The Deepest Blue(50)

Of course, I’ll need a way to transport the water. And it would be better if they could boil it, but starting a fire would be too much of a risk, not to mention tricky inside their damp-from-the-sea cave. Maybe it would be safer to harvest ripe coconuts, except that would require climbing a coconut tree, which would leave her exposed.

While she was thinking about all the practical details of preparing to survive, she wasn’t worrying as much about the spirits, which was a welcome change. It was the first time on the island when she hadn’t felt gripped by terror.

It’s because I’m not alone, she thought. With someone else to worry over and care about and do things for, she was able to think clearly again. And feel hope.

“Roe? It’s me,” she whisper-called up to the cave. She’d marked the opening with a smear of suka berry juice—to a spirit, it would look like a bird had shat on the rocks.

Still hidden, Roe cheered, “Hurray! You aren’t dead!”

Mayara grinned and began to climb up toward the cave.

“But you need to hurry—the spirit’s coming back!”

Twisting to look behind her, Mayara saw the glass bird diving toward her from the cloudless sky. She felt as if her heart ceased to function. Then her brain sped up. “Roe, be ready with the rock, but stay out of sight. Wait for my signal.”

Keeping her back to the spirit, she continued to climb toward the cave. Only a few more feet . . . Almost here . . . She held her own thoughts tight inside her head, concentrating on the feel of the seaweed-slick rocks.

She reached the cave opening just as the glass bird reached her, and then she flopped to the side, shouting, “Now, Roe!”

Lunging out of the cave, Roe brought the rock down hard on the glass bird. Focused on Mayara, the spirit never saw her. The rock hit its head.

The glass cracked.

Mayara flung herself on top of the spirit.

Using the sharp rock she’d found for prying mussels off rocks, she stabbed hard and fast at its slender neck until it broke. Roe joined her, pounding on the spirit’s body with her larger rock until the spirit shattered into pieces.

Panting, they looked at each other. Mayara felt a giddy smile pull at her lips. They’d done it! They’d defeated a spirit! And they’d done it fast—she didn’t think the spirit had had time to call for help. At least, she didn’t feel any other spirits coming to its aid.

“Yay, us,” Roe said weakly.

And then she fainted.

“Roe!” Mayara grabbed her as she tipped forward out of the mouth of the cave. Shoving her, she shifted Roe back inside and then laid her against the wall. “Roe, are you all right?”

She was breathing, right? Yes, she was. Mayara felt for a pulse in her neck.

Roe moaned.

“I’ve got medicine. Hold on.” Untying her sling, Mayara dumped everything she’d gathered on the floor of the cave. She rooted through it until she found the angel seaweed.

Angel seaweed was a leafy plant that held copious amounts of water inside its plump leaves. It also had a kind of healing property to it—Mayara wasn’t clear what made it good for warding off infections, but she knew from personal experience that it worked wonders. She squeezed the leaves and the vitamin-rich liquid dribbled out.

Roe’s eyes snapped open the instant the first drops hit the gash on her calf. She yelped.

“Just relax. It’s me. It’s okay. You’re safe. Sort of safe. Momentarily safe.”

Roe hissed as more medicine hit her wound but didn’t flinch away. “What . . . happened?”

“You fainted.”

“Impossible. I never faint.”

“You briefly lost consciousness because of incredible pain,” Mayara clarified. She kept squeezing the angel seaweed over the wound, washing out the grit and soaking the cut in medicine at the same time. She then pressed the hunk of seaweed directly onto the gash. “Hold that there.”

“The spirit . . .”

“It’s dead,” Mayara confirmed.

“We have to hide the . . . body. Is it a body if it’s glass? We have to hide the evidence, or other spirits will see it and know someone’s here.”

She was right. “Keep pressing the seaweed to the wound. I’ll be back.”

Poking her head out of the cave, Mayara looked in all directions. She took a deep breath, centered herself, and sent her thoughts out, combing the nearby sea and sky. No immediate spirits, though there were plenty not far from them, both in the water and among the trees. The shore was temporarily clear.

Using her wrap-dress carrier again, Mayara quickly gathered up all the shards of the dead spirit. They’d been lucky this one was so easy to defeat. Most weren’t. If it had been larger or one of the spirits made of water or rock or fire . . . We were lucky.

We can’t count on luck to get us through a month. Or even a week.

But I don’t want to count on power either.

Maybe we can count on being clever and careful.

Maybe that will be enough.

Maybe . . .

She retreated into the cave with the shards and deposited them in a corner. She studied them for a moment. Catching a bit of stray light from the opening, one of the shards winked. She picked it up. Its edges were sharper than any of the rocks, though the glass was more fragile. It could be useful. As she retightened her wrap dress, she tucked the glass shard into her belt. She then scooted the rest out of the light so that no one outside would see any suspicious glints.