Meanwhile, Esther decided to leave the safety of the cave as well. She placed a few more pieces of wood on the fire to keep it burning in her absence and waded out of the cave. She didn’t have much of a goal as to where she wanted to go. Part of her thought it might be wise just to check one more time down the beach to see if anyone new had shown up. Unable to come up with a better plan for her little jaunt, she started to make her way around the outskirts of the curved jut of land that stuck out into the water, making it impossible to see one end of the beach from the other.

As she walked, Esther thought about Zaida working on sharpening the stick earlier; how easily the rock she was using had fractured in her hands. There had to be something more reliable they could use to create a way to defend themselves. Esther rounded the bend of the beach and started making her way towards the rocky outcropping at the end of this half mile of beach.

Drawing closer, she tried to dredge up any sort of memory from her past that might help her in this moment. The only thing she could conjure in her brain was the events of the last two days…. then nothing. She didn’t even know how to do the things she knew how to do, like light fires or keep them burning. The instinct to do so was there, but the actual context of how she knew what to do evaded her internal probe.

“Well, if instinct is all I have to rely on, might as well use it,” Esther thought aloud. Instinct and logic told her that the rock Zaida had been using must have been of weaker composition than others. It was more of a chalky substance, and when it crumbled, it had left dust all over Zaida’s hand.

That was most of the composition of the rocks they had found in the cave itself. The bluff on both ends of the beach seemed to be made of the stuff, which was worrisome considering they were living inside one of them at the moment. She pushed that thought from her mind; the bluff had probably been there for thousands of years, no reason for it to fall down on their heads now.

Esther began searching the upper parts of the beach, looking for stones that were of a different composition than the bluff. The beach itself was pretty barren, just sand and more sand, but closer to the trees, there was more debris: palm branches and pieces of dried driftwood left from tides long past.

Just beyond the treeline, she found something that looked promising: a rounded stone, about the size of her hand, but much harder than the chalky bluffs. Esther walked back toward the bluff nearest her and found a large chunk that had broken off and was now laying in the sand. Grabbing her rock, she sat down next to the chunk and struck it to measure how hard her rock was.

A piece of the chunk broke away under the force. Esther struck again, a little harder this time, and a larger piece came off of the main piece. She now had one large chunk, and two smaller ones. On a whim, she placed the larger of the two small pieces on the chunk and struck it once more. What it revealed surprised her.

Inside the chalky casing of the smaller piece that had now broken in half was an entirely new stone: smooth, and darker than the surrounding rock. She began to carefully beat the rest of the chalky outside apart to reveal more of this mystery stone. When most of the softer rock was chipped away, Esther was left with a piece about the size of her hand that had this smoother quality to it.

After admiring the greyish-green color, she took her breaker rock and delivered a final, solid blow to the substance. Two things happened when she did this.

First, a few sparks flew up from the stone, barely visible in the evening light, but creating the unmistakable scent of something burning for a quick second.

Second, the stone itself cracked in half, and along the fault was now very sharp. She ran her finger gently along the split and nearly cut herself.

Esther smiled. This little piece here wouldn’t do them much good in its current state, but she was confident that she could shape it into something useful. And if both bluffs were entirely made of this substance, she was certain that even if she accidentally made a piece too small, there was plenty more where it came from. It may take some time, but Esther knew that soon they’d definitely have something much more able to sharpen Zaida’s sticks!