Storm-Wake by Lucy Christopher

Author:Lucy Christopher [Christopher, Lucy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780545942775
Publisher: Scholastic Inc.
Published: 2018-07-31T18:01:07+00:00

Cal dragged the fish-that-were-no-fish across Lizard Rocks—it were too heavy for a right fishy, not slimy-cold enough, it had hairs vivid-bright as stormflowers, and a million sunspots. It was bloating-sick. Not full there.

Cal stopped to get breath back, placed it to the rock—they couldn’t stay here, not with the sun about to drop. He lifted its coverings and prodded it … this human-fish. It did not whisper back. But Cal did not think it’d given up its living yet. Maybe it were just deep-dreaming sick. Like how the Pa got.

He put his ear to it—this human-fish had breathing yet. Had hope. Cal lifted and hung it ’cross his back, leaned forward to balance. He would make it safe and warm. He’d been washed onto this island too once, after all.

He picked web-toes careful over sharp rocks and past lizard dens—still sleeping and snore-shuffling—toward tunnels deep. He paused to shift heaviness, waited to hear its breathings again. So fragile. Could Cal push his own breath into it, make its chest rise up? Not yet, not here. Here were night breezes, things scuttling-loud, flowers opening and singing.

He could ask flowers for healing for the human-fish? Already flowers were turning, pointing their egg-yolk centers to Cal like eyes. He put the human-fish down to see them right. One was calling loud!

He bent to that flower, easing fingers into still-warm soil. He finger-dipped down ’til he found flower roots. There, he held them like he would like to hold Moss’s fingers, and those roots tingled and tangled. He could pull the flower slow-careful from the ground and hold her in palms. Could bring his head close and touch tongue to her. Taste. She might be sweet-good. He could also take her purple petals and smoke them. Like that, this flower might wake human-fish. Might heal. Might put thoughts into human-fish’s mind.

He bent closer.

“Dreamings.”

Cal thought he heard.

“Water.”

And … softer … maybe …

“Stories.”

This flower might turn the human-fish into something like Pa, too. Put those thoughts in.

Cal let go. Her roots twisted like tiny octopus legs to find earth again. He brushed dirt to cover her. He would not use flowers for healing. Not this time. But he would give something back.

Careful-quick, Cal was on four limbs; this time he went down, down, down, to the slapping ocean. All the way ’til he leaned from rock to water. There, he scooped sea, holding palms together, using webbings to cup cool saltiness. He carried it back.

A slithering of tail into rock—he saw! Quick as an eye-blink. He paused to sniff, but night air was too fierce for strong reptile scent. He waited, squinting in the dark. Nothing else came.

As he sprinkled water on the flower, her head bobbed. He felt her song around him.

“Salty-fresh! Taste-y!”

She was watching him, yolk-bright. Did she want him to taste her, too? Or did she want to be inside the human-fish instead?

“What is it you’re wanting?” he murmured.

Again, he looked to find the flicker-land. Saw it—there for one flicker-moment! Real.

But as he turned, he saw the lizard was back too, on the rock behind him.

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