“Yes. Her hair thinned, her skin wrinkled, and her bones ached, and one night, when she couldn’t sleep because of the aches and pains in her back and legs, she followed a bat through the caves—and she emerged out under the night sky.”
“Ooh,” Ree breathed. “I like stars.”
“So do all sailors,” Marin said. “If you want, someday I’ll teach you how to navigate by them.”
He bounced up and down on the deck. “Yes, yes, yes!”
She smiled. Bringing Ree on board had turned out to be an excellent idea. Marin had had no idea how much she’d enjoy having an apprentice, especially one as eager as the wax myrtle. “The old woman saw the stars above her and thought they were jewels. She wanted, more than anything, to chip them from the sky. But she couldn’t reach them above the island—so she looked out at the sea. She didn’t knowwhat a sea was, but she knew it wasn’t like the solid stone that she’d always known beneath her feet. It moved. It swayed. It swelled.”
In rhythm with her words, Perri moved, swayed, and rode the swells of the waves. He’d always liked her stories. She wondered if that was one of the reasons he’d stayed with her instead of going off to find other sea serpents. Did sea serpents tell one another stories? If so, did he miss them?
“In addition to swaying and swelling, the sea also reflected. The old woman saw the stars, her jewels, reflected in the waves, and she thought,Aha! If I can travel out onto the moving ground, I can reach them.” Marin paused as the wind shifted and she adjusted the sheets. As soon as the lines were secured, she continued. “It took her weeks, months, years to figure out how to construct a boat and even more years to figure out how to sail it.”
“Because she didn’t have you,” Ree said. “A real sailor.”
“She didn’t have anybody. My ma and pa taught me how to sail. She had to learn it all on her own, the way the waves would move beneath her, the way the wind would push her, the way the storms would punish her.” She’d always admired the old woman in the story—to take to the sea with no tales to guide her. It was either brave or foolish.
“What happened after she learned?” Ree asked. “Did she reach the stars? She couldn’t have. Could she have?”
Sure, Marin supposed she could have, but that wasn’t the tale she knew. “She didn’t. But she followed them the rest of her days. My ma told me and her ma told her that her ma said she was happy, and so she must have been.” The traditional ending, which she also loved.
Perri leaped out of the water, arched in the air—his sinewy body a rainbow of iridescence—and then dove into the waves with barely a splash. He approved of the story. Marin looked at Ree, waiting for his reaction.
“Wait. That’s it?” Ree said, his leaves spiky. “What’s the moral?”
“I have absolutely no idea,” Marin said. “I don’t think it has one.”
“It’s a story. It has to have one.”
He sounded so affronted that Marin considered it before replying. “Why does it?”
Ree shook his leaves hard. His branches quivered. “Because that’s what stories are! They’re supposed to tell you what to do.”
Swallowing a smile, Marin shook her head. “Not the best ones. The best ones just sit inside you and make you feel things.”
The shrub snorted, which was an interesting sound that came with a lot of rustling of leaves. He sounded like a miniature forest inside an equally tiny tornado. “Well, I feel dissatisfied.”
“All right, then, what do you think it means?” Marin asked. She tried to keep the amusement out of her voice. She didn’t think Ree would like it if she laughed at him.
He was quiet for a while, considering the question. “Maybe… follow your own happiness? She left her cave and took to the sea, even though she didn’t know how. She just knew she wanted it. Like me. Do you think that’s right?”
“Yeah.”
“Really?”
She had no idea. “I think you’re brave like she was.”
He squeaked, “Me? Brave? I’m not brave.” Then, in a small voice: “Am I brave?”
Raising his head out of the water, Perri blew bubbles at the bush.
“See?” Marin said. “That’s two votes for brave.”
“Huh,” Ree said, and then he climbed the mast again to the very top to think about all of it. Marin kept sailing toward Alyssium. If Dax was at the conservatory dock, maybe she’d tell him that story and ask what he thought of it.
The city was on fire.
Marin saw the smoke first, black clouds staining the blue, then the outline of the city. She felt her stomach clench, and she gripped the mainsheet, prepared to switch directions… then hesitated.
