What the Seahorse Told Me

Advance Praise for

What the Seahorse Told Me

"In What the Sea Horse Told Me, author Mary Knight delivers another captivating narrative that seamlessly intertwines spiritual beliefs, nature, and the complexities of modern-day adolescence.

Leaving the hollers of the Appalachian Mountains in Eastern Kentucky from Knight’s debut novel, Saving Wonder, this novel travels to Hawaii—embarking readers on a profound journey of self-discovery and acceptance through the eyes of a dynamic twelve-year-old protagonist. Sophie Kai, with a little inspiration from a seahorse, offers a refreshing perspective on themes of identity, belonging, and the importance of embracing one’s unique talents.

The novel transcends genres with readers being drawn into a journey where the ordinary and the extraordinary coexist, inviting them to ponder what is truly possible. While rooted in Hawaiian spirituality, the novel speaks to universal truths about the interconnectedness of all beings and the power of intuition, perception, and friendship. It challenges readers to see and feel beyond the limitations of the physical world, encouraging them to embrace their inner selves. What the Sea Horse Told Me is sure to resonate with readers, igniting deep and thought-provoking conversations—an experience that I am eagerly anticipating sharing with the students in my class."

—Jesse Fawess, middle school ELA teacher, Long Island, NY

The story masterfully explores how grief changes individuals within a family and the interpersonal dynamics of the family group. It’s an especially accurate depiction of how children take on responsibility for death losses and how challenging it can be to rewrite those narratives of guilt and self-blame. Sophie Kai’s process of finally talking with her mother about their loss was beautiful and a powerful model for how honest conversation can completely transform family connections and create space for healing.

—Leila Salisbury, founding director of The Kentucky Center for Grieving Children and Families

"Exquisitely beautiful! Knight’s writing took me on an emotional journey of protagonist Sophie Kai’s healing and transformation, and her themes of friendship, family, love, empathy, justice, mercy, and compassion spoke volumes as to why this novel needs to be in the hands of our young people. Thank you, mahalo, Mary Knight for sharing this book with the world!"

—Rosie Sansalone, middle school ELA teacher for 27 years

A heartwarming story that celebrates the aloha culture of Hawaii, while deftly weaving the nuances of growing up with the complexities of healing from grief. The young protagonist is gifted with believable, supernatural abilities that are embraced through the help of genuine friendships found in the unlikeliest of acquaintances. I enjoyed the thread of seahorse facts and of the innocence of youth bravely stepping up to intervene on behalf of vulnerable animals. An uplifting story that you’ll want to snuggle up and read.

—Jen Molitor, principal and former middle school ELA teacher

Mary Knight uses strong language and descriptive sentences to bring the book to life. Readers will feel Sophie Kai’s troubles and victories as she finds her special place at camp and finds her love for the island animals. I couldn’t stop thinking about Sophie Kai from the moment I opened the book to flipping the last page shut. Every middle schooler should read What The Seahorse Told Me!

—Elsie Fricke, 6th grader

This book is amazing! Parts were sad, happy, funny, helpful, and the biggest one is friendly. I give it 5 stars!

—Hunter Tigar, 6th grader

I spent time with Mary down at Punaluʻu. She is an amazing woman, a gifted writer, and one of the best human beings that I know. When reading Maryʻs novels you will get to know Maryʻs heart. The characters in her stories will inspire you. The message is clear. It is all about aloha.

—Sophia Hanoa, Kaikamahine o Ka‘ū (Daughter of Ka‘ū)

Text copyright © Mary Knight 2024

This paperback edition:

ISBN: 978-0-9601243-0-5

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, except as may be expressly permitted by the 1976 Copyright Act or in writing from the publisher. Requests for permission should be addressed in writing to:

Middleton Books, 832 Dana Drive, Coatesville, PA 19320

www.middletonbooks.com

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

First edition 2024. Printed in the USA.

Cover and book design: Jonathan D. Scott

Cover portrait photography: Sarah Mullins Creative

Cover seahorse in aquarium: Adobe Firefly

Library of Congress Control Number: 2024936745

Juvenile Fiction/Science & Nature/Environment

Juvenile Fiction/Hawaii/Culture

Juvenile Fiction/Social Themes/Death, Grief, Bereavement

Juvenile Fiction/Social Themes/Self Esteem & Self Reliance

Summary: At a summer camp for young shamans, a twelve-year-old girl learns to use her telepathic powers to help save some of Hawaii’s most vulnerable creatures.

Lexile reading measurement 790L

*

A Note to My Readers

One of the greatest joys about writing this story was incorporating the Hawaiian language. Although learning Hawaiian words and their pronunciations may be challenging, it will also bring you closer to the spirit of Hawaii that I’ve tried to convey within these pages.

We have included a list of characters’ names (with pronunciation as needed) and a glossary that contain definitions and pronunciations for most of the other Hawaiian words in the text. Each Hawaiian word except for proper names is italicized when it first appears in the novel. Although I tried to offer each word’s meaning within the context of the story, the glossary is an additional aide.

Contents

Advance Praise

A Note to My Readers

Prologue

Camouflage

My Brain on Seahorses

Such a Deal

When Push Comes to Shove

Mission Buddy

Living Large

Now You See Her, Now You Don’t

Fish Out of Water

Falling Up

The Heartbeat of Aloha

What's Not Amazing?

Napping with Honu

Up a Tree

‘Aumakua

Aloha ‘Aina

Hearing Voices

Sibling Rivalry

My Sister, the Egg

Getting What I Want

Watching the Moon Go Dark

Something’s Going Down

Heads and Tails

Change of Plans

That Old Kahuna Trick

Not Dead Yet

The Power of Little Things

My Turn

One by One

The End of the World as I Know It

My ‘Ohana

Sliding into Home

What the Seahorse Told Me

Character List

Glossary

Acknowledgments

About Mary Knight

This book is dedicated to my readers, who are teaching me how to be a better writer,

and to Milo and Zora,

who are teaching me how to be a better person.

I am forever grateful.

Seahorses wear their skeletons on the outside, the old man in the booth tells me. When you dry them out, they hold their shape! He sounds excited, like this is the greatest news since the invention of the cell phone.

But I’m suspicious. And bored. And pooped. I mean, my parents and I have been trying to have fun and be a family in Sarasota, Florida, for the entire week. It’s exhausting. And now, before heading back to Seattle, Mom insisted on making one last stop at this pathetic, beachside flea market where some guy is trying to sell us his over-priced souvenirs.

What a way to make a living, Mom says to Dad under her breath, dragging him off to the next booth. Come on, Sophie, let’s go. I’m about to follow, but the vendor keeps yacking.

Here, little miss … wanna hold one? Before I know it, I’m holding a bleached-white seahorse in the palm of my hand. I stare at the weightless frame of this delicate creature that once had a life, when suddenly everything goes black.

Later, they’ll say I started shrieking at the top of my lungs, but all I remember is this white-hot, searing pain, like my skin had been dipped in acid and was melting right off the bone. Next, I’m running with an armload of seahorse souvenirs, heading for the ocean, tourists scattering every-which-way. When Mom and Dad finally catch up with me, I’m belly-deep in ocean water, as tiny, ghost-white skeletons in the shape of S’s float in and out with the waves.

They do not sink.

1.

Camouflage

A seahorse alters its color, texture, and even its shape, to blend into its surroundings.*

* This excerpt and all the other excerpts are from the sixth-grade report, Getting to Know the Seahorse, by Sophie Kai Bender.

The incident in Sarasota wasn’t the first time this kind of freaky thing happened. Usually, when I touch a live animal, I can sense what they’re feeling. If I had known my psycho-telepathic-weirdness happened with dead things, too, I would have avoided that seahorse skeleton like the plague.

I started Googling seahorses as soon as I got home. It didn’t take long to figure out why I lost it. According to Wikipedia, about a million seahorses are harvested from the ocean every year for souvenirs like the one I held in my hand. While the seahorses are still alive, they’re often left out to dry in the boiling hot sun. That feeling must be so intense for them, that somehow the memory of it gets stuck in their bones and remains there even after they die, which would explain why I felt that searing hot pain when I held those skeletons in my hands. Not fun.

With live animals, it’s usually not so awful. Whenever I touch the neighbor’s cat, for instance, all kinds of pictures and feelings zip through me—mostly skittering mice and flitty birds and a twitchy feeling of being on high alert—or, if he’s basking in the sun on a cool day, I might feel a flood of warmth settle over me like a fuzzy blanket. It feels like knowing an animal from the inside out.

The first time it happened was four years ago when I was eight, a few months after my baby sister died. I was at my friend Ashley’s house, and we were passing her gerbil back and forth. I remember how happy I was to be there, especially since everyone at my house was always so sad. Every time it was my turn to hold the gerbil, the room looked all rounded and blurry, like I was seeing it through a bubble, and it felt like I was being tickled on the inside.

Here! I giggled. Take him! You’ve got to feel this!

Feel what?

The tickle. It makes you want to run.

She looked at me like I’d grown two heads.

He wants to run in his plastic ball, I said quietly. Can’t you tell?

Einstein doesn’t talk, she said, and shoved him back into his cage.

That’s when I knew I was a freak.

The only other time I really lost it was in front of my classmates on a third-grade field trip to a dairy farm. I reached out and started to pet one of those poor, miserable cows who were being milked by a machine inside this stinky old barn. Her mind was all darkness and mud—no green, no sun—just this big empty missing, and I began to cry. Fortunately, Dad was there as a chaperone to settle me down, even though he had no clue what was going on. In fact, I’ve never told my parents about my weirdness. I don’t want them to worry any more than they already do.

When we discussed our field trip the next day, our teacher told us how the farmer takes a cow’s calf away from her soon after its birth, so the milk she produces for the calf can be sold to us humans instead. That’s when it hit me—why I felt that big empty sadness.

She’s missing her calf! I blurted out, and everyone started laughing.

For days afterward, the mean boys in my class would come up behind me and shout, Moo! or tease me on the playground with moaning cow sounds.

Never again.

From that moment on, I promised myself I’d never touch an animal in front of other kids. That also meant I could never have a close friend. A friend might find out about my psycho-telepathic-weirdness and next thing you know, it’s all over school. No, from then on, I hid my weirdness and anything else that might make me stand out.

For the most part, it’s worked. Everybody’s forgotten about the cow incident, and I get along fine now with most of the kids in my sixth-grade class. I don’t accept invitations for sleepovers or birthdays, though. You can never tell what memories someone’s pet might be holding onto, and if I accidentally touched one of them? Well, like I said, you never know…

I also tend to agonize over the fate of the poor animals or insects I see along the road, like the butterflies that hit our windshield in spring. Mom’s always telling me, You’re being overly sensitive, Sophie, and You’ve got to learn to toughen up, Sophie.

Dad’s a different story. He never tells me to buck up like Mom does. No, whenever I’m having a hard time about something—like that incident in Sarasota—Dad tries to make it up to me somehow. Which is why I’m sitting in my living room in front of an aquarium at this very minute staring at a live seahorse.

And I think he’s pregnant.

That’s right. I said, he.

Weird, huh?

When my teacher, Ms. Lovejoy, found out how obsessed I was with seahorses after spring break, she suggested I write a report on them. Dive into your obsession! she said. Write what inspires you!

This is how I came to know that seahorses are one of the few species where males carry the young. A female will shoot up to 1,500 eggs into the guy’s front pouch where he fertilizes them and carries them to term, anywhere from two to four weeks. When I came to that part in my class report, one of the boys said, Eeeewww … that’s gross, but Ms. Lovejoy said, Hey, it’s science and I think it’s cool!

Anyway, a few hours ago, I had just come back from my grandparents’ house where I’d spent the first week of summer vacation, and there was Dad, his chest all puffed out with pride, standing by the aquarium in our living room. Nothing special about that. The aquarium’s been there for as long as I can remember in the home entertainment space between the bookshelves. Better than watching TV, Dad used to say, when the tank had water and fish in it.

When my baby sister died, Dad lost interest in the aquarium, which is why I couldn’t imagine what had him so excited. Mom’s always hated that slimy, sloshy thing in her otherwise neat and tidy, black and white living room. After the last of the clownfish died, I figured Dad was getting ready to sell it.

So, you got me some seaweed? I said, trying to sound happy. I could tell he’d redone the interior with some new plants and a few pieces of orange coral. The filter hummed and gurgled, creating water currents in an otherwise empty tank.

Look closer, he said, rocking on the heels of his feet.

I got down on my knees, pulled a chunk of hair back from my face where it always seems to be in the way, and peered into the aquarium. I expected to see a fish hiding in the weeds, but nothing was swimming. Dad bent down to look with me, and I could see our reflections in the shiny glass—two moon-shaped faces with thick dark hair and large, brown eyes. Unlike me in that moment, however, Dad was still wearing that goofy grin of his, so I kept looking for my surprise. Maybe it’s a bottom feeder, I thought, as I searched the tiny pink pebbles along the floor of the tank. Still nothing.

Out the corner of my eye, I felt more than saw the tiniest flick. And there he was, all greenish brown and curved and bony (except for his extended belly) with a long snout and a knobby tail curled around a strand of seaweed. There were spiky things sticking up all over his head like one of those punk rockers Dad likes to watch on the music channel. One of his round, bulging eyes was fixed on mine. Or so it seemed.

Oh, a seahorse, I breathed. Hello.

He didn’t answer back. And he didn’t blink (no eyelids). But I could have sworn he nodded his horsey-headed snout ever so slightly in my direction.

Thanks, Dad, I whispered, as my brain fired up that flashback from Sarasota I wish I could forget.

I hope you like it. Dad straightened up, stretching. I thought it might help, you know, make another memory to replace the bad one.

Sure, Daddy. You’re the best. I stood up and gave him a big hug. It’s been a long time since I’ve called my father Daddy, but I just couldn’t help it. I knew what he was trying to do.

Unfortunately, it isn’t working.

2.

My Brain on Seahorses

The scientific word for seahorse, hippocampus, was coined by Pliny the Elder in 78 AD. It is also the name for a part of our brain that stores short-term memories and emotions.

Hey, Sydney. I gently tap on the glass.

I’ve been sitting here on the plush white carpet in front of the aquarium for the last hour, trying out gender-neutral names to see if one sticks. In addition to Sydney, I’ve tried Alex and Riley, but his tail stays tightly coiled around that same, single strand of seaweed as it has for the last few days, ever since Dad gave him to me.

His stillness makes me sad. Only his filmy, dorsal fin flutters near the base of his spine—I guess to keep him upright—but other than that, nothing else moves. He just keeps looking straight ahead, or rather, straight sideways. I think he’s missing his mate.

According to SeahorsesGalore.com, when seahorses pair up, they tend to stay together at least for the mating season. Even after the guy gets pregnant, he and his partner continue their courting rituals. They start their spiral dance first thing in the morning, turn all different colors—like neon orange to red to green—and flirt for up to an hour. Ms. Lovejoy loved that part of my written report. She gushed all over the margins with her purple pen: Awesome! Great use of details! Fascinating!

I think she wants to be a seahorse.

Not that I’d recommend it.

Precarious is how one website describes a seahorse’s life right now, a nice word for endangered, which is another nice word for being on the brink of being gone for good.

My father means well, I tell our captive. I know that doesn’t help.

My stomach churns as I think about how it’s all my fault that this helpless seahorse was torn from his mate while he was still pregnant. If Dad were here, he’d say, Oh boy, here we go again with the All My Fault game—something I’ve been doing ever since my baby sister died a few years ago. Here’s how the game goes:

If I hadn’t lost it with the seahorse skeletons in Sarasota, Dad would never have felt sorry for me.

If Dad hadn’t felt sorry for me, he wouldn’t have gotten