Read Online Shadows in the Cave by Meredith and Win Blevins - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Meredith and Win Blevins
Ads: Link
amazement beheld…
The sea turtle man’s fingers and toes turned to claws. His arms and legs were rough, bumpy, like a turtle’s.
Oghi wore a scrunchy look of deepest concentration on his face. He fell onto all fours. His back metamorphosed into a carapace. His neck developed a wattle. His nose and mouth joined into a beak. His body doubled in size.
The turtle four-footed his way to the edge of the water. Only his young-old eyes stayed the same. Shonan would have sworn that he grinned, except that a turtle couldn’t do that.
“A small person,” said the sea turtle man, “but a giant turtle.”
Oghi pointed. “Right over there’s where the riptide starts.” He launched into the water, swam with extraordinary grace to the log, and started pushing it toward the rip.
Shonan joined in. He didn’t intend to say anything, certainly not ask for anything, not for a long time. The two of them got behind one end of the log and chugged it into the rip, and away they went.
The sea was cool, and he was becoming cool as the sea. Aku waited. He daydreamed. He scudded pictures of Iona through his mind, and not only pictures but smells, tastes, the touch of her warm flesh, the music of her moans. Slowly, slowly, he scissored his legs, barely moving. All they had left was the strength of leaf stems.
Ocean slurped up his nose, and his legs wiggled faster. He sneezed it out. Nasty stuff.
He glanced up at the sun. Fine old Grandmother Sun, he liked her. He noodled his legs around. Yes, fine old Grandmother Sun. He looked at her through eyelids nearly shut, making the bright star into a bright haze. He wondered if she’d look like that from the bottom of the sloshing sea.
He looked down. He could still see the bottom, though it seemed further away. He supposed that if he lay on the bottom and looked up at Grandmother Sun, he would see a sheet of light, a glaze on the surface of the water, and Grandmother Sun’s weightless beauty, lighter even than a breath of breeze on a hot summer’s night.
It wouldn’t be hot on the bottom, would be cold. Here he was cool, too cool. Bodies cool when people die. Down there cold, all the way cold. Wouldn’t be a breeze, or any air at all at all at all. Maybe he would suck air in and slide gracefully to the bottom, the way a yellow leaf slides off the branch of an oak tree and floats to the frosty grass. And there on the bottom he would shudder with cold, shudder and shudder. For a little while he would hold onto that marvelous air and look up at Grandmother Sun’s glaze of light and hold on some more and hold on, until the air evaporated, all of it, evaporated, and then he would close his eyes.
Now he let his eyes shut and turned his head up to the sun and bathed his face in her gift of light. He nudged his mind toward Iona again. He bid her bright eyes come tohis attention, then the feel of her lips, the softness of her breasts.
Grandmother Sun, though, felt more real. He luxuriated in her. Sun warm, sea cold.
A wave whacked its way up his nose. He yelled and spat and shook his head. Ugly stuff, that ocean water, ugly stuff up the nose where air belonged.
Wide awake now, he noticed that he wasn’t sailing any longer. He was bobbing up and down in one place, wagging his legs slowly, and he wasn’t cloud-flying out into the everywhere-water anymore.
So this was the spot. He inspected the bottom, as well as he could see it. It looked no more distinguished than any other, and no less, for a quiet death.
His mind drifted down there.
Just then four pelicans caught his attention. They flew solemnly, gray-brown birds with jaw pouches for carrying food. Iona had pointed them out to Aku. He thought they were funny. Even now they made him smile.
And they gave him thoughts.
I promised my sister I would. My lost sister .
My mother wanted me to .
My father loves me. He wants me to live .
I don’t know …
My mother would want me to. My mother would want me to. Look right over there
The sea turtle man’s fingers and toes turned to claws. His arms and legs were rough, bumpy, like a turtle’s.
Oghi wore a scrunchy look of deepest concentration on his face. He fell onto all fours. His back metamorphosed into a carapace. His neck developed a wattle. His nose and mouth joined into a beak. His body doubled in size.
The turtle four-footed his way to the edge of the water. Only his young-old eyes stayed the same. Shonan would have sworn that he grinned, except that a turtle couldn’t do that.
“A small person,” said the sea turtle man, “but a giant turtle.”
Oghi pointed. “Right over there’s where the riptide starts.” He launched into the water, swam with extraordinary grace to the log, and started pushing it toward the rip.
Shonan joined in. He didn’t intend to say anything, certainly not ask for anything, not for a long time. The two of them got behind one end of the log and chugged it into the rip, and away they went.
The sea was cool, and he was becoming cool as the sea. Aku waited. He daydreamed. He scudded pictures of Iona through his mind, and not only pictures but smells, tastes, the touch of her warm flesh, the music of her moans. Slowly, slowly, he scissored his legs, barely moving. All they had left was the strength of leaf stems.
Ocean slurped up his nose, and his legs wiggled faster. He sneezed it out. Nasty stuff.
He glanced up at the sun. Fine old Grandmother Sun, he liked her. He noodled his legs around. Yes, fine old Grandmother Sun. He looked at her through eyelids nearly shut, making the bright star into a bright haze. He wondered if she’d look like that from the bottom of the sloshing sea.
He looked down. He could still see the bottom, though it seemed further away. He supposed that if he lay on the bottom and looked up at Grandmother Sun, he would see a sheet of light, a glaze on the surface of the water, and Grandmother Sun’s weightless beauty, lighter even than a breath of breeze on a hot summer’s night.
It wouldn’t be hot on the bottom, would be cold. Here he was cool, too cool. Bodies cool when people die. Down there cold, all the way cold. Wouldn’t be a breeze, or any air at all at all at all. Maybe he would suck air in and slide gracefully to the bottom, the way a yellow leaf slides off the branch of an oak tree and floats to the frosty grass. And there on the bottom he would shudder with cold, shudder and shudder. For a little while he would hold onto that marvelous air and look up at Grandmother Sun’s glaze of light and hold on some more and hold on, until the air evaporated, all of it, evaporated, and then he would close his eyes.
Now he let his eyes shut and turned his head up to the sun and bathed his face in her gift of light. He nudged his mind toward Iona again. He bid her bright eyes come tohis attention, then the feel of her lips, the softness of her breasts.
Grandmother Sun, though, felt more real. He luxuriated in her. Sun warm, sea cold.
A wave whacked its way up his nose. He yelled and spat and shook his head. Ugly stuff, that ocean water, ugly stuff up the nose where air belonged.
Wide awake now, he noticed that he wasn’t sailing any longer. He was bobbing up and down in one place, wagging his legs slowly, and he wasn’t cloud-flying out into the everywhere-water anymore.
So this was the spot. He inspected the bottom, as well as he could see it. It looked no more distinguished than any other, and no less, for a quiet death.
His mind drifted down there.
Just then four pelicans caught his attention. They flew solemnly, gray-brown birds with jaw pouches for carrying food. Iona had pointed them out to Aku. He thought they were funny. Even now they made him smile.
And they gave him thoughts.
I promised my sister I would. My lost sister .
My mother wanted me to .
My father loves me. He wants me to live .
I don’t know …
My mother would want me to. My mother would want me to. Look right over there
Similar Books
