The Deepest Blue(54)
“You can’t go out there again,” Roe said. “You nearly got killed.”
“For this place, ‘you nearly got killed’ means we’re doing great. It means we’re still alive.” She finished the hole and tilted the coconut up to her lips. The coconut milk was thin, sweet, and amazing. She took several gulps before passing the coconut to Roe. She’d gathered a total of four, which should last them for a while between the milk and the meat.
“Fair enough,” Roe said after she’d taken a long draft. “But promise me you’ll be careful. The only thing worse than feeling helpless to protect myself is feeling helpless to protect you.”
“I’m careful,” Mayara promised—and wanted to laugh. That was one word that no one at home, especially Kelo, would ever call her. She’d always been reckless. But then it was easy to be “reckless” at home, when she was just doing what Elorna had done before her. It was harder here, knowing that she did not want to follow in Elorna’s footsteps. “We’ll explore together, as soon as you’ve healed enough.”
“Good. I’ve been thinking about it. . . . We both felt the spirits going through the tunnels, right? What if we use them to show us the cave system? We can keep track of where we feel them. Draw ourselves a map.”
Mayara considered it. The spirits couldn’t sense them if they didn’t issue any commands. And they had to stay hidden for a while anyway. “It’s brilliant.”
Roe began riffling through the seaweed and remnants of fruit. She raised up a clump of suka berries triumphantly. “How’s this?”
“Perfect.” It would work nicely for drawing a map on one of the walls. Taking a berry, she drew the first mark, indicating their cave. Roe added to it, pausing to concentrate on the distant underground spirits.
“Sorka was wrong,” Mayara said as they both drew, side by side in the faint light of the cave mouth. “We’re better together.”
Chapter Thirteen
Aside from not dying, the trickiest part about hiding from the spirits was figuring out when and where to pee. None of the legends or songs mention this part, Mayara thought. Not a single verse hinted at a spirit sister, heir, Silent One, or queen ever having to worry about where to relieve herself while she fought for her life. No one ever warned about the tedium of constant terror or the amount of time you spent obsessing over simple bodily functions when life itself was no longer simple.
Mayara squatted in the shallows of the sea whenever she needed to, and Roe, while her leg continued to heal, used a hollowed-out coconut that Mayara would dispose of during one of her foraging trips.
It was a risk, of course, every time she left the cave. Everything they did was a risk, though. Staying in one place. Venturing out. Even thinking too much or too loudly, if they weren’t careful to keep their thoughts from projecting as loudly as a shout. But a few things were unavoidable. For example, they couldn’t let odors build up inside their cave or even near it—that would give them away. Better to let the waves wash away any trace of them.
At least there was never a shortage of plants to forage when Mayara did risk a trip out. She even found firemoss growing between the rocks. Firemoss gave off a soft glow that made it perfect to use for exploring caves. It was a lucky find, but given what she’d seen so far on Akena Island, it didn’t surprise her. She suspected that if she were able to search for long enough, she’d find just about anything and everything growing there. Already on her short jaunts, she’d seen more kinds of flowers than she ever knew existed, as well as bananas, mangoes, oranges, and all varieties of nuts and berries, even those she knew had no business growing in Belene—some belonged in the cold reaches of Elhim or the mountain lands of Semo. But the spirits who’d grown them hadn’t cared—they were free to create unchecked here. Mayara wasn’t complaining—each trip, she came back with her sling overloaded.
If it weren’t for the constant fear of death—and, she thought, the occasional need to pee into coconuts—it would have been a wonderful place to live.
After five days of not dying, Mayara and Roe were ready to explore the caves beneath the island. Five days was enough time for Roe’s leg to heal, and five days was enough for them to map out at least a few of the myriad tunnels.
It was also enough time to realize that if they didn’t start moving, they might go crazy.
Now that there were only a few spirit sisters left—Mayara didn’t know exactly how many—the spirits were hunting in packs, combing the island in increasingly frenetic patterns, swarming with greater ferocity when they sensed any hint of their prey. She could feel them every time they neared her and Roe’s cave. It wore on both of them.
We need a secondary cave, Mayara thought, for the inevitable day when we’re discovered. Assuming they survived that day.
They wouldn’t be able to bring their map with them, of course—it was drawn on the cave wall with suka berry juice—and so they each spent a significant chunk of time memorizing it. It was a bit like memorizing the veins in a leaf. Every cave branched out into a half dozen more, and they would have to be careful not to become lost.
“You know, we’re supposed to be learning how to use our power to control spirits so we can become useful heirs,” Roe said. “Not hiding out and crawling around in dark, dangerous, unknown cave systems. We should venture out instead of in.”