Ocean: The Awakening (2 page)

Chapter 2

Alicia Ellsworth worked two days a week in her grandfather’s magnificent aquatic park, on the southeast corner of his sprawling ranch and resort. The marine facility had eleven dolphins and three porpoises in captivity, and all of these animals were revenue producers, very popular with tourists and locals, who liked to sit in the viewing stands and watch the daily shows.

Not that Alicia’s grandfather needed the money; the Ellsworth Ranch was only a small portion of his business empire, which included cattle and resort operations here on the island of Loa’kai, along with general stores, hotels, and resorts throughout the Hawaiian islands, as well as radio and television stations, newspapers, and magazines, all based in Honolulu.

He ran his businesses with military precision, having been raised in a highly regarded military family. His father, Preston Ellsworth II (Alicia’s great grandfather), had been a war hero who ran for President of the United States and nearly won. He’d also written numerous books about the military, both non-fiction and fiction, including two that were made into major movies.

Interested in the history of her influential family, Alicia had not only read the books; she liked to listen to her grandfather, Preston III, tell the old family war stories. He’d served as a naval officer himself, before using the considerable Ellsworth fortune and properties as a springboard to become a successful businessman in his own right. The Ellsworth Ranch, in the family for generations, was considered the flagship of the business operations.

A few months shy of her twenty-first birthday, Alicia had auburn hair and was well-tanned from surfing the beaches of California and Hawaii. She wore khaki shorts, a wide-brimmed outback hat, and a blue tee-shirt bearing the stylized “E” logo of the famous ranch. As she stood by a bucket of sardines, she watched while one of the handlers—a slender Portuguese man named Johnny Lisboa—tried to get a bottleneck dolphin to do tricks it had been trained to perform. The creature was not cooperating.

She recognized the animal, named Rainbow by one of the handlers. The dolphin, a male, had been quite ill when brought in, and had undergone surgery, in which the marine veterinarian discovered plastic bags and other plastics in its stomach, garbage it had ingested somewhere in the ocean. Rainbow had survived the surgery and was now a healthy animal, around seven years old. He’d been one of the lucky ones, the vet said, because larger animals, such as orcas and humpback whales, had been killed by excessive amounts of plastic in their stomachs, and their bodies had washed up on shore.

The viewing stands were full of people sitting in bright tropical sunlight, locals and tourists who had come for the mid-afternoon show. Many were wide-eyed, excited children, and some called out encouragement to the dolphin, by name. “Come on Rainbow!” a little girl shouted, from the front row. “Jump and you’ll get your treat!”

But Rainbow just swam slowly around the pool, seemingly ignoring the efforts of the handler to get his attention. Lisboa walked around the perimeter of the pool himself, using an imploring, gentle tone, trying to coax the creature without upsetting it any more.

Alicia saw dark clouds moving into position overhead, preparing to drench the area. The locals noticed this as well, and some of them had brought umbrellas. The tourists, unaware of how fast the weather could change on the eastern shore of Loa’kai, seemed oblivious. They were likely to get quite wet, but the rain wouldn’t last long, and soon after the downpour, warm air would dry their clothes. She had seen sudden rainstorms dampen the unwary before, countless times.

Despite her own family connections, Alicia was only an assistant at the aquatic park, performing cleanup duties, bringing food for the animals, and other tasks that were needed. Alicia and her brother, Jeff, lived with their grandfather on the grounds of the resort, but had only been on the island for ten months, since leaving the mainland and accepting his offer to work at the ranch. That enabled them to get away from drug-addicted friends in California who were not a good influence on either of them—and parents who were even worse.

Her brother, nine years her senior, had been a decorated pilot in the Army, and now worked as a helicopter tour pilot for the ranch. Completely self-absorbed, Jeff spent a lot of effort trying prove himself to their grandfather and advance his own position, often seeking to make himself look good at Alicia’s expense. She didn’t care about such games, and tried not to think about whatever her brother was doing.

Alicia saw her own duties at the ranch as a chance to bridge a family rift that had occurred because of drug addiction by their father, Preston Ellsworth IV, her grandfather’s only child. She hoped that one day her father might come to Hawaii and make amends with the old man. At the moment, he was incarcerated for petty crimes in a California prison, and undergoing drug rehabilitation treatment, while Alicia’s alcoholic mother had run off with an itinerant musician.

Preston IV, a rarely-employed furniture salesman, had always been verbally abusive to everyone around him, but Alicia hoped that might change one day, if he ever got sober. She wrote to him regularly, but he had not replied even once. She didn’t know where her mother was, but had never really gotten along with her at all. At least with her father there had been some pleasant moments—though too few.

Today a group of Catholic children in prim uniforms had been escorted to the aquatic park by nuns in black habits, and sat near the front. Suddenly one of the students—a lad with shaggy black hair—rose to his feet and shouted, “Let Rainbow go, so he can roam the ocean! He’s not happy here! This is a prison!”

One of the nuns admonished the child and forced him back into his seat, but the message resonated with the audience anyway, as a smattering of adults agreed that the dolphin should be set free.

Finally, after much coaxing, the creature leaped out of the water and caught a fish, but would not do it again, and lapsed into complete disinterest.

Alicia couldn’t help wondering what was wrong with the animal, and if the boy was right. Maybe it was cruel to keep dolphins and porpoises in captivity, no matter the justifications she had heard, that these were all rescued animals that had been healed of their wounds. Despite that, and their usefulness in educating the public about the importance of ocean ecology, shouldn’t the creatures be set free at some point?

She had not thought much about such things before.

When the show was over, the young woman dumped the rest of the fish into the pool for food, then hurried inside to avoid the oncoming cloudburst.

***

Chapter 3

Southwest coast of England….

The teenage girl stood at a barred window in the ancient stone building, gazing down at the village and at the cold sea beyond the rooftops. It was early morning, and smoke from cook-fires rose out of chimneys, curling into the pale blue sky. On the streets below, she saw townspeople in heavy winter coats hurrying to bakeries and other shops, going about their daily business in a manner that was denied to her.

Gwyneth McDevitt was small, with an elfin face and curly brown hair, cut short. She’d been locked in the Chelsea Hospital—a mental-health facility—for almost a year because she had autism, and because the authorities thought she wanted to harm herself.

Before coming to the institution she had been able to speak slowly, in simple words, and she’d had some success in getting her points across to people who were patient enough to listen to her. Not for fourteen months, though, not since something startling began happening to her, so that she could hardly communicate with others at all. Because of her autism she’d never felt like talking much anyway, but recently she had become even more introverted. Only a handful of words escaped her lips, infrequently.

In the last few months her mind had been flooded with a tremendous flow of information, from an unknown source—data that poured into her brain, causing her to make a series of complex calculations. At this very moment, complex numbers were churning through her head, leading her to inescapable, deeply disturbing conclusions.

Our planet’s ocean is in severe trouble
, she thought.
It is dying.

It was as if a higher power was passing the information along to her, for a reason. She had the feeling she was being entrusted with something incredibly important—though she didn’t know what to do with the data, or what to do with her conclusions.

Could she do more to communicate with other people? Perhaps, but she was certain that the information in her mental treasury could not be conveyed easily to others. Her condition prevented that, and even during moments of clarity such as now, she had great difficulty forming her complicated thoughts and conclusions into words.

Besides, whom could she trust? Whom could she
really
trust?

Increasingly it was as if she occupied one realm and system of linguistics (a mathematical one), while other people occupied another, with no way of bridging the gap. Just as she could not hope to break out of this facility, it was also true that other people could not hope to penetrate her inner world without her permission—a realm that was precious to her for the escape it provided, for the way it grounded her in a different reality, and permitted her to see and do things that others could not.

Maybe, in time, she would find the words to express herself clearly, despite the distraction of all the new information. She could work on that. In the meantime, she awaited guidance from the unknown source that had set her on this path by filling her head with facts. It was as if a high-pressure fire hose had been connected to her brain, but a hose with data in it instead of water.

The ocean is in grave danger, but what can I do about it?

A gray gull flew past her third-floor window, then circled back, tucked its wings and landed on the broad sill, where it peered in at her through the bars. It was one of her little friends who came to visit regularly; she recognized this one, with a narrow band of white on his breast.

Gwyneth unlatched the window, letting in cold air, and with her fingers she extended a small piece of toast through the bars to the creature, saved from her breakfast for her feathered friends. The bird grasped the morsel in his beak and hesitated for a moment, looking at her in its sideways manner. Then he flew away with his prize, in the direction of the blue-green waters of the North Atlantic.

As Gwyneth closed the window, she wished she could get out of this hospital, but freedom seemed impossible. At least
physical
freedom did. She had tried numerous times, in various ways, without success. Because of her efforts, the staff was on alert, watching her constantly, making certain all exterior doors were locked and she had no more opportunity to escape.

She stared at a color photograph of a humpback whale leaping out of the water, a beautiful picture she’d torn from a magazine and taped to the wall. Gwyneth loved all things of the sea, and especially whales. It seemed to her that they were the most incredible, most beautiful animals on the planet. Someday she wanted to see one, and get close enough to touch one.

Gwyneth had a vision of her life that was infinitely more significant than the locked, cramped room in which she was forced to live. But she didn’t know if her keepers would ever let her out, not even when she reached adulthood.

Her parents never came to visit her anymore, and there had been no letters or gifts from them in ten months, no communication during that period at all. As a result, she’d been trying to forget what they looked like, and her former home in the city of Portsmouth as well. They didn’t live that far away, could come here to see her easily, if they wanted to do so. But they had three other children (a boy and two girls, all normal), and they were teenagers now—with all of the customary problems that involved. Gwyneth saw all of their faces in her mind, all five of them. She wanted to be understanding and forgiving, but couldn’t think of anyone in her family who had been very kind to her. Instead, they had often seemed irritated and embarrassed by her presence, and she was sure they were all happier now that she was out of the way.

The petite girl heaved a deep sigh, and looked away. It did her no good to stare outside and yearn for what could not be, what could never be. Her only refuge lay inside her own thoughts.

In actuality, she had come to realize, that would be the case no matter where she went or what she was permitted to do. Her thoughts controlled her reality, in ways that other people could not begin to comprehend, not even the doctors and other medical staff who professed to know so much about her. Their charts and reports did not begin to touch the core of Gwyneth McDevitt!

Now she heard a quick succession of raps at the door, and it squeaked open. A heavy door of dark wood, clasped in black metal, it was fitted with locks that prevented her from leaving, but did not keep anyone out. No privacy for her. A black, heavyset doctor in a medical smock entered, carrying a rectangular box under one arm. Dr. Nelson Halberton had a kindly face, with small eyes and short black hair.

“Good morning, Gwyneth,” he said, in a soft voice, because he seemed to know she didn’t like loud noises. He spoke in very precise Queen’s English, clearly enunciated. “Did you sleep well? I hope so, because a good night’s sleep is essential to good health.”

She just stared at the man, and knew she must appear dumb to him, but there was nothing she could do about that. The words would not come, and this time she wouldn’t even try to form them.

This doctor was, in effect, her prison warden. Despite his good intentions, she would never consider him to be anything else. Did he have medications with him today? She watched the quick movement of his long-fingered hands, wary of the pills and insidious medical devices that he often produced from the large pockets of his smock, and from things he carried with him.

He placed the box on a table in the center of the room and opened it, bringing out an octagonal board with peg holes in the surface, and little pieces of wood in varying colors that fit into the peg holes. He demonstrated how the pieces fit into the holes, then set them beside the board.

“I’d like you to make a design with them,” he said. “Anything you like. Whatever comes to your mind.” Halberton was always giving her psychological tests. In addition to being a doctor, he was her instructor, and had expressed amazement at her abilities in math. Even before the recent flow of information about the ocean, she’d been able to write long, complicated mathematical formulas on paper, and other things as well, although her spelling was so atrocious that the staff had trouble interpreting it. But lately, since the incredible flow of information began, she had not felt like writing anything down. She had her wondrous secrets now, which she kept in the treasure chest of her mind. Still, that board looked interesting.

Gwyneth went to the table and began arranging the peg pieces, selecting ones that were blue.

“Ah yes,” the doctor said as he watched her fit them in place. “Blue pegs represent truth. You are being truthful with me.”

Ignoring him, Gwyneth finished her arrangement, forming a circle of blue on the board. Then she stepped away.

“A circle?” he said. “That is what is in your mind today? And what does it mean?” He scratched his head, looked at the board.

Gwyneth didn’t answer.

“Would you like to make another design? Something with different colors?”

After a moment’s hesitation to process what he was saying, she shook her head.

“You’re not going to tell me any more, are you?” he said, looking exasperated.

Hesitation again. Then the teenager made a small, wry smile, and watched him as he packed up the board and pieces, and replaced them in the box.

“Would you like me to leave this here for you?” he asked.

She shook her head, knowing he would just watch her with a hidden camera. Gwyneth knew where all of the abhorrent spy-eyes were, in the corners of the room.

“Very well, then. Maybe you’ll be in a better mood tomorrow.” He went to the door with the parcel. “I’ll be back after breakfast for your daily lessons.”

Gwyneth turned her back on him, and gazed out the window, to the rooftops of the village of Apperton, and beyond, to the eternal sea.

Blue is the ocean
, she thought,
the ocean that encircles the Earth.

All of her secret calculations were about the ocean and its fate. From her earliest memories she’d felt a strong affinity for the sea, and during the summer in Portsmouth she used to play endlessly in shallow water under the vigilance of her parents, while waves lapped in around her. Water always had a calming effect on her, which seemed strange, considering the dangers that lurked in the sea. Her parents had warned her of the risk of going out too far and getting caught in an undertow, or being attacked by predatory creatures in the water—and she supposed all of that was true. Even so, she loved the water, and liked to gaze out on it from her room and imagine herself out there in it.

There was nothing else of importance to her now, not since the flow of information began and she went to the rocky seashore in Portsmouth, where she entered the water and tried to swim out to sea. It was an episode that the authorities interpreted incorrectly, and was instrumental in having her confined here. She had not been trying to kill herself at all. She had only been attempting to immerse herself in the ocean water and learn more about it, to see what she could do to help the water’s sickness, in some small way. But she’d been unable to explain her actions in terms that anyone understood, or accepted—and her parents had institutionalized her.

Now she tried very hard to block out the troubling thoughts. That memory of being in seawater, and recollections of her earlier experiences as a child, gave her some satisfaction, and she used the pleasant thoughts as a bridge to cross into her inner realm, going deeper and deeper….

***