful, eerie place it was now. The only sound was the cry of a blue whale calf far away. She recall how, just a few days before, she and Pelin had helped bring home a fine oyster harvest. As they'd pulled the nets into the village the whole pod had gathered to celebrate and prepare a feast. Then the elder had chatted the old stories and there had been beautiful singing - such haunting songs that night water itself had hushed to listen. Now not one Silvertail heart beat among the ruins. "What shall I do?" Cal felt empty and numb. "I shall have to find a new pod, somewhere. There's nothing for me here." But to leave her home was to leave her memories, all she'd ever known. She decided to swim down through the village one last time.
Cal made her way back, cautiously. At every turn she almost dared to hope she'd find her father, with open arms, alive and well. But then her memory replayed their last argument. She saw his face, older and sadder than ever. Since the day Cal's mother, Syllable's, had died Pelin had taken care of their daughter himself, not accepting any help. Cal remembered him devoting all his time to her when she was very young, always patient to explain, always encouraging her confidence. She had loved their visits to her Overbreath. He used to laugh at her dancing in the big surf under the stars. "Calypsia - my singing spinner" he called her. Pelin had kept her away from the other Delphines. She had hardly noticed then because he her whole world. But as she grew older Cal became curious about life beyond their home. She listen for hints of what lay outside the homewaters. She tasted traces of the unknown in the current and it excited her. That was when her childhood began to feel like a prison. She had started to resent her father's watchful eye and begged to be trusted. What had he been afraid of? She'd never understand. But she did know he'd only been trying protect her. Why had she been so angry, so stubborn? She'd turn her back on him and now - now she'd give anything to bury her head on his shoulder. Cal lay on the sand, wishing it would fold itself around and smother her grief. He couldn't be gone. It wasn't true. "If I'd been here we could have escape together. We could have hidden, or fought them," she cried. "I'm selfish and stupid and... Father... where are you? Don't leave me alone!"
Cal wept hopeless salt tears into the great salt ocean. Drop by drop, the sea gently took her grief. When at last she came to, Cal found Skimmer at her side. Something white lying in a clump of weed caught her attention. It glinted in the morning light. Cal reached out. It was a necklace, hung with white claws. The Bloodfin! Skimmer started at her alarm. "Skimmer, you must hurry to the Blue Caves," said Cal. "There's a large Silvertail pod there. Why didn't I think to warn them last night? They're the closest. It might be too late already.!" Looking around, Cal saw a length of twine trailing from a nail. Snatching it up she began to tie a knot message. Cal was skilled with her fingers and, like all Delphines, knew hundred of knots which could be tied in varied patterns or worked together in complicated plaits and braids. Hurriedly Cal made a warning for Silvertails nearby.
"You'll be quicker without me, Skimmer," she said as her fingers worked frantically, twisting and tying the twine. When it was done she put the message carefully between Skimmer's jaws and, laying her head against his, urging him to hurry. He puzzled Cal's cheek, reluctant to leave her, but then with a graceful sweep of his great wings he took off and was gone.
It was some time before Jake begin to stir. He felt the water around him and smiled. Despite the extraordinary events of the day before he was excited to wake up in his surprising adventure that had claimed him. He looked around and couldn't see Cal. Then he remembered the box. It wasn't there either. Panic prickled through Jake's body. Had she taken it and left him? He scrambled to his feet and swam off towards the village. The whole quiet sea felt abandoned. Surely Cal wouldn't have deserted him? And the box - he'd been certain it was important. He had to find them both. "Cal!" Jake called as he neared the village. There was no answer. The gaping doorways and blind windows of the empty houses shrieked silently like faces stricken with horror. Jake shivered.
Suddenly he was startled by the harsh scrape of metal on stone.
Cal appeared, carrying a net basket bulging with tools, dishes and a shiny goblet.
"Why didn't you wake me? What's all that?" asked Jake. "I've been thinking about what happened," said Cal as she struggled to keep everything in her arms. "I can't believe the Bloodfin arrived without any warning - there would have been threat in the water creatures fleeing in fear. The pod must have sensed danger. Maybe some have time to escape."
Jake remembered the vicious looking marlin he'd seen at the cave. He didn't rate anyone's chance of escaping from that. But he kept his doubts to himself. "Where could they have gone?" he asked. "Surely you don't need to bring all that stuff if you're going to search for them?"
"First I'm going to find Tarian ," said Cal. My father says nobody knows more about what's happening in the sea. If anyone escape he might have news. But he doesn't give anything away."
"Who is Tarian?" asked Jake as he took some of the dishes from her arms.
"He's a trader," said Cal. "He travels through the homewaters and Deep Sea, collecting and exchanging salvage from wrecked boats: tools, twine, sometimes food, and especially Creeper things - Delphins love to have Creeper things." Jake remembered the bell, the buckle and barometer in Cal's home. Then he recalled Charley's clutter of cuttlefish bones, shark's teeth and curious shells. Maybe they weren't so different...
"And a trader brings news from other settlements," said Cal. "Whenever he arrives everyone is eager to hear about what he's seen. Then, when the bartering is over, the Elders talk with him long into the night. My father always kept me away from them. He said a wanderer had no loyalty and couldn't be trusted." She hesitated. "But he didn't bring Tarian to our home once because he had a chain of keys and Father hoped he might might be able to open mother's box. Non of the keys fitted. Then Tarian offered Father many things for the box, but he couldn't part with it." Her voice faltered. "You don't have to come with me," she said, not looking him in the eye. I'll take you up to the Overbreath, back to where you come from."
Jake knew he couldn't go back yet. He couldn't just leave her, with her people dead and murderous Bloodfin out there - even if they really were hunting for him too. He made up his mind to help her somehow. Also, he had to get a look inside the box. He noticed now that Cal didn't have it with her. Had she left it somewhere while she collected those things? Before he could speak Cal asked him the very question.
"Where did you put my mother's box? I have to take it with me."
"I didn't move it!" exclaimed Jake. "It was right beside you last night."
Cal beat her tail in frustration. "It wasn't there when I woke up," she said, starting to get upset. She dropped a candlestick and then the basket tumbled out of her arms. Everything crashed to the ground.
The box had disappeared! Jake had been determined to pen it somehow. He helped Cal put the things back into the basket and she took it for him. "Will you come with me?" she asked quietly, with a shy glance.
Jake looked at Cal with her weighty basket and her tiny scrape of hope, all alone in a sea of danger. She deeded him. Yes, he would help her. And he would find that box. He suddenly felt close to things he had to know, answers to questions he couldn't put into words. Now he had seen the box from his dream, touched it, he was sure something of the dream itself must be real too. The uncertainty he had always felt about himself, the way the sea had taken him; there had to be an explanation and Jake was convinced the box was the link.
"I'll come with you," he said.
Cal was pleased. She shook the hair from her face and the light danced on her freckled cheeks.
"So let me take the basket," he said.
"No," said Cal, "I don't need any help."
Jake shrugged and smiled to himself.