The Deepest Blue(46)

Mayara made a decision. “Lean on me.”

“We can’t stay together,” Roe said. “You heard Heir Sorka.”

“They’re already hunting us whether we’re together or not,” Mayara said. “And you can’t run.” Supporting Roe, she helped her hobble away from the tree. She noted as they left that Roe was right: it looked like a deliberate trap, a hunter’s snare, that would tighten the vines around a body as soon as someone stepped inside. She wondered why a spirit would have to set a trap like that when they could simply control the vines with their minds.

In the distance, they heard another woman scream.

And then they heard the shrill, ecstatic shrieks of spirits.

The scream abruptly cut off.

“How many of us have they gotten?” Mayara asked. She knew of four. She didn’t know if any others had been swept out to sea or lay somewhere, silent and still, in the sand between the trees.

“Don’t know,” Roe said. “Maybe half of us.”

“It hasn’t even been a full day. How are we going to last a month?”

Roe winced and leaned more heavily on Mayara. “We keep outswimming everyone.”

It was terrible but also true. Because the spirits were distracted killing someone else, Mayara and Roe were able to hobble away from the trap. Mayara aimed east, not for any reason but because it fit the requirement “away from here.”

In the darkness, every shadow looked like a spirit. She heard them calling to one another in shrieks too high-pitched to be birds’. Sometimes the shrieks held words: Gotcha, gotcha, gotcha! Gonna get you, gonna tear you, gonna rip you, gonna make you dead!

Or a sweet, childlike beckoning: Come, spirit sisters! Come, I’ll keep you safe. I’ll make you warm. Feel my warmth. Feel it burn. Burn your flesh.

Little sisters, where are you? Little almost-heirs, let me embrace you!

All we want is you. All you must do is die.

A giggle, shrill and unhinged, emerged from deep within the coconut forest. Mayara shivered. She couldn’t tell which direction that had come from, but it sounded too close. Fear was chasing so fast and loud through her mind that she couldn’t focus enough to feel any spirits.

As quietly as she could, Mayara whispered, “We need to hide. If they can’t see us or hear us, and if we keep our thoughts small, they won’t find us.”

“But we’re supposed to—”

Mayara cut her off. “We’re supposed to live.”

The moon cast everything in a blue hue. The shadows were layered in its light, and Mayara scanned the area for any darker patches. Despite the fact that she’d chosen to sleep on top of an earth spirit, she thought her first instinct was a good one: hide between rocks. Leave as little of themselves visible to the world as possible.

She helped Roe over to an outcrop of rocks—it was curved, like an eye socket, and there wasn’t much room. But that was good—it meant less space through which the spirits could come at them. With difficulty, they climbed up and over the first boulder. Roe lowered herself between them, and Mayara squeezed in next to her. “Your wound, how is it?”

“Woundlike.”

“Deep?”

“Painful. Can’t tell if it’s deep or not. I think the bleeding sort of stopped?”

“Not to be blunt, but are you going to die right now or can you make it until morning?” She knew how to make the various poultices and salves that Kelo used on her, but she couldn’t search for the herbs until she had light. Even then, it wouldn’t be safe to forage much.

“Absolutely no idea. If I wake up dead, I’ll let you know.”

They fell silent after that, listening to the night sounds. Neither of them slept much. And they heard two more screams that abruptly ended before dawn crept over the island.

“STILL ALIVE?” MAYARA WHISPERED. HER THROAT FELT ROUGH AND thick. She had a sour nutty taste in her mouth, so she must have dozed off, though she didn’t remember falling asleep.

Beside her, Roe was still, curled in a fetal position. But Mayara could see her chest rising and falling. “Not sure,” Roe said back, without opening her eyes. “If I were dead, I don’t think it would hurt this much.”

“Let me see.”

“It’s gory,” Roe warned. Opening her eyes, she uncurled herself, wincing as she pulled her hand away from where it had been clamped on to her calf. Her palm was painted red with blood, and the gash itself was a clotted mess of deep red, black, and brown. Sand and dirt coated the cut. On the plus side, it wasn’t bleeding.

“It doesn’t look deep.”

That was about the only positive thing Mayara could say, though. Because it did look filthy. If she didn’t get that cleaned out, Roe was likely to come down with an infection, and that could kill her as surely as any spirit, as Tesana had warned. Pushing aside the image of the fisherwoman dead on the sand, Mayara ran through the list of herbs that she’d need: Verve leaf. Graymoss. Or sap from a suka tree, if she couldn’t find the moss. Also saltwater. And angel seaweed, if there was any. As the list grew longer, she realized how dangerous foraging for all these could be and came to the conclusion that she could make do with just the saltwater and the seaweed. It would ward off infection, and that was the primary goal right now.

If she could find any.