Valvera Ketch's Arc

Chapter 1 of 2

Valvera Ketch had waited her whole shell-life for a map, and now the sea was stealing it back. The old chart hung nailed to her door at the top of the tide pool loft. Its first marker sat in a shallow pool below, and the water there was draining fast. She was a scallop. She could not walk. She could only clap her two shells and hop, and the pool that led to the marker grew thinner by the minute. If it dried, the map's route began nowhere. She hopped to the loft's edge and looked down. The rope bridge sagged over the emptying channel. Rocks broke the surface that had been hidden a moment ago. Below, a hermit crab dragged half of himself across the wet stone, hunting the deepest puddle. He wore no shell. His soft back curled bare in the open air. "You," Valvera called. "Can you cross that pool before it dries?" The crab stopped. He counted the rocks with one claw. "Four stones. Then two feet of open water. I have no shell. Soft parts dry fast." He pulled his claw back. "I am not scared. I just know the number." "I'm Valvera. That map is real. The whole sea says to follow it, and the first mark is drowning right now." She clapped her shells. "Help me reach it and I'll find you a shell. I build races for hermit crabs. I have a whole wall of shells." The crab's eyestalks lifted. "A wall. How many?" "Enough. But only if we move now." He climbed down the bridge. Valvera saw the flippers first, strapped near the shell wall by the slides. They were made for crabs, shaped for skating fast across water. She had built them for the races. "Take those," she said. "Buckle them on." The crab strapped the green flippers to his back legs. "Calidan Xe," he said, not looking up. "That is my name. In case the pool takes me." "It won't. Carry me on your back and skate. I can't cross alone." Calidan hesitated. Then he set his soft body low and let her slide onto his shoulders. She weighed almost nothing. He pushed off the last rock. The flippers slapped the shrinking water. Mud sucked at them halfway across. He kicked harder. The pool was two inches deep, then one. His claw touched the marker stone just as the last water slid away into the sand. Valvera pressed against the flat rock. A shape was carved there, an arrow pointing off the isle toward open sea, and beside it, a single word she could read: NEXT. "We made it," she said. "The route starts here." Calidan stared at the arrow. It pointed away from every safe pool, out past the reef, into deep water. "That way is far," he said quietly. "I still have no shell." Valvera looked at the arrow, then at the drying flats around them. The tide was gone. Nothing could cross back now.