Far From The Sea We Know Read Online Free PDF

the forested side. “They rarely
come down this far anymore, however, since the state put in the
highway extension near Qiffe. The benefits of progress.”
    Bell had already moved to a comfortable wing
chair, upholstered in faded green velvet. It faced a wide and
equally comfortable, matching sofa. An old sea chest between them
was strewn with scientific journals.
    “Please be seated,” he said. He glanced at
the folder in Matthew’s hand. “Pen has already heard your story, in
brief, from me, and she’s seen Harold’s report. What did you make
of it?”
    Matthew thumbed through the folder again as
if to glean some answer out of it by touch. “It doesn’t make sense,
Doctor Bell. From the coordinates and time, the whale you mentioned
today—Lefty—would certainly seem to have been in the grouping we
saw from the Eva Shay . Our sighting did occur at the same
time that Harold reported the garbled readings. But I don’t see how
your tagged whale could have gone north that fast. That leaves
instrument error of some kind as the most likely explanation,
either the transceiver, the satellite, or the reception station at
the Point. Most likely, the transceiver.”
    Matthew had been speaking directly to Bell
and belatedly turned to Penny to keep her included in the
conversation. She was already there, however, centered in the flow
of words like a falcon in an updraft. The playful banter of just
moments before had fallen away.
    “I’d like to hear more about just what you
saw when they disappeared,” she said.
    “Your impressions,” Bell said. “Yes, please,
just as you had them. Do not edit anything. No grade on this.”
    Matthew tried to smile, gave up and faced
Penny again.
    “Well, as I told your father, we were
pulling up on the whales to get a closer look. Suddenly, they all
went under at the same time. I’ve seen something like this happen
before, but never so quick and coordinated. It’s difficult to
describe. I could swear that just for an instant, the water stopped
moving. And then there was this peculiar turbulence like water
suddenly rushing. It was enough to make the boat sway, but the
movement wasn’t quite right…there may have been a flash, or I may
have just…”
    Matthew looked up at the space between the
ceiling rafters. He finally added, “It happened so fast.”
    Penny looked into his eyes, waiting.
    “There was something else.” The image from
his long moment on the Eva Shay that now seemed so brief
came back to him.
    “Just before they went under, I felt I was
being watched…by the whale. She looked straight at me, her eye
seemed to—”
    “You could you tell its sex?” Penny
asked.
    “The female grays are substantially larger
than the males. This one looked even bigger than usual to me.”
    “Go on.”
    “I was upset. It was almost like, you know,
getting caught when you were kid. Red-handed.”
    “Getting caught at what?”
    “I don’t know, something you weren’t
supposed to do. Or see. I only bring it up because you asked. It
was just an instant, but it was so intense, yet somehow I couldn’t
remember very well later. I still can’t.”
    The feeling had been clear last night, but
he had lost it again. He shook his head and looked out the window
into the darkness. If he were outside, he could probably still see
in the late twilight, but now he could only see the moths on the
other side of the glass attracted to the light of a false moon.
Melancholy seeped into his chest like the last embers of a winter
fire.
    “What about what you first saw?” Penny said,
almost whispering. “Are you okay?”
    “Yes, sorry. We were securing our gear. I
looked out and saw this whale swimming near the front of the grays.
These guys see whales all the time, you know, so they hardly look.
But this whale was purple. Not all over. Piebald with splotches of
a cold bright purple mixed in with the usual dark gray. Some
highlights of magenta and pink. Ridiculous, I know, but that’s the
way