CHAPTER TWENTY
I woke in a deep and twisted fog. The clouds that normally
lightly grazed the waves now were locked inside my mind. The
rain within blurred my sight. Shell-shark and sandwalker danced
together upon the water in their purpled splendor. Twin Harmonys
leaped from the soul of the sea and never came down. The world as
a whole spun around me until I finally had to close my eyes tight to
stop this vision of fright.
I slowly opened my eyes again and saw nothing, nothing at
all. Now the world was devoid of all life. Then I looked again, for
the world was not deserted, it was only that I could see nothing but
darkness. My heart began to hammer in my chest, for surely I was
blind, but then the fog cleared.
I found myself bathed in the cool of nighttime with those
familiar bits of glitter scattered about the heavens. My head pound-
ed with an ache like I had never felt before, and I breathed deep to
exhale whatever poison I had somehow drawn into my system.
My body settled down, and I began to hear the silence and
feel the stillness of the stone ponds. Odd dryside sounds echoed
pleasantly in the night. It was then that I remembered the dream —
the blinding, twisting pain of the beginning of birthing and the mem-
ory that somehow I had been found by Little Brother. Or was that,
too, part of the dream?
I tried to twist around and found that not only could I not
move, I could feel nothing of my lower extremities. That’s why I
was left alone. I was paralyzed, left to die. But what of the child? I
could feel nothing move within my womb; surely the child had died
as Sharing had warned.
“The child! The child!” I wailed. “My child is dead and I
am dying.”
As if in answer to my lament, light lanced like a knife into my
eyes blurring my sight once again with purple splotches and danc-
ing green clouds. Like sunrise, in the blink of an eye, where there
was dark before there was now light, but not the warm golden light
of the sun.
Out of this mottled dream of colored clouds and bright lights
danced a vision of Little Brother. I feared for my sanity, so vivid
the hallucination. But what was dream vanished, and what was not
remained, and there before me truly was my beloved Little Brother.
He swam to me cautiously, concern restraining his movements. I
wanted so badly to leap to his side, but I was still paralyzed. That
was no dream.
Realizing that I was fully awake and had regained my sens-
es, Little Brother gushed of love and delightful endearments that
under normal conditions he wouldn’t be caught in a sharp-fin’s
mouth saying.
I hushed him quiet, then said somberly, “I don’t know how
you came to be here, but Sharing, the sandwalker, will aid in your
escape. The baby has died within, for I can no longer feel it, and
I am paralyzed — no better than dead. Go from me, my love. Save
yourself and seek the Conclave. For I have discovered that the Nar-
whal have done much evil to the Song of the Sea. The sandwalker
has a song.”
Little Brother looked at me as though I had gone quite daft.
“Leave without you? Not hardly.”
“But I am frozen in my body and cannot move nor feel. The
baby does not move within me — it is dead. Please, for the sake of
all that is holy in the sea, save yourself and allow me to join the end
. . . the beginning with some sense of dignity.”
“I’ll give you dignity, indeed,” he snorted, “and I’ll give you
no rest either. You don’t feel the child, for it was birthed three tides
earlier. It is a she and she is now with Sharing waiting your awaken-
ing to be fed the true nurturing that only a mother can give.”
“That is wise,” I answered gravely. “Even though I am para-
lyzed, for the brief time I may have left, I can nurture my child.”
“What kind of fish droppings is this, ‘all the time I have left’?”
he laughed.
“Well,” I sniffed indignantly, “I am paralyzed and will only be
good for returning to the sea as food for others.”
“Paralyzed in the brain only,” chortled Little Brother. “You
are suspended in some contraption created by the sandwalker so
that you wouldn’t drown as you slept. As you began the birthing,
the child was twisted. Rather than killing you both, the sandwalker
stuck you with a silvery spine of some prickly thing and you went
fast asleep.”
Little Brother paused, and then continued, “With the sharp-
est of stones, she sliced you open neatly and out popped our child.
These sandwalkers, though evil incarnate, are a clever lot and they
put you back together again as if you had not been torn. As you
slept, you have nearly completely healed. In but a group of tides
you will be fit to swim the seas, a bit slower than before, but then
again you were never that fast.”
“You just wait,” I coughed, “I’ll show you slow.”
We laughed together as in the time of our innocence, for we
seemed much changed. Finally I stopped and remarked, “It is tradition
that the child be named as soon as she touches the waters of life. We
are late but I will devise some name appropriate to the situation.”
Little Brother twisted uncomfortably in the water, and said
a bit awkwardly, “Uh, well it seems that the, uh, child is already
named. I, uh, well when she slid into life; she did so with such a
giggling joy that Sharing named our child Giggles. That is what she
has been called since. I don’t know, it kind of fits.”
“Giggles,” I whispered softly, “Giggles, a tiny uncontrollable
laugh.”
“We can change it!” blurted Little Brother. “Although it is
tradition that the first words spoken at birth are the child’s to carry
through life, we can surely change it. Other traditions are changing
so fast around us, I’m sure no one will notice.”
“Change it!” I protested. “Change the most perfect name in all
the seas? Never! Think of it — ours is the first dolphin to be named
at birth by a sandwalker. Oh, she is bound to greatness.”
As if to punctuate my statement, I felt a tiny splash and heard
my first giggle from Giggles. It was the sound of tinkling shells on
stilled waters. It was a wave broken on a pebbly shore and pull-
ing back to sea. It was delight! As if she knew she was the focal
point of our lives, she swam to the center of the pool blooping, tiny
breaches that caused my heart to nearly stop in love, admiration,
and pride. She swam, punctuating every stroke with a giggle. It
was obvious that Sharing had done well with her birth name.
My baby swam for a time, showing off and exploring every
nook and cranny of the smooth-stone pool. Finally she came back
to where I floated. She nosed about me. Sensation began to return
to my body as her tiny snout poked me here and there. After a mo-
ment, Giggles began to suckle, filling herself with all the goodness I
had to offer. My body warmed with the pride of motherhood.
I looked at Little Brother, and he looked at me as we spoke
in quiet whispers. The baby nursed and then fell asleep. We were a
family.
“How did you come to be here?” I asked, “and what of the Con-
clave and the message that needs be sent to all who sing in the sea?”
“One thing at a time,” he laughed. “First and most important,
the message of the Conclave is being passed, even as we rest, down
the full surface of the sea. Right after I left you, I found a pod of
great gray whales and a group of gabby dolphin. Both are moving
the message down. All the waters now ring with the great migration,
as all who are able and even many who are not, swim up the world
to the gathering — the Conclave.”
“You must know,” I said, “I have discovered the Narwhal have
withheld knowledge from the Song of the Sea for their own pur-
pose, to strengthen their argument for the death of all sandwalkers.
Through Sharing, I have learned that the sandwalkers are not all
bad. Although they do not sing as we sing, it is only because they
have never learned to listen. But they do have a song.”
“I, too, have noted the kindness and the compassion,” said
Little Brother, “but I will not forget the horrors I have seen in the
sea. I will not forget the nets of kelp that kill far, far to the other
side of the sea. I will never forget the magnitude of the useless
slaughter of the whales and the death of their Song. No, my sweet,
we will carry the knowledge we hold and present it to Harmony. The
ultimate decision as to the fate of the sandwalker shall be that of
the Conclave. Somehow, someway we must leave this place and
carry the new verses to Harmony.”
We softly floated in gentle silence, satisfied in the simple
presence of one another, and then my memory was jogged again.
“My dear mate,” I teased, “you seem to dodge and avoid the ques-
tion of how you came to be here in the ponds.”
Little Brother laughed in that comfortable way of his and then
told this story.
“After passing the message of the Conclave on to the dolphin
and great grays, I came back to the cove where I had left you, only
to find it empty. Empty but not quite, for there were shell-sharks
floating with their kelps draped in the water, and one old furred flip-
per-fin who remembered you had been there. He said you had been
eating everything in sight when you were cornered in a shallow part
of the cove and lifted into a shell-shark that quickly swam away.
I tried to follow but the seas were quiet and I knew not which
way to go. Finally, my mind discovered a great plan. If you had
been captured and taken, then I, too, would be captured and taken
away. If you were dead, then I would be dead, for life is quite empty
without you.”
Little Brother paused as he spoke looking at me with great
tenderness and concern, before he continued.
“I went to the first of the shell-sharks that floated in the bay
and danced on my tail for them but they were not interested and tried
to get me to go away. I breached. I called, but no one wanted me.
Then, for a time, I stayed very still in the water, so that I
would make an easier prey for capture but still no one would take
me. I resolved that if they wouldn’t capture me, I would help them.
I swam about gaining speed, dove, breached high above a small
shell-shark, and easily fell within.
Unfortunately, my breaching and fall caused the shell-shark
to fill with water and the sandwalkers jumped from their shell. They
had not captured me; I had captured them. I tried over and over but
the small shell-sharks filled too easily with water.
With my plan still shakily intact, I swam out in the deeper wa-
ter and found a much larger shell-shark. Surely it would be able to
support my weight without sinking. I dove deep and surged to the
surface in a mighty breach. Once again my plan was thwarted by
my own judgment — I had assumed the shell-shark was lower in the
water than it really was. I crashed into the side of that hard-sided
beast and nearly knocked myself silly.
My attempts had not gone unnoticed, and the shell-shark
slowed so that the sandwalkers could watch my odd behavior. I
shook sense back into my head and dove very, very deep. With ev-
ery bit of strength I could muster, I shot to the surface like a bubble
eager to burst. Higher than I had ever breached before, I left the
water, nearly to fly.
I looked down and there, way far below me, was the shell-
shark. I fell like a rock and smacked on its hard back. The air was
forced from my lungs and all faded to black.
I awoke some time later to find myself here. It was only at
today’s early tide that Sharing told that me the sandwalkers on the
shell thought me crazed, so I was brought here.”
I laughed at Little Brother’s story until my sides ached with
over-use. It felt so good to laugh again. Giggles woke with a tiny
laugh, then after a quick meal fell back to sleep.
It was then that I realized that Little Brother had been refer-
ring to talks that he had with Sharing. “Have you,” I sang eagerly,
“also, learned to speak the odd language of Sharing?”
“Yes,” he replied arching his fin proudly. “She says I am the
smartest student she has ever taught.”
Sharing who had come to the edge of the pond interrupted my
retort. She asked in her odd-finned way of my health. When I told
her feeling was returning, she released the restraint that had kept me
afloat. Then she slipped into the water and examined my body.
“You are healing quickly,” she signed. “In two tides, we will
take you all back to the sea and set you free.”
My eyes glistened as I realized that once again we would be
free. I thought of telling her of the Conclave, the meeting called
by Harmony to discuss the fate for all time of the sandwalker. But
I didn’t know if I should risk telling even one such as Sharing. I
remained silent.
As the next tide turned and rolled unseen by us, I was filled
with melancholy at my decision not to tell Sharing of the Conclave.
When we were alone, Little Brother and I discussed the merits
of the situation, but he was just as confused as I. I sought out
the others, the dolphin and the whale. They felt that I was right.
Sharing should not know of the Conclave. Out of the necessity of
survival, her allegiance would be with her own kind. If she knew,
the Conclave could turn all the seas into a battlefield of sandwalker
versus the brethren of the song. Without the advantage of surprise,
the brethren who live in the sea would be wiped from the memory of
the waters by the clever sandwalkers and their mechanical devices.
But my decision was not made without regret, for we could
sense that Sharing felt something was wrong, that I was leaving
something out. Even with the intrigue, we loved her and her stories
that had never been heard by our kind before. I’m sure the feeling
was reciprocal as we told her the carefully edited truth.
There was a sense of excitement in the pond on our final day
— a sense of adventure, of loss, of gain. The dolphins were the first
to come and wish us well in our travels. “Go now to the Conclave,”
they cried, “carry the truth of the sandwalker. Tell of their great
achievements and even greater failures. Tell all that the sandwalkers
can sing, although they may never be capable of holding the melody
of the Song of the Sea. There is every reason to believe that the
Narwhal has been withholding verse from the Song.”
With that the dolphins pulled back and the whale, Dreamer,
moved forward.
“I wish,” sang he, “that I had a beautiful song to sing but my
voice is rusty and I can now barely hum. I, too, wish you a safe
journey and a part of me wishes I could travel with you. A Conclave
of all the singers in the sea has never been called, and it would be a
wondrous sight indeed to see everyone brought together, united as
they will be. But I must stay here. Perhaps the sandwalker can be
taught conscience and understanding of the delicate balance of the
dryside and the sea. Go now, my friends, and may ALL THAT IS
RIGHT IN THE WORLD watch over you in your travels.”
Silence filled the stone pond as we sang not a word, but
instead felt the presence of one another. In time, Sharing came to
the pond. It was as if she had known our need for farewell and had
purposely left us alone. She slipped into the water and explained
what would happen and how we would be freed. She said the oth-
er sandwalkers did not truly believe she could speak with whale or
dolphin. They felt communication with us was futile. We were the
clowns, the jokesters, the merrymakers of their strange circus.
She said if the other sandwalkers had truly believed we could
think and talk, we would never be set free. Dear Sharing, the first
sandwalker ever who talked with the singers of the sea.
Sharing climbed from the water and signaled other sandwalk-
ers to push the strange carriers that would move us on the dryside.
I urged Giggles to drink deeply of my milk, for while being moved,
any such actions would be impossible. As she suckled at my side, I
sang to her consoling songs.
But surprisingly Giggles and I were bound together in the
weed weavings, and her closeness to me allayed her fears. I could
feel her heart pounding as we were lifted onto the carriers.
We were left there on the edge of the dryside pool as Lit-
tle Brother was loaded onto his carrier. Together we were moved
through great caves and caverns of the dryside. To my shock and
delight, we were not taken to the great mechanical bird but were
lifted from the carriers onto an odd shell-shark.
Sharing knelt on her lower fins between Little Brother, Gig-
gles, and me, constantly bathing us with a large soft sponge soaked
with the waters of sea. After much thumping and clanking, we
began to move as if on water but only rougher. We bounced and
jostled into the noisy, confusing world of the dryside. Acid burning
smells assailed our senses, and we were all numbed by the lack of
air. Honkings of great beasts and the roars of other dryside shell-
sharks made speech of any kind impossible. But through it all
Sharing soothed us with guttural humming. Once again, I consid-
ered singing to her of the Conclave, but still I was unsure.
After what seemed like a full tide but was much shorter than
that, the air took on a sweeter smell. Little Brother and I arched our
backs in excitement, for the smell could be nothing more than the
sea itself.
The shell-shark came to an abrupt stop, and once again
we were carefully lifted high over the sides and onto the back of a
floating shell that hummed in excitement. These were smaller shells
than the ones that had captured me originally and were uniquely
formed, soft as a fat whale.
Giggles and I were laid in one, and we watched as Little
Brother was dropped in another. Sharing rushed about our tiny
shell, fussing with strands of kelp, and then reclined at the back of
the boat. The shells roared, and we swam out in the water.
As we plowed through the waves, we saw the other shell
racing alongside and Little Brother arching himself so his face was
full into the wind. He loved speed; for him this must have been
pure ecstasy.
We traveled for some time, and then the humming stopped
and all became quiet-still. Sharing began to sign as fast as her fins
could move. She told me that beyond the dryside was a school of
dolphin heading up into the seas. There were pods of whale and
flipper-fin that were oddly moving all in the same direction. She
asked if I knew the meaning of this strange occurrence. I guiltily
replied that I didn’t know. She stared at me, seeming to know that a
secret stood between us like a great wall.
She rolled me into the sea and, after I was in the water, slid
Giggles in beside me. I turned as my dear sandwalker friend slipped
into the water beside us. She signed slowly, “You will be well. Your
wound of childbirth will soon heal with no complications.”
Raindrops spilled from her eyes and joined the waters. “Stay
in this cove until you are acclimated with the sea once again,” she
continued. “Giggles will grow stronger every day.”
Finally, my heart could stand no more, and I blurted, “Oh,
Sharing, we will miss you so, but we must now join the others of
our kind.”
Sharing climbed back onto the shell and turned and headed
back to the dryside. I was quite sad as she floated away. Giggles was
frightened at the vastness of the sea and hovered by my side. Little
Brother looked at us and realized he had a morale problem in his
growing pod. He turned and swam quickly away without a word.
He soon returned, gripping a tuna-tail. “Here, you may eat
this now, or wait until it is very dead like the food fed to us by the
sandwalkers. I understand how very fond of those fish you were.”
He tossed me the morsel, and then with a flip of his tail, he
surged away again. How sweet the meat of the sea! I felt content,
as Giggles satisfied herself with her mother’s milk. Soon Little
Brother returned with still another juicy fish.
I asked, “How did you catch such fish so quickly?”
“Easy,” he chuckled, “a sandwalker floats in a shell-shark
dragging his twisted kelp. In the twists are all sorts of fish.” With
that he tossed me the fish and swam back to the shell-shark.
My belly full, I watched lazily as Little Brother swam close to
the shell-shark and dove to steal another fish. As he rose with his
prize clutched in his jaws, the sandwalker suddenly leaped upright in
the shell and pointed a smooth stick at my mate. The stick puffed a
bit of cloud followed by a loud sound that reverberated through the
water, and then the water went ghostly still and flat.
With no thought of Giggles, I rushed to Little Brother who lay
still in the water. Fortunately, Giggles stayed where she was. Little
Brother’s eyes glazed, and he didn’t appear to be breathing. Blood
poured from a wound in his side, and the sea ran red. I swam to-
ward the sandwalker who still stood on his shell holding the stick of
death. He slowly raised the stick and pointed it directly at me.
“Harmony and the Narwhal are both right,” I snarled. “All
sandwalkers need to be eliminated from the earth.”
With slimy rock eyes, the sandwalker began to clench one of
his tiny fins holding the stick, and I prepared to die. I don’t know if
I blinked, but in that moment of time, a new sound broke the ten-
sion — the roaring hum of another shell-shark.
The sandwalker turned and saw the shell bearing down on
him. Assuming it to be a friend, he turned and again raised the
stick. But the other shell rammed the shell-shark, hitting the
stick-wielding sandwalker full force.
The evil creature that killed Little Brother was thrown over
the side and into the water. The attacking sandwalker turned its
tiny shell toward me and the body I was shielding. From the shell,
a sandwalker leaped into the water and was upon us before I could
take any defensive action, but no action was necessary for it was
our beloved Sharing.
She grabbed Little Brother and pulled him to her shell where
she looked at the wound on his side. Satisfied that the body was
being cared for I sought Giggles and gathered her to me. Together
we sadly swam back to Sharing who still hovered over him.
“I cannot believe it!” I cried. “Little Brother died seeking to
cheer me up with the fresh fish. Oh, that silly fool. I loved him so.”
“He’s not dead,” said Sharing, piercing his skin with a prick-
ly-point.
His eyes opened and he asked, “Am I dead?” Sharing stabbed
him again with the prickly-point. Little Brother answered with the
slap of his tail on the water, as he cried out, “Ow! That stings!”
Sharing cradled him firmly in her scrawny fins and dabbed at
the wound. Little Brother continued complaining but his whining
was pure music to my ears. Only a live dolphin can complain the
way he was. The bleeding stopped, and Little Brother began to
move tentatively about, gaining his bearings. Sharing signed, “He
was only grazed by the stone that flies with power.”
“My dear friend,” I sang in humility, “you would attack one of
your own to save a life in the sea?”
“Yes,” she signed, “the sandwalker must learn he does not
hold dominion over living things. He must learn life is to be cher-
ished within the laws of Nature and ALL THAT IS RIGHT IN THE
WORLD.”
I paused staring at this sandwalker who had saved me not
only once but twice, and now had saved Giggles and Little Brother.
She must know of the great Conclave.
“There is much we have not told you,” I sighed. “The dol-
phin and whale who wait for you in the stone ponds came to you,
not by capture, but of their own free will. As you learn from them,
so they learn from you. All this knowledge has been passed to a
whale or dolphin that was to be set free. Once freed, they carried
this bit of Song to the mysterious Narwhal in the colder waters who
add it to their charges against the sandwalker as sung in the Holy
Song of Truth.”
“I knew it!” signed Sharing excitedly “I just knew there was
more to all of this.”
I continued, “Something wondrous is about to occur — a
Conclave of all the singing creatures in the sea. There has never
been such a gathering except at the beginning when ALL THAT IS
RIGHT IN THE WORLD allowed us to be as one.”
“You must tell me where the Conclave is to take place, ”she
enthusiastically waved, “for I must see this with my own eyes and
feel the Song as it is truly sung by all who can sing. Please tell me.
I will sneak into their presence and no one will know I was there. I
will hide. Your secret will be safe with me. Please tell me.”
I ignored her and continued, “You must know the reason for
the gathering. The great white, Harmony, has called for the Con-
clave of all, and all are moving up the seas to the colder place where
the Narwhal live. There shall be enacted a plan to save the seas
from the greater evil.”
Sharing paused and stared at me with those strange ice-blue
eyes. “But what is the greater evil?” she signed.
“The greater evil,” I continued, “is you, the sandwalker.”
She didn’t move for a time, her fins still. Finally she mo-
tioned, “What do they hope to do?”
“I know not,” I sighed. “Only Harmony knows. But I know one
of the options will call for the end of the lives of all the sandwalkers.”
“Why are you now telling me of this?” asked Sharing.
I paused, looking at Little Brother and Giggles who frolicked
in the waters of life. “For you are more than a sandwalker. In a small
way, you have learned to sing the Song of the Sea. You must come
to the Conclave, but not as an interloper or an unwanted guest. You
must come as a singer, for a singer you are. You must come and
defend the sandwalker.”
Slowly and carefully, so she would hear all, I recited, “As it
is recorded, and as it has been passed on to us, we will share with
you the Song of the Sea. In hearing it, you will become part and as
such we will be one with all of us.” I looked at Little Brother and he
at me. We were in total accord.
“I was born long, long ago in a happy time, a time of joy in
the waters of life. I remained, like all birthed creatures, for some
conscious time in the darkness of my mother’s womb…”
And so it was that was that I sang all the song for the sand-
walker, Sharing.
As I finished she blinked away tears welling in her eyes un-
derstanding full well the import of the singing of the song and the
invitation to the Conclave. “I will be there,” she waved, “Come fire
storm or high-water, I will be there.”
Without another word, I swam from her. Little Brother and
Giggles followed, and we quietly swam out to sea to join the others
silently moving up the world to the Conclave.
Would she be there, I wondered? Could she find the place
where only singers could dwell? Could Sharing learn the Song and
in turn sing it to others? Questions, many, many questions and no
answers save for time.
But the Song will be sung in the sea, with or without the
sandwalker.