Dolphin Magic

Prologue

Albatross

She watched the sea, like teal blankets snapped forth onto the sand, white foam bubbling up toward her doorstep. Her hands, darkened and weathered by her time spent with the sun beating down on them, pinching rusted nails between her fingertips, pulling out splinters with her teeth, were wrapped snug around a coffee mug filled with instant coffee made with milk. Her aquamarine eyes, flecked with gold, mimicked the sea glass she kept in her pocket. She stared off toward the horizon, watching.

The sun had just broken free of its tether, and gradually began its ascent, the darkness from the night's sleep vanishing like a ghost. She sipped her instant coffee and slowly moved her eyes up the coast, down the coast. She scanned the skies, but it was the water she watched the most. She watched it with a hunger that could not be satiated, an instinctive hunger, a remnant of her prehistoric beginnings.

Her tanned toes dug into the sand, gripping the granules, lest she run into the waves, into the depths where perhaps her soul would be still. The primal urge was like an arrow pulled taught by a bow, steady, unwavering, but that which at any time could be set free and would move at such speed to be invisible to the naked eye.

And yet she feared no witnesses, for there were no beings to be seen on either side of her modest home. No, what she feared was much closer than any neighbor. She dug her toes deeper until sand covered the tops of her feet, holding her firmly in place. She would stand here, as was her custom, until the waters met her, and in her fear, would retreat in haste.