I stepped into the harsh light, the darkness behind me now. I could barely see the steps below me. I breathed in the air, heavy with salt and sour with brine.
Loca silentia. Now I understood. The moment we emerged from the darkness of the Tunnels into the broad, flat reflection of the water, there was only light and silence.
Slowly, my eyes began to adjust. We were on what looked like a rocky Lowcountry beach, covered in a spread of gray and white oyster shells, framed by an uneven row of palmettos. A splintered wooden walkway stretched along the perimeter of the shoreline facing the islands. We stood there now, the four of us, listening to what should have been the waves or the wind or even a gull in the sky. But the silence was so thick, it stopped us in our tracks.
The scene was perfectly ordinary and incredibly surreal, as vivid as any dream. The colors were too bright, the light too light. And in the far shadows beyond the shore, the dark was too dark. But everything was somehow beautiful here. Even the darkness. It was how the moment felt that silenced us. Magic was unfolding between us, encircling us like a rope, tying us to one another.
As I started toward the walkway, the rounded shores of the Sea Islands emerged in the distance. Beyond that was only dense, flat fog. Tufts of swamp grass rose from the water to form long, shallow banks rising in and out of the coastal mud. Along the beach, weathered wooden docks stretched out into the unbroken blue water until they disappeared into the black deep. The docks faded down the coast like weathered wooden fingers. Bridges to nowhere.
I looked up at the sky. Not a star in sight. Liv looked down at the selenometer whirring on her wrist, and tapped it. “None of these numbers mean anything anymore. We're on our own now.” She unfastened her watch and slid it into her pocket.
“Guess so.”
“What now?” Link bent to pick up a shell with his good arm and chucked it into the distance. The water swallowed it without a sound. Ridley stood next to him, streaks of pink hair whipping in the wind. On the far edge of the dock in front of us, the flag of South Carolina — with the silhouette of a palmetto and a crescent moon on a field of midnight blue — looked like a Caster flag as it fluttered from a spindly flagpole. When I looked at the flag more closely, I realized it had changed. This one had a seven-pointed star in the sky, next to the familiar crescent moon and palmetto silhouette. The Southern Star, right there on the flag, as if it had fallen out of the sky.
If this really was the seam where the Mortal and the magical touched, there was no sign of it here. I don't know what I was hoping for. All I had now were one too many stars on the state flag and a feeling of magic as thick as the salt in the air.
I joined the others at the far edge of the walkway. The wind had picked up, and the flag was whipping around the pole. It didn't make a sound.
Liv consulted the folded map. “If we're in the right place, it has to be between that island, beyond the buoy, and where we're standing.”
“I think we're in the right place.” I was sure of it.
“How do you know?”
“Remember that Southern Star you were telling me about?” I pointed to the flag. “Think about it. If you followed the star the whole way here, the star on the flag is exactly what you would be looking for. Some kind of sign you're at the right spot.”
“Of course. The seven-pointed star.” She examined the flag, touching the fabric as if she was allowing herself to believe it for the very first time.
There wasn't time for that. I knew we had to keep moving. “So what are we even looking for? Land? Or something man-made?”
“You mean this isn't it?” Link looked disappointed and shoved his garden shears back into his belt.
“I think we still have to cross over the water. It makes sense, really. Like crossing the river Styx to get to Hades.” Liv flattened the map against her palm. “According to the map, we're looking for some kind of connector that will take us across the water to the Great Barrier itself. Like a sandbar or a bridge.” She held the vellum over the map, and we all looked.
Link took them out of her hands. “Yeah, I see it. Kinda cool.” He flipped the vellum up and down across the map. “Now you see it, now you don't.” He dropped the map, and it fluttered into a mess of pages on the sand.
Liv bent to pick it up. “Careful with that! Are you completely mental?”
“You mean, like a genius?” Sometimes there was no point in Link and Liv talking at all. Liv pocketed Aunt Prue's map, and we started walking again.
Ridley picked up Lucille Ball. She hadn't said much since we left the Tunnels. Maybe now that she had been declawed, she preferred Lucille's company. Or maybe she was scared. She probably knew better than the rest of us the dangers that lay ahead.