The Whale Queen

I awoke on the beach again, the sun hot on my face. With a groan, I stood, brushing sand from my face and slapping it from my clothing, gazing at the turtle-shaped reef gleaming obsidian-black in the crashing waves. The rising tide obscured the stony bridge of coral that led to it—not that I’d ever ventured out there... The echoes of that voice still haunted me, but in the harsh light of day, there was nothing save the sound of the surf and the keening cries of circling gulls.

I crossed the sand to the flight of wooden stairs set into the cliff face. As I ascended, I saw that they’d become increasingly shabby and needed a couple of new treads and a coat of paint. Someday soon, I thought.

Cresting the cliff, the first visible structure was the large workshop—more a barn, really—crammed with all sorts of things left behind by previous owners. There were anchors covered with barnacles, a footlocker, thick coils of marine rope, lobster traps, broken clocks, a brass telescope missing its tripod, a massive lamp, antique doorknobs, shells, rocks, and a lot of rusty, pitted hand-tools. At one end of the shop, there were the spars and hull of a small boat abandoned mid-build, looking like the ribcage of some prehistoric fossil. There was a lot of other stuff that I couldn’t identify. I vowed that someday, I would clean it all out, but someday is a very elusive thing, indeed.

I headed to the house where the Gray Catsby greeted me with a throaty meow. I scratched his silver fur, then dished out some food. Feline dignity abandoned, he flattened his ears and began wolfing his food in great mouthfuls. I rolled my eyes and grinned.

The living room, its massive windows overlooking the sea, was dominated by a grand piano and a rack of recording equipment. I regarded it for a moment and sighed. 

My late wife, Anna, had loved listening to me play, and I’d built a nicely lucrative business scoring television dramas, soap operas, and the occasional movie. She and I met in our apartment parking lot one night, during an awful rainstorm. I’d locked my keys in my car and I was soaked to the skin while trying to break in. She drove up next to me and asked if I needed help or at least a place to get out of the rain. I gratefully accepted, and when we got to her place, she handed me a towel and put on a pot of coffee. Our conversation ranged from books and music to movies we’d both seen and liked, and countless other topics. Hours later, although it seemed like mere minutes, the rain stopped and I managed, with the help of a coat hanger, to get my car door open and retrieve my keys.

We dated for six months and married in early June. There was an ease in living, and when the coast house went up for sale, we ravaged our bank accounts and in what felt like an incredible stroke of luck, we managed to buy it.

Life seemed perfect during those years. In fact, if there was any sort of cloud over our lives, it was that Anna suffered terribly from migraines, but even so, they seemed manageable and usually passed within 48 hours. One awful night, she’d awakened with a crushing headache, running for the bathroom to be sick from the pain. I assumed that this was another migraine—albeit, a very nasty one. Instead, by the time I realized something was terribly wrong and called the ambulance, she’d lost consciousness. And she never regained it.

The guilt tore at me. In different moments, I tortured myself with questions like, What if I’d known sooner that it wasn’t just a migraine? What if I would’ve been quicker to call the ambulance? And the really big one: What if, by not responding soon enough, I was responsible for her death?

In the ensuing weeks and months, I found it impossible to play. I’d fumble around with a few riffs and scales, but most often, I’d just gaze at the horizon. At first, the phone rang almost nonstop. After a few weeks, it stopped ringing, and I relished the quiet. I had no real expenses, and if I was careful, I had enough in savings to last a couple of years—not that I intended to be away from the industry for that long… Instead, I started keeping a journal. Maybe it was a way of affirming that I was still alive… Without Anna, the tides and cycles of life carried on around me, but for me, it felt like time stood still.

A discovery occurred to me, one afternoon. I was journaling, and wrote,

Silence and loneliness have their own mass—a sort of form and weight. Allowed to grow unchecked, they will crowd you out of yourself, propelling one into the company of others.”

I blinked at the words, feeling them sink in. Suddenly restless, I went out, strolling along the edge of the cliffs, watching heavy clouds roll in on a steadily rising wind…

It wasn’t long after this journal entry that the dreams, or auditory hallucinations, or… whatever they were, began. About once a month, I’d be awakened by the sound of a soprano singing coming from the sea. The odd thing was, on the occasions I heard that ethereal voice, I couldn’t remember leaving the house or descending the cliff. I’d just find myself on the beach. I’d never had a problem with my memory or sleepwalking, but by the time I got to the sand, the singing would stop. It was maddening! Always, I would stay, hoping it would return. And always, in spite of my determination to remain alert, I’d only realize I’d been sleeping when I awakened in the morning—alone, pockets full of sand, and feeling so foolish, lonely, and raw… 

I wondered if I was suffering some kind of a neural misfire, the onset of dementia, or some kind of seizure disorder. Troubled, I made an appointment with a physician friend of mine. He conducted a physical exam and drew a comprehensive blood panel. He then referred me to a neurologist. She ran an MRI, EEG, and sent me for a head X-ray for good measure. She raised the possibility of a sleep lab, which seemed weird to me, so I declined.

My friend told me to get more sleep, avoid alcohol, and minimize stress. He made a follow-up appointment to discuss the lab findings and suggested that I may be experiencing a delayed grief response to Anna’s passing. I scotched the idea. I knew it was nothing to do with Anna.

At the same time, I was determined to figure out who, or what was responsible for the singing. It was like nothing I’d ever heard! In that voice, I heard winds, gulls, storms, tides, the sounds of the deep—and all of it tinged with a wrenching sense of loss, loneliness, grief, longing… It was the most haunting, loveliest, eeriest thing I’d ever heard, made the hair on my neck prickle, excited me, and filled me with an unnamable emotion that brought tears rushing to my eyes.

One spring morning, I headed to the workshop, determined to bring some kind of order to the chaos. Oddly, when I set about to move anything, it was already in the best and only place it could possibly be. At first glance, though it seemed a jumbled mess, there was a curious order to it, after all. Abandoning my quest, my attention was drawn to the mysterious lamp. It was incredibly heavy, the housing with the most intricate carving I’d ever seen in metalwork. I wondered if it had come from a boat and what its purpose was. Pulling it onto the bench that I straddled, I turned it this way and that. Exactly why it held such a fascination for me, I couldn’t begin to guess. As it pivoted in its housing, the lamp gave a small jolt, then blazed the entire shop with a powerful blue light. I nearly lost my balance on the bench! As the lamp cycled, there was a humming, like a low-pitched siren. Abruptly, the lamp cycled off, becoming inert. A little spooked, I returned it to the bench and looked it over. I assumed the lamp was crafted of metal, but its uncommon weight and the intricacy of the etchings left me unsure.

Suddenly tired, I left the lamp on the bench, closed the shop, and headed to the house. I washed my hands and lay on the couch for a nap. I awoke after dark, dehydrated, unrested, and soaked with sweat. I was burning up with fever. My sleep had been filled with one crazy fever dream after another, including an especially vivid dream of the lamp!

Lightning illuminated the darkened room with sizzling white light and I rose to my feet. The room immediately whirled, and I sat down heavily. I stood again, gingerly walked to the kitchen, gulped down a glass of water and threw some on my face, and felt a little better for it.

In spite of the storm, I realized I couldn’t hear the booming of the surf. It seemed strange that the tide should be out at this time of the evening, especially during a storm.

I donned my boots and oilskin and opened the back door. The wind promptly ripped it from my hand. I forced it closed and ran for the shop. The driving rain felt gloriously cool on my fevered face.

Throwing open the door to the shop, I hefted the lamp from the bench. I had to get it down to the beach! The rain drummed on the roof of the shop in a low roar. I knew that if I sat down, I’d go straight to sleep. Another jag of lightning jolted me back to my task. I staggered for the door, hobbled by the awkward bulk and weight of the lamp. I hurried for the cliff, the housing digging painfully into my thighs. 

The lightning and thunder were nearly constant now, and a violent wind was whipping. Rain sluiced down my collar, soaking me to the skin in moments. In another flash of lightning, I had the sickening realization that I’d nearly stepped off the edge of the cliff! Shocked, I wheeled backward, landing on my backside with a grunt as the lamp landed on my thighs and groin. I set my jaw, rolled to a squat, lifted the lamp, and backtracked for the stairs. The whole miserable evening was beginning to grate on my patience.

Descending the stairs was agonizingly slow. About midway, my stomach gave an awful lurch and I first felt, then heard, nails giving way with a squeal and the sickening snap of a breaking tread. I pitched forward and tumbled through blind darkness, losing my grip on the lamp. Time slowed and stretched, and I was thoroughly lucid for every agonizing second. I remember thinking as I fell, This is gonna hurt!

I felt the skin being flayed from my legs, arms, and the side of my face, and a dull thud and white-hot pain as my ribs slammed into something... The final indignity was smashing the bridge of my nose on the railing before landing on the sand with the wind knocked out of me. I lay there on my back gasping for breath, the wonderfully cold rain stinging my feverish, bleeding face. The taste of blood was rusty and metallic in my throat. As the rain needled down, I replayed the events of the evening and started laughing—though it sounded a tad brittle, even to me… The detached part of my brain that is the constant observer, said, Good job, moron! At least you survived! Barely!

I said aloud, “Oh, shut up...” I rolled to my hands and knees watching the blood trickling from my face and pool shiny black on the sand. Miraculously, nothing seemed broken except possibly a rib or two. I cleared my throat, spit out as much blood as I could, and with a groan, hauled myself to my feet. I found the lamp a few yards away, blind lens turned to the sky. A little angry, I seized it by its housing with one hand and dragged it to the edge of the coral bridge.

The rain had slowed to a drizzle and the wind was warm and moist. Lightning still played on the horizon, the thunder growling softer and more distant. Breaking clouds scudded away, revealing a crescent moon. 

It was as though the lamp had servos or a homing beacon, because the moment I set foot upon the bridge, it swiveled within its housing and illuminated, the throbbing hum sounding across the water. After a few cycles, from beyond the reef, I faintly heard the voice—her voice!

Tempted to blame my fever, the ordeal of the whole evening, or even her, but entranced, I shed the oilskin, letting it fly away on the wind like a dark wing. My shirt was next, followed by my boots and pants until I was clad only in my shorts as I neared the middle of the reef.

The wind wrapped around me feeling almost sensual. I was dimly aware of the coral digging into my feet, but the singing was all around me, suffusing me, holding me ever more tightly in its intoxicating grasp.

At the edge of the reef, I sank to my knees, peering into the inky depths. I was jolted by a dolphin’s snout breaching the surface right in front of me. I reached out to touch him but missed. Having over-reached, I lost my balance and for the second time, my stomach gave that awful lurch, and I tumbled into the sea. 

Gasping, I fought to regain the edge of the reef, but it was too slick, too sharp, and I could gain no purchase. With a mighty lunge, I was just barely able to grasp the lamp, hoping its weight and bulk might be enough to hoist myself up. Instead, it splashed into the sea with me, nearly hitting me in the face. I expected it to immediately yank me straight to the bottom, but once in the water, it felt strangely weightless, almost buoyant.

Again, I tried for the ledge, but the current pulled me steadily, inexorably away, and I realized my efforts were in vain. I released the lamp, treaded water for a moment, then placed my face in the water to swim for shore.

Moonlight filtering down turned the water a beautiful turquoise color. Deeper, it segued to blue, then purple, and deeper still, to black. In the cycling light of the lamp, I could make out massive shadows circling far below me. Terrified, I redoubled my efforts. I was growing tired, the muscles in my limbs starting to burn. I raised my head and to my dismay, discovered I was further away from shore than when I’d started swimming!

Discouraged and exhausted, I grasped the lamp, pulled in the deepest breath I could—ribs protesting—and let myself sink. Clutching the lamp to my chest, I descended. Dolphins teemed around me, and deeper, killer whales and belugas. The voice was everywhere, and although it drove me onward, my lungs burned and I began flailing for the surface. I let the lamp go, but rather than sinking or rising for the surface, it remained next to me.

That voice, like water and wind, rushed into my head, “Let go. Just let go. Breathe… Relax and breathe.”

I kept fighting, but despite my panicked efforts, I drifted deeper and deeper still. Unable to hold my breath one second longer, I inhaled. Saltwater gushed into my mouth and lungs, and I coughed hard, gagging, silvery bubbles bursting forth, rising and wobbling languidly upward.

Exhausted, I surrendered. So, this my death—drowning at my own hand… A curiously detached sensation spread through me. The contemplation of my own death was short-lived, though. I abruptly realized that although I could only pant shallowly, I actually could breathe!

I descended steadily through the blue depths, still facing the surface. The lamp rested comfortably on my thighs, still strobing.

Of all things, I started feeling incredibly sleepy. My chest burned faintly, but the more I relaxed, the deeper breaths I could draw. I was softly buffeted by the smooth hides of massive whales that drew near. Whale songs blended with her song until it all became a sort of alien symphony, unlike anything I’d ever heard.

My eyelids grew heavier still until I began to sleep. Abruptly, a thin, incredibly strong arm seized me around the chest, and scarcely having time to grab the lamp, I was pulled swiftly along!

I turned my head, exclaiming inwardly, “Hey! Wha’?!”

I was looking into one of the loveliest faces I’d ever seen. Her wide eyes were violet, widely spaced, skin alabaster white, and her features gamine. Her cupid’s bow lips wore a faint smile and her dark hair streamed behind her in a dark nimbus. I could feel a set of small, firm breasts pressed against my back.

I thought to her, “Where are we going? Who are you? What’s happening?”

In response, she smiled and I heard a peal of tinkling laughter sounding in my head.

I thought again, “Please answer my que—”

My questions short-circuited as she pressed her lips to mine in a kiss that seemed to go on and on.

We were flanked by hundreds of whales as we approached a black wall of coral. We drifted down to a nearly imperceptible crevasse that glowed an iridescent blue. Here, she paused. “I can go no further with you.” 

“What? Why? What am I supposed to do? Where are you going? Will I see you again?”

I felt her laugh again. “So many questions!”

“Am I supposed to go into this cave? Who, or what are you?”

Again, she laughed. “Don’t you know? I am the queen of the whales!” and she smiled. “And I believe you have something that belongs to me!”

In that smile, I was certain I recognized her, but before I could say anything, she snatched the lamp from my grasp, jackknifed, and disappeared into the depths with her teeming pod of whales.

At the entrance, I tried to recall whether she’d had legs or a fish’s tail, but it scarcely seemed to matter. Save for the blue glow coming from the entrance, it was thoroughly dark, I felt very alone, and at that moment, I became uncomfortably conscious of just how much water and stone were overhead…

Now out of options, I leveraged myself into the cave. As I swam, a slow current aided my progress. I bit back a curse as I banged my knee on a rising piece of coral. I saw what appeared to be a coral head, and I began swimming upward, hoping I wouldn’t get stuck or hit my head on the ceiling. In the glow of the brightening blue light, I realized I’d banged my knee on a crude set of steps that had been hewn into the coral. I allowed my legs to fall, drifting down until my feet contacted them. It felt strange to be standing! I pushed off though, more comfortable with swimming. As I ascended, the cave widened. The seawater was luminous, warmer now, and schools of colorful fish swarmed and darted around me.

The rising stairs made further progress impossible, so I ascended them until a wave deposited me onto a smooth ledge. I tried to stand. Instead, I fell to my knees, instantly sick, my entire body heaving, shaking violently, expelling great gouts of seawater that flooded and streamed from my nose and mouth. The saltwater was nauseating, and the more I vomited, the worse it was, until I was retching and trembling with dry heaves. Finally, weak and shaking, I slumped to my back, panting, gulping for breath, enjoying the strange novelty of actually breathing air! 

The cavern was open at the top and I could see what seemed like billions of stars. Not trusting myself to stand, I rolled to my knees and surveyed my surroundings. Waves continued to wash against the side, cascading water over what looked like an enormous tidepool. There was thick, orange seaweed growing all around, and in the shallows, I saw that this was a bed of massive oysters. The blue light appeared to be a combination of bioluminescent plankton and some kind of inner light glowing from the oysters themselves!

In awe, I carefully picked my way through the oyster bed. These were larger than any I’d ever seen. They languidly opened and closed in the gentle wash of seawater that constantly bathed them.

Presently, near the rear of the cavern, I happened upon a wide bed of seaweed. I trailed my hands through it, amazed at its downy softness. I lay on my back, gazing up at the stars, and reflected on the tumultuous events of the evening. I felt a great, unexpected peace spread through me—a peace I hadn’t experienced since Anna’s passing.

In the soft blue glow, on the bed of seaweed, with the sound of gentle waves like a lullaby, my eyes closed. I dreamed of the whale queen coming to me on the rising tide, the cavern filling with seawater buoying me up, and being gently transported to the shore.

I awoke on the sand, the sun hot on my face. I stood, brushing sand from my body. The reef was now mostly underwater. Further down the beach, I found my abandoned oilskin. I retrieved it and shrugged into its waterlogged bulk. This morning, despite my near-nakedness, rather than feeling lonely and foolish, I felt calm. The wind ruffled my hair, and I watched the remaining clouds from the storm being herded out to sea. I climbed the stairs, carefully stepping over the shattered tread, and headed for the house. I stopped by the shop and glanced in, half-expecting to see the lamp sitting there. Of course, it wasn’t.

Once in the house, I fed Catsby, then made my way upstairs for a long, hot shower and some dry clothes.

My hair still damp, towel around my neck, I sat at the piano. I looked over the ocean and began playing, my hands and fingers moving with a grace and fluidity I hadn’t enjoyed in nearly a year. In my mind’s eye, I could see Anna standing to the side, smiling… It felt like some inner dam had burst—like time had begun moving again—and I played for hours. I’d call my agent later, but for now, I was finally swimming with the tide, and no longer standing still.