Celeste's Arc

Chapter 15 of 23

The floodwater fell at last. Nyrimia showed Celeste a low crack in the cave wall, then slipped back into the aqua pool. Before she left, she pressed two clams into Celeste's hands. "Eat," the mermaid said. "The alcove sits high. You will need your strength." Celeste squeezed the calm-dream pearl in her pocket, thanked her, and climbed out into gray morning light. Near the shore she found smooth rocks thick with sea lettuce. She pried the clams open on a stone. One held soft meat. The other held a small lilac pearl, glowing faint as a moon. Celeste laughed out loud. Nyrimia's kind of luck. She ate the sea lettuce and the clam meat, and the food steadied her shaking legs. A meow cut through the trees. Then another, sharp and cross. Slate padded out onto the sand, tail high, chartreuse eyes fixed on her. He was the ship's cat who found her in the jungle, and he had warned her against the shrine since the start. Seeing him whole made her chest ache with relief. "You left the lagoon," he said. "Alone. In a storm." His voice stayed flat. "I read your cloth. SAFE. Big word for a girl who walks into shrines full of bones." "I found the mermaid," Celeste said. "She's real, Slate. She'll tell me how to cross. I just have to bring her a shell horn. It's in a dry alcove, up high." Slate sat. His tail curled slow around his paws. "High places on this island are not kind. That shrine ate the ones who tried." He studied her face and knew she would go anyway. "So. We split the work. You do not know these cliffs. I do. I checked the perimeter days ago." Celeste knelt in the sand beside him. "Tell me where." "The alcove is above the reef, east side. Follow the tide rocks until the sand runs out. Climb where the stone steps up, not where it crumbles." He flicked an ear. "I will check the wrecked hull for rope and a blade. You will need both. Then we meet." "Meet where?" "The grotto. Vines over the door, still water inside, white crystal like teeth." He said it plain, but his eyes held hers. "I walked it myself. Nothing waits there. It is safe. Do not wander past it." Celeste nodded hard. "The grotto. I'll be there." "You will get turned around," Slate said. "You always do. Keep the sea on your right until you reach it." He rose and stretched. "Do not die before I bring the rope. It would be very rude." She almost hugged him, then remembered his rules and stopped. "Thank you." He was already trotting toward the beached hull. Celeste turned east along the tide rocks, the sea on her right, the pearl warm in her fist. She had a route now, and a friend who knew the way. For the first time since the lagoon, she was not walking blind.