Pasco's store of courage, never large, shrank even more as he looked at their faces, I'm dead, he thought weakly. I just ain't bothered to lay down yet.

"It's an easy step," Osa's grandmother told him. "Look at my feet, boy. I don't want to go repeating it. See, you dance each square of the net, like so." She was nimble in spite of her years, her feet tapping lightly on the sand to shape the four corners of a square. She did a light step over—, "Next square, right in the middle," she explained to Pasco—her feet leaving a dent in the sand that would form its center. "Up one row of the net, down the next." Drummer and flute player were trying a lively tune that made Pasco think of leaping fish. Suddenly he was wide awake. His feet were already tracing the sand pattern of steps without waiting for his head to decide to do it.

"Told you it was easy," the old woman said, watching his feet move, "You ready?"

He would have said he wasn't, not yet exactly, but the drummer and the flute player began that catchy tune in earnest, and his body wanted to dance. He stepped lightly into the first square on the net closest to him and marked the corners with his toes, his legs flicking across each other. It was a jig of sorts, and he always liked jigs. He locked his hands behind his back, keeping them firmly out of his way as the drum pounded and the flute trilled.

Square by square he called the fish, and he felt them answer, their tails flicking through the squares as his feet did. Oddly, his legs and feet were so warm they seemed almost fiery, though the warmth only came as high as his waist. It wasn't an uncomfortable warmth—if anything, It gave him strength.

When he finished, he did it by leaping from, the last square and coming down, feet together, as light as any wisp of silk the music stopped. He bowed to Osas grandmother, because it seemed like the right thing to do.