Islands in the Sky

6.4

Sema looked around. She was on the side of the ship closest to the burned island, facing it, watching it as they sailed along. The ship was following the island’s shoreline, still keeping its distance cautiously, for now.

Sema assumed that was about to change.

Behind Sema, across the other side of the ship, the morning sun was rising, still so low that when she glanced that way it shone straight into her eyes.

She looked back to the island. The sun was right behind her, and that made it even easier to see. There were no shadows, no secrets. The island was perfectly lit, flooded with bright sunlight, and every detail was sharp.

She had been wrong. There was absolutely nothing there.

Sema looked at the island. Then she looked back at the sun. She squinted slightly, because it was bright enough to hurt her eyes. She kept looking, not quite sure why she was looking that way at all.

She was still a little unsettled, and thinking about traps, and ambushes, and ways to hide. She was remembering something she had learned as a child, while playing hiding and finding games. That people expected to see what they expected to see, and that the best place to hide was the place no-one was looking. Oddly, she was suddenly remembering those games. She became distracted for a moment, wondering why, then decided it was probably only because she had just been thinking about her family, and missing her family, and somehow that had reminded her of this. It was probably only that, she thought, but all the same, she was remembering those games, and remembering one particular trick she had often used. Often, very often, she had hidden herself simply by standing still behind the door of the room which contained everyone else’s favourite hiding cupboard. She had been almost in sight, visible if anyone had thought to look behind the door, but that they hadn’t looked, not ever, because they expected anyone in the room to be in the cupboard, and so had run in, and run out, and never even thought about the door.

People looked where they expected to see things, Sema thought, and they also tended to see what they already thought would be there.

And something about the sun was bothering her, and she wasn’t sure what.

She squinted into the sun. It was hard to see. It was dazzling.

She squinted, and thought she saw a shape, a shadow against the brightness. Another island, perhaps, but she wasn’t sure. She stood there, staring, as the captain told the sailor up the mast to come down.

“Wait,” Sema called. She kept staring at the sun, not sure what she was seeing.

“Child…” the captain said.

“Wait,” Sema said, a little desperately. “Please wait. Just…”

She stared. The sun was an odd shape, she decided. It was bright, like it always was, a circle which hurt to stare at, but now it was a circle with a slight indentation on one side. Now it was slightly less bright, and slightly less perfectly round, and Sema thought the unevenness was becoming more pronounced as she stood there.

“There’s something out there,” Sema said. “Against the sun. Hiding out there.”

“Child…” the captain said again.

The captain wasn’t going to listen. Sema didn’t know what to do.

“Quen Tosal told you to heed me?” she said suddenly.

The captain hesitated. “He did.”

“So heed me. Come and look. There’s something out there, in the sky, hidden against the sun.”