The Deepest Blue(52)

Mayara climbed, wondering if Elorna had tried to scale these same trees. They’d never been told how she died exactly, only that it was on the island. It was a peculiar sensation, that it was here, so far from home, that Mayara again felt close to Elorna. Then she pushed thoughts of her sister out of her mind and focused on her task.

At the top, she twisted the stems and then dropped the coconuts. They thudded to the ground. One, two, three, four . . . There, that should be enough. Panting, she began the climb down. Her arms and legs were aching. She hadn’t climbed like this in ages.

Concentrating, she almost missed sensing the tree spirit flittering through the grove. She caught the high-pitched giggle of its thoughts when it was only a few trees away. It hadn’t seen her yet.

Barely daring to breathe, Mayara flattened against the trunk. She was too visible and too exposed. She looked across the island—and then wished she hadn’t.

She knew whose scream they’d heard in the night.

Splayed with her arms and legs wide, Nissala was pinned to one of the closer cliffsides, only a few trees away from Mayara. Her hands and feet were encased in stone, and her head was cocked at an unnatural angle, mostly severed from her body. Her tunic was stained red. She was undoubtedly dead.

As I’ll be, if I’m caught.

It felt as if Nissala had been left as a warning sign. Or a victory flag.

Mayara looked down. She was halfway up the tree. Not an impossible drop, but not safe either. And if she broke or twisted her ankle or her leg . . .

She felt the spirit draw closer. Felt its bottomless hunger and rage.

No choice, she thought.

She pulled one foot out of the sash and then jumped.

Landing on bent legs, she felt the impact shake through her. It knocked her back, but she didn’t hear or feel a snap. Getting to her feet, she heard the spirit cry. It’s seen me! She ran, not down toward the shore but up toward the top of the cliffs. She heard it shriek as it chased her.

Beneath her feet, grasses sprouted higher, growing impossibly fast. They reached for her ankles, as ahead of her vines wove themselves into a net. Thorns burst from the vines as they thickened.

Faster! Faster! Mayara ordered herself. But she didn’t let the words escape her own mind. She kept a tight lid on her thoughts, focusing on running toward the edge of the cliff.

The thorny vines creeped across the edge of the cliff, growing as she watched. She aimed for a spot higher, bare rocks, not yet touched by the impossible growth.

She felt the spirit’s claws snag her hair, but Mayara barreled forward, strands of hair ripping from her scalp. She didn’t slow as she reached the edge. She exhaled, still running, then inhaled as fully as she could as she leaped off the cliff into the open air, diving toward the sea.

She plunged into the water.

For an instant, she was cocooned in bubbles. Breaking free, she swam down, deeper, away from the spirit. She felt its anger behind her. I made it! I—

And then the spirit claimed control over the seaweed.

The kelp began to grow so fast that it looked as if it were unraveling large skeins of green, leathery fabric. It wrapped around her. Struggling, she pulled out her glass shard and sliced.

Slicing and struggling, she fought her way free. She kicked hard, swimming deeper toward the rocks and away from the reef. Her lungs began to burn. She wasn’t thinking—she was only fleeing. Away, away, must get away! She saw a gap in the rocks ahead, empty of seaweed, and she aimed for it as she felt another strand of kelp whip her ankle.

She kicked hard and shot into the gap.

She saw a glow above her. Sunlight meant air. Air! She swam up.

Bursting out of the surface, Mayara sucked in air. She tried to calm herself, breathing in and out. She caught a trickle of the spirit’s thoughts: it was radiating its dismay to as many spirits as it could. It wasn’t words, but she guessed the gist. It was calling for others to help it search.

Trying to slow down her panic enough to plan, she took stock of where she was: a hole in the rocks. Open at the top, she could see a patch of blue sky, but the hole was too small for her to squeeze out. Her only exit was back down through the water. But she couldn’t go near the kelp again, not with the tree spirit out there waiting for her to do exactly that.

Can I swim around it?

It depended on whether the tree spirit had called on any water spirits. Concentrating, she sent her thoughts out again. She brushed against three, aiming for the reef, each filled with glee and hunger so sharp that it made her shake. Fear threatened to choke her, driving away her ability to sense the spirits. Treading water, she tried to force the terror down. She couldn’t let them feel her fear.

She could send them away, but she didn’t know if she could control so many of them. And whatever spirits she failed to command would come for her. Right now, they don’t know where I am. That gave her an advantage. A very slight, very pathetic advantage.

Calming herself with difficulty, she reached out with her mind again—only to feel a bit of panic once more, as even more spirits were flowing toward where she’d dived into the sea. What kept her from losing her mind completely was the strangeness of it all, since a few seemed to be coming from beneath the island rather than from above.

Mayara remembered when she and Roe first found their cave. They’d both felt spirits moving beneath and through the heart of the island. Could there be tunnels that went deeper than the caves that pocked the cliffs?