"Aha!" He heard the Jemily exclaim with an air of triumph.

He cracked one eye open and turned his head to the side. It had been three days since the night in the house.

The Jemily crouched in the dirt several feet from him, examining a tiny object in its hands. It held it up to the light. Norch propped himself up on one arm. It seemed to be a small black seed.

"What is it?" he asked.

"A sunflower seed," the Jemily crowed.

The seed clutched in one hand, the Jemily thrust the frantic fingers of its other hands back into the earth until it scooped up a second. With a laugh, the Jemily crawled forward and plucked up a third. It tucked the two seeds between the tight fingers that clung to the first. The fist held close to its heart, the Jemily beamed at Norch.

"He's here," it said.

Norch sat up. Nae Xali zoomed through the branches of a nearby maple.

"Who's here?" Norch asked.

The Jemily opened its hand and stared at the seeds.

"Benjamin Real," it whispered.

***

"Are you sure we're going the right way?" Norch asked.

"Of course!" said the Jemily.

"You haven't found a seed in while," he pointed out.

It shrugged. "That's okay."

He caught the Jemily by the shoulders and turned it to face him.

"Listen," he said, "I understand you think you know what you're doing, and maybe you do. Sometimes you do, but more often you believe you do and later it turns out you don't."

The Jemily tilted its heads. "I always know."

Norch was close enough to make out its furrowed foreheads.

"Only now and then I forget the pieces."

The Jemily looked at him, and for a moment Norch thought he saw struggle behind its eyes.

"Like a picture on the wall," it explained, "but the only part you notice is the part right in front you. Everything else is fuzzy."

The Jemily smiled again and seized him by the nose.

He jerked back, and the Jemily laughed. "Benjamin is right in front of us. I know. "

The Jemily skipped ahead and Norch, rubbing his nose, followed. Behind them, Nae Xali twirled, flinging handfuls of leaves in every direction.

"Norch," Nae Xali said abruptly.

"What?" he responded.

She fluttered up to him. "Do you expect these trees are magic?"

"No," he answered, then considering what he had witnessed so far, he tacked on, "I hope not, anyway."

She was quiet, twisting one leaf in her hand. "My Dad says there are magic trees up north. He says he met their King once."

"A King of trees?" Norch said, "That sounds like a boring job."

Nae Xali hurled her leaf into the air. "No it's not!"

Norch closed his eyes. "Fine, it's not. I'm sure it's very magical."

Nae Xali's eyes remained narrowed.

Norch sighed, "What do I know of trees anyways? I'm just an old salt."

"What's an old salt?" she asked.

"A shipman," he replied.

"What's a shipman?"

He looked at her. "A man who works on a ship. Do you understand what a ship is?"

She shook her head.

"I do!" said the Jemily, bouncing back toward them. "It's a boat."

Norch winced. "Yes and no. A ship is bigger than a boat, for one thing."

The Jemily dismissed him with a wave. "They both float on water."

"So does a raft," Norch muttered under his breath, but he let the insult pass.

"On the water?" Nae Xali said, "but why?"

"To get from one section of land to another," Norch said, "or to explore the open seas."

"Open seas?"

"Water with no land in sight," he answered.

"No land? Just water?" she said. She scrunched up her nose and fluttered her wings. "That would be boring!"

Norch shrugged. "Occasionally, yes."

"Why would you want to be a shipman? It would be way more fun to be a landman!" She stooped to pluck up another leaf.

"Well, I didn't want to be shipman. Not at first. My father was a shipman though, and he taught me how to navigate, how to sail. My first hunt was on his ship when I was ten." He reflected a moment. "Besides, if you weren't on a ship, you were on the docks gutting fish. I'd choose the sea any day."

"What did you hunt?" Nae Xali asked, her fingers shredding the leaf.

"The Coe," Norch said, "Great big beasts."

"Here," he said, bending and picking up a stick, " they look like this."

He drew a rough outline in the soil.

"Or, something akin to that anyways. Only bigger. Much bigger."

"You kill them," the Jemily said. It was standing still. As still as he had ever seen it stand. "That's what you mean by 'hunt?'"

"Yes," Norch said.

The Jemily knelt and ran a finger along the lines of the sketch.

"But why?" it asked, "A big, magnificent creature like this. Why would you kill it?"

The question made him uncomfortable. He only ever conceived of the Coe as meat.

"For food." he said, "and oil."

The Jemily stared up at him. Disapproval plain on its faces. It still stroked the drawing.

"Why not grow food?" it asked.

"We can't," Norch replied.

He scrubbed a hand through his hair. There was no reason the reproach of a creature as foolish as the Jemily should trouble him, but it did.

"I grew up on the Outer Isle," Norch explained, "All rock and sand. What we can grow isn't enough. We live off what the sea brings us. Fish, largely."

"And the Coe," the Jemily said in a soft tone.

He nodded, "And the Coe. One Coe can feed us for close to two months."

"I guess," the Jemily said, rising, "It's still sad."

It reached out and grasped his hand briefly.

"I'm sorry you have to do something so terrible," it said before letting go.

Somehow that made it worse.

***

Norch glimpsed flashes of blue between the trees ahead of him.

"Is that the coast?" Norch asked.

The Jemily squinted and a broad grin broke across its faces.

"The Lagoon!" it squealed and darted forward.

Norch watched as Nae Xali darted after in long, flying hops. He prepared to follow but something in the dirt caught his eye. He knelt and drew it up. A sunflower seed. He smiled to himself and dropped it back to the ground. Maybe the Jemily was right.

He caught up to them as they parted the last few branches between them and the lagoon and there, resting on the beach ahead was a man.
The Jemily shouted and bounded down the sand. The man, Benjamin, Norch assumed, got to his feet to greet them. Nae Xali stuck to Norch, suddenly shy.
Norch shooed her forward.
"Come on," he said, "Let's go."
Norch studied Benjamin as they drew near. An ordinary man, light-skinned and sandy-haired with a well-groomed beard, he could have passed for an in-lander if it weren't for his peculiar clothes. Thick blue trousers and a button up shirt thin enough to be a night shirt. He wore boots too short to be boots, and a small rectangle of glass held near his right eye on a wire frame looped around his ears. He stood surrounded by bags.

"About time," he was saying to the Jemily, "I've been here two days. You forgot again didn't you?"

"Probably. Yes. I think so," came the reply, "Did you bring me anything."

Benjamin smiled and shook his head, rueful. He held something out.

The Jemily took it and peered at it.

"What is it?"

"A fossil."

"A fossil!" it exclaimed, then frowned, "What's a fossil?"

"The impression a creature leaves in rock. Very old."

The Jemily smiled and tucked it into a pocket. "It's wonderful."

Benjamin's gaze settled on Norch and Nae Xali.

"What's this?" he asked.

The Jemily gave hasty introductions. Norch was described as "From somewhere, not here. Like you."

"Somewhere, not here, like me," he mused. "Another world then?"

"Yes," Norch replied, "I'm not sure how."

Benjamin sighed, "It's complicated."

He met Norch's eye. "I'm guessing you want to go home."

Norch nodded. "Yes."

Benjamin sighed and glanced at a bracelet on his wrist. He tapped the circular ornament at the top and murmured to himself, "I don't know why I bother. It never works here."

He looked once more at Norch, then Nae Xali, and lastly at the Jemily.

"Alright," he said, "I'll see what I can do, but no guarantees."

He pointed at Nae Xali. "That will help at least. She'll be able to sense an opening if we come to one. How did you come across her? No. Nevermind. It's not that important. I assume Emily had something to do with it."

"Jemily," the Jemily said.

Benjamin rubbed his neck. "Sorry, of course. Jemily."

He took a deep breath and clapped his hands together, "Right. Let's get sorted then. We've a long way to go."