Carter looked at the books carefully. Alphabet books, books of what sounds the letters made, numbers, addition, spelling, writing, and so on. He carefully sat on the end of the couch, facing Aquarius. “Well…” He said. “I know the alphabet, and the sounds of letters. I can spell basic words, but nothing over a few letters. And I know basic addition, but anything over that… I’m clueless, basically.” He shrugged. Perhaps, he thought to himself, taking up one of the spelling books, he should have stayed in school. Perhaps he shouldn’t have just dropped out to be a scavenger on the beach. But that was the past. Now he was eleven and couldn’t even spell his own name.

The words were easy enough to remember. Three and four-letter words, fix, fox, run, boy, fine, see, and so on. It was awkward to hold a pen in his hand, the webbing between his fingers doing him no favors, and as he wrote the words out after sounding them out, reading them silently, and understanding what they were and what they meant, he couldn’t write well. He shook his head at his terrible writing, but didn’t blame himself. He was a beginner, still, and would eventually find a way to be much better. He knew of people who had overcame impossible odds, a pencil-artist who, after the loss of both arms, learned to draw with his feet. If that were possible, anything was.

Carter’s hand didn’t feel the best with a pen in it. It was awkward and hard to keep a hold of, and that’s why he was relieved when she led him to a computer nearby. He tested the agility of his fingers over the keys, typing randomly and using the backspace to clear it all. With the book beside him and Aquarius gone off to meet someone or wander the shelves, he sounded out every word and typed it down, knowing what it was and what it said. Instead of simply typing what he didn’t understand, he wrote the entire sentence and sounded it all out, reading to himself before taking it all in and going on to the next one.

Each word was different, and his typing at first was very slow. He couldn’t take his eyes off the board for a while, and when he misspelled something, a red line would appear under it until he corrected it, and that certainly helped him along much more. Flipping through the book, he found words of five and six letters, sounding them out with the guide below every word and writing out the word and the sentence.

With a bit of a smile on his face, he worked a bit faster. He knew where most of the letters were now, but still had trouble with the Q and the P, sometimes mistaking V for C and vice versa. Every now and then he got so carried away he would accidentally let his fingers have free roam, and typed up to four words wrong, but he had grasped it quickly. He no longer had to read aloud.

Carter’s mind had taken in more information in the last thirty minutes than it had in years. He felt so much better now, learning words and how they sounded, more than the simple three and four letter words that he could get by with before, but now, he knew so much more and his writing was so much faster. That sense of pride was glowing inside again, as he watched the words appear on the screen at his will, writing faster than he ever thought he would in his life, knowing words of greater length and complexity. Now, he thought as he wrote, he wouldn’t just say the words his mind knew. He would write them as well, know what they looked like, how they felt when they were put together at his will, just like he wanted, wherever he wanted. He wanted Aquarius to see just how well he could do, and would prove to her that, though young, he was very smart.

Carter didn’t have words to express how happy he was that Aquarius was proud. She certainly was a mother-like type to him, someone he only wanted to be happy. Closing up the book and leaving the computer in the state they had approached it in, Carter stepped up. “I’m glad you feel that way. It’s all I want to do, learn and do better, for myself and for you.” He spoke quietly, returning to his normal self, head bowed, walking a bit behind Aquarius with his posture as poor as ever. Ever since Aqua had mentioned her shop, he had wanted to see what it looked like. Possible nice and small, the air fragrant with so many teas lining the walls on shelves.

Carter took a deep breath when he entered the shop. Though the tins would keep the freshness inside, the scents were strong. He nodded at Aquarius’s suggestion, taking up one of the stools and dragging it along, lifting himself to see the topmost shelves and their tins. Grabbing one, he took a deep smell. He mostly smelled tea leaves, perhaps small bits of fruit to give it a more floral note, but something else was there. He didn’t know the name, but recognized it as a red flower that resembled a bell, which grew on vines in very deep caverns and fed off algae and the seawater of especially damp caverns. Another he knew was a flower of such pale white it seemed to glow in the dark, resembling a daisy, but with thicker petals and a black center that grew on a stalk as thick as his finger and difficult to snap off. Indeed, Aquarius had an extensive collection. But one, he thought she wouldn’t know. Of course, knowing her, he doubted that would be the case.

“Aqua, you… you know, there’s a type of flower that resembles a bleeding heart, that grows on the west side of cliff tops, so they can face the sun. If you get to it in time, you can see that the nectar inside is thick and red, so active in the light of sunset it drips from the flower itself. If you eat it, you gain permanent memory enhancement.” He drummed his fingers on the top of the tin he held as he spoke, watching it intently. He didn’t know what Aquarius would say.

“Go get it?” Carter approached where Aquarius sat. “We can’t just pick it, Aqua! The nectar is what you use, you collect it, don’t pick the flower. I’ve never seen it growing anywhere else, and it’s a bit hard to get to unless you have… suction cup hands like I do. Next sunset, it’s got to be clear and bright, I can take a bottle and collect some. For both of us, I guess.” He nodded. Many times he had gone to that flower at the same time, taking a handful of that nectar and swallowing it. It had an odd flavor, but that’s what gave him his smarts and ability to catch on extremely quickly. Though he preferred not to be too terribly smart, he had seen what some did because of their intelligence.

Thankful for a reason to be quiet, he joined Aqua as she pulled out the late lunch she had packed. Taking up an apple, he held it close to him and bit in, shutting himself up.

Carter noticed something as he helped Aqua clean up. It was odd that she seemed rather distant, or preoccupied, her mind elsewhere and body present without her mind intact. Tapping the toes of his shoes against the floor, he thought of what he might have done to cause her to be quiet, or to be off in another world mentally. Perhaps he had said something wrong, or did something he wasn’t supposed to do. But he felt that she was keeping something from him, rather than frustrated or angry with him.

“Er, Aqua… What’s on your mind?” He asked at last. “Something wrong? You don’t have to hide anything from me, you know.” He wrung his hands behind his back. Perhaps she had a sudden awakening, and didn’t want him around anymore. He didn’t want to leave Aquarius, not alone, and especially didn’t want to go on through the world again friendless, but he had his eao stones, and an entire stock of them in various areas of the sea, each easy to get to for him, for being as small as he was. He could transform again, go back into the ocean and stay in his merman form. Perhaps he would find the race of Neo merpeople he was a part of, maybe even make a home with them. But he wouldn’t be able to bring himself to do that. In his mind, he reserved himself to wandering the ocean floor, exploring and never really calling one place home, if he were to be sent away.

Carter felt his jaw drop but didn’t let it stay that way for more than a moment. Shaking his head, he looked down. “Aqua, I don’t know. I really don’t. I mean, I know you’ve most likely done this a lot before, but I’ll be worried about you all the day! Maybe I can come with you? I’m sure your house would be safe, but I just don’t like the prospect of having you gone, it’s a bad feeling I’ve got…”

He paused, wringing his hands. “Um… Maybe we can talk about it? You know, later on tonight? Maybe… I can go with you. But if you don’t want me to, in the end, I won’t go against you.” He sighed.

Carter never liked those words: What could possibly happen? Anything. Anything could happen, and when she said that, his mind went into a whirlwind of situations that could go wrong, or spiral downward, anything, the slightest slip of tongue or wrong movement, but he didn’t say anything. He let Aquarius lead him on, listening to her words and clinging to her for everyone to see. To anyone else he could have been a scared little child, though with an odd deformity in the hands.

As they passed his beach, approaching home, he noted the sky. The sun was starting to go down. “Aqua, I’m going to the beach for a while.” He said. “I won’t be long, though, I’ll be back soon, then we can talk, right? Don’t worry about me, I’ll be okay.”

With that, he turned and ran toward the sand, not quite as clumsy as if he’d been barefoot. The sun was in the perfect spot, and he wasn’t about to waste it.

The sky was a bloody red, streaked with orange and pink along the ocean edge. There weren’t clouds in the sky, and the sun was more of a giant red ball in the sky, easily looked at for a moment. Carter took off his shoes before reaching the water’s edge, leaving them safe on the dry sand. He went to the cliff, leaping onto the rock that stretched around the base of the cliff. The water was down, tide was out and no water lapped at his feet. Going around the base of the cliff, he went to the foothold he had found a while back. Illuminated by the setting sun, he seemed to be as red as the stony cliffside he had started climbing.

He didn’t look down. It wasn’t a fear of heights, but he didn’t want to lose his concentration. As he ascended, the stone became packed dirt, easily pulled out of place and crumbling away. His hands and feet, more like suction cups, let him climb easier than others with normal limbs, and a little more than halfway, he found the small crevice that could pass as shelter in a strong storm. Lifting himself up, he crawled a bit back, to where the light was magnified oddly against a highly-glossed backdrop of marble. Buried in the dirt of the crevice, just before the marble background, a series of four flowers bloomed. In the deep red evening light, they had bloomed, their petals a dark red, cupping around one another to form a large, hollow heart shape. As he watched, dark red, thick liquid was easing out of the inside, dripping down the stem and leaves. Carter cupped his hands under two of them, letting the nectar fall. Quickly, he licked it up, allowing the powerful substance, that tasted more like molasses and honey, to become a part of him.

The effects were almost immediate. The nectar easily seeped into him, expanding his knowledge and ability to think and learn. But he didn’t take any more. It worried him to take too much, to be too smart. Genius wasn’t necessary. With that, he left the little area behind, climbing down to retrieve his shoes and go back to Aqua. He wanted to talk to her about joining her on her trek to the next town. His mind was considering anything that could go wrong. And if something could go wrong, it usually did.

Carter made it back, he felt, with time to spare. He hoped he didn’t worry or anger Aquarius for leaving so quickly and returning so late, not even telling her where he went. After a moment’s debating and worrying outside the front door, he turned the handle and stepped inside. He heard a woman talking on the television, speaking of a wreck somewhere in town involving three cars. “Er, Aqua, I’m back.” Carter said quietly, closing the door behind him. He had made sure no sand would be tracked with him in his shoes, and stepped cleanly into the room. When he sniffed, he could smell soup from the kitchen, and wondered if she had gone ahead and eaten without him. Surely, he figured, she knew he’d be all right. Indeed, he was; he had five days before the deadline he’d set with the two mystery men would be upon him.

Carter bent down, taking off his shoes and leaving them beside the door as Aquarius passed by him. Nodding at what she said, he crossed the room, glancing at the television for just a moment before going into the kitchen and dining room and sliding into one of the two places. Sniffing deep, he smiled at the soup steaming in the bowl before him. Fingering the spoon on the table, he thought about what he would say to Aquarius. Perhaps he would convince her to take him too, but he didn’t want to be a burden on Aqua. He could help her sell her teas while she listened in and gathered whatever information she needed. And he could consider where the two men who’d given him a job opportunity stood in the alignment of good and bad, right and wrong. As Aquarius came back, he looked up and smiled reassuringly, masking he worry he felt. He would at least wait for her to bring it up if she wanted to or not.