The shark house, p.1
The Shark House, page 1
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Dedication
For Marilyn,
who introduced me to my first shark
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Dedication
Journal Entry
Chapter 1: The Invitation
Journal Entry
Chapter 2: On Hallowed Ground
Journal Entry
Journal Entry
Chapter 3: The Other Victim
Journal Entry
Chapter 4: The House
Journal Entry
Chapter 5: The Man
Journal Entry
Chapter 6: The Search
Journal Entry
Chapter 7: Settling In
Journal Entry
Chapter 8: The Boat
Journal Entry
Chapter 9: The Kiawe
Journal Entry
Chapter 10: The Patient
Journal Entry
Chapter 11: The Host
Journal Entry
Chapter 12: The Cave
Poem
Chapter 13: The Press
Journal Entry
Chapter 14: The Swim
Journal Entry
Chapter 15: The Hunt
Journal Entry
Chapter 16: The Tail
Journal Entry
Chapter 17: The Interview
Journal Entry
Chapter 18: The Task Force
Journal Entry
Chapter 19: The Statement
Journal Entry
Chapter 20: The Buoy
Journal Entry
Chapter 21: The Weather
Journal Entry
Chapter 22: The Ride
Haiku
Chapter 23: The Guardian
Journal Entry
Chapter 24: The Story
Poem
Chapter 25: The Guest Book
Journal Entry
Chapter 26: The Call
Journal Entry
Chapter 27: The Meeting
Journal Entry
Chapter 28: The Gift
Journal Entry
Chapter 29: The Friend
Journal Entry
Chapter 30: The Note
Journal Entry
Chapter 31: The Reckoning
Journal Entry
Chapter 32: The Bad Guys
Journal Entry
Chapter 33: The Race
Journal Entry
Chapter 34: Gone to California
Chapter 35: The Swimmer
Chapter 36: The Gathering
Author’s Note
Discussion Questions
Acknowledgments
Glossary
About the Author
Praise for Sara Ackerman
Other Books by Sara Ackerman
Copyright
Journal Entry
From the journal of Minnow Gray
Hawai‘i, November 25, 2017
“We are born of sharks. From the beginning of time, sharks have swum through our lives and our islands, sleek as river stone, elusive and ever present. They are our protectors, our ancestors, our future.”
When I first heard these words, spoken by a Hawaiian man I’ve come to know, I felt like I had returned home to a place I had known only in my dreams. The words were electric and touched me in such a deep way, I realized everything I had believed until that moment was just a human presumption. I thought I knew sharks, but really I knew nothing. In the passing years the words have only grown louder and have pulled at me in a way nothing else ever has.
Looking back, I see that Hawaiʻi and I were destined for each other, that it would only be a matter of time until I found my way to her looming volcanoes, rocky coastlines, and living blue waters. There were things I needed to learn about myself and things I needed to learn about the sharks, and to realize that shimmering thread of connection. No one thinks of sound when they think of sharks—they think instead of serrated teeth and gaping mouths and dorsal fins. But when I close my eyes, I can still hear the sound of that tiger shark breaking water behind me like a sea-dappled missile. Something fierce and beautiful to behold—and deadly.
I thought I knew sharks.
Chapter 1
The Invitation
Huakaʻi: trip, voyage, journey, mission
Carpinteria, California
February 1998
Minnow felt the shark before she saw it. She always did. A prick of her senses and she spun around in the dark water until she spotted the enormous animal looping around in a wide, exploratory circle. As it closed in, she could sense its agitation. She glanced around to see where the boat was, but there was no sign of it. The dark edges of panic began closing in . . .
And then she heard a loud, jolting ring.
It had taken her a while to fall asleep, by way of counting octopuses, but she had finally managed to drift off. Without turning on the light, she fumbled for the phone, knocking it onto the wooden floor in the process. It was probably a wrong number, and the intrusion annoyed her, cutting into her fiercely guarded sleep time.
“Hello?” she mumbled.
“May I speak with Dr. Minnow Gray, please?” said an unfamiliar voice.
“Speaking.”
“Minnow, this is Dr. Joe Eversole from University of Hawai‘i. I’m sorry to call so late in the evening, so I’ll get right to the point here. I think we have a problem. And I’m hoping you can help.”
Oh shit.
She sat up and switched on the light. “Don’t tell me there’s been another incident.”
A slight pause. “So you’re familiar with our . . . situation.”
The way he said situation caused an itch under her skin. What had been happening in Hawaiʻi was more than a situation, and it alarmed her on many levels.
“Of course I am. Sharks are my world.”
Anyone with a television or newspaper knew what had gone down in the past few days. A deadly attack and a missing person along the same rugged stretch of Hawaiian coastline, plus shark sightings galore.
He spoke in rapid fire. “Got it. And yes, there’s been another incident. This one not fatal, but the victim is in bad shape, and it’s got me worried because this is number three, not to mention the near misses. People are freaked out, and I worry what’s coming next. It could get nasty.”
“What kind of help are you looking for?”
“Well, I’m short-staffed. Our whole team is in Australia for a symposium, and I could use a white shark expert who knows their shit. Someone to help me figure out what’s going on—why all in this location. I can’t say for sure yet, but my guess is this latest is another white shark.” He paused to catch his breath, then added, “I was hoping you might be able to come out to Hawai‘i for a week or two. Maybe more.”
“What about Doc Finnegan? I’m surprised you didn’t ask him.”
Men were top of the food chain in this field—in all of marine biology, really. Doc Finnegan was a leading white shark researcher with a big ego and territorial tendencies. He was also her mentor. Doc had spent time in Hawaiʻi, so he seemed like the natural first choice.
“Yeah, I tried to get him, but he’s in Guadalupe for the next few weeks. He’s the one who recommended you.”
Of course. She knew that. But dropping everything and jetting off to Hawaiʻi was a big deal. Especially now. There were so many reasons to say no, number one being she had scraped together and earmarked nearly all her savings to finally get a vessel of her own, and aside from that she had seventy-four dollars to her name. Her new little nonprofit, Sea Trust, wasn’t even off the ground yet, and she had been planning on writing grant proposals and securing funding and a hundred other things this week. Not to mention her therapy sessions. Leaving now would derail everything.
She tucked a misbehaving lock of hair behind her ear. “As much as I’d love to, I don’t think I can swing it,” she said.
There was a long pause. “This is a chance of a lifetime. A known great white in Hawai‘i. Could be a game changer for you.”
Somewhere between those words was the unspoken truth of her predicament. A way of letting her know he knew of what had happened on the Farallon Islands last season. The events that had broken her a thousand ways.
Joe was right, though. It could be just what she needed. A chance to gain a foothold on her own, since there would be no going back to the Farallones. Not now, not ever.
“If I say yes, could you pay my way there?” she asked.
“I can pay your way and house you.”
Her next words unspooled on their own. “Hold off on the housing, I may have a connection on the coast. When do you need me?”
“Is tomorrow too soon?”
Yes.
“I’ll see what I can do.”
* * *
The next morning, she showed up at the airport without a ticket but managed to find a seat on a plane to Honolulu, where she would transfer to a smaller plane headed for the Big Island. On the five-hour flight over, Minnow took the time to review the few facts she knew about the series of incidents, rereading newspaper clippings and notes she had taken while watching the news. On top of the now-confirmed two incidents and one missing swimmer, there had also been a kayak bumped by what was reported to be a massive shark, and a surfer knocked off his board by something “big, dark and very strong.”
The first fatal incident occurred five days ago. A twenty-three-year-old man and his father were surfing a remote wave when the son and his board were thrown out of the water. The father had allegedly witnessed the whole thing. There had been so much blood that the whole area around them had turned red. They made it to shore alive, but the son died soon after.
Minnow closed her eyes. A hazy picture formed in her mind.
Red water, golden kelp leaves, a beam of sunlight.
Just as fast as it arose, the image disappeared. Whether it was a memory or something conjured by her imagination, she couldn’t be sure. In the past few months, more of these pictures had begun to appear during waking hours, and it felt like the hypnotherapy was knocking something loose inside her.
According to the most recent article, the man’s surfboard had not been found, but the search was still on. Bitten boards were often full of clues indicating the species involved. A shark sometimes left a perfect jaw imprint, better than a dentist could have taken. And even better if there was a tooth or a tooth fragment lodged in the foam of the board. Right now it sounded like all the scientists had to go on was the way the flesh was torn and the nature of the encounter to lead them to their conclusions. She hoped Dr. Eversole could provide more details.
The other death—presumed death, at least—was murkier. A swimmer had taken off from Niu Bay toward a passing pod of whales. He’d left his wife and daughter onshore and swam out to sea and up the coast until he disappeared from view. Visiting from California, and in Hawaiʻi to train for the IRONMAN Triathlon race, he was reported to be a very strong swimmer. But he never came back. According to the papers, a helicopter pilot involved in the search had seen a shark “the size of a small whale” in the area.
To be sure, Minnow was not in the business of flying around the country investigating shark attacks. Attacks on humans—especially fatal ones—were rare events. And when you got down to it, humans killed far more sharks than sharks killed people. Scores more. In the past year in US waters, there had been only two confirmed deaths by shark, while humans killed two million sharks. The thought caused her a blink of sadness.
Weary from another nightmare-plagued, shitty sleep, she closed her notebook and looked out the window at the cloudless sky. The situation at hand was unusual. At least a few white sharks migrated to Hawai‘i each year, that was known. Many of the ones they had tagged ended up venturing out to the central Pacific in late fall and early winter, but they usually weren’t foraging—scientist speak for “hunting.” So, what was happening here?
Journal Entry
From the journal of Minnow Gray
Guadalupe Island, September 8, 1994
It was hard to tell where I left off and the shark began. She was that close to me. Longer and broader than most I have seen. Magnified by the water, her exquisite blue iris looked into me with a searching, ageless curiosity. She reminded me of my shark on Catalina but smaller, maybe seventeen feet. I resisted the urge to hold my hand out to touch her because I didn’t want to startle her. The feeling was sublime, as always, and I got choked up.
Once she faded away into the blue, I glanced back at the guys in the cage. Through their bubbles, I saw them all give an enthusiastic thumbs-up. The rush hit me then, and I felt like I’d just been injected with an elephant’s dose of adrenaline. I didn’t want to come up for air, but I had to; my lungs were screaming.
Am I afraid? People always ask me this, and I struggle to answer. The great white shark elicits a deeper kind of fear. One buried in the dark parts of our psyche. I think maybe the fear is so huge and so old, it turns into a kind of acceptance, if that makes any sense at all, and I tell them that I’d rather die swimming with a white shark than live in a world without them. There are so many things more dangerous that we humans have become habituated to. When you realize that, everything changes.
Because the one thing I know for sure is this: We are not in control. Not one bit.
Chapter 2
On Hallowed Ground
One hānau: homeland
Big Island, Hawaiʻi
February 1998
The Kailua-Kona airport was a little oasis in the middle of black fields of lava. The smell of jet fuel mixed with an onshore salty breeze and notes of plumeria. Not as hot as Minnow had expected, but that was February for you. Either way, the temperature was miles warmer than Santa Barbara, and she had left her boots and beanie at home, along with her cracked and cumbersome wet suit and any expectations of what the coming week would bring.
This was her first trip to the Big Island, and on the approach, she had not been able to tear her eyes away from the many gradients of blue. Midnight, noonday sky, and sandy shallow turquoise. Outlines of coral reefs stood out like lace, beckoning. And up the way, coconut trees clumped together along white sand beaches. The island seemed to be making its best attempt at dazzling her, belying the recent tragedies in these very same waters.
While an undergrad, Minnow had spent some time on Oʻahu studying hammerheads in Kāne‘ohe Bay but had never ventured to any of the outer islands. Now she was thinking what a stupid move that had been. Uncle Jimmy had always talked up the Big Island and his days there just after college as a dive instructor by day, waiter by night. But he had never taken her there, too busy running his bakery back home. Even though she called him Uncle Jimmy, he was more father than uncle, raising Minnow since she was seven.
After gathering her small suitcase and dive duffel, Minnow walked out to the curb where she saw a sunburned man with a shock of wet red hair and dark glasses walking her way.
“Minnow Gray, I presume?” he said.
She’d purposely worn her Greenpeace T-shirt.
“Dr. Eversole, a pleasure to meet you.”
He held out a hand. “Please, call me Joe.”
In real life, Joe seemed much smaller than he’d looked on television, but when he shook her hand, his grip was as firm as steel.
“I’m so damn glad you pulled this off. Things are heating up even as we speak.”
“How do you mean?”
“Let’s get you loaded and on the way, and I’ll fill you in on everything.”
He led her to an old Toyota truck covered in patches of rust, its back window lined with faded and peeling stickers. Big Island Love. FBI. Live Aloha. Surfing Sucks, Don’t Try It. The back was full of crumpled wet towels, a mask and snorkel, swim fins, a cooler. All of it dusted in black sand.
“Who else is here with you?” she asked.
“My intern Nalu came over from Oʻahu with me. He’s back at the harbor, rinsing off the boat and meeting a friend for lunch.”
“Is anyone else coming?”
He shut the tailgate and opened her door without answering. Minnow climbed in, a funny feeling swirling in her gut.
“No.”
She waited for him to get in and slam the door, then said, “So it’s just us two?”
He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. “Us two and Nalu.” He swallowed hard, then said, “And damn, I hate to do this to you, but there’s been an emergency and I’m flying back to Oʻahu on the six-thirty flight. My wife went into premature labor and I need to get to the hospital.”
Minnow turned to him and for the first time noticed the puffiness under his eyes. This was most unexpected and not good news, but she mustered, “I’m sorry, I hope everything is okay.”
“I think so. It’s just a few weeks early, but this is Christina’s first, and they may have to do a C-section, so I need to be with her.”
“When will you be back?”
“As soon as I can, but it’s hard to say. I’ll connect you with Tommy Warren, head of Department of Land and Water Assets, better known as DLWA, and Mayor Lum. You can update them both until I return. Tommy’s actually Lum’s nephew.” He handed her a flimsy ID card with her photo glued on. “Use this if anyone questions you.”
She felt a strange sense of weightlessness. “So what is it exactly that you want me to do in the meantime? I have no authority here. No one even knows who I am,” she said, second-guessing her split-second decision to hop a plane over here without a plan. But the allure of a white shark in Hawaiian waters had been too enticing to pass up.
