Scared. Not used to humans. Perhaps their injuries were from being captured.

From twelve years old on, she’d worked part-time at the horse stable next door, Beach Ride Bobby’s. There, she could muck out stables, groom and saddle the horses, with hardly a person speaking to her all day. With the dolphins, she acted the way she would when the horses were jumpy. She didn’t freeze motionless, staring the way a predator would. She turned away and acted busy.

She’d always felt relief being with the horses, perhaps because they talked with their bodies, with their stance and ears and tails, stepping forward or away. This type of language was so easy to read. Over time she learned to speak back. She moved confident and relaxed, approaching always from the left, clucking to give them warning. Touching the fetlock meant pick up your foot, her hand on the ear meant lower your head, her posture leaning back in the saddle meant stop. She spoke with her body. Go left. Faster. Canter.

The horses told her with their ears and posture and stride if they wanted to run, where they wanted to go, if they trusted her. Riding a horse was a dialogue that could range from a choppy argument to a joyful conversation.

Floating in the shallows, she rummaged in the sandy floor of the lagoon, searching for mussels. She was someone going about her day, uninterested and occupied. She relaxed her body, breathed slowly through the snorkel, and listened to the dolphins’ sounds gradually calm down. The noises washing through her.

A squeaky floor.

Castanets clicking.

Occasionally, at the purity of the sounds, her eyes fluttered closed.

Stars sizzling in space.

By the time she’d found the tenth mussel, the dolphins were surfacing regularly to breathe. Each exhale sounded like a soda can opening, the pssh of pressure releasing. They’d begun to drift closer, curious about her.

Abruptly their sounds shifted, an intense clicking. She turned to look. A school of silvery fish, each the size of her hand, scooting in from the sluice, flitting here and there, exploring.

The dolphins pumped forward and scooped the fish up with fast claps of the mouth. In a single moment, the school was gone.

The dolphins geigered about, searching for any missed fish, then they jerked in her direction. Something was splashing through the water behind her.

They fled, even further than before, to the very corner of the lagoon.

Turning, she saw two pale human legs in the water behind her.

She rose from the lagoon, standing up. Leaving sound behind. Returning to muffled air.

A man was standing there, in his late forties, skinny, with very bright eyes, the strong sense of someone in there, peering out.

He spoke. He had a cigarette in his mouth, distorting his lip movements. His eyebrows were high; probably it was a question. Her hearing glasses were on the dock and with her hair wet, she couldn’t put them on.

She tugged off her swim mask.—Hi. I’m Cora. I . . . Some guy asked me to keep notes on the dolphins. He looked sick and went inside.