Celeste's Arc

Chapter 8 of 23

The vine-covered door groaned open a hand's width, then stuck. Celeste turned to call Slate forward. Her cat, the ship's cat who had survived the wreck and found her in the jungle, stood frozen at the threshold. His dark blue fur stood up along his spine. His green eyes fixed on the black gap. "Do not go in there," Slate said. His accent came out sharp. "Whatever waits inside will not let you leave easily. I am telling you now. Turn around." "You always say some doors should stay shut." Celeste pushed harder on the door. It would not budge. "But this one opened for my hand. It wants me." "That is exactly what worries me," Slate hissed. He did not move a paw closer. She found a narrow gap where the boards had rotted. She wedged her shoulders in and squeezed through. Three brown bats burst from the dark, wings snapping past her face. She yelped, then swallowed the sound. She would not run this time. Inside, small lights drifted in the black. Fireflies. Their soft glow spread across the wall and lit a picture drawn in colored chalk. A mermaid held a round dragon egg in both arms. Celeste stared. Her breath came fast. A mermaid and a dragon egg, on this wall, in a shrine no one had entered in years. The fireflies floated lower and gathered above a spot on the floor. A wooden hatch sat there, its warped boards leaking a faint violet glow through the cracks. A heavy latch held it shut. She knelt and pulled. The latch did not move. She braced her feet and heaved. Nothing. The hatch was sealed, and not by rust. The violet light pulsed like it was breathing. Celeste sank back on the floor, out of breath. She watched the fireflies drift over the room. Their light slid across the boards. It caught something pale in the corner. Teeth. A scatter of them, small ones and large ones, gray with dust. Beside them rose a heap of old shoes. Boots. Buckled shoes. A red child's shoe, cracked and dry. Sailors' shoes, mismatched, tangled in a pile taller than her knee. Her stomach turned cold. These had belonged to people. People who came in and did not walk out. Her hands shook. She scrambled to her feet, backed to the gap, and forced herself through the boards into the daylight. Slate sat waiting where she had left him. His tail curled tight around his paws. "I told you," he said. He did not sound pleased. He sounded afraid. Celeste pressed her back to the warm stone and gulped the clean air. The mermaid held a dragon egg. The hatch below glowed and would not open. Whatever crossed between worlds lay under that floor, past a door that ate everyone who tried. She had to open it. But not with her bare hands, and not today.