Marina Coralwise's Arc

Chapter 4 of 5

The black water closed over Marina's head. She followed the tube down into the temple, the barrel bobbing above on the surface. Her hands found a stone floor. Ahead, a low chamber opened. Carved shelves lined the walls. On one sat a sealed clay jar, wax still hard around its lid. Her mother's proof. Marina reached for it. Then cold water surged past her knees, then her waist. The tide was rising fast, faster than she planned. The passage behind her was filling. If she stayed to free the jar, the doorway would seal, and she would die down here with it. She grabbed the jar and turned. The passage had shrunk to a black slot. She kicked toward it. Her skirt of palm leaves snagged on a jut of rock. She yanked. The mouthpiece slipped from her lips. Salt water burned into her throat. She clawed for the tube and found only mud. A hand closed around her wrist. Caspian. He had come down after her. He had not waited on the shore. He pushed the mouthpiece back between her teeth and held it there. His other arm hooked her ribs. He pulled. The palm leaves tore free. Together they forced through the narrowing slot as the last stones ground shut behind them. They broke the surface gasping. Marina still had the jar. Caspian dragged her onto the wet rock and dropped beside her, chest heaving. Water ran off his blonde hair. He did not speak. He only stared at the jar in her fist, then at her face. "You went back down," Marina said. "You didn't leave." "I heard you stop moving." He wiped salt from his mouth. "That was reason enough." She should have opened the jar right there. She did not. Her hands shook too hard. Caspian pulled her up and led her along the shore to a cabin pieced from driftwood and ship scraps. Inside, a shelf held fruit and jars of island food. A rough table and chairs stood in the center, lashed from drifted planks. He set her in a chair. He pressed a coconut into her cold hands. "Drink. Then you can look." He crouched close, brown eyes on hers. The space between them held something new. She felt it in her chest, warmer than the cold sea had left her. His hand stayed over hers on the coconut and did not move. "Why do this?" she asked. "You don't know me." "No," he said. "But I want to." Marina held his gaze. Then she set the jar on the table and broke the wax with her thumb. Inside lay a folded scrap of oiled cloth. She unfolded it. A name was written there in her mother's hand. Marina read it and went still. She knew the name. It was not a stranger's. She looked up at Caspian. "I have to find this man," she said. "He's on this island."