"What are you thinking about?" Matt asked as he nudged me in the side with an elbow.
I looked up from my mostly uneaten food at his verbal prompting and shrugged off having to answer his question. I felt too raw inside to talk about what I was going through.
The Whale People had thrown quite a feast in our honor, but my mind had been quite absent from it. I wanted to know something about my whale girl sitting all by herself out on a worn pile of boards and threadbare netting.
I got up leaving my food behind and looked around for the head lady. I found her standing off to the side of where many had begun to dance in an upbeat spirit. I wasn't sure what they were upbeat about, but they were.
I came up alongside of the woman whose name was Elizabeth. She turned to me and stepped away from the merriment of those behind her and asked, "How can I be of help to you Eli?" She inquired softly.
I looked around to see if anybody was listening, but they weren't as they were too focused on having a good time. "What can you tell me about Keturah?"
The old woman's eyes crinkled knowingly and I felt myself blush slightly.
"What would you like to know Eli?"
"Everything", I responded and it was the truth.
"Well I'll tell you what I know and it's not much. Hers is a sad story. She was born on the mainland to the tribal clan that now has the Orlanis Star. The ones you say have now become giants."
She paused and I said, "Go on."
"Well she saw a lot of terrible things and when she was four she was offered up as a sacrifice to the water spirits that the tribe worshiped."
"How did she escape?" I asked breaking in.
"She didn't. They tied her to little more than a wooden board and sent her out to sea on the evening tide. Two years later she came to us."
"What?" I exclaimed.
Elizabeth nodded and held up a hand, "I don't know how she managed to survive for two years out on the open water and she's never told anyone."
"How did she find you?"
Elizabeth shook her head in dumbfounded awe and I could see that she was reliving imagery from the past as she said, "The whales have always been friends to us and we to them. It was the whales that led us to the haven of this lagoon and its islands that supply our needs. No whale has so befriended one of us though as that big oaf of a one that she named Dimbo has her. He came riding high in the water right down the channel with his snout tipped back and her sitting on the base of this tusk. The two of them have been inseparable ever since. He very much is her guardian and her outlet for communication."