Salt & Spice

Chapter 9

This is disgusting, Bravery whined. You realize we're looking for human pieces, right? Pieces.

How is Coral supposed to make you human without them? Human bones will tell the magic to turn you into a human. He had been quiet the entire morning, so Honor was actually glad to hear his familiar, comforting complaints.

When they left the shoal that morning the water was still dark and murky from the night. They wanted to ensure they would have plenty of daylight left for their mission and avoid the hyper-vigilant shoal. The raid had left everyone with an edgy, anxious feeling that permeated the water.

It was liberating to be out of the shoal's territory. For the first time since Free had spotted that fleck on the horizon Honor didn't feel as though the world was squeezing the life out of her. Most of her shoal had been working nonstop to repair the trawling net's damage. It would be a long time, maybe even entire seasons, before the seaweed fields would be completely restored and viable. The men reported that hunting had become more difficult since the fish moved on to safer waters. At a time when the shoal wanted to condense they needed to spread further afield to find food.

Honor spied their destination in the distance: a sunken ship, larger but not so different from the one that had taken Shimmer and the others. Thinking of Shimmer, so protected and ill-equipped to handle the situation, made Honor want to smash the brittle remains of the ship into little pieces. To fight down the urge, she reminded herself that Bravery would fix everything.

The ship was a sorry sight. The ocean currents had brought in layers of sediment that partially buried it and rot had caused many holes in the sides. A fuzzy-looking growth covered the ship, leaving it a mottled reddish-green with pale white barnacles randomly punctuating the pattern.

How long do you think the ship has been down here?

A few seasons, I think, Bravery shrugged. As far as we've traveled there had better be something we can use.

Coral says that this is the closest. Honor guessed that it was even larger than the ship that had taken Shimmer. Maybe it held more people. She had no way to tell, but it would be useful to their purposes if it had. I'm not sure there will be anything left, Honor motioned as they swam over and surveyed their project.

Nothing remained long on the ocean floor. Honor once saw a baby whale, killed by sharks then barely eaten, drift to the bottom. The Sea People reached the body first and taken the best cuts of meat. Scavengers made quick work of the rest. The Sea People returned once they picked it clean and the skeleton was a stark white. The bones made for good weapons or other tools. Some of the young men liked to have necklaces made of teeth or bone beads. Nothing was wasted beneath the waves.

So we go in and see if any humans died in this wreck. It will just take a minute, Bravery tried to seem nonchalant, but Honor knew he only trivialized tasks like this when he was nervous. The ship threatened to collapse on them at any moment. Bravery gave one board a gentle push to test its strength, causing it to crack slightly.

We deal with bones every day. This isn't any different, Honor tried to project the no-nonsense aura the elders used when trying to convince the fry there were no sea monsters.

Those are fish bones. That's different. Bravery avoided looking at her face under the pretense of looking for an entrance that wouldn't collapse on them.
How? Honor ran her finger over one of the large barnacles.

I have to believe their bones are different. He peered into one of the larger openings.

That's not what I meant. Bones can't hurt you... Honor glanced up to reassure him, but Bravery had already disappeared inside.