Jessaloup's Song

THE SEND-OFF

Here they come: one by one, in two long snaking lines. The young whales first, jostling one another to be in front. Behind them the families, the mothers with their half-yearlings. Finally the elders come sweeping up alongside: Momboduno, with Onijonah on his right; Bonadiboh, Lord of the Ice Floe, and General Trogulo, the old battle-scarred warrior, on his left. As they pass him, each gazes deep into his unblinking eye.

Although he is anxious to be off, to start on his fearful adventure, he patiently endures the endless farewell. For each member of the tribe must be given a chance to donate a token of fortitude to the great store of courage he will be needing to complete his quest. It is ordained in the Song.

Even the seaweed is waving farewell. The light above has faded to a dusky, ominous green. He blinks, makes an effort to stay still in the prescribed position, although he is itching to flap his flukes, to shake his head, to twist his body and release some of the pent-up energy that has been building up in him and is about ready to explode.

There, at last, is Indigoneah, Keeper of Songs. As always, she is the last in line. Instead of gliding past him, she stops as she draws up alongside. He can sense the whales behind him settling into their positions. Without needing to look, he can tell that they are drawn up in great concentric semi-circles back there, like tiers of spectators in a Roman theater.

Nobody moves. There is a thick, expectant hush. The whole ocean seems to be holding its breath.

Then, finally:

"Courage, my son," Indigoneah intones.

"Courage," comes a hushed whisper from the whales behind him.

"Follow the Way of the Song," she continues.

"Follow the Way of the Song," hums the chorus at his back.

"May you succeed in your task," rumbles Indigoneah.

"Succeed in your task," sings the chorus, louder now.

"May you survive unharmed!" she bellows.

"SurVIVE unHARMED!" It’s a deafening roar.

An involuntary shiver twitches all up and down his spine.

"Go now, Indigoneah exhorts him, and make us proud. Save the HUMANS!"

The cry SAVE THE HUMANS! lifts him up on a tidal wave of sound as he sets off in the opposite direction, and it goes on ringing in his ears for many a mile as he makes his long, lonely way toward the shore.

ONE

Often at night, with the wind rattling my window and the rustling branches outside swelling, crashing and ebbing away again like the sea, I’d suddenly find myself sitting up in bed, wide awake. Joy and sadness inflated my stomach like a balloon, and next thing I knew, I was kneeling at the window — my turret window, at the top of my family’s blue Victorian house on Cape Cod. Once my eyes had grown used to the dark, I was able to make out the sliver of sea that was my sea, the narrow slice of ocean wedged between the hardware store and the marina. I could kneel there for hours, until my knees were numb and my eyes dry from staring.

What I was hoping to see out there was clearly impossible — it was too far away, and too dark, and too deep. Still I would keep waiting, and yearning… hoping. There! That glint on the horizon, gone in a flash. Could it be…?

And then, warmed in the pit of my stomach by that little crumb of hope, I would finally crawl back into my bed, and shut my eyes. And I dreamed I was being called back to the sea.

TWO

Isabel! Are you dreaming, Isabel? I asked you a question!

I looked up, startled. Mrs. Stiglitz was mouthing words at me, words that echoed hollowly in the neon-lit classroom. There were charts on the wall, a whiteboard, kids slumped all around me in little desks. There was a notebook open in front of me, I seemed to have a pencil in my hand, a pencil with a tassel on the end of it, but for a moment I had no idea what I was supposed to be doing.

Uh… Could you repeat the question, please? I stammered.

I said, have you got your final assignment for me? Everyone else has handed it in except you.

I fumbled around, peered under the book on my desk. Sure enough, there was a sheaf of papers, paper-clipped together, hiding underneath. I pulled it out and, pushing myself sideways out of my desk, stumbled to the front of the classroom.

Sorry, I muttered, handing her my assignment. The bell had rung, and everyone was making for the door.

Isabel. A word. Mrs. Stiglitz’s voice was stern.

I have to get to Spanish class… I said feebly.

"I don’t know what is with you these days. You were always such an excellent student. Now you’re constantly off in some never-never land, it seems. And your work is suffering. You’re just not concentrating enough. Are you getting enough sleep? I shall have to speak to your parents."

I mumbled something about insomnia, and escaped.

In the corridor, I ran into Tom, my ex-boyfriend. I’d broken up with him weeks ago, but he still acted as if he hadn’t gotten the memo. Hey, Isabel, he said. What’s up!

I’m late for class, I panted.

Haven’t seen you around at all, he said reproachfully. You avoiding me, or what? Battle of the Bands day after tomorrow, you know.

I know! I yelled over my shoulder.

Don’t forget! he shouted after me. You gotta be there! Promise!

In Spanish class, my best friend Molly had saved me a seat. She looked at me quizzically.

The Stick has it in for me again. She says she’s going to have to talk to my parents, I moaned. I’m ‘just not concentrating enough’, she says.

Well it’s true, Molly said, you do seem kind of out of it.

And Tom keeps bugging me about the Battle of the Bands.

Come on, aren’t you even a little excited about Tom and his band? They’ve got a good chance of winning, you know.

I shrugged. "He acts as if we’re still together. I mean, as if he didn’t even hear me when I told him I wanted to break up."

I don’t think he believes that’s the way you really feel. He thinks you’ll change your mind, especially if his band wins.

So what am I supposed to do? Pretend everything’s fine, and scream my head off when it’s his turn to play?

Plenty of girls would love to take your place, you know, said Molly. "Everyone thinks he’s way cool."

I know, I sighed. It’s just me, I guess.

Molly patted my hand. "You can’t help feeling the way you feel. But I do wish you wouldn’t act so gloomy. Cheer up, can’t you? I mean, we’re nearly done for the year. Almost three whole months of freedom ahead of us! What is up with you anyway?"

Nothing’s up, I shrugged, rifling through the stack of books before me to find my Spanish textbook. "Nada, uh, esta arriba," I clarified in my best stab at Spanish, pointing up at the ceiling and snapping my fingers. Olé!

Molly snorted. "You make me laugh, Señorita."

I do? I said.

You still do, she said. Sometimes.

THREE

But it was true, I was feeling gloomy. I had nothing to cheer up about.

Today was the anniversary. Three years!

That was what was so upsetting: it had been three whole years, and I was still leading this perfectly predictable, perfectly uneventful landlubber life.

Three years of carrying a secret I couldn’t share with anyone.

Three years since something had turned my world upside down.

Three years since I was changed forever.

Something had happened to me three years ago, something that had changed everything, and people kept expecting me to get over it, to forget it, to put it behind me. My friends. My parents. My brothers. I felt bad about letting them down, but I couldn’t help it. I felt different.

I had tried for a while to get along with Tom, flattered that he liked me. I’d tried to be this happy, cheerful, grateful girlfriend he expected me to be, but it kept getting harder and harder. In the end I just gave up, because I realized Tom and I weren’t at all interested in the same things. We didn’t even like the same music. He always made me feel whatever he was doing was more important than what I wanted to do.

And what I wanted to do was sit on the jetty somewhere. All I wanted to do was dive into the waves and go for a long swim, or sit on the beach and stare out at the sea.

My parents didn’t like me going swimming. Actually, they didn’t want me going anywhere near the sea these days. If it was hot, I was allowed to go swim in a friend’s pool, but I had to get special permission to go to the beach, and I was absolutely forbidden to go on a boat, any boat, ever — whether it was a sailboat, a ferry, or even a dinghy, anything that bobbed up and down in the water was a no-no. So unfair! So I was constantly sneaking around behind my parents’ backs. It bothered me that I had to lie to them, but the ocean kept pulling me back.

That wasn’t the only thing we were butting heads about. When I came home I’d head straight up to my room on the third floor, my sea-green cocoon, where I felt snug and safe. My parents didn’t understand why I didn’t hang out downstairs with them. I wished they would just come out and say it, I wished they would yell at me for being such a pill, I wished they didn’t think that I’d get over it. They were so sure that this was just a phase, that it would pass, that I’d grow up a bit and in the end I’d be happy living in their world again.

I wished I thought they were right. But I didn’t.

You know what it’s like to go through a turnstile — you’re on one side of the barrier, you push the slick, cold metal bar in front of you and — click — you’re suddenly through to the other side? Well, that’s what it was like, for me. Before, and After.

On one side of my life, the past side of my life, I had been an ordinary, happy-go-lucky girl living an ordinary, happy-go-lucky life in Provincetown, trying to please my teachers (sometimes), squabbling with my brothers and having fun with my friends, hanging out in my turret-room, teaching myself the guitar, sitting down for meals with my family, shopping for clothes, listening to music, texting and I-M-ing and all that stuff. I was content, I suppose: I just took it all for granted. I didn’t know any better.

And then this thing happened — click — I passed through that turnstile, and found myself in a whole other world, living a very, very different life, and experiencing a very, very different kind of happiness. (Thinking about that happiness now really hurt. It felt like two fists pressing on my chest so that I could hardly breathe. How come the memory of being so happy can make you feel so bad?)

Then, a year later, I was forced to go back again — click, back through the turnstile — and, even though it was all as it had been before, everything had changed. Suddenly my life, my regular, ordinary life, struck me as weird, or maybe just different — just one possibility out of thousands of other possibilities, thousands of other ways to live on this planet.

Sometimes, in the middle of brushing my teeth, I’d freeze, and stare at the toothbrush. What was that thing in my hand? Why was I jiggling it that way inside my mouth, spitting out foam? Who was that creature in the mirror, the one with strands of straight brown hair on either side of her cheeks, with a nose and two