Who is Mackie Spence? by Lin Kaymer

focused.
    She stands for a few minutes and then says, “I need to go out there. You don’t have to. It’ll be okay,” she adds and then, without removing her sandals, steps in the water.
    Fastening the clasps on my vest, I silently enter the cold water too, my wet jeans slowing me as I pull my kayak alongside hers. We walk, pushing our kayaks out far enough for them to float and then climb in. I’ve kayaked since I was five years old, so keeping my balance is easy, the way rolling out of bed and standing up in the morning feels instinctive.
    We paddle side by side, without speaking until we’re about two hundred feet from the shoreline. No one knows that we’re out on the water. Mackie’s parents are in Seattle, attending a symphony. Her sister, Noelle, has gone to a friend’s house for the night. It could be kind of romantic to be out with her under the flooding moonlight. Except something else seems to be going on.
    Suddenly Mackie stops, and motions for me to do the same. We float like two specks in the wrinkled nighttime waves.
    Then, I see him! Orcinus orca . A black and white killer whale spy-hops about one hundred feet from us! He rises out of the water vertically, emits a low bellow, and then sinks slowly below the waves. My heart pounds. I tighten the grip on my paddle. He shouldn’t be this close to shore. Or to us. This feels all wrong.
    Mackie whispers, “Stay where you are.” She guides her kayak so that she’s about ten feet in front of me, facing into the Sound. Then she sets up, placing her paddle on the kayak’s hull.
    The whale surfaces again, using his tail to thrust himself up, this time clearly looking at us. Mackie remains perfectly quiet, focused on where the whale has shot up. Nothing on the water moves for maybe a minute.
    Suddenly, standing high, he leaps out of the water almost on top of us. Only twenty feet away at the most! It’s the spy move again. Holding his head above the waves, his eyes fix on Mackie as he groans! I can’t breathe. We’re sitting meat. He could kill us!
    But Mackie doesn’t move. The concentric waves from the orca’s water displacement flow around her kayak. I’m set up the same way, and the waves ripple around me, too.
    The whale bobs up and down five times, slowly, always concentrating on Mackie. Her head never turns away from him. Then he disappears under the surface. We wait. I’m going to break my paddle, I’m holding it so tight. What if he’s under us? He emerges again several hundred feet away, and with a final slap of his flipper fins puts on a show of three diving leaps, and he’s gone.
    I watch in total wonder as he disappears.
    â€œThat was unreal,” I call out. Then I notice she’s slumped over the front of her boat. “Mackie!” I dip my paddle furiously and tear alongside her. She’s too quiet: arms stretched out in front of her, hands resting loosely on her paddle. She’s scaring the bejeezus out of me.
    â€œMackie?” I ask, my voice skating off the water. “Are you okay?”
    She pushes up a little against the kayak’s deck, only to slump down again.
    â€œShhh,” she says in a shaky voice, “I need a minute.”
    So we sit under the loud moon glow. I turn my paddle over and over in my hands, worried. Mackie lies against her kayak’s deck, really out of it. After what has to be at least ten minutes, she pushes herself up and, not looking at me, gingerly turns her boat around. Because the tide has been with us, we’ve floated close to shore. I paddle just behind her, keeping my eyes glued to her back, watching her progress.
    Once near the shoreline, I ease in next to her. When she turns to look at me I see that her face is drawn and she’s exhausted, like she’s just finished running a hard race, flat out.
    â€œSorry. I guess I need some help,” she says.
    I slip out of my boat and pull it onto