Nation

Mau looked at it glumly. It was useful and he was glad to have it, but it was a trouserman thing, another present from the Sweet Judy. They were still stripping her like termites.

Even a canoe had a soul, of a kind. Everyone knew that; sometimes it wasn’t a good soul, and the craft was hard to handle, even though it seemed to be well built. If you were lucky you got a canoe with a good soul, like the one he’d built on the Boys’ Island, which always seemed to know what he wanted. The Sweet Judy had a good soul, he could tell. It was a shame to break her up, and another kind of shame to know that, once again, they had to rely on the trousermen to get things done. He was almost ashamed of carrying one of the smaller crowbars himself, but they were so useful. Who but the trousermen had so much metal that they could afford to make sticks out of it. But the bars were wonderful. They opened anything.

“There may be a curse on the door, ” said Ataba, behind Mau.

“Can you tell if there is? ”

“No! But this is wrong. ”

“These are my ancestors. I seek their guidance. Why should they curse me? Why should I fear their old bones? Why are you afraid? ”

“What is in the dark should be left alone. ” The priest sighed. “But no one listens to me now. The coral is full of white stones, people say, so which ones are holy? ”

“Well, which? ”

“The three old ones, of course. ”

“You could test them, ” said Daphne, without thinking. “People could leave a fish on a new stone and see how their fortune changes. Hmm, I’d need to work out a scientific way — ” She stopped, aware that everyone was watching her. “Well, it would be interesting, ” she finished lamely.

“I did not understand any of that, ” said Ataba, looking coldly at her.

“I did. ”

Mau craned to see who had spoken and saw the tall skinny figure of Tom-ali, a canoe builder who had arrived with two children who were not his, one boy and one girl.

“Speak, Mr. Tom-ali, ” he said.

“I would like to ask the gods why my wife and son died and I did not. ” There was some murmuring from the crowd.

Mau already knew him. He knew all the newcomers. They walked the same way, slowly. Some just sat and watched the sea. And there was a grayness about them all. Why am I here? their faces said. Why me? Was I a bad person?

Tom-ali was repairing the canoes now, with the boy helping him, while the girl helped out in the Place. Some of the children were coping better than the adults; after the wave, you just found a place that fitted. But Tom-ali had said what a lot of people didn’t want to hear said, and the best thing to do was to give them something else to think about, right now.

“We all want answers today, ” Mau said. “Please, all of you, help me move the stone. No one else has to set foot inside. I will go in by myself. Perhaps I’ll find the truth. ”

“No, ” said Ataba firmly, “let us go in there together and find the truth. ”

“Fine, ” said Mau. “That way we can find twice as much. ”

Ataba stood next to Mau as the men took up their positions. “You say you are not frightened. Well, I am frightened, young man, to my very toes. ”

“The truth will be the dead men in there, that’s all, ” said Mau. “Dried up. Dust. If you want to be frightened, think about the Raiders. ”

“Do not dismiss the past so lightly, demon boy. It may still teach you something. ”

Milo forced the bar between the rock and the stone, and heaved. The stone creaked, and moved an inch —

They did it carefully and slowly, because it would certainly crush anybody it fell on. But cleaning out the groove had been a good idea. The stone ran smoothly, until half of the cave entrance could be seen.

Mau looked inside. There was nothing there. He’d imagined all kinds of things, but not nothing. The floor was quite smooth. There was a bit of dust on the floor, and a few beetles scuttled off into the dark, and that was all the cave held. Except depth.

Why had he expected bones to fall out when the door was opened? Why should it be full up? He picked up a piece of rock and threw it into the darkness as hard as he could. It seemed to bounce and rattle for a long time.

“All right, ” he said, and the cave threw his voice back at him. “We’re going to need those lamps, Daphne. ”

She stood up, with one of the Sweet Judy’s lamps in each hand. “One red one and one green one, ” she said. “The spare port and starboard lights. Sorry about that, but we haven’t got very many cabin lamps left, and we’re short of oil. ”

“What about that white lamp next to you? ” asked Mau.

“Yes, that’s the one I’m going to bring, ” said the ghost girl, “and to save time, shall we pretend we’ve had the argument and I won? ”

More trouserman things, Mau thought as he picked up his lamp. I wonder what we used to use? The low ceiling told him when he touched it. His fingers came away covered in soot.

Torches, then. You could make decent ones out of hog fat. If there was enough of the stuff to spare, they were good for night fishing, because the fish would rise to the light. We’ve been living off fish and the Sweet Judy’s salt-pickled beef, because that’s easy, he thought, so now we’ll have to find our dead by trouserman lamplight.