Call Down the Stars by Sue Harrison Read Free Book Online

heavy over the sun, but at least Water Gourd could see. He clung to the sides of the boat, bailed, and once, when the wind slacked, cracked a few sea urchins to get at the eggs. Rich and sweet, they warmed him from within, and even Daughter ate willingly when he offered her some on the flat of his thumbnail.
    He had never spent much time thinking about small children. They were too fussy and smelly to have much importance. But he found himself marveling over her tiny perfect face, the black shining eyes, her fair and flawless skin. Her nose was only a bump, the space between her eyes perfectly flat, her ears like shells curled at the sides of her head. The rain had smoothed her hair, flattened it to her skull. She gripped his wrist with both hands as she licked his thumbnail, and he saw that one of her fingernails had been partially ripped away, a line of dark blood marking the tear. When she finished, he offered her more, but she turned her head, so he ate the eggs himself, pulled her back into the shelter of his legs, and continued to bail.
    The storm lasted four days, and most of the time Water Gourd lived in a waking dream of bailing and paddling. He stopped only to drink a little rain water he caught in his bailing gourd, or to eat a share of the sea plants, chestnut cakes, or a thumbnail of urchin eggs. Sometime during the third day, he fell into a dreamless sleep. He woke feeling stronger, more hopeful, and lifted his eyes to see that a thin line of blue sky sliced the clouds. The wind had shifted to the south, was bringing warmer air, and the rain had stopped. He tried to smile, but a hardened rime of salt had molded his face into a mask of fear. He dug at his cheeks with his fingernails, peeled away the crust.
    Daughter was curled on his feet, the girl so still that his breath caught. He reached down, lifted her, and she stretched out slowly, as though she were a stiff-jointed old woman. Water Gourd set her on his lap, grimaced at how cold she was. Her hair was frosted with salt, stiff as ice, and she lifted raw, red hands to swipe at her eyes, but when she looked up at him she smiled, and when he offered her a sea urchin, she ate willingly.
    He ate also, then reached for the paddle he had wedged between his leg and the side of the boat. The sea was nearly calm, and he could see the place of the sun behind the clouds. He would paddle west toward his home, and even if the storm winds rose again, at least he would have gained back a little of the distance he had lost.
    His hand closed over nothing, and he grasped again before he looked and saw that the paddle was gone. He clambered into the bow, dumping Daughter from his lap, did not even hear her cries of protest. He pushed his hands into the pile of sea urchins, ignored the prickling of their shells, then scrambled into the back of the boat, even over the outrigger rails to the small shaped log that kept them from capsizing in the waves.
    The paddle wasn’t in the boat. He stood, looked out in all directions. It wasn’t even floating nearby. His despair was so great that he considered flinging himself into the sea. Why continue to fight when the storm had managed to take his best weapon? But as he looked into the cold depths, he lost his courage or perhaps regained it. The sea might take him, but he would not give up willingly.
    He pulled the bailing gourd from inside his woven rush shirt, filled it from the bottom of the boat, and drank. The water was brackish and tasted of burnt wood, dark from the char that had not been carved away, salty, but not as salty as sea water—rain mixed with what the waves had brought in. He offered some to Daughter, then began to bail.
    It seemed as though he had bailed forever. Four days since the storm had begun. How many days since he had left his village? Seven? Eight?
    As he bailed, he watched the sky and realized that the sea was taking them north. But then the storm again howled down upon them, this time from the south and the