Linksshifter II

A Path Between The Waves - ~~~~~

Sonali opened her eyes, half in shock and half in confusion, and was even more shocked and confused to realize that the feeling didn't go away, that in addition to her normal room and normal desk with her normal phone on it and the normal bustle of noise and smells from downstairs, she was also hearing and seeing and feeling and smelling things that were different, distant, from a body that was not her own. Her brain spun, feverishly trying to make sense of the inputs it was getting, and she tried to hold herself still, to keep herself from falling out of her chair, and if this made her a little more secure where she was, she caught a distinct twinge of panic from where she wasn't. This wasn't good – you can't hold still here, right at the water line, out of cover. She felt herself look up, eyes on stalks, rotating to check for seabirds: she was a crab, or she was in a crab, or she was with a crab, somewhere out on the coast, under dark cliffs outlined by the sunset. Sonali was still herself – she was here, and she was experiencing "here" the same as "there" – but now, it was like she had become more than herself – and this other part she'd found was pretty much right where she needed to be and couldn't get to. Trying to make sure that she operated only the crab's limbs and didn't end up flopping herself onto the floor, Sonali skittered sideways, back into the surf, drifting as the wave lifted her away.

The water wasn't cold, not as cold as she'd've expected it to be at this time of year; maybe this was just right for this kind of crab, or maybe it just didn't feel the cold in the same way. In the water, without the fear – maybe none of the fish this close inshore ate crabs – Sonali started to get a better idea of what everything was connected to, how to walk and swim with eight legs and two pincers, what the world looked like in the dark through compound eyes in and below the water. Drawn out from the beach, she looked around, and found that she'd gotten to the beach by the cave; not in, not quite, not quite yet, but she could get there if she swam hard; if she swam hard and the tide was running just right, she might make it.

The tide was coming in, and the entrance to the cave was nearly all the way under water; she hadn't seen it at first, but she could see other colors now, little tracks of phosphorescence that didn't break the same way on one part of the cliff face as all the others, and after a couple tries, Sonali was able to get close enough to tuck back, paddle into the current, and let the running tide wash her in through the hole. Inside, the cave was completely dark, not the least bit of light, a confusing whorl of cross-currents and the rush of water, echoes from the uneven walls and ceiling and no sign of which way was up or down, and she felt her hold slipping, felt the crab panicking, like it wasn't sure what a Sonalipatel was and why it was inside this dark and close and confusing space, why it was half-seeing pink walls and dry boards and the disorienting glow of a fluorescent light.

No. No – this wasn't it. She hadn't come this far just to crack up now. If the stone was magic, and this connection was magic, her magic flowing out to find the crab on the shore, this was not all it had to be. There were other powers in the stone – it had lit up when she was in the cave, hidden hearing the selkie spell. And if the trilobite could do more, it would do more – that was kind of the point of magic, that you got to break and bend the rules. Sonali breathed in deeply, out; calm, calm. She had her light here – she had the light of the stone in her hands – and if the crab could share its sight, she could share that light and let the both of them see.

It got less dark in the cave, and if the crab couldn't see a whole lot, at least it was better than nothing. It had drifted over into an eddy at the side of the filling basin in the bottom of the cave, and remembering to keep the edge of her carapace on the wall, Sonali hunched up and started to swim ahead; the strange backlighting from the light on and in the crab's shell was kind of disorienting, and the water was much higher in the cave than when she'd been inside it in her own skin, but the way leading up, higher and drier, was still there, and as long as she could stick to the bigger passage that humans could fit into and not get washed into some little side tunnel, she'd get where she needed to go.