The turtle refused to turn around.
“I have turned around twice,” Cask told Osha. “The bay gates close at sunset. My food is on the other side.”
“My brother is missing.”
“I know. That’s why I turned around twice.”
Osha caught up with him. He was swimming between two ridges of dark rock, pulling a bundle of sea grass in a net. His shell nearly brushed both sides. She could slip through cracks he could not enter, but she had no idea which crack held her brother.
“Tell me again where you saw the basket,” she said.
“Outside the coral arch. Beside three hooks and a shell rake. Nobody leaves good tools there on purpose.”
Her brother, Deni, had borrowed their mother’s shell basket before going out to gather food that morning. He was supposed to come home before the midday bell. The bell had rung hours ago.
“Did you look inside the arch?”
“I looked from the entrance. There was movement. The channel is too narrow for me.”
Osha swam in front of him. He stopped with a patient scrape of shell against rock.
“Please take me there.”
“Ask the wardens. They have smaller bodies and fewer meals to miss.”
She wanted to accuse him of caring more about food than Deni. But Cask could not eat the soft weeds near her home. The plants he needed grew in the feeding bay, and its keeper closed the outer gates each season. He had told her this before she had a missing brother.
“I’ll go to the wardens,” she said.
“Good.”
“Wait at the stores.”
“For how long?”
She hated the question because it was fair.
“Until the next bell.”
Cask nodded once and pulled his net toward the stores.
Warden Viri was already there, checking a dark cargo crate. Osha had helped unload crates like it last week. Their overlapping wooden slats kept light away from goods that spoiled in bright water. Water flowed through the gaps, but nothing inside could be seen from outside.
Viri heard Osha’s news and put down her tools.
“Another one,” she said.
“You knew?”
“A bright-backed fish went through the arch this morning. It hasn’t come out.”
“Then send someone.”
“I sent a gatherer to look. She’s missing too.”
Osha’s tail went cold. Along it, blue scales flashed as she moved.
Viri watched them.
“The arch turns its lights toward color,” the warden said. “A gray fish passed it. Nothing happened. A red fish passed, and the lights reached out. Inside, the red fish kept swimming in circles.”
“Could you see an exit?”
“A plain channel at the back. The fish kept turning away from it toward the lights.”
Cask arrived, dragging his food. His dull shell had drawn no lights when he looked inside. Osha understood why Viri had stayed outside. The warden’s face and arms were green, and her tail shone orange.
“Mud,” Osha said. “We could cover ourselves.”
Viri showed her forearm. A little brown mud remained near the elbow.
“The current stripped it off before I reached the entrance. I stopped when the lights turned.”
The next bell sounded through the water.
Cask looked toward the bay.
Osha looked at the crate.
“Will you tow that?” she asked him.
“With what inside?”
“Me.”
She folded her tail into the crate. There were bars inside to hold cargo in place. She could grip them and move the whole box a little at a time. A small viewing slit had an angled cover. She could see ahead through it, but the cover hid her scales from anyone looking in.
Viri closed the rear panel and swam around the box.
“I can’t see blue,” she said.
“Even when I move?”
Osha flexed her tail. The crate rocked.
“No.”
“There is no dark crate big enough for Cask,” Osha said. “He can’t go in. I can.”
“If the box breaks—” Viri began.
“I’ll turn back before the lights reach me.”
Osha wished she could promise more than that.
She climbed out and faced Cask.
“Tow me to the channel. Afterward I’ll carry your food to the bay. You won’t have to drag it.”
“Even if you find your brother?”
“He can go home without me.”
Cask moved his flippers slowly.
“Take the short water to the arch,” he said. “The long water to the bay. I can’t fit through the ridge shortcut.”
“I know.”
They took the crate to the arch. Viri swam wide of the colored lights, keeping behind Cask. Osha watched through the shielded slit.
There was her mother’s basket, tilted against a stone. Beside it, the three hooks and the rake shone pale. Beyond them, lights moved inside the arch like ribbons.
Cask towed the crate up to the narrow channel. They checked its width against the opening. There was room for the crate and little else.
“I stop here,” he said.
“I know.”
Osha gripped the bars and pushed against the rock through a low gap. The crate moved into the channel. She pushed again. Cask’s broad shadow slipped away behind her.
Inside, she found a dim space beyond the brightest lights. From there she could see the back exit through her slit. It was plain, dark, and big enough for the crate if she turned it lengthwise.
Deni circled above it.
“Deni!”
He turned toward her voice. Then a red light passed him, and he followed it.
Osha called again. He did the same thing. Two other creatures circled farther up, a small merwoman and a fish with gold fins.
Calling from the box would not be enough.
Osha moved the crate until its broad side stood between the lights and a patch of dark water beside the exit. She opened the rear panel in that shadow. Keeping her eyes away from the colored ribbons, she eased out on the dark side.
“Deni. Here.”
He came close, then tried to turn.
She pulled the crate across his view. For a moment he saw only wood and his sister.
“You took Mother’s basket,” she said.
His mouth moved.
“I was following a fish.”
“I know. Look behind me.”
He looked. His eyes found the plain exit.
“Swim through,” she told him.
“What about you?”
“Go first. Keep looking at the dark opening.”
He swam. Once inside the exit channel, he did not turn back toward the lights.
Osha called to the other merwoman. The woman came into the shadow and saw the way out. The gold-finned fish followed her. Osha waited until all three had gone, then backed through the channel herself, leaving the crate where it screened the light.
Viri met them outside. Deni held his sister so hard she had to ask him to let her breathe through the water around her gills.
“Home,” Osha told him. “Tell Mother. Bring help to carry the others.”
Viri stayed to mark the arch and block the paths toward it. She would bring a crew to take it apart safely. Osha did not have to solve that tonight.
She found Cask waiting beside the basket.
“You can go with him,” he said, looking after Deni.
Osha picked up the net of sea grass.
“Which way?”
Cask pointed toward a long curve of open water. The shortcut was just beside it, narrow and tempting.
They took the curve. Osha had time to think of everything her mother would ask, and time to wish Cask could swim faster. He could not.
At the bay, its keeper had one gate half closed. Cask called out. Osha held up the food, and the keeper opened enough space for his shell.
The turtle stopped towing an empty net, stretched his sore flippers, and swam through. Osha followed, carrying his supper.
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