Celeste's Arc

Chapter 6 of 23

Celeste woke stiff inside the wrecked hull. Gray light came through the broken planks. She sat up and remembered the shrine, the red eye, the spider. Today she would go back. But she froze. Last night she had run blind through the trees. She had left no notches, no marks. She did not know which way the shrine lay. "You are thinking too loud," Slate said. He lay curled near her feet, tail flicking. "I can hear it." "I can't find the shrine," she said. "I ran without marking my path. Father always said mark your trail." Her chest went tight. "I don't even know which trees I came through." Slate stretched and yawned. "Then feed yourself first. A lost girl thinks worse hungry." He was right, and she hated that. She crawled out onto the sand. Then she made herself useful, the way her siblings had taught her. She dug through the hull's dark corners. She found a brass compass, dented but working, its needle still swinging true. She found a small jackknife with a folding blade. She cut a long strip of old sailcloth and tied it into a bundle. She lashed the bundle to a bamboo stave. Now she had a pack for the journey. The compass changed everything. She held it flat in her palm. The needle pointed north. She knew moss grew on the north side of trees. If she watched the needle and the moss together, she would not turn around again. She could mark her path and read it back. Celeste stepped onto the beach and looked at the tide. It was low. Wet rocks stood bare in the shallows. Slate trotted ahead and stopped, meowing sharp by a cluster of rocks. She came close. Oysters crowded the stone, gray and rough and open to the air. "Breakfast," Slate said. "Even I know that much." She knelt and used the jackknife to pry one loose. She worked the blade into the shell and twisted. It opened. She tipped it back and swallowed. Salt and cold sea filled her mouth. She ate three more, hands slick, and fed Slate a soft piece from her fingers. On the next rocks she saw green ruffles clinging to the stone. Sea lettuce, her favorite. She pulled a handful and chewed. The taste came straight from home, from low tides with her brothers and sisters, buckets swinging. Her eyes stung. For a moment she was not alone on a strange shore. When she stood, she felt steady and full. She checked the compass. North lay along the beach, and the jungle mouth waited where she had burst out last night. This time she carried a needle that would not lie. "Ready?" Slate asked. "Ready," she said. She slung the stave over her shoulder and turned toward the trees. She would find the shrine now, and mark every step.